Page 164 of Dragon Rule (Age of Fire 5)

“Don’t stand there twitching like a thunderstruck rabbit,” Scabia said. “Into the air. I’ll be watching, remember.”

“Oh please, must you?”

The Copper spoke at last. “Scabia, if my sister has agreed to… to create some eggs with NaStirath, she’ll do it. Save her the embarrassment of knowing she’s being watched from the ground.”

“Oh-h-h, once upon a time all the hominids of the world read their augurs whenever dragons mated.”

“Let them have their privacy,” the Copper said. “I’ve been on the receiving end of such curious stares. I didn’t care for it.”>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.

They dropped their brooms and fled at the sight of the new arrivals.

DharSii was the first to amble out of the entrance with its ancient writing. He startled when he recognized them.

“We seek refuge,” AuRon said.

“And fish. And warms,” Miki said in his bad Drakine.

DharSii cleared his throat. “Ha-hem. Welcome, Wistala. It’s good to see you again. Greetings, AuRon. Tyr RuGaard, you fly with a small escort. Has there been trouble?”

Scabia the White shuffled out, dragging her tail, but the aged dragon still had bright and alert eyes. “We’ve met before, Wistala of the line of AuNor.”

“Yes, briefly.”

“A young dragon seeking help in her battles in the wide world,” Scabia sniffed.

DharSii looked uncomfortable.

“So, how did your contest in the world of hominids turn out? A smashing success, no doubt?”

“I am no judge of my own success.”

“Now you’ve returned.” As you see.

“I can’t imagine what your party seeks that is in my power to grant.”

“We seek refuge with you from a hostile world. We are all exiles from the Grand Alliance.”

“DharSii, is this the confounded arrangement you were speaking of?”

“Yes, Scabia. The Lavadome dragons and the Hypatians are now allies.”

---