Hieba laughed. “Yes. The same Naf who found me, who gave me to you in the desert. All the other soldiers threw their filthy rags at me and pinched whatever they could reach, but not him. Naf saw something that made him call to the others to bring me to him. He had that shield-point thing you wore on your tail in his lap. I was trembling. I was of age, and I knew it would happen sooner or later. But it wasn’t what I feared. Or maybe hoped. He wanted to talk. He told me the story from his eyes, and gave me back the shield. He said it was made by dwarves and given to you as a present. When I heard the story of how he found me, it brought back memories of my parents. I had actually forgotten them until I started talking to him. I went to sleep remembering that night of fire and screams.”
“He is a good man. How many others in some nest of thieves would take such risks to preserve a child?”
“I know.”
It felt good so see Hieba’s smile, to hear her oddly mature voice—yet he felt a tinge of jealousy at the longing expression on her face. AuRon waited for her to continue.
“He never left my thoughts after that, ugly though he is. I . . . I rode off with him. He and his riders were patrolling the borderlands. There were rumors of blighters up the river from the timbermen’s settlements. Naf and his Red Guard were to take care of the danger. He took care of it by riding with one other man into their camp and making a treaty. It turned out that the blighters were happy with the timbermen; there was more game in the clearings they made. They came to a just arrangement and even began trading. I could see why his men loved him. He’s a warrior who would rather talk than fight. He claims it’s not by natural desire, but by experience.”
“There are no winners in battle. Just survivors,” AuRon agreed.
“The blighters on the river told of a dragon who had made an alliance with the blighters of these mountains. These were the families of some who did not want a dragon as their liege lord.”
“They offered to guide you to me?”
“No, that came later. Naf and the Red Guards had other business south, and I traveled with them. I learned to ride, to pull a small bow from horseback, even to swim my mount across rivers. Naf modified your shield so I could wear it on my arm. I practiced with it and a dagger in the hand opposite. The men laughed until I used it in a fight. But something happened while Naf was rigging it to fit over my forearm. I don’t know if I kissed him or he kissed me . . . it doesn’t matter. Naf and I are in love, AuRon, and we’ll be married now that he’s taken a position with the Silver Guard at the Dome. He’s popular with the men, and he’s made himself indispensable to the Ghioz—they’re a foreign people with their own tongue who rule Naf’s. He’s risen higher in the ranks than any other of the Dairuss.”
“Then why aren’t you with your mate? What drove you back to my mountains? Looking for dragons is dangerous work for any band of warriors, and you’re only one hominid. You surely didn’t come merely to tell me of your good fortune.”
“Events across the mountains delayed our happiness. We need a dragon. Or the advice of one, at least. It concerns other dragons, evil—”
AuRon held up a sii. If they wanted to hire him to hunt his kin, Hieba would have risked much in her travel to hear the word no. But could Naf be so stupid as to think—Surely not. In any case, AuRon remembered he had to attend to Unrush and his chieftains at their celebration.
“We will talk later.”
She knotted her fists, again looking like the petulant child AuRon had once known. “But Au—”
“Later, Berrysweet. We must hurry. You’ve been asleep, and it is probably already growing dark outside. You say you are a good rider?”
“I spent two years keeping up with the Red Guard. I can handle any horse, day or night.”
“I’m no horse. You’ll be atop my shoulders. We will fly. Walking is tiresome when you have wings.”
“Fly? On you?”
“I suppose I could grip you in my claws. You need clothing and more. I don’t have so much as a bowl and spoon about here for you.”
“Yes, AuRon, let’s! It’ll be like something out of a legend. Or a dream.”
“Then let’s give you a dream worthy of passing on to your children and they to theirs.”
Hieba and AuRon went to the downshaft. In the intervening years blighter masons had built up the cavern entrance, first with a rickety bamboo staircase and later a set of stairs chipped into the cavern’s slide, wide enough so a hominid could walk up without pressing its back to the cavern wall. The masons had also carved AuRon a set of sii holes, shaped like the faces of bellowing blighter warriors. AuRon used the gaping mouths to climb as Hieba took the stairs. She kept pointing to familiar objects as they walked through the ruined city at the cavern’s mouth.
“The bats were really bad up there. Down that way was a room with beautiful tile . . . it was some kind of bathing cavern, but the running water was gone, and everything was just moldy and damp. There were lots of tools with the handles rotted off over there . . .”
“You remember much.”
“I remember you always pacing in the background while I explored.”
The tunnel widened out to the beginnings of the cavern city proper. AuRon halted. “I fly from here.”
Hieba crossed her arms, rubbing her palms on her elbows. “I wish you had reins, or a saddle, or even a mane.”
AuRon flattened himself to the ground, his body resembling a snake grown to colossal size. “Just hold on with your legs. My neck isn’t any wider than a horse’s body above my shoulders.”
He let Hieba put her hands across his back just above his forequarters. He twitched—throwing her to the ground in the process.
“Hey!” she squeaked.
“Sorry, dragons are sensitive when it comes to their necks. It’s the bit the assassins like to go for.”
“Maybe we should put a blanket over your back first, like with a horse.”
“I don’t have one. I’m not a horse. I can control myself better than that.”
AuRon regretted his statement when she tried again. This time she managed to swing her leg over his back and sit. AuRon fought the urge to roll around to get her off. He found his body jerking in all the wrong places. His back feet wanted to stamp; his tail kept swinging.
“Is this to warm up your muscles?” Hieba asked. He felt her hanging on with arms as well as legs.
“No. You feel like an itch I can’t scratch.”
“You want me to get off?”
“Yes, but don’t. I’ll get used to it. Maybe we should try walking for a while. I don’t want to shrug you off when we’re at the cloudline.”
AuRon started walking, stomping with his legs as he moved. The stomping helped, for some reason.
“This is different from a horse,” Hieba said. “You’re more side-to-side rather than up-and-down. You’re higher than a horse, too.”
AuRon curved his neck to look back at her; she was swinging back and forth as he planted first one foreleg, then the other.
“I’ve seen men riding elephants. They’re higher still, though a full-grown dragon is near that height.”
“How long until you’re that big?”
“If I live, hundreds of years. Dragons grow slowly once their wings are uncased.”
Hieba looked wistful. “Wish I could see that.”
“You saw NooMoahk. He was as big as we get.”
“He was old; he had sort of a sunken-in look. But I didn’t mean any dragon. I meant you. Elves and dwarves live a long time. Sad that humans and blighters don’t. We miss so much.”
AuRon threaded his way through the buildings and over piles of rubble, buildings-on-top-of-buildings to either side leaning over him. The old city’s empty windows looked blankly down on them, as if to say, I remember the mighty kings in their chariots parading this street. You are just wanderers in the graveyard of an empire, insignificant and forgettable.
“Hieba, there’s a philosopher named Awu. He was a dwarf of another time and age, who somehow ended up king of one of the Eastern Realms at the rim of the Typhoon Seas. Back then, the hominids were divided into ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ races; the elves and dwarves were considered the greater races, the humans and blighters the lesser ones. He said the shorter-lived races would be thriving when the others were gone and just legends. In his mind, the great races think only of themselves, the lesser live and build for their children and grandchildren’s world. He wrote, ‘Each of the Great Race stands on his own, and can rise to the stature of a colossus in the given span of years. Each of the Lesser stands on the shoulders of the last generation. In time, the pyramids of the Lesser will be the taller.’ ”
“Then perhaps my grandchildren—”
“You and Naf have a clutch?”
“No. No, not yet. With matters as they are . . . I’ll explain later.”
They could see the sky, framed by the fanglike hanging towers of Kraglad. “I’m going to open my wings now,” he warned. “Let me know if you feel like you’re losing your grip.” AuRon felt her slender limbs tighten about his neck, just where the collar Djer removed had rested. He felt a tug at his neck. “Owww,” Hieba said.