They flew with purpose. The map, erroneous as it was, indicated that he was flying somewhere over the slopes of the Hypatian side of the Red Mountains.
He slowed, wondering if he should interfere. They might even attack him.
They altered course, dipping and rising, changing directions but keeping northward along what was some of the most difficult-looking ground AuRon had ever seen—steep slopes, tight canyons, woods thick as wolf’s fur.
The lead flier dipped. They turned a slow circle. They must see him now! But they gave no sign of it. One more circle and they dove.
They folded their wings, falling, in succession, releasing the carcasses exactly where the leader had. The burdens spun as they fell. Again AuRon could think only of small cattle or sheepskins, tied off and filled to bulging with water.
He saw them burst when they hit, splattering flame in all directions. Flame that burned momentarily with a fierce greenish light before fading to a more usual orange and yellow as it caught or died, depending on the character of the surface it landed upon.
AuRon could not tell that this pocket of forest was much different than any other patch. The trees were perhaps a little thinner.
The fliers rose back into the clouds, and smoke pulsed from the forest.
Auron landed on one of the pillar-like needles, among bracken clawing for a hold in the wind, wanting a look at what might be worth such an effort of wing and oil.
He slipped across a sheer cliff-face, creeping, creeping, skin a perfect match for the pinkish granite, careful not to dislodge too many pebbles. He looked down into the canyon.
There were men down there, running with lines of horses, taking them away from the fire. He saw some women dragging or carrying children, and men rolling barrels or dragging sacks four at a time.
He looked carefully and saw shelters made of pulled-down fir limbs, with more branches laced within, forming crude shelters. Firepits, log bridges making paths through the woods, rope strung here and there with clothing and fabric drying on it—there were men settled in these woods.
Even at this distance, something looked familiar about one of the men, walking to and fro, gesturing.
“Naf,” AuRon bellowed, but the wind took his words.
“NAF!”
They heard some of the noise he made.
Bowmen raised their weapons—no arrow could travel to his perch, but Naf had them lower their bows. Naf began to wave his arm, gesturing for AuRon to come down.
He had to do some intricate flying in the narrows between the sheer sides of the needle-rocks in two careful dives back and forth.
He landed in what he guessed to be an armed camp.
There was an awful sulfur-and-oil smell in the air, the residue of the fire-skins dropped by the roc-riders.
The fires, with dirt being heaped on them right and left, were being put out. AuRon smelled burned flesh and traced the odor to heaps of branches covering what must be bodies.
There he was, old Naf, smiling in that gap-toothed way of his, everything in his scarred face vaguely askew, as though it had been dropped and put back together again. His hair and close-trimmed beard were well flecked with gray, a gray that sometimes verged on white. Quite a change in the brief span of years since they’d last met.
His men looked half-animal, as men tended to look when long outdoors—shaggy, dirty and wolf-lean. Their tattered clothes were bound up with bits of leather cord, layers of rags thick about their legs and torsos. But all had well-kept weapons, sharp and bright with oil.
Naf embraced him, managing to put both arms around his neck. A few of the men pointed at his skin or claws and muttered.
“AuRon! I do believe you’ve grown. But what on earth happened to your tail? It’s quite a runt.”
“A long story, Naf.”
“My men are suspicious. They’ve had nothing good from dragons of late.” He turned and picked one out. “Ho! Dominof, remember AuRon, who visited the Silver Guard in the pass? He has returned.”
“Aye. Right on the heels of those blasted birds. Strange timing.”
“I would never have seen you if it wasn’t for those birds,” AuRon said.
“Tell me—I know nothing of those giant carrion hunters. Are they as intelligent as dragons? How do they keep finding us? Each time we shift camp, they find us again within six-day.”
“I do not know those birds, but they strike me as no smarter than ordinary birds. I’ve never talked with one.”
“What are you doing in these hills?”
“I was on my way south and became confused. I saw those riders and thought they could put me on the proper course.”
“Those riders are from our old friends in Ghioz.”
“The Queen. Yes, I’ve seen them over her capital.”
Naf lowered his eyes. “I don’t envy you the sights.”
“They call you Naf the Dome-burner.”
“I didn’t start out as one. Far from it. I was as loyal to the Queen as any Ghioz-born subject. No, all the disloyalty came from her, old friend.”
“How do you mean?”
Naf sat down and rubbed his thighs. “Oh, a battle started up with one of the Hypatian thanes. A fellow named Capoedia. There were so many refugees from the dragonraids piling up on his lands—Ghioz wasn’t letting any more through the passes, you see—that he sent his men against the pass guardians and won, at least long enough to get those wretches off his lands. That kind of thing had to be answered, of course, and answered hard, so I led my men in a raid on Thane Capoedia. I’d learned a good bit about moving through woods and such quietly when I rode with the Red Guard on the eastern borders of Ghioz in those timberlands. So we took him by surprise and won soundly.
“The Queen rewarded me with the title ‘governor of the Dairuss.’ Well, if there ever was a worse governor than me, I’d like to meet and strike hands. I cut a fine figure.”
AuRon wondered why more humans didn’t use masks in the manner of the Queen. They made it so much clearer. Hominids didn’t always speak their minds fully and expected others to follow them in expression and gesture, which could be as misleading as a dog’s tail, which often wagged even as the other end snarled.
“The Queen said Hieba and my daughter must come and grow up at her court and attend the schools in Ghioz, the best in the world, so that she could follow in my place with better mind than I ever could hope to have, and like the saddle-tramp who’s had some luck with his bow and spear I am, I thankfully accepted.”
“You’re no fool, Naf.”
“Needless to say, I did not squeeze and bleed my people as thoroughly as she would have liked. I’ve seen too many hangings in my life, for in Ghioz crimes of property and crimes of blood are held equal, and I commuted the sentences of small thieves of property to terms building roads or digging drainage ditches. I freed families who’d lost their fathers in Ghioz’s battles from taxation, thinking blood more precious than gold, and held court under those famous domes as I thought it was supposed to be held, with all free to speak and seek justice from their ruler without fear that their words would be turned against them.”
“I think many would like such a poor ruler as Naf,” AuRon said, wondering how Naf would deal with dragons who stuffed themselves with entire herds of sheep.
“I suppose I was warned. The Queen visited me, her mask turning from smiles to frowns, more frequently to frowns as the questioning progressed, and told me Dairuss was no longer the jewel of her provinces but a rather shoddy bit of brass. In desperation I hired some dwarves to open old mines in the mountains, but only succeeded in emptying my treasury still further, for the mines failed.
“Of course the Queen replaced me. She sent me a message saying she’d grown very fond of my daughter and the company of Hieba and would, with great liberality on her part, see to it that both were comfortable and Nissa was educated in the manner she’d promised, perhaps to one day rule and do a better job than her father. Oh, AuRon . . . the Queen’s counselor who brought that message said that I must do all I could to help the new governor, the awful Hischhein, succeed. Hischhein sneered, a little, as he surveyed the governor’s house and took inventory of the cookpots and lamps.”
Naf looked off to the northwest, as though he could see through mountains. “Were that all he wanted was a fine house with a commanding view! Hischhein immediately grabbed my people by throat and hair and shook them so hard that he might profit by dropped boots, coats, and shirts. And to think I’d once counted him as a friend!
“My people didn’t stand for it, and started murdering Hischhein’s tax collectors and townheelers. It was they who started burning the domes of Ghioz, and did it in my name. They rampaged through the streets of even the capital, pouring out of their quarters like a mud-slide, and burned the dome there, and then I knew the life of my wife and child would be forfeit. Was my governorship just a year ago? No, a little more. The messenger came in the spring, just as soon as the roads cleared.
“I did know how to fight. That’s one lesson life has taught me, and taught me well. I organized such elements of my old Red and Silver Guard as loved Dairuss more than their quarterly pay and we fought, for one glorious summer. But what could Dairuss do against the might of Ghioz? Those torch-wielding mobs, chanting my name as they burned the dome, what did they know of the resources of a whole Empire, which would shortly be flung over them as you might snuff out a fire under a wet blanket?