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Now the Lavadome seemed so empty it echoed. There were still vestiges of the three clans occupying their family hills. Most of the Skotl were in the Aerial Host or acting as palace guards in the Protectorate, the Wyrr were, and many Ankelenes had established themselves in the libraries and museums of Hypatia.>He knew the ridgeline with the mine Istach spoke of once she described the topography in detail. He’d often hunted in those hills and woods when feeding NooMoahk and after he “inherited” NooMoahk’s old cave.
So with a half-full belly—it didn’t do to explore on too full a stomach, since digestion slowed the blood—he thanked his daughter and set out. He kept to the ground when he left the cave, taking dusty paths through the old ruins where once he’d played hide-and-seek with Hieba, just in case the new Protector was out and up early. According to Istach he ate hearty meals during the night and slept through the mornings, but AuRon had a lifetime of cautious habits spent guarding his thin skin.
The summer sun was hot. AuRon had forgotten how fierce it was in these mountains after the solstice. He gained altitude and found some cool air.
Ah, there was the lake, and the ridge. The mine must be between—
Movement behind caught his eye. A copper dragon was coming fast on his tailline. For a moment, AuRon thought it was his brother—they were of similar size and color.
AuRon executed a rising half loop to gain altitude on the Protector and face him.
“I’m neither assassin nor thief,” AuRon called. “I intend no harm to you or what’s yours.”
“Think you’ll take my title away, do you?” the copper dragon, who could only be FuPozat, bellowed. “I paid good coin, my whole inheritance, and no interloper, however beloved of the blighters, is going to take it away.” This speech left him panting and he banked to come at AuRon from the side.
The fool had missed his chance. If he’d been careful, he could have followed AuRon on a line between him and the sun and dove out of the light. Evidently he was a dragon not much used to hunting or fighting.
“What makes you think I’m claiming your title?”
“Word came in the predawn. Their old totem-dragon had returned to claim his own. Stooped and gray old blighters tell stories from their childhood of your days here, how you ate of their cattle only at festivals, and say that peace and plenty are returning with you! They’re feasting in their huts in your name!”
Foolish blighters. Well, it was Fusspot’s own fault. If he was mismanaging the mountains so much that the blighters were slaughtering fat calves in hope of AuRon’s return, perhaps Fusspot should levy a few less head in the name of the Empire.
In any case, rage had driven the Protector out of his senses. He was coming at AuRon like a crazed woodpecker, swinging in from whichever angle with no thought to altitude, wind, or AuRon’s suppleness of wing and body.
If he hadn’t been called to more important duties, he might have enjoyed toying with the enraged dragon. It was like playing dodge with a tortoise.
Each time Fusspot came at him, AuRon flapped hard and ascended. No scaled dragon could match him in a climb; thanks to the lightness of his frame, he was faster and could rise at a steeper angle.
“I’m no more of a threat to you than you are to me.”
“Is that a challenge? I eat challenge and pass victory,” Fusspot bellowed. AuRon decided that he wasn’t necessarily stupid, just young and inexperienced. The Protector had finally figured out that in a fight you could use the prevailing wind to help you pick up altitude.
AuRon supposed that if he let himself laugh at such speeches, he might lose his wind. Good thing he was in training; had he had to do these steep climbs back in the Sadda-Vale, he might have grown winded.
He wondered at such a character winning a Protectorate. Perhaps the Dragon Empire was already cracking with decay. Such was the way of things. What dragons of ability and skill built, their legacies took for granted and mismanaged. It happened with hominids as well, even disciplined and tradition-bound dwarfs.
Just to vary the contest, AuRon closed his wings and fell. Fusspot turned hard and moved to intercept. AuRon worked his wingtips and adjusted his glide path to stay out of reach.
Fusspot saw his chance, sped up to match AuRon’s fall, and spat the contents of his firebladder.
The fool! What dragon didn’t know that you vented fire only when flying slow and level or in backing into a climb?
The droplets of burning liquid spread in the air and the dragon plunged headlong into his own flame.
He emerged from the cloud of black and orange with fire coating his face. His bellow of anger turned into a shriek of pain.
Fusspot rolled over, griff extended and wings beating at the flame on his face, and plunged toward the earth. For one bad moment AuRon thought he would meet his death impaled on the trees, but he must have sensed the ground approaching somehow, for he turned legs-down at the last second.
Still, he hit hard.
AuRon alighted near him, and saw Fusspot rubbing his face in the dirt. He was a sooty black to the shoulders.
“I’m blinded, I’m blinded!” Fusspot screamed.
AuRon threw his weight on the burned dragon’s neck and craned around to check his face. He’d caught it worst around the lips and nose and his eyes were screwed shut against the pain. He would learn a good lesson from the pain, but AuRon didn’t envy him it.
Fusspot forced one eye open with his claw and threw his weight around, trying to lash back with his tail, but AuRon kept him pinned at the neck.
