That must have been directed at the blighter. Fourfang grinned, showing his sharpened teeth.
“What can you tell me about Bant?” the Copper asked Rethothanna.
She fluttered a griff at NeStirrath. “You mean what kind of food is to be had?”
“No. Our allies in the Uphold. What are they like? How do we keep the peace with them? What’s the nature of this problem SiDrakkon needs to solve? But if there’s some delicacy to be had…well, I’d hate to miss a new feast.”
“He is a promising young thing,” she said to NeStirrath. “Interested in the essentials. Very well. I’ll give you the essential for Bant: water. Bant’s either dry or rainy, depending on the time of year; the rainy season starts right around the summer solstice, usually a little before. It’s made up of rocky, rather dry plains that go lush during the rains and tinder-dry the rest of the year. There are three rivers, all flowing west to the Ocean of the Summer Sun, and it’s control of the rivers that’s everything, for there are rich forests full of trade goods and spices along the rivers. Very good land for herding on the plains, as long as the herds can get to water holes or the rivers in the dry season.
“The elves lived there first, along the rivers, but tribes of blighters came and dispersed them, though they didn’t quite get rid of them. A few still live on in the deeper woods or around the better-watered rock piles. A dwarf or two pass through, usually engaged in trade or craft with the ivory and hardwoods. Some tribes of men as well, distant relations to the Ironriders of the north, I believe, as fierce as the blighters when fighting on horseback.”
“So it’s hard to keep the peace between the groups?” the Copper asked.
“Well, yes, they’ll go to the dragon to settle disputes, when neither side thinks it can gain an advantage. But this case is difficult. The Ghi-men, the stone shapers, are pushing south and taking over the rivers, from what I understand of the messages the Tyr has shared with me. They’re well organized—their armies will put up a fight against even dragons in the field—but their real skill is in digging and roofing and wall building. When they’re behind their battlements they’re as tough as a scale digger.”
NeStirrath’s wing stubs dipped. “If SiDrakkon thinks he’ll throw his main strength against one of their fortress towns, we’ll be singing laments from Imperial Resort again.”
“You do travel light,” SiDrakkon said three days later, as they assembled at the northeast riverbank. “Only two thralls?”
“You said it was a six-day journey.”
“Barring delays.”
“I’ve gone hungry before.”
“That’s why I bring extra thralls. Once you’ve consumed the baggage, there’s no need for baggage carriers.”
Nivom had two sissa of Drakwatch and a sissa of Firemaidens. He wore a golden ring in his ear, a mark of a Drakwatch full commander, a rare honor for a wingless drake. Beside the Tyr’s brother-by-mate and and Nivom, the Copper also noted three battle-scarred dragons, two blacks and a red, with purplish tones shading their coloring.
“The worst of the Skotl clan,” Nivom said quietly. “Duelists.”
The Copper hadn’t seen a duel yet, though his bats had witnessed one while hunting. The Tyr discouraged the custom for the dragons in the Imperial Resort, and absolutely forbade it among the Imperial line. But on some of the other hills, dragons settled their differences in combat. For the wealthier dragons who didn’t want to risk losing an eye or something even more vital, challenges could be settled by means of a duel-by-proxy.
“What do you have against duelists?” the Copper asked.
“A rich dragon can hire professionals, and then start a squabble with a poor one to take what little he has.” His griff rattled, though he kept them sheathed.
The three-score drakes and drakka under Nivom snorted and whispered: “They’ve finally let Batty out; Spirits help us.”
SiDrakkon walked back up the line of dragons, flocks, baggage, and thralls at the northeast tunnel mouth. They’d go down for a short distance, to the water ring, then start the underground journey to Bant. He paused again by the Copper and took a long sniff at Rhea.
“She’s just maturing. Ahh, but that’s a smell,” SiDrakkon said.
The Copper found her aroma pleasing, rather soft and mammalian, but not nearly as interesting as forge-fresh steel or a fat joint sputtering in an iron pan. But there was no point in being disagreeable.
“Yes,” he said. “The blighter could use a daily wash, as she does.”
SiDrakkon glanced back at the distant wart of Black Rock. “I’d have a garden of such women, rather than the Tyr’s wretched ferns and darkblooms, if I had my way. But duty calls. Which reminds me—Nivom, where’s that old courier ring of yours?”
Nivom nosed around in his baggage, and approached with a bronzed token on a chain.
SiDrakkon took it in his sii and held it up. “Your first laudi.” It was a pair of equal-sized bronzed bones, joined and wired at the center so crossed as a dragon might cross his sii before settling down to sleep.
“The crossed man-bones of the Tyr. This shows you to be a courier of the Imperial Resort.” He opened the length of chain, and the Copper bowed so he might slip it down his neck.
The links rattled down his scale and finally stopped.
“Of course. It doesn’t fit. You’re wide across the neck base, drake. We’ll have to find some smithy and get it adjusted.” SiDrakkon smelled hot and angry, like Father.
“My…my line was thwick-bodied,” the Copper said.
“Watch that lisp. What’s wrong with you? You sound like a hatchling. Nivom there speaks better, and half his lip is torn off.”
The Copper averted his eyes and swallowed.
“Well?” SiDrakkon growled.
Some of the Firemaidens were whispering among themselves.
“Sow—sorry.”
“Be careful with that necklace in battle,” Nivom said. “It gives foemen a good aiming point.”
The lounging drakes chuckled, and even SiDrakkon deflated a little. “Confound it, we were supposed to have more baskets of chickens. Where are they now?” He swung around and stalked back up the line.
Nivom edged closer. “What do you mean, your line was thick-bodied? You still live, so your line does.”
“Bad wing. I’ll never be able to mate.” At least the words came out with a dragonly inflection. He felt comfortable around Nivom.
“Nobody cares about those back-mountain rituals anymore. Well, almost nobody.”
SiDrakkon, satisfied at last with the preparations, set the column in motion. They left the Lavadome, with the tunnel guardians of the Drakwatch and the Firemaids raising their necks and trumpeting.
The families of the thralls in the baggage train who’d made the trip to the assembly camp added their own wails. Bits of wood and bone on string were passed from fathers to sons, or between mates. The Copper had been told a dragon could spend a lifetime describing the different good-luck charms and fetishes of the hominid races.
SiDrakkon placed him behind the thralls of the column, with the rear duelist dragon and the sissa of the Drakwatch. They came to the encircling river and he again took in the wonder of the high-walled cavern, with sunlight falling through the cracks and landing in golden slivers upon the fetid water. A group of hatchlings sunbathed under the watchful eyes of their mother, and two young dragons swam. Probably newly mated, the Copper thought with a pang.
There were boats drawn up for the thralls and provisions. The dragons all swam.
“You’ll need to ride in a boat, I expect,” SiDrakkon said as he watched the thralls load the last boat.
“No, sir. I’m a strong swimmer,” the Copper said, plunging into the water.
“Don’t come crying halfway across. Maybe one of the bodyguards will let you ride on their back, but I won’t carry you.”
“Of cowse not sir.”
“And stop that flapping lisping!”
“Y-yes.”
The Copper clasped limbs to body and swam off after the sissa.
At the other side of river—two bonfires marked the wade-out—the Copper was able to lose his shame again in the fascinating activity of loading and manning the rut-carts.
Here by the river ample cave moss lit the scene. A wide tunnel, with two shining bands of metal running off into its darkening length, left sun-shafted beachfront and disappeared back into the depths of the Lower World. The Copper was so used to the pool of yellow light coming down from the top of the Lavadome or the orange flicker of fat-lamps that the faint green glow of the moss seemed strange again.
Wheeled contraptions rested on the bands of metal. Some had sides; some were just flat platforms, but all ran on four or, rarely, six wheels. The wheels were small things, with lips along the inside that kept them in place on the iron bars. Specialized thralls, barefoot with thick leather belts and wrist braces, minded the oily-smelling joints and laid out and checked pulling lines.
They were dwarvish contraptions, of course.
