Page 68 of Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire 3)

“Who are they?”

“Bat eaters,” Enjor and Thernadad said together.

“Hunt by?”

“Sight, m’lord.”

“Let’s cross once the sunlight goes, then.”

He rested on the riverbank and saw a long, thin boat with a line of hominids on board, crossing the water, beetle-sized in the distance. One of the flyers, a black shadow with vast wings, hovered overhead.

He waited until the beams lifted and vanished, disappearing into a faint glow from the sky. The shadowy wings still flew over the river, though. He nosed around the riverbank as the light faded, but found only a tasteless snail or two. He wedged himself into a crack—more to prevent the bats from feeding on him in his sleep than because he feared discovery—good eye on his vulnerable side.

But he couldn’t sleep, so excited was he to be this near to the Lavadome. He three-quarters shut his good eye. But why weren’t there dragons whirling above the river? Surely such a vast body of water had those long, bony, shovel-nosed fishes living within?

He felt a cautious nip at his leg. He reached out with a saa and heard a bat squeak.

“Thernadad! You!”

“Sir! Didn’t think you’d miss—”

He squeezed.

“You’re wrong there. Listen, Thernadad, or I’ll squeeze every bit of my blood back. I’m putting you in charge of my body. I wake up with any more slits, nips, or cuts, no matter how well concealed, I’ll assume you did it and squeeze you.”

“Yeek!”

“I can’t hear your voice at that pitch.”

“Y’be very generous, sir,” Thernadad grunted.

“Spread the word.”

“M’don’t suppose, as a gesture to our new understanding…”

“No. Once we’re across the river and I’m in the Lavadome. Not before.”

The cavern was eerie in the way the lighting changed into full dark. He understood light changing from cavern to cavern, but the idea of the amount of light over the lake altering over a single digestive cycle was new to him.

He set off into the water, the three thriving young bats riding upon his crest. The water was a good deal warmer than that of the underground tunnels, warmer than the rock or air, thus the low mist that hung over the water.

“Stay low,” he suggested to the bats on wing. “The, umm—”

“Griffaran,” Uthaned said, turning a tight circle over the Copper’s nostrils.

“—griffaran shouldn’t be able to pick you out through these mists.”

Something else was using the mists to hide. A boat, a version of the deman craft he’d encountered on the river, rowed across the water as fast as paddles and demen hands could move it. It held three demen, two rowing and a third in the center.

The deman in the middle of the boat lifted up a round, white object—an egg! and wrapped it in a cloth before placing it in a basket. He wore colorful feathers tucked through each ear piercing, set so they covered his shoulders.

The Copper’s stomach rumbled. An egg or two would be just what he’d need to get him the rest of the way to the Lavadome.

He swam alongside the boat, matching its direction and speed. The boat neared the far bank. The rowing demen jumped out, and the other climbed out, then extracted his basket. The rowers lifted the boat.

Appetite helped him make up his mind.

“You’d better be old enough to fly,” he told the young bats.

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