Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire #3)

The Copper found her sucking rainwater off of leaves and eating some of the hung meat, and told her Fourfang’s tale. While he did this a pair of blighters toasted meat on sticks and gave the bits to her.

“So that’s why every muddy blighter on this hill’s been patting me,” Nilrasha said.

She had a lot of mud on her, and blades of grass caught in her scale. Drakka who joined the Firemaidens didn’t shirk from dirt and muck, but they were usually cleaner than the drakes. This one either didn’t give a flame for her appearance or was too tired to care for herself. “What happened at the gate?”

“It was so quick. I just remember a hail of projectiles: Some were stones; some were those infernal crossbow bolts. Mivonia in front of me, four struck her, two in the neck, or I wouldn’t be speaking to you now. There was flame, and some of the blighters rushed into this sort of open space at the center of town. Then one of the dragons overhead was hit; I didn’t see it, but I heard his cry as he fell. Everything went wrong after that.”

“The blighters didn’t run, then?”

“No. Not the ones with us, by my maidenoath, though I can’t speak for those behind. But the dragons overhead vanished and the men lost their fear. They poured down their walls and out of their towers.

“Some of the Firemaidens loosed their flame to drive the humans away with heat and smoke, and I chased some through a burning building. Then a wall or a roof fell on me, and I was senseless for a time, though—this is very odd—I heard my mother singing. I distinctly remember it. When the singing stopped it was night, and I moved and some rubble shifted, and then I found myself in their town. I sneaked out through a drain hole that goes under the wall. I think there was meant to be water in it all the time, for the walls and ceiling were covered with dead shell creatures, but something must have gone wrong with the flow, for it was dry everywhere but the floor. It let out by the river, so I just swam across and smelled my way back to the hill. And so you see me.”

“We’re going to see if we can’t avenge your dead sisters tomorrow,” the Copper said.

Nilrasha looked across the river. “I should like that. By my maidenoath, I should like that very much.”

“You’ve had enough honors. Stay back with HeBellereth, please. That route into the Ghi men’s town may prove useful. I’d like your head to stay on your neck.”

She rose, and some bits of hardened mud rained off.

“Who are you to give orders, Batt—Rugaard? You’re just a courier.”

“I’m also the Tyr’s eyes and ears wherever I go. I can be his voice as well, if griff meet teeth. But I’d much rather ask than order. So I ask again, please stay back behind HeBellereth. If matters go as badly as they did yesterday, I expect you’ll have another chance to fight.”

The blighters lit a few cooking fires, but just a few, on the hillside, allowing them to go out as the warm night passed. HeBellereth agreed to act as bait, and morning found him stretched out on the hill, head lolling, looking like one of those savanna rock piles of red scale.

The Ghi men were no fools, however. They marched their archers to the ford in the river and sent scouts across. The blighters threw spears, hiding from the archers behind the trees with their roots in the floodwaters. The blighters ran as soon as the men in glimmering armor went forward, arms linked at the elbows as they fought the current, crossing like some fantastic serpent.

The blighters got into the spirit of the game, gathering here and there on the hillside to scream insults at the men, sometimes tossing a rock that would go bouncing down the hill and land well short of their foes. Each rock was answered by a hail of arrows once the archers came across and the blighters retreated uphill.

The Ghi-men scouts, clad only in light tunics and sandals with a brace of javelins across their backs, hurried to high vantage points and blew signal horns. The archers crossed from behind. Men with long spears and tall shields had come across, and a group of heavily armored men with great helms and wide blades tied across their backs began to venture into the current.

The Copper watched all this from thick grass halfway up the hill, with strips of thick green sod dripping with ants and beetles laid across this back, his scale rubbed with dirt—Rhea had misunderstood his orders at first, and braided some flowering bramble around his crest and tucked flowers into his spinal ridge. Once she understood that he wanted to be grubbed up, she put a thick paste of mud on every scale.

The Ghi-men scouts found the body of Nirolf lain atop a pile of rocks sticking up above the grasses of the hill, and went to work with their knives.

The drake near him, who’d wormed his way into the center of a thick succulent-leafed bush, growled.

“Still,” the Copper ordered. But he liked the sound of their anger; it meant they’d got their spirit back.

More scouts hurried up toward HeBellereth. One pointed to the spot on his belly where partially digested coins could be found, and two set down their javelins and drew blades while a third kept watch, signal horn in one hand, javelin in the other.

The spearmen came up the hill in a rather ragged line, some falling behind thanks to rougher terrain, others forgetting themselves and hurrying toward the fallen dragon, eager for a chance at a trophy.

“Still,” the Copper said again as the spearmen approached, but kept his good roving eye on HeBellereth. The duelist had unusually steady nerves to let a pair of men approach his leathery belly. Or had he slipped into unconsciousness?

HeBellereth suddenly rolled, putting the two men under his massive weight.

The third scout’s mouth dropped open, and he reached for his horn, brought it up toward his lips—

A flash of green scale exploded out of the hillside as Nilrasha leaped on the scout. The Copper’s brain made sense of it only once it was over, so improbable was her sudden appearance, as though she were conjured up out of the blades of grass that could never conceal a creature of her size. The precision of her leap matched her stealth. She struck high, wrapping herself around her foe like a constricting snake, digging in with her claws, and the struggling pair toppled into the grass. The horn spun in the air and fell.

Why didn’t Nivom start the contest? What was he waiting for? The lines of spearmen were almost to the dead tree that marked the widely spaced hiding holes of the wounded drakes….

A warning horn on the hillside sounded. A scout, somewhere he couldn’t see, must have seen HeBellereth move. The spearmen looked to their companions and stepped sideways to close….

“Cry havoc!” the Copper roared—well, trumpeted—and if some sentry far down the river valley thought he heard a goose being strangled, it was because the Copper didn’t have much of a roar yet.

Showers of dirt flew in the air as the drakes rose. Bright gouts of flame erupted on the hillside, spreading and falling as it rained on the warriors. Screams of pain competed with the signal horns and bellows of the Ghi-men chieftains.

The Copper dragon-dashed forward, threw himself on a hastily upflung shield, and brought both shield and man down. He gouged, kicked out a saaful of belly organs as he’d done on practice bullocks, and moved on to the next target, a warrior running forward, spear set to skewer him.

His head whipped up and back and his chest muscles tightened. He spit—what was this? A thin stream of liquid hit the man across the shield and shoulders, but no flame. The warrior danced for a second as though he were on fire, and then the Copper and the man locked eyes as they each realized what had happened. The Ghi man raised his spear for a throw, but a green flash flew over the Copper’s head.

“What are you waiting for?” Nilrasha said, spitting out a mouthful of tendon and blood vessel from the warrior’s gaping neck. “They’re running!”

So they were. What was left of the spearmen hurried down the hill, using their spears as a third leg, holding their shields across their backs against further flame.

The Copper marked oily smoke rising from the riverside foliage. A body of swordsmen in a rough triangular formation let the archers pass through and take shelter behind their blades and shields. Little puffs flew from the formation into the trees on either side of the ford. The Copper realized he was seeing the bright feathering on the archers’ arrows rather than the arrows themselves.

A drake dashed forward, hurled himself onto the swords and shields, and disappeared into the mass of men. A cheer rose from the Ghi men.

“HeBellereth,” the Copper called. “We need a shield wall broken. Can you move?”

“Out of my way, drakes!” HeBellereth roared. “I’ve hot blood to cool in that river. Try to take my gold-gizzard now, you dogs!”

The dragon pushed off with his back legs and began to slide down the hillside on his belly. He tore through brush, snapped and flattened small trees, and a wounded drake only just limped out of the way before he pushed past, tail swinging as he tried to keep balance.

And failed. He hit a steeper slope as he neared the river and one of his back legs slipped under his hindquarters. The great red dragon upended and fell sideways, rolling down the hill like a felled tree.

But he was too close for it to make a difference. What the men thought in those last heartbeats could only be imagined. Some of the archers fired, but the arrows had all the effect of pebbles hurled into floodwaters. The triangle dissolved, spreading to each side.