Page 68 of Dragon Strike (Age of Fire 4)

“Ye’ll be free in yon Tyr’s own good time, once his neck unbends at last.”

They zapped her again so the lesson might sink in.

She was beginning to welcome the surcease of hunger the sparks brought. But no point telling them that.

“Tomorrow we all dine on dragon meat!” Paskinix promised, and his throng beat their rods on stone in clattering celebration.

Wistala wondered, rather dully, whether they meant hers or DharSii’s.

The demen learned a lesson about counting breathing dragons dead the next day. Just after a meager breakfast Paskinix stormed back into her little run and struck the inoffending guards keeping watch over her, knocking them this way and that with sideswiping kicks.

“Climbed out! Three spears in him and yon scaly devil climbed out! No sign of the watch I left. Down three, and naught but bloody footprints showing for it!”

He raised his club and gave her a couple of bashes about the neck. Then he threw down his club and squatted with his face to the wall, his spines rising and falling in a confused manner.

The guards tried to ply him with one of those hollow tubes, opening it so a sweet-tart smell, like molasses and juniper, wafted into the tunnel. He put his mouth to it and worked the other end, and Wistala heard a sucking sound. Then he threw down the tube.

“ ’Twas my plan to lead my people to greatness,” he said in his strange Drakine, his back still to her. “It all went wrong in the war with the dwarves. I thought myself mighty clever, sneaking down the river. We’d raided up the Ghioz palace itself and came away with riches. Why not do the same to the dwarves? They and their cursed battle boats.”

“The Wheel of Fire?” she asked.

“Ye know them?”

“I’ve fought them too.”

Wistala told her tale, briefly, of how she had brought down King Fangbreaker and of the gruesome battles she’d seen, showed the long-healed scars in her wing-leather. Paskinix made excited wheezing sounds as she told of the slaughter of the dwarf-column sent into barbarian lands.

He folded his hand under a bit of carapace and worked a crack in the cave wall, widening it and sending bits of stones flying as he twisted his armored limb-shell this way and that. “I should have taken that offer yon old Tyr gave me. Not that new whelp with his damn trained monkeys riding dragonback, I mean the old Tyr. His Cussedness. An alliance.”

“You didn’t?”

“Nay. I thought I’d just gamble, try and master the wizard’s crystal, what with NooMoahk’s yon cave empty and echoing. Thought it’d show me a path to victory, ye see. But someone’d put heart in the blighters and they fought like mad. We were long licking our wounds from that beating. I even thought for a while that some blighter genius had been born and unlocked the crystal’s secrets. But they never followed us down. Next thing I knew the Star Tunnel was full of mad dragons under that green demon. Oh, she’s taken the better bits of the Tyr and his mate.”

It was like trying to piece together an entire song from a line or two at the end. In any case, he seemed in no mood to hit her again.

“May I offer something?”

“Words of comfort from a dragon? Nay.”

She took a careful breath. “You could release me. I’d serve as an ambassador to this Tyr. Perhaps he’d renew the offer that other fellow made.”

“Oh, aye. One of the Tyr’s own Firemaids. Ye’d keep my interests close to heart, I’m sure.”

“You’re clever, but you don’t know everything, Paskinix. I know nothing of this Tyr or his dragons. I fell into the Lower World thanks to a quick slip and a long fall.”

His spines stiffened, then relaxed again.

“A good try, Firemaid. Well done. Ye almost had me with that lying tongue.”

With that he rose and shuffled off.

Wistala felt herself growing thinner on slight rations and lack of exercise. Secretly, she rejoiced at it. Much longer and she would be able to slip out of her bonds.

To pass the time she improved herself in the demen tongue so she could chafe her guards for more water or a chance to clear out the filth coating one end of her alcove. They gave her some bits of dried mat-leaf and she scrubbed and sponged vigorously. The harder she worked the thinner she would get.

But the demen knew their business. There was only so much one could do to swell a joint when they stuck a finger in to test the bonds. They tightened her shackles.

That night she wept, truly wept, for herself. A very undragonlike response to difficulty. Mother would tell her to hide her tears and think of a way to improvise a solution.

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