Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire #3)

The bats had gotten him here, and food was on the way. “Oh, why not. But let’s go somewhere private. Back to my cave.”

The bats opened him up front and rear. He did a quick count: only eight left. He couldn’t even remember how many had been with him when he jumped in the Nor’flow, but it was a lot more than eight. Of course, rodents were made for dying.

“Did y’be seeing those herds of cattle below?” Thernadad said as he sat on Mamedi, keeping her from a trickle of blood leaking from the Copper’s armpit.

“M’smelling fresh air wafting up from below. We’ve got an entrance near,” Enjor agreed. “Water, too.”

“Faaaa!” Mamedi said, pushing her bulky mate off and getting a few quick tonguefuls of blood. “Dragon reek so bad in here, m’eyes be watering.”

“W’be in the happy flapping land,” another bat said.

“Sharply now,” a deep voice from the outer passage echoed. “Krthonius, what can you say for yourself?”

Whoever Krthonius was, he didn’t have anything to say right away, so the deep voice bellowed, “Aubalagrave?”

“Strange smell in the cave, your honor.”

“That’s more like it,” the deep voice said. “Just because you’re home doesn’t mean you’re safe. Remember that. Many’s the wing-sore dragon who’s lost because he returns to his cave already half-asleep.”

“There haven’t been assassins in the Lavadome in—” a rather lisping voice said.

“Thrall revolts. Leadership battles. Cave claim jumping. I’ve seen dragons die in all of them. Any of you lot able to identify the strange smell?”

“Ummm. Bat?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s a hamcart,” the lisping voice said.

“Get up to the ceiling and hide yourselves,” the Copper told the bats. With a mixture of burps and flaps, they took off for the deep shadows above.

The Copper climbed off his shelf and walked out into the light of the passage. He saw a vast, ruby-red twelve-horned dragon. The Red had been maimed, with nothing but a stumplike projection from each side of his spine where his wings should be. Three young drakes, one a dazzling white, the other two blacks, narrowed golden eyes at him.

“Excuse me, are you NeStirr—”

“Rough-and-tumble, lads. Here’s our intruder. Give him what-for, but don’t bleed him.”

The drakes dragon-dashed forward. The attack came so suddenly the Copper’s brain froze, and he could do nothing but hug the floor of the passage before they were on him, each bigger than he.

The white reached him first. The white had an ugly wound on one side of his face, exposing teeth and gum line. He head-butted the Copper in the snout, then threw himself across the Copper’s neck, pinning his head. The others wedged their noses under his side and flipped him, exposing his belly. They scrabbled at his skin with sheathed sii claws.

The Copper smelled blood in his nostrils. The larger, heavier drakes squatted atop him; he was as helpless as a lamb in a dragon’s jaws.

“That’s the style,” NeStirrath roared. “We’ll teach this scat to poke his nose into our home cave. And the Imperial shelf. Bite a toe off, Krthonius. That’ll be a memento.”

“I was given that cave,” the Copper squealed. He felt a hard squeeze on his left saa.

“Vent-drippings!” The old dragon snorted.

“NoSohoth told me!”

“Your honor, look at the hamcart,” the white drake said. He lisped thanks to his words leaking out of the lipless side of his mouth.

“I don’t have to look; I can smell it. Oh! Let him up, you fools. Let him up!”

“He’s in the Imperial Family,” one of the blacks said. The other spit out the Copper’s severed toe.

“Cry settled! Cry settled!” the deep voice of NeStirrath shouted.

The pressure vanished, and the Copper rose and saw the black drakes backing away wearily. One had a bit of bloody flesh hanging out of his mouth. The Copper looked down and saw that a toe was missing. Oddly enough, it didn’t really hurt; he just felt a warm, tingling sensation.

The Copper looked at the widening of the passage. Harf stood there beside a two-wheeled cart. Fragrant sides of meat swung from hooks on a wooden frame.

“Finally, something other than guts, hides, and hooves,” one of the black drakes said.

Harf was doing his bobbing thing again, holding up the dragonscale on the chain around his neck.

“An Imperial Family thrall,” NeStirrath said, as Harf waved his icon at the drakes, bobbing and bringing the cart forward a wheel spoke at a time. NeStirrath made a wretching noise: Grf grf.

“Well, we’ve landed in it, lads. What are you doing down in the Drakwatch caves, sir?”

“I was told I should learn from you. I’ve just arrived.”

“That’s a good way to get your guts spilled, showing up un-announced. We might have had a tragedy here.”

“NoSohoth couldn’t wait,” the Copper said.

“Accept our apologies, sir,” the white drake said.

The Copper bristled. His toe was starting to really hurt, and the drakes were lowering their heads and exchanging wary glances. But he was going to live here, and if he got too highhanded, what was stopping them from gutting him and going to NoSohoth with a tragic tale?

Besides, he didn’t really know what being in the Imperial Family meant.

“No one’s fault but NoSohoth’s, I’d say. I came down the river from the north, and the griffaran found me. The Tyr gave me the name Rugaard and put me under your eye. Your honor, if I’m to join the Drakwatch, maybe we could all have a fast feast and begin afresh.”

NeStirrath licked drool from his lips, and his wing stumps relaxed against his sides. “That’s a kindness, sir, that is. Better put a mesh of cobwebbing on that toe, sir. I’ll show you where you can find—”

“Rugaard will do, your honor. I can take care of it myself.”

He rather enjoyed the generosity of the gesture. The dragons each tenderly lifted a joint off of the cart’s hooks and tore into the meat. NeStirrath took the smallest of the joints and sucked at it for a long time, as though relishing the taste, before swallowing it. “Smoke and flame, lads, we’ll be eating well with an Imperial scion among us. Tails up and heads down for Rugaard, newest member of the Drakwatch!”

The Copper learned his duties, and learned them well.

From the first, he learned that every drake of the Drakwatch wanted honor in his lifetime, and a glorious memory after death—a name proudly sung to a line of future hatchlings and would-be mates.

Word came down from the Tyr himself that the Copper was to be treated the same as any other member of the Drakwatch. With permission to unsheath his sii, so to speak, their leader saw to it that the Copper was treated as roughly as any of the others, in fact more roughly, for he was the junior, and so the others considered it their duty to pummel him for the slightest error. NeStirrath liked aggressive young drakes, and almost any question, from order of line at mealtimes to order of march out in the Lavadome, was settled by pairing off into duels or all-out brawls. Claws sheathed and teeth only for gripping, of course.

The Copper took his first blows learning that there were separate pools for drinking and bathing, and that his fellow drakes would knock him about the ears and griff if he forgot to use the right one.

Then he learned about the honorable, glorious history of the Drakwatch and how it was organized. There were perhaps six or seven claw-score of drakes in dragon watch—provided you were counting with a full set of twelve true-claws, that is. The Drakwatch was charged with patrolling the area of the Lavadome itself in search of hominid thieves and assassins. They could also be called on by the leaders of the various hills to present a show of force to troublesome thralls.

What the drakes of the Drakwatch liked best of all was the chance to compete against the Firemaidens. The young females performed similar duties to the males, if not quite so wide-ranging, placed at important posts to guard and inspect and supervise.

Some of the more aggressive of the Drakwatch, and a few wild-griffed and claw-loose Firemaidens, would explore far beyond the underground river that circled the Lavadome, looking for signs of dwarf, blighter, or demen activity. There was great honor to be found in that sort of territorial assertiveness. Only a victorious battle with the hominids themselves could bring more glory, and with it the chance of a fine cave, thralls, and flocks to supervise upon reaching dragonhood.

When they needed physical rest they got lectures. NeStirrath made them recite proverbs and learn about battles won and lost—but mostly won.

NoSohoth gave them a lecture that seemed to stretch on through the day and into the night about the importance of honor. One dragon being able to rely on another to keep his word was the solid ground into which the lasting cave of civilization was dug. He went on and on about this point, until the Copper wondered if he was simply rearranging the same words into every variation possible.

The Copper’s favorite days and darks in the Drakwatch were spent wandering from horizon to horizon in the enormous Lavadome, looking in on the thrall hovels, or counting cattle and swineherds, or running sorties to check the alertness of the Firemaidens on watch at the various tunnel entrances. The Firemaidens had their own set of teachers and taskmasters in the form of the Firemaids, the unmated and oathed-never-to-mate dragonelle guardians of the Lavadome.