Chapter 4
The sun had finally appeared over the crest of the Grimshank Mountains. Rufous had been flying along the western side of the mountains since not long after he had left Evann, so he had been flying into and out of shade all morning. He hadn’t been pushing himself, as he wanted the aid of clear daylight in locating where he was going. Now that the sun was beaming down the western range of the Grimshanks, he took a good look ahead, and decided it was time to move faster, as it appeared he was still a ways from his destination.
An eagle that had seen Rufous would have been impressed by how his great black wings began to beat harder, stronger, and faster, to the point where no bird alive could have flown as fast. Indeed, few birds, even of the swiftest hawks or eagles, could have attempted to match his pace for long.
It was some while later, well past nooning, when Rufous saw the valley that had been described to him, a stream descended from the mountains, running through the middle, thick forest around the edges. He circled the valley twice, slowing, getting lower, until he finally soared in to backwing and gently touch down, rear feet first, beside the stream.
Rufous lowered his head and took a drink of the clear and exceedingly cold water, then settled on his haunches with wings folded back and tail wrapped around his front feet. It appeared he would have to wait. As it happened, he was a past master at waiting.
The sun was nearing the western horizon when a shadow slipped out from among the nearest trees and approached Rufous slowly. The shadow resolved into a grey dragon, who appeared to be walking with reluctance, placing one foot at a time. Even so, she—for it was a female—at length arrived before him.
The northern dragon clans tended to be larger than those from the south, and this female was obviously of the north, for she was the largest female that Rufous had ever seen. She was not as large as Rufous, but she was not much smaller, either.
Rufous didn’t know the female, but the word that had come to him had included a name. “You are Sikharan?”
“Yes.” The female lowered her head, avoiding Rufous’ eyes.
“Your message said only that I was needed. Is there a problem?”
“Yes.”
There was a long moment of silence, then Sikharan, still looking down, whispered, “I am sorry. They made me do it. They have stolen my eggs.”
Rufous’ head jerked up and he looked around. “They? Eggs?”
Before he could ask Sikharan what she meant, more shadows emerged from the trees—two-legged shadows, this time. These moved rapidly and with purpose. Rufous turned to face them.
Three grey figures, in grey cloaks, bearing grey staffs, bringing grey shadows with them. It wasn’t until they stopped and the tallest of the three threw back a hood that Rufous knew what he faced.
“Gobelin,” he stated in an iron tone. His head lowered, and a wisp of smoke eased out of his nostrils.
“Say rather, nyblung,” the revealed goblin said with a slight hiss, a hand to his breast, and an inclination of his head that was less than a bow but more than a nod.
“What do you want?” Rufous’ voice had moved to the granite rubbing granite tones of a seriously irked dragon. He darted a hot glance at Sikharan, who went belly down on the ground in response.
The goblin said nothing, merely cocked his head to one side and studied Rufous. Rufous bit down on the desire to blast the creature. From the back of his mind came the thought that it had been long years, long even by dragon measures, since a goblin had willingly come face to face with a Solon and attempted to converse or bargain. And the dragon stories of those times all stressed that goblins who faced dragons had proved to be both wily and cunning, which were attributes that dragons usually considered their own. There were cautionary tales where even dragons had found themselves outmatched by goblins. Those were grim stories one and all, usually ending in a dragon death.
“Young thou art, to be Solon,” the goblin uttered at the end of his silence. His voice was rough, with an air that bordered on a sneer. His words and tones sounded very odd, with echoes of the speech of some of the oldest dragons that Rufous had heard.
“Yet I am,” Rufous said shortly. One of the greatest lessons of the goblin stories was not to say too much. It was a lesson that more than one of the dragons of the stories had learned to their rue; while one seldom regretted words not said, one often regretted words spoken that could not be called back.
The goblin tossed back his cloak to hang behind him. His tunic was light grey as well, with silver studs glinting redly in the light of the westering sun. His loose trousers, so dark a grey as to be almost black, were tucked into knee-high black boots of soft leather. A long knife hung from his belt, in a sheath that was also black leather, but there was no sword or longer weapon. Only the long staff, grey, and carved, held by his left hand to one side.
Rufous studied the goblin’s face. It was very angular, very full of edges, and he suspected that neither elves nor humans would find it pleasing. Yet there was a symmetry to it. And the eyes; oh, yes, the eyes were so light a blue as to almost be a silver of their own.
“So young,” the goblin murmured, turning his head just enough that he could stare at Sikharan. “Thee would not mislead us, now, mother of the eggs, wouldst thee? Thee would not bring to us a fraud? That would have most unfortunate consequences.”
Sikharan raised her head and whispered, “No.”
Rufous inhaled, and blew a narrow blast of yellow-white flame that drew a line across the meadow between the three goblins and the dragons. The goblin that had been speaking turned his head slightly, but made no other movement. It did give Rufous a degree of pleasure to see the other two goblins flinch. One of them started to step back, but the leader threw his right hand up in a fist at shoulder level. The other froze.
The flame died away, leaving much smoke curling up from the gash in the meadow. Another wisp of smoke floated away from Rufous’ muzzle. He said nothing; just looked down the length of his muzzle at the goblins.
“Formidable,” the leading goblin said with a raspy laugh. “One might call that worthy of a Solon.”
Rufous rose to his feet, and stepped forward until his lowered head was as far from the flame line as the goblin’s feet. He inhaled again, a deep draw of air.
The goblin held up a hand. “Nah, nah, young Solon. Thou needst not demonstrate thy fire again. Thou art the one we seek.”
Rufous focused his gaze on the goblin, staring him in the eyes. “How many eggs did they take?” he said, not looking around at Sikharan.
He heard her stir and step up beside him. “Six,” was her reply.
“The eggs are safe,” the goblin interjected.
“Bring the eggs, now, and lay them across the line,” Rufous said.
“They are safe,” the goblin repeated. “They are the price of thee having speech with such as we.”
Rufous’ head dropped even lower, until it was on a level not much above that of the goblin. “No, there you are wrong.” He spat a gobbet of white-hot fire. It struck the staff of one of the other goblins, who shrieked as the flames raced up and down the shaft. The spokesman goblin spun to watch as the staff crumbled into ash and his minion shook his hand in pain. “You are wrong,” Rufous repeated.
The leader spun back to face him, eyes narrowed in rage. “You dare! You do not know what you have done! There will be a price for that.”
“You are wrong,” Rufous said for the third time. “Those eggs are the price of your lives. Produce them, now, or the Gobelin Wars begin again in this moment, and you will be the first to die.” Smoke curled from Rufous’ nostrils. “The first among many.” Rufous spat again, this time yellow fire that landed well beyond the goblins, almost to the trees. He opened his mouth slightly and allowed the goblins to see the white fire beginning to form.
“Enough, Solon, enough!” the goblin leader shouted, his eyes cold, his face hard. “It will be as thou sayest.” He motioned sharply to the other two, who each opened his cloak to reveal a satchel. The two came forward, opened their satchels, and with obvious and elaborate care, withdrew dragon eggs one at a time, laying them in the grass across Rufous’ line with gentleness. The mottled shells gleamed slightly.
After the minions withdrew, Rufous looked to Sikharan. “Are those your eggs?”
She lifted them, one after another, and looked them over. As she completed her examinations, she laid each egg down behind her, so that they were now out of reach of the goblins.
With the sixth and final egg in her hand, Sikharan looked to Rufous. “These are mine.”
Rufous looked back at the goblin leader. “How are you called outside the halls of your nest?”
“Thou mayest call me The Outermost Fang.”
Rufous’ tail twitched, but he managed to limit his reaction to that. According to the oldest stories, goblins were even more reluctant to share their real names than dragons were, so this had to be a use name. What triggered the tail twitch was that also according to the oldest stories, ‘The Outermost Fang’ was the use name of the paramount war leader of the goblins. If the goblins today were much like their ancestors, before him stood one of the most powerful of goblin leaders. That realization caused his senses to become even sharper. This was not someone to take lightly.
“You stand between the outer world and the nests.”
“Ah, thee rememberest that?” the goblin replied with a razor-sharp smile. “It is good to know, that such as we are remembered by the great folk.”
Rufous said nothing. His gaze remained fixed on the goblin’s eyes, until the smile faded away and the goblin’s face went blank. Then Rufous said one word. “Why?”
“Why did we come, or why didst we take the eggs?” Rufous said nothing in reply. After a long moment, the goblin moved the head of his staff in an intricate motion. “The answer, it is the same to both. There is one of thine who is a danger.”
“A dragon?”
“Aye.”
“In what way?”
The goblin moved his staff again. “Old she is, old even for thy kind. Yet she meddles in that which she understands not.”
Rufous began racking his memory. Old female dragons . . . who could it be? “I need more than that. What color is this dragon?”
“Black,” The Outermost Fang replied. “Larger she is even than thee, and black, black, black are her scales.”
Oh, that was not good news. An old black dragon would be powerful, indeed. Maybe more powerful than Rufous.
“So you took the eggs to draw me here so you could tell me this?”
The sharp smile appeared on the goblin’s face again. “Thee art here.”
“Why?” Rufous repeated.
The smile left the goblin’s face in an instant. “This one, this of thine ilk, meddles with things best left to we folk.”
“So far you have told me nothing to justify your actions.” Rufous lowered his head again. “What is she doing?” More smoke curled up from his nostrils.
The goblin leader’s face went blank again, and he matched Rufous stare for stare for a long moment. “She hast found,” he said at length, “—taken—the tools of a goblin mage, from an elder time.” With that, he closed his mouth firmly, crossed his arms, and went still.
Rufous froze for a moment. The thought that goblins still had magic workers—mage, wizard, the label didn’t matter—ran a serious jolt through his mind. And then the rest of the message registered—a dragon, seeking goblin magic. He couldn’t think of why a dragon would want to do that, but he could certainly see it causing trouble.
“So send someone to steal it back.”
“We did send three hands of warriors, scouts, and mages,” The Outermost Fang replied in a cold voice, raising a six-fingered hand. “None returned.”
Rufous considered. Eighteen, what the oldest stories said was the traditional raiding party. And if those stories were to be believed, that would have been a very dangerous group of goblins. Now all dead. That raised his alarm even more. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Three full moons since we noticed the theft; one to track her to her halls; one to prepare and send our company; one to determine their fate and decide whether to say the wars had begun again or to call upon you.” The Outermost Fang gave Rufous a cold look. “I argued that we, we should attack now, but the nest leaders determined on restraint for a shortness of a while. If they had known that the Solon was thee, but a youngling, and one of brashness, they might have decided elsewise. They still might.”
Rufous snorted a small cloud of smoke. “Tell me, you who are The Outermost Fang of the nests, did the nest leaders tell you to steal the eggs, or did you decide that was a wise tactic without consulting them?”
The Outermost Fang’s face became even colder, and he drew himself up, lifting his staff for a moment.
Rufous continued with the barest interval of silence. “Who did you expect your tactic to call, war leader? Who did you expect to find as Solon of the dragons?”
The Outermost Fang was silent for a long moment, before he responded with, “The last name we had for the Solon of thy kind was one Aloric. He was known as a wise and canny wyrm, who would understand the dangers thee and thine face.”
“You should chastise your news gatherers, war leader, for Aloric son of Eriach was departed from this world over a year ago.” Rufous lowered his head again until his eyes were on a level with those of The Outermost Fang. “He was my father.” That got a reaction from the goblin. The Outermost Fang stiffened just a bit—just for a moment—but Rufous saw it, and dropped his jaw a little bit so that some of his fangs were visible.
Rufous looked around at Sikharan. “Tell him.”
The grey female looked up from where her tail was curled around her recovered eggs. “He is as wise as his father . . .” she let a pause develop after her words before she continued with, “. . . and stronger.” Another pause. “Far stronger.”
There was a certain air about Sikharan; an air almost of smugness. Rufous could see that The Outermost Fang perceived it, and for the first time, a glint of anger shone is his eyes as he realized that the female had set a trap for him. A small trap, to be sure, but a trap nonetheless. The Solon that the three goblins faced was not the old dragon they expected—one they knew from their accounts and stories—but a young one, unknown to them, with his fire at its hottest pitch.
“And thee, Outermost Fang,” Rufous said, adopting the older way of speech that the goblin had been using, “thee hast erred twice in this; first in abducting the eggs, and second in slandering my father as wyrm.” Still staring the goblin in the eyes. “To the first, thee had best pray to the Faces Under Stone that none of the younglings that will hatch from the eggs ever show harm from thy care, for if they do, there will be a wergild called due that thee wouldst find ruinous.” All three goblins had stiffened at the mention of the Faces, the closest things their people had to gods. “Dost thee understand me, Outermost Fang? Thee and thine are pledge for the safety and health of these dragonlings, and fail not to understand that I will call in that pledge for the slightest of harms.”
“Thee art heard.” The expressionless mask was back on the war leader’s face. “Thee said there was a second error.”
“Thee knowest it. Know that I show mercy—once—and do not extinguish thy slander and lie in thy blood. But knowest thee that the very air serves me, and if thee ever speak such again, or if these speak such, that word will be borne to me, and the abeyed wrath will come due. Doubt it not, Outermost Fang.”
“That would require thee being able to find such as we,” the war leader said in a soft voice.
“Oh, I have the scent of all of thee in my nostrils,” Rufous replied with a curl of smoke. “The very air that would bring me the word would also bring me that scent. If thee art foolish enough to speak it, then even in the depths of the nests, I will find thee.”
Rufous let his jaws gape wider, and let a bit of the white fire form and dance between his fangs. After a long moment, he let the fire fade, and resumed his normal manner of speaking. “Believe it, Outermost Fang. I can and will find you wherever you are. Cross me on this, and you will spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder for me. One day you’d be right.”
“Thee art heard,” the war leader said again.
Rufous and the goblin stared at each other. Neither looked away. Finally, Rufous rose up into his normal seated position. “This dragon,” he said, as if nothing else had occurred, “where is she now?”
Now the goblin’s face changed, looking both weary and worried at the same time. “We know not. She has left the halls she had claimed. Naught remains there but the ashes of our dead.”
Rufous’ concern elevated another step. An old dragon, seeking dangerous knowledge, who willingly destroyed goblins, and then disappeared. This was becoming more and more dangerous with each passing moment.
“Do you know even one of her use names?”
“No,” the goblin leader said. “We name her The Dark One.” He moved his staff in another intricate figure. “And even for we, that is not a favored name.”
“I will look into this,” Rufous finally said. “If I have word for you, or if I need more from you, how do I reach you? I don’t want to hunt you out.”
“Come to this place,” The Outermost Fang, said, “and call out what thee knows me by. I will either come to thee here, or send someone with word.”
Rufous thought through everything that had been said and done. He came to the conclusion that this was probably the best he could ask for at the moment. “Well enough,” he said.
At that word, the three goblins turned in the near-darkness and melted into the shadows in a very few steps. Rufous could track them for a while longer by sound, soft-footed though they were, and they were making rapid tracks toward an outcropping of stone as the base of the nearest hill. They passed beyond that, and passed beyond his senses as well.
Rufous turned back to Sikharan. She immediately crouched low in submission, covering her eggs as she did so. “It is my fault, Solon,” she said. “If I had not left them unattended to hunt, this would have never happened.”
“Perhaps so,” Rufous replied, “but they would have found another way to reach me. That was a very worried goblin; for all that he tried to hide it.”
He drew nearer to Sikharan, who had raised up but still hovered protectively over her eggs. “Let me see them.” She lowered her head and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I just threatened to start a new Dragon-Nyblung war to get them back,” Rufous said with more than a hint of exasperation. “Let me see them.”
Sikharan drew back reluctantly, hovering nearby. Rufous used his tail to touch each of the six eggs, moving them around, finally using one forepaw to turn each of them over with gentle care.
“I believe they are unharmed,” he finally said. “But I would like to do something to make sure. Step back about three steps, please.” Sikharan was obviously loath to move. Rufous turned his head and looked at her directly. “I said, step back three steps.” His tone was a bit chillier, and the female moved back the required three steps.
Rufous looked at the eggs, thinking for a moment about the best approach. Then he inhaled and gently blew fire over them; pinkish fire, similar to what he had blown over the token he had given Evann. He blew the fire for longer than it seemed he would be able to do, compared to the breath he had taken in. The gentle flames just seemed to wash over the eggs, almost like liquid, caressing them.
When Rufous finally stopped, each egg seemed to shine a little, almost as if they were glowing in the gathering gloom. He looked up at Sikharan. “I think they’re as safe and as healthy as they’re going to be. Do you have a new lair to take them to?”
“Yes,” the female said, returning to her clutch and reaching out and touching each of them. “One that is far and far from here.”
“A good idea,” Rufous said with a bit of his chuckle finally appearing for the first time that day. “A very good idea. And best you be on your way.”
Sikharan gathered the eggs, carefully placing three of them in the crook of each of her forepaws. Rufous helped with the last couple of them. She sat back on her haunches, obviously ready to spring into flight, but she looked at Rufous first. “I owe you the greatest of thanks. All I could think of was to do what they wanted. I didn’t even think that it might be dangerous to you.”
Rufous stepped back a pace or two. “That’s what Solons do, Sikharan. And if it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else trapped and forced into calling me. Now go, take your eggs and make them safe. And don’t be afraid to ask for help in the future.”
Sikharan said no more, just seemed to coil, then leapt into the air and began beating her wings. A moment or three later she was well gone in the early night sky.
Rufous looked around, seeing the burn scars in the very last little bit of dusk. “Goblins,” he muttered. “Nyblung. Gobelin. What have I gotten myself into?”