Page 56 of Dragon Fate (Age of Fire 6)

“Well, we came to sort of a stalemate, see. Most of the wolves, they knew I was friends with that brother-gray of yours, so they took my side of things, you might say. They kept me abreast of where she was and what she was doing. She had the blighters on her side and if they spotted me they sent her a report. We usually each knew what part of the island the other was on, and kept away from each other. It’s a big island—wasn’t that hard to do.

“I had information that she was hunting around a glacier-pool way off from the blighters, so I snuck up the glacier and dug into some loose soil the glacier had pushed down the mountainside. When she was snuffling around, following some goat tracks, I jumped out of the loam and had her, or so I thought.

“We took a bit of a tumble down the mountainside and ended up in the glacier pool. Next thing I knew, we were—mated, I guess you call it. I’m not sure when the fighting died down and the mating began, but it seemed well along before I noticed.”>After his first week, the rats finally brought him an interesting tidbit.

“Down-belows extra-extra fooding,” this rat said. The Copper found him harder to understand than Red Ears, mostly because he spoke through a mouthful of boiled potato.

“Who are the down-belows?”

“Cave dragons. No wallspace. Eat rat-folk.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Are you saying there are dragons in a cave beneath the tower?”

“Maybe so not like you. Swim dragons, crawl dragons.”

The Copper gave up and decided to investigate.

It took him a while to find the correct cave down. He ended up following a set of rails for a wheeled cart, such as the dwarfs used in their mines, adopted by the dragons and other underground races. A food cart made the trip down every other day.

He spoke to the men who drove the cart. It turned out there was no great secret about the other dragons. They just weren’t housed in the tower because they didn’t fly. The men called the underground dragons the “pensioners”—most of them were dragons who, because of wounds and injury, could no longer fly.

It was gloomy in the underground. There were a few attempts to grow cave-moss, but it hardly glowed enough to reveal itself. Maybe salt air wasn’t good for it. He followed the food cart into a larger chamber, bow-shaped so that dripping water pooled at the center. Dragon perches, some natural and some cut, punctuated each side of the chamber like the holes of a human flute.

The cart-men halted their load and rang a bell. Gettel was fond of bells.

As the ringing faded, he heard a familiar sound in the darkness. Grinding teeth, followed by a yawn from the first alcove on the right.

“Shadowcatch, can that be you?” he asked.

Two eyes popped open wide. “My Tyr!” the black dragon said.

He’d met the enormous Shadowcatch in battle on the other side of the Inland Ocean. Eventually the black had become his bodyguard. He was the only dragon to remain overtly loyal to him after he had resigned the title of Tyr.

“That’s all done with, don’t you remember?” the Copper asked, regretting the choke that found its way into his voice.

Shadowcatch emerged. He was as huge as ever, but one wing hung crooked. “For me, sir, it’s the rest that’s done. Truth be told, you’re my Tyr, the Tyr, until my last breath escapes.”

“What brought you here? Surely not the comforts of a home-cave.”

He looked at the dank walls. “Not the best of accommodations, are they? Truth be told, there’s not a dragon down here that doesn’t deserve better, but we’re charity cases these days. We’re the tower guard, and that’s about all we’re good for. Or tunnel-fighting. Our flying days are over, and it’s this or starve in the forest and have the wolves scatter our bones.”

“Who are these dragons?”

“All veterans of the Wizard at the Isle of Ice, sir. We did a bit of mercenary work with the barbarian chieftains since, but that’s the only action I’ve seen since washing up here.”

Back in the Lavadome, a flightless dragon could still do tunnel-duty. But of course this peninsula was far removed from the strange underground byways he knew.

The Copper sniffed the gristle and fish guts the barrow-men were laying out for the dragons to eat. “I hope that’s not all you get, Shadowcatch.”

“It’s expensive to feed us, even on fish meal. We’re ravenous for cattle or swine, but that’s saved for the fliers, and none of them feel much like passing a quarter down for charity. Flying dragons get the best of everything here.”

There had to be a better use for healthy but flightless dragons than sitting in a dark hole.

“Will you introduce me?”

Shadowcatch inflated his long lungs. “Hey, you kindling lighters, this is my old Tyr. His name’s RuGaard. Don’t mind the scars—he’s sharp and quick still. He and I came north together, a dozen years or so back.”

The dragons, who’d devoured their meager mouthfuls, raised their heads.

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