Dragon Champion (Age of Fire #0)

Dragon Champion (Age of Fire #0) Page 10

“Auron! Auron . . . look.”

He followed her gaze up. A dra—Father! Father was flying in from the southwest. He came down in two great loops, prey carried in each sii.

Auron dashed across the field for the stone projection. He’d turn himself yellow as the sun if he could, if it would just get Father to look down.

The dragon’s eyes were elsewhere. He disappeared behind the shoulder of the mountain. Auron got up to the outcropping, just enough to read Father’s mind: he was exhausted from long flight, burdened with food. Auron tried to broadcast danger with every thought in his brain, but by the time he reached the perch, all he could see was Father’s tail disappearing into a cave shaped like the half-moon.

A cascade of broken rock stood below the cave mouth, as if the mountain had vomited its innards from that aperture. Remnants of what Auron guessed to be battlements stood all around. The ruins stood like teeth around the edges of the mouth, broken teeth shattered by some blow years ago. Leveled walls, fallen towers, and debris-filled ditches were overgrown with grass and lichen; mountain creepers hung their tresses to curtain the cave.

Auron waited at the prominence. He couldn’t feel Father’s mind anymore. Wistala climbed up on the slab with him, so she just poked her head over the edge.

“Father didn’t see me,” he told her.

Wistala gulped anxiously.

A terrible roar came from the cave. Even louder was the thought projection from Father . . .

Betrayed! The Wheel of Fire! Auron got a flash of mind-pictures, dwarves and some kind of cliff-hugging buildings at the edge of a mountain lake.

Sounds of battle echoed from the cave. Auron caught the faint flash of light from within. Dragon fire! Auron felt his heart beat with excitement at the thought of dwarves roasting in dragon fire.

“Ku! Ku! Kuuuuu!” echoed dwarf voices.

Father reappeared at the cave mouth, his face a black mass of soot, flames still licking from the sides of his mouth. He held his near foreleg tight to his body, where blood poured from his forejoint. Spears stuck from his neck in a gory collar. Father spread his wings. Auron saw a dwarf somehow clinging to his back, knees locked on Father’s armored spinal ridge, hacking at the base of the dragon’s neck with a crimson-painted ax. Father reared up on his hind legs, smashing the dwarf into a smear on the cavern roof.

Wistala couldn’t watch. She threw herself off the prominence and into the meadow, crying.

A horn sounded.

Father’s mind was a iron wall of pain. Before he could flap his wings, bundles of grass flipped up; Auron saw spears and bows in the hands of pale-skinned elves with camouflaged shields. Arrows and spears sang as they tore through the air, some burning as they flew. Others above the cave popped up to empty baskets on Father, round glass globules that glittered in the setting sun as they fell.

“Above you!” Auron trumpeted, putting every ounce of wind from his long lungs into the shout. His voice cracked in his first dragon roar.

As Father twisted to look up, many of the weapons from below struck his scales. The globules hit him and shattered, and smoke came from where they struck. Auron felt the pain so clearly that he rolled into a ball.

But Father flew. He flapped to the sky under a rain of spears and turned north.

The elves who didn’t watch the fleeing dragon turned to look at Auron.

Chapter 7

The elves sang to each other, clear-voiced notes echoing between wood and ruin. Mother had imprinted him with some tongues, but he did not know elven song-calls. Auron made a decision as he caught a last glint of Father’s scales before he disappeared into the clouds.

“Wistala, lie flat. The elves are coming; I’m going to make myself seen to them. They’ll chase me for a while, maybe a long while. You’re going to have to go north alone.”

“What?”

Auron could hear hoofbeats from the woods below them. “No time!” he thought. “Go north. I think Father is going to the city of the Wheel of Fire dwarves. It’s built into the side of a mountain, next to a lake.” Auron did his best to send the mind-picture he got from Father. “It’s not far, an hour or two’s flight for him, two days’ journey for you. Don’t go anywhere near the cave—it’s crawling with elves. Can you?”

“Blades and raids, let’s fly. I want us to be with each other, no matter what.”

“One of us has to make it, Wistala. You hunt better than I. You have a chance of making it alone in the wilderness.”

“I don’t know the way!” she thought, despair clouding her mind and making her words hard to read.

“Follow the mountains north. You can’t miss this lake—it’s on this side of the mountains and very big.”

Auron craned his neck over the outcropping one last time, looking at the elves in the ruins. A few were running toward his overlook, carrying spears and bundles. More hoofbeats came from the forest, and he saw bareback elves leaping their horses up the slope toward their meadow. He touched his nose to Wistala’s, shoving his sister into a crevice with his body.

“Go to Father. Follow the Bowing Dragon. Follow Susiron. Father is there!”

“Auron, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. Don’t waste time.” He trotted out into the meadow, arcing down for the pine woods. Lithe elves ran among the horses. A moon-haired rider in a long cape hanging almost to the hooves of his horse blew a silver horn. Other horns answered from the pine woods.

“You’re brave, brave, brave-and-good-and-I-can’t—,” Wistala mind-called faintly.

“Good-bye, sister,” Auron thought. If there were elves in the pine woods, he’d best go up, among the rocks. Horses couldn’t climb rocks as well as he. Neither could elves, probably.

Running was hard. Auron only had two speeds: a sprint and a dog-trot. Neither would serve him now: the sprint would exhaust him, and the riding elves would catch him if he trotted. He did the best he could, lengthening the stride of his trot and running like a cat, using both his sii and saa in pairs.

The meadow gave way to a tangle of boulders. Auron put the biggest ones he could find between himself and his pursuers.

The elves jumped from their horses at the edge of the boulders, spinning as light and landing as soft as windblown leaves.

A hawk, and then another, swooped in from overhead. They dived at him, and he went flat as metal-sheathed talons cut the air above him. The hawks flapped skyward again and circled above him.

He clung to the side of a rock, panting. The hawks weren’t fooled, and they tightened their circle, screaming abuse in bird speech:

“Hey-ya-ya hatchling! Your hide will be made into a chair for my keeper’s sit-upon!”

“Aiyeek! Where are your wings? Where is your fire? Are you a dragon or an overgrown skink?”

The elves were trilling closer now. Auron dashed, climbing farther. He saw a running elf, its hair thick with leaves, out of the corner of his eye. The elf let out a shriek like an angry falcon and pointed with its spear.

“Hey-ya-ya hatchling, you’re in for it now! The riders are in the rocks with you.”

Auron hoped one of the hawks would swoop low enough for him to bite. He kept climbing, watching elves to either side hop from rock-top to rock-top, nimble as the mountain goats he had hunted with—

Wistala! He had to prolong the chase, whatever the cost. She was probably going up the mountain, and he was putting the elves too near her. The longer he could flee, the better her chances. The sun was nearly down and in the dark, both of them could see better than the elves. He took a moment to catch his breath and sniffed the air to locate the horses.

Another song-cry, and something flew through the air. It shattered among the rocks like ice cracking, and Auron caught a whiff of burning in his nostrils—but no flame came with it.

He didn’t wait to find out what it was. He slithered back down the hill toward the scent of horses. He felt light, detached, muddle-minded. Elven magic clouded his will. He suddenly longed for sleep.

An elf stepped out of the shadows, hurling a spear at him with a savage yip. It was a vicious, two-pointed weapon with glittering barbs at its points. Auron whipsawed his spine to avoid it and rushed between the elf’s stance, knocking the pale hominid down in his passage. He scrambled up a tall boulder.

The gathered horses he and Wistala had first happened upon stood below, stamping in nervousness at his odor.

He leaped down from the rocks onto the back of a horse, claws extended. The horseholders dropped reins to draw their knives. Auron bit and clawed to either side, a fighting daemon in the half-dark. The horses screamed their pain and panic.

The one he clung atop bucked him off, kicking another, and the ranks of horses turned as one and galloped away from the rocks. Auron twisted in the air and landed on his feet, running after them in his best dragon dash—squawking.

So began a strange three-part chase across the mountain meadow. One horseholder managed to leap atop his mount, trying to cut off the stampede, but the horses would not be slowed on a night of alarm, blood, and dragon scent. Then came little Auron, not even half the weight of the smallest pack pony, trying to make up in noise what he lacked in size. Elves ran behind him, answering musical instructions whistled by the one in the great cape.