So there were other dragons, here in the north. His impression, from the experiences of his brother and sister, was that the only dragons not part of the Dragon Empire were a few back-to-nature oddballs and this vestige of the first age of draconic greatness in the Sadda-Vale. He’d heard of some mercenary dragons—his former bodyguard Shadowcatch had been one—who were the remnants of some mad wizard’s army. He should have questioned Shadowcatch more closely; it never occurred to him that the dragons were established and breeding.

Scabia would no more think of risking her dragons’ lives in the world outside the Sadda-Vale than she’d scrape out her nostrils during one of the interminable feasts she’d throw to celebrate some long-dead ancestor. She’d seen too many relatives die, sticking their snouts into the affairs of hominids and trying to change the flow of history. “One might as well beat back the tide with your wings,” she liked to say.

The Copper ate his evening meal alone, as usual. What wasn’t usual was the reason. Instead of making himself miserable through loneliness, this time he wanted to think.

How would a band of dragons support itself, if not as part of the Dragon Empire? Were they mercenaries who fought for food and gold, or independents banding together for protection, or some vestige of the Circle of Man who’d employed the Dragonblade, the fierce man who’d briefly helped the idiot Tyr who preceded him control the Lavadome? Perhaps men who wished no part of domination from the Empire—or their pet Hypatians—paid the dragons to protect them.

If there was bad blood between this dragon tower and the Empire, all the better.

One danger, though.

The Copper stretched muscles chilled by the blood diverted to digestion. He looked over his scale. It was thin and shabby. The metals available in the Sadda-Vale were the next thing to inedible. One ate “gravel” made out of shales that had bits of heavy metals in it. It cleared the digestive tract and kept the scale growing—just. But there was no pleasure in eating it. Gold and silver, that brought the thick saliva to the mouth and, once consumed, left one tingling and pleasantly heavy. There’d never been much coin or plate or scrap when he arrived, begging for shelter and succor in the Sadda-Vale. A few blighter traders brought in metals, mostly copper and tin, to exchange for dragon-scale and claw-sheaths, but the Ironriders had grown desperate and robbed even those poor pack-merchants. The trickle had dried completely, leaving them with nothing but unpalatable ore.

Worse than the flimsy condition of the scale, he had the telltale white edging, a rot forcing itself toward the scale root.

Of course, it was all pointless. He suddenly remembered he couldn’t fly. The pulley contraption that served as his wing joint—he’d been crippled as a hatchling before they even emerged—had broken down and was in poor repair. He probably wasn’t in condition to fly far even if it were working.

He’d have to beg DharSii to take a look at it and see if he could engineer a solution.

Well, never too early to improve one’s health. Walking with more purpose than he had in years—his walk would never be graceful, with his withered sii—he passed out into the vast courtyard before Scabia’s hall and wandered down to the steaming lake. There was a good moon for hunting.

Long ago, there’d been some kind of human settlement on the shores of the lake. They’d died off or fled, or possibly been eaten, and the blighters had occupied the few buildings with intact roofs. This morning it smelled like last night’s boiled fish and blighter feet. The humans had made game pools, perhaps for crab or freshwater mollusks. They were near a warm spring and conveniently dragon-sized for bathing.

The Copper couldn’t fly, but he could swim. He dove in the steaming water and nosed around in the wreckage of old docks and boats. Not being able to see in the underwater gloom was to his advantage—he was forced to rely on his probing tongue and claws. He smashed an overturned boat—something about the nature of the minerals in the water of the Sadda-Vale prevented metal from disintegrating. From the hull he rooted out a few nails others had missed or hadn’t bothered about, then, miraculously, found a pair of oarlocks and an old sword blade buried in the muck.

He came up to the surface, then noticed that some fish—big-mouthed hunters—had come to investigate and eat creatures stirred up by the disturbance. He was quick enough to catch two in his jaws before they could swim away. He let the lake water run out between his locked teeth and swallowed the wriggling fish.

The oils in cold-water fish flesh were good for the firebladder.

The Copper bent the sword-point and swallowed it. The nails and then the oarlock followed the weapon down into his gullet. Gold or silver would be better than steel and iron, but health was health.

The water cooled fast once the chill winds of the Sadda-Vale could play over it. The metal in his stomach shifted as the weight pulled it into the gizzard that would digest and distribute it.

Feeling better than he had in years, he gave his tail a final shake, vented loudly, and decided to turn in. Sleep would speed the nutrients to the scale-root, or so he’d been told in his days in the Drakwatch.

He saw a dragon flying north toward the great hall. It reminded him of something his old instructor had said in the Drakwatch: Think of either good deed or crime, and the opportunity to pursue either course will present itself forthwith. He recognized DharSii and spat out a glob of fire—his wounds prevented him from doing more.

DharSii adjusted his wings, circled, and descended.

“How goes the hunting?” the Copper said. He spoke to other dragons in a sidelong manner, hiding his bad, half-closed eye by pretending to gaze out into the distance across the steaming lake. DharSii was too polite a dragon to mock a disfigured comrade, but old habits remained like scars. He’d been told, innumerable times, that his eye gave him a half-witted expression.

He thought about inquiring after his sister’s health and success in the hunt, but did not want to provoke DharSii. The atmosphere under Scabia had lightened a great deal since Wistala’s hatchlings arrived and went under her and her daughter’s care, but there was no particular need to be direct about their quasi mating.

DharSii’s griff, the fanlike shields protecting his throat and neck-hearts, rattled and his scale smoothed.

“RuGaard. You’re out late,” he said. He settled his wings. “Yes, the hunting’s been good. We managed to take a troll, so the sheep in the west-side pastures should thrive this summer. It was an unusually canny troll that I’ve been after for years. Your sister was beyond helpful. I’d attest that she’s the best hunter in the Sadda-Vale, particularly when it comes to those monstrosities.”

“You smell like blood. Was either of you injured?”

“Your sister is fine. We were both knocked about a little.” DharSii exhibited some cracked and torn scale. “As I said, he was a canny fellow. You smell a little of blood, too, when you speak.”

“Lost a rotten tooth, and good riddance to it.”

DharSii’s wings rippled, and the Copper felt that the great Red was getting set to end the interview. He had something on his mind, obviously, and he might give a quick agreement just to return to whichever intellectual obscurity was working on his thoughts this week.

“I need a favor, DharSii. When you have the time, I was wondering if you’d take a look at this wing joint of mine. A band or something has come loose.”

“Thinking about flying again? Excellent. A dragon needs exercise. I’ll see what I can do. There’s a decent blacksmith among the blighters who will assist.”

“More than exercise. A change of scenery, now and then. I was thinking of going west. Sort of an extended hunt. I’m famished for wild game and some decent metals.”

DharSii looked closely at him. “Not breaking the terms of your exile, I hope. I wouldn’t want the Aerial Host to get an excuse to appear over the Sadda-Vale.”

“Nothing like that. Though I do hope they’ve forgotten about us. I feel like I’ve gone venerable here, it’s been so long.”

DharSii’s tail lashed. The Copper suspected he hated Vesshall, the Sadda-Vale, and his relatives here, but he felt bound to them. “It’s the fogs and mists. It feels like one endless season, or being underground.”

DharSii was an exile, too, the Copper decided—an internal exile, forbidden from indulging his own preferences.

“You have powerful enemies,” DharSii said. “They’ll kill you if they can.”

“AuRon slips into the Empire now and then to see his mate. I don’t intend to fly anywhere south.”

“AuRon was never anyone of consequence in the Lavadome. You were the Tyr, and as it stands now, you’re the only former Tyr who has survived the office since my grandsire’s egg was laid.”

“About my wing?”

“I’ll get some blighter toolmakers and have a look tomorrow. Good enough? I’m off to Scabia’s wine-cellar. I think there’s a brandy mix that would do your sister and me some good at the end of this hunt. It’s been an arduous one.”

“Why didn’t she return with you?”