Page 10 of Dragon Rule (Age of Fire 5)

The Copper watched in satisfaction as the storming column flowed over and through the gates, axmen foremost to break down doors. The mass of men divided, flowing off into riven portals and up the fortresses’ ladders and stairs to reinforce the men still fighting at the tower tops.

* * *

With that he watched the sun come up, while the wounded and the booty-laden returned to the waiting barges.

The resistance, what there was of it, was broken-backed by the time the last tower fell, threatened by his Aerial Host men who’d been dropped onto the higher levels and spry young drakka climbing the sides and fighting drakes from below— with the usual competition for glories and honors and tallies of bitten-off heads between the males and females, of course.

Many of the Pirate Lords had run away by secret paths, only to be rounded up by hunting Firemaids, but a few stewards and captains remained to plead with the dragons to leave the rest of the city unburned—for a city it was, a much more impressive one than the old maps based on memories of his aged warrior showed.

They’d won a rich prize indeed. The Copper had half-formed plans to carry off the valuables and leave nothing but piles of broken stones as a warning to others who might defy his emissaries, but his Hypatian allies must have their colony back.

The Copper snorted when he learned the Pirate Lords had hired three dragons to guard the skies above their cities, only to have two take flight when they looked up and saw the array of approaching dragons. The Copper wondered if the dragons had been paid in advance for their services. Only the black, cursing, took wing toward their foes.

They held a celebration, and a memorial service, the next night in the conquered fortress. The men enjoyed wines from half a world away, the dragons feasted on skewers of organ meats discreetly collected from the dead and sliced into unrecognizable hunks. The men of the Aerial Host were rather hardened to dragon tastes and appetites, but surrendered potentates of Swayport might be provoked into foolish violence.

It had been a terribly busy day for the Tyr and he was eager to fly back to Hypatia—and his mate in her fastness—but the proprieties had to be observed. Under the broken battlements the dragons gathered, awards were announced and names and deeds read into the Song of the Aerial Host that would describe the war against the Pirate Lords, as soon as a fitting one could be composed by one of the more talented dragons.

The fallen young dragon who had answered the signal-bolt at the gate was broken-backed and unconscious. HeBellereth judged he’d never fly again, or even open his eyes to receive his justly won laudi. His rider, as was the custom for the fallen in foreign lands, dispatched him with a quick spear thrust under the right sii.

The humans then lowered the head and opened the neck heart.

“Only one loss. FeMissanith, an Ankelene who fought like a Skotl. Sorry to lose him, we don’t have many Ankelenes in the host, and he was a good example to others. Until the end. Young and foolish, alighting like that in the thick of them.”

“I recall a young and reckless dragon serving in the Bant with me. Chance favored him, he recovered from his wounds, and he rose high.” The Copper nudged HeBellereth.

“Seems a waste to let all that dragon blood be spilled for nothing,” HeBellereth’s signalman-rider drawled.

“Quiet, now,” HeBellereth drawled. HeBellereth, who always bristled and sparked before a fight, spoke rather slowly and thickly afterward as he attended to his duties. The rest he could leave to his lieutenants, but he always looked after the hurt and fallen before consuming a barrel of wine and some marrow bones and sleeping the strain off.

“He’s right,” the Copper said. “Our men deserve a victory toast of dragon blood. They’ll need it for the work of loading compensation. Save us from having to open a vein.”

Someone snorted. The idea of bleeding the honored dead rankled, but the Copper needed his men’s and the Hypatians’ energy for the work of setting Swayport in order ahead, and dragon-blood would do the trick. Besides, hadn’t their allies just feasted on human corpses? “Speaking of victory toasts, I’ll offer my own blood to that young human who led the storming column in from the sea. I didn’t know him.”

The Copper hoped he had enough to spare. But he’d always had a strong constitution and was used to veins being tapped by his bats.

“That’s old Gunfer’s son,” HeBellereth said. “He was the first human boy born to the new Aerial Host after you became Tyr. Gunfer’s too old to do much but sharpen weapons and fix buckles before we fly into battle and tend wounds after; his years take him back to the glory days of that cursed Wizard on his isle. Threading dragons with rein-rings indeed.” HeBellereth snorted.

“One more thing, HeBellereth. Make sure he gets a golden storming stripe upon his wing before his body is burned.”

“I’ll paint it myself, my Tyr,” his rider said in a choking voice, cleaning the merciful spearpoint with his own silken scarf.

There’d have to be a new promotion from the Drakwatch into the Aerial Host HeBellereth had mentioned, more than once, a likely young dragon, newly fledged. His brother Au-Ron’s son AuSurath the Red had strength and wit and skill and followed orders well, even if it meant hanging back rather than being foremost in seeking glory in battle. Most reds flamed first and answered questions after. But something in him rebelled at putting one of AuRon’s into the Aerial Host.

Always too suspicious, he told himself. Well, that’s how you’ve managed to stay alive all these years, he argued back to himself.

He could think about it later.

A few of the dragons shifted uncomfortably as the human dragon riders gathered around FeMissanith for the victory toast from the dead hero’s neck. The Copper silenced them with a glare as he personally filled the first tankard and handed it to the human captain of the Aerial Host, a one-armed fellow the Copper always thought of as “Blaze” because of his red-veined nose and ruddy, windburned skin.

The second came out of his own sii at the elbow joint, one of the favorite spots for his “gargoyles” to sup. He gave that to the young human, Gundar, son of Gunfer.

The young human drank it in one lusty downing. Red overflow ran out either side of his mouth, and when he put down the cup his almost hairless face suddenly had a new beard and a mustache.

The Copper watched captured Swayport men gathering wood for the pyre. One of the Aerial Host kept a watchful eye on them, lest they try to dig out a tooth or claw.

It had been often pointed out to the Copper that odds and ends of dead dragons were worth a great deal in trade in the Upper World. Even his Hypatian allies, canny merchants all, had suggested it.

It was one thing to collect dropped scales for sale in the Upper World. Harvesting bones and teeth, hearts and livers and sinews for alchemists and craftdwarfs gave him a ghoulish shudder. No, he’d never allow that.

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