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“We’ll get that shaft out and close you up. You’ll sit the rest of this fight out.”
Takea tapped her tail. Wistala heard her hearts fluttering. “Sister, do not lie to me. I can feel my hearts slowing. We loosed HaVok himself on them, didn’t we?”
“For a while,” Wistala said. She’d failed. She’d failed her sisters in the Firemaids, all for a stupid hatchling’s fancy-dream.
“I would have opened my wings next year. I wonder if some male would have wanted me, with the glory of a fight like this to my name.”
“I expect so,” Wistala said.
She removed something from deep in the pocket of flesh behind her ear. It was the rabbit’s foot. “Tell Zathan—I must break my promise to him. Return . . .” She began to pant.
Wistala, half choking and blinking tears, looped the little ring on her wing-spur.
Takea’s voice grew quiet and clear. “Pity the humans never showed up. It’s a good idea you have, though, Wistala. I mean, why couldn’t we share white cities in the sun. Dragons would even make fine thanes, I expect. We could see brigand camps from miles off and keep the roads safe. Dragons could even—”
Her head lolled and her body seemed to shrink, save for the swelling wing-cases.
The Drakwatch pried Paskinix, with some difficulty, out of his hole. He, of course, had a hidden exit, but the bats had discovered it and an expert blighter thrall-netter waited where the bolt-hole joined river-tunnel.
Paskinix showed admirable dignity as they brought him before the Copper in the empty assembly hall. He was so gaunt the Copper wondered if a soft tail-tap would pass right through him. The horny plates of his self-grown armor looked oversized, some old trophy of a ancestral deman worn in tribute, perhaps.
The Copper ordered food to be brought. Paskinix, sensibly, did not even make a pretense of refusing. Instead, he opened that strange swinging deman jaw and began to stuff himself.
“Not too much, or you’ll make yourself sick,” the Copper said, by way of starting.
“My last meal, I suppose, now that you’ve holed me at last,” Paskinix said. “May as well enjoy it.”
“I am ready to make peace if you are,” the Copper said.
“Peace? With what? My people are destroyed.”
“This old war is not my fault. It was going on when I came here.”
Paskinix swished out his mandibles and spat on the floor. “We have claim to the Lavadome too, dragon-king. It was here the sun-shard fell to earth, and it was here the first demen recovered it at the dawning of thought. Only the Eternals are older than ourselves.”
“All the more reason to share its control. I propose to give you a voice in the Lavadome, my old friend.”
“Our people have shown a curious brand of friendship.”
“We’ve forged a history. We’ve learned to respect each other. Out of that respect, cooperation can bloom. I have some lovely gardens here atop the rock, and the blueblooms are bigger than ever since I put them on that mix of bat-dropping and dried cow dung. I could show you the old pools one of my predecessors put in, a very fine set of caves, and I know you like things warm and moist and comfortable. Perhaps you could move your household there temporarily while we work out an understanding?”
“I am . . . suspicious.”
“Of course.”
“You hold every advantage. Were I to have conquered the Lavadome the way you had the Star Tunnel, I would not be inviting you to the most comfortable cavern off the Wisterfall.”
“You’ve played so many tricks yourself you expect them in others. I have spoken honestly to you. If I have been generous, it is because I wish your help as an ally.”
“Ally? All my warriors together would hardly be a match for a pair of your dragons.”
“Ah, but you count your experience in the Lower World cheap. I am engaged in a war on the surface.”
“Then I wish you fortune. The Red Queen burned out our sun-mines on the surface years ago.”
The Copper wondered what a sun-mine was but decided not to ask.
“Would you care to play one last trick? Strike one more blow against your surface enemy?”
