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“Hieba, now you join ones like you. They take care of you.”
She looked doubtful. “Strangers. Not know.”
“We talked this through before. You’re human. You must grow up with humans.”
“No. Me with you.” Troubled, she’d reverted to childish pidgin, “Find food, find shelter, me get wood, you make fire. Like same before.”
“I go NooMoahk. Maybe danger. Blighters. Not safe for you.”
“Me safe with you.”
“Safer here, Berrysweet.” Auron put down his shield-spike, dug the point in the dirt. “Here, you keep this. A present.”
“No!”
“Yes,” Auron said, turning away. He was unable to look into her face anymore.
She picked up Djer’s tail-cap and followed.
Auron wheeled. “No. You go. You human. Not good with dragon.”
She planted her legs and set the shield between them, gripping it in wiry young muscles. “I strong. I smart. I come.”
Auron’s tail lashed. He dropped his fans from his crest and growled. “No. Go.” His stomach writhed with unhappiness. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her into running, but if he had to . . .
“Hieba stay with Auron,” she said, eyes running with water and her dark tangle of hair streaming in the fresh wind.
“No!” Auron roared. Pheasants took to the air, and the sound of axes chopping ceased. Auron snarled. “You stay. I go.”
Tears flowed down her face, creating streaks through the dirt. She took a step toward him, dropping her weapon and opening her arms to put them around his neck.
Auron spat fire at his feet, creating a wall of flame between them. He looked at her face, distorted by the heat between them, and felt a pain like a knife enter his heart. He saw the forms of men with spears and axes running through the trees. He jumped through the curtain of flame, roaring and snapping.
“Go! Run from me, Hieba!”
She screamed and fled, all brown limbs and hair disappearing through the brush. Toward the men.
Chapter 17
The moldering city echoed even emptier without Hieba’s chickadee chatter. Auron had fewer worries on his trip back, but he had grown so used to the child’s presence in their months together, he found the void she left impossible to fill.
He hoped he could replace her by becoming engrossed in the dragon’s library. NooMoahk hardly knew he had been gone. The black sniffed at the bighorn sheep Auron bore as an offering and settled down to the meal without question or comment. Auron returned to his studies and NooMoahk’s on-again, off-again tutelage.
Auron’s tenacious memory made the best of his time and studies. He learned living alphabets and dead tongues, the epic poetry of Gwer and antithetical prose couplets of Doong. The library had many old, well-preserved works. All of NooMoahk’s writings hardly had a smudge of dust or a scent of mildew, whatever their age.>“Would you teach me more?”
At first Hieba stayed with him as he studied. NooMoahk introduced him, as a first step, to the runes of the blighters. Hieba would work with him for a brief time, but grew bored and amused herself elsewhere. NooMoahk’s chamber had nooks and crevices for her to explore. As long as she did not wander up to the ruined city at the cave mouth, Auron left her to roam. He had examined the cavern, and there were no wells for her to fall into. She stayed within the lighted area shining from the crystal on the dais.
As the weeks progressed, he moved on to an old dwarf-tongue. It was a simple language of counts and tallies, designed more to record facts than ideas.
“You have a good memory, Auron, even for a dragon,” NooMoahk said as Auron sounded out a list of warriors and gear an ancient dwarf lord took on a vengeance raid.
“Why did you start to read?”
“It was not long after I uncased my wings. West of here, near the mountains that mark the end of the Hypatian Empire. I was as hungry for gold as any dragon in those days. I’d thrown in with some men who stole cattle and horses; I’d stampede them down a hill into a dry riverbed or some other rendezvous, and they’d sell them.
“Their company grew larger, and they decided to try raiding trade caravans the same way. I’d scare off the draft animals, eat a few, and then they’d round up the herd and drive it back to the caravan, then attack it while negotiating. They were always looking at maps of the trade routes and lists of goods, which interested me because it could tell me about a land without me having to fly there and look around. Only later did I find out the information was not always reliable, but that’s another story. One of the thieves was better educated, and would read messages being couriered between cities. He showed me the letters, and explained that the messages were a way men talked over distances. At first I thought it was some magic device, where they spoke to the paper and then the paper spoke back to whoever unrolled the message. He said there were such things, but they required great magic only mighty kings could afford. He showed me how it really worked and I found it fascinating. You can’t imagine how many different things you can learn reading, Auron. It would take dragon-lifetimes to find it out yourself.”
NooMoahk’s eyes clouded over, as they sometimes did when he was lost in memories of his youth. He wavered for a moment, and Auron thought he would fall asleep. Then he returned to wakefulness, looked at Auron, and growled.
