AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you must, hide out at the north end of the island. The wolves have seen you with me. They’ll stand guard while you sleep.”
Wistala watched the sun drop toward the horizon. “Let’s all be seen swimming or flying for that island, then. I’m sure we’re being watched from somewhere.”
They crept down one of the glacier-runoff streams and slipped into the water for the swim to the island. Salt water felt good on everyone’s wounds, and they took a few minutes to lick one another other clean, pull riven scale, and extract arrowheads—which could then be swallowed for a little needed metal. The Copper had shoved a few shields and helmets under his bad wing.
“Hope this contraption holds out for the rest of the trip,” he said.
“DharSii might be able to figure it out,” Wistala said. “He’s very clever. Between us and the blighters she keeps around we might be able to keep it functioning.”
“I’m not likely to make many more trips,” the Copper said. “I’d hardly dare. A whole Empire wants me dead.”
“Let’s leave the worries for another day,” AuRon said. “Join us if you can, Shadowcatch.”
Wistala gave him instructions on how to find the hidden valley, east of the Red Mountains.
“Please come,” the Copper said. “It doesn’t sound right without you grinding your teeth behind me somewhere. It’s difficult to think without the noise.”
“I’m tempted to stay and settle things once and for all with Ouistrela. But as far as I’m concerned, Tyr RuGaard is still my lord. I’ll come if I can get my wings catching air again.”
With that, the three dragons took to the skies, with Miki flying close beside the Copper.
Chapter 20
They flew in a tight grouping, flying over sandhills tufted with patchy grasses, with AuRon at the angle. Game trails followed the water found here and there, but they couldn’t catch much that offered even a partial mouthful. The bigger game herds were probably still on their way north.>They needn’t have bothered. AuRon had no flame left, anyway. Long flights on short rations tended to dry the firebladder. He settled for making threatening dives to hurry them along.
AuRon turned back to what was left of the fight. Shadow-catch was in a poor way, his wings had bites and tears in them. But he still raged, smashing dead men and broken spears into splintered pulp. Wistala looked a little like a ragged porcupine, with numerous arrows and spears stuck in her. Very little blood ran from the wounds, however, so AuRon expected there would just be the painful work of extracting broken-off tips. His brother had a number of men gathered like a herd of sheep in surrender, begging for their lives with upraised palms.
“Gather all the dropped shields and weapons left lying about, put them in a pile here, then you may return to your boats, or however you came here,” he said in rather faulty Pari, holding head high and standing square. AuRon repeated the instructions in the northern tongue and they fell to their knees and cried out in gladness at the dragon’s mercy.
AuRon thought his brother carried off that lordly, implacable air rather well. Better than he himself could have, at any rate.
Yes, the Copper had courage. Courage and heart and the ability to keep his head. It had taken him far and won him a mate AuRon admired. He also wondered about RuGaard’s first mate. Clearly she’d seen in the ungainly young dragon with the slack eye a quality others missed.
Your wrath shouldn’t win.
Maybe AuRon could have done better by his brother. Snuck him food from the egg shelf. He’d been a greedy little hatch-ling, even stealing what he could from his sisters.
In his way, he’d done more for dragons than AuRon had. AuRon admitted to himself that he’d gained them a safe refuge, hard for men and elves and dwarfs to find, and even harder to attempt to control. His brother had made it a world where dragons were no longer hunted.
Then there was his sister. Wistala, who didn’t set dragons above the hominids as the Copper did, or apart from them as AuRon would have it, but beside them, cooperating as best as she could. Had she been wrong? Too idealistic? Blinded by memories of a kindly old elf who’d taken her into his home?
AuRon couldn’t fault her.
Each of them were products of birth and circumstance. Each had found a way to make their outlook work. Only time would tell who was right.
The question was, which approach would last?
The griffaran who’d turned on his companions settled on the Copper’s back to rest and rearrange his feathers.
The griffaran, a grizzled veteran with feathers that were thin and dull, but with a painted beak showing bright markings of rank, executed a bob before his brother.
“Who are you?” the Copper asked.
“Named Miki!” the oldster squawked in a griffaran’s usual punchy Drakine. “Years ago. Many! Others forgot! Not me!”
“What happened years ago?” his brother asked.
“You saved an egg. From demen. ’Twas me!”
