Dragon Champion

He saw strange long-necked birds which stood on legs as tall as a horse, and a messenger who flew off east on the Golden Road on a vulture that had the wingspan near that of a mature dragon. He smelled a precious metal that came out of the south, something Djer identified as platinum. He tried wines and spirits, passing from exhilaration to sick exhaustion in six wild hours. There were piles of timber that gave off sparks when struck with a piece of flint, crystals that gathered the sun’s heat during the day and warmed a room at night, and puppets that danced without strings and told stories to amuse child and adult alike. What was magic, what was art, and what was craft could not be said except by the makers, who worked with all three to produce the wonders of the bazaar of Wa’ah.



Auron carried the sights, smells, and sounds of the land of the Golden Road between the Rivers for the rest of his life.



The barbarians must have slipped across the mountains in the night. Auron heard the far-off clamor of battle before dawn, followed by the nearer sound of dwarves blowing their alarm horns. The round horns, wound once around the torso at the shoulder with the bell baffled so the sound was projected in all directions, cut through the morning birdsong like a dragon’s battle scream.



The dwarven camp had always been arranged for defense, with the three towers as corners of a triangle filled by wagons running like the walls of a castle between them. The dwarves rushed to fill in the gaps with barrels, boxes, and beams, closing the riverside gap with Auron’s stoutly built treasure wagon. Auron had no role in the drill, nor could he find Djer, so he dashed to the northernmost tower and climbed the outside to get a better view. Panting from the climb, he wrapped himself around the pole leading up to the crow’s nest. The dwarf above stamped his feet in excitement.



Even with the predawn only turning the high swirling clouds gold, there was more than enough light for Auron to see the panoply of attack. A long column poured out of the mountains, dividing itself into three separate wedges like an approaching hydra. The farthest off turned and made for the Golden Road, the middle for the palisades surrounding the king’s warehouses, and the nearest turned for the riverbank.



“They’re not making to cross the river,” a dwarf in the watchtower called down to the commodore. “We’re safe!”



“Can’t you hear the horses?” Auron asked. “To the west, to the west, dwarf!”



The watchman shifted his grip on the rail and leaned out to look at the steppe and brought a glass to his eye. “No . . . yes . . . no, is there something out there?”



“Many somethings,” Auron said, backing down the pole.



Below, in the command cupola, the commodore held some sort of visor to his face, looking out to the steppe. Anxious dwarves stood all around. Auron reversed himself so his head hung down to hear the conversation below.



“By the hammer that made Ezkad’s ax, it’s the Kun-Dhlo,” Stal said, lowering the glass lenses. “We bought cattle from them only last month. They must be coming with every boy and graybeard who can ride. We’re too spaced out. The towers can hardly cover the walls, let alone each other,” he said to Esef, who had puffed his way up the ladders at the alarm. “We’ve gotten lazy in these smooth days of peace.”



The commodore inhaled and put a speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “Wind every crossbow and stand to the walls, O Dwarves! Stout arms and hearts, or our names’ll be memorials on the battle wall!”



Auron watched a long line inch across the steppes. The horsemen were walking their mounts rather than racing pell-mell for the towers. Whoever led the Kun-Dhlo knew how to discipline the warriors.



The same could not be said for the warriors on the other side of the river. Auron saw that one of the suerzain’s warehouses was already aflame. Wagons began to burn as screams and the noise of battle, like a thousand frantic blacksmiths hammering out tin pots, floated from the far bank of the river.



“What’ll it be, sir?” Esef asked. “We can save many lives if we abandon the stock and keep to the towers. They want our goods, not our lives.”



The commodore scraped at the floor with one of his tough feet like a horse eager to be off. “Dwarves don’t abandon their own. I’ve a duty to the Company, as does every dwarf here, to make them trade in blood for what they’d take without gold.”



“Give em a taste of our law,” a beardless signaldwarf said, but the elders ignored him.



“We should have dug a trench. In my youth, before the suerzain’s family came to power here, we were more careful,” Esef observed.



“Too late to regret it now,” the commodore said. “Go down and open the stores. If there are any mail shirts, hand them out to the dwarves on the barricades.”



“Where shall I go?” Auron asked as Esef spoke into one of the tubes.



The commodore jumped. “By my beard, I thought you were the tail of the banner hanging down. Stay in the towers, young drake! It’s the safest place. We may lose a good many dwarves, not to mention our stock.”



“Where’s Djer?”



Esef raised his face from the speaking-tube. “Where a dwarf his age should be, at the barricade.”



Auron fixed his stumpy tail and swung below the cupola, climbing down the side of the tower as he had come up, eschewing ladder for claw. He found Djer shouting orders for the dwarves to add everything they could move to the barricade. He held no weapon; he pointed and gestured with the long stem of his pipe.



“What shall I do?” Auron asked.



Djer kicked a case of crossbow bolts open on the ground. “Here, bowmen, take more!” he shouted, then looked at Auron as if he had just met him as a stranger. “Die on the walls with the rest of us.”



“Doesn’t anyone here know how to fight a battle?” Auron asked.



The dwarf set his mouth. “We’re traders first. Warfare is a long second. The towers haven’t been attacked in generations. Our machines used to frighten our enemies.”



“Another almost,” Auron said.



The drake could read the fierce light in Djer’s eyes, even behind his daylight-mask. “But they’ll still find that we’ll die only once we’ve built a wall of bodies around us.”



Auron saw arrayed companies of men in his mind, memories passed down from his grandfather. “Let the machines try to win it for you. But be prepared for them to fail. When men fight, they always keep a strong force out of the battle, in case of the unexpected. Don’t put all your dwarves on the walls—keep something back.”



Djer looked up at the towers, where the push-pull dwarves were manning their devices for hurling death at the enemy, and at the widely spaced dwarves, only two to a wagon, at the barricades.



“There’s few enough down here. You’ll be the reserve. Your fire might be a surprise if all else fails.”



Auron tensed, and his earholes tucked themselves behind his griff as they descended from his crest. “I will try.”



“Horses won’t be able to get past the barricade. It’ll be like the battle in the tapestry. They’ll ride round and round until they’re all dead. There might be some fights if they dismount and try slipping through, but we should—”



“They’re coming! Why don’t the towers fire?” a dwarf shouted from the wall.



Auron craned his neck and looked through a gap in the heap of wagons, bales, and boxes that served as a wall. The horsemen sat their mounts, still well away from the wall. The towers facing the lines of riders launched their missiles. Some flamed in the growing light, leaving smoke trails as they arced toward the enemy. The towers wasted no further missiles after the first fell short. Auron heard whistles and trumpets from the enemy and saw a rustle of motion from behind the barrier of horses.



“Some among them know how far our war-machines can throw,” Djer said.



Gaps opened in the screen of horses. Figures on all fours charged forward as the first rays of the dawn touched the banners at the tops of the towers. They were like dogs, only heavier. Auron heard pained squeals and realized they were swine. He saw blood running down their flanks, impelled by cruel spikes digging into their flesh. The pigs bore bags across their backs, the kind of satchels men sometimes put on their horses, though to what purpose Auron could not guess.



The dwarves did not wait to find out. The towers launched their shot and flame, the walls crossbow bolts. A swine or two fell, but the rest raced forward, some with crossbow bolts stuck through their fleshy shoulders and necks.



The dawn went white, and there was a thunderclap. A pig had disappeared, apparently in a flash of lightning.



“Sul-fire! Ware! Sul-fire,” a dwarf at the barricades shouted. “They’re under the walls, bring fire buckets! I smell a—” Another explosion cut the shout off; the dwarf and pieces of his wagon flew into the air as if by a giant’s fist driving up from the ground. Auron’s nostrils caught a noxious reek: a sulfurous mix of rotten eggs, burning flesh, and acidic smoke.



More thunderclaps sounded, though only one blew another gap in the barricade. Pieces of debris, flesh and wood, fell to the ground. Some dwarves hurled themselves from the walls, but most stood to their posts—bravely obeying orders or frozen in fear of the thunderclaps.