Dragon Strike (Age of Fire #4)

AuRon chewed his way out of the harness, half tempted to eat the noisier of the two mules to teach the other a lesson about complaining so much—gripers get eaten first. But he heard hoofbeats echoing down the canyon, and besides, it seemed unfair huntsdragonship to eat someone with whom you’ve bandied words.

As he looked at the barricade, with cloaks and old broken helms decorating the branches like warriors lined up behind the fallen timber, it occurred to him that the mules might be smarter than they let on and had engaged him in conversation with his sensibilities in mind.

No time to lose in filling his belly.

He examined the river. Next to the barricade and downstream the river widened and grew calmer, and probably shallower, judging by the shape of the waves. He couldn’t hide there.

But upstream looked more promising.

AuRon plunged into the stream and waded—or swam, in the deeper pools—upstream to a mass of rocks breaking the river into confused froth. The water would carry away his scent as long as he kept under it. He found a pair of boulders that diverted much of the flow, and, muscles twitching and wishing to be active in the cold flow, he settled down between them, eyes and nostrils above water and a bit of driftwood camouflage stuck in the horns of his crest, awaiting events.

At least the river was a little wider here. If matters went ill he could rise from the water and escape the ensnaring branches in a few flaps.

The vanguard of the Ghioz column appeared, riders moving widely spaced with bows notched.

The men behind the barricade launched arrows at them. They fired madly, trying to send up a volume of arrows rather than well-aimed strikes. The Ghioz scouts turned their horses and rode back.

AuRon watched the main body approach, a black block of archers to the front, tightly packed like some enormous multi-legged insect. Behind them, AuRon counted riders interspersed with dismounted men with swords and axes or hefting javelins.

The dismounted warriors must mean their mounts were somewhere farther back. It should be easy to smell that many horses.

Under swarms of arrows, the Ghioz column approached the barricade. Many heads turned to watch the cliffs nervously, but perhaps the trackers and whoever might be in communication with the Red Queen assured them that the retreating rebels had followed the riverbank in hurried retreat.

Ghioz skirmishers ran forward, javelins and light axes at the ready, giving high war-yips like slim hunting dogs after rabbits. They flung the javelins and buried the axes in trunk or helm, vaulting up to the peak of the short, irregular wall. Others shouldered one of the trunks, opening a gap big enough for a horse. Seeing but a few men falling back before them, they yelled to their fellows, and horsemen came forward to complete the destruction of what they must have thought was a rearguard designed to delay their advance.

As the first rider passed through the gap in the trail-block, Naf acted.

A horn blew and a rain of arrows fell from the cliff. The Ghioz column reacted like a flock of sheep to approaching wolves; they whirled and tightened ranks.

An avalanche of rock and beam fell from the cliff. Some bounced off the cliff to land harmlessly in the river, but enough rolled into the Ghioz, carrying more with it, that the column dissolved into chaos.

Some desperate souls escaped into the river by jumping in and swimming.

Naf’s men descended through the steep notch with the aid of ropes, under the cover of concealed archers. Still more continued to throw stones down on their enemies, leaving bloody men and horses scattered on the riverbank path.

A pair of roc-riders came shrieking down into the river canyon, perhaps seeing battle joined from far away but losing track of the action in their dive. One suddenly folded and fell, dashing its rider to pieces as it bounced off the cliffside, shafts from the cliff-top bowmen projecting from its head and neck like a lopsided mating display.

The remaining rider wheeled, and AuRon’s hearts pounded when he saw the rider guide his mount up the river, flying low and gathering speed for a climb to the cliff-top level.

He’d never make it.

AuRon exploded out of the rushing stream, brought down rider and bird in a crash of avian forehead against dragon chest and sii. Feathers flew, the rider went head over heels into the river, and AuRon and his prey rolled into the flow. He stomped and tore and left the ruin of the bird tainting the white water red.

AuRon turned on the Ghioz, most of whom had their backs to the river, thinking that quarter safe.

Poor conventional-minded fools. But then, they would fight a lord with an old dragon friend.

Still more of Naf’s men were now running for the barricade, having either come down another notch as the Ghioz approached or sent there earlier. They joined the men descending the ropes to harry the Ghioz, now recoiling up the riverbank like a snake backing away from a burning brand.

AuRon, with one eye cocked to the sky in case more roc-riders arrived, chose a likely spot and set fire to a mix of riverside brush, dry driftwood, and timber.

Retreat through that, he thought with satisfaction.

Then he launched himself up the river to seek out those horses.

He found them hardly a score of wing-flaps back, gathered in another notch with the baggage train and carts and wagons filled with feed and bundles.

He scattered the horse-guard with a lightning descent, gout of flame, and swipe of his tail. They didn’t even have time to notch arrow to string. Then he circled back and landed hard in the water. Much of his splash fell on the backs of men fleeing or riding off at a gallop, leaving their baggage train.

It burned gloriously. The bags of grain caught fire with loud whoofs, and alarmed mules gladly tore themselves loose from picket-lines and trotted off, yelling their heads off in the beast-tongue: Dragon draagon draaagon!

The horses scattered in terror, fleeing flame and the alarming odor of a dragon—which AuRon was doing his best to enhance by voiding whatever he could onto the highest branches he could reach by cocking his leg like a flop-eared dog. He did his best to herd them into the river, where the current would put an end to many of them or carry them down to Naf and his men in the calmer waters.

He swam back downstream to find the Ghioz in full retreat, harried by archers popping in and out of the trees. They did not stop to aid their wounded, but AuRon saw many an ugly scene of those pierced by arrows thrown off their horses and dumped into the stream as a new warrior took saddle and rein.

Ghioz and its Red Queen, it seemed, could be beaten after all.

AuRon didn’t understand even a fraction of what the Dairussians said. It seemed they were calling Naf “Lord Dragonheart.”

“Dragons have more than one heart,” AuRon corrected.

Naf and his men were enjoying a dinner of stick-toasted horseflesh. For AuRon, the grateful Dairuss bagged livers and hearts and kidneys into horse intestines, wrapped them in skins, and blackened them all over the fire.

AuRon thought it one of the most delicious meals he’d ever eaten, despite the smell of burning horsehair (which probably somewhat covered the odor of a well-fed dragon’s sulfurous burps and emissions as his firebladder refilled).

He thought it best if he at least saw Naf safely to his new camp. This one was in some ancient ruin, nothing more than rings of stones set on a hillside in the forest and a few cairns running the ridgeline above like the bones on a blighter’s back, but there were clay-lined grain pits that could be cleaned out and wells that would produce water once cleared of the deadfalls and wildlife.

Naf said he suspected it was an old elf settlement. There were yew trees aplenty, which elves always planted for the construction of their bows. A few limbs would be cut to replace worn wood or supply new weapons for recruits coming over the mountains.

Only these would stripped, bathed, and checked for crystals . . .

Already Naf was hearing back from his scouts and spies on the Ghioz borders.

“We’ve angered our good foes, AuRon. As the Ghioz see things, scattering horses and burning pack-trains is a violation of an honorable warrior’s code.”

“What does their code say about throwing wounded into a mountain river?”

“Oh, it’s that whole victors and failures ‘ethics of the strong’ that their priests spout. To the victors the spoils, to the failures a new station serving the victors, so they might learn and do better next time.”

AuRon was about to comment on men being born mad—was not the first sound every human made a wailing scream?—and dying even more madly, but was that terribly different from the fights hatchlings engaged in, with bits of wet egg still clinging about their snouts?

“My spies report that our obstinacy at the riverbank has incensed the Red Queen. She’s claiming that the Hypatians have assisted us in battle—for how else could a scarecrow band like mine triumph over Ghioz arms?—and a state of war now exists between Hypatia and Ghioz.”

“No wonder old NooMoahk was always glum when I spoke of the wider world,” AuRon said. “I wonder how many wars he saw in his long years.”

“It’s not a man’s thought but a man’s deeds that count, AuRon. Same rule for dragons, I expect.”

AuRon belched and felt his firebladder settle.

“A terrible reckoning is at hand,” Naf said. “I wonder if I shall be blamed by both sides. Could be, no matter which empire wins, myself and the Dairussians will end up vassals. Again.”