Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [29]
He decided not to tell her about the possibility of a Protectorship.
Natasatch’s scale lifted in excitment. “So what did you say?” “I said nothing. I wanted to get your opinion first. You see, it would probably mean several years away from our island, and I know how much you enjoy the winters there.”
“Oh AuRon, don’t tease. What will you do, my love?”
“Do my best to resolve the issue, I suppose. I can’t leave Naf at the mercy of these unscrupulous, greedy dragons. Will you accompany me there?”
“Silly. Nothing would please me better. I’m happy to see more of the world, especially with you.”
Chapter 4
Dairuss and the City of the Golden Dome had grown since last AuRon had seen it. It rivaled even Hypat in size, though probably not in population; there were still many fields where sheep grazed within the city proper.
AuRon took the precaution of first visiting the guardpost in the high pass of the Red Mountains, once Naf ’s station, and sending word by Dairuss messenger that AuRon the Gray had returned with mate and offspring to visit and consult with King Naf.
The men of the guard watched from their tower slits. Mysterious clanks and clatters echoed from within—were they pushing furniture to barricade the door, setting out fire buckets, or preparing war machines to fire harpoons?
He assuaged his anxiety by telling Istach stories of how he and Naf met, back when he was just a lowly sword-for-hire guarding dwarven gold. How he raised Hieba up from a little girl stolen from a ravaged trade caravan to Queen, and how Naf ’s people had been the first to fight back against the Ghioz empire.
So when word returned, flashed by a great mirror atop the Golden Dome, that AuRon was to land in the Dome’s gardens, AuRon half sighed in relief.
They alighted in a meadow filled with white-painted decorative stones. From the air, or the top of the dome, they made patters that AuRon recognized as human astrological signs.
“Hello, AuRon. I’m glad to meet your family at last,” Naf said from behind.
AuRon had been watching the elaborate, fountain-flanked steps leading up to the onion-shaped, gold-painted dome. Instead, he’d come out of a ordinary stone dwelling, not much more than a cottage, really.
“You aren’t in the old palace residence?” AuRon asked.
“Ach, no. Everything is such a walk in that place. I like my pipe, my water, and my hearth all within reach of a good solid chair, and these days a long hike to bed is not my favorite way to end a day.”
“AuRon! You haven’t changed a bit,” Hieba said. She was still beautiful, only careworn.
AuRon introduced Natasatch and Istach.
Naf ’s forehead bore a fringe of white—a sign of aging in a human. What had been gray before was now white, making the remaining darker hair toward the back look all deeper in color, as though it were steadying itself for the final desperate battle from the white encroachment at the temples and forelock. Hieba’s eyes had lost much of their sparkle. They’d seemed to have fallen back into dark sockets, but were steady and alert and the teeth she showed in her mouth were still in order, even if they’d gone a bit yellowish brown.
“It’s from all the bitterbean I’ve been drinking,” she said, when AuRon asked about it, since he couldn’t discuss the condition of her scale and had no idea what human standards applied to the night-black hair bound in elaborate cording of three colors. “The taste is so familiar, I must have had it as a child, before you found me.”
“Some of the Ghioz trade routes are still intact,” Naf said. “They’re not bad fellows, once you yank the whips out of their hands and don’t curse their dead Queen—to their faces, anyway.”
Naf wore the coats of state of his people. The Dairuss kings of old, evidently, did not go for flashy apparel, perhaps befitting a simple people who grazed a dozen different animals depending on ground—Dairuss was everything from high-mountain passes to rolling, well-watered hills near the great river. While it had never been a rich land in gold