The Copper chose his words carefully. “NiThonius says they’re in poor spirits. They’ve been broken by defeats. SiDrakkon believes this victory will bring them round.”
“What do you think?”
“I, Tyr?”
“Yes, you’ve been up there recently and I haven’t. What do you think? Can Bant win a war?”
The Copper remained silent for a moment. “I…I can’t form an opinion. I haven’t even seen them fight.”
The dragons chuckled at that. “Don’t overtax my poor cousin’s abilities, Grandfather,” Simevolant called.
“SiDrakkon seems confident they can win,” the Copper said.
“And why not?” Tighlia said. “Hominids are always braver behind a dragon than in front.”
The Tyr stared off to the northeast, as though trying to pierce crystal, lava, and rock with his eyes. “Rest for three days, Rugaard: You look worn. Then return to SiDrakkon and give him my congratulations. Tell him that if there is to be a war, let it be a short one, and seek concessions from the Ghi men rather than battles. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Tyr.”
As it turned out, he didn’t return to his familiar shelf in the training caves. NoSohoth arranged a cave midrock in the better-lit south quarter, among some of the wealthier dragons who stored their hoards in the Imperial Resort and wanted caves near their coin. He even had a nice crack in the wall where he could look out and take the air—though he suspected his head would be too large to fit out the hole anymore as his horns began to come in—and was near a cascade of only occasionally tainted water.
Tyr sent him a gift of a small bag of coins. He ate just a few and stuck the rest on a little shelf by a corner the bats were exploring for grips. He was a growing dragon and should think about establishing a hoard.
Harf, Rhea, and Fourfang even had their own room just off his, with a thick curtain so it was warm and cozy. Naturally they set to squabbling when Harf started pawing at Rhea and trying to mate with her. The Copper sent Rhea to see about some fresh clothing for herself and Fourfang, for the journey had tattered their simple tunics, and put Harf to work scrubbing a noisome corner the previous tenant had left. Why couldn’t dragons be bothered to use the waste pits?
“Fourfang, you know about these things. If she’s not ready to mate, she shouldn’t, right?”
Fourfang probed his ears, perhaps prodding his brains into activity. “Not know humans of many. Not want babies for sell?”
“I’m not sure she’s even mature enough for that. Don’t they get those suckle points when they’re ready for children? Bigger is better, no?”
Fourfang thought that funny.
“Well, if he starts pawing at her again, stop him. Or tell her she can sleep in here, but there’s a draft from that crack, I’m afraid.”
The bats were happy to probe his scales for juicy ticks and fleas that had come along for the journey, and they told him of what they saw and heard while he was gone. Uninteresting bat gossip, mostly involving the movement of herds or sickly, deep-sleeping dragons. Old Thernadad, blinder than ever but still with some hearing, relayed some details of a good fight in the Drakwatch caves. The Copper decided that when he returned to the surface he’d take a few bats along, just to keep the vermin out of his hide.
The bats stirred at some motion in the outer passage. The Copper smelled rich perfumed oils.
“So you do keep bats,” Tighlia said, thrusting her head in.
The bats flapped back up into their holes.
She sniffed at the bat crack and clamped her nostrils. “I thought it was just gossip. Scale and tail, as my granddam used to say, it’s cramped in here, and the bats are making my eyes water. I want to talk to you, Rugaard. I don’t believe I can fit without squashing you. Perhaps you’d better come out into the passage.”
The coins rolling around in his innards had left him in a contented mood, and he followed her fleshless hips out into the tunnel. She looked around, and though there was nothing but a sleeping thrall on a mat in front of a passage, waiting for her dragon to return, Tighlia still followed the sound of falling water to the cascade. She made a pretense of wetting her face.
“Now, my ill-favored little adoptive granddrake, I thought we should have a talk before you returned to Bant.”
“Yes, Granddam. I’m honored by—”“Of course. That’s the only thing I can stand about you. You’re polite rather than wheedling or sycophantic or challenging. For all your faults, it seems you have a good memory. I want you to send my compliments to my brother. Can you manage that?”
“Yes, Granddam.”
“With one piece of advice. This is imperative. If he’s going to win a war in Bant, he needs to inspire the hominids. They’re not thralls; he can’t just threaten and bluster and drive to get what he wants. He has to handle them. Make them want the war.”
She paused, so the Copper guessed she expected a reply. “Handle them so they want the war.”
“Yes. Aren’t you wondering how?”
“Doesn’t he know?”
“You’ve no intellectual curiosity at all, have you? Don’t answer; you’re tiresome enough when silent. My brother’s much the same. The trick to getting hominids worked up for a war is to fixate them.”
“Fixate them, Granddam?” the Copper said.
“Yes. Find some old wrong the Ghi men have done to them and get them talking of nothing else. Make sure it’s something long enough ago so the memory’s clouded about exactly what happened. Then tell them all their difficulties spring from that source, like a salted well slowly poisoning the land around. Fixate! If their sheep are dying, it’s because of the Ghi men. If the rain causes a mudslide, it’s because the Ghi men cut down their trees. That kind of thing. Their brains can’t hold more than three ideas at once, and my brother must make sure at least one of the ideas is useful to him.”
If the hominids are so dull, why must we hide from them in the Lower World?
“Fixate them so they blame the Ghi men for everything. Yes.”
“He should call an assembly of their king and shamans or witch doctors or whatever they have and put the idea into their heads.”
“Thank you, Granddam.”
“For what?”
“For bending your thoughts to the crisis. The Lavadome is lucky to have such wisdom.”
She let out what in another dragon might have been a prrum, but it was strangled deep in her throat and emerged as just a sort of gargle. “You’re almost a credit to my mate’s wisdom, Rugaard. Now get back to my brother, before he flings his dragons against towers and war machines. The Bant think it’s their country; they should be the ones dying for it.”
As it turned out, he didn’t return to SiDrakkon in time. After reluctantly pressing Harf into service as a food carrier, he, the bats riding in a two-layer basket, and his thralls made the surface two days sooner than it had taken on the trip with the main force, thanks to a quick passage on the rails. The Copper drove the cart day and night, sleeping uncomfortably on the noisy rails when he wasn’t pulling.
The rains had turned the countryside green in the interval, and there were herds everywhere, following the water and growth. Dry washes now ran with water, and armies of frogs had appeared as though by magic.
The bats had good hunting at night, for the waters had awakened all manner of insect life as well.
Harf disappeared one rain-filled night, and Fourfang guessed he’d run away. The Copper toyed with the idea of sending the bats to find him, but was in fact relieved to be rid of him, and wished him well. Fourfang prophesied: “Day and day at most before lions eat him.”
They reached the Mud City, and the Copper simply waited in an open square, watching some half-grown humans practice throwing spears, until NiThonius showed up. He’d taken the laundry off his horns with the rains, but he still looked haggard.
“I’m relieved to find you here,” the Copper said. “I really must learn a few words of this tongue. I can’t even ask those children playing there where to find you.”
“Children playing? That’s part of the king’s guard, now. Every family in Bant has had to send a fresh warrior, and rather than give up strong men they’re sending the old and the young.”
SiDrakkon had taken his war, and what of the king’s forces he could scrape together, all the way to the Black River. Nithonius gave him three blighter guides, who took him across the savanna, hunting as they traveled. They also taught him several words for the local flora and fauna, though he made little progress with the language beyond that.
So within two-score days’ time of leaving the Lavadome he found himself on a bluff overlooking a green river valley, and a battle being lost.
It was a strange transition. One moment the Copper was walking up a long, grassy slope still wet with morning dew. A spotty-hided feline watched them from a dead tree limb, the silence so perfect he heard each grass-parting footstep from the guides in front and Fourfang and Rhea behind.
Then they crossed the hillcrest into chaos.