Dragons of War (13 page)

Failure yet again! The three hungry hunters stared mournfully down the length of the meadow at the jaunty tails of the elk as they slowed and began to graze again, feeling quite safe from the strange enemies they had encountered and outrun so easily.

"My fault, I came out too soon." Baz was contrite. "No, no, you did your best. They broke the wrong way. We are too slow. Maybe I am wrong. We starve to death soon now."

Relkin bit back any remarks. Starving dragons were dangerous after a while. They began to see everything, even dragonboys, as food. Besides, the situation was dire enough without having a dragonboy indulge in sarcasm. He took a deep breath and prepared to head back for his pack, which was still under the trees.

Then a shadow passed swiftly over the sun. There was a tremendous sound, like a gigantic whip being cracked right overhead, and a bolt of astonishing green fury stooped out of the azure and landed square on one of the adult elk. The animal had barely begun to run when it was struck down like a pigeon under a falcon's talons. The dragon's great claws cut down through the elk's neck and chest, breaking her shoulders and cutting her heart in twain.

Relkin felt his eyes bulge in his head. There, standing over the prey was the wild green dragoness, High Wings, who hurled back her head and brayed her hunting cry to strike terror in the woods.

The two battledragons were struck dumb with awe for a moment. Then Bazil emitted a wild, trumpet of welcome, and both great beasts lumbered toward her.

Bazil was ecstatic. "To see you again so soon, my love, it is a wonderful tonic for an old wyvern."

The dragoness was not in a mood for breeding, as she'd explained when they rescued her from the cage on Trader Dook's ship.

"You've lost weight" was the tart reply. "True," said Bazil, quite besotted. "I suppose you aren't much good for hunting." The Purple Green arrived on the scene with his characteristic heavy tread.

"Neither of us is much good at hunting elk. We require larger game."

"The wyvern is right. We have to go to the land of mammoths and bison."

The green dragoness scrutinized the wild drake.

"So, the humans have enslaved even the Purple Green of Hook Mountain," she said scornfully.

The Purple Green's eyes flashed anger, and the scales on his neck stood up dangerously.

"I am no slave. I am free and wild again. We both are. We have left the human world. I want to go to the land of mammoths."

"We are both battledragons now," said Bazil. "You should see this big fellow when he wields a sword. He frightens everyone on the battlefield. Truly, armed with sword, he is the most terrible thing on this world."

"No matter how terrible he is, neither of you are going to reach the land of the mammoths. That is a long flight away. You will starve to death long before you get there."

"We can hunt," said the Purple Green.

"I have watched you hunt," said the dragoness tartly. "I saw you both lumbering around in pursuit of elk. The only elk you will eat is going to be long dead by the time you find it. You will be eaters of carrion, worm-ridden, covered in flies."

"We have a better idea," said Bazil.

Relkin suddenly gave a yip of fright as a small dragon, in a flash of bronze scales buzzed right over his head, wheeled, and pounced at him.

"Braner!" he shouted. "It is I, Relkin, the dragonboy. Remember me?"

Braner settled to the meadow and folded his wings.

"You are not food. You are for talking to, but your dragon speech is strange."

"I could say the same thing about yours. I speak with the wyverns, and I speak with the wyvern tongue."

"You speak it horribly, but you are not food."

"Not food. Dragonboy."

The broketail lumbered up to Braner and swept the small, winged dragon up in a clumsy hug.

"My offspring, the fruit of my egg!"

Braner gave a screech and squirmed free.

Bazil turned back to High Wings. "We have much better plan. We will live with you and travel to the land of mammoths together."

"Nonsense. We depart for the north in a few days. There is not enough big game in these lands for my taste. It is hard to feed two growing youngsters and myself on just these elk."

"There are other animals."

"Deer and pigs are all I see, if you don't count bears. I hate the taste of bear. I ate too much polar bear when I was young. My mother was very fond of it, and they were easy to hunt."

"But we will travel with you."

"Then we will go north at a snail's pace. Myself and my young will have to go farther, faster, or we will miss the migrations."

"But surely, my love, would you not want me to accompany you?" said Bazil, stunned by her cool indifference to the father of the young.

They were distracted for a moment as the other youngster, Grener, with a skin of green a little lighter than that of her mother, came flying in bearing a young elk in her talons. She droppped the elk, and she and Braner fell on it and began squabbling as they tore at it.

Braner tried to dispossess his sister of her kill. She hissed and lashed at him with front claws. He dodged back and prepared to strike her down.

Their mother sprang between them with a bellow of fury and both backed away. She turned back to Bazil.

"You do not understand the world of dragons. You live in the world of men. I do not need you now. I will not mate for five more years. I brought the young ones to see you to fulfil our nuptial contract; that is good, as it was in the beginning with the ancient gods of Dragon Home. Now it is done. We must go north. You must go back to the world of men."

Bazil and the Purple Green stared at her. Baz swallowed heavily. He felt worse than if he'd just been struck in the head by a troll.

"Five years?" he muttered.

"And I shall not mate with you," she said. "Not that you were not worthy, you proved yourself. But I understand something of the human power with the things they make now. You would kill any other dragon that tried to woo me.

There is nothing in the world you could not kill with those swords."

Relkin nodded. She was perfectly correct.

"And now if you will excuse us, we are hungry and we have to eat."

The green dragoness ripped into the elk she stood over, and tore off half the shoulder and crunched it up.

"Uh, my love, my precious, the mother of my young," said Bazil.

She looked up suspiciously. "What?"

"We are very hungry. The Purple Green and I. We must eat something soon or die."

She resumed her feast.

"Perhaps you could give us a share of what you're eating now?"

Again the look of dark suspicion.

"It isn't very large. And both of you look very hungry."

"Exactly," rumbled the Purple Green, who was salivating at the sight of the elk and barely restraining himself from throwing himself at it.

"Frankly, we are starving to death, my dear, the mother of my descendants."

With a great groan of disgust, the green dragoness ripped off a haunch from the elk with a neat backward and forward movement that snapped tendons and freed it with loud cracks and pops, then she withdrew.

"Take the rest," she said through the shuttered teeth.

They fell upon the carcass, tore it in half, and crunched into it with the fervor of the starving. The sound of the wind soughing through the grass of the meadow was broken only by the sounds of huge carnivores devouring the dead elk. Bones crunched and snapped, huge bellies rumbled as they received the first real food in days.

Relkin knew better than to expect anyone to leave him even a slice of the elk, and so he shouldered his bow and went back to the woods and hunted for a while, shooting a pair of squirrels that he skinned and roasted over a small fire.

The smell of the cooking soon drew the dragons, and by the time he was ready to eat, he had an audience of five great predators, from the huge Purple Green down to Grener, who was only a little larger than Relkin himself.

Relkin ate the squirrels and ignored the pressure in the eyes of the various dragons. They had just consumed several hundred pounds of meat between them without offering him an ounce. By the old gods, he wasn't about to give up any of these squirrels.

Not a word was spoken, and as the fire died down, they all set themselves to sleep.

Relkin awoke at dawn and roused himself, shaking the chill from his limbs and stretching his muscles in the early light. Around him the dragons slumbered, the Purple Green snored loudly. The young dragons nestled near their mother.

He stood up and continued the stretches. Sleeping in the open was nothing new to him, of course, and he knew the wisdom of stretching after waking up cold and stiff. The last thing he needed now was a pulled muscle.

As he arched his back and rotated his arms backward, he felt another presence. He looked up and saw the green dragoness watching him. So intent was her gaze that he almost fell into dragon-freeze. He called a greeting in dragon speech, "Welcome to the day!" But she did not reply. Shortly afterward she turned away from the sleeping huddle of great beasts, cracked her wings open, and took to the air, the wings flapping mightily while she hurled herself from the ground in a single enormous bound. Trees bent over from the force of her wing beats, and within seconds she was far down the meadow and rising steadily into the air.

It was no wonder dragons had such appetites considering the athletic nature of their lives, thought Relkin. Wyverns could not fly, but in the water they became alive in a way that was very different from their manner on land. Their flesh burned when highly active, and they were possessed of a strength beyond anything other than that of mastodons and the very greatest of the rhinoceroses in the land of mammoths. As a result, dragons ate prodigiously. Or at least they preferred to.

The thought of dragon appetites stimulated his own, of course. The squirrels at dinner had been small, youngsters incautious around a bowman. He finished his warm-up, took his bow, and slipped off quickly into the forest.

Moving as quietly as possible, he made his way to the edge of a narrow valley, covered with hemlocks and pines, with a stream running in the center. Under the mature trees little else grew, and he was able to see a long way beneath the boughs.

He was rewarded with a glimpse of a rabbit and several squirrels. He slipped toward them, fitting an arrow into the slot of his Confshon bow, tightening the spring. Within one hundred paces, he was confident of the rabbit. He needed to get a little closer for the squirrels.

The rabbit detected something when he was still twice that distance away. It stood up and looked around carefully for a full minute and then hopped slowly away into the trees, heading down toward the stream.

He went on carefully. The squirrels were less cautious. They did not notice him until he was well in range.

The bow twanged brightly, and he took his first squirrel. It made no sound as the arrow struck through the neck.

The other squirrels took little notice. He was able to get within range of another. This time his shot was not quite so true, and the animal let out a shriek of pain and alarm, and fell out of the tree.

All the others raced up the trees and hid.

Still Relkin had two squirrels, enough for breakfast. He collected them and turned back to the camp.

The dragons there were only just beginning to wake up. He heard the Purple Green give a heavy groan as he lay down his bow. Relkin gathered together some brush and laid firewood across it. There were still embers from their previous night's fire. Relkin had left a couple of heavy logs smoldering when he went to sleep. Taking these up, he now blew on them to ignite the brush and quickly got a blaze going. It was a matter of minutes to skin and clean the squirrels, skewer them with green wood, and set them over the fire once the pile of brush burned down and gave him a bed of hot coals.

The squirrels soon began to cook nicely, and the smell awoke the sleeping dragons. Grener and Braner were soon drawn to squat down on the far side of the fire and stare at the small bodies, roasting as Relkin turned them over the coals.

"Small food," said Braner with obvious hunger.

"Give me the food," said Grener.

"This is mine," said Relkin. "You eat elk. This is squirrel."

"Very small food," said Braner.

"Give me the food," said Grener.

"No."

"I will take the food."

Relkin stood and drew, his dirk. The glitter of the steel gave them pause.

"You will not take this food!"

He felt the other dragons step in behind him.

"What is problem?" said Bazil.

"They want my squirrels, and I'm keeping them."

"The squirrels smell good, they are hungry. They are dragons."

"And I'm hungry, too. They'll eat elk today, or deer or bear or something. These squirrels may be all I'll get."

"That is true."

"I'm glad you see it the same way I do."

Bazil moved around the fire, and Grener and Braner gave way before him.

"You cannot eat the squirrels. They are for the dragonboy. You must hunt. We must all hunt, and we are going to hunt with you."

"How can you hunt if you cannot fly?" said Grener.

"You only have to drive a herd of elk toward us, and we will kill several very quickly. Then we will feast."

Bazil found himself very committed to the idea of feasting. The days and days of hunger and constant travel had set a fire going in his belly like something from the days of ancient Dragon Home.

He doubted that even a herd of elk would satisfy his hunger, augmented by that of the wild one.

Relkin removed the cooked squirrels and began to eat them. Before he'd finished the first, there was a wind roar, and with two giant flaps of vast green wings, the dragoness flew overhead and dropped the carcass of a bull elk onto the green grass of the meadow.

The dragons ran for it. The youngsters flew and arrived first and tore it in half.

Bazil and the Purple Green arrived late and were forced to persuade the youngsters to give up part of the kill.