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He awoke chilled and hungry, with the feeling it was some days later. The moon’s face had turned a full quarter farther toward the earth. At some time he had hauled himself out of the water, but he had no memory of it. He sniffed the air and smelled woodsmoke. And blighters.
Unrush emerged from the thick riverbank ferns. He carried a sword, thickened almost to ax-width at its far end and notched like a claw. In his other hand he carried a skull by its wiry hair. He tossed it to AuRon.
“Dokla never saw reason. I took his head in single combat.”
A few other blighters emerged from the woods, spears pointed straight up.
“What now?” AuRon croaked. The head stank and was crawling with maggots. The fight must have been some days ago.
“Some say: let us kill the dragon while he is weak. I say: dragon must grow strong, so the Umazheh of these mountains grow strong with him.”
“Thank you.”
“We have bound the families of the defeated chiefs. Blood sacrifice our pact to seal.”
At another time, AuRon would have welcomed the meal, but he was still half-sick from the venom in the blighter arrows. He was not in the mood to kill and eat screaming hominids.
“No. Send them away. West, south, east—I don’t care. They shall go into exile.”
The blighter’s shoulders drooped. “You are too merciful to those who tried to kill you,” Unrush said.
“Those who tried to kill me are dead. Except you.”
Unrush digested this, and nodded. “So they live.”
AuRon licked his aching flank. The skin was discolored where the scar tissue was growing. “If you want to bring me the archers who shot me, I’ll eat them instead.”
AuRon’s throat healed. He settled into the vigorous life of a young dragon-lord as his tally of years doubled. The blighters kept their bargain, and Unrush grew into the role of a feudal lord himself. As his people multiplied, his two fellow chieftains claimed lands of their own, and the village where AuRon struck the bargain became the seat of a paramountcy. Whenever Unrush called his arch-chieftains together, he invited AuRon to sit at his side. The blighters gathered in song and beat thrilling tattoos on their war drums on these occasions; spitted bullocks turned over charcoal pits while the leaders spoke or sang.
When warlike men in white headcloths came up from the south, scimitars tucked in their scarlet sashes, AuRon flew off, leading his gathered warriors to his first true war. At an assembly of blighters, he heard stories of more and more men following ancient roads through the jungles to the south, hunting elephants in the misty forests. Skirmishes between hunting parties in the woods brought soldiers up from the south, an army to drive the blighters from the mountains.
AuRon heard their petition for war and gave the blighters his aid, fulfilling his feudal promise. He started a great fire in an empty grain pit, and the blighters thrust their oiled blades into the fire until the air was filled with the sharp tang of heated metal. Then the warriors sang songs and took oaths before jumping through the flame. Only a few failed in the feat. AuRon circled above his “fireblades” as Unrush led his soldiers south, bearing before them poles mounted with the sun-whitened skulls of their foes. Red banners sewn from the sashes of the men hung down, with dreadful runes dyed into the blood-colored cloth.>The elder’s wives unrolled wooden mats on the ground, and the blighter chieftains sat cross-legged, facing AuRon.
“I am called Bund-kleh’Tran. Visitor, speak your name and your wants.”
“I am Gray Dragon AuRon, out of the west,” AuRon said, straining to translate his thoughts into the blighter’s speech. “I’ve seen fourteen summers since coming out of the egg. I’ve climbed mountains and swum oceans. I’ve sailed in ships and traveled in carts. I’ve hunted with wolves and been hunted by men, learned from elves and bargained with dwarves, stood my ground in battle and driven my enemies from their lairs. I’ve defeated a fully grown dragon by wit and wing. I bear four great wounds as testament to this. I come to claim the ruins of Kraglad, a city of old Uldam, and take the black dragon NooMoahk’s place.”
The blighter elders whispered in each other’s ears. Bundkleh’Tran pushed the tip of his staff into the ground. “Two generations ago, NooMoahk-vhe was our lord. None with him now speak.”
“NooMoahk is gone. I will take his place, as his heir, and I want peace with the Umazheh,” AuRon said, using the blighters’ word for themselves.
“What price is the peace?” Bund-kleh’Tran said, after shooting a glance at his fellow elder.
“Just as I said. The ruins of Kraglad will be mine. The river east and west of the old city I claim, as well, and the lands in between the two. I will not touch Umazheh or Umazheh’s herds, as long as they stay off that land. Beyond the rivers, I hunt where I choose. In return for this fealty, you will have my aid against any enemy of the Umazheh within one day’s dragonflight of Kraglad. This is many mountains east and west of here, and much of the southern forest to the borders of old Uldam. If famine or disease strikes your herds, I will succor the Umazheh as I can by hunting. These are my terms.”
The chieftains retired and whispered, still facing AuRon. AuRon could hear them, but most of the words were unfamiliar. After a conference, they approached him again.
The blighter named Keerh crossed his arms across his chest. “We stand at an impasse. Kraglad is revered of our people. NooMoahk-veh claimed our shrines. This wrong must be righted.”
“A dragon needs safe refuge. Pilgrims who come in peace unarmed, preceded by a harbinger, will be allowed within the city.”
“We must bargain for what is rightfully ours?” Keerh asked of Bund-kleh’Tran.
“A dragon is better as an ally than as an enemy,” Tran said, gripping his staff with his hand reversed. AuRon wondered if the awkward gesture meant indecision.
Something flashed at the corner of his vision, and AuRon crouched. Two arrows that would have found his heart struck his shoulder instead.
Bund-kleh’Tran lifted his arm, and a wide blade shone in the sunlight as it emerged from the cane-scabbard. His aged companion Keerh, moving quickly for a blighter of such age and weight, reached to a hidden scabbard at his back and drew a fighting ax.
