Dragon Champion

The Wyrmmaster led on through some curtains. AuRon felt the room get warmer. Thick mats covered the floor, and AuRon smelled dragon eggs. This room was darker than the others, lit only by a pair of coal fires at either end. Men in spotless green robes sat at either end, tending the fire and listening for taps at the cask-size eggs.



“They wear green for a reason. Hatchlings react more quickly to something that is green, like their mother’s scales.”



“Why don’t you just use females?”



“It’s important that the first thing they see out of the egg is human. They bond better that way. The mothers won’t break off fights between males, and it’s vital for us to do that if we’re to have enough dragons. A dragon will accept whatever it first sees as its kind. The writer of that book called it impression, the great weakness of dragons.”



AuRon fought to keep his foua inside. The application of Hazeleye’s book sickened him: hatchlings emerging out of the egg, not to revel in soothing thoughts of Mother, but to imprint upon humans to better obey orders. He looked around so the Wyrmmaster could not read the fire in his eyes. “How many do you have?” AuRon asked. “Dragons of all types, that is.”



“That I tell no one. I know, and my nestmen know, but that information is kept from any who might leave the island. You, my friend, will be flying for me very shortly. But I’ll let you enjoy your time among the females first. I remember what it was to be young.”



“It your turn, NooShoahk,” one of the Dragonguard said, after AuRon returned from his morning visit to the sandpits outside the caves, where the dragons took care of their natural functions. “This morning we open the gates, you have pick of females.”



“How do I know which ones the others have mated with?” AuRon asked.



“Not matter. Watch and ware. If any give trouble, come to me, tell me who. Some shes make fight.”



AuRon followed the heavy tread of the soldier past the now-open gates. The smell of females pulled him down the tunnel like the current of a swift river. He sensed a larger space ahead in the darkness.



“Watch for eggs. Smash eggs mean much trouble,” his guide advised, stepping into an alcove and opening a second gate. “Now you go in.”



AuRon heard chains rattle in the darkness. It took only a moment for his eyes to adjust, but he couldn’t resist calling into the long cavern.



“Wistala, are you in here? Wistala?”



“We’ve none with that name, breeder,” a dragonelle to his near side said, from a narrow ledge cut into the cavern. AuRon saw that this cavern was like a tall tunnel, very long and narrow enough for him to touch one side with his nose and the other with his tail. It was cold and damp, icy cold water trickled everywhere, forming pools in the floor. One dragonelle had her long neck stretched to suck up water from a pool. He saw a cage about her snout, rather like a metal muzzle that he’d seen on savage dogs. The dragonelle could only open her mouth a little. It would be hard for her to eat, and impossible for her to spit fire without hurting herself badly enough so she might die of the burns. AuRon counted eleven dragonelles, well spaced out in long chasmlike cave. Most were asleep.



“What color is he?” AuRon heard faintly, within his mind.



“He’s a gray,” was the answer, a louder mental echo of thoughts directed elsewhere.



Mind-speech! The first he’d heard since mixing with the dragons on this island. He had almost forgotten what it felt like.



“AuRon, is that you?” came across, faint but firm. The words felt familiar.



“Wistala?” AuRon thought back, running toward the source of the mind-speech. Green eyes flickered at him in the darkness, from the perch farthest away from the gate. “Wistala, are you here?”



The dragonelle raised her muzzled head. “You are the gray, that gray from long ago. AuRon son of AuRel, who escaped to drown at sea rather than live in a collar.”



AuRon stopped, smelling the female. She was familiar, but so briefly and so long ago had he known Natasatch that he hardly recognized her.



Chapter 24



AuRon knew her sound, her scent, and her eyes, but the rest of her was changed as much as he. Her scales had turned into the shimmering green sea of a dragonelle’s rather than the duller color of a female hatchling. Her tail and her neck were both long and supple; the slightest movement of either riveted his gaze. He looked at her decorously folded wings and wondered what they would look like spread and aloft in the warm glow of sunshine.



“So you ended up here after all. Of breeding stock, no less,” Natasatch said with her mind.



“I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s go outside,” AuRon thought.



“He doesn’t waste any time, and hardly a bud on his crest,” one of the other dragonelles said dryly.



Natasatch pulled at the collar around her neck with her saa spur. “I’ll listen,” she thought. “If you can get them to take this off.”



AuRon hurried to the Dragonguard. It would be good to have someone to confide in, someone with whom he could curse this mad system. “I’d like to take one up. The one on the far end, Natasatch. Could you unlock her from the wall?”



The guard chuckled behind his visor. “Heh. She see new dragon, try old trick. She’s forget, humans know her. No, you want mate you inside mate. Get used to it. You no want her, she plenty too much trouble.”



“I’ll go to the Wyrmmaster.”



“They his rules.”



AuRon turned, putting as much contempt into the gesture as he could, and returned to the dragonelle cavern. He made the long walk back to Natasatch, ignoring the ribald comments from the other females. A couple of the dragonelles swept droppings off their ledges as he passed, hurling challenges with their cast. He concentrated on the sound of trickling water to keep them out of his mind.



“You’ve tried this before,” AuRon thought.



“Me, and some others.”



AuRon made the short jump up onto the platform beside her. She tried to snap at him, but it just turned into a thump of her muzzle on his crest. She glared at him.



Natasatch’s ledge was wide enough for her to lie on, and there was an alcove cut into the wall where she could sleep if she wished to curl up. Her chain was attached above the little half-cave. She backed into her alcove, still trying to intimidate him with her stare.



“I need to talk to you,” AuRon said, keeping his voice low enough so he could hardly hear himself over the sound of the water on its way to the floor. Using his voice was safer than using his mind: he did not know if all the dragonelles could be trusted. “I’m not here for that, I’m not about to mate in some filthy hole with a bunch of dragonelles watching.”



“Au—”



“Don’t use my name anymore, please. They call me NooShoahk here, so use that if you must. Tell the others you were mistaken about me. But know, I’m not here to breed hatchlings for this wizard.”



“Then what are you doing?”



“As soon as I know, I’ll tell you. I’m casting about, learning my way around.” AuRon lowered his voice to a mere breath of a whisper. “These dragons he’s commanding, they’ve killed friends of mine and many, many others. The Wyrmmaster thinks himself some kind of prophet; he’s on a mission to clear the earth for man. Using dragons.”



“We’ve heard rumors of battles. Sometimes dragons disappear.”



“I’ve seen what these men are doing with the help of our kind, and it’s horrible.”



“What’s going on down here is horrible too, Au—NooShoahk,” Natasatch said, in a whisper that matched his. “They take our eggs almost as soon as they’re laid. We hear they’re making a new kind of dragon. A dragon to serve man.”



“That’s not far from the truth. They’re not making dragons so much as shaping them. Perverting natural instincts, changing how dragons react to each other and men. I feel like I’ve landed on an island where the deer fly and the wolves roost in trees at night on the orders of field mice. But I’ve no idea what to do yet. I just can’t see how to get my claws into it.”



“Get help. If other dragons off the island knew what we were forced—”



“Other dragons? How many are there?” AuRon asked. “It took better than a year to find just one, and I knew where he was. Then there’s the problem of how to convince a male, who thinks you are coming to claim his territory, to abandon his range and take a week’s worth of . . . no, other dragons aren’t the answer. If we could get dwarves onto this island, they’d be able to mine up under all this, and they’re built for cave-fighting. But the dwarves I know have troubles of their own, and I wonder if all of them together would be enough against the dragons that are already here.”



“Blighters can tunnel. I’m told there are some on the other side of the island.”



“The blighters already work for them. But it wouldn’t hurt to talk to them.”



“Careful of the Dragonguard. Their captain lives to kill us: male, female, or hatchling. One scarred him when he was a child, they say.”