Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire #3)

“They killed her, Jiz…” he tried to get out, but the words came only with difficulty.

The green hatchling rounded on him, burning anger in her golden eyes. “I’m Wistala.”

Confusion…certainty. He missed the rest of her words, or perhaps shut his ears to the accusations he knew to be true. It was Wistala; she’d returned, and she knew exactly what had happened and who was responsible.

Auron wasn’t with her. He hadn’t made it. Perhaps the Copper could reason with her, confess and beg for a chance at redemption.

“They lied,” he said. He needed her to know the whys and wherefores. “A bloody cave, no hoard—”

She leaped at him, tripping in her fury. He fell on her, tried to keep her from biting him. If she’d only listen for a moment, he’d make it up to her somehow. “We need to overcome this, put it behind. Unite. The past can’t be changed, but we can make sure—”

She wasn’t listening; she was struggling. She threw him off; healthy, well-fed muscle with a good deal of strength in her stout frame forced him backward, over—

“It can be avenged,” she said, biting and clawing for his underbelly, fighting as though in a duel to the death, not a hatchling wrestling match. Blinding pain struck as her claws found soft flesh at his eye. He fought madly, broke her grip, turned his good set of backscale toward her, and hit her with his broken and stiff tail. He scrambled away.

Alone again.

Wistala knew what he’d done, the enormity of it, bigger than the cavern, bigger than the mountains he’d never seen save in vague dreams. Somehow that was worse than the pangs of his own conscience. Wistala would carry this knowledge with her for the rest of her life and hate him forever.

How could he overcome her hatred? Or was it not her hatred, but his own, shared in some lesser portion by her?

Yes, he would overcome her hatred, his guilt, the horror that had engulfed their home. He staggered toward the pool, flung himself in, and let the whirlpool carry him away from his lonely and broken life.

Chapter 7

Later he tried to remember how long he was in the water. The darkness made it a fearful journey. He slipped down through the whirlpool, went limp, and waited to become wedged in a crack or hole and asphyxiate.

Instead he had the sensation of bouncing off a rock, and then feeling air all around his body before he struck moving water again with a slap. Something about the smell and temperature in the water told him he’d joined an entirely different watercourse.

Oddly, the interest in that fact sustained him for a moment, long enough for him to right himself and realize he was in a fast-moving current in a tunnel.

The rushing current and the cold were enemies to be fought, and his body responded automatically. He turned to keep his nostrils above water, angled his frame so he rode the current with little effort.

At intervals he passed glowing dots, little clusters of eyes and wagging tongues. They flashed up and by so rapidly he never could make sense of them. In his experience anything regular indicated dwarves, though he couldn’t imagine why they should wish to mark a tunnel of freezing water in the dark of the Lower World.

So when he fetched up against a stout chain hanging into the water, fully as thick as his neck, it was the easiest thing in the world to hang on and look around.

He recognized more marks, similar to the ones in the tunnel behind, differing only in profusion in their verticals and horizontals. Three caves were scarred with signs of mining. Cave moss, a good deal brighter than the kind he knew from the home cave, extended from the water from the common landing.

He reached out with his neck and found a grip, then let the rest of his body follow in easy stages, finally releasing the helpful, wide-looped chain with his saa.

He lay a long time and slept next to the rushing water.

Voices came to him in a dream full of dark rocks rushing by.

“Don’t m’tell that m’knowing not the smell of blood. Fresh blood.”

“Faaaa!” another voice bawled back.

He opened an eye.

“Here e’is. Traveler. A bit of washup from the river.”

A horridly upturned face, all ears, black eyes, and nostrils, regarded him from the cavern wall. The thing had leathery wings, with a gripping digit not unlike a dragon’s wing-spur. It was a bat, fully three times the size of the ones he’d seen in the home cave. And he’d never understood a word of their high-pitched chatter.

“E’breathing!” a second, smaller but wider one behind said.

“Cave lizard, m’think,” the larger said, hanging from his tiny rear legs for a better look. “Strange sort. Hurt.”

The larger extended his arms and flapped his leathery wings vigorously. They were thinner than dragonwings, almost translucent. The Copper could see blue veins in the skin.

Under the fanning and the light touches of the wing tips the Copper twitched. They tickled! He twitched.

He tried to give a greeting, but it came out as an unintelligible cough. He shook his head and righted himself.

“E’having a set of scale. A’wait!…E’be a dragon!”

“Faaaa!” the other said again, staying away from the Copper and just peeking out into the cave.

The hanging one rubbed his face up and down with his wings, licking his grip-digit and rearranging the face-fur, though there was only so much that could be done with such ugliness. “M’name’s Thernadad, an e’be m’mated, Mamedi. A’begging your pardon, sir. Y’be hurt. W’can attend that for you.”

The brightness in the creature’s black eyes disturbed him a little.

“You’re right, I am a dragon,” the Copper said. “I do seem to be bleeding.” His back wound had opened up again, and it hurt abominably.

“M’told you!” the hanging one said to his companion.

“Once!” the other said to no one in particular. “Once in a three-season turn e’be right, and now m’hearing it until m’let loose for the drop.” But she licked her lips, and the Copper saw sharp white teeth.

“If y’will just shift closer to the wall, sir, we work best right-side down. Unless y’want us clinging to your scale, but m’knowing not the extent of your injuries….”

The Copper rolled and the bat shifted. It started licking at the wound on his back, and he felt a slight tingle that transformed into a pleasant numbness. He looked back, and the bat had worked his odd, jutting jaw into the wound and was tearing away ragged bits of flesh and lapping up blood with a blurring tongue that flicked in and out faster than he’d ever seen anything move in his life.

The bat lifted a blood-smeared snout. “See to sir’s face, dear, with that soft touch of yours.”

The other came forward a good deal more cautiously, eyeing the Copper warily. Finally she hung over him, but kept all her four limbs attached to the cavern ceiling, ready for a quick getaway. She dropped down and went to work in the region around his right eye. He noticed some blurring there, as though the eye regarded the world through a half-closed lid.

“Bit of a mess, here, sir. Just a’going to numb it down a bit.” She began to lick about the eye, and he felt that same tingling followed by numbness.

“Y’carrying a set of tunnel nits, tight up against that scale. A’lurking in the moss a’waiting on a tasty bit of juicy skin, like always. May I?”

“Of course.”

The Copper felt a tug and heard a crunch. Followed by another and another.

“Finished here,” the female said. She touched him with a wing. “Excuses, sir. Y’permit some body work?”

“Certainly,” the Copper said, enjoying the warmth beneath the numbness.

He felt the female climb onto his back, gripping at his scale, lifting and digging out insects with more tugs and crunches, moving slowly front to back. “That’s kindness! That’s generosity. So rare these days. E’be a gentle sort, e’be.”

“Y’hearing m’disagree? M’found him, you thick cow!”

“Faaaa! Luck’s the only thing y’got in this life, you great squirt.”

The Copper fell into a pleasant half sleep, and heard little gassy emissions from the pair. “That’s what m’call a feed. Indeed,” the male—Thernadad, the Copper corrected himself—said.

“Y’wanting to get away from the river, sir,” Mamedi added. “A trunk full of dwarves could pass at any time. Might a’spot your skin and throw out a hook.”

The Copper dragged himself around the corner of the cave, ready for sleep.

“Watch out for snakes. Cave snakes in here,” Thernadad said.

“E’be too big for all but King Gan himself,” Mamedi said.

“Don’t y’worry, sir. We’ll be right above.” Thernadad said more, but the Copper didn’t hear it.

He had vague dreams of the bats clinging to him, swelling like great ticks, but woke to find his wounds crusted over with healthy-smelling scab, though they itched a little. His right eye bothered him more than anything; he could see through it as if through a mist, but everything went a little fuzzy and indistinct when he closed his left eye and looked only through the right.