Dragon Strike (Age of Fire #4)

No dragon stirred. “I am not a hatchling,” the Copper continued, “maimed by my hatching, starved in sight of my own egg shelf, taken and broken by iron rods in the hard hands of dwarves. I am fortunate, today, in having the luxury of choices.”

“Father’s gold drove you to your choice more than the rods of the dwarves,” AuRon said.

Ayafeeia spoke up. “It does not matter. In the Lavadome, whatever you were as a hatchling, or as a drake, is never mentioned again if you enter the Drakwatch or Firemaidens and grow into an honorable set of wings. The outcast is equal to the scion of the Imperial Line. My mate-brother RuGaard went into the Drakwatch and served, shed blood in battle, and rose to the position of Upholder. With that record I couldn’t care less for the details of what came before. Wistala, settle down. You’ve no need to bristle so. There’ll be no fighting. Or if there is”—she glanced up at the alert griffaran, leaning down and ready to drop—“it won’t last long.”

Wistala hardly heard her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the jewel AuRon wore about his neck. It emitted a soft glow of a peculiar white shade, something between the pale luminescence of reflected moon off the snows of the north and the glitter of starlight.

“So did you come all this way just to accuse me of murder, AuRon?” the Copper asked. “Or is there a message from the Red Queen?”

AuRon felt his hearts hammering. His mind clouded.

“Yes, there is a message from the Red Queen,” a voice that was only partially his answered.

Like speech in a dream.

He froze, seized by the same irresistible instinct that made him spin legs downward as he fell or that made him squat when he voided his bowels.

He found himself speaking in a voice not his own, high-pitched, with the words coming out at all the wrong intervals: “This pathetic, scaleless . . . excuse for dragonkind doesn’t have . . . the backbone of a river fluke. We speak to you dragons . . . now as the Queen of Ghioz.”

“What insult is this?” his brother’s mate said, raising her head.

His voice continued: “We propose a division of influence. The Upper World shall be mine, and the Lower World . . . shall belong to the dragons, and we will have . . . peace and such commerce as benefits . . . us both. Accept this and enjoy prosperity, or reject Our terms and starve in the dark. Fight Us, and you’ll . . . find your second offer to be much worse terms, with the alternative the extinction your kind . . . toward earning.”

AuRon wanted to smash his head against the floor—anything that would remove the awful alienation his own body had taken on itself.

As though spellbound, he continued: “We will accept . . . a delegation of no more than two dragons to attend Us and discuss the arrangements further. In return, We propose to send . . . two dragons as Our representatives into your realm.”

Horrified, AuRon wondered what would happen if his body just stood here speaking words not his own forever. Would he stand here, a living, speaking statue, soiling floor and self, until he starved or died of thirst?

The voice that wasn’t quite his continued: “As for this wretch, We suggest you . . . kill it. It has a nasty habit of worming its way into the confidence of its prey and then striking from behind. That is what it did with the Wyrmmaster on the Isle of Ice, and it had some thoughts along the same lines with Our royal person.”

Good-bye, AuRon. You were most useful to us, whatever your intentions. Even now our daggers are poised to strike that traitor Naf. Little Hieba will be heartbroken. Ah, well, there are plenty of balconies for her to hurl herself from.

With that, he jumped at the Tyr, his brother.

Two flashes of green.

One struck him, hard, the other interposed itself between his saa and the recoiling Copper. He felt his claws rake scale.

A tail struck him across the snout.

White and yellow stars obscured his vision. It may have been Wistala’s, it may have been Nilrasha’s. It hit too fast for him to tell. Then on his side, a saa clawing at his throat—

—But instead of opening him up, two claws hooked under his necklace and broke it away. He heard the clatter as it bounced off a wall.

Feathers batted from above to the sound of alarmed cries.

Limp as a water buffalo with a broken back, he realized Wistala was atop his neck. She’d scratched his neck where she’d ripped away the chain, and he bled. Hers was worse. He had cut both Wistala and Nilrasha along their sides and haunches.

“Wait, wait!” Wistala called. “This is not his doing! The Queen of the Ghioz—she spoke and acted through him.”

The Copper pushed away a mass of feathers and claws. “Griffaran guard, back! It’s over.”

AuRon raised a sii, a pathetic gesture. But it was his own. He controlled his body again.

The Copper stared down at AuRon. “By our laws you should die.

“But being Tyr has its privileges. One is the ability to dispense mercy. Should you, AuRon, ever be able to hold death in one sii and life in another you’ll come to know the temptation in both. Once, long ago, you might have killed me, quite easily, but you didn’t,” the Copper said. “All things are now equal, as far as I’m concerned. I will forget the present; I hope you will forget the past.”

“The court has never seen such a tumult since the arrival of the Dragonblade,” Ayafeeia said. “You came very near to dying, visitor, on the very stones where my grandmother’s blood was spilled.”

“The crystal,” Wistala said. “It serves as a link with the Queen. I wonder if this is some doing of the great one that NooMoahk once possessed?”

That blighter fetish? AuRon wondered. How could an oversized hunk of luminous rock control a dragon’s words and movements?

NoSohoth and the Firemaids were calming the crowd. The Tyr climbed back upon his perch.

“Crystal?” AuRon asked, righting himself.

“You weren’t speaking those words, were you?” Wistala asked.

“No,” AuRon said. “It was—I couldn’t control my tongue.”

“I think she can see and hear through it somehow,” Wistala said. “How else could she know she was addressing the Tyr? How did she know there were many dragons present?”

“She learned that Naf still lives, and where he is,” AuRon said.

“Naf?” Nilrasha said.

AuRon’s mind was once again ahead of his voice. “Naf, the leader of—I must warn him.”

Anxious, he looked to his sister. “Is there a faster way out of this place?”

“I confess—” Wistala said.

“To fly in which direction?” the Copper asked.

“North.”

“You can climb out one of the griffaran holes,” the Copper said. “Above the river ring. Not the easiest path, but the shortest.”

“Or there’s the wind tunnel,” Nilrasha said. “You could fly out of that. This time of year the wind blows outward.”

“But I wouldn’t advise it,” the Copper said. “Better to follow the griffaran.”

AuRon looked at the feathered menaces looming all around. “Perhaps not.”

“Ayafeeia, show him to the wind tunnel. It’s his neck. Take some food before you quit us, AuRon. You’ll need it as ballast in the tunnel.”

With that, he turned and began speaking to a human servant wearing soft leather and furs.

Wistala embraced AuRon. “Come back, brother. I’ve a great deal to tell you.”

“Perhaps. I have a mate and hatchlings of my own, far off in the north. Her name is Natasatch. She was a captive dragon as we might have been. I’ve been too far away from the home cave. It’s in a place called the Isle of Ice.”

“I know it from maps. Strange, I once passed close to it but was warned off by men mounted on dragons.”

“They’re gone now,” AuRon said.

“In any case, Father would be overjoyed at that news. That’s all he wanted for us. To have some hatchlings in peace and safety.”

“Peace and safety,” AuRon said. “If only the dwarves sold those, the world would be a better place.”

“I see you still like to tease.”

“I thought it philosophy. Well, I wish you would join us.”

“Perhaps,” Wistala replied. “But if there’s hope for dragons in the world, I believe it lies here, in the Lavadome. Yet I fear for my friends in Hypatia, with the news we’ve had today.”

“I’ve met some of them. At an inn with a strange sign.”

Wistala’s eyes widened. “You’ve been there?”

“You’re right. They do fear the coming war. We were born into a hard generation, Wistala.”

“We still have much to do, it seems. Well, I will not delay you,” she said. “Our reunion is one worthy of a song or two, I expect. Good-bye again, AuRon.”

He looked at Ayafeeia. “I am ready to fly, if you are ready to guide.”

“You’re quick to depart us,” Ayafeeia said. “Would you not prefer to resolve matters here first, with your brother and sister?”