Page 80 of Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire 3)

“You’ve both got a bad limb. Honor and glory, young Rugaard.”

“Thank you, sir.”

NoSohoth turned and stalked out, sniffing the air around a crevice concealing the bats. The blighter looked at Harf and made a chopping motion at his neck. Harf showed a mouthful of brown teeth and patted his belly.

“My prince want food?” Harf asked, holding up his neck marker so the Copper could see it.

“Yes. And be quick.”

Harf disappeared in the lurching, two-legged run of his kind. The Copper wondered how he didn’t fall over. Humans struck him as half-finished—and the completed half wasn’t much to look at. Badly balanced, thin-skinned, just the odd patch of hair on their heads that seemed to do nothing but get in the way of their eyes, nostrils, ears, and mouths, and they smelled like wet bats. The Air Spirit must have had his mind on other things as he created them.

After a refreshing sleep he explored his new home caves. The wound over his firebladder wept a little clear fluid, and felt tender but not painful. A projection of rock, like a long limb, reached out from the wall and almost to the pool. It smelled strongly of male dragon.

A bat flitted past his eye. “The others be frightened, m’lord,” said Uthaned, the active young bat. “They want to know where to go.”

Harf made a move to swing at the bat with his scrubbing stick, but the Copper gave him a sharp, “No!” He sniffed at Uthaned; the bat smelled exhausted. “That cave with the big horned skull will do for now.”

“Mamedi is ready to drop, and the three young aren’t used to so much flying. Might we have a taste of generosity?”>“Grandsire,” the Copper said. The golden drake was turning up the corners of his mouth at him again.

“See that he’s given a lair,” the Tyr said. “Not in the nursery, now—a battle-scarred dragon deserves a real chamber of his own. I know—have him join the Drakwatch. Give him a chance to prove himself to you doubters. Attend to it, won’t you, NoSohoth?”

The female checked a loosened scale on the Tyr’s haunch and shot a look at NoSohoth as he bowed to the Tyr.

“A fine addition to the family,” the golden drake said, rolling so he came up with flower petals caught in his scales. “We won’t want for entertainment as long as he’s around. I can’t wait to see him limp his way through a court dance.”

Chapter 12

NoSohoth led the Copper through what seemed a maze of tunnels, beautifully sculpted, with dragonscale patterns on the rises and drops to help the claws find purchase. The rock inside was shiny and black, with veins of white where it had been left natural, but in many places, like projections and corners, it had been coated with metals or ceramics in intricate designs. The floor wasn’t quite smooth, the better to give dragonclaws places to grip, but it was polished. Splashes of water from drinking trickles looked like blood.

Turns, drops, and climbs were marked by burning fat-lamps.

“Don’t you use moss?” the Copper asked.

“What is this, a mining camp? You’re in the Imperial Resort. Besides, there are other advantages to lamps. Smell.”

Some kind of substance had been thrown into the mix to give a pleasing, relaxing aroma.

“What’s that burning, sir?” the Copper asked.

“You’re a polite hatch—young drake. I haven’t heard ‘sir’ from the Imperial lines in three sets of scale. You’ve never been in the Upper World?”

“No. I’ve seen shafts of sunlight; that’s all.”

“The smell’s hardy pine. It has an oil that’s useful in a variety of ways, a solvent for a start. We put it in the fat-lamps. Some mint and rosemary are added to the oil. Eucalyptus is even better, but hard to come by these days. Otherwise the dragon-smell can get thick in here. Drakes get aggressive, and the drakka play up too much, and dragons who should know better get to dueling. We dragons are thralls to none but our noses.”

The Copper had no idea what “eucalyptus” was, but had more important questions on his mind. “I like the smell of dragons all around. I keep fearing I’ll wake up and be alone again.”

“I wouldn’t mind a year or two alone, myself. Now, let’s see, plenty of empty space on this level, as it doesn’t have much in the way of egress. Everyone in the Black Rock thinks they’re born deserving a gallery with its own trickle.”

The Copper gave up counting passages and turns by the time they descended a third time.

“You’ll learn your way around soon enough,” NoSohoth said. “If you get lost, just remember always to go from smaller to larger. That’ll get you to the Central Spiral.”

“That big downshaft with the columns?”

“Yes, where we first descended. Just ask a thrall; they all speak Drakine. More or less. They’ll put you right. If they don’t, you’re free to eat them.”

The passage rose and then fell away to a wider, lower tunnel. There wasn’t so much frill and decor along the passages now. Hominid skulls lined the wall here, grouped in threes and sixes and nines, grinning at him from beneath a coating of bronze or pewter.

---