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“Not dragons our size. You should see this thing. If we climbed a tree to get away, it would just push it down.”
“It doesn’t know we’re little, though. Do we smell like little dragons or big dragons?”
“How should I know?”
“We’re going to find out, brother.” Auron heard a faint sound from the other side of the tree, like a spill of rain.
The bear’s head turned at the sound, wizened eyes looking directly at their tree.
“That’s done it—he knows where we are,” Auron thought. “What a time to panic.”
“I didn’t panic.”
Auron’s sharp eyes saw the bear’s nostrils twitch. It stood up on its hind legs and sniffed. It came to the ground, turned, and ran. Auron watched it head for thick timber in its odd, lolloping run.
Wistala craned her long neck around the tree and watched it go. “We smell like big dragons,” she said.
Auron rubbed his snout against his sister’s. “Do you think I’ll have my own song to sing?”
Wistala still searched the tree line for signs of the bear. “How’s that?”
“Will I ever be as great a dragon as Father?”
She blinked as she thought. “You’re smart and careful.”
“But will a dragonelle want me? My skin doesn’t shine, I’m thin—”
“Remember what Mother said. It’s a gift in a way—”
“Don’t remind me of Mother. And Mother’s not a dragonelle. Who would mate with me? You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” she cocked her head, startling a red-winged bird into flight from the branch above.
“You’re normal.”
“Drakka don’t have it any easier. Harder, in some ways. Mother told us there are only a few males left. They die in wars, in the nest, or in challenges over territory. Stupid fights.”
Auron didn’t remember Mother saying any such thing, but she had spent more time with his sisters. “So even a gray—?”
His sister leaned against him, and he felt the pleasant prickle of her scales. “Many dragonelles go mateless their whole lives. Don’t be foolish about your fights, you know—”
“Your wrath shouldn’t win,” Auron supplied.
“Exactly. And you’re quick. You swing your neck and your tail so fast sometimes. It’s quite impressive. Even to a sister who knows all your faults. You’ll have a mate and a clutch to be proud of one day, I’m sure, and raise a sii of clutch champions like yourself.”
Auron felt his skin go warm at the praise.
“Oh, quit prruming,” Wistala said. “First we’ve got to live until our wings emerge. That’s years off, and we still have to find Father.”
A mountain is the least pleasant place to be in a thunderstorm. They had just reached the ridge as twilight began. From its heights, they saw storm clouds sweeping up from the horizon in a rolling line, like ranks of an advancing army from one of Father’s mind-pictures.
Auron didn’t know much about weather, but the air had an ominous tang to it, and there was a rumbling in the distance, as if mountains were falling apart far away. Something about the air and the sound made him want to get underground. But he had his look at the landscape. Details to the west were hazy, but far to the south, Auron could see a white-watered river, and more mountains, blue lumps on the far side of the river.
“I think we should get off this ridge,” he said. Another wooded valley stood below them.
Wistala agreed, but they did not make it back into the trees before a battle between Air and Water broke out above their heads. Air pushed up from the west, moaning and shrieking out her anger, and Water tried to stop her by hurling sheets of rain. They pitted Lighting and Thunder against each other, lighting the valley with flashes.
The two hatchlings couldn’t get under anything, but they did wedge themselves between a pair of boulders to keep out of the worst of the wind. They pulled down their water-lids over their eyes, which blurred their vision.
