Page 165 of Dragon Champion (Age of Fire 1)

“What?” Hieba said, shrinking back from a warrior springing shoulder-high on powerful legs and smiting invisible enemies.

“Those are suitors, not performers. Humans and blighters can mate, you know, but the offspring is sterile, like a mule.”

“What if I get up and touch you?”

“Tribal custom is rich and full of precedence, but I don’t think it covers that. Dragons figure into their traditions as icons of luck, or dread.”

She edged closer on her sitting-mat to AuRon, and smelled his basin of wine.

“Pfhew, what is that, AuRon?”

“Wine. Mixed with blood, or so it tastes. It’s part of the celebration. This is a ceremony about victory in battle.”

She dipped her hand in it and tasted the mixture from her palm. Unrush and the other blighters gasped and muttered to each other at the gesture.

“What did I do?”

“It’s not so much what you did. It’s what it meant. Only mated couples eat from the same dish.”

AuRon turned to Unrush. “This human is as a daughter to me; she shares my repast. Please show her the same respect you do to me.”

Unrush waved a hand, and the blighters quieted.

The celebration started in earnest. Children ran across the village center, waving red-feathered streamers attached to the end of sticks. The fireblades followed, going through the blighter military evolutions: storm front, whirl and fade, flank sweep, and crescent hunt. They beat their spears on their shields, stamped, and shouted in time to their drums. When the display was over, their wives joined them, and the muscular warriors picked up the females and bore them overhead, some using just one arm to the howls of delight from those too old or two young for such feats. Hieba enjoyed it immensely, rattling her beads and striking her copper bracelets together.

All at once, there was a disturbance at the gate. AuRon raised his head above the crowd and saw a cluster of blighters bearing torches. The ends burned with a bluish flame. The intruding blighters approached. One rode some kind of camel with hair trailing just above the ground. The rider waved the ones at the gate away, and they shrank from him like scolded children.

Unrush stood up and shouted something, and the revelers fell back before the stranger’s approach.

“Stay close to me,” AuRon said to Hieba. “If I open my wings, get on my neck.” AuRon took a few steps toward the gate to put his length between the strange blighters and Unrush’s people. Unrush and a few of his chieftains came forward. Neither group showed unsheathed weapons, but there was a tension in the air.

“This is Balazeh?” Unrush asked his guest.

“Yes. That is Staretz, a magus of the north. He is strong in wizardry. With him is Korutz, lieutenant to the King of Charioteers in the high plains. Make obeisance.”

“It is for the visitor to do,” Unrush said. “Even if the King of Charioteers comes himself.”

Staretz, to AuRon, was just a tough old blighter, looking like a gnarled tree clinging among high rocks, dried out and twisted but fiercely intent on survival. He did not descend from his camel, but cleared his throat, waiting for a greeting. Unrush stood his ground and ignored the elbow of Balazeh prodding him.

One of the magus’s retainers broke the silence. “So it is true. There is a dragon in these mountains. Who sits on the renowned dragon-throne, word of which has come even to the north?”

“Who wishes to know?” one of Unrush’s sons asked. “It is for him to make introductions.”

“Stop this,” AuRon rumbled. “Such an important visitor comes, and we cannot welcome him properly while he sits on his mount.”

Staretz made no move, but the camel’s legs folded up beneath its cloak of fur.

“Dragon-king, you shame two proud Umazheh,” Staretz said in Drakine, with surprising facility. AuRon had never heard it pronounced so well by a hominid. “Staretz of the Hardgrounds speaks to the Umazheh of these mountains.”

“Unrush of Uldam’s Gates welcomes you,” Unrush said, coming forward with a mat under each arm. He unrolled one on the ground for the visitor, and when the magus was comfortable, sat himself opposite.

“Thank you, great king,” Staretz said.

“No king,” Unrush said. “Just a high chieftain, by the fates and this dragon’s mercy.”

“The King of Charioteers says more, and sends his lieutenant Korutz to you as an ambassador. They say your domain covers these mountains from where the sun touches at dawn in the east to the last light of dusk in the west.”

“True, but there are not many among these mountains. Our flocks number in the multitudes, but our spears counted only ten score, ten times and four.”

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