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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.”
“I would never have seen you if it wasn’t for those birds,” AuRon said.
“Tell me—I know nothing of those giant carrion hunters. Are they as intelligent as dragons? How do they keep finding us? Each time we shift camp, they find us again within six-day.”
“I do not know those birds, but they strike me as no smarter than ordinary birds. I’ve never talked with one.”
“What are you doing in these hills?”
“I was on my way south and became confused. I saw those riders and thought they could put me on the proper course.”
“Those riders are from our old friends in Ghioz.”
“The Queen. Yes, I’ve seen them over her capital.”
Naf lowered his eyes. “I don’t envy you the sights.”
“They call you Naf the Dome-burner.”
“I didn’t start out as one. Far from it. I was as loyal to the Queen as any Ghioz-born subject. No, all the disloyalty came from her, old friend.”
