AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Djer, the dragon AuRon is here. He would speak with you.”
“Why is he not . . . bandaged?” AuRon growled, having trouble finding his words. “By . . . by . . . by the Sun and Stars, I’ll have someone’s skin for this.”
The attendant shrank away in fear, but Altran held up a hand.
“Ach . . .’andages . . . no . . . hurts . . . worse . . . AuRon,” Djer wheezed. “Just cool air.”
“Djer, do you know me?”
“AuRon... AuRon. I ’ish I could see. Ears only ’ing working . . . ha’ you co’ wi t’ dragons?”
“Against them. I’ve come against them, my friend.”
At this the dwarves, even the attendants, lifted their chins and looked at AuRon.
“How did this happen?” AuRon finally said. He’d take Djer’s dwarsaw and wrap it around this Wyrmmaster’s neck. Then pull . . . slowly.
Djer tried to talk, but began to cough, in weak, pained gasps.
Altran spoke up. “He was at the front doors. The second attack. We hadn’t rigged the ballistas at the balconies yet. We had to lure the dragons in close, so we’d have a chance with the crossbows. Djer, myself, and six dwarves, may they rest undisturbed, sheltered under some rocks near the door. The dragons had to land to get at us. We got one. Another landed, and Djer tried to get everyone inside the doors. Muftor fell, and Djer went back for him. They both got caught in the open by another’s fire. Djer got Muftor in all right, but he was a corpse by the time the doors were shut. We claimed our vengeance. The dragon that burned Muftor and Djer, the crossbow dwarves got him, too, when he took off again.”
“AuRon,” Djer said, his coughing dying away.
“Yes?”
“I tuk ’lame inta lungs. It ’urts. E’ryt’ing ’urts.”
“Can they do anything for him?” AuRon said, turning on the dwarves.
“What medicine we have goes to those that will live,” Altran said.
“End it . . . AuRon... as my ’riend,” Djer said.
AuRon didn’t look around for agreement or assent. He stabbed down with his neck. His snout smashed into Djer’s head, crushing his skull as quickly as if Altran had brought a sledgehammer upon it. The wet crash echoed off the walls, and even the dying startled.
It was not hard to do. The burnt, suppurating thing at the mouth of the cave was not Djer, but a corpse still tormenting the remains of consciousness within for a few more days. Djer had died at the door of the Delvings as he had lived, risking himself to help a friend.
Something cold, like a block of swallowed ice, rested in AuRon’s stomach. It hurt.
He smelled a familiar scent from Djer’s body and marked a tobacco pouch at his waist. He bit it away from Djer’s belt.
The attendants wouldn’t come near the body until AuRon took his blood-and-brain-smeared snout out of their sight. AuRon turned away and sat up so he could wash himself. It felt good to breathe the clean air away from the dying.
Altran approached, wet eyes glistening in the moonlight, and cleared his throat. AuRon saw the dwarves dragging Djer’s body to the fire pit.
“Wait!” AuRon growled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“No time to bury the dead,” one of the attendants said.
“What do you do with your dead at other times?”
“As a Partner, Djer would rest in the Hallowhall,” Altran said. “Others have cairns in the mountainside. It’s too dangerous for many to be out piling stones.”
“Why should those who give their lives defending the Delvings be accorded less honor than those who die in their beds? Even blighters have more ceremony for their fallen than this.”
The dwarves looked at each other unhappily. AuRon thrashed his tail. “There’s not a dwarf here but deserves to be laid out in the Hallowhall. Does this cave connect to the Delvings?”
“Yes, by a narrow passage. No dragon your size would get through,” one of the attendants said.
