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As she talked, chose phrases, and answered the occasional question, Wistala’s thoughts kept returning to the dilemma of dragons. On the one sii, there was the sort of grasping survival of dragons like that smelly wretch in the far north—scattering, hermitage, or worst, assassination—and on the other a useful servitude, a survival that depended on being of use to others, like the man-carrying dragons more and more sailors of the northern part of the Inland Ocean reported.
Could dragons cooperate, form an order like the old city-states of Hypat? Certainly an extended family could, as the odd dragons of the Sadda-Vale proved. And if they did, suppose a Masmodon or a Fangbreaker or worse arose at the council table? Selfishness and greed were not the least of dragon faults.
Oddly enough, she wished she could talk the matter over with that dragon DharSii. He had unpleasant manners, to be sure, and was the most arrogant creature who ever cracked an egg, but she could trust him to give an intelligent opinion. And perhaps even more important, an honest one. For in obtaining his opinion, she’d have to sum up her life and actions—she wondered if she’d done right or wrong, though why she should care what he would think of her past she did not know.
The Wheel of Fire would butcher no more hatchlings in their home cave, and Hammar’s half-Hypatian, half-barbarian plot to gain power in war and conquest had vanished in the catafoua mouth, and the Dragonblade had hung up his spear, even if he wasn’t exactly raising chickens. She’d kept her promises—
Save the last one to Father.
But felt little satisfaction in were-blood. Avenging her own was a grim duty, like breaking a bullock’s back in a dive so that you could eat, and just as necessary to survival. Ignoring those who kill others in the hope they won’t get around to you only means that when they appear to take your head and scales, they would apply all they learned in other victories, making your chances against them so much the worse.>“As was my home cave until the dwarves across the lake came. Let us put an end to this feud. At least the one that exists between your family and mine.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll know when you have children of your own. Where can I find your father?”
She hesitated. “He rode with his armsmen and dogs, answering the call of the mountain king to hunt you down. He took the north trail.”
Wistala sighed. “I’ll make it easier for him to find me.”
“You shouldn’t. He will kill you.”
“Perhaps,” Wistala said. “Will you consider what I said?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Now I go to convince your father.”
With some pain she rose into the air and winged across the lake. She found a trail, an old sort of road winding along the lakeside and over little chasms on bridges and between thin, wind-bent trees. The road was nothing compared to Rainfall’s, it was little more than a paved goat trail. It looked old enough for blighters to have built it. Old as war.
But also old as bridges. She alighted on one, and looked to where her eye caught a glint of metal. She retreated to the far side of the ancient bridge and waited.
The file of riders soon came over the rise and down the path toward the bridge, which leaped across a chasm to waters that lapped where her tail would reach if she let it dangle. Instead she wrapped it about the bridge; the masonry looked loose enough to be pulled apart if she exerted herself.
The men spotted her and let out halloos. They dismounted and clapped visors across helms, notched arrows into bows, and the Dragonblade came forward with spear and sword.
With a shout, one of his handlers released the dogs, who poured across the bridge in a bristle-backed river.
Wistala flapped her wings, hard, held fast by her tail. The force of the windstorm sent the dogs plummeting off the bridge into the waters below—some with a knock or two, but they swam to rocks and climbed upon them to bark up at their now impossible-to-reach prey.
The Dragonblade stepped forward, looked down at the vociferous, dripping pack, pulled back his visor and laughed loud and long. He had to lean on his spear shaft.
“Dragonelle,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You are hard on my dog packs.”
So he did know the name for a female dragon!
“Your daughter told me I could find you on this road,” Wistala said.
The Dragonblade’s face went white, and he raised his spear for a throw. His son behind came forward with a bow ready. “If you’ve—”
“I haven’t touched so much as a winter cabbage,” Wistala said. “I was all politeness to your girl.”
“I will still kill you,” the Dragonblade said.
“Let me speak first,” Wistala insisted. “Our kind have shed rivers of blood, matched against each other. I would have the flow stopped. Shall it always be thus, one family slaughtering another, until the ending of the world?”
“Or the ending of dragons,” the Dragonblade said. “Calls for peace are always made by those at a disadvantage.”
Wistala hugged the road, covering her belly with stone, readied to parry blade or spear with wing-points. “Come then,” she said. “Let’s start the madness afresh.”
