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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.
“Something in those wizard lights,” NooMoahk said. “They preserve the paper. They don’t stop the ink from fading. I have scrolls that are illegible now, but they keep the damp out and the dust off.”
“I’d like to know more about how they do these things, my lord. Are there books on magics here?”
NooMoahk pulled back his lips in disgust. “Don’t dabble in magic, Auron. There’s always a price. Spellcasting takes its toll from the wizard, the subject, and the world at large. That desert north of these mountains, the earth died there because of wizardry. When you crossed it, did you see a place where there were pits and holes of different sizes in the earth?”
Auron remembered the refuge of the waste elves. “Yes. That had something to do with a wizard?”
“Yes, his name was Anklamere. Those craters are from a fire-hail he called down on his enemies. Anklamere’s tower stood farther east. He withered a land greater than some nations with his magics. Tidairuss had once counted him an ally, but they grew estranged, and in the end, Anklamere allied himself with that murdering Bloodyhooves fellow. The woman whose head I singed was an assistant of his.”
“What ever happened to him?”
“Tindairuss slew him like the mad dog he was in the end. I didn’t see it myself; I was occupied with Anklamere’s gargoyles at the time. But he had once been a great man and a good friend. Tindairuss seemed years older afterwards. He died soon after, in battle. Life hasn’t been the same since we parted. I can’t see an army on the march without thinking of him, and it pains me like a spear. We were good friends. It was a friendship such as two dragons cannot have, for we worked as a team. With dragons, there can only be mating, if female, or challenge, if male. There was none of that with him.”
NooMoahk faded into sleep, and Auron unrolled a map, trying to associate some of the names and places the old dragon had mentioned. NooMoahk often spoke of great events, which as far as he knew weren’t even legends by this time. Other empires had grown and faded in the interim; the deeds of NooMoahk’s prime were forgotten.
None of which helped him learn the weakness of dragons.
He learned Elvish. It was a subtle tongue more of rhyme than reason, with the most expansive alphabet of the tongues—to get the sound of the words right. He recited their songs and poetry, but found little of magic, history, or the ordering of the natural world. The dwarves and men were better sources for such matters.
His studies slowed as the seasons passed, for he was more and more occupied with feeding NooMoahk. The black hardly left the cavern except on summer days, when he would drowse away the hours at the mouth of the cave with his bare patches of skin absorbing the sun. Otherwise he slept. When he was awake, though he no longer treated Auron as a challenger, he sometimes took him as his own kin. Auron received a wealth of mind-pictures of NooMoahk’s youth, when the blighters still ruled the heart of the continent. He saw men, dwarves, and elves unite to overthrow the blighters’ power, with dragons in the middle. Some ruled blighter kingdoms as feudal lords, others helped the allies, more remained neutral, and a few profited like vultures from the dead strewn across battlefields without count.
Seasons turned to years, and Auron grew. Soon he was carrying back two sheep, or three goats, or the biggest of deer in his mouth. His tail began to regrow. Long blisterlike swellings grew across his back, and NooMoahk, when awake in his lucid moments, sniffed at them approvingly.
“Your wings are starting to rise. One day they’ll pop. The skin on your back will be almost clear, and it’ll itch like you’ve got fire-bugs. I should think you’ll be a fine flier, Auron. You’re not weighed down with scale.”
“That’s what Mother said.”
“She was right. It’ll be time for you to mate, once you can fly. There’s no young dragonelles in these mountains, as far as I know. You may have to do some flying before you can sing your song. By the way, I don’t think I’ve heard your lifesong.”
Auron snorted. “I’ve had other things to think about than composing hymns to myself.”
