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“The demen are about to pass through wooded country,” an elf said. He touched a tree branch, ran his hand down it, and straightened, tightened, and formed it into a rather gnarled spear. “They may think a wooded road much like tunnel-fighting, but we’ll teach them better.”
“Don’t despair, Wistala. What’s an end and what’s a beginning depends a great deal on the observer. You said you think this is the end of dragonkind. I believe we stand on the threshold of a new beginning. Something has returned the shadow energy to the world. Now, where are we most needed?”
Chapter 17
AuRon landed atop the cool stone of the Protector’s mountainside refuge in Dairuss, not caring who saw him and reported it to whom. It was the dog days of summer in Dairuss, and the afternoon sun had one more hour of beating the land like a hammer before it disappeared behind the mountains. Even at this altitude it was hot and still. Thirst closed and roughened his throat, and his head hurt. Under different circumstances, he’d have found a mountainside pool, drunk his fill, and napped in the sun until the heat loosened muscles sore from flying. But he’d not come to enjoy basking in the sun like a lizard.
The City of the Golden Dome and whatever troubles it had with the world would have to sort themselves out. He had but one goal: getting Natasatch and taking her somewhere safe. A secret hole in the Sadda-Vale, perhaps.
“Natasatch!” he called through the balcony. Nothing answered but the rustling of the plain cotton curtains. He noted, rather dully, that they were still the heavier winter ones.
He sniffed around the sleeping chamber. He smelled his mate. Also, cleaning-vinegar, oranges, and oliban, dried hunks of tree sap that, when burned, smelled profoundly soothing. Someone had burned a good deal of it in the dining pit fire. Had she thrown a party? To celebrate what?
In any case, the thralls were keeping busy maintaining what he still, oddly, considered “their” temporary home.
His hearts beat hard. It was too still. Especially for the middle of the day. The refuge held its breath, waiting for him to discover whatever gruesome display of death awaited within.
The eating-pit room was awash in fabrics. Colors hung on the wall, bolts of cloth were laid out and marked with chalk, and a net on the ceiling held tools and buckets and sea-fishing instruments.
Halfway across it he heard a step. Natasatch! He looked twice to make sure it was she, and alone.
“I’m—I’m so sorry, AuRon.”
“I understand, and you have to forgive me as well. The dazzle of the Empire, jealousy for my brother—”
She tucked her face back, into her wing. “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry you came back. For this.”
A net came crashing down on him. The weights and hooks made his natural thrashing only entangle him further. He heard the clattering rush of demen entering the eating room. They clamped his nose and pinched his nostrils until he relaxed enough to allow them to put chains on his legs.
“So, so, sorry, my love. I think we shall die together. Soon. It’s all gone wrong.”
“Don’t be, my dear,” Imfamnia said. She strode into the room briskly, carelessly catching scale on the fabrics that had hidden the crouching demen. “To think, I once took a mild interest in you. Your skin may change color, lizard, but your behavior is entirely predictable.”
She considered AuRon. “Hmmm. It will take at least two trolls to move him.”
“Where are you taking him?” Natasatch asked her.
“You’ll find out the same moment he does. Now, come along, please, dear, or I’ll slit your graceful little throat open one side to the other.”
Chapter 18
DharSii found Gettel and the tower surrounded by corpse fires.
There’s a distinctive smell to a pyre of recently living flesh. It was appetizing, at least to a dragon. He passed low over the fires—not much could be distinguished from the burning remains, but the hooked swords and twin-point spears favored by the demen were lying all around the tower.
For a dreadful moment he thought he’d arrived too late, but then he saw a dragon-neck poke out of the top of the tower and survey him.
Gettel wanted the news from the south, first. She already knew what had happened in Juutfod. When DharSii relayed the news of the Copper’s abduction, she looked genuinely grieved.
“I’ll miss him even more than the groundeds,” she said with a sigh.
“He was carried into Hypat. He may still be there, for all we know.”
“To think, he was on his way to rescue his mate. Now he needs rescuing, too.”
“I’m not so sure,” DharSii said. “I thought he made it awfully easy for his enemies to know exactly where he was. It might have been a tactic to bring dragons over to his side—you saw how easily he did that with the Aerial Host.”
“The demen didn’t know about the groundeds,” Gettel said. Or the dwarfs. That was a nasty surprise for them. Turns out dwarfs hate demen more than they do blighters, humans, dragons, or elves. I think they expected a few spiritless, crippled dragons. Couple of blasts of fire and then off with their heads. Somebody told them a half-truth or a bad tale. They knew, I think, that six or seven dragons were out, some of them moving south, so they took their chance. Expecting to murder tired, landing dragons, I suppose.”
