AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sure enough, a “replacement” for Rhea arrived the next day, a craggy-faced female with a basket of her own scale-shaping tools. The Copper had no use for her, so he gave her as a parting gift to NeStirrath, who was kindly to his thralls. NeStirrath didn’t bother much about his appearance, and sometimes looked quite deranged about the ears and griff.
He also received a small flower from Tighlia’s own garden, with a message wishing him fortune in his assignment.
As this was no simple journey to the surface and back, the Copper had to decide what to do with the bats. He released them to go where they would, though any who wanted to come with him were welcome, but he warned them that they’d have to make themselves useful.
Thernadad was too old to fend for himself, too blind to find himself food, and too bloated to be of much use to anyone, so the Copper allowed him to drink himself into insensibility on drakeblood, then had Fourfang break his neck with a quick twist as he slept.
“What do with body?” Fourfang asked.
“I don’t care. Burn him and use his ashes for cleansing paste. Or make a stew out of him; he’s fatty enough.”
And so passed the strange, greedy bat who almost accidentally saved the Copper’s life.
Over the next few sleeps Rhea made frightened, whimpering noises. Not knowing what else to do, the Copper woke her each time, and she’d sleep soundly afterward.
As the day for departure grew closer, Nivom visited him twice. Nivom now spent much of his day accompanying the Tyr in his duties, both in the audience chamber and in brief visits to the other hills. At the end of the day they would sometimes eat, or be groomed together by thralls, and his adoptive father, as Nivom called him, would talk the day’s decisions over with him and explain why he overruled a dragon’s punishment of a thrall, or granted a petition, or refused a gift.
“The Lavadome obeys him because he’s loved. I wonder what would happen if a dragon who wasn’t so universally admired took his place atop the Rock.”
“Fighting, I expect,” the Copper said.
“It’s…it’s like a giant game of mirroring to them, with the object being ‘please the Tyr’ so they get what they want. These court dragons in the line, and the leaders of the six hills, they’re just carrion birds and jackals waiting for his death. All playing different games where no one’s quite sure of the rules, so everyone cheats as best as he can.”
“I’m glad of my place at the tail end of the Imperial line. You’ve got the end with the teeth.”
“If the head gets chopped off, the tail dies too.”
“Oh, now you’re being as gloomy as SiDrakkon. Why so downcast? I heard you were cheered as you crossed Wyrram Ridge the other day.”
“And had waste kicked up as I passed between the greater and lesser Skotl hills, let’s not forget.”
“Oh, probably just drakes. Forget it. It would take a mighty turd to slay a dragon.”
“I’d almost rather be back in a war in Bant,” Nivom said. “Well, I must be off. A good journey and success in Anaea. Honor and glory, Rugaard.”
“Honor and glory, Nivom.”
On the day he told NoSohoth he would depart, he met his guide: the Firemaiden Nilrasha. She awaited him at the western exit ramp from Black Rock. He had two long, narrow cave carts, each pulled by a plodding ox waiting for him, one filled with food and supplies for him and his thralls, and the other with grain for the oxen. The Copper bore nothing but his small hoard loaded into a hollowed log, all traded into gold so it would carry more easily, and an introductory message from Tyr to FeLissarath.
“This is a happy chance,” the Copper said.
“No chance to it at all. I bribed NoSohoth with every silver piece in the Tyr’s victory bequest.”
The Copper wondered at that. Why would she throw away the beginnings of a hoard? From what he had learned, Anaea was a quiet Uphold with little fighting chance at combat honors. “You know the Anaean Trail?”
“I served my time at its mouth.”
“Good enough for me. Let’s be off. I want to be at the river by dark.”
Several good trails led westward. The western quarters of the Lavadome were rougher, with growth only in patches of soil trapped between the rocks. Rather scraggly-looking goats roamed here under blighter herdsmen. Fourfang went forward with a switch to clear the way of both the animals and the lesser blighters.
They rested at the riverbank and waited their turn at a flatboat, and the Copper worked up the nerve to ask a question of Nilrasha:
“Why so eager to get to Anaea?”
“I get bored with duty in the dome. All anyone talks about are the banquets atop the Imperial Resort, and it’s like having a feast described when you’re starving. That or who’s on top of which hill, six little Tyrs under one big one. They say the trail to Anaea is the most magnificent of all the lower roads.”
“They say? I thought you knew the route.”
