Page 32 of Dragon Strike (Age of Fire 4)

He heard dragon-voices out beyond the beading that separated his sleeping-chamber from the rest of his chambers—the hygiene annex with its trickle and paired pools and his private gallery looking out on the Lavadome and the little trophy alley that led up to the formal court hall. They were cramped quarters, probably not even filling the egg shelf in the cave he’d been born into, but it was easier to relax with comforting stone close around and tight corners where enemies could not mass and might be surprised.

“How long have I been with fever?”

“Three lightings,” Rayg said, referring to the glow of refracted sunlight or moonlight through the apex of the Lavadome. Probably about a day and a night in the Upper World. While dragons in the Upper World adapted to a sun-based schedule easily enough, in the Lavadome they alternated long-sleep, long-active, short-sleep, short-active, mixing according to humor and necessity. The Anklenes kept to a system based on the changing of the griffaran guard every twelve dwarf-hours.

“Send NoSohoth in,” the Copper said, lifting his head. He felt tired, but remarkably clearheaded. “I believe I hear him in the trophy-hall.”

NoSohoth, on entering, sprinkled another sii of quartz-like oliban on the brazier and tested the aroma with his nose. With a satisfied snort he bowed his way into the sleeping chamber.

“My Tyr—”

“Is awake,” the Copper said, forestalling expressions of joy at his recovery. He sensed a tension in NoSohoth, even with the relaxing aroma so thick in the air you could almost see it. “What’s the matter? Is Nilrasha ill?”

“No, my Tyr. But many are.”

“A plague?”

“Food poisoning,” Rayg said. “It’s this year’s new kern.”

Kern was the most beneficial when it was freshest, so most dragon larders and storehouses sent the older stuff off to be cattle-feed or thrall-gruel when a new batch came in. Mothers of hatchlings mixed it up with blood, or rolled organmeats in ground kern and flamed the mash so that their progeny might grow long and strong.

“Bad kern?” Careless of that CuPinnatax. He’d appointed him Upholder of Anaea because he seemed an intelligent—though idle—dragon. CuPinnatax’s grandsire FeLissarath had been the Upholder there for many years under the old Tyr. The Copper had served there before events in the Lavadome changed the entire course of his life.

“Not to smell or taste or sight, my Tyr,” NoSohoth said, but then he’d put CuPinnatax forward for the Upholdership.

“I put it under a dwarf-lens,” Rayg said. For a human who could speak Drakine credibly, he cared little for courtly niceties. “There’s some kind of blight on it, a brownish spore-like organism. It doesn’t appear to make the kern itself less wholesome, or interfere with it in any way I could detect, but once introduced into the digestion, it thrives and putrates. Cattle and sheep and pigs it affects hardly at all; they grow gassy and distended, but that seems to pass in a day. It sickens and slays chickens, and with dragons it appears to be taking the young and infirm.”

“Take?” the Copper said. “How many?”

NoSohoth seemed unaccountably impressed with a new tapestry in the sleeping chamber. The Copper saw him deftly add more oliban to the brazier with his far saa.

“It is bad, Tyr,” Rayg said. Even a dragon could read his expression.

The Copper’s brain felt divided, flying in two directions. One part of him rushed backwards, trying to remember absolutely everything FeLissarath had taught him about kern. It was a crop dependent only on ample sunshine and rain as it ripened. Anaea, with its rich soil and high-altitude climate, was ideal in both, though once in a while a bad year or too much rain left the kern either undersized or rotting. FeLissarath had never mentioned any kind of blight that sickened dragons.

“Prepare yourself, my Tyr,” NoSohoth said. “Most of the hatchlings are seriously sick. Some sii-score have already died—that we know of. Smaller drakes and drakka are also dying, but in lesser numbers. Of the aged dragons, it appears to depend on their appetite. Unhappily, the healthiest and heartiest eaters are falling victim.”

“Where is my mate?”

“She just returned from visiting hills that have lost hatchlings. She goes out again directly.”

Nilrasha might have her faults and enjoy the privileges of being Queen more than its duties, but she could be relied on in a crisis. Still, the sooner he appeared the better.

“With most of the dragons, it seems to have affected them to some extent as it did you. They bring their dinner up, or sluice it out the other end, and suffer from a fever.”

The Copper’s head cleared. “No one’s to eat another mouthful of kern. NoSohoth, I want every healthy dragon in the Rock out in the hills helping the parents of hatchlings. Sick parents can’t nurse their young. Rayg, what might help?”

“I’m no physiker, especially of dragons,” Rayg said. “Fluids usually help, whatever the malady or injury.”

“That will just speed their passing. Unconscious dragons will choke,” the Copper rasped. Rayg loved to build tunnels out of air.

“Of course, if you apply by the mouth.”

“How else are they supposed to get liquids?” NoSohoth asked, rolling his eyes.

“I saw one of my masters keep a cow with a broken jaw alive with injections through the . . . tailvent, you’d say.”

“Can you manage this, and teach NoFhyriticus the Gray and a few body-thralls?”

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