Page 161 of Dragon Rule (Age of Fire 5)

“If you can make it to the shore in the east, there’s a tower—”

“Yes, I know it. The Dragonheight. That woman’s place. I know her, she’s gotten me jobs in the past. She’ll stitch me up in a trice. Didn’t occur to me to swim all that way, though. Hope I don’t sink.”

“Will you be all right?” Wistala asked.

“I can buy you some time. Make them think we’re hiding on one of the outer islands. I can make enough racket to make them think the whole Lavadome’s squatting in those sluice-caves. Do a bit of bellowing at anything that comes close. Besides, I could do with a little fresh crab. That’s the one problem with the Lava-dome, no shell-carriers. Keeps the digestion clean.”

AuRon forgot his unhappiness for a moment. Shadowcatch’s thoughts rarely moved far from his stomach or fighting.

“More might come than you can handle,” AuRon said.

“You know me, NooSh—err, AuRon. I’m not a bad fighter when the blood’s up.”

“If you must, hide out at the north end of the island. The wolves have seen you with me. They’ll stand guard while you sleep.”

Wistala watched the sun drop toward the horizon. “Let’s all be seen swimming or flying for that island, then. I’m sure we’re being watched from somewhere.”

They crept down one of the glacier-runoff streams and slipped into the water for the swim to the island. Salt water felt good on everyone’s wounds, and they took a few minutes to lick one another other clean, pull riven scale, and extract arrowheads—which could then be swallowed for a little needed metal. The Copper had shoved a few shields and helmets under his bad wing.

“Hope this contraption holds out for the rest of the trip,” he said.

“DharSii might be able to figure it out,” Wistala said. “He’s very clever. Between us and the blighters she keeps around we might be able to keep it functioning.”

“I’m not likely to make many more trips,” the Copper said. “I’d hardly dare. A whole Empire wants me dead.”

“Let’s leave the worries for another day,” AuRon said. “Join us if you can, Shadowcatch.”

Wistala gave him instructions on how to find the hidden valley, east of the Red Mountains.

“Please come,” the Copper said. “It doesn’t sound right without you grinding your teeth behind me somewhere. It’s difficult to think without the noise.”

“I’m tempted to stay and settle things once and for all with Ouistrela. But as far as I’m concerned, Tyr RuGaard is still my lord. I’ll come if I can get my wings catching air again.”

With that, the three dragons took to the skies, with Miki flying close beside the Copper.

Chapter 20

They flew in a tight grouping, flying over sandhills tufted with patchy grasses, with AuRon at the angle. Game trails followed the water found here and there, but they couldn’t catch much that offered even a partial mouthful. The bigger game herds were probably still on their way north.

Wistala wondered if they even would have made it, traveling in the north in that bleak and bitter spring, without AuRon flying at their head. He cut the air for them, and they rode with the advantage of the draft he’d created.

Miki suffered terribly from the cold. They took turns lighting dragon-fire so that he could warm his thin body. The only thing that kept the old griffaran going was a promise of bony fishes taken from the deep lake of the Sadda-Vale.

At one of their warmth-and-water breaks, RuGaard offered to take over the lead position to give AuRon a chance to rest.

“I’m not dragging scale,” AuRon said. “I don’t mind anything except that the rest of you are a little slow.”

They all chuckled at that. Perhaps the family had learned to laugh after all.

They flew high over the mountains surrounding the Sadda-Vale at the cost of exhaustion, but with the journey almost at an end.

Wistala thought Vesshall in the Sadda-Vale hadn’t changed in the intervening years any more than as if she’d just left the previous night. The stone latticework over the entrance, the great dome carved out of living rock, the steaming pools of the lake beneath giving wisps of heat up into the sky.

Perhaps the Sadda-Vale was a sister location to the Lava-dome. Unchanging year in and year out.

Not such a bad place to live in exile. Hot and cold natural pools for swimming, the vast, deep lake, architecture unlike anything she’d seen in the wide world, and plenty of game. A troll hunt with three or more full-grown dragons would be an interesting challenge rather than a risky hunt. She’d have to remind her brothers about the trolls.

Though today it was mist-shrouded. Nevertheless a few blighters were employed sweeping leaves from the vast courtyard before the entrance.

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