“When we were fat and strong with full fire bladders and fresh iron-fed scales, we challenged the blighters in their own caves and drove them out. In a deep chamber, we found a place that fulfilled all our hopes.
“The blighters had diverted melt and underground springs to feed cave moss plantations and slug herds. It was deep enough to be out of any weather. Even a nice shelf in case of bad air! We let nature take its course and didn’t even object to a few bats’ helping fertilize the cave moss.”
“A triumph,” Wistala said, but wondered why there was no light in Father’s eyes, the way there had been before, when he spoke of his battles.
“Save for some hard words with the dwarves. Gobold sent some shifty bargainer who showed up with one chest of silver and one chest of gold and a great bag of gems and jewelry. His name was Quizzilick and he was a pogt if I ever met one. He gave us treble praise and precious little metal when we spoke to him on the shores of that great icy moat that guards the approaches to their twin halls.
“ ‘O dragons mighty, strong, sure, fierce (this went on for some time, daughter, until you began to hear the bats drop of boredom), your work shall be rewarded beyond even our bargain, for we bring you not monies but riches.’
“ ‘Riches to some, dross to others,’ I said. ‘A few gems are always welcome to a dragon’s appetite. They make for healthy, shining scale, but what we need are soft metals to replace scales lost in our joined war.’
“ ‘And our hatchlings must have some,’ your mother said. Her desire must have unguarded her tongue, for I’d never heard her make such a mistake when talking to dwarves. For even slow dwarvish minds might start turning at the thought of families of dragons being bred on their borders.
“In the end, Quizzilick slightly increased the amount of gold and gave us more jewelry that had rich strands of it, and a great deal of silver besides, but there was no end of grumbling. But we’d kept our part of the bargain, and when we quit them, we never troubled the dwar-lands.”
“How do you know it was the Wheel of Fire and not some other group of dwarves?” Wistala asked.
“I did not lose my head and attack the nearest dwarfworks, Tala. The etchings on their round shields and helm-circlets told me their tale of betrayal. The Wheel of Fire take pride in showing their flame-winged eagles.”
“Ironic,” Bartleghaff said. “So eager are they for eagle feathers and heads, they’ve killed off almost every one in these mountains. I’m glad they don’t have condors perching atop their standards.”
“Happy thought,” Father said. “I’d hear fewer complaints. But why bring up iron? Fault them for much, but not for the quality of their weapons. Finest steel, as I know too well.”
Bartleghaff preened his neck-tuft. “How can such wingspan be powered by so small a brain, you scaly sheep-roaster? I meant their insignia is ironic—irony, a form of elvish humor. Like having your tail burnt by your own fire.”
“Come to your perch, if you have one,” Father said. His eyelids drooped and his eyes were dull. Just telling a story had worn him—or perhaps old emotions had drained his hearts’ blood.
“I’m told by the battle-crows, curse their nest-pillaging feathers, that the flames signify dragonfire. Some story lost in the mists of time.”
“Whatever they learned of dragons they must have forgotten, to go murdering hatchlings,” Wistala said, but neither of the pair appeared to hear her. She could almost hear Mother’s voice above as she sang:
And for those who threaten clutch of flame,
To feel the wrath of dragon-dame!
Father yawned. “Time for sleep. A dragon must rest and all that. Daughter, I’ve had my fill of fish. See if you can catch something red-blooded unawares for breakfast, would you?”
Chapter 9
A week’s worth of breakfasts later—mostly fish, unfortunately for Father’s blood-hungry appetite—Wistala smelled smoke in the evening twilight of the forest west of the river gorge.
Game had become scarce in the area around Father and Bartleghaff, who seemed to do little but befoul his perch and goad Father into burning him up like a feathery candle.
Smoke in the forest, with the wood so wet from the constant spring rains, could mean only one thing—hominids. No other creatures save dragons wielded so dangerous a weapon.
With luck, she’d have hers in a few more months. Coming aboveground early had its terrors, but she had to admit she was thriving on the variety of food to be found.
And speaking of variety of food—as she rolled the smoke smell around in her nostrils, she got the mouthwatering scent of charred flesh, which she hadn’t had since Father brought home a burned sheep to the egg shelf what seemed like a lifetime ago.
The smoke smell was as easy to follow as a bright moon on a cloudless night through the trees. After a little casting back and forth, she came to a wide hollow.
It was an unnatural sort of place, like a dry creek, only the bottom was filled with tiny broken stones all roughly the same size, and the overgrown banks carried no smell of running water, though every rill for miles was brim-full with the rains. The hollow bent around the peak of the hill as though a claw like Bartleghaff’s obelisk had scored the hillside. But from the heights, one could both see either end of the streambed-like cut for a goodly length and be out of the wind.
A dwarf had chosen to camp here.
“Great things have small beginnings,” Mother used to like to say when she and Jizara compared their minuscule size to her bulk.
Her vengeance would begin here. As a bonus, the dwarf had a string of ponies. Surely she’d bring down one or two and be able to carry several limbs back to Father before the birds made off with it all.