Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [35]
AuRon had perfected his swamp-feeding technique in the jungles south of NooMoahk’s old cave. (Ah, if he’d only known about the trouble that crystal could cause—he would never have willed it to the blighters when he quit that old library-cavern.) You simply plunge your jaws into the swamp vegetation, suck up a mouthful of roots, stems, leaves, and petals, then hoist your head high in the air and drain the water down your throat. Any number of fish, frogs, crustaceans, worms, bugs, and leeches would then cascade down your throat. Then you’d simply spit out the greenstuff. Not the most tasty meal—stagnant water always made one’s belches reminiscent of sewage—but it filled one with water that could be quickly processed and the food digested quickly without a jumble of bones and joints clogging the gut.
“A man could get gut-sick on such water,” Naf said.
“I’ve seen hominid innards. It’s a wonder your food makes it through at all. All those bends and turns.”
“The scientists say you need more guts for grains and roots. Thanks to all that we can make it through a hard winter without starving on stored food. They keep for months.”
“So can we. We just get out of the wind, curl up, and sleep and wait for the smell of thaw.”
“No fun in that,” Naf said. “Winter’s a time of beer tapping and storytelling.” He turned sour. “Or it used to be.”
AuRon spat out another mouthful of swamp growth, pretty sure he’d swallowed a couple of turtles this time, something was rattling as it went down his throat. “I thought human kings had the best beer and professional storytellers to keep them entertained.”
“Yes, but I’m always drawn away from my own parties, so the tales and songs are played for others’ benefit. I wish I were just riding with my old Red Guards again, at times. Yes, I was in the Red Queen’s array and war livery, but duty for a soldier is easy and cares can be thrown off at night as you put off your dayclothes. Duty as a king—finding it is like reading stars in a fog.”
“Can’t you leave or stop?” AuRon knew what word he was seeking, he’d read it in some dwarfish text or other, but fumbled for the Parl equivalent.
“Abdicate,” Naf said. “It crossed my mind. Hieba and I have discussed it, we considered renouncing the throne to search for Nissa—Lady Desthenae, to use her Ghioz court name. But even if I named my successor, there’s no telling who might be on the throne in a year’s time. We’ve just gained our independence. Dairuss has no traditions to speak of. Whatever I do will become tradition. It’ll be a poor start for my people if their king renounces his throne to go seek a married-off daughter.”
“They must think well of you,” AuRon said. “It’s not everyone who can work up the nerve to face down a dragon.”
“SoRolatan didn’t put up much of a fight. He was raiding a marketplace and some old women started pelting him with garbage. When he flew back to the Golden Dome, sputtering outrage, I met him there with some spearmen. He roared a warning but fled as fast as his wings could travel.”
“Your people chose well, picking you as king.”
“They had few enough choices. All I had going for me was the knowledge that I fought the Ghioz when no one north of Bant dared defy them, and retrieved our old throne from the heart of the Red Queen’s Empire.”
AuRon remembered him sitting in it, bloody and battered.
Naf looked at the sky, chuckled. “You should hear the tales that pass for the official history of my battles. Back in Dairuss, they whispered that I was striking left and right, winning smashing victories and leaving a series of Ghioz generals embarrassed. Culminating, of course, with our great raid on the throne-city you helped us win. Oh, AuRon, I have been closeted with two very disappointed historians, correcting their texts so they know my gallant band spent most of their time in desperate flight from superior numbers.”
“Most of my victories are little but escapes as well,” AuRon said, thinking of his encounters with the Dragonblade. Strange to think his brother, of all dragonkind, had been the one to kill that remarkable human.