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“I do beg your pardon,” Simevolant said. “Go on. I’m a dragon turned to stone by the power of your words.”
During kern, a thick, yellowish paste full of smashed vegetables that aided the digestion, Rethothanna finished with FeHazathant’s victory at the duel of Black Rock, after which the “iron-willed, steel-limbed” dragon assumed the old Anklene title of Tyr, borne by the dragon who ruled and commanded his fellows in the old, half-forgotten Age of the Sorcerer, when Anklemere ruled.
“They wallow too much in the past, that generation,” Simevolant said. “Refighting old wars. What’s going to come after the Tyr dies? That’s what concerns me. I’ve no ambition whatsoever, but there are plenty who do. Dragons can be ruthless in getting what they want.”
The dragons spat torf-sized gobs of flame into the water troughs placed here and there among them, and Rethothanna bowed to the crackle and hiss of water turned instantly to steam.
“Excellent,” Tyr said, casting flame into the sandpit at the center of the banquet. “So polished, and all the grim business of bodies and broken eggs left out. I don’t like brave deeds tarnished, you know. Come, Rethothanna, take first position there and eat your fill.”
A dragon, wings thick with red laudi, moved over, and with some shoving and squashing the dragons rearranged themselves around the banquet.
The Tyr thumped his tail. “Now I have an announcement. Our Uphold in Bant has suffered some serious reverses of late. The humans and blighter tribes there are set upon and need our assistance. I’m sending a dragon up to set things right.”
“Bant. Oh, how tiresome,” Simevolant said. “Humans. They can’t stand to see the moon change without starting some new feud.”
The Copper would have liked to ask what the moon was, but he kept his tongue.
“I don’t need to tell anyone at this table how important Bant is to our food supply. I’ve decided that SiDrakkon shall go and help our Upholder in Bant, ummm—”
“NiThonius,” Tighlia supplied.
SiDrakkon glowered, going even more purple about the cheeks. He reared his head back, but the Copper saw his sister quickly put her head across his neck and whisper something in his ear.
“He’s not even of the Imperial line, Tyr,” Tighlia said. “My brother is only to ‘help’ him?”
“NiThonius is a wise dragon. The Bant are a raucous crowd, argumentative as crows and headstrong as boars. He knows how to handle them.”
“I wonder who is handling whom. Two more like him in the Upholds and we’ll be skeletons down here. Food is short enough.”
The Copper wondered at that, with thralls sweating and groaning under the weight of the platters that flowed around the banquet. But perhaps exceptions were made for banquets.
“I want full powers,” SiDrakkon said. “As the Tyr’s representative. Three good, battle-tested dragons. And three sissa of the Drakwatch to support.”
“I don’t want another surface war,” Tyr said. “The hominids lose ten thousand and we lose ten, and they have a fresh ten thousand before ten eggs are even laid.”
“Let me manage things or find another dragon,” SiDrakkon roared. The whole table went quiet.
Tyr stood.
Thralls hurried to throw more sticks of incense in the braziers, and a thick, sweet odor fell over the banquet.
The Tyr glared at his mate’s brother. “Fair enough,” he said in a steady voice. “Best to speak softly, with a fearsome host behind the words. You pick the dragons. As to the Drakwatch, I want Nivom leading the three siisa. He’s impressed me. I understand he’s quite driven the demen away from the caves bordering the far shores.”
Tighlia looked sharply at her mate as soon as he mentioned Nivom.
The Tyr got a faraway look in his eyes. “I’ll give him a stripe for that when he gets his wings. Blue will look well against that white of his.”
He blinked, and looked around the banquet table. “We’ll need an Imperial messenger to report progress. Simevolant, you haven’t been off Black Rock these three years.”
Simevolant tucked his head against his shoulder for a moment. “Tyr, I’m touched, really, with this expression of the Imperial confidence. But I’ve got a notion—send Rugaard, here. He’s never even been to the Upholds. The experience will do him good.”
“Rugaard?” Tyr said, looking at the Copper as though he’d never seen him before. “Wasn’t he killed at…Oh, yes, of course. The egg saver.”
Simevolant offered one of those smiles that made the Copper’s scale bristle. “Yes, the eternally budding flower of the Drakwatch training caves. Is he not a marvelous young drake? Stand, Rugaard, for you are looking fine tonight, and let the assembly see the future of the Imperial line, adopted by the Tyr himself. I don’t believe he’s attended a banquet before, and he needs an introduction anyway.”
The Copper rose, shifted uncomfortably, and did his best to open his bad eye. He didn’t want to be exhibited thus, but Simevolant had such a musical way of putting things, you followed his words this way and that the way you did a good blood trail.
“The Drakwatch calls him ‘Batty,’ I understand,” SiDrakkon said. “He keeps bats as pets.”
