Dragon Champion

Deep pain drove a spike through AuRon, further angering him. He wanted to roar and stomp, lose the hurt awakened in him in an orgy of death. But he fought down the emotions and hugged his body to the mountainside. The cool rock under his chin soothed him.



“I must think,” AuRon said. “Leave me to listen to the wind for a while.”



The hominids filed inside, Hieba under Naf’s arm. AuRon felt a seep of jealousy, but the girl belonged with other humans. Naf turned her for the door, but at the last second she broke away from his grip and ran to AuRon. She flung her arms about his neck.



“Father,” she said. “Whatever you do, wherever you go, my heart is there, too. I’ll always remember you.”



“Berrysweet, I’m not going anywhere just yet. I’ve still to reconcile mind and heart.”



AuRon looked north for a long stretch of silent hours. Naf came out and offered him food, but he had eaten well the previous day and was not hungry as yet. He watched the shadows change as the sun crossed over to the west, watching them lengthen and then dissolve into the night. The stars came out. AuRon wandered in memory, and circled back again and again to something Mother had said. Once you’ve fixed on your star, you’ll know where you are for the rest of your life.



He looked at the star, the star the Bowing Dragon pointed to. His star.



It led north.



AuRon hovered outside the castle, sailing on the mountain winds, rather proud of himself, for a heavier dragon could not manage the trick without much beating of the wings.



“Naf! Naf!” he called through the shuttered windows.



He heard curtains being pulled aside and Naf opened the wind-shutters. A hint of stove-light framed his powerful shoulders and Hieba stood behind, clinging to him.



“Have you settled your mind?” Naf asked, almost shouting.



“I’ll go north. What you have in mind may be impossible. I may not even meet this wizard. I can’t see him trusting some dragon out of the wild. Covering myself in blood and offal won’t do it this time.”



“Even information would be valuable. If we knew ahead of time where and when the dragons were coming, we would do better.”



“I will do all I can. Keep well, Naf, for your sake and Hieba’s.”



Naf took Hieba’s hand. “I will, friend.”



“Hieba, thank you for coming back to me.”



AuRon didn’t wait for a reply, but folded his wings and shot down the mountainside like a diving hawk. He spread his wings again at the bottom of the mountain, feeling the pressure-change, and swooped off to the north. The Bowing Dragon showed him the way.



AuRon followed the Falnges and saw the familiar landing of Wallander. The towers were gone, perhaps they had not returned yet from their yearly run. There were only three lights in all the town’s space, and AuRon smelled hardly a hint of dwarf. He rested farther downstream, out of sight of the settlement.



If the blighters meant to descend through the mountain gap, the Dwarves of the Diadem stood in their path like a stopper blocking a bottle’s mouth. The falls of the Falnges marked the only break in the mountains east of Hypat, and the Delvings controlled the falls. Putting himself in the seat of his enemy, AuRon wondered if this wizard knew the importance of the iron trail linking the top and the bottom of the falls. If he did, he would certainly strike the dwarves to open the way for the eastern forces now gathering. AuRon had to warn the dwarves; he owed Djer and the others that much.



The next day he saw the familiar mountaintops of his birth range. An hour’s northward flight, and he’d be able to land on the cave ledge from which he and Wistala had gotten their first look at the Upper World. But he had no time for sightseeing in the Iwensi gap.



There was little river traffic. It seemed strange that in the intervening years the river had grown emptier of boats. The ones he did see pulled for the bank as fast as they could at his appearance, and even they were not cargo ships but smaller vessels taking traffic from one side to the other.



The landing at the top of the iron trail was even emptier. AuRon spotted a cluster of dwarves sheltering under some trees near the wharf despite the dwarves’ attempt to conceal themselves. He saw arrow points balanced on fingers holding bows. He tipped his body and glided away out of range. A single sweeping look at the landing told him all he needed to know: broken ships, a smashed dock, carts knocked off their iron rails all said that the dragons had been there.



He flew over the first of the falls, a series of white steps bordered by sandy washes. Sparkling mist threw a rainbow. AuRon saw the shattered front of a river-ship resting alongside the bank. The wood had not yet reached the sun-drained color of driftwood. The ship must have died recently. AuRon floated through the deepening canyon, flying over fall after fall. A crossbow bolt flew down from one of the cliffs as he rode the swirling air currents above a roaring waterfall, but it fell well short. The river turned in a sweeping curve west, slowing and widening before the last fall, and AuRon finally spotted the rocky peak of the Delvings framed by the setting sun.



Though the carven tower was in ruins, the flag of the Dwarves of the Chartered Company fluttered on a makeshift staff above the smashed masonry. The Delvings still lived.



AuRon flew to the lower landing and circled on the confused air coming up from the boiling water of the last falls. A pair of dead wraxapods—giant bones still held together by a few strips of sinew and crawling with crows—lay in the mud near the landing. A wraxapod calf grazed upwind from the bodies in an open field.



There had been fighting at the Delvings. The balconies were blackened and blasted. Fine woodwork had been reduced to char; metal rings rattled on rods in the wind where curtains had once stood. AuRon saw no bodies of dwarf or dragon, so some must still remain within the Delvings. AuRon dropped from the sky, sliding right and left on the air currents and keeping out of crossbow range. The sun shone into the openings on the mountainside, but the galleries were as empty as the eyeholes in a skull. Perhaps—



A sapling-length shaft shot up from the ruins, whistling as its forged feathers cut the air. AuRon twisted in the sky, and the oversize spear punched through his wing, still rising. AuRon flapped upward and watched the missile at last tumble and plunge into the river. The dwarves must have mighty war-machines in one of the caverns.



AuRon would get nowhere with the dwarves in the Delvings; he could shout all he wanted, but from a safe distance he could not be heard over the roar of the falls. He was reluctant to try the door he had entered with Djer years ago. It was undoubtedly guarded by further war-machines. He looked over at the field with the wraxapod calf. The dwarves would not leave a valuable animal unattended.



Sure enough, a pair of dwarves was pulling at a chain about the calf’s elephant-height neck. AuRon turned and flapped over to the field. The herders dropped their leads and ran for the trees.



“I mean you no harm,” AuRon called. “I’m an old friend of the Diadem—I can prove it.”



The dwarves did not stop for conversation until they were well under the trees. “We’ll listen to no more ultimatums, dragon!” a voice shouted from the undergrowth. It echoed oddly. The dwarf was using some kind of speaking-trumpet that made the sound hard to place. “This is not a war of our starting, but unless you’re here to beg for peace through our mercy, you’re wasting your time.”



“I’ve nothing to do with the others. I seek Djer, a Partner in the Chartered Company. I bear his signet.”



“Djer? He’s in no shape to talk, dragon. The work of your kind.”



AuRon felt a stab, a pain fiercer than the wound in his wing. “May I alight in safety?”



“We’ll do nothing to harm you. What’s left of our warriors are all at the Delvings.”



AuRon landed, frightening the wraxapod calf so that it lumbered away trailing its chain leads, bleating in fear. AuRon sniffed, looked, and listened before approaching the trees where the voice had come from.



“I’ve a ring belonging to Djer with me.”



“Leave it and go to the other side of the field.”



AuRon obeyed, his tail lashing in impatience. He placed the ring on a stump in the field and strode away. Djer was a brave dwarf; it would be like him to be at the forefront of a battle.



The dwarf, a beardless youngster, crept out of the trees, face enclosed by thick layers of wrapped cloth examining first the meadow, then the sky. He snatched up the ring and then ran back into the trees.



Afternoon had turned to twilight before another dwarf returned, a dwarf in chain mail with his beard cut short so it would not become entangled in his armor.



“By the Golden Tree, it is the Gray Dragon,” the dwarf muttered to the wraxapod herder. The dwarf raised his mask. He had the staring look of one who had seen much fighting.



“Dragon, I’ve spent so much time cursing your kind, I’ve forgotten your name. But I’ve seen you before, among the towers and in battle. I was there when you stopped the charge of the Ironriders with your fire.”



“AuRon is the name, and thank you for coming.”



“Altran is mine, once on the staff of Djer, may his vest sprout gold.”