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“This one was filled with men. All withered, as though they’d been long dead. The demen like their smoked meat very dry,” a Firemaid told her.
“We drove the demen away from their underground rivers. Many of these improvements are recent, to try and feed themselves. What’s left must be mightily hungry by now.”
“I think they eat each other,” Takea said. “Drakka exploring fissures have found some dead demen. Always small and weak-looking, always with flesh and guts and brains removed.”
“A shame,” another Firemaid said. “Demen liver sewed up in their own skin and boiled with the brain is an old Wyrr favorite.”
The others smacked snouts and licked lips in agreement. Wistala didn’t care for the idea of dragons behaving like battlefield crows and tunnel rats. But after her enforced short rations, her mouth watered nevertheless, and she was forced to gather the saliva back in with her tongue just like the others.
While all but a watch slept, nose to flank or curled belly to back, Ayafeeia sought her out.
“Come. I want to see how that wing is progressing,” she said quietly.
Wistala followed her to a wider section of the Star Tunnel, where bits of dead leaf and other fallen dirt from above had accumulated, making a soft bed for cave moss and mushrooms.
Ayafeeia plucked up a pair of mushrooms and ate them. “Dwarf food, I know, but they clean the bowel. Let’s extend that wing, if you can.”
Wistala found that she could, at the cost of some pain. Ayafeeia had her raise the wing, lower it, sweep it about.
“You’ll fly again. Even if it doesn’t heal entirely, we can have a lighter brace made for you,” Ayafeeia said. “Our own Tyr uses a contraption that keeps the proper tension at the joint. But be sure you extend your wings now whenever you get the chance, several times a day. A little—a very little—strain on the wing will encourage it to heal more firmly.”
“I feared—”
“Well, don’t. I know it’s instinct, one-winged birds make easy prey, and you’re keeping it tucked tight, hiding the injury.”
“Thank you.”
“There’s more. I’ve wanted to have a talk with you.”
“Yes?”
“Now that you’ve regained some of your strength, I was wondering what you planned for the future.”
“To continue searching for my brother. I don’t know where he’s gone, but if I return to the librarians in Hypatia perhaps they will have some news. I’ve asked my friends there to collect any news of dragons they hear.”
“Ah,” she said.
“You are disappointed?”
“I’m an honest dragonelle, Wistala. It’s why I never rose far or won favor in the Imperial Line. Politics is not in me. I had hoped you’d use your skills and knowledge here, for the Lavadome and the Empire. For your kind. We’re the last hope of dragons. One as well traveled as you must know that.”
“Go on. I’ll try and hear your words fairly.”
“I’m no expert on the Upper World, Wistala, but it seems to me that dragons are just about done there. We’ve had several groups of back-to-surfacers leave, to live natural as dragons ought and all that rot, but we never hear from them or their hatchlings again.
“The one set of dragons we did meet were—well, the only word I can think of is thralls. They were thralls to men, dragon-riders who briefly arrived and made us part of their dominion. It’s a story with much wickedness and a bloody finish, if you’d like to hear it.”
“Maybe someday, when I’m a bit stronger of hearts, but I’ll take your word for it. Where is this discourse leading?”
“I believe our kind is vanishing from the world.”
Wistala couldn’t argue with that. She’d seen few enough dragons in her life. These Firemaids were more than all she’d ever met put together.
“Perhaps. Your opinion of the surface is true enough. There aren’t many dragons about.”
“Dragonkind needs you. Your aid would be invaluable, if the Lavadome is to survive.”
“What is the Lavadome to me?”
