Dragon Strike

“Yes, we may last long on this cold, foggy island. But eventually we’ll be a crowded, sick isle full of thin-scaled dragons eating seal-blubber and fish.”



“Difficulties that can be overcome. Why could we not fashion tools and mine as the dwarves do? Are our limbs weaker, our brains smaller?”



“Our bodies are bigger. We would have to engineer tunnels tall and wide.”



“If we fight for one set of humans, we’ll just make enemies of the other set.”



“Better than both allying against us.”



“You’re too clever,” he said.



“You’re too cautious. Even a few dragons may make a difference. You told me an old friend was in trouble. Can we not help him?”



“A few dragons wouldn’t help him. I’ve seen the fliers who hunt him. They’re a match for a dragon.”



“All the more reason to fight now. Will not these fliers be just as much a match for us tomorrow?



“I think,” Natasatch said, “this has gone beyond reason. You’re worried that your brother may be on to something. Is it his success that troubles you?”



AuRon felt his firebladder pulse. He’d never felt like biting his mate in his whole life until now. The impulse shamed him. “Whatever he has planned, it’s not for our benefit, or that of dragons. There is no interest but his own in these doings.”



They watched the dragonelles stomp and roar as they talked to the courier.



The young dragonelle took off. Three others joined her, one of the isle’s altered males.



“Coming, AuRon?” Ouistrela called. “We’re off to inaugurate this ‘age of fire.’ A new age of dragons! Battle screams and horseflesh as far as the eye can see!”



“Will you go?” Natasatch said.



“I haven’t decided.”



“Every moment could be important.”



“If you don’t go, I will.”



“What about the hatchlings?”



“You and your sister were fending for yourselves by this point. Not all of our kind are leaving. There are dragons on this island hoping some men would land for a change of diet. I expect they’ll survive. Just as well. The sheep will be lambing soon and they could use a break.”



AuRon read the resolution in her eyes. “Well, if we’re going to get involved in this war, we might as well do so with some force. I will join you.”



“Let us go, too, Father!” the hatchlings clamored in various iterations.



Perhaps there would be wounded we could let them finish, Natasatch thought to him.



“Let them take care of themselves while we are away. That is experience enough. Remember, hatchlings,” AuRon said, looking at their disappointed faces, “talk to the wolves as often as possible. They will teach you much about moving in cover and in the open, hunting, and above all, cooperation. The strength of the wolf is the pack, as they say.”



“I’ve often heard that quoted,” Natasatch agreed.



AuRon, with his mind made up—or made up for him—felt at ease. All doubt and regret had vanished. There was just need for action. “I’ve an idea where our first stop should be. We fly to Juutfod.”



AuRon had not been to the dragontower since his time as a courier for the Wizard of the Isle of Ice, though he had visited the wharves where Varl tied up his boat and some of the oceanside sights.



The men of Juutfod accepted dragons as part of their daily lives. Without the Wyrmmaster, they’d happily given up their raids on the south and used their dragons to protect fishing fleets and remote settlements.



The tower was much the same. More outbuildings had sprouted around it, like warts. And the town beneath had taken inspiration from the tower—there were round houses of stone, long buildings with thick walls and heavy-timbered roofs, and wooden homes and pens and workshops all around with smoke rising from the chimneys.



A dragon-rider rose to meet him.



He’d been told a few of the riders and their mounts had survived. The female dragons of the Isle of Ice had come to this place looking for males. Some dragons were content to be saddled and reined, it seemed, as long as they were well fed and rested in comfortable housing.



His old friend Varl had settled in this village. He smoked fish and made crab paste that the dragons had always found tasty on the Isle of Ice.



“Perhaps you’d better talk to them,” AuRon said to Natasatch. “I’ll keep watch above.”



Once he was sure of Natasatch’s reception—they let her land and she began to speak with the dragons and dragon-riders there—AuRon went seeking Varl among the mead-dens and group-houses near the docks. His boat wasn’t in, but Varl sometimes took months off between the seasonal fish runs.



He did, however, see a pair of familiar hominids outside of the dens. The warrior Ghastmath, looking thinner without his armor, and the elf with the raven walked down the street, tossing colorful rings back and forth between them using a small stick.



“I see you made it off my island again,” AuRon said.



One of the rings clattered to the paving stones.



“You,” said the warrior Ghastmath.



“Here I was looking for the mariner Varl to help me find you,” AuRon said.



“Can we talk somewhere out of the wind?” the elf asked.



“What is your name? I don’t believe I ever caught it.”



“I don’t believe I ever gave it,” she said. “Halfmoon, if you must know.”



“Halfmoon, what is an elf doing in this town? Ten years ago, these men would have weighted you with rocks and dumped you in the bay to attract crabs.”



Ghastmath planted his oversized feet. “They’d have to go through me.”



“They like the gold I bring into town,” she said.



“There are worse places to live,” Ghastmath added. “No king pushing you around. No edicts rewriting last year’s edict which rewrote the one that was beaten into you as a child.”



AuRon scratched himself behind his griff. “You’re thieves. Would you like a tip about the location of a flow of gold?”



“A dragon’s going to tell us where to find gold! Laughable,” Ghastmath said.



“I don’t bother with gold.”



“That’s right. He is a gray,” the elf put in.



“You’ll have to fight for it, or be very clever thieves. You might even get the help of those dragon-riders in the tower. The Ironriders are on the rampage south of here. I’ve some experiences with the princes of the Steppelands, and I can tell you they’re carrying off every item of value they can get their hands on and strap across their saddles. I suspect they’ll raid into your lands as well, and if the Varvar bands have anything to say about it they’ll ride back a good deal faster than they came in. The way they’re getting back is across the Ba-drink and through the pass of the Wheel of Fire. If you hunt around the paths and trails leading to that, I expect you’ll find more gold and valuables than you can carry being ridden out of the northern half of Hypatia.”



“Sounds as though you need some gallant fools to do your fighting for you,” Halfmoon said.



“Gallant remains to be seen. Fools who can sneak on and off an island with dozens of dragons hunting the hills and shores are fools I would rather have think favorably of me and mine.”



Later, Wistala decided it would have been much more dramatic if they’d arrived in the middle of a battle.



But the war in the pass, which once burned as bright as dragonflame, had sputtered out.



Three dragonelles and ten drakka remained.



The Ironriders had opened a precarious path around the avalanche blocking their pass, a piece of needlework threading through boulders and across ridges like braiding. In good weather with plenty of daylight they could be across it in half a day.



The Firemaids were moving only under cover of weather, watching for Ironriders taking the new path.



What she was, in fact, doing when the riders appeared in the sky to the east was speaking to a Firemaid about having the Firemaids fly off carrying the drakka. She and the four drakka who couldn’t be carried would leave.



The dwarves had finally come out of their holes and were hunting them. The only way they could escape the dwarves was to climb, for the dwarves could not follow without much effort with ropes and anchors.



There seemed no point to staying. The Ironriders could bring only a trickle over the pass, and what little traffic there was traveled back to the steppes. The dragonelles who’d flown over the eastern slopes of the mountains reported that the great camp had vanished, with many trails leading south.



It was time to return to Mossbell and Hypatia.



The dragonelles—and a few dragons—of the Isle of Ice arrived, not in such a way that would make a fine song, or an exciting story, but only to offer the news that a few dragons, men, and dragon-riders were scouring the northern thanedoms, chasing down the Ironriders still on the west side of the mountains.



Her brother was not among them. They said he’d flown south with his mate and a strange assortment of elves, men, and dwarves.



Back at Mossbell, the dragons ate their fill of smoked horseflesh. The Ironriders had lost or wounded many mounts as they first advanced, then retreated, across the northern thanedoms.