After the roar came the dwarven battle cry she’d heard before: Ku! Ku! Kuuuuu!
Father’s pain and need came through to her, as hard and bright as his gemstones they’d thoughtlessly gobbled. She felt wounds as Father emerged, a dwarf with legs set tight against his neck, hacking at Father’s scaly spine with a bloody ax as though trying to cut a tree dodging out of the way.
Off, off my back, you klut!
Wistala could feel the dwarf on her back, winced at the blows. She threw herself off the rock, rolled in the meadow as battle horns blew in the valley below.
“Above you!” Auron shouted in a voice louder than she’d have given him credit for. Then Auron, too, gave in to Father’s pain, and he rolled himself into a ball.
Flee!
She saw Father flapping north, plucking spears from his hide, got another flash of the dwarf halls around the lake. He couldn’t mean to go into battle again!
In the valley below, from hiding places in the mossy rocks, elven heads watched him go.
“Wistala, lie flat!” The words came fast as Auron told her to let him lead the elves away. She would go north and find Father.
Her hearts almost ceased beating at the thought of her brother leaving her. “Blades and raids, let’s run. I want us to be with each other, no matter what.”
“One of us has to make it, Wistala. You hunt better than I. You have a chance of making it alone in the wilderness.”
“I don’t know the way!”
“Follow the mountains north. You can’t miss this lake—it’s on this side of the mountains and very big.” He gave her his fuzzy mind-picture again, but it didn’t matter. She’d never make it—
Auron touched her nose, managed a choking prrum as he pushed her into a crevice.
He listened to the hoofbeats of the approaching elves. “Go to Father. Follow the Bowing Dragon. Follow Susiron. Father is there!”
“Auron, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. Don’t waste time.”
Auron hurried into the meadow, in the open for everyone to see. High above, wheeling hawks altered course and moved to fly over him. They cried out, and were answered by horns from the valley.
He can’t be leaving! He can’t he can’t he can’t . . .
She called to him with her mind, called him brave and good and sent all the love she couldn’t find words for, reaching to touch his mind if not his soft gray skin.
“Good-bye, sister.”
He’d never called her sister before.
He never would again.
Wistala cried, alone, and not one living thing in the Upper World cared.
Chapter 6
Darkness settled on the mountainside before Wistala moved again. All the time she waited, she had to choke back little peeping hatchling cries. A day ago, she would have put her neck on an oath that she couldn’t keen like a still-wet hatchling anymore, but the sight of her brother leading the elves away from her and to his doom brought the sound—whether she liked it or not.
She waited until long after dark, hoping that Auron would return, galumphing out of the mountainside mists with eyes ablaze and a tail-thumping story of outwitting the elves.
She looked into the valley in the direction Auron had disappeared. Campfires dotted the area around the meadow where they’d come across the unsaddled horses. She heard no baying of hounds, saw no torches in the trees indicating a hunt still on. But Auron was quick, perhaps—
No. You’re alone now. They’re all assassinated.
Except Father. Gone north, to some dwarven fortress by a lake. The clouds thickened; another storm might be working up.