“This one was young,” Highway said.
“You’re forgetting Firelong,” Blackhard said. “A drake is a rare sight in these parts.”
“Yes, with the Dragonblade at work.” Feybright agreed.
“What’s that?” Auron asked.
“The Dragonblade?” Feybright said, and stood silent for a moment with eyes closed. Her ears turned this way and that as if listening to voices only she could hear. “That’s what his dog pack calls him, anyway. A great man-warrior. He has slain six of your kind, Firelong. Some fully grown dragons. He has a terrible spear, and a great sword. They had frightful names I’ve forgotten; the story was howled only once that I heard. The dogs claim he has forefathers human, elf, dwarf, and blighter, and took the best parts from each. But dogs always talk up their masters. Oh, they say he has cleared the dragons from the western face of the mountains from the hard-frost in the north to the warmlands in the south. More dog-brag, I suspect.”
“He wouldn’t work with a group of dwarves called the Wheel of Fire, would he?” Auron asked.
“The dogs didn’t mention that. Others have seen them. Fierce men, with knotted beards and bearskin vests. Though this Dragonblade wears armor of shining dragon scales. Or so the dogs say.”
“Bite the dogs, we’d best move on,” Blackhard growled, looking in the direction of the vanished boy.
That night, the howling chain called them, their foothill cadences strange to the ears of the deep-woods wolves.
“Black-Snout Hill-Chaser heeeeeere! Men under torchlight in the stone-man-mountain gatheeeeeer. Many horses they riiiiiide. Hunters the hills waaaaaalk.”
“All this for a goat?” Highway asked.
“No,” Auron said. “I suspect it is me. They mean to track me down. As you said, dragons are rare around here. I hope they don’t become rarer.”
“We are near the mountains. There are no man-roads there,” Feybright said. “What do you mean to do there?”
“Cross them. I’ve seen the east side of the mountains. It looks over flat, empty lands. There are beasts to hunt. Not as much water, but I can get by.”
“Can you get over them?” Blackhard asked.
Auron sniffed the ground, a gesture he picked up from the wolves to show indecision. “I climb better than I run. There are roads under as well as over, of which you people of the Upper World are unaware. One way or another, I’ll find my way through.”
Blackhard took his howling position and acknowledged the calls of the foothill wolves. He stared at the moonlit march of mountains ahead. “We will travel with you one more day. I want to see you clear of these men. Then the Dawn Roarers turn for home.”
“Thank you, Blackhard,” Auron said.
“Just doing as a lead wolf would for one of his good wolves. So those are high mountains. They look a poor sort of place for wolves.”
“Wolves don’t have wings. Dragons do.”
Blackhard wagged his tail. “That they do. When you have yours, you fly back to the forest. My great-grandkits will be on the lookout for you, Firelong.”
“As a good wolf, I will.”
The next day they climbed an endless slope until trees gave way to green meadows in clearings left by winter avalanches. When Auron saw Blackhard looking west into the forests stretched out under them, and the two females panting and crossing back and forth behind him, he knew it was time to say good-bye.
“Are you thinking of your home?” Auron asked.
Blackhard sniffed Auron, and he gave the drake’s nose a playful nip. “No. I’m worried about you. The wind carries the sound of hooves. They are hunting you.”
Auron couldn’t hear anything but the wind, but he took the wolf’s word for it. “They’re too late, unless they’re planning on tracking me with mountain goats.”
“We’ve left a trail. Those sheep we took—”
“They must have been wild,” Auron said. “There wasn’t so much as a barn to be seen for hours.”
“Then it is time to say good hunting. Highway, Feybright, say your farewells to your pack mate.”
The females sniffed and licked at Auron. “Good hunting, Firelong. May your new pack run far,” Feybright said, giving the traditional farewell to males off to seek new horizons.