Page 96 of Dragon Fate (Age of Fire 6)

“Yes, very,” DharSii said. “It’s when they go still and dry and staring that you have to worry.”

Scabia gradually put together the idea that DharSii was sewing her together with a sharp, curved bone needle and the sort of twine they used on cooking fowl in the kitchens.

She tried to speak, but he held her still, and she fell back into unconsciousness from the effort.

When she woke again, only DharSii was nestled beside her. She’d been tucked against one wall of the passage where she’d been attacked so it was less likely that she’d roll. Odd, she’d dreamed that she had drifted on silent wings all through her home, looking for something.

On the other side of the passage was what was left of those nightmare birds. The young dragons were poking through them.

“You picked—a good time—to return,” she managed.

DharSii scooped a sii-full of snow out of a tin tub. “Melt this in your mouth and let it go down slowly.”

The snow and cold water as it melted was soothing on her throat. It gave her a brief flash of energy before she relaxed and went limp again. She gave a gentle nod.

“Don’t move your head too much,” DharSii advised. “How do you feel?”

“Ghastly. What vomit of the Four Spirits were those things, DharSii?”

“My guess would be griffaran. The proportion is about right; they’re just overlarge and this skin of theirs . . .”

Larb fluttered over from the bodies, where he’d been nibbling at an eyeball. “Hisshonor’s right, yer ladyship, that’s exactly what they are. Griffaran of the Rock, that’s what.”

“Nonsense,” Scabia said. “They look nothing like steadfast old Miki, colorful until his dying day.”

“Griffaran of the Rock?” DharSii asked. “The griffaran guard the Tyr, and they certainly don’t consider Imperial Rock home.”

“That’s all changed—sorry to counter-dict your lordship,” Larb said. “That wizard, Rayg, he’s been giving griffaran dragon-blood and breeding those that react best to it. Trying to make a better Tyr’s bodyguard, he is.”

Scabia took as deep a breath as she dared, holding her throat carefully still. “You returned just in time, DharSii. I’m grateful to you again. How did you knock the last one off my neck?”

“I had a mouthful of ore. I just gathered it and exhaled as hard as I could.”

“More snow, please,” she said, tiring.

“You have a lot of blood to make up. I’ll have the blighters bring you some stew. The boiled potatoes are as soft as a cloud and far more filling.”

With a massive act of will, she rose to her feet and made it back to her perch in the great hall, waving the hatchlings away. They were piping their concern, but she was too tired to speak. Or even climb into her perch. She reared up, but her head began to swim before she could place sii on her rest. She slumped into the fading light in the center of the vast chamber. “Try again tomorrow,” she said in a dozy voice. She was unconscious before anyone came up with a reply.

When she awoke, Larb and a couple of blighters were beside her, listening to her breathing.

DharSii hid a yawn and dropped off his temporary perch. She blinked, looked around, and asked where the rest of the dragons were. Aethleethia had taken the youths out to explore the lake, and according to DharSii, NaStirath was actually flying guard duty above.

“Sure he wasn’t just fishing, now?” Scabia said, thinking DharSii must be mistaken.

“I told him that if the Lavadome could get three of those bastardized griffaran up here, they could probably get thirty. That shocked him into silence.”

“I’m relieved something can shock him,” Scabia said.

“If they come,” Scabia said, “get everyone into the water-reservoir, the slow well beneath the kitchens. I’ve never told anyone this, but there is a tunnel down there. It comes out in the stones under the old wharf on the lake. You have to hold your breath, but it’s not a long swim.”

She remembered her manners. She needed to thank Larb. “It was a fortunate day for me when you arrived, Larb. To think, I’ve always thought of bats as vermin. Larb, why ever did you make such a long journey in a dragonelle’s ear? You might easily have died at that altitude, in the cold.”

“Oh, an ear’s a warm little place, long as the wind’s not shooting down it, yer ladyship. Truth is, I was looking for the old Tyr. We bats, we’re getting exterminated right out of a home. I came to ask Tyr RuGaard to come back and set matters to right. We understand an occasional housecleaning, and sometimes a dragon rolls over in his sleep and crushes a bat or two. Most normal thing in the world. But they’re hunting us down and burning us out. We! We saved ’em from the Dragonblade, not so many generations back, and this is the thanks we get.”

“I’m glad you came. You’ll always have a home here, and as long as blood runs through my veins.”

“Oh, yer ladyship, yer too kind to me-umps and my family.”

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