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He limped along, three-legged. His left front leg wasn’t quite as useless as it once was. Nilrasha, falling back on lore she’d learned as a hatchling attending to old, battle-scarred Firemaids so that as succor flowed one way wisdom might trickle another, worked it and massaged it and worried it with tooth and tongue until he felt—well, not so much a tactile sensation as a sort of warmth. Now he could extend it and lock it in such a way that he could rest on it, rather like a tired thrall’s leaning on a rake or bearing-pole.
It was nice to halt here and there and take the view, giving his good sii a chance to rest as he leaned on his not-quite-useless forelimb.
“Mighty Tyr RuGaard,” a rather plump blue bellowed at one halt, bowling over a couple of drakka who’d climbed a rocky perch to watch him pass. “My thralls are stealing from me. None will confess the crime. I’d like an Imperative to eat a few as an example to the rest.”
RuGaard didn’t give a waggly tail-tip scale for the gizzards of unknown thralls, but the Lavadome had few enough. Most dwarves starved themselves rather than work for dragons, blighters fought among themselves so you had to limit the number in a household or appoint a strongman to keep the others in line—who would then cripple or kill a third of your servants every year through beatings—and as for elves, you might as well try to capture and keep a cloud for a pet. Demen hardly bred in captivity. That left men. With men you had to be careful in feeding and watering and housing or they died like flies.
“What are they stealing?”
“Food, of course.”
“Men will steal. Be thankful yours are such poor thieves.”
“Tyr, my brover sits on my neck,” said one little green hatchling, rather undersized for a Skotl. A bigger, bristling silver hatchling rolled an eye to watch the griffaran above, as though thinking about timing a jump. “Tell him to stop.”
“Bite or claw whatever you can reach and don’t stop until he gets off,” the Copper said. “Leave enough marks and you’ll get invited to join the Firemaids as soon as you light your first flame.”
“Truly?” the hatchling asked.
“Of course,” Nilrasha said. “I’ve placed my eye on you . . . er . . . young prospect.”
“S’ank you, shining Queen,” the hatchling said, swelling and raising her neck.
Speaking of which, the Copper thought to her as they moved on, did you review this year’s first-oaths yet?
By tradition the Tyr’s mate led the Firemaidens, young dragonelles learning to guard shaft and mouth and passage of the myriad tunnels around the Lavadome. Those who didn’t mate often continued in their duties and became Firemaids, warriors oathed for life and the most respected band in the Lavadome, feted in every hill. Though she’d never breathed word, some of the senior Firemaids turned tail to Nilrasha, as she’d broken her Firemaid vow to mate, but the Copper didn’t want to stick his snout into female squabbling and get it singed.
Don’t bring that up now, she thought back at him.
Some dragons bowed deeply, others just bobbed their nose-tips, and a few put heads together—mind-speech didn’t come easily to Skotls—to discuss their Tyr as he walked by, his withered left forelimb giving him an odd gait.
A bit of green flashed across the fields, parting a rather sickly flock of sheep grazing on hairy lichens. The procession halted again.
“Tyr,” a young dragonelle said, throwing herself down before him with neck turned full round to expose the lesser hearts beating behind her chin. “My name is Yefkoa. My parents wish me to mate against my will . . . to . . . to SoRolatan.”
The Copper knew him. SoRolatan was another Copper, though brighter and with less of a blood-tinge to his scales. A former Upholder at the tip of the Empire’s southern wing, he’d grown rich mining for the ores dragons needed—indeed craved—for a healthy growth of scale. Rumor had it he had a jade or two. Now he wanted multiple mates?
“SoRolatan has a mate, does he not, dear?” the Copper asked.
“But barren, poor creature,” Nilrasha said, glaring at the frightened, skinny little thing, her wings hardly dry from emerging. “The old Upholder’s daughter in the Six Ridges, you’ll remember.”
The Copper had come to the Lavadome practically as a hatchling but had never quite developed the ear for politics, intrigue, and out-and-out gossip that most dragons born there seemed to possess. He tasted the air next to his mate’s cheek in gratitude for her smooth supply of detail.
“I suppose you have someone else in mind?” the Copper asked. Yefkoa seemed a sleek young dragonelle with an attractive set of wings, even folded and decorously tucked. He understood SoRolatan’s interest. The Copper was mated, not dead.
“No, Tyr. I . . .”
She kept looking at Nilrasha as though fearing a bite.
“Spit it out,” the Copper said.
“I want to fly. Out in real air under real sun.”
The Copper wondered if she wasn’t one of those back-to-nature dragons. She’d clearly never tangled with crossbows or war machines.
She looked healthy enough, and had nice lines for air, as far as he could judge such matters. “Flying, eh? How fast are you?”
“Fast!” she said. “Just watch.”
