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AuRon didn’t understand even a fraction of what the Dairussians said. It seemed they were calling Naf “Lord Dragonheart.”
“Dragons have more than one heart,” AuRon corrected.
Naf and his men were enjoying a dinner of stick-toasted horseflesh. For AuRon, the grateful Dairuss bagged livers and hearts and kidneys into horse intestines, wrapped them in skins, and blackened them all over the fire.
AuRon thought it one of the most delicious meals he’d ever eaten, despite the smell of burning horsehair (which probably somewhat covered the odor of a well-fed dragon’s sulfurous burps and emissions as his firebladder refilled).
He thought it best if he at least saw Naf safely to his new camp. This one was in some ancient ruin, nothing more than rings of stones set on a hillside in the forest and a few cairns running the ridgeline above like the bones on a blighter’s back, but there were clay-lined grain pits that could be cleaned out and wells that would produce water once cleared of the deadfalls and wildlife.
Naf said he suspected it was an old elf settlement. There were yew trees aplenty, which elves always planted for the construction of their bows. A few limbs would be cut to replace worn wood or supply new weapons for recruits coming over the mountains.
Only these would stripped, bathed, and checked for crystals . . .
Already Naf was hearing back from his scouts and spies on the Ghioz borders.
“We’ve angered our good foes, AuRon. As the Ghioz see things, scattering horses and burning pack-trains is a violation of an honorable warrior’s code.”
“What does their code say about throwing wounded into a mountain river?”
“Oh, it’s that whole victors and failures ‘ethics of the strong’ that their priests spout. To the victors the spoils, to the failures a new station serving the victors, so they might learn and do better next time.”
AuRon was about to comment on men being born mad—was not the first sound every human made a wailing scream?—and dying even more madly, but was that terribly different from the fights hatchlings engaged in, with bits of wet egg still clinging about their snouts?
“My spies report that our obstinacy at the riverbank has incensed the Red Queen. She’s claiming that the Hypatians have assisted us in battle—for how else could a scarecrow band like mine triumph over Ghioz arms?—and a state of war now exists between Hypatia and Ghioz.”
“No wonder old NooMoahk was always glum when I spoke of the wider world,” AuRon said. “I wonder how many wars he saw in his long years.”
“It’s not a man’s thought but a man’s deeds that count, AuRon. Same rule for dragons, I expect.”
AuRon belched and felt his firebladder settle.
“A terrible reckoning is at hand,” Naf said. “I wonder if I shall be blamed by both sides. Could be, no matter which empire wins, myself and the Dairussians will end up vassals. Again.”
Hominids. If there were but six left in all the Red Mountains, they’d soon shave it down to three by fighting, and two would make the third their slave.
“Come with me,” AuRon said. “Come to my island. You could live out your life in peace.”
“The peace of an exile? I can’t. It’s hard to explain, but if my people believe me still alive, still fighting, it’s as though some part of them hasn’t been beaten. More so, I have to keep near, be a threat, or I fear it will be the end of Hieba, or my daughter.”
AuRon felt a pang at Hieba’s name. The little girl he’d hunted for and watched grow up, snared in all this, thanks to no crime but her love of this man. “How can you be so sure they still live? Have you had word?”
Naf picked a sizable hunk of meat from the gap in his teeth, worked it thoughtfully with his toadlike tongue. AuRon could never make up his mind which hominid line had the ugliest arrangement of features. “No. It’s just—a feeling. And the Queen—she’s too keen a calculator of chances. If matters were to go ill with her, she’d like to have them as goods to be negotiated in a final bargain.”
AuRon tailvented enough air-volume to make the stars shimmer in their courses, interrupting his friend. “Horsemeat always does that in me,” he said, by way of apology for the interruption.
“Can I suggest that you stay with me? I could use a pair of eyes in the clouds. Better still, bring your family here, and aid me in my cause. I could promise you and yours food and safe landings as long as the Dairussians call themselves men of honor. With the help of some dragons, I might be able to get my lands back. Then Ghioz would have a true enemy hard on her border. I might bring down the Queen herself.”
“I’m not sure she can be killed,” AuRon said. “She brags of immortality.”
“It’s the same hickory-dickory her priests spout. I think she uses doubles. If one is killed, another takes her place, and the Queen shows herself only to her most trusted courtiers in the safest of circumstances. She must keep four or five copies of herself, women of her height and shape who imitate her voice. You met her, saw the masks?”
“Yes.”
“Once I thought only that she was hideous. Men are too easily swayed by appearances of women—one way or the other. I don’t know how it is with dragons.”
“We appreciate beauty in our mates, but the wise dragon chooses for other reasons.”
“Well, now I think it aids her use of doubles.”
