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“Now, Granddam,” SiMevolant said. “I thought I sent you some wine to keep you quiet. Why don’t you go home and drink it?”
She ignored him, spitting a gob of flame at the audience. “The civil war killed off the good dragons. What’s left? Brazen cowards, vain philosophers, mating deviants, and back-scratching scalemates adding to one another’s hoards. It’s the litter and detritus collecting in the shadows and corners that bred this, this…farce. This fool will get you all killed. Maybe it’s for the best. We’ve earned our extinction.”
“She’s like one of those windup things the dwarves make. Same speech every time her tail is twisted,” SiMevolant said quietly to Imfamnia, who giggled.
“Are you done, Tighlia?” Imfamnia asked.
“Yes. We all are,” she said. She began to stalk out of the room, stumping out her own fire. She stopped and sent a sharp glance at Ibidio, who let out a startled gasp; then she moved on. The crowd parted for her, bending back like tall grass before a strong breeze.
“Good,” SiMevolant said. “I want to introduce some wise counsel who will guarantee our dignity and security for generations to come. Mmmmmm? I present our new ally, recently sent here from the Alliance of the Golden Circle.”
A tall hominid in black scale armor stepped from behind the curtains and strode forward so he stood next to SiMevolant. He had gray hair flecked here and there with black, and a slightly darker beard hanging from a scarred face.
The Copper recognized the armor, the weapons, the face.
The Dragonblade stood before the audience.
Chapter 27
Tighlia turned again, knocking over two members of the Drakwatch.
“How dare you! How dare you!” Every scale stood straight up on her skin, her wings half-opened as they shook with fury; her griff rattled, and slime poured out each side of her mouth.
“On the shelf where my mate stood,” she continued, hardly able to get the words out. “You bring a human arrayed for war? A spear and a drawn sword, atop the Black Rock? No man may dare stand on such hallowed stone!” “Not any human, Tighlia,” the Copper said. “He kills dragons for a living.”
The Dragonblade tipped his spear forward just a little. Some of the audience squeezed out of the audience room; others shoved their way forward.
“I expected to be challenged,” the Dragonblade said. “That it comes from an aged female surprises me.”
“She’s under the impression she’s still a personage of consequence,” SiMevolant said.
“Are you going to come down, man, or will I have to soil my mate’s memory by spilling your blood where he used to stand?”
“I’ve no wish to kill. I made my peace with dragons years ago. But a wise man convinced me your kind can be saved, if properly led and channeled. I don’t want to begin my governorship here with blood.”
“Governorship!” Tighlia roared, shaking the timbers all the way to the roof, and jumped.
She jumped well for a dragon her size, and against an ordinary man, even a warrior, she would have turned him into pulp and black blood against the obsidian stone of the Rock.
The Dragonblade set his spear and she impaled herself upon it. He rolled out from under her, on his feet with sword out as easily as a falling cat righted itself. The sword flashed up once, and liquid fire spilled across the Tyr’s shelf, a second time down and the Copper saw the gruesome white of the bones of her spine.
Tighlia collapsed, all of her going limp at once—save for her tail and twitching saa, which jerked and shuddered as though trying to fight on.
SiMevolant looked down at her. “What’s that, Granddam?…Well, first, I don’t believe in curses; second…Oh, dear, you’re gone. I must learn to make my points more quickly.”
“I wish she had stayed at home and enjoyed her wine,” Imfamnia said.
Liquid fire ran off the Tyr’s shelf. To the Copper, the events on the Tyr’s shelf seemed a horizon distant, yet etched in vivid detail. His head whirled.
“Sand. At once—now,” Imfamnia called, lifting a curtain out of the way with her tail to keep it from catching fire.
“Are there any more challenges?” the Dragonblade asked. A drake tried to step forward, but NeStirrath pressed his heavy sii on the youth’s tail.
The Dragonblade retrieved a decorative, jewel-encrusted goblet from the Tyr’s display of trophies and knelt beside Tighlia. He filled his cup with the blood leaking out of her neck and drank, smacking his lips afterward.
“Our future is in alliances, not war,” SiMevolant said to the shocked assembly. “United with these men, no power in the two worlds may threaten us. Let all who doubt this truth remember the fate of Tighlia. Now begins a golden era, begun by a golden dragon. Light the beacons, NoSohoth.”
“Hurrah!” shouted the Dragonblade. “The union forever!”
