“Hard-Legs Black-Bristle, leader of the Dawn Roarers heeeeeere!” Auron heard wailed from behind. “Beware, men in the mountains, for a good wolf comes to you in dragon skin. Let those who would hunt him fear the Dawn Roarers, so says the leader of the pack.”
Chapter 11
Auron soon had company, but not the kind he desired. Some kind of great dog, a shaggy thing that looked to be the product of wizardly mating between bear and wolf, watched him from a sky-framed meadow above. It began to bark.
Worse, its warning was also echoed by men’s voices: they hooted to each other from mountainside to mountainside in musical calls.
Worse still, the dog seemed content to bay at him from its vantage, giving Auron three choices. He could continue to climb the hill until he reached the dog’s meadow. Though he felt sure he could kill it and continue on up, a dog meant men were near. The mountain had two other spurs, pointed out like an eagle’s toes with forested valleys between. He could descend to the right or left and try another way up, or go back into the forests and attempt the crossing at a different mountain pass. He wished he had a mind-picture from his father of these mountains, but they were only vague memories this north of his normal range. From what he could see, to the south, the slopes were not so rugged, and therefore were more likely to have men on them. The north held steeper climbs, and one flat-topped mountain with a near-vertical face. Unlike its taller fellows, the flat-top was not snowcapped.
The barking from above grew more vigorous. The dog looked over its shoulder and began to caper, signaling the presence of men. It advanced a few paces down the hill toward the drake. Auron had learned from the wolves that dogs grew braver as their men grew closer. Forced into action, he dragon-dashed down the hill into some short-needled bushes. He would take the more difficult northern route.
His run gave the dog heart; it descended the steep hill to come after him.
Auron heard a horn sound, then a second blast. He looked up toward the dog. Another dog, lighter-furred and smaller by the weight of a lamb or two, joined it. Three men followed behind: thick fur boots ending in hairy legs showed between the boot-bindings and their loincloths. They wore padded jackets sewn with wide leather thongs. High fur hats made them seem tall. Auron took a second look at the strange headgear: the hats looked as if an animal slept on their heads with hind legs dangling over their ears. They carried walking sticks topped with double-sided claws and some kind of short spears gripped in the hand opposite the one carrying the stick.
He could get the dogs, at least, and then the men would be at a disadvantage, relying on only their weak senses. He pressed himself flat to the ground and crept out from under the bushes, slowly enough for his color to change as he shifted positions. The lead dog showed no sign of seeing him. It continued to bound down the hill, with the other a few lengths behind. The three men spread out as they came down the hill.
The dog smelled him; he could hide his outline but not his odor, even amid the fragrant mountainside flowers and berries. It slowed down, bearlike head held to the ground and wary eyes looking at the spreading, thorny bushes.
The dog gave a querulous whimper.
Auron launched himself forward, exploding out of the grass and into the dog’s face. He bit, getting only a mouthful of fur as the dog pivoted to the side with more speed than an animal of its bulk should have. Auron whipped around to face it, keeping his open mouth between the dog and his flanks using his long neck.
He felt a bite on his far rear leg. The second dog danced away as Auron spun to face it. He dashed toward it, and it turned tail and ran, giving the other canine the opportunity to leap on him from behind.
As the men ran nearer, Auron fled, but each time he turned, one dog drew his attention as the other bit at his backside. The dogs did not fight like wolves; neither did anything more than bite him hard and then flee from his riposte—the best he managed was to get a mouthful of tail in his counterbites. He was hurt and growing tired from charge after desperate charge at the dogs.
Another horn call shook Auron from the cycle of bites, turns, and flights. One man moved to throw one of his spear, but another put a hand on his arm. Perhaps they feared killing one of the dogs. Auron couldn’t flee cross-country, so he fled upward, climbing a pine and pulling up his tail just as the smaller dog jumped at it.
Heart pounding, he cursed himself as he clung to the branches. He was treed. The dogs began barking, standing on their hind legs with front paws on the trunk of the tree, slobbering mouths wide.
“Get away, if you know what’s good for you,” Auron growled down to them in wolf speech. He rattled his griff against his crest in warning.
“Caught! Treed! Caught! Treed!” the larger barked back.
The men approached and spread themselves around the tree in a triangle, puffing from their long run. The one who tried to throw his spear earlier released it this time, but Auron shifted his body, and the weapon only took a piece out of the pine.
The man downslope laughed and taunted his frustrated fellow hunter. There was no telling what the men might do, given time. Blood trickled from his haunches and dripped onto the tree branches and baying dogs below. Auron calculated distances, shifting his head side to side as he triangulated. He sprang from the tree onto the laughing mountain man. The human was not so quick to move as he was to laugh—Auron landed full atop him before he could bring up his spear. The pair rolled down the hill.
They fetched up against a rock, Auron’s supple frame bruised, but the man’s broken. The mountain man cursed and waved his arms, but his oddly twisted torso would not move below his rib cage. The man still drew a knife from his belt, but Auron had seen that trick long ago with Father. He knocked the weapon away with his tail and tore at the man’s face. With the hunter unable to recognize anything but his own pain, Auron jumped atop the rock that had stopped their roll.
The stricken man’s movements brought the other two running. Both threw spears, but Auron slipped behind the rock and watched with only his eyes and crest showing as the missiles bounced off the shielding rock.
The hated dogs ran as close together as if they were harnessed, bloody mouths gaping and eyes alight with the hunt. Auron tensed, raised his neck, and threw his head forward, hurling fire at the oncoming dogs. They turned into tumbling balls of flame, still going downhill. The men following behind threw themselves on their faces. The liquid fire fell well short of them, but it had its desired effect: by the time they raised their heads, Auron was gone.
Without the dogs following, Auron’s escape went better. By the time the men caught sight of Auron again, he was nearing the floor of the valley. He ran into the woods and went to a fallen tree. He panted from his run as he cleaned the wounds in his haunches.
His tongue probed the wounds. I’m becoming a well-scarred drake.
The men, bent on avenging their companion, came into the woods, following his blood trail. He heard their voices and footsteps. Auron shifted himself around on the fallen tree so he faced the approaching men. His skin tingled as it shifted color again.
He watched them, hugging the tree trunk close. One of the men deliberately broke a branch and stuck it into the ground after etching something into a patch of dirt he exposed by kicking away the carpet of pine needles. He hung his fur hat from it. Some kind of pre-battle ritual? His companion stood ready and wary with spear raised over his shoulder.
Unlike the dogs, the men ventured onto the log until one caught sight of his half-closed eye. Auron scrambled through their legs, knocking both from the tree trunk. They fell on opposite sides of the log. He jumped onto the hatless man, gripping by the throat as his saa dug in to flesh. Auron was heavier and stronger now. He tore the man open. He hooked his back claws onto the screaming man’s hip bones, toes well inside the soft stomach, and with a kicking motion separated legs from torso. Both halves twitched as he scuttled off, dragging a loop of innard wrapped around his ankle as he turned toward the last man.
The other hunter jumped back on the log—spear ready to throw. He saw his eviscerated friend and let out a choking cry. Auron gathered for a leap. The hunter threw his spear. Auron ducked, and it clattered off the one armored piece of his body: his crest. The man turned and fled. The spear’s impact hurt Auron’s ears and jaw, but he jumped after the man nonetheless. He bounded to the tree trunk and leaped in pursuit of his erstwhile hunter, but the man’s fear gave him a rabbit’s speed. Auron failed to bring him down in the first dash, and the man soon outdistanced him.
He paused at the corpse and ate. He was hungry enough to finish the entire corpse, but stopped after consuming the thick leg muscles and a few choice vitals. As he nosed under the rib cage, seeking the heart, he remembered his mother’s words: Gluttony makes fat dragons, who can’t fly at their need. He left without eating another bite.