No, the goats were alarmed by something else. Had they caught the scent of a troll? And, if so, would the pair of them be enough to kill it? They really should have brought another dragon so that there’d be a firebladder full of burning fats and sulfur in reserve.
Her other brother, the copper-colored RuGaard, formerly Tyr of the Dragon Empire and Worlds Upper and Lower, wouldn’t be of much use on a hunt. Thin and listless, hardly eating, drinking, or caring for his scales, he lived a lightless existence at Scabia’s hall, hearing without really listening to her old tales of the great dragon civilization of Silverhigh from ages ago. The only time he showed any sort of animation these days was when AuRon brought news of his own mate, Nilrasha, a virtual prisoner in a tower of rock, thanks to the stumps she had instead of wings and a guard of watchful griffaran. She lived on as a hostage to the former Tyr’s good behavior.
Or when Scabia told some old tale of desperate vengeance. Scabia loved fiery tales where three generations of men were born and dead before a dragon took his blood-toll upon a hominid nation. Then he grew attentive and his griff twitched as he stared at Scabia through lidded eyes.
RuGaard frightened her at such times. She could feel the violence in his thoughts like the muffled pounding of distant hooves.
Thank the spirits she had the comforting presence of DharSii beside her. Caught between the quiet, reserved AuRon, creepy in his ability to disappear into the scenery and his own thoughts, and RuGaard’s gloomy brooding, she needed a companion to provide mental, and a bit of exhilarating physical, escape.
There were flowers just above the ground in green meadows at the colder altitudes below the tree line. Spring had come at last.
Spring. Her hatchlings would be aboveground this spring and breathing their first fire.
Wait—not her hatchlings. They counted Aethleethia as their mother, even if they could barely comprehend a mind-picture from the lazy ninny.
The offering of her hatchlings had been Scabia’s price for giving the exiles from the Dragon Empire refuge at Vesshall in the Sadda-Vale. Scabia’s daughter, Aethleethia, was unable to have eggs of her own, and both were eager for hatchlings in their hall. The other dragons thought the father of the hatchlings was Aethleethia’s mate, NaStirath, a foolish but handsomely formed dragon of proud lineage.
She, DharSii, and NaStirath had conspired to hide the truth that DharSii was the true sire. Though one of the males did bear stripes as dark as DharSii’s, the suspicious Scabia had been placated when Wistala pointed out that her brother AuRon was also a striped dragon.
No matter who they counted as mother, the three males and two females would be ravenous, and if they were to have anything besides the bony fish or carapace-creatures and snails of the lake to eat, she and DharSii would have to find and kill the trolls that had been raiding sheep, goats, and caribou from the mountain slopes and patches of forest in the valleys.
DharSii and Wistala had discovered the remains of troll-eaten game on one of their flights to get some privacy from the other dragons of the Sadda-Vale. A troll could easily eat as much as a dragon and according to DharSii, if the food supply was truly superlative, it would breed.
Scabia’s blighter servants had been frantically breeding cattle, sheep, and goats and releasing them into pasture ever since Wistala and her exiled companions arrived. There was ample game for a whole family of trolls, though the solitary trolls didn’t form anything that might be recognized as family.
So now they were on the hunt for the most dangerous vermin in the world.
Wistala liked a hunt. She liked it doubly well with a dragon she loved and admired. She’d long since learned she could admire something without loving it or love someone without admiring him; the combination of love and admiration went to her head like wine. DharSii—“Quick-Claw” in the dragon-vernacular—when on the hunt spoke and acted quickly and efficiently, with none of the stupid roaring and stomping that a typical male dragon—NaStirath, say—indulged in upon spotting the prey.
“Troll tracks,” DharSii said, waggling his wings.
She followed him down to a felled tree on a steep slope. She had to dig her claws into the earth deep to keep from sliding.
A long, muddy skid mark stood on the lower side of the fallen tree, the mosses and mushrooms devouring it were smashed and smeared where the troll had placed a foot, and it had slipped on the soggy mud beneath, sliding a short way on the slope. They could see broken branches on another tree a short distance downslope where it had arrested its slide.
Wistala sniffed.
“Scat, too,” she said. She followed the bad air to a mound of troll droppings, though the less said about it the better for all concerned. For all their strength of torso and limb, trolls had rather haphazard digestive systems, sometimes expelling food that was barely absorbed. This particular mass of skin, bones, and hair was disgustingly fresh and hardly touched by insects yet, though a beetle or two crawled about on the waste, waving antennae as though celebrating their good fortune.
“Looks like it’s making northeast, toward our herds,” DharSii said, counting the widely spaced tracks heading down the slope. “This is fresh enough that I’ll hazard it’s still climbing that ridge.”
Almost a long mountain in itself, the ridge DharSii spoke of was cut by deep ledges, like colossal steps running at an angle down toward the central lake of the Sadda-Vale, where its bulk forced one of the lake’s many bends. On the other side of the ridge were herds of winter-thinned cattle, hungrily exploring meadows springing up in the path of snow retreating to higher altitudes, along with the usual sheep and goats.
“I’ll try to follow the tracks, stalking or flying low,” DharSii said. “You get up into the cloud cover, so you can just see the surface. If it knows it’s being followed, it will make a dash for shelter, and we may be able to corner it. I know that ridge well; there aren’t many caves, but there are fissures it will use.”
If DharSii had a fault, it was arrogance. If there was a risk to be run, he assumed he would be the better at facing it. Gallant, but vexing for a dragon-dame who enjoyed a challenging hunt.
“Why shouldn’t I follow the trail? Green scale will give me an advantage in low flight, if the troll’s climbed the ridge already and looking behind and below.”
“I know this troll. This track is familiar. Long-fingers, I call him. I’ve tried for him several times, and he’s tried for me almost as many. I know his tricks, you don’t, and he’s nearly had me even so. One of us must put an end to the other sooner or later. He’ll be expecting me to be hunting alone, and he may take a risk that will draw him into the open. Then you may strike.”
“As you wish, you old tiger,” Wistala said.
“I’m scarcely above two hundred. Hardly old,” DharSii said. “Mature and distinguished.”
“Just don’t distinguish yourself any further with more scars,” Wistala said. “Scabia’s blighters sew skin closed like drunken spiders, and we’ve no gold or silver coin to replace lost scale. I’ll be above.”
“Ha-hem. I’ll return hearts and scale to you intact,” DharSii said.