“Only a piece or two in a long chain of events, at most. Barbarians from the north, a wizard . . . and an old wrong.” He thought of the emblem that had once rested on his snout. “I wonder who knows the full tale?”
“Naf may introduce you to the one. It is she who said we must seek you out.”
Zanakan, the City of the Golden Dome, stood between two long arms of mountain. Old battlements, fallen into ruin, traced the ridges down to a stronger wall and gate below. Wood and stone stood in the gaps of older, greater battlements like scarecrows standing where soldiers should be. It was a strange sort of city, AuRon thought as he circled above it. More people lived outside the walls than within, judging from the occupied shacks and tended cooking fires. A broad loop of the Falnges writhed between the sheep-covered hills to the city’s gates. A stone wharf and wooden piers covered a length of riverfront that rivaled the great ports below the falls, but AuRon could discern little activity at the river. There were many boats, but sails had been converted to tentage, and lines that should have held up masts tied boat to boat or pier.
Alarm horns blew from the steps of the Golden Dome, a star-shaped structure with six points radiating from the dome-covering. This landmark, a legacy of Tindairuss, gave the city its fame and name.
“Don’t go any lower,” Hieba shouted. “Crossbowmen wait in those towers around the dome. Go into the mountains—there’s a watchpost high on the north side. Can you see the trail leading to it?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a ledge big enough for you. Land there.”
AuRon had seen the spot she described—his distance-vision rivaled an eagle’s,—but there was no need to boast to a weak-eyed human.
“Are there men with crossbows there?”
“Yes, but when they see me, they’ll not shoot. The scouts of the Silver Guard call Highhold home. They know me.”
AuRon still made a fast pass over the stone stairs of the tiny castle clinging to the side of the mountain like a barnacle on a breakwater. No stinging arrows rose, and he turned and made a slower pass below the arrow slits set in the side of the structure, giving the watchers a good view of Hieba. He saw a landing spot before a door in the side of the castle. The men had planted a flower garden on their doorstep with dirt hauled from below. AuRon did his best to land without crushing the blooms, but his hind leg still inadvertently stomped a row of flowering ferns.
Faces appeared at the windows, and an iron-banded door opened.
“By the hair of a she-elf, she did it,” a man called to his fellows within.
AuRon felt Hieba sag upon his back. She climbed off his back and fell to her knees. She kissed the gray-green stones of the mountain and looked up at the Sun.
“Thank you, blessed life-giver,” she said.
Men streamed from the fort until fourteen stood in the courtyard. Two more remained at their stations on the battlements, looking out at the mountain pass to the north and plains to the east.
“Beyond our hopes! Hieba, little darkling, you’ve come back,” a man said. He was as craggy and pocked as the mountain, and topped by the same white crown.
Hieba flew to him. “Evfan, you old condor, you haven’t drawn your allotment yet? Worried that the valley air will kill you?”
Evfan planted a kiss on her forehead. “It’s quieter up here nowadays. We’ve missed you, and so has the commander. My heart stopped for a moment when I saw the wings come up out of the east. I thought it was our turn.”
“Has the war come that close?”
“They burned out Enderad and Ilslis on the other side of the Paired Passes. What’s left of the Apatian elves are scattered in the valleys or outside these walls.”
A youth wearing his first beard against the cool of the heights spoke up. “The queen is stalling, but she cannot assuage the emissary forever. There are those in the city who are sick of elvish refugees and their pious airs, and tales of woe from dwarvish beggars.”
Evfan’s eyes narrowed. “Scabbard your tongue, boy. What I allow to be said among men of the guard at table and what is permitted in front of guests are shields of different greathouses.”
“Yes, guideon,” the boy said.
“Hieba, if I’m to be part of these affairs, I want all made clear to me,” AuRon said.
“Evfan, perhaps your new stag could run down the mountain with a message that I’ve returned? Does my lord want me to keep AuRon here, or have circumstances changed so that we need to find a refuge for him elsewhere?”
“The Silver Guard stands loyal, first to the queen and then to Commander Naf, little raven. Much else has changed, but that remains true. We’ve a good stock of salted meat here, and if what I know of dragon’s eating, and excreting, is true—we’ll be able to plant a new garden before the snow comes.”
The scouts of the Silver Guard emerged from their castle, curiosity finally getting the better of their fear. They wore soft leather boots and gray uniforms of thick wool. Bright, silvery sashes crossed under their weapons belts, save on the officers, who wore theirs over their shoulder. They carried little ax-hammers in soft sheaths across their backs. Manlike, they crossed over from fear to overfamiliarity in a twinkling. The men patted AuRon’s flank and examined his claws as if he were a horse at auction.
“You wouldn’t think those wings could fold into nothing, but they do,” a veteran said, running his hand along the tight mass of skin and bone covering AuRon’s back and flanks. “Seems like if you get in under the arms, you’d kill it easy enough.”
AuRon turned his long neck to face the man, and extended his griff from his crest, doubling the size of his head as his snout poked the man in the shoulder.
“Yiy!” he shouted, jumping back against the little wall at the edge of the cliff.
“Careful, or you’ll learn about dragon fire the hot way,” AuRon said.
“No offense, skyking,” one of the soldiers said, stepping in front of his startled officer.
“As long as you keep your hands to yourselves, there will be none.”
“Dragons are much on our mind,” the older one said. “There’s war on the other sides of these mountains. There are dragons in it, dozens of them, or so I’ve heard.”
“I’ve food on my mind, not rumor.”
Evfan intervened. “Getting acquainted can wait. Open a cask of pork and a cask of beef for our guest. Flying’s hard work, judging from the birds and their appetites.”
“And dragons get irascible when they’re hungry,” Hieba said, stepping under AuRon’s chin and rubbing the soft spot under his long jaw.
Food and snowmelt put AuRon into a better mood, though the heavily salted meat made his head throb. He slept in a tight ball in the corner between the mountainside and the cliff-clinging castle, out of most of the wind. His rest was disturbed by two runners that came up the long trail down to the city, but they only had messages to be passed farther into the mountain passes. The wiry men rather reminded AuRon of Blackhard’s wolves; they had the same cautious eyes and fleshless frames.
“Say nothing of the dragon, if you value your allotments,” Evfan said, seeing them out the door to the path down the farther side of the mountain. “It’s a matter for the Silver Guard, by the queen’s order.”
AuRon settled back down and dozed until dawn. The sight of the sun coming up over the flat lands to the east, dyeing the morning mists of the Falnges orange. AuRon forgot his concerns and took in the sunrise. Existence was a long march from despair to despair, but there were spots of beauty along the way.
He wished for a mate and hatchlings to whom he could pass the picture.
Hieba and Evfan appeared, she at the castle door and he on the parapet above.
“There are people on the trail,” Evfan said. “Three. Could be the commander. He’d get that far if he was outside the high wall before dawn, as is his way.”
AuRon uncurled himself, stretched from nose to tail-tip, and followed Hieba to the cliff wall. He looked at the long path snaking down the mountainside, and saw three hominids on the ascent. After his search of the valley and the plain, Evfan joined them at the wall.
“The big one could be Naf,” AuRon said.
“I hope so. I haven’t seen him in nearly a year. It took that long to find you.”
The three inched up the path, at this distance looking like ants ascending a difficult twig. Two helped a third along.
“It is Naf, no question,” AuRon said. “Another man in a hunter’s cape, and a third, cloaked. The cloaked one is shorter than the other two, perhaps a woman. Whoever she is, she’s not used to mountain climbing.”
“By the seven prophets, I hope it’s not the queen,” Evfan said. “We’ve got nothing fit to serve her. Salted meat, biscuit, and dried fish for the queen? Soldier’s wine?”
“The queen doesn’t dare step outside her gardens without escort,” Hieba said. “It’s not the queen, or any other Ghioz. They’d have us come down to them. They are Ghioz, after all.”
“Scabbard your tongue, Hieba,” Evfan said, veering from his worries about the contents of his larder. “That sort of talk might get you a bad name, and you’re to be the wife of the Commander of the Silver Guard.”