“Would you teach me more?”

At first Hieba stayed with him as he studied. NooMoahk introduced him, as a first step, to the runes of the blighters. Hieba would work with him for a brief time, but grew bored and amused herself elsewhere. NooMoahk’s chamber had nooks and crevices for her to explore. As long as she did not wander up to the ruined city at the cave mouth, Auron left her to roam. He had examined the cavern, and there were no wells for her to fall into. She stayed within the lighted area shining from the crystal on the dais.

As the weeks progressed, he moved on to an old dwarf-tongue. It was a simple language of counts and tallies, designed more to record facts than ideas.

“You have a good memory, Auron, even for a dragon,” NooMoahk said as Auron sounded out a list of warriors and gear an ancient dwarf lord took on a vengeance raid.

“Why did you start to read?”

“It was not long after I uncased my wings. West of here, near the mountains that mark the end of the Hypatian Empire. I was as hungry for gold as any dragon in those days. I’d thrown in with some men who stole cattle and horses; I’d stampede them down a hill into a dry riverbed or some other rendezvous, and they’d sell them.

“Their company grew larger, and they decided to try raiding trade caravans the same way. I’d scare off the draft animals, eat a few, and then they’d round up the herd and drive it back to the caravan, then attack it while negotiating. They were always looking at maps of the trade routes and lists of goods, which interested me because it could tell me about a land without me having to fly there and look around. Only later did I find out the information was not always reliable, but that’s another story. One of the thieves was better educated, and would read messages being couriered between cities. He showed me the letters, and explained that the messages were a way men talked over distances. At first I thought it was some magic device, where they spoke to the paper and then the paper spoke back to whoever unrolled the message. He said there were such things, but they required great magic only mighty kings could afford. He showed me how it really worked and I found it fascinating. You can’t imagine how many different things you can learn reading, Auron. It would take dragon-lifetimes to find it out yourself.”

NooMoahk’s eyes clouded over, as they sometimes did when he was lost in memories of his youth. He wavered for a moment, and Auron thought he would fall asleep. Then he returned to wakefulness, looked at Auron, and growled.

“What? Insolent youth, come to challenge me?”

“It’s Auron, NooMoahk.”

The dragon rose on his feet, pulling up his lips and extending the armored fans down from his massive crest.

“Whoever you are, you met your doom when you met me. This is my hold, trespasser! Your smell offends my air, drake.”

His gap-toothed jaws opened, and he lunged at Auron. Auron sprang aside, and dragon-dashed between the shelves of books, knowing NooMoahk wouldn’t use his fire. He crept through a gap at the end of the aisle and came up between more shelves, looking for a dark spot to hide.

“NooMoahk, you’ve been teaching me to read,” Auron said, clinging to one of the shaped stone columns in the cavern. A blighter with rings in each ear snarled down at him, pointing a trident at the base of the column, formed into the shape of an elf, dwarf, and man, all on their knees.

The dragon turned towards his voice, sniffing at the lowest shelves.

“That so? I’ve got a lesson for you then. A final lesson, you might say.”

Hieba trotted across the cavern, interested in the commotion in the library. Her motion must have caught NooMoahk’s eye; he turned his neck to look at her. Auron heard vertebra bones crackle.

“Augh! Assassin!” He turned his ponderous form toward her. Auron crept around behind, in horrified agony, ready to dash between his legs and snatch up Hieba. But what if NooMoahk just used his fire?

“NooMoahk sir, what is wrong?” she squeaked in Drakine.

The ancient black paused, and sniffed the air in confusion. “Blood and thunder . . . Hieba, little one, what are you doing down here? Where’s Auron?”

“Here, sir. We were doing some reading, and you had one of your difficulties.”

“I did?” Doubt and fear clouded NooMoahk’s eyes for a moment. “Auron, I’d better rest for a while.” “NooMoahk went to his dais, belly and wings dragging. He curled around the crystal and tucked his nose in the crook of his leg. In a moment he rumbled in his sleep.

“NooMoahk is sick?” Hieba said.

“I don’t know, Berrysweet. Come up, and we’ll go.”

And go they did.

It was the only choice. Whatever secrets NooMoahk’s failing mind and lost library held, they would take time to worm out. He could hardly leave Hieba in the ruined city, with blighters coming and going, and after the scene in the cavern, he didn’t dare leave her around the black.

It was good traveling in the mild climate south of the mountains. Hieba had grown into a wolflike child of energy and appetites. Working together, they were a match for even the wariest stag. She improvised leather clothing from their kills of deer and wild pig—though the badly cured hides reeked even to Auron’s nose—and tools of wood, bone, and rock. When a pack of blighters got on their trail, they took refuge on a rocky prominence set in the crotch between two streams, and she hurled fist-size stones and shouted threats down at the blighters crawling up after them. Auron stayed hidden until the two most determined neared the summit. The sight of their burning, twitching corpses cartwheeling back to the base of the hill made the others give up the chase.

They found a westward-flowing river and followed it along its twisted course. They came across ruins, both of ancient stone construction and more recent wood, before reaching a human settlement set behind a wide earth-and-wood loop. The woodsmoke and man smell reached even across the river. Canoes and fishing floats were pulled up to the riverbank, and timber bundles stood ready to be floated downstream.

They swam together through the cold water and emerged on the settlement side of the bank. The sound of axes could be heard from the woods, and they could see part of the stockade through the trees. There were stubbled fields lying fallow in the clearings. Near enough. Auron tried to find the right words, but their special shared language wasn’t up to the task.

“Hieba, now you join ones like you. They take care of you.”

She looked doubtful. “Strangers. Not know.”

“We talked this through before. You’re human. You must grow up with humans.”

“No. Me with you.” Troubled, she’d reverted to childish pidgin, “Find food, find shelter, me get wood, you make fire. Like same before.”

“I go NooMoahk. Maybe danger. Blighters. Not safe for you.”

“Me safe with you.”

“Safer here, Berrysweet.” Auron put down his shield-spike, dug the point in the dirt. “Here, you keep this. A present.”

“No!”

“Yes,” Auron said, turning away. He was unable to look into her face anymore.

She picked up Djer’s tail-cap and followed.

Auron wheeled. “No. You go. You human. Not good with dragon.”

She planted her legs and set the shield between them, gripping it in wiry young muscles. “I strong. I smart. I come.”

Auron’s tail lashed. He dropped his fans from his crest and growled. “No. Go.” His stomach writhed with unhappiness. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her into running, but if he had to . . .

“Hieba stay with Auron,” she said, eyes running with water and her dark tangle of hair streaming in the fresh wind.

“No!” Auron roared. Pheasants took to the air, and the sound of axes chopping ceased. Auron snarled. “You stay. I go.”

Tears flowed down her face, creating streaks through the dirt. She took a step toward him, dropping her weapon and opening her arms to put them around his neck.

Auron spat fire at his feet, creating a wall of flame between them. He looked at her face, distorted by the heat between them, and felt a pain like a knife enter his heart. He saw the forms of men with spears and axes running through the trees. He jumped through the curtain of flame, roaring and snapping.

“Go! Run from me, Hieba!”

She screamed and fled, all brown limbs and hair disappearing through the brush. Toward the men.

Chapter 17

The moldering city echoed even emptier without Hieba’s chickadee chatter. Auron had fewer worries on his trip back, but he had grown so used to the child’s presence in their months together, he found the void she left impossible to fill.

He hoped he could replace her by becoming engrossed in the dragon’s library. NooMoahk hardly knew he had been gone. The black sniffed at the bighorn sheep Auron bore as an offering and settled down to the meal without question or comment. Auron returned to his studies and NooMoahk’s on-again, off-again tutelage.

Auron’s tenacious memory made the best of his time and studies. He learned living alphabets and dead tongues, the epic poetry of Gwer and antithetical prose couplets of Doong. The library had many old, well-preserved works. All of NooMoahk’s writings hardly had a smudge of dust or a scent of mildew, whatever their age.