Still, a few had enough care for their appearance that they’d knotted their mustaches and beards, or washed the filth from some jeweled brooch or an ancient family helm. Dwarfs took a good deal of wear and tear without bending their necks—even the Empire at its height had never managed to make thralls out of them, though a few served for pay and grudgingly fulfilled bargains they made to save their lives. The Copper had heard legends of dwarf prisoners surviving on nothing but licked moisture from a cave wall, until they eventually returned to the rock from which they’d sprung—if you believed old tales. Which he didn’t.
A dwarf peeked at him from a slit in a huge oval shield. A blade waggled just below the slit like a taunting tongue. “No wonder they had this one up front. He’s half blind and a cripple to boot.”
The Copper acknowledged his fear. Doing so allowed you to control it. Sometimes it even came to your aid in a critical moment. He’d escaped death many times; if it came here, he’d still done better than any dragon tossed into the world with his injuries could expect. At least a throng of famished dwarfs wouldn’t rejoice and snicker that he’d finally passed up and into the night sky, as they would if the news reached the throne room in the Imperial Rock. He could stand anything, but he particularly disliked being the subject of laughter. It might be better to fall here, unknown and unnamed.
Dwarfs with chains and grappling hooks stood by, ready to throw and snare and drag him over and expose his belly.
“May I ask, Master Dwarf, who finally humbled me?” he asked in Parl. “I am curious to know who it is that finally sends me into the mystery beyond the final veil.”
A dwarf with double-rings on each of his index fingers, matching gems of red and blue, emerald and diamond, waved the others to stillness. “First-rank Seeg, dragon, of the Deep Alliance,” he answered, using the trade-tongue with more facility than the Copper could ever manage. “My fathers were of the Wheel of Fire in its glory, though we’ve dwarfs and dwarf-wives of all four craft-marks in our number. We’re the last survivors of a punitive expedition sent into barbarian lands by the Wheel of Fire. Abandoned by our king and brothers, we counted ourselves clanless and established a new dwarfhold. Others have since joined, those who can’t stand the arrogant Hypatians and their dragon backers, that is. We’re the last of the Free Northern Dwarfs.”
Enemies of my enemies, eh, Master Dwarf? Perhaps they should know his name.
For all the jewels Seeg wore on his finger, the most impressive was a plate-sized white gem ringed with gold joining his thick girdle. The Copper had to stop himself from gazing into it. Though he hadn’t thought about Rayg for years, for some reason the crystal in Seeg’s belt made him think of his old assistant.
“I’m called RuGaard in the Lavadome, though now I’m an exile and at enmity with the new Tyr. If you call yourselves ‘free,’ does that mean others of your kind are slaves?”
“He asks strange questions for one about to be bled and butchered into cuts and roasts,” a dwarf observed.
The Copper tried to answer well. “I entered first in the hope of preventing bloodshed. If it causes all of my own to be spilled, that will make an ironic story for the afterlife. I’m curious about you and how you’ve made enemies willing to hire dragons to destroy you. No ordinary hate burns hot enough to melt that much gold.”
“We’re the holdouts,” said Seeg. “We’re the only ones who don’t tithe headtax to your damn dragons and their blood-drinking demen.”
“Why did you take me alive?”
“We’ve got plenty of sick down here. We heard from some blighter runaways from your Empire—before we decided to distribute their heads and bodies to different caves—that dragon-blood was good for ailing folk. Most of our folk are ailing these days, what with the wet roads and dry passages blocked by the cursed demen.”
“Let’s bleed him a little now—I’m thirsty!” one of the dwarfs with the chain and sharpened, harpoonlike grapnel said.
“Perhaps I can help with other kinds of thirst. Thirst for sunlight, or fresh air, or even revenge.”
“We tried an alliance with a dragon once. It ended in our ruin,” Seeg said. “Though I do find you unusually coolheaded for a cornered dragon. Usually they spit fire and oaths, and leap.”
Another dwarf argued, “If you mean that she-dragon, it was we did her wrong. She came through the barbarians and brought wounded out. How many dwarfs would have died without their last messages, were it not for her?”
“I was Chartered Company. Dragons were a boon for us, until the Empire came. Let’s hear him out.”
“Let’s look at it from your point of view, then,” the Copper said. “Bleed me, and you get a few barrels of blood. Maybe not even that, if I struggle and thrash. There’s bound to be spillage. As testament to my word, I’ve done bargains with dwarfs before. Look at this wing joint.”
“It’s in poor repair, dragon. A blighter could do better.”
“A blighter tried. But the design is dwarf work.” That wasn’t precisely true. Rayg had designed the wing joint, but he’d been trained by dwarfs in his youth.
“A dragon in shackles is worth two—”
“At best, I’m a temporary solution to a permanent problem,” the Copper said. “Perhaps I can help you find a permanent solution. I imagine you’re sick because you’re living off stored food.”
“If only! Stone soup, more like, with a few old bones thrown in for flavor. Bootheels and belts ran out a year ago.”
“I’ve only known a few dwarfs, but those of my past acquaintance enjoyed roasts, beer, and a sort of boiled bread with lots of salt on it. Sweets, too, especially honey. I remember giving a good deal of butter, marmalade, and honey to those dwarfs who’d worked with us long underground, and they were most appreciative.”
The dwarfs smacked their lips. Saliva ran in disgusting froth into their dimly glowing beards.
“Honey, oh honey!” a dwarf said.
“Beer! What I wouldn’t give for a mug . . .” another mused.
“You’ll give your life if you keep listening to this dragon,” the one with the grapnel warned. “Don’t go chasing the chance of a big profit when a purse of coin drops in your lap, however modest. Take the surety, Seeg!”
“Perhaps we could organize a truce,” the Copper said, thinking it would be best to ignore the dwarf with the grapnel. Though if he threw at all and a fight started, the Copper would try to reduce him to a creamy holiday pudding before the others killed him. “I’ll stay down here as your hostage, and a party can go back to the surface and bargain for a few fresh fruits and vegetables. Yes, we get fruit up from the south coming on the coastal trade, oranges and pomegranates and pineapples.... If you’ve no money to spend, I’m sure doing a few odd jobs would endear you to my mistress in the tower. We have a winch much in need of repair.”
“What, fix the hovel of those who do battle with us?” Seeg said. “You’ve gone mad, that’s what’s happened.” The insult made the Copper believe a sliver of opportunity had appeared, now he just had to widen it enough to wriggle through.
“Who started the war?” the Copper asked.
A scattering of dwarfs chorused: “The barbarians, of course!”
“What was the reason.”
Some murmurs broke out as the dwarfs consulted.
“We’re sure it was their fault. You know humans. Whatever bargains their fathers strike are forgotten by the sons.”
The Copper nodded. “Well, perhaps it was their fault. I certainly wasn’t around for it. I do have certain resources, perhaps I can pay, oh, what do you people in the north call it—weregild, is it?”
“Forked-tongue dragon!”
“It’s split, perhaps, but that just is so a dragon’s most sensitive taste buds may close up so they are protected from his flame. I’d hardly call it a fork.”
“How much is certainly important,” Seeg said. “But more important still is whether we can find a place safe from our enemies.”
“I once had all the wealth of dragonkind at my command,” the Copper said. “While I don’t expect to get that back, I did have some personal possessions, tributes and presents and such, that I intend to reclaim.”
“Ha! Hot air. Just what you’d expect from a dragon,” the grapnel dwarf said.
The Copper drew himself up to his full height and extended his wings as far as they’d go without the bad one drooping. “My name is RuGaard, former Tyr of the Dragon Empire and Worlds Upper and Lower, and I don’t make idle boasts. I will regain what is mine, or you may sell me to the dragons who usurped my throne. Either way, you will profit.”
“You are RuGaard?” Seeg said.
“I heard he was a Copper dragon,” a dwarf said in Seeg’s ear.
“And blind in one eye.”
“Crippled, too. By the Golden Tree, it is him.”
“Ha-hem,” said Seeg. “You may have just won yourself a little more life, dragon. You seem to understand dwarfs well enough that I suspect we could become partners. Certainly not friends, probably not allies, but partners—yes, we may just be able to get that to work.”