“ ‘I’m in your debt,’ Gobold said, pouring out the contents of a small purse he carried. There was a goodly mouthful of silver for each of us to be had. Just the thing we needed to put the sparkle back in our scales after the long flight.

“ ‘Silver and salivation, what service have we done you?’

“Gobold replied: ‘You’ve finished a battle commenced days ago. The blighters outran us. Yea, they even outdug us.’

“Your mother let him talk, and he spoke of the decay of the human empire that once circled the Inland Ocean the way cave moss circles a pool. They’d given up their outposts in the southern mountains, and blighters filled some of their old caves and tumbles. The blighters were plaguing the dwarves’ trade routes and taking over mines.

“When he spoke of how the blighters filled several caves at the end of the southern mountains, closed them off from the dwarvish tunnels and roads in the Lower World so that the dwarves couldn’t get at them, your mother began to hatch an idea of her own. She told the dwarves that in return for six chests of gold and twelve of silver, we’d drive the blighters from those caverns and see that they never returned.

“ ‘Such a deed would long be sung at our Memorials, Queen of Dragons,’ Gobold said.

“ ‘I must consult with my husband before formally pledging tooth and claw to bargain. Perhaps you should seek the agreement of your clan?’

“ ‘That will not be difficult,’ Gobold said with a chuckle.

“In the end, the bargain was formally struck with many words and an etching on a silver war-shield. She had the dwarves pay us half in small sums as we brought back heads for counting. When it came to dealing with hominids, your mother was fond of the old dragon-saying: Trust, but keep an eye open.

“So we fought the dwarves’ war for them. I would have just forced my way into the cave and set fire to all within, but your mother demanded a more patient war that allowed us to build our strength even as we weakened theirs.

“We attacked their herds and their flocks, burned their Upper World crops, and took such blighter parties as were easily consumed by two dragons hunting by day or night. Such feasting we had—”

“Oh, yes . . . ,” sighed Bartleghaff.

“And when they sent out hunting parties or tried to trick and trap us, we got away without too much difficulty, and sometimes got a chance for our own tricks and traps, for your Mother has—had—a fine mind for that sort of thing. Many of the blighters left in despair, but a hard few stayed within their cave, scratching a living from the Lower World. Soon we made them afraid to cast a shadow outside their cave.”

“Did you destroy the battlements around the cave, then?” Wistala asked.

“Oh no, daughter, time is fiercer even than dragons. Hatchlings think the world began when their egg cracked—eh, Bartleghaff? Those old works date from the Age of Wheels, when the blighters first ruled the world before dragons tamed their appetites.”

“You must have gone in the caves eventually.”

“When we were fat and strong with full fire bladders and fresh iron-fed scales, we challenged the blighters in their own caves and drove them out. In a deep chamber, we found a place that fulfilled all our hopes.

“The blighters had diverted melt and underground springs to feed cave moss plantations and slug herds. It was deep enough to be out of any weather. Even a nice shelf in case of bad air! We let nature take its course and didn’t even object to a few bats’ helping fertilize the cave moss.”

“A triumph,” Wistala said, but wondered why there was no light in Father’s eyes, the way there had been before, when he spoke of his battles.

“Save for some hard words with the dwarves. Gobold sent some shifty bargainer who showed up with one chest of silver and one chest of gold and a great bag of gems and jewelry. His name was Quizzilick and he was a pogt if I ever met one. He gave us treble praise and precious little metal when we spoke to him on the shores of that great icy moat that guards the approaches to their twin halls.

“ ‘O dragons mighty, strong, sure, fierce (this went on for some time, daughter, until you began to hear the bats drop of boredom), your work shall be rewarded beyond even our bargain, for we bring you not monies but riches.’

“ ‘Riches to some, dross to others,’ I said. ‘A few gems are always welcome to a dragon’s appetite. They make for healthy, shining scale, but what we need are soft metals to replace scales lost in our joined war.’

“ ‘And our hatchlings must have some,’ your mother said. Her desire must have unguarded her tongue, for I’d never heard her make such a mistake when talking to dwarves. For even slow dwarvish minds might start turning at the thought of families of dragons being bred on their borders.

“In the end, Quizzilick slightly increased the amount of gold and gave us more jewelry that had rich strands of it, and a great deal of silver besides, but there was no end of grumbling. But we’d kept our part of the bargain, and when we quit them, we never troubled the dwar-lands.”

“How do you know it was the Wheel of Fire and not some other group of dwarves?” Wistala asked.

“I did not lose my head and attack the nearest dwarfworks, Tala. The etchings on their round shields and helm-circlets told me their tale of betrayal. The Wheel of Fire take pride in showing their flame-winged eagles.”

“Ironic,” Bartleghaff said. “So eager are they for eagle feathers and heads, they’ve killed off almost every one in these mountains. I’m glad they don’t have condors perching atop their standards.”

“Happy thought,” Father said. “I’d hear fewer complaints. But why bring up iron? Fault them for much, but not for the quality of their weapons. Finest steel, as I know too well.”

Bartleghaff preened his neck-tuft. “How can such wingspan be powered by so small a brain, you scaly sheep-roaster? I meant their insignia is ironic—irony, a form of elvish humor. Like having your tail burnt by your own fire.”

“Come to your perch, if you have one,” Father said. His eyelids drooped and his eyes were dull. Just telling a story had worn him—or perhaps old emotions had drained his hearts’ blood.

“I’m told by the battle-crows, curse their nest-pillaging feathers, that the flames signify dragonfire. Some story lost in the mists of time.”

“Whatever they learned of dragons they must have forgotten, to go murdering hatchlings,” Wistala said, but neither of the pair appeared to hear her. She could almost hear Mother’s voice above as she sang:

And for those who threaten clutch of flame,

To feel the wrath of dragon-dame!

Father yawned. “Time for sleep. A dragon must rest and all that. Daughter, I’ve had my fill of fish. See if you can catch something red-blooded unawares for breakfast, would you?”

Chapter 9

A week’s worth of breakfasts later—mostly fish, unfortunately for Father’s blood-hungry appetite—Wistala smelled smoke in the evening twilight of the forest west of the river gorge.

Game had become scarce in the area around Father and Bartleghaff, who seemed to do little but befoul his perch and goad Father into burning him up like a feathery candle.

Smoke in the forest, with the wood so wet from the constant spring rains, could mean only one thing—hominids. No other creatures save dragons wielded so dangerous a weapon.

With luck, she’d have hers in a few more months. Coming aboveground early had its terrors, but she had to admit she was thriving on the variety of food to be found.

And speaking of variety of food—as she rolled the smoke smell around in her nostrils, she got the mouthwatering scent of charred flesh, which she hadn’t had since Father brought home a burned sheep to the egg shelf what seemed like a lifetime ago.

The smoke smell was as easy to follow as a bright moon on a cloudless night through the trees. After a little casting back and forth, she came to a wide hollow.

It was an unnatural sort of place, like a dry creek, only the bottom was filled with tiny broken stones all roughly the same size, and the overgrown banks carried no smell of running water, though every rill for miles was brim-full with the rains. The hollow bent around the peak of the hill as though a claw like Bartleghaff’s obelisk had scored the hillside. But from the heights, one could both see either end of the streambed-like cut for a goodly length and be out of the wind.

A dwarf had chosen to camp here.

“Great things have small beginnings,” Mother used to like to say when she and Jizara compared their minuscule size to her bulk.

Her vengeance would begin here. As a bonus, the dwarf had a string of ponies. Surely she’d bring down one or two and be able to carry several limbs back to Father before the birds made off with it all.

She stayed downwind in the smoke smell. Examining each sii-and saa-hold as she crept up, she reached a pounce point in the cut of the bank. Perhaps two bounds to reach the dwarf, and if he had an ax, he didn’t keep it beside him. . . .

The dwarf wasn’t even helmed, though he did have a sort of mask across his face and just a few scraggles of beard showing. Her store of dwarf-lore was not great, but she knew that a dwarf without a full beard was either very young or some kind of criminal. The only thing remarkable about him was his riding boots, which rose all the way to his hips.