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To enter, he first had to unhook another pair of chains designed to loose some dozens of thin metal disks. None of it smelled as though it had been dipped in poison. He tucked them behind his ear. The hatchlings would have their fill of metal tonight!
Moving a scale’s breadth at a time, he put his head into the room, making use of shadow.
Two candles and a lantern lit the scene.
The strangers were prying open rusted doors at the old lifting chutes that carried food up from the galleys. A rather filthy dwarf looked like he’d just crawled down the old toilet-dump.
He made a quick count: three humans, two elves, and the dwarf scraping himself with an old chair-leg. They were well arrayed for battle or for climbing, with gear and assorted deadly-looking weapons. One of the elves was an attractive female, insofar as he could judge, and had long black vines of hair that matched the feathers of a raven perched on her shoulder in shine.
“There’s some kind of blockage. A vault door.” A voice echoed up from the galley chute. “Greasy as sausage-gut in here. Can’t get a grip.”
They’d found the old lift-platform at the kitchens. Surprising that some metal-hungry hatchling hadn’t crawled down and devoured it the way all the knives and skewers had disappeared. Of course, it was big, so it would have had to be broken into bite-sized pieces. Not worth the effort.
“At last! I told you!” the raven-toting she-elf said. The other elf ignored her, lost in a stained book. “That burned lodge was a waste of effort. The vault is down there.”
So they spoke Parl. Good. He’d forgotten what little Hypatian he’d learned, and dragon-throats weren’t designed for the grunts of the barbarous northern tongues.
“The wizard’s vault!” the dwarf said. “But why so small and frail a lift? Gold is heavy.”
“All the slower to sack it, then,” a man put in. He had a close-shorn beard and black teeth. AuRon thought a few good rinses with fine sand after mealtimes would benefit him in breath and health.
He fought down a snort. The only thing they’d find in the kitchens would be piles of charcoal and skeletons of rats. Why couldn’t they chase fables somewhere other than his island? He’d better warn them off before Ouistrela sniffed wind of their presence.
“May I help you?” he asked in Parl.
“Yi! Yi!” the male elf shrieked, loose pages flying as he vanished behind a shelf that had once held casks of ale. “Dragon!”
“ ’Tis Shadowcatch the Black, returned,” the elf’s raven squawked in birdspeech. “ ’Ware, for he’s fierce.”
“No, ’tis AuRon the Gray, standing in a bit of cave-dark,” AuRon said back in the bird tongue.
The vine-haired elf froze, head cocked.
“Get me out of here,” a voice echoed up from the lift-shaft.
The dwarf swung a vast shield, fitted at the front with a spear-head and ugly spikes all around the sides, big enough to cover him entirely save for another spike at the peak of his helm. The men, led by the big brave fellow with trimmed facial hair and black teeth, upped their swords and spears. One held a round shield covered in green dragonscale. AuRon felt his firebladder pulse.
“Spread out! The creature can’t burn us all,” the trim-faced man said. He raised a coal black sword with gleaming silver edges.
The explorers spread out.
“I’ve no need to kill anyone,” AuRon said.
“Dragons deceive with their tongues!” the dwarf shouted, creeping forward behind his shield. AuRon heard clicking noises echoing from behind the shield and wondered what sort of contraption the dwarf was readying. He thought it best to get down behind a broken pillar.
“Am I to die in this dark hole? Help!” the voice from the shaft called. “Pull, for the love of Stormbeard!”
“A coward at heart, like all its kind,” the man with the black teeth said. “Lurking in the shadows.”
AuRon raised his head. “Let’s have some light and—”
He ducked again and an elvish arrow clattered off his crest. An instant sooner and it would have been in his eye.
“—warmth, I was going to say,” AuRon finished, risking a peep around the fallen pillar. The men and the dwarf were still stepping forward, moving from pillar to overturned table to heap of old pottery, wary and ready for flame.
“Fyerbin, check that passage,” the voice from the shaft echoed as they did so. “Fyerbin, scale that wall. Fyerbin, crawl down that hole. I’m always going first and I’m always getting the shaft. Did you hear that, Halfmoon? Getting the shaft—”
“Shhh,” the elf with the raven said. “Ghastmath, hold there. Let’s hear what the dragon has to say.”
