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She fluttered a griff at NeStirrath. “You mean what kind of food is to be had?”
“No. Our allies in the Uphold. What are they like? How do we keep the peace with them? What’s the nature of this problem SiDrakkon needs to solve? But if there’s some delicacy to be had…well, I’d hate to miss a new feast.”
“He is a promising young thing,” she said to NeStirrath. “Interested in the essentials. Very well. I’ll give you the essential for Bant: water. Bant’s either dry or rainy, depending on the time of year; the rainy season starts right around the summer solstice, usually a little before. It’s made up of rocky, rather dry plains that go lush during the rains and tinder-dry the rest of the year. There are three rivers, all flowing west to the Ocean of the Summer Sun, and it’s control of the rivers that’s everything, for there are rich forests full of trade goods and spices along the rivers. Very good land for herding on the plains, as long as the herds can get to water holes or the rivers in the dry season.
“The elves lived there first, along the rivers, but tribes of blighters came and dispersed them, though they didn’t quite get rid of them. A few still live on in the deeper woods or around the better-watered rock piles. A dwarf or two pass through, usually engaged in trade or craft with the ivory and hardwoods. Some tribes of men as well, distant relations to the Ironriders of the north, I believe, as fierce as the blighters when fighting on horseback.”
“So it’s hard to keep the peace between the groups?” the Copper asked.
“Well, yes, they’ll go to the dragon to settle disputes, when neither side thinks it can gain an advantage. But this case is difficult. The Ghi-men, the stone shapers, are pushing south and taking over the rivers, from what I understand of the messages the Tyr has shared with me. They’re well organized—their armies will put up a fight against even dragons in the field—but their real skill is in digging and roofing and wall building. When they’re behind their battlements they’re as tough as a scale digger.”
NeStirrath’s wing stubs dipped. “If SiDrakkon thinks he’ll throw his main strength against one of their fortress towns, we’ll be singing laments from Imperial Resort again.”
“You do travel light,” SiDrakkon said three days later, as they assembled at the northeast riverbank. “Only two thralls?”
“You said it was a six-day journey.”
“Barring delays.”
“I’ve gone hungry before.”
“That’s why I bring extra thralls. Once you’ve consumed the baggage, there’s no need for baggage carriers.”
Nivom had two sissa of Drakwatch and a sissa of Firemaidens. He wore a golden ring in his ear, a mark of a Drakwatch full commander, a rare honor for a wingless drake. Beside the Tyr’s brother-by-mate and and Nivom, the Copper also noted three battle-scarred dragons, two blacks and a red, with purplish tones shading their coloring.
“The worst of the Skotl clan,” Nivom said quietly. “Duelists.”
The Copper hadn’t seen a duel yet, though his bats had witnessed one while hunting. The Tyr discouraged the custom for the dragons in the Imperial Resort, and absolutely forbade it among the Imperial line. But on some of the other hills, dragons settled their differences in combat. For the wealthier dragons who didn’t want to risk losing an eye or something even more vital, challenges could be settled by means of a duel-by-proxy.
“What do you have against duelists?” the Copper asked.
“A rich dragon can hire professionals, and then start a squabble with a poor one to take what little he has.” His griff rattled, though he kept them sheathed.
The three-score drakes and drakka under Nivom snorted and whispered: “They’ve finally let Batty out; Spirits help us.”
SiDrakkon walked back up the line of dragons, flocks, baggage, and thralls at the northeast tunnel mouth. They’d go down for a short distance, to the water ring, then start the underground journey to Bant. He paused again by the Copper and took a long sniff at Rhea.
“She’s just maturing. Ahh, but that’s a smell,” SiDrakkon said.
The Copper found her aroma pleasing, rather soft and mammalian, but not nearly as interesting as forge-fresh steel or a fat joint sputtering in an iron pan. But there was no point in being disagreeable.
“Yes,” he said. “The blighter could use a daily wash, as she does.”
SiDrakkon glanced back at the distant wart of Black Rock. “I’d have a garden of such women, rather than the Tyr’s wretched ferns and darkblooms, if I had my way. But duty calls. Which reminds me—Nivom, where’s that old courier ring of yours?”
Nivom nosed around in his baggage, and approached with a bronzed token on a chain.
SiDrakkon took it in his sii and held it up. “Your first laudi.” It was a pair of equal-sized bronzed bones, joined and wired at the center so crossed as a dragon might cross his sii before settling down to sleep.
“The crossed man-bones of the Tyr. This shows you to be a courier of the Imperial Resort.” He opened the length of chain, and the Copper bowed so he might slip it down his neck.
The links rattled down his scale and finally stopped.
“Of course. It doesn’t fit. You’re wide across the neck base, drake. We’ll have to find some smithy and get it adjusted.” SiDrakkon smelled hot and angry, like Father.
“My…my line was thwick-bodied,” the Copper said.
“Watch that lisp. What’s wrong with you? You sound like a hatchling. Nivom there speaks better, and half his lip is torn off.”
