Chapter 1

The hatchling tasted his first air. Cool and dry compared with the dampness inside the egg, its strangeness set him aquiver.

He had only just discovered a new world in the slow awakening, one so different from the muted patterns and colors, muffled echoes and stale tastes of the old. He had been snug in his dark little space, drowsing and dreaming, when sharp, cracking noises had woken him. He’d suddenly hated the enclosure in which he’d floated for so long. Instinctively, he tried to uncurl his long neck. He had jerked his chin upward, feeling the growth on his nose strike the inner surface of the hard cocoon. Three more taps, and the shell had cracked.

The air relayed so many new impressions that his senses rebelled, and he gave a tiny snort.

He wiggled his nose and widened the hole. When he could get his snout well out and open his mouth, he took a real breath. His long lungs, running almost the length of his back, filled entirely with air. Its zest, the new sensation of his lungs inflating and deflating, invigorated him as much as the rich dose of oxygen to his bloodstream. He pulled his head back, and the sawtooth on his still-wet nose opened the egg further. Now he could get his head out.

The light, dim though it was, hurt his eyes. Scrabbling sounds and a deep, rhythmic whooshing above roused his curiosity. Determined, he turned his head.

A presence, huge and green, lay curled around him—strange yet familiar—and beyond that, he sensed an even larger enclosure of rock and shadow. Another casing, many-many times larger than the first? Echoes played off the hard stone, chasing each other through the great space.

He wriggled his head free. Now he could use his neck to look around. A nasty drop hung before him. Many neck-lengths below, two shapes writhed; both had necks like his, with equally long tails projecting out of their hindquarters. Identical in every aspect save color, they pushed and clawed at each other using four stubby legs. Their mouths yawned agape, displaying sharp white teeth, and atop their snouts stood sawtooths just like the one he’d used to poke his way out of his shell. Both the combatants had short crests covering their necks. One of the hatchlings was a rich ruby color, and it sank its teeth into the coppery opponent, rending flesh and muscle and eliciting a plaintive cry.

Something about those crests sweeping back from the armored ridge of their eyes and forehead put him into a seething rage.

He longed to join this contest. He uncoiled his body; his fractured egg was no match for his new strength. It separated, and he twisted over so he could crawl.

The crack of the egg opening interrupted the red hatchling in its triumph. It released its opponent’s torn foreleg and looked up. In the flick of an eye, it scuttled to the rock face and began to climb toward him.

He did not wait to meet it amongst the other eggs. He moved to the edge of the shelf to get it on the way up, instinctively wanting the advantage of the high ground.

A wet slipperiness slowed him, and he looked down to see a sagging mass dragging from his belly. One of his legs was caught in it. Frenzied, he tore at it with his rear limbs. He arched his back and parted from the drogue. If he felt pain, the desire to get at the other crested hatchling smothered it. He gained the edge just as the red’s head appeared. Its shining slit-pupil eyes widened as it saw him come to push it back down.

But the red was strong, stronger. It got its thick shoulders tucked under his narrower ones and muscled over the edge of the precipice. They faced each other, mouths open and declaring battle with little squawks of fury.

He forgot the cave, forgot the giant green presence behind him, forgot the faint tapping emanating from the last two eggs. He went for the red crest, to shove it off the ledge and put an end to it.

His bites scored at the red’s armored skin and crest to no effect. Before he knew it, he was on his back, the red’s gaping jaws finding his throat. More frustrated than afraid, he clawed at the red’s leathery underbelly. A mist veiled his vision.

The pressure on his throat vanished. As his vision cleared, he saw Red fighting with the other crested hatchling. His copper brother had somehow climbed the cavern wall to the egg shelf, intent on revenge for its crippled limb. It rode Red’s back, grasping at the back of Red’s neck just under the armored crest. He turned on his side, momentarily too weak to stand, and watched. Red writhed and rolled, trying to get the maimed hatchling beneath it.

He flicked out his tongue and smelled blood, blood, everywhere. Pouring from him, from the wounded copper, and from Red’s belly. A tear dripped there, where Red’s egg sac had been attached.

He moved his head. Some strength still remained in his neck muscles, and he used them. He drove the sawtooth on his snout into the red’s belly, finding the umbilical hole. He dragged upward, gutting his nest mate.

Blood flooded his nostrils and eyes as he righted himself to force the prong in deeper. He heard one agonized cry, cut off as the copper hatchling grasped the red’s throat. Alarmed peeps sounded behind him.

The struggle ceased; Copper dropped the crushed neck.

He opened his mouth and advanced on his remaining sibling. Copper shifted sideways, shielding its injured limb. Too near the edge. He bull-rushed the copper crest and began to push, using the armored ridge above his own eyes as a battering ram. Weakened by the maimed foreleg, the hatchling went over with a scream.

The fall was not fatal. He looked over the edge and saw Copper lying quiescent. Rapid panting echoed from below. At the sound of eggs breaking, he turned.

Two more siblings had their heads out of their eggs, squeaking weakly. Green. Uncrested. He relaxed and moved toward Red’s corpse. He now knew hunger. Lapping the pooled blood did not seem enough; he began to chew at the corpse. After sufficient worrying with his curved teeth, he pulled away a mouthful of flesh and followed it with another. The meal made him flush with strength, so much so that when his copper nest mate again ascended to the ledge, he pushed it back over with no trouble at all.

The others, the females, took forever to get out of their shells. When they finally joined him at the corpse, still dragging the deflated balloons of the umbilical sacs they were too weak to get free of, he let them eat. He felt the urge of thirst and moved off from the corpse to a narrow corner of the ledge, where he drank from a little trickle of water running down the cavern wall. It felt almost as invigorating as eating, but nowhere near as good as pushing his brother off the shelf.

He looked around the cavern. Glowing blue-green splashes grew at the edges of puddles at the bottom of the immense cave. They seemed to thrive best nearest the cliff wall where he smelled dragon waste, strange and yet familiar. Tiny things, tinier than he, lived in the roof of the cavern. The sights of his new world so fascinated him that he failed to notice his brother gain the egg shelf once again.

The piping of his sisters alerted him to the male’s presence. He scrambled back to the corpse, but the cripple clutched a torn-off hunk of tail in its jaws and scuttled off the ledge, moving in a clumsy fashion but almost as fast as he could with four good legs. He had to content himself with opening his jaws and screaming down at the coppery shape on the cavern floor. The male ignored him and gnawed on the piece of tail.

“Dear Auron. My pride. One day you’ll be a worthy dragon.”

Thus Auron learned his name. He turned a quick circle, looking for the source of the voice seeming to whisper in his ear.

“This sound is the voice of your mother, Auron. I’m glad you can hear me; it means you’re healthy.”

He heard a trill from above him and saw Mother’s spade-shaped head looking down. His mother, big enough to be a world herself, reclined against the cave wall. He tasted the rich nepenthe of the air around her; it smelled better even than the bloody tang of the air around his deceased sibling.

“I know this is strange, and you can’t speak yet, not until you’re grown a bit and learned. But you can understand—even in the egg, you could understand. I showed you stories, remember?”

His mother’s voice was familiar, but he could remember no stories, just vague dreams of floating in light, pictures, sensations that rolled about in his head unmoored. Her speech, after its first startle, relaxed him. He felt his eyelids closing.

“Time for you to sleep and grow, little Auron. Don’t worry, you and your sisters are safe, we are deep-deep. No assassins will get here, for Father is on guard.”

She began to sing, and he recognized the rhythm of her tune, not strange at all. He dozed off, lulled by the comforting cadence of the song.

Listen my hatchling, for now you shall hear

Of the only seven slayers a dragon must fear.

First beware Pride, lest belief in one’s might

Has you discount the foeman who is braving your sight.

Never Envy other dragons their wealth, power, or home

For dark plots and plans will bring death to your own.

Your Wrath shouldn’t win, when spears strike your scale

Anger kills cunning, which you will need to prevail.

A dragon must rest, but Sloth you should dread

Else long years of napping let assassins to your bed.

‘Greed is good,’ or so foolish dragons will say

Until piles of treasure bring killing thieves where they lay.

Hungry is your body, and at times you must feed