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With that he flapped into the air, the remaining duelist trailing behind.
“Rest a moment,” Nivom said to some of the Drakwatch who rose to begin the long journey south. “The Ghi men aren’t crossing the river just yet. Might as well eat the hanging meat; Spirits know when we’ll have full bellies again.”
He looked at the receding dots of the dragons flying south. The wounded duelist gave a groan.
“Two-score dragons,” Nivom said. “Three will come over footsore and give up before they’re out of the Lower World. Two will get into a duel, killing one and leaving the other too wounded to go on. Six will see all the game on the savanna here and decide to spend the season hunting instead of in warfare. One will see a village in the distance, immediately attack, and it will turn out that he just burned out some headman of the king’s and will have to be sent back in disgrace. Four will argue with SiDrakkon about the orders he gives, and return to the Lavadome rather than serve under one they consider inferior to themselves. Two more will quit the first time an arrow goes home; for having shed blood honorably, they will consider their bit in the war over. Of the half-score remaining one will always be too ill to fight, another too cowardly, and a third will fly into a rage and die atop the first tower he sees. Leaving SiDrakkon with three reliable dragons again.”
“You should have a mouthful yourself,” the Copper said. He’d never heard Nivom so discouraged. “Just as many lengths for you as the rest.”
“What I’d like is some wine. Have you ever had wine, Rugaard?”
“What about HeBellereth? And the wounded on the hillside?” the Copper asked.
“You think this is a training march? I won’t bleed victorious dragons looking after losers.”
“The blighters don’t feel that way.”
“Blighters!”
The Copper stared off across the river. Trails of smoke rose from the town.
“It’s that cursed wall that did it,” Nivom said. “See how the causeway runs along it? They could fire down on us, throw rocks. Rothor and NiHerrstrath tried climbing it, but they were picked off from the towers.”
Some of the Ghi men had ventured out beyond the broken gate and were crowded around the corpse of the dragon, cutting trophies of their victory.
The Copper suddenly noticed something about the wounded and the survivors. “What happened to the Firemaidens?”
“SiDrakkon grew desperate. After the first rush against the gate was thrown back, he sent the Firemaidens to lead the blighters. Some fell under the towers. I think that’s Agania there, being lifted by those rats.”
The Copper approached HeBellereth. The blighters had managed to get the horrible, hooked spear out, and the dragon lay on his side, panting. He rolled an anguished eye at the Copper.
Nivom shut his nostrils and walked over to the hanging meat.
“Can you walk, sir?” the Copper asked.
The dragon managed to right himself. He got his hindquarters up, but managed only a short, shaky rise on his sii before collapsing again. “No. I’m vanquished.”
“I’ve been vanquished too,” the Copper said.
“Yet…” the dragon said, “you wear laudi.”
The Copper inflated his lungs, looked down at the wounded drakes struggling up the slope. He couldn’t say who was talking or where the words were coming from, only that he was angry about the sacrifice of the Firemaidens, and the wretched humans across the river, pulling teeth and claws from the corpse of the dead dragon. “Not yet! Drakwatch of the Lavadome, you’re hurt but you’re not dead. Not yet!”
A drake pulled himself out from the rocks at the bank of the river.
“Up. Up, drakes,” the Copper said, rearing onto his hind legs, a strange clarity in his mind. “Climb. On three legs if you have to.” He waved his shriveled limb to emphasize his point.
One drake made it only a few paces before collapsing.
The Copper scrambled down the hill. The drake, a coppery color not much different from his own, was bled out, his gums and eye sockets almost white.
“Vanquished,” the drake said. “Cry vanquished for me. To what little glory I’ve earned I depart this—”
“Not yet! Climb on my back. I’ll get you up the hill. You’ll heal and get another chance at them.”
Six or seven blighter warriors were gathered nearby, resting and chewing on some kind of leaf. Some no longer had their spears or shields.
“Up the hill,” the Copper said.
