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It happened during one of Father’s longer visits to the cavern. Every now and then he spent a period between hunting trips inspecting every nook and cranny with eyes, ears, and nose. Coming to a crack that the outcast knew contained nothing but dark, Father nevertheless stuck his nose deep inside and drew a long breath. He snorted out dirt and mucus.
“What do, Fazer?” the Copper said, greatly daring. The dragon-smell made his hearts pound against his skin.
The huge, six-horned head lifted and turned. “Ah. It’s you.”
Which wasn’t much of an answer.
“What name I? I name how?”
“You’re not of the nest, cripple. You don’t need to be named. I’m not even sure you can be called a dragon in the lifesong.”
That just made him miserable, and he lowered his head.
“That’s no way to look, hatchling. You’re unique, as far as my family memory goes. None of my line of sires ever saw a second male survive. You’re not of the clutch, yet you’re of our kind, and the cave’s so big Auron can drive you away, but not out, so to speak. Neither scale nor claw, son nor stranger.”
The Copper formed his next words carefully, and they came out better. “You my father. That prove me your son!”
“You may be lame in body, but your wit’s quick enough. That’s your mother speaking with your tongue. If you’ve got her brains, I expect you’ll survive at least until you leave the cave.”
“To light?” The Copper knew that tidbit from egg-dreams.
“Yes. The Upper World is a dangerous place, and your wings are still a full clawset of winters off. Look at your scales! Poor little blighter. You need a bellyful of coin. Follow me.”
The Copper almost danced in Father’s wake, the dragon’s dangerous smell no longer terrifying but thrilling. Father approached a small ledge, descended, and approached a heavy stone resting in a small sink. A dead trickle of water was thick with dried dark moss.
Father grasped the stone with his front sii and wrestled it out of the rock.
“I’ve been meaning to give the girls some play-pretties. But you need something more substantial. Can’t do more; there’s little enough as it is.”
He stuck his head down the hole, and the Copper smelled something he’d never experienced before: an aroma hard and rich and metallic. He felt his scales bristle and his griff descend and flutter against his jaw and neck, giving a faint rattle.
Father’s head came back up. His eyes burned.
“Indeed, little enough! Why should I part with any to a wretched nothing? Cripple! Outcast!”
The Copper backed up, half-terrified and half-furious. The gold smell made him want to leap and claw.
Father tilted his head back and forth as though gauging distance; then he suddenly relaxed. “Serves me right for depriving myself.” He swallowed something that clinked. Then his bristling scale relaxed and he gave a brief, satisfied prrum. He reached down again and spit out a few gold and silver coins, thick with slime.
“That’s to get you started. All there’ll be, I’m afraid, unless I get lucky.”
The Copper sniffed a silver disk. He needed its light, its brightness. His mouth went thick and wet all over. He gobbled it down, and then the others, quickly, as though they were a nest of rats about to escape.
Father’s feet stamped restlessly.
“I suppose no harm’s done. Auron won’t need it, after all.” Father exhaled in a whoosh that flattened the Copper’s scale. “Maybe we’ll have better luck with males in another clutch.”
The Copper smelled more gold down the hole. He hurried toward it, following the smell, which seemed to have seized hold of his brain.
The boulder came down, and he ran nose-first into it.
“A dragon must win his own hoard, outcast,” Father said, moving off toward the egg shelf.
Chapter 3
The Gray Rat and he made a sort of peace. The Gray kept to his hunting perches, keeping an eye out for slugs, and as long as the Copper avoided the usual spots they’d go long stretches without seeing each other. Wistala, the chatterer, seemed always to be talking to her mother or brother or sister, and was the most successful hunter.
Of course, they were usually hunting the best spots, so the Copper had to make do with trying to catch the white, long-whiskered cave rats in the offal pile while the others slept. They were smart, quick, and vicious, and to get on he had to be smarter, quicker, and even more vicious. He tried piling bones and loose rocks in such a way that they loomed over a juicy bit of dragon-waste, then toppling them when he heard noises in the pile, but he found that the rats would worm through the bones and hooves easier than if he tried to catch them on the hop.
