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“You know . . . me gray . . . we once . . . did trust . . . one another,” she said, lowering her hood to reveal a scarred face and hair like hoarfrost in the sunshine. It was Hazeleye, her hair bristling with pine needles. “It is him,” she continued, gaining her breath back. “It’s tiny now, but he still has his egg horn. I’ve never known a dragon to keep it, save this beast.”
Naf approached, and grabbed him by the loose skin at his jaw joint. The man stared down AuRon’s snout. He saw brushstrokes of gray at his temples. “Old beast. Somehow I knew we weren’t through yet.”
“Old? Not a phrase I’d choose for myself. I am yet young, not even three score years of age; I’ve still a hundred winters before I’m counted in my prime.”
“There is still one here you do not know,” Naf said. “This is Hischhein, counselor to the queen, of the ruling house of Ghioz.”
“Welcome to our land, young dragon,” Hischhein said. For a courtier, he spoke the tongue of the Dairuss with a thick accent. “This is a long-hoped-for day.”
The elf looked at the whitecapped mountains. “And a cool one, even in summer. I wouldn’t care to pass a winter at this post.”
“Shall we talk inside?” Hieba asked.
“No,” Hazeleye said. “What I’ve come to tell is best done under clean sunlight.”
The Silver Guard brought out chairs of wood and fur, and the visitors sat.
“We have dark news, too,” Hieba said. “There is war coming from the east, out of the Bissonian Heights and beyond. The blighters are building boats for a descent of the Falnges.”
“They will come in the tens of thousands,” AuRon said. “Not just from the river, but in chariots as of old.”
“The queen’s diplomacy has not bought us the time we had hoped, then,” Hischhein said, rubbing his brows together in thought. “They may mean to catch us unawares.”
“If you’ve brought me here to fight—,” AuRon said.
“All in good time, AuRon,” Naf said. “We know there is only so much one dragon can do. We have a great favor to ask, more dangerous than battle, but more hopeful, as well.”
“Let him hear all in its proper order,” Hazeleye said. “He has little reason to love elf, dwarf, or man, if I know much of the lives of dragons these days.”
“The dwarves were good enough to him, from what I saw,” Naf said.
“You weren’t at the raid on his nest cave,” Hazeleye said. “I was. AuRon, war has come out of the north; its source is the very island and the very man you were destined for when we were on the ship. It is not a war of territory, of conquest, of loot, of pride, of women, of any of the reasons that take sword from sheath and fill the sky with arrows. It is a war of death. Barbarians come from the misty north only to kill and supplant. There are no slaves taken, no prisoners exchanged, no children spared unless they are human. It is a race war, pitting man against elf and dwarf. Blighters fight as allies of the men, for now at least, but I’ve read tomes of the Wizard of the Isle of Ice. He means to clean the earth of them, as well.”
“This is the Wyrmmaster?” AuRon asked. “The wizard within the circle of man?”
“Where did you hear this?” Hazeleye asked.
“From blighters preparing for war.”
“He doesn’t seek power for himself, but for his kind. Even men who oppose him are counted his enemy and murdered. He wishes to usher in an age of men, to fulfill what he calls Man’s First Destiny. I’ve heard weary hours of it, and have no wish to belabor you.”
“Hominids killing each other off, even in race war, is nothing new. I know your history.”
Hischhein shook his head. “This is not a kingdom or two. This is war on a scale never before seen. From the rolling ocean to the west to the myriad isles of the east, he means to clear the land for the sons and daughters of men. Elves, dwarves, blighters, and yes, I believe even dragons are to be swept away.”
“I thought he used dragons.”
“He does,” Hazeleye said. “As slaves. As warhorses. The dragons he has have no more free will than . . . than . . .”
Than an exploding pig? AuRon thought to himself.
“. . . than a hawk trained to bring down a duck.” Hazeleye finished, then added in Elvish. “And I’m the cause of it all.”
AuRon met her gaze, trying to read further in her eye.
“What’s that?” Hischhein asked.
“A curse,” Hazeleye said.
