Too hard, Momma. I-Jizara cannot get out. The thought-words confused Wistala. Had they come from her? No, from the other green hatchling still trapped in her egg.
Jizara, Wistala, you must come out of your eggs. This is your first test, and you’ll learn a valuable lesson. In any crisis, the first scale you must bite through is your own. Master your spirit, apply your mind, harness your body—then you will be able to break through difficulty.
Mother, big enough to be a world herself, rested against a curving wall of stone. She could not be taken in with a single glance. Wistala had to assemble her out of impressions: her endless tail, deep rushing heartbeat, mountainous haunches, softly whooshing breaths, folded wings, arching neck, elegantly fringed head with its shining golden-yellow eyes cut by deep black slits. A loving prrum started deep within Mother’s throat, a drum-roll encouraging her daughters.
Wistala quit trying to go in six directions at once. She employed all four limbs and her tail to get out of the confining egg.
Tch-crick-crack!
And she was away from it.
But down again.
Her rear legs couldn’t get purchase. A wet mass that wasn’t quite her and wasn’t quite egg, attached at her underside, entangled newly uncurled toes. She let out a frustrated squawk.
She dragged herself, wanting that blood-smell, using her cleared front legs, pulling foul anchor and bits of eggshell.
Wistala, how strong you are! Mother thought.
The smell also meant death. She saw a red-scaled hatchling lying dead on its side, blood still trickling from its torn throat and stomach, brief life over already.
She knocked an empty broken egg out of her way, freed one hind leg. She could see more of the cavern now. Her mother rested on a ledge halfway up the side of the highest part; the rest was like a dragon’s muzzle, narrowing with teeth in the form of dripping stones meeting, though in a haphazard fashion when compared with a dragon’s regular rows.
Something moved at the edge of the precipice, and it took her a moment to recognize it as another hatchling. With its head down over the edge and its gray, black-shadowed skin, her sibling resembled a heap of oddly shaped stone.
It had no scales. A moment later she got a mind-picture of a mighty grown gray dragon flying over a mountain that hugged ice between its vast arms—some dream out of the past or from her brother’s future?
Her sibling turned on her, baleful red eyes under his shieldlike eye crest wild and staring. He cocked his head at her and tested the air with his tongue. With that, he strode up to the corpse as though he owned the shelf and dug at the succulent fresh flesh.
The fire left his eyes.
If he thought anything of, or at, her, she could not tell.
Help, Momma, please help, her sister thought.
Wistala wanted a mouthful of that feast, but suppose the gray hatchling objected? She looked behind, saw her sister still struggling against her egg. Jizara had managed to get her head and neck out, thanks to the sharp prong on her snout—why, I have one, too—but hadn’t so much as cracked through with her back.
Too hard!
Wistala turned, slipped on the drogue still attached to her belly, and pushed herself clumsily sideways, still learning what her legs could and couldn’t do, until she stood alongside her sister.
Come, Jizara, come with me to the blood-smell! A fine feast is disappearing down our brother’s throat.
Jizara gave a dispirited peep, managed to break a little more eggshell with her neck. At this rate, nothing would be left!
Wistala felt her tail whipping back and forth, seemingly in a nasty mood of its own. She redirected it, and struck the side of her sister’s egg—hard.
The egg cracked.
After that first opening, it was easy. Three sharp blows, and the whole side of the egg clung together, thanks only to a thin translucent membrane beneath. Her sister broke free, lay gasping and squeaking with the effort.
I see what you mean about the smell, her sister thought.
Jizara slunk forward, unable even to raise her forequarters and neck off the ground. The mass of broken egg still wrapped half her scrawny long-necked body.
Can you open your mouth?
Yes, her sister thought back.