The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [138]
‘Where is she, anyway?’ Gerran said.
‘Looking for Rori—the silver dragon, that is.’
‘Oh, I’ll not be forgetting him. Don’t trouble your mind about that!’
‘Well and good, then. He was supposed to have joined us long ere this.’
Gerran started to say more, then stopped, glancing away, biting his lower lip as if he were chewing over some difficult thought. Salamander waited. They were standing at the edge of the camp on the morning of their twelfth day on the road. Although the sun was already a good distance above the eastern horizon, the servants and pages had just begun to load the carts for another day’s march. The men of the warbands were bringing in the horses from pasture and saddling them.
‘Tell me somewhat,’ Gerran said at last. ‘About Rori, now. He truly is your brother, isn’t he?’
‘He is. I’d not lie to you about a thing like that.’
Gerran let out his breath in a sharp puff, but his expression remained perfectly calm.
‘What made you change your mind?’ Salamander said. ‘I know that you thought me daft for saying he was my brother.’
‘Well, all this cursed dweomer. What else? I’ve learned it truly exists, and you hear all those old tales about dweomer turning men into frogs, so what’s to stop it from turning someone into a dragon?’
‘A good point, but, I hasten to add, it was only the greatest dweomermaster in the world who managed that particular trick. And, if I remember the tale a-right, working the transformation killed him.’
‘Well, that’s some comfort, then. I didn’t like the thought of waking up one morning covered with scales and sprouting wings.’
‘Fear not! You’re perfectly safe from such a fate.’
Salamander had the somewhat crazed thought of confessing that he could turn himself into a magpie, just to see Gerran’s reaction. Fortunately, common sense took over, and he held his tongue.
Arzosah returned to the army late on the same day. She circled high above the camp, then headed east to land about a quarter of a mile away, far enough to keep the horses from panicking at her scent. Salamander made his way through the waist-high grass and joined her. She’d used her long tail as a scythe of sorts to cut and beat down a circle in the green. In the midst of this clearing she sat with her front paws tucked at her chest and her tail laid neatly against her shiny black haunches while she looked up, studying the sky. When he approached, she lowered her head and contemplated him with her copper-coloured eyes, slit vertically like elven eyes to reveal a deep green pupil.
‘Greetings, oh perfect pinnacle of dragonhood!’ Salamander said in Elvish.
‘Same to you, oh maudlin minstrel of many words,’ Arzosah said. ‘Flames and fumes! Your army travels so slowly that it’s enough to drive one daft. I’ve been waiting for you out here for days.’
‘It’s driving me daft, too. The Roundears can’t seem to unpack so much as a saddlebag without it taking forever.’
‘How like them! Now, as for me, I’ve tracked Rori down.’
‘That’s grand news! Is he willing to join us?’
‘Oh yes. As soon as I mentioned slaughtering Horsekin, he became quite tractable.’ She sighed with a lift of a wing. ‘He really is splendid, when he’s himself, anyway.’
‘Is that wound still troubling him?’
‘Oh yes. He wants revenge for it, he tells me, and so do I, after having to live with it all these years. There have been times I’ve felt like biting him, just to make him stop all his licking and worrying at it! Let’s hope Dallandra can heal it.’
‘I shall hope indeed. Where is he?’
‘Off to the west, scouting the fortress. Your description of its whereabouts was more than a little vague, you know.’
‘Well, I was confused when I arrived there and even more so when I left.’
‘Your natural state, no doubt. Now, I’m going to chase after Rori when I leave here, but we’ll both return and join you once you meet up with the Westfolk muster. It’s quite near.’
‘Splendid!’
‘Keep a watch for us. We’ll fly overhead and then land some decent distance away.’
‘It’ll probably be easier for Rori to meet with us without everyone watching.