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“I practice on a thudmog, except it’s got a hard shell, not like yours. Neck’s shorter, too.”
“A pony would be more realistic, I think. You want to be a dragonrider someday?”
“Yes. They’re the best. They’re the only ones who came back from the reckoning with the dwarves. I had two brothers, but they were just axmen. The dwarves killed them, my father says. He lost a hand. When I’m grown, I’ll take our wergild from the dwarves. I’ll see to it.”
“You’ll take their place? How can one boy fill two sets of shoes?”
“I’ll fight twice as hard.”
“Listen to a dragon, boy. Stay home and take a wife, and raise two sons to do the same. Could be some dwarf will come to this village looking for wergild for his brother some day, and if that happens, they’ll need all of you here.”
The next morning Urlan Ironmonger and the other men came, again bearing the message-tube.
“Give this to no one but the Wyrmmaster,” Ironmonger said. “Tell him we’ve all put our mark to Wickman’s words. We’ll be true to them.”
“You’ve put your mark to Wickman’s words, and will be true to them. I’ll tell him myself.”
AuRon spread his wings, and the men backed up. He launched himself into the air, and climbed away, already wondering about the contents of the tube. If his memory wasn’t playing him tricks, he’d come close to a man who had known he had traveled with dwarves. He was younger then, but Hross had definitely looked at his tail. What was in the message tube about his neck?
It was sealed, so he didn’t dare open it. Losing it was out of the question—the harness was well made, and he had been told to bring back the reply. Was he bearing his own death sentence back to the Wyrmmaster?
He only just remembered to call at the Juutfod tower, so preoccupied was he with what he might do to escape the situation. There was another message to bear back to the Isle of Ice, so he added the tube to his bandolier. As he headed out to sea from Juutfod, he paused, circling. It would be safest to just fly back south, tell Naf all he could, and help his friends prepare for the storm gathering as little flags in the mapcase. But that would leave Natasatch and who knows how many eggs in the hands of a murderous madman. He wavered, tilting his wings first south, then northwest. South, northwest . . . south, northwest . . . Naf, Natasatch.
He chose Natasatch.
He decided to deliver the messages immediately upon landing, and wait until the Wyrmmaster had read them to take action. Perhaps Hross assumed that in the intervening years AuRon had fallen in with the Wyrmmaster, and forgotten their old feud.
AuRon landed at the lodge, exhausted from worry and flight, on a final warm afternoon of autumn. A few of the men lounged about the place, enjoying the sunshine’s glow, and they came in to see what news he bore.
The Wyrmmaster took the bandolier with his disarming good humor. “A quick trip, my good friend. In a boat that journey would take weeks, with fair weather.”
“I didn’t want to miss my turn in the breeding cave,” AuRon said, to general guffaws. Even Eliam laughed with the rest.
The Wyrmmaster examined the tubes, and looked at the seals to see which was which. He read the one from Juutfod first.
“They’ve burned another fishing fleet at Rerok Isles,” the Wyrmmaster said. “There’ll be hunger in Hypat this winter, with no traffic in smoked fish up the Falnges.” He opened the second, and read it. He pursed his lips, and read it again.
“Will the men of Maganar stand with us?” Eliam asked. “Or does that ungrateful cur have more friends?”
The Wyrmmaster handed the message to the Dragonblade.
“You can go and rest now, AuRon,” he said.
AuRon shifted his weight and caught himself. “NooShoahk, you mean, Your Supremacy.”
“You mean your name isn’t AuRon? Never has been?”
“I’ve heard the name, yes, but never used it. Why should I? I’m proud of NooMoahk; he fought alongside humans just as I would. No, my name’s not AuRon.”
“There’s a man who says that you are a gray dragon named AuRon, and that you’re a friend of the dwarves.”
“What man? I talked to a woman at Juutfod, and the guard only at night.”
“In Maganar. He wrote a note, asking if I knew your history. Come to think of it, I don’t know much about your origins.”>“I wasn’t raised on the island. I’ve only just joined.”
She pried open a cask of pork with a crowbar. “Pork it is,” she said, lifting the cask with a grunt and setting it on his platform. She threw a joint of mutton on top of it.
“Here are the messages,” AuRon said, passing her three of the cylinders.
