Dragon Champion (Age of Fire #0)

Dragon Champion (Age of Fire #0) Page 66

AuRon would not have chosen the word alliance. “Yes. Why did you ask about my vision?”

“You came here for a reason.”

“To fight elves and dwarves, as I said. I learned of your war through some blighters in the East.”

“I don’t kill for the sake of killing, NooShoahk. This war serves a larger purpose.”

The Wyrmmaster looked out at the green walls of the fjord, a steel-colored sky matching the choppy sea beneath. They both smelled the keen wind.

“Long ago, man and dragon were inseparable. Did you know that? It’s fallen out of our history somehow, both races have forgotten their joint glory. But there was a time of peace, of learning, of prosperity. Man served dragon by keeping his herds and guarding his lairs; dragons served man by acting as his eyes and ears in the sky, or bearing messages faster than any horse or ship could hope to travel.”

“I’d heard of such a time, but I thought it was the blighters who fed us in exchange for our service.”

The Wrymmaster scowled. “Lies, lies spread by elvish historians bound in books made by the dwarves. It is a deep-laid plot, NooShoahk. The failed lines know man, if left unmolested, will take his place at the head of races, and build a world beyond their imaginings. They are jealous of the ingenuity of man, of his speed and adaptability. So they start disputes between nations of men, pitting brother against brother while the dwarves make money selling swords and the elves barter for plunder to furnish their lives of luxury. It is disgusting, every time I read a history of some war or other, to see the threads of the elvish plots. Such waste. Terrible, terrible waste.”

The Wrymmaster sank into thought for a moment, and AuRon opened his mouth, but he was preempted.

“I know what you are thinking, young skyking. You wonder how this was revealed to me, instead of some other. We have to go back to my childhood. I’d devoted my life to learning about dragons since I found an old book in my village, some tome brought back from a war by a man who couldn’t read, a war against a vicious band of elf-brigands. He was tearing pages out one at a time and using them to start fires in the wind. I opened it, and saw beautiful drawings of dragons. I saved the book. In truth, I stole the book, yes, stole it and learned its secrets. This took me some time. It was in Elvish, of course, to keep human eyes from discovering the truth within.”

AuRon suspected he had heard of the author of the book—the tome of Islebreadth and Hazeleye.

“Of course I had to learn Elvish well enough so I could read it. This was not easy, as the dwarves who owned my family’s land demanded the lion’s share of each harvest, and a book, let alone a tutor, cost dearly in silver. My father could hardly afford to keep us in clothes, let alone pay for education. I ran away to town, the Varvar port of Juutfod, knowing I could never further myself at home. I fell in with the most brilliant man I’ve ever met, a shipbuilder and trades-man once upon a time, who had been ruined by a conspiracy between the shipwrights of the sea elves and a band of dwarves. We shared the gutter. His name was Praskall, and he could read many languages, and he helped me with the book. It was from him that I first learned of the workings of elf and dwarf to keep man as but a crude tool in their hands. Anyway, I deciphered the book.

“This Ilsebreadth had first spoken to two dragons on some mysterious island in the north that only the sea elves could find. I set out to find this island to the north. I did, and sailed up this very fjord with a crew of four. We found ruins, pieces of an older civilization, and went looking for their cave.

“But the dragons also found us. They killed my crew; the pair had a nest of hatchlings to feed. They captured me, as well, and brought me back alive to keep for a later meal. These were an ancient pair keeping the island to themselves and remembering times past. They knew some of the tongues of men, and I spoke to them. I reminded them of long ago, and promised them that if they let me go, I would in a few months give them back ten times my weight in fresh meat. They accepted the bargain, and so began the first step on the road to reestablishing the rightful relationship between dragon and man. I raised goats, not very successfully at first, but the dragons gave me more time, and soon I had flocks of sheep for them. On sleepless nights, I would sit on this spot, whittling this chair, and think about what was, and what will be again. Man’s destiny, man’s First Destiny, was to be the lord of the surface of the planet, just as dragon’s destiny is to rule the sky.”

The Wyrmmaster showed no sign of tiring. As he spoke, he grew more intense.

“Eventually I convinced the dragons to let me go and get more men, so the herds could be increased. I gathered together a band of far-seeing men. Men with a vision for a better life. They laughed at us. We had criminals among us, a few drunkards, and the women who joined us, well, they weren’t welcome in any of the respected homes of Juutfod. But I led them here, and you see all around you what we built.

“The real turning point came when I delivered a herd of cattle to the cavern. They had a clutch, and the eggs were just beginning to stir. I lingered, slaughtering and salting down the meat so it would last for their clutch. When the eggs hatched, there were two males, and the usual fight commenced. A golden was the victor; he won out over a sickly looking red, tearing him badly across the neck. I asked for the skin to make a cuirass, and the dragons agreed. Little did they know, as I hurried away from the eggs, that the red still lived.”

The cloaked girl’s dance must have been pleasing to the crowd; there was a lusty hurrah from inside the lodge.

“That was thirty-seven years ago, NooShoahk. Thirty-seven long years, of thought and work. I’m called a wizard because I know something others don’t. If you get something when it is young enough, you can train it to accept anything. The red lived, only just, and learned from me. I named him Revanan, taught him to speak Parl. Most of all, obey. When the time came, I saw it breathe fire, and taught it to use that. I sent out bounties on healthy female hatchlings.”

And so my family died, Auron thought. “What happened to the pair who gave you the red?”

“The dragons of the cave grew old, infertile. They had grown used to being fed by man and forgotten how to hunt. I wanted their caves for myself, so I cut off the flow of food. Cruel? Perhaps, but I had young breeding pairs that needed the space, and dragons have been known to drive their parents out of the cave before this. They grew so weak, they could barely move. They feared to come out of the cave, for Revanan made frightful noises outside.

“Eventually Revanan went in after them. He was wounded in the fight, so that he’d never fly again, but it did not matter, he’d done the most important service in giving me the ancient caverns. I moved the few females I’d acquired in to the old nesting cavern, expanded what I could, and made do with the rest. Now let me show you what has been built, to the lasting glory of man and dragon. Come, Varl, we’ll walk back to the caverns. No, I don’t need my heavy coat. The exercise will warm me, and I’ll use good NooShoahk here as a windbreak.”

“I’m sorry I can’t take you to the stalls of the females, but it’s another dragon’s turn,” the Wyrmmaster said, panting a little as they went up the trail to the tower.

“Shadowstalk’s, sir. NooShoahk is next,” Varl said, helping the old man up the trail.

AuRon looked out at the docks. The boats of the dignitaries were being made ready for sea.

“That’s the one thing I can’t manage. If you unaltered males come together among the females, there’s blood on the walls. Have you met Starlight yet? Until you arrived, he was the fastest of our dragons, and as devoted a member of the breeding stock as I’ve known.”

They entered the dragon caves by another passage, one large enough for AuRon to enter afoot, but not fly into. It meandered back and forth, showing signs of recent work. Men with shoring timber on their shoulders made way for the trio. AuRon heard the pounding of picks in time to blighter song, and knew work was going on down one of the shafts.

They descended a set of uneven stairs, the air thick with dragon odors. AuRon went down slowly and uncomfortably, keeping his legs tucked well under. The passage widened again and they passed two members of the Dragonguard, who nodded their metal-shrouded heads as the Wyrmmaster passed.

“Look now, NooShoahk, for in a few years you won’t fit,” the Wyrmmaster said.

AuRon heard a raucous noise, and the passage turned a corner and widened. Light and air came down from somewhere above, the light coming in dispersed by domes of white-colored glass and the air pushed by a clattering thing set against the wall that sounded like a broken spinning wheel. Most of the noise came from hatchlings, wrestling and chasing in the center of the room. Older ones, on the verge of drakehood, napped on pallets set against the wall, ignoring the squawks of the younger generation. Members of the Dragonguard and other men moved among them, breaking up serious fights or sitting on the floor telling stories with puppets or carved figures. It was glorious chaos.

“We have another hall for the maturing drakes. They spend most of their time outdoors, exercising, cooperating in hunts, learning to obey orders. But this is where the sense of community takes form. Let me show you where the real magic is.”