Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [100]
AuRon thought his brother carried off that lordly, implacable air rather well. Better than he himself could have, at any rate.
Yes, the Copper had courage. Courage and heart and the ability to keep his head. It had taken him far and won him a mate AuRon admired. He also wondered about RuGaard’s first mate. Clearly she’d seen in the ungainly young dragon with the slack eye a quality others missed.
Your wrath shouldn’t win.
Maybe AuRon could have done better by his brother. Snuck him food from the egg shelf. He’d been a greedy little hatchling, even stealing what he could from his sisters.
In his way, he’d done more for dragons than AuRon had. AuRon admitted to himself that he’d gained them a safe refuge, hard for men and elves and dwarfs to find, and even harder to attempt to control. His brother had made it a world where dragons were no longer hunted.
Then there was his sister. Wistala, who didn’t set dragons above the hominids as the Copper did, or apart from them as AuRon would have it, but beside them, cooperating as best as she could. Had she been wrong? Too idealistic? Blinded by memories of a kindly old elf who’d taken her into his home?
AuRon couldn’t fault her.
Each of them were products of birth and circumstance. Each had found a way to make their outlook work. Only time would tell who was right.
The question was, which approach would last?
The griffaran who’d turned on his companions settled on the Copper’s back to rest and rearrange his feathers.
The griffaran, a grizzled veteran with feathers that were thin and dull, but with a painted beak showing bright markings of rank, executed a bob before his brother.
“Who are you?” the Copper asked
“Named Miki!” the oldster squawked in a griffaran’s usual punchy Drakine. “Years ago. Many! Others forgot! Not me!”
“What happened years ago?” his brother asked.
“You saved an egg. From demen. ’Twas me!”
Miki shot out his story like a dwarf rock thrower war machine, in quick bursts of words. He’d been raised to be loyal to the dragons, and especially loyal to the Tyr who had saved him.
“Great RuGaard Miki Tyr! Always! Protect Tyr!”
“Thank you,” the Copper said.
“What now?” Wistala asked. “If this island is part of the Grand Alliance, they won’t let us stay here.”
Shadowcatch inspected his torn wings. “I’m not going anywhere for the moment. I don’t suppose there are any thralls around who are good at stitching?”
“Even united, we can’t hold a hole against the Aerial Host,” the Copper said. “They’ll simply fly in demen and dwarfs and who knows what else.”
The surrendered barbarians dropped the last shields in a pile and the Copper waved them off with his tail.
“Wistala and Shadowcatch, you’d better let your gold gizzards make what you can of this,” the Copper said.
“So much for a peaceful exile,” AuRon said.
“Well, the civil war was at least brief,” Wistala said, crunching a shield down into an easy-to-swallow size.
“It’s only begun,” the Copper muttered.
“Where can we go?” Shadowcatch asked. “This isn’t a big enough island to hide us. Not many caves, as I remember.”
“They’ve made an enemy today,” AuRon said.
“Two enemies,” Wistala said.
“Three,” the Copper added, his good eye alert and intelligent for the first time during their trip.
“Five,” Miki squawked, either assuming Shadowcatch made four or employing the wrong word of Drakine.
“In any case, we need to go somewhere safe, where we can to lick our wounds and have a moment’s peace to think. Hypatia is barred to us. From the Isle of Ice they’ll be able to watch all the shores of the northern part of the Inland Ocean.”
“The Great East?” the Copper asked.
“I’ve been there,” Wistala said. “Dragon bones are a much-prized item for their medicines.”
“Old Uldam is big, with many valleys and caves,” AuRon said. “My daughter