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“What about the hatchlings?”
“You and your sister were fending for yourselves by this point. Not all of our kind are leaving. There are dragons on this island hoping some men would land for a change of diet. I expect they’ll survive. Just as well. The sheep will be lambing soon and they could use a break.”
AuRon read the resolution in her eyes. “Well, if we’re going to get involved in this war, we might as well do so with some force. I will join you.”
“Let us go, too, Father!” the hatchlings clamored in various iterations.
Perhaps there would be wounded we could let them finish, Natasatch thought to him.
“Let them take care of themselves while we are away. That is experience enough. Remember, hatchlings,” AuRon said, looking at their disappointed faces, “talk to the wolves as often as possible. They will teach you much about moving in cover and in the open, hunting, and above all, cooperation. The strength of the wolf is the pack, as they say.”
“I’ve often heard that quoted,” Natasatch agreed.
AuRon, with his mind made up—or made up for him—felt at ease. All doubt and regret had vanished. There was just need for action. “I’ve an idea where our first stop should be. We fly to Juutfod.”
AuRon had not been to the dragontower since his time as a courier for the Wizard of the Isle of Ice, though he had visited the wharves where Varl tied up his boat and some of the oceanside sights.
The men of Juutfod accepted dragons as part of their daily lives. Without the Wyrmmaster, they’d happily given up their raids on the south and used their dragons to protect fishing fleets and remote settlements.
The tower was much the same. More outbuildings had sprouted around it, like warts. And the town beneath had taken inspiration from the tower—there were round houses of stone, long buildings with thick walls and heavy-timbered roofs, and wooden homes and pens and workshops all around with smoke rising from the chimneys.
A dragon-rider rose to meet him.
He’d been told a few of the riders and their mounts had survived. The female dragons of the Isle of Ice had come to this place looking for males. Some dragons were content to be saddled and reined, it seemed, as long as they were well fed and rested in comfortable housing.
His old friend Varl had settled in this village. He smoked fish and made crab paste that the dragons had always found tasty on the Isle of Ice.
“Perhaps you’d better talk to them,” AuRon said to Natasatch. “I’ll keep watch above.”
Once he was sure of Natasatch’s reception—they let her land and she began to speak with the dragons and dragon-riders there—AuRon went seeking Varl among the mead-dens and group-houses near the docks. His boat wasn’t in, but Varl sometimes took months off between the seasonal fish runs.
He did, however, see a pair of familiar hominids outside of the dens. The warrior Ghastmath, looking thinner without his armor, and the elf with the raven walked down the street, tossing colorful rings back and forth between them using a small stick.
“I see you made it off my island again,” AuRon said.
One of the rings clattered to the paving stones.
“You,” said the warrior Ghastmath.
“Here I was looking for the mariner Varl to help me find you,” AuRon said.
“Can we talk somewhere out of the wind?” the elf asked.
“What is your name? I don’t believe I ever caught it.”
“I don’t believe I ever gave it,” she said. “Halfmoon, if you must know.”
“Halfmoon, what is an elf doing in this town? Ten years ago, these men would have weighted you with rocks and dumped you in the bay to attract crabs.”
Ghastmath planted his oversized feet. “They’d have to go through me.”
“They like the gold I bring into town,” she said.
“There are worse places to live,” Ghastmath added. “No king pushing you around. No edicts rewriting last year’s edict which rewrote the one that was beaten into you as a child.”
AuRon scratched himself behind his griff. “You’re thieves. Would you like a tip about the location of a flow of gold?”
“A dragon’s going to tell us where to find gold! Laughable,” Ghastmath said.
