Page 7 of Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire 3)

“What name I? I name how?”

“You’re not of the nest, cripple. You don’t need to be named. I’m not even sure you can be called a dragon in the lifesong.”

That just made him miserable, and he lowered his head.

“That’s no way to look, hatchling. You’re unique, as far as my family memory goes. None of my line of sires ever saw a second male survive. You’re not of the clutch, yet you’re of our kind, and the cave’s so big Auron can drive you away, but not out, so to speak. Neither scale nor claw, son nor stranger.”

The Copper formed his next words carefully, and they came out better. “You my father. That prove me your son!”

“You may be lame in body, but your wit’s quick enough. That’s your mother speaking with your tongue. If you’ve got her brains, I expect you’ll survive at least until you leave the cave.”

“To light?” The Copper knew that tidbit from egg-dreams.

“Yes. The Upper World is a dangerous place, and your wings are still a full clawset of winters off. Look at your scales! Poor little blighter. You need a bellyful of coin. Follow me.”

The Copper almost danced in Father’s wake, the dragon’s dangerous smell no longer terrifying but thrilling. Father approached a small ledge, descended, and approached a heavy stone resting in a small sink. A dead trickle of water was thick with dried dark moss.

Father grasped the stone with his front sii and wrestled it out of the rock.

“I’ve been meaning to give the girls some play-pretties. But you need something more substantial. Can’t do more; there’s little enough as it is.”

He stuck his head down the hole, and the Copper smelled something he’d never experienced before: an aroma hard and rich and metallic. He felt his scales bristle and his griff descend and flutter against his jaw and neck, giving a faint rattle.

Father’s head came back up. His eyes burned.

“Indeed, little enough! Why should I part with any to a wretched nothing? Cripple! Outcast!”

The Copper backed up, half-terrified and half-furious. The gold smell made him want to leap and claw.

Father tilted his head back and forth as though gauging distance; then he suddenly relaxed. “Serves me right for depriving myself.” He swallowed something that clinked. Then his bristling scale relaxed and he gave a brief, satisfied prrum. He reached down again and spit out a few gold and silver coins, thick with slime.

“That’s to get you started. All there’ll be, I’m afraid, unless I get lucky.”

The Copper sniffed a silver disk. He needed its light, its brightness. His mouth went thick and wet all over. He gobbled it down, and then the others, quickly, as though they were a nest of rats about to escape.

Father’s feet stamped restlessly.

“I suppose no harm’s done. Auron won’t need it, after all.” Father exhaled in a whoosh that flattened the Copper’s scale. “Maybe we’ll have better luck with males in another clutch.”>He caught a flash of motion off his weak side. It was the Gray again, bounding up from a trickle of water at the other end of the egg shelf.

The Green advanced, covering her sister with her own bulk.

He couldn’t fight them both at once. He mouthed the chunk of tail and fled, finding he could use the elbow of his injured forelimb when running, though it pained him. He jumped back off the egg shelf. If they tried to jump down after him, he’d get them at a disadvantage when they alighted.

The Gray yapped down at him, but showed no sign of plunging to the cave floor. The Copper gnawed at the meaty tail, feeling the energy entering his bloodstream from the swallowed hunks of tissue.

The Gray’s head disappeared, and the battle fury left the Copper. He felt cold, alone, and wandered over to the trickle and lapped a little water. He cooled his injured limb in the pool. Above, Mother started to sing. He crept closer so he could catch the end of the song:

…and the long years of dragonhood are sure to be thine.

He tried to climb up to the egg shelf, but failed, the pain in his throbbing limb overcoming him. He lay in the cold, hearing Mother’s soft throat music, half song and half prrum.

He made one more attempt at the climb. Not to fight this time, but to be by Mother, safe and warm, wrapped in music and belly heat. Mother’s great tail dropped over the edge and pushed him down. She looked down at him from the heights of her neck.

“No, little one, Auron has won the egg shelf. If you come up again he will kill you.”

He tried to reply, but the only noises he seemed to be able to make were squeaks, not words. He tried, came close, tried again:

“Fwhy?”

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