“It’s the latest thing, a bed-warmer. Steam flows through it and returns to a sort of big chamber as water, where it is turned to steam again. There’s all sorts of dwarfish inventions like valves and cooling chambers involved, I don’t know the half of it, but it will be a fine perch for my hall. The dwarf has arranged a summer-bed as well, a clever thing like a great thick fishnet.”
“Aren’t you afraid, with all that space beneath where you sleep?” Wistala asked. “Assassins could get in under there and be next to your breast without waking you.”
“Oh, the hominids are beaten and they know it. I have a few Hypatian lancers and whip-hands here to keep order among the thralls. They make sure no one is hiding weapons or secretly making shields in the smithy. As for the Ironriders—well, you’ve just come from there. Did they give you any trouble?”
“We could hardly have found trouble had we looked for it,” Yefkoa said.
“Yes, I used to bring in a dozen or more gold coins a month in purchasing commissions,” OuThroth said. “Now it’s a few pieces of silver here and there. That’s why the hall is taking so long to complete—the thrall trade’s drying up or moving to other provinces. Most of them are coming from the north in the hill country of the upper Inland Ocean these days. If only I’d been posted there! Wallander buys wild horses and feedstock rounded up from the plains by the Hypatians, but that’s nothing compared to thrall-trade. There’s talk of war with the southern princedoms. I’m hoping that since now I’ve become experienced I can win a position there. The massacre threw the whole Empire into a tumult and there are titles up for the swallowing like summer bats.”
“The massacre?” Wistala asked. She felt a little sorry for OuThroth; he seemed starved for other dragons to talk to. Callow, yes, and perhaps a little lazy. If this was an example of the generations being raised by the Dragon Empire, it was no wonder war and revolution were in the offing.
“Oh, you wouldn’t have heard if you’ve been in the wild. A vast number of assassins from the Sunstruck Sea infiltrated the Queen’s feast, posing as thralls. They used terrible poisons, first in the wine to addle their heads, then on their blades. Seventeen dragons dead, including the male Twin, and the Sun King and Queen only just escaped. Infamy!”
“Who else was lost?” Yefkoa said. “Any Firemaids?”
“Mostly Lower World dragons. Ayafeeia was the only Firemaid I’d heard was killed. I’m thankful NoSohoth declined his invitation to attend, as he was engaged in important negotiations with the northern provinces in Hypatia, or I might have lost a most important ally and any chance of soon gaining another title.”
Shallow, callow youth! was all Wistala could think. Even in the great war with the Red Queen and her Ironrider allies, they’d never lost so many dragons in any one battle. Rainfall would be sure to retreat into short, polite phrases so as not to give his mind away.
“May you get what your work here deserves,” Wistala said.
They fed and restored themselves from the fast flight over the barren steppes and camped under some vast riverbank willows. When Yefkoa was slumbering soundly, Wistala left her and slipped through the gate to the outer pens.
She walked up to the trio of dwarfs watching over their stock. They sat in a ring, smoking and exchanging quiet words over a beer-cask with Hypatian letters on it.
“Come to view the merchandise again?” one of the dwarfs asked. “No sickness. Plenty of kids, even one mother-to-be. We’re not counting the not-yet-born, of course. Bonus for you.”
“Yes, I would like a closer look,” Wistala said. She reared up, and came down with all of her weight on the dwarfs, trapping them in her sii. She stomped furiously.
When the dwarfs were reduced to muddy stains, she turned on the occupants in the pens. The dark-haired Ironriders shrank away from her.
Some were chained together. It was the work of only a few moments to break the links. They set up a wailing.
“All of you! Run!” Wistala managed.
They didn’t understand her, so she flapped at them, just missing with her wingtips, until the whole mass was running for the low hills of the southern steppelands. They left only one behind, an old fellow who looked like he’d died from exposure. She extracted his tongue before burning him.
Once she was sure of their departure, she loosed her flame into the pen and on the dead dwarfs.
When she told Yefkoa what had happened the next morning, she expected complaints. Yefkoa stood silent for a moment, then said, “Good. Only fair way to take thralls is battle; this burning villages and hauling them in from the bushes bothers me. It means trouble, though, and things were going well with OuThroth.”
“Like you, I was almost enslaved when I was young. It was dwarfs then, too. I can’t right the wrong done to my family, but I can save another.”
While they ate, OuThroth hurried over.
“I must ask you about one matter. There were some dwarfs camped outside the walls yesterday. We were in negotiations about the purchase of thralls. The negotiations were taking overlong, as being dwarfs, they pressed their advantage to the limit and asked for a price above the very clouds. My watchmen heard signs of fighting last night, and this morning both dwarfs and thralls seem to be gone.”
“They are, after a fashion,” Wistala said. “Believe me, you wouldn’t have wanted those thralls. I’ve been among the Ironriders for some time, seeking old bones.”
“Disgusting custom,” Yefkoa said. “Some Ironriders dare to wear dragon-scale, or have the skulls of those killed in fighting as clan totems.”
“That’s not an answer,” OuThroth said. He was capable of pressing a point when a potential profit was involved.
“Your thrall-gatherers were trying to cheat you,” Wistala said. “Fully a third of the thralls they were trying to sell you were diseased. It’s not an easy illness to spot—they go pale and listless and bloodshot about the eyes, and while not immediately fatal, it does leave the victims vulnerable to other, more quick-killing diseases.”
“What did you do with the bodies?”
“We ate them. We were famished.”