Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [44]
Sweet, gentle Halaflora. He liked to think she’d approve of the changes he’d made to the Lavadome. She loved growing things. He often wondered about the eggs she claimed to be growing inside her when she died.
He’d never mate again, even if the more vigorous Nilrasha died. The mate of a Tyr was half a widow in any case, for there was little chance of seeing her husband.
The Copper encouraged the remaining dragons of the Lavadome to bring their hatchlings into the garden. Rats and bats lived among the fungi, and the hatchlings had good fun exercising their senses, bodies, and wits hunting them.
Hatchlings were the key.
When the Copper had come to the Lavadome, the “dismals” (as he liked to style them) among the Ankelenes were supposing that dragons were finished in the world. They’d linger on, ever fewer and fewer, scrawny, darksick dragons fighting over scarcer and scarcer resources in the Lavadome. Tyr FeHazathant had begun to turn matters around, selectively supporting certain Upholds, sometimes in secret, sometimes openly.
The grand old Tyr had doted on hatchlings, bringing them to the gardens at the top of the Imperial Rock for viewing. He’d spent a good deal of his precious time as Tyr looking in on the hatchlings of the Drakwatch, and demanding reports from his mate Tighlia about the progression of the newest Firemaids.
Having lived more in the world above ground, the Copper now understood his interest.
It was a numbers game, like the one he’d played as a wingless drake, with the piles of smooth, marked river stones the Drakwatch used to have to discover, steal, battle over, and carry back to their “home cave.” Each hatchling represented a hope for the future of dragonkind. They could never match the breeding power of the hominids, but dragons had their size and wings and wit and fire, that, judiciously used, could win friends and strike terror into the hearts of their enemies.
Dragons were also long-lived, and the wise among them could take advantage of their experience. Hominids, especially humans and blighters, tended to make the same mistakes, and be subject to the same weaknesses, generation after generation after generation.
The Copper swooped low over the gardens atop the Imperial Rock. They’d grown in magnificence, thanks to Rayg’s new formula of fertilizer and some choice statues courtesy of grateful Hypatia.
Grateful Hypatia knew when it was in their best interest to give up a piece of art.
He alighted, executing a better-than-usual landing thanks to the improved artificial wing joint that had long since calloused properly, to the usual rush of thralls bringing the landing trough and a platter of delectable organ meats. The Copper had developed a bit of a sweet tooth as he aged, and found honey-mead most invigorating after a long flight.
He reminded himself to give Rayg the scrolls and tomes his valuable friend had requested and the Hypatian librarians had been convinced to provide. Strictly of a temporary basis of a few decades, of course.
“Welcome back, my Tyr,” old NoSohoth said, executing one of his grave, slow bows. A cross between a major domo of the Imperial Line and a chief-of-staff to the Tyr, NoSohoth was as much a fixture of the Imperial Rock as the gravity-fed watering system—and equally smooth and malleable. He survived by bending to the prevailing winds, helping whoever sat in the Tyr’s chair to the best of his ability.
NoSohoth was old, but his scale was in impressive condition for an ancient dragon. He’d heard once that NoSohoth had been a mature dragon when Tyr FeHazathant breathed his first fire. Even now it was difficult