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But Father just gave him a gentle lick of his tongue. “No, Champion, nothing eats a dragon, except through luck.”
“Then why?”
Father lowered his head, offering Auron an easy path out of the hoard-cave. Auron climbed over the horned crest and ran up his father’s neck.
“That is your favorite word, according to your mother. Well, that’s a story. I’ll tell it as best as I can. My father told it to me long ago, just as my grandsire told him. I think I was older than you when I first heard it, but you are already word-wise, so I’ll tell you, if you like.
“Yes, please.”
Father closed his eyes for a long moment, and then opened them. And so he began. . . .
“Long ago, so long ago that the Upper World was shapeless, and the Lower chaos, the Sun had four Great Spirits work together to give form to the two worlds: one of light, the other of darkness. They formed mountains and valleys, oceans and deserts, caves and clouds. When the worlds, Upper and Lower, were done, two of them were ordered by the shining Sun to fill the Upper World with life to worship Her. These Spirits were Air and Water. Water made many green plants and growing things that love the Sun. Air made birds to fly with the wind and beasts to roam everywhere, and all worshiped the Sun. Flowers opened their petals to her; birds sang to welcome her rising.
“The Moon grew jealous of all this attention, for he’s ugly and pockmarked, so gruesome that wolves of the forest warn everyone of his coming. He persuaded two other Spirits, Fire and Earth, to create from their depths a being to murder the Sun worshipers. They made the blighters. You haven’t seen a blighter yet, have you? They’re sort of stooped-over things, with big hairy arms and long-fingered hands that could wring a hatchling’s neck.
“It was a bad time for the world. The blighters killed and ate many of the things Air and Water made, and the more they ate, the more they bred, spoiling everything like flies. The Sun grew angry and told the Moon to apologize, but the Moon refused and evermore hid from the sun. The Sun ordered the four Spirits to work together and do something about the blighters.
“Now Earth, Air, Fire, and Water can kill, but they mostly do it by accident when trying to accomplish something else. They are very busy keeping the world clean and renewed, and they did not have time to fight the blighters. But they could create life, and they decided to work together to make something that the blighters could not eat, like the animals and birds, or cut like plants and trees. They worked and thought, and after many attempts, some of which still wander the world today, they brought the dragons to life.
“Each of the Great Spirits gave a gift to dragons as they created them. Earth gave them his armor like forged metal. The blighters could not bite or claw through it. Air gave them her ability to fly, so they could go where they willed in the world at need. Water gave them her supple strength. Fire gave them a kingly gift: his ability to bring flame.
“The dragons had a great hunger and flew over the world, eating the blighters and taming them. The blighters hate us, yet in a way, they worship us, too. So we drove and ate and ordered the blighters as we saw fit. The Upper and Lower Worlds were again in balance with the blighters checked, and the Sun looked down and was satisfied.
“ ‘Fine work, Great Spirits. Whom do I have to thank for setting things to rights? I wish to reward the one responsible.’
“Each Spirit claimed the credit, saying that the gift he or she had given dragons was the one that made us supreme. There were endless disputes and arguments.
“ ‘Since you have fallen back to squabbling, and none can prove his case, I shall withhold the reward,’ the Sun said, showing her disgust.
“Each Great Spirit retreated to his place in the Upper and Lower Worlds, and thought black thoughts. Being of similar greedy mind, each had the same idea: ‘If I can prove I am the greatest, I will get the reward. But how to prove I am the master of the others? I know: I shall create something that can kill even dragons!’
“Earth, deep in the ground, made the delving dwarves. He gave them the ability to fashion arms and armor that could pierce dragon-scale, and the fearless solidity of mountains.
“Water, in her slow wisdom, made the elves that live amongst the green growing things she nourishes. They age like trees and move like windblown leaves. They are patient hunters, keen eyed and eared.
“Air, far above, made men. Man the wanderer, man the hunter, man the flexible. Man does not stand like a mountain in the face of difficulty, or wait like trees for the season to change, but figures a way over, under, or around it.
“Fire was lazy and capricious; Fire did no work. Instead he took aside a few of the others and turned them to his own purposes, and taught them magic. These mages would kill or control all the dragons, then kill or control all the other races in time, and one day put Fire in the sky to replace even the Sun. Even worse, Fire taught these mages some of the secrets of Making, so he would have someone else to do his bidding.
“But like the Spirits that created them, these people fell to squabbling. The Spirits’ peoples spent their time in feuds. Men fought men when there were no elves to slay. Sadly, each race did manage to kill its share of dragons, for we were too arrogant in those early ages, before we learned to fear.
“Without the dragons ordering things, the blighters also came back and made trouble for the other races. Since then, the world’s history has been little more than a litany of wars among the Spirits’ creations.
“So now we dragons must hide, or assassins will come to slay our families. The dragons who knew better times are almost gone. The dwarves find our caves, the elves trap us by wood and water, and always more and more men come with their flocks, their forts, their roads, and their cities.
“I know more of fighting than I do of wisdom, little gray. But I will offer you this: Learn something of the ways of all the races, but especially learn of men. Your grandsire, my father, destroyed an army of them, but a new army came filled with survivors of the old. When he came to smash and burn their war machines, they surrounded him, and that was the end of a very mighty red. They adapted—a word I learned from your mother—to him and his manner of fighting. If we dragons are to last, we must adapt to this new age, or the work of the Four Great Spirits in creating us will come to naught. Dragon kind will continue to dwindle, until one day there are no more eggs.”
Father stared off in the direction of the egg shelf, his nostrils taking in great drafts of cavern air, as though searching its approaches for the sight or smell of enemies.
“What’s dwindle, father?” Auron asked.
“Nothing for you to worry about today.”
They finished the remains of the man. Auron smelled his blood on the man’s knife again, and made to kick it down the hoard-shaft, but Father made him carry the weapon back to the shelf to share his lesson with his sisters.
Chapter 4
Change came with new air. The season above had finally cavern.turned, and faint traces of spring life filtered down to the cavern.
