A reddish copper color that might be called orange, broken by dark stripes, six good-sized horns—
DharSii!
She knew him. They’d met, briefly, years ago in Sadda-Vale, where she’d searched for others of her kind. She’d found only a handful of indolent dragons, comfortable and uninterested in the world outside their steaming valley.
Her thoughts, racing a moment ago on two wings and all four legs, stilled, fading like the ink on one of those ancient scrolls in NooMoahk’s cave.
DharSii carried a heavy column of stonework, one of the columns that flanked the road near the entrance to the old city. He flapped one more time, strain on his face, and dove for the citadel.
She dove as well, leaping from her perch, wings open only enough to allow her to guide her fall. If he saw her he gave no sign of it. Instead he released his load, which fell like a huge arrow toward one of the old towers. She just managed to strike the stone as she crossed under him.
Arrows flew up, peppering both dragons, with no more effect than the flowers tossed at young blighters passing through the end of their final mating ceremony.
The stone tumbled, missing the top of the tower, where it would have smashed the blighters and their rock-slide into gory streaks. It struck the wall below, sending rubble falling into the city and out into the gate-lane in front. Dust clouded the air.
Each dragon completed half of a double-loop.
DharSii gaped at her, hardly moving his wings. He alighted on an old terrace, rows of garden-troughs thick with shadeweed. His ribs heaved as he caught his breath.
Wistala returned to the cavern roof.
Some of the riders chased their quarry like rabbits through the old streets and alleys, vaulting obstructions with wild cries.
Blighters streamed down from their battlements. With the wall in the old citadel broken, they hurried for some old hole, she guessed. The city had any number of ancient undercourses for the disposal of waste or retention of water. Perhaps they made for some secret bolt-hole.
Canny White had retreated to a corner near the entrance, blood making dark stripes on his sides even more vivid than DharSii’s natural ones. He did not seem eager to rejoin the fight. As for Silly Green, she was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was soaking her tail-tip in the chill of a mountain stream.
She had to delay the riders. Wistala mastered herself. One more effort, and then she would return to the back of the cave.
DharSii cried out as she flew, but whether he was calling to her or summoning the white she couldn’t know.
The front of the column fell into confusion as she came at it, wings beating hard. Carts and horses wheeled—
A presence behind, coming fast—must be DharSii.
She banked a little to stay out of striking distance, took a breath so she might better press her firebladder—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Sparks and smoke and rattling—what evil was this?
Three projectiles like the oversized javelins dwarves fired from their war machines flew toward her, not arcing like arrows but spinning like a playful squirrel running along a straight branch. They trailed smoke and flapping lengths of line with ugly barbed hooks.
“Down!” she heard DharSii shout. He struck her on the haunch.
Why he warned her, she couldn’t say. She struck some old roofs, scattering rotted thatch like dandelion tufts.
The missiles passed howling and sparking just above her, their ugly flail-tails thick with barbs and hooks dancing a mad jig in their wake.
She banked to the rear of the cave and made for her old hole lest some other aerial monstrosity be launched at her.
DharSii thrashed, entangled in one of the things, raising dust and debris in an old plaza.
Wistala saw ugly sights in the streets below as the human warriors discovered a little hovel of Fireblade females and their babes. Hominids must love death for death’s sake—there was no other way to explain the bloody scene there.
She returned to the rear of the cave and the tunnel to the old downshaft and library. Only a few elderly warriors remained, calming frightened mates and wailing spawn.
“The city is lost,” she told them. “If there’s some secret tunnel where you can flee, you may wish to take it. I can delay them here for a few moments. Then they will come.”
A grizzled one-handed blighter began to give orders. Most obeyed, but one or two of the females ran into the ruins, whether in search of their mates or because they thought they could escape through rubble and rooftop, Wistala didn’t know.
She settled herself at that last, half-built wall, tried not to listen to the screams and clatters echoing from farther out in the vast cavern. And always, always was that waterfall echo of hooves.
A dragonback moved among the ruins, wing-spurs high and proud. DharSii surmounted a fallen building and rested between two vast chimneys. His snout and neck and shoulder bled, but not profusely, and one sail of wing hung, cut into ugly tatters. He’d taken worse from those terrible contraptions than she had.
He came within a dragon cry.
“Wistala, I remember,” he said.
“DharSii of the Sadda-Vale. How is your aunt and the rest?”
His nostrils pulsed. Perhaps he found the exchange of pleasantries amusing. “The same. As always.” He stalked a few more paces forward.
He’d added another ear-ring, well, not quite a ring, more of a smooth squiggle, of what looked (and smelled!) like the rarest of white gold.
He marked her gaze and lowered his griff enough to hide the decoration. Or was it just decoration? Did it hold some significance to those slaughtering men?
“You’d better move along,” he said. “The battle is lost. The Ghioz have some business in these caves and then they will depart. You could return in a day or two.”
“Behind is my cave. If any of them wish to contest my claim, I look forward to the contest.”
DharSii took a reluctant breath. In a flash he shot forward and fell upon her, not biting but trying to pin her to the mound of rubble half blocking the passage. Or perhaps trying to pull her out.
He was frightfully strong, but she had plenty of grips for limbs and tail, and though her thick body would never be called elegant, anyone who tried to overcome it would admit it was powerful. She rolled him off hard enough to feel the impact through the rock and retreated a little farther behind the mound.
The smell of blood and dragon—male! Male! MALE!—both frightened and excited her.
“Did you think I spoke idly?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he said.
“Perhaps you could convince your host to leave.”
“They’re blighters. Hardly hominids, even. What could you possibly care about them?”
She panted, but even more than the air in her lungs, his hateful tone invigorated her spirit. He was the sort of dragon she could hate as fiercely as admire.
“Even blighters have their charms if you get to know them.”
“I rather doubt that. How did they buy such loyalty? All I’ve seen in these mountains is bits of copper and brass.”
“I’m not loyal to them. I’m loyal to my sense of right and wrong.”
“If there’s a wrong here, it’s that dragons are fighting among themselves in some hominid squabble. You’ve injured my companions, and taken very little harm in return. You could fly out of this cave knowing you’d given better than you received in defense of this rubble.”
“I could say the same to you. You three tried, and lost two dragons. Only a fool would press the contest after that. You could retreat with honor intact.”
“I told the Red Queen I would clear these caves when they met my price,” DharSii said. “Clear them I will.”
“You just said they’re nothing but a rubble. What do you suppose your Red Queen wants with rubble?”
“For all I care she just likes holding parades and parties when they’ve won a victory. You know humans. They like to cheer and celebrate deeds others have done, whether it’s their armies beyond the domes or some slathering hound in a fighting pit right beneath them.”
“Interesting choice of imagery. You’re no better than a trained dog, to my mind.”
“I’ll leave that to opinion. I’m certainly richer, and I have my independence.”
“For now. Until the Red Queen decides she needs to chain you up at her door.”
DharSii snorted. “Let her try. I’m more careful than that, and she needs me and my dragons too much to chance it.”
“Then you may die when she meets an opponent greater than herself.”
“I’d simply switch allegiances. The strongest faction is always willing to buy more strength. They pay a little less than the desperate, but it’s more enjoyable to win.” He looked at his tattered wing. “Less hazardous too, but that doesn’t seem to enter your reckoning. I shall have a long job with hemp and dart here tonight.”
“Some victory. Leaving those awful horsemen to skewer screaming children.”
“You’ve not seen much of the world if you’re surprised by such behavior. You can’t expect better from blighters or men.” He lowered himself, set his wings at an angle to deflect blows, wing-spurs up and ready to close on neck or tail, and advanced, bent a little to his right side so his tail could be brought into action as well. “I give you one more chance to show the sense I credited you with those years ago when you quit the Sadda-Vale.”