AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He turned and flew hard to catch up to them. Low clouds dotted the sky and the riders wove in and out of them.
AuRon flew closer and saw that the birds held bodies in their claws—they looked like cow carcasses, but something was wrong with the shapes, both stunted and bloated.
They flew with purpose. The map, erroneous as it was, indicated that he was flying somewhere over the slopes of the Hypatian side of the Red Mountains.
He slowed, wondering if he should interfere. They might even attack him.
They altered course, dipping and rising, changing directions but keeping northward along what was some of the most difficult-looking ground AuRon had ever seen—steep slopes, tight canyons, woods thick as wolf’s fur.
The lead flier dipped. They turned a slow circle. They must see him now! But they gave no sign of it. One more circle and they dove.
They folded their wings, falling, in succession, releasing the carcasses exactly where the leader had. The burdens spun as they fell. Again AuRon could think only of small cattle or sheepskins, tied off and filled to bulging with water.
He saw them burst when they hit, splattering flame in all directions. Flame that burned momentarily with a fierce greenish light before fading to a more usual orange and yellow as it caught or died, depending on the character of the surface it landed upon.
AuRon could not tell that this pocket of forest was much different than any other patch. The trees were perhaps a little thinner.
The fliers rose back into the clouds, and smoke pulsed from the forest.
Auron landed on one of the pillar-like needles, among bracken clawing for a hold in the wind, wanting a look at what might be worth such an effort of wing and oil.
He slipped across a sheer cliff-face, creeping, creeping, skin a perfect match for the pinkish granite, careful not to dislodge too many pebbles. He looked down into the canyon.
There were men down there, running with lines of horses, taking them away from the fire. He saw some women dragging or carrying children, and men rolling barrels or dragging sacks four at a time.
He looked carefully and saw shelters made of pulled-down fir limbs, with more branches laced within, forming crude shelters. Firepits, log bridges making paths through the woods, rope strung here and there with clothing and fabric drying on it—there were men settled in these woods.
Even at this distance, something looked familiar about one of the men, walking to and fro, gesturing.
“Naf,” AuRon bellowed, but the wind took his words.
“NAF!”
They heard some of the noise he made.
Bowmen raised their weapons—no arrow could travel to his perch, but Naf had them lower their bows. Naf began to wave his arm, gesturing for AuRon to come down.
He had to do some intricate flying in the narrows between the sheer sides of the needle-rocks in two careful dives back and forth.
He landed in what he guessed to be an armed camp.
There was an awful sulfur-and-oil smell in the air, the residue of the fire-skins dropped by the roc-riders.
The fires, with dirt being heaped on them right and left, were being put out. AuRon smelled burned flesh and traced the odor to heaps of branches covering what must be bodies.
There he was, old Naf, smiling in that gap-toothed way of his, everything in his scarred face vaguely askew, as though it had been dropped and put back together again. His hair and close-trimmed beard were well flecked with gray, a gray that sometimes verged on white. Quite a change in the brief span of years since they’d last met.
His men looked half-animal, as men tended to look when long outdoors—shaggy, dirty and wolf-lean. Their tattered clothes were bound up with bits of leather cord, layers of rags thick about their legs and torsos. But all had well-kept weapons, sharp and bright with oil.
Naf embraced him, managing to put both arms around his neck. A few of the men pointed at his skin or claws and muttered.
“AuRon! I do believe you’ve grown. But what on earth happened to your tail? It’s quite a runt.”
“A long story, Naf.”
“My men are suspicious. They’ve had nothing good from dragons of late.” He turned and picked one out. “Ho! Dominof, remember AuRon, who visited the Silver Guard in the pass? He has returned.”
“Aye. Right on the heels of those blasted birds. Strange timing.”
