Page 176 of Dragon Strike (Age of Fire 4)

Coming up the slope, he heard running water and followed the sound to a camp at a creek curled up next to a tumble of water that was neither rapids nor waterfalls but something in between. But there were rocks aplenty and tree trunks placed upon them so men might cross without wetting their boots.

“Pfew!” a sentry on a high, twiggy platform whistled. “His lordship’s dragon’s back.”

Men and their adaptive abilities. They could sound like birds when they chose. Run like horses by riding, fly like dragons by taming savage beasts, even dragons. They even had a desire to be turtles, judging from some of the armor he’d seen.

AuRon saw Naf’s tall form standing in the center of a warren of crude huts, part tent, part shack, part burrow. The smell of cooking meat and boiling laundry rose from the camp.

He glided across the river and landed in a central strip of green that smelled of horses.

“It’s fortunate for us that tail of your body is as distinctive as the tale of your travels,” Naf said, smiling in his usual cheery manner. Naf could fall into a dungheap and have his house collapse and still find something to laugh about. “At first we were afraid you were one of the Queen’s dragons. I’ve asked my cook to heap a shield with sausages and deer-vitals as a welcome. I’m afraid I lack the more civilized seasonings, but there’s salt and some rosegift and butterbloom—”

“I see you’ve shifted camp again,” AuRon said, trying to keep his mouth dry at the thought of sausages after so much flying.

“We were found again by the roc-riders, the fabled gods know how.”

“I have an idea about that,” AuRon said, wondering if he could manage a takeoff through a break in the foliage above the stream. “Naf, cling to my back. You must fly!”

“What have you seen?”

“Nothing. It’s what I have done.”

Naf raised an eyebrow to match the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t leave my men! You must know that.”

“Then run away with them. Just leave this place. The Queen is coming!”

Naf whistled, and gave a few orders. The men began to wake up and go to work gathering their possessions and harnessing their pack animals.

“How do you know?”

AuRon thought it the best compliment of all that Naf had issued his orders first and asked questions later. If there were more such men, he wouldn’t be keeping them at a cold, stormy sea’s distance on the Isle of Ice. “The last time we met, I had a necklace. The Queen saw whatever I saw, heard whatever I heard, through it. Some magic of hers.”

“It didn’t do her much good. My scouts report riders to the south and north, but they’re back searching the column rocks and sweeping through the mountains, where we’d last been camping.”

“Their columns would not be closing on these hills as they search the mountains?”

Naf’s eyebrows narrowed. AuRon had been too long away to determine if that meant he was interested or suspicious or vexed. “Yes, they’re passing close. But the search is proceeding in the other direction.”

“Last time I was here you told me you had volunteers joining you, a steady stream.”

“Yes. Some stay, others I send on to seek refuge in Hypatia. What’s left of the elves at Krakenoor are happy to have men to help rebuild their city.”

“Search your recruits who have joined since I visited you, or just before. I would not be surprised if one has a crystal similar to the one I wore.”

Naf frowned. “Most of my men are Dairuss. A few Ghioz with reason to hate the Queen, some from the horsedowns who’ve lost their grazing lands . . .”

“A Dairuss or one of those others couldn’t play you false, using a stone such as I wore about my neck?”

“I’ll have some of my men search the most recent arrivals for such a stone. If one has it, they’ll find him hanging when they close in on the camp.”

“Naf, I unwittingly gave the Queen a view of your camp. If there is a spy in your camp, he may be just as unwitting. You’re better off just burying the crystal, or better yet, smashing it.”

AuRon had a thought. “Or better yet . . .”

He offered a suggestion for a way to turn the Red Queen’s insight against her. Naf’s smile widened as he thought the matter over.

Naf put a few of the men who’d been with him longest to searching the recent arrivals as the others broke up the camp.

A detail of six men rigged AuRon with a drag of beams, hoof on sticks, and a sort of rolling log rigged with worn-out footwear. AuRon could do his part in making a false trail, whatever the outcome of the search.

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