Dragon Champion (Age of Fire #0)

Dragon Champion (Age of Fire #0) Page 20

“Why is that?”

“The same reason we no longer roam to the coast. Men. The other hominids make war on you, as well, I’m sure; men go on great journeys to kill your kind. They hunt for dragon eggs. Their dogs like to brag to us.”

“Men. First it’ll be dragons, then it’ll be your kind, Blackhard.”

“Our kind,” Blackhard corrected with a gentle nip at Auron’s crest. “Let a starving wolf pack take even one sick sheep in the dead of winter . . . Good thing they kill each other off, else the world would be covered with them like moss on a fallen tree.”

The rock-tree looked to Auron more like a rock-mushroom. It was made of a dun-colored stone, narrow layer topped with layer, some slightly darker, some lighter. At the top it widened into an overhang; the overhang narrowed gradually to the crown, which had a tree sprouting out of it like a feather in the hat of an elf.

Long ago, a piece had cracked off the mushroom crown and fallen to the base, and as the moon rose, a black wolf with snow-white ears and muzzle jumped atop the pedestal. It took in the gathered wolves, sitting or lying in the darkness, even unto the cliffs surrounding the rock-tree. Auron waited, in between the fallen piece and the rock-tree in deep shadows. The other wolves avoided him.

“Bitter-Bite Coat-White heeeeeeere!” it howled; the other wolves took up the call of heeeeeeeeeeeere!

“Some of you know me, for this is my second Thing,” the white-tipped wolf began. “One or two of you even knew my father, Low-Ear Moon-Breath, leader of the Wind Song Pack.”

A few gaunt, elderly wolves in the front ranks thumped their tails against the dry bedrock of the empty river in acknowledgment.

“We’ve had fights today, matings, divisions, and aggregations. Such is the nature of Thing. Even Wind Song has lost daughters to other packs, and we gained a new son. Broad-Back Short-Whiskers challenged me for my place on Speaking Rock of Thing, and I emerged victorious. Being a good wolf, he returned to his place.”

Snufflings of appreciation rose from the assembly.

“Our first concern is the news that Hard-Legs Black-Bristle, last of the Dawn Roarers, has taken into the pack he now leads an Outsider. Such an event is not unknown to us. All of you know stories of we-people in our mercy raising orphaned elves, or humans even, teaching them to be wolves so that they might carry back to their kind wisdom and understanding. But Hard-Legs Black-Bristle has taken not a baby to be raised, but a mature entity into his pack. A young dragon, no less.”

“Hear! Heeeeeeeaaaaaaar!” the audience howled together. “Let us hear how this came about.”

“Will the leader of the Dawn Roarers tell this tale?” the white-tipped wolf asked of Blackhard.

“I will.”

“Then join me on Speaking Rock.”

Blackhard jumped up on the rock, but Auron saw that he took care to keep his head lower than Bitter-Bite’s. He told the story of their meeting, battle, and outcome in a few short phrases, admitting that had he fought Auron to the end, the Dawn Roarers would have ceased to exist.

“The life of the pack is more important than the outcome of the fight,” the white-tipped wolf observed, and the elders nearest the rock nodded agreement.

“Let us see this young dragon,” one of the audience said, and others took up the call.

“Auron, step in front of the Speaking Rock,” Blackhard said.

Auron crept forward, taking care to keep his head low to the ground. The wolves looked interested, but on a wolf it was hard to distinguish interested from about-to-spring. There were a few growls, a few whines—mostly from those wolves downwind—and a laugh or two.

“Why it’s just a baby.”

“It’s so small. Hardly bigger than one of our-people. It’s all neck and tail.”

“Where are the wings? Don’t dragons have wings? Is that really a dragon?”

“The Dawn Roarers must not have been much if they let that lizard take them.”

Auron heard Blackhard growl above and touched the honorable but still tender scars left by the lead-wolf’s death grip on his neck. He raised his head, extended his griff from his crest, and spat fire at the base of the Speaking Rock.

“Can a lizard do that?” Auron asked the assembled Thing. The wolves backed away from the flame, tails between legs.

“Calm down,” the white-tipped wolf barked. He sniffed at the flames. “That’s no woodsmoke from lightning. We can take it as proved that he’s a young dragon. But let’s go on to the more important question: Is he welcome in our lands as a wolf?”

A babble of opinions broke out—some saying that he was taken into a pack, and therefore was; others maintained that Blackhard had been coerced by the shadow of his own death into admitting Auron, and therefore wasn’t.

“Are you calling me a coward?” Blackhard said to the wolf who had raised the last question.

“With your pack lying dead around the prey? I do!”

Blackhard leaped off the Speaking Rock and into the crowd of wolves, snarling. Auron caught a flurry of teeth, bites, and shakes exchanged between the wolves in a blur of dancing fury. The snarls ended as quickly as they began, with Blackhard standing triumphant over his cringing opponent.

“I concede the point as a good wolf,” the loser said.

Blackhard had blood running from his muzzle and saliva matting his fur. “Does anyone else challenge my courage?”

Only the crickets answered from the gorge. The roaring rivers thundered on, oblivious.

“Then hear me, O Wolves. The Dawn Roarers go east when the sun rises. We ask to pass through your lands in peace, as good wolves. We ask for neither help nor hindrance in our journey. Can Thing assent to this drake being named as one of our-people, a good wolf?”

“What say you, wolves? Yea or nay?” the white-tipped wolf asked.

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Thing answered.

“Then we name him Long-Tail Fire-Heart,” Blackhard said. “Though to any who would join the Dawn Roarers, they will call their brother Firelong.”

“We wish the Dawn Roarers luck before they return to their territory, and hope that not too much is claimed in the interim by rival packs,” the white-tipped wolf said, with an eye toward the packs from Blackhard’s part of the forest.

Auron and Blackhard left Thing and wandered back to the river. Blackhard drank deep from the cool water and assented to Auron licking the wounds on his muzzle clean.

“You’re a good wolf, Firelong,” Blackhard said when Auron finished. “Stinky, but a good wolf.”

Firelong-Auron said nothing. He looked to the woods, where two other wolves, slightly smaller than Blackhard, stood sniffing them.

“If the Dawn Roarers are to have pups, it will take more than the two of you,” one said, advancing to the riverbank with her head held in a sidelong manner. “I am Bright-Sight Fey-Bark, and this is my friend, Way-Nose High-Star. We would join such a pack as you lead, and would be good wolves for you.”

The other female joined her, and all three wolves wagged their tails. Blackhard approached them, and they began sniffing each other’s tail-vents. Auron tried to keep from snorting at the sight. He might be an adopted wolf, but some customs . . .

The canines ran and played in circles, Blackhard trotting alongside first the one female, then the other. “Very well, Feybright and Highway. As you are good wolves, and the Dawn Roarers needing pups, you will come with us before dawn to the mountain’s east.” He wandered back to the riverbank and took another drink. He glanced admiringly at the females as they curled up at his feet.

“It’s good to be the lead wolf,” Blackhard said to Firelong-Auron, his feathery-haired tail up and out.

The journey east passed well enough, and the mountains grew ever greater, until they came to the sheep hill. The wolves were born rangers, and they used their boundless energy and long legs to pick an easy path for their slower adopted pack mate. Three young, healthy wolves and one drake learned to hunt together. While Auron was useless at running down prey, he could sometimes ambush a meal by camouflaging himself in a tree if the wind blew strong enough.

They had no brushes with man until the sheep hill. It was a bare meadow rising out of the trees around it. The goats on it appeared unattended, so the wolves brought down a slow-footed nanny and took an easy meal. Auron had sharper eyes than the wolves, and he saw a shepherd boy running from his hiding place behind a rock and into the woods.

“He should be run down and killed,” Auron said. The other wolves put up their ears.

“There aren’t many men in this part of the forest,” Highway said. “We’re safe enough for now, and we’re only passing through.”

“He’s left the others at large,” Feybright added. “Good if wolf take another kill? This goat was stringy. Not much for the four of us, and Firelong does eat a lot.”

“Good wolves, you’ll have to learn to be more careful of men when we return to the lands of the Dawn Roarers,” Blackhard said. “There are men there, and it doesn’t do to kill anything but stray livestock.”