AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The brightness in the creature’s black eyes disturbed him a little.
“You’re right, I am a dragon,” the Copper said. “I do seem to be bleeding.” His back wound had opened up again, and it hurt abominably.
“M’told you!” the hanging one said to his companion.
“Once!” the other said to no one in particular. “Once in a three-season turn e’be right, and now m’hearing it until m’let loose for the drop.” But she licked her lips, and the Copper saw sharp white teeth.
“If y’will just shift closer to the wall, sir, we work best right-side down. Unless y’want us clinging to your scale, but m’knowing not the extent of your injuries….”
The Copper rolled and the bat shifted. It started licking at the wound on his back, and he felt a slight tingle that transformed into a pleasant numbness. He looked back, and the bat had worked his odd, jutting jaw into the wound and was tearing away ragged bits of flesh and lapping up blood with a blurring tongue that flicked in and out faster than he’d ever seen anything move in his life.
The bat lifted a blood-smeared snout. “See to sir’s face, dear, with that soft touch of yours.”
The other came forward a good deal more cautiously, eyeing the Copper warily. Finally she hung over him, but kept all her four limbs attached to the cavern ceiling, ready for a quick getaway. She dropped down and went to work in the region around his right eye. He noticed some blurring there, as though the eye regarded the world through a half-closed lid.
“Bit of a mess, here, sir. Just a’going to numb it down a bit.” She began to lick about the eye, and he felt that same tingling followed by numbness.
“Y’carrying a set of tunnel nits, tight up against that scale. A’lurking in the moss a’waiting on a tasty bit of juicy skin, like always. May I?”
“Of course.”
The Copper felt a tug and heard a crunch. Followed by another and another.
“Finished here,” the female said. She touched him with a wing. “Excuses, sir. Y’permit some body work?”
“Certainly,” the Copper said, enjoying the warmth beneath the numbness.
He felt the female climb onto his back, gripping at his scale, lifting and digging out insects with more tugs and crunches, moving slowly front to back. “That’s kindness! That’s generosity. So rare these days. E’be a gentle sort, e’be.”
“Y’hearing m’disagree? M’found him, you thick cow!”
“Faaaa! Luck’s the only thing y’got in this life, you great squirt.”
The Copper fell into a pleasant half sleep, and heard little gassy emissions from the pair. “That’s what m’call a feed. Indeed,” the male—Thernadad, the Copper corrected himself—said.
“Y’wanting to get away from the river, sir,” Mamedi added. “A trunk full of dwarves could pass at any time. Might a’spot your skin and throw out a hook.”
The Copper dragged himself around the corner of the cave, ready for sleep.
“Watch out for snakes. Cave snakes in here,” Thernadad said.
“E’be too big for all but King Gan himself,” Mamedi said.
“Don’t y’worry, sir. We’ll be right above.” Thernadad said more, but the Copper didn’t hear it.
He had vague dreams of the bats clinging to him, swelling like great ticks, but woke to find his wounds crusted over with healthy-smelling scab, though they itched a little. His right eye bothered him more than anything; he could see through it as if through a mist, but everything went a little fuzzy and indistinct when he closed his left eye and looked only through the right.>“They killed her, Jiz…” he tried to get out, but the words came only with difficulty.
The green hatchling rounded on him, burning anger in her golden eyes. “I’m Wistala.”
Confusion…certainty. He missed the rest of her words, or perhaps shut his ears to the accusations he knew to be true. It was Wistala; she’d returned, and she knew exactly what had happened and who was responsible.
Auron wasn’t with her. He hadn’t made it. Perhaps the Copper could reason with her, confess and beg for a chance at redemption.
“They lied,” he said. He needed her to know the whys and wherefores. “A bloody cave, no hoard—”
She leaped at him, tripping in her fury. He fell on her, tried to keep her from biting him. If she’d only listen for a moment, he’d make it up to her somehow. “We need to overcome this, put it behind. Unite. The past can’t be changed, but we can make sure—”
She wasn’t listening; she was struggling. She threw him off; healthy, well-fed muscle with a good deal of strength in her stout frame forced him backward, over—
