“Clever,” Auron said, giving a faint prrum. “You know how to find a meal’s weak spot.”
“Father will boil those dwarves in their own skin,” she said, more of a mind for vengeance than compliments.
“To do that, he’d have to dig them out of their own holes,” Auron said. “I have a mind-picture of a dwarf fortress from Father. It’s all sheer rocks and towers and gates and arrow-slits.”
“Father shared more with you.”
“And Mother more with you.”
“Think of it. Think hard. I’ll try.”
Auron’s eyes screwed up in concentration. Wistala got a flash or two, grim towers around a mountain lake, an overhanging rock, a pounding sound, craft on the lake like water beetles—and then it left.
“Now it’s going fuzzy,” Auron said.
“Stop trying. I got some of it. Who are they?”
“They’re some dwarves Father saw at some point. To the north of the cave.”
“Dragons must kill them one day. Or they’ll come into other caves.”
“The only day we can count on is today,” he said.
She nuzzled her brother. She’d never felt this close to Jizara, and even Mother had been more presence than person. Perhaps it was the way they depended on each other.
She settled down next to Auron as he made himself miserable and tore up the turf with his sii. She formed a resolve—perhaps a silly one, with her being so young, but she would grow, and the resolve would not die unless she let it. Auron would have to take care of their line. She’d protect the lines of others:
And for those who threaten our ancient fame,
To feel the wrath of dragon-dame.
The horse smell the next day made Wistala hungry. But they weren’t wild horses. They came with blankets and saddles and lines and other accoutrements of the hominids. She also smelled a cold fire, which could only mean hominids—dragonflame, even old, had a greasy smell. Auron counted better than thirty horses in a high meadow, and they decided to climb to avoid the chance of running across sharp-eyed elves in the mountainside forest.
By Auron’s calculation, they were on the same part of the mountain as the western entrance Father used. They moved, taking extra care, staying low behind brush or fallen timber. That approach limited their vision of the landscape, but more important, it also limited their enemies’. As the sun set, they crossed another high meadow, bellies tight to cool earth.
“Nearly there, Tala,” Auron said when she tired. “See that point of rock? Like a claw held out? The cave mouth’s just on the other side.”
Wistala saw Father first, high to the north, his bronze scales shimmering in the sun.
“Auron! Auron . . . look,” she gasped.
With limp four-leggeds clutched in his sii, Father tipped his wings and began to descend, floating down through the air like water feeding into a cavern crack.
Auron let out a glad cry and leaped away, dashing for the stone prominence. Wistala stood and waved her neck, trying to catch Father’s eye, but the dragon kept his head to the dangerous dark just inside the cave mouth, examining his landing spot from a variety of altitudes and angles. Why wouldn’t he just look round?
She caught up to Auron in time to see him sag against the outcropping, neck and tail drooping.
“Father didn’t see me.”
Wistala choked back a wail.
The cave mouth showed signs of ancient construction, ruined battlements and cracked towers about wide creeper-hung mouth. Father must have considerable flying skill to land inside without disturbing the overgrowth.
Spilled rock covered the whole mountainside beneath the cave mouth. Moss grew thick out of the wind between the rocks.
Betrayed! The Wheel of Fire!
The power of Father’s mind sent a shudder down her long spine. Not so precisely modulated as Mother’s mind-speech, Father’s was all emotion and imagery. Auron’s mind-picture of the dwarf hold, though this time as clear and painful as naked sunlight, burned into her brain. A roar she felt through the rock as much as she heard emerged from the cave, as though the mountain itself were screaming from its broken-toothed mouth.