Natasatch and her hatchlings joined them. While the hatchlings swapped stories and the males set to wrestling again, AuRon relayed the details Natasatch had missed. At her request the wolves repeated the warning so she could learn.
“See, the wolves are worth a few sheep and goats. More than,” AuRon said.
“I never disagreed, my love. Remember, the words were Ouistrela’s. She hates fish and shell-crawlers and blubber and begrudges every mouthful of red meat. She resents the wolves, and you for bringing them.”
Ouistrela was a brave dragon-dame. Her fury had helped free the glacier-hung Isle of Ice from the dragon-breeding wizard. But without an enemy to fight, she quarreled at any opportunity, and AuRon had long ago learned that something about his leathery skin put her off.
“I’ll see what this is about,” AuRon said.
“We’ll help you fight the invaders, fazer!” Ausurath yapped and Istach rattled her griff in agreement.
“A fight is the last thing I want,” AuRon said.
“Stalk in caution, AuRon,” Natasatch said. She used his name only when she grew serious. Otherwise it was “my love” when she felt playful and “my lord” with a good deal of nostril-twitching when he waxed pompous and imperious over family policies.
“A scaleless dragon learns early to do nothing but,” AuRon said, nuzzling the closed griff at the back of her cheek and tapping his hatchlings each on the snout with a sii. They shared a brief, affectionate prrum.
He launched himself into the air and first found Zan the tradesdwarf. Zan wandered the coasts in an open oarship with a blighter crew. In return for exclusive rights to take beaver and ermine from the patches of woods in the soggy central valley, he did odd jobs and carried a few messages. AuRon suspected that some of the other dragons on the island traded loose scale for a few coins or bars of working iron, but that was their business.
Zan denied any knowledge of strangers and warned AuRon not to burn his boat and oarblighters by mistake.
Then he turned east and found the yearling wolf who’d passed the warning, and from him met up with the sister of Birchfang’s mate, who’d discovered the stranger’s trail.
The she-wolf was only too happy to leave off digging for chipmunks and trot over to guide him, ears and tail up at the prospect of a good hunt.
He found them in the old dragon-rider caves. First he tracked by scent, then the echo of stone being moved and orders issued.
They were seeking treasure, not revenge, then. There’d been one or two unfortunate encounters with men of the barbarian coast, come through dangerous seas to avenge brothers or fathers. Better still, there was no smell of dogs. Hominids were hard enough to deal with without their snarling hounds hanging off your throat and loins.
Good. Treasure-hunters would have more regard for their skins.
They’d set a few warning-traps in the outer passages, strings of scrap metal hung from wires designed to spin and clang like wind chimes at the low bits of the tunnel ceilings where a dragon’s back might strike them.
But AuRon wasn’t in a hurry; he was more curious than outraged at the trespass. He crept through the caves as wary as though the Dragonblade might be lurking around the next bend.
Hearing faint tapping and scraping, he stepped forward into the old baths. The water no longer ran, though a few pools of brackish water were refreshed at every rain and bore a thick film of glowing moss and lichen.
They’d left footprints. A small party, fewer than ten.
At the other end of the baths he discovered a sort of wood contraption full of springs and wires with an ugly barbed javelin set in it, triggered by an old shutter set on a peg. Interesting. If he stepped on the shutter, it would flatten a peg, which would release a line, which he guessed would fire the awful thing.
The hatchlings would have to see this. It looked clever enough to be produced by the dwarves of the Chartered Company.
They were at work in the old dragon-rider dining hall, which could perhaps be mistaken for a throne room, for it had elaborate stonework and there was a raised area at one end where musicians had once played.
To enter, he first had to unhook another pair of chains designed to loose some dozens of thin metal disks. None of it smelled as though it had been dipped in poison. He tucked them behind his ear. The hatchlings would have their fill of metal tonight!
Moving a scale’s breadth at a time, he put his head into the room, making use of shadow.
Two candles and a lantern lit the scene.
The strangers were prying open rusted doors at the old lifting chutes that carried food up from the galleys. A rather filthy dwarf looked like he’d just crawled down the old toilet-dump.
He made a quick count: three humans, two elves, and the dwarf scraping himself with an old chair-leg. They were well arrayed for battle or for climbing, with gear and assorted deadly-looking weapons. One of the elves was an attractive female, insofar as he could judge, and had long black vines of hair that matched the feathers of a raven perched on her shoulder in shine.
“There’s some kind of blockage. A vault door.” A voice echoed up from the galley chute. “Greasy as sausage-gut in here. Can’t get a grip.”
They’d found the old lift-platform at the kitchens. Surprising that some metal-hungry hatchling hadn’t crawled down and devoured it the way all the knives and skewers had disappeared. Of course, it was big, so it would have had to be broken into bite-sized pieces. Not worth the effort.
“At last! I told you!” the raven-toting she-elf said. The other elf ignored her, lost in a stained book. “That burned lodge was a waste of effort. The vault is down there.”
So they spoke Parl. Good. He’d forgotten what little Hypatian he’d learned, and dragon-throats weren’t designed for the grunts of the barbarous northern tongues.
“The wizard’s vault!” the dwarf said. “But why so small and frail a lift? Gold is heavy.”
“All the slower to sack it, then,” a man put in. He had a close-shorn beard and black teeth. AuRon thought a few good rinses with fine sand after mealtimes would benefit him in breath and health.
He fought down a snort. The only thing they’d find in the kitchens would be piles of charcoal and skeletons of rats. Why couldn’t they chase fables somewhere other than his island? He’d better warn them off before Ouistrela sniffed wind of their presence.
“May I help you?” he asked in Parl.
“Yi! Yi!” the male elf shrieked, loose pages flying as he vanished behind a shelf that had once held casks of ale. “Dragon!”
“ ’Tis Shadowcatch the Black, returned,” the elf’s raven squawked in birdspeech. “ ’Ware, for he’s fierce.”
“No, ’tis AuRon the Gray, standing in a bit of cave-dark,” AuRon said back in the bird tongue.
The vine-haired elf froze, head cocked.
“Get me out of here,” a voice echoed up from the lift-shaft.
The dwarf swung a vast shield, fitted at the front with a spear-head and ugly spikes all around the sides, big enough to cover him entirely save for another spike at the peak of his helm. The men, led by the big brave fellow with trimmed facial hair and black teeth, upped their swords and spears. One held a round shield covered in green dragonscale. AuRon felt his firebladder pulse.
“Spread out! The creature can’t burn us all,” the trim-faced man said. He raised a coal black sword with gleaming silver edges.
The explorers spread out.
“I’ve no need to kill anyone,” AuRon said.
“Dragons deceive with their tongues!” the dwarf shouted, creeping forward behind his shield. AuRon heard clicking noises echoing from behind the shield and wondered what sort of contraption the dwarf was readying. He thought it best to get down behind a broken pillar.
“Am I to die in this dark hole? Help!” the voice from the shaft called. “Pull, for the love of Stormbeard!”
“A coward at heart, like all its kind,” the man with the black teeth said. “Lurking in the shadows.”
AuRon raised his head. “Let’s have some light and—”
He ducked again and an elvish arrow clattered off his crest. An instant sooner and it would have been in his eye.
“—warmth, I was going to say,” AuRon finished, risking a peep around the fallen pillar. The men and the dwarf were still stepping forward, moving from pillar to overturned table to heap of old pottery, wary and ready for flame.
“Fyerbin, check that passage,” the voice from the shaft echoed as they did so. “Fyerbin, scale that wall. Fyerbin, crawl down that hole. I’m always going first and I’m always getting the shaft. Did you hear that, Halfmoon? Getting the shaft—”
“Shhh,” the elf with the raven said. “Ghastmath, hold there. Let’s hear what the dragon has to say.”
“Never!” The dwarf stamped an iron-shod foot. His beard held only the dimmest kind of red vestigial glow—either he was a very poor dwarf or he’d washed away much of the glowing moss that most dwarves cultivated in their beards.
“Fyerbin seven-toes, thanks to that blighter at the Ghioz border-post. Fyerbin, bones forgotten in this cold hole. What goes on up there?” The voice echoed up from the hole.
