Dragonbards Read Free Page B

dwarf looked back, inscrutable as stone.
“The dragonling needs warmth, Prince Tebriel. Death is close on
her. We are taking her to our cave. Unless you have a better
plan.”
    Teb moved close to the dragon and ran his
hand down her neck and side. Her body felt chill and too soft,
without the resiliency of life. Marshy pressed his face against
hers. Seastrider reached to nose at her; then both big dragons lay
down beside her and folded their wings over her and Marshy like a
warm tent.
    The dwarf band was silent. Their dark eyes
had softened. A young woman soldier reached to touch Seastrider’s
neck, in a subtle gesture of gratitude.
    They are good folk, Tebriel, Seastrider said.
    Perhaps you are right.
    Of course I am right, she said
curtly, and dismissed him by busying herself with the
dragonling.
    Teb watched her with a lopsided grin. She
could be infuriating at times.
    When the young dragon seemed warmer,
Seastrider bit the traces from the wolves, freeing them of their
burden, and she and Windcaller took the leather lines in their
mouths.
    “Our cave is five miles up the ravine,” the
dwarf king said. The wolves disappeared quickly down the ravine.
They had not been speaking wolves, who, out of friendship, might
volunteer to pull the sleds. They had been wild wolves, huge and
fierce. No one, Teb thought, could easily make friends with such
creatures, except dwarfs. Teb reached down from Seastrider’s back,
took the dwarf king’s hand, and the small king clambered up,
smiling for the first time. The big dragons set out at a fast pace
up the ravine. The dwarf troops trotted double time beside the
sled. Teb sat a head taller than the king, his nose filled with the
smell of the little man’s furs and of woodsmoke. The king sat very
straight. Teb could feel his excitement at riding a dragon. Teb
began to sense, with bard power, the past of this small man.
    These dwarfs had lived under the ice
mountains for many generations, mining and smelting, crafting fine
metal, and weaving brilliant wool garments and blankets and
tapestries from their herds of mountain sheep. Teb glanced across
at Kiri. She saw his look and smiled.
    I like them. She had lived a long
time among street toughs and the soldiers of the dark, bereft of
gentleness except among a chosen few. She had lived a long time
warily, always on guard. These simple, honest folk pleased her.
    They are like the speaking animals, Windcaller said. They are direct and hide no malice. The
speaking foxes and great cats, the speaking wolves and owls and the
otters, were among the bards’ dearest friends. The dwarfs, Windcaller said, are just as true.
    Kiri looked across at Teb. Do you still
doubt them?
    Teb stared at her. I can be wrong. Aren’t
you ever wrong?
    Yes. But I never expect you to be.
    Their eyes held for a moment; then Kiri
lowered hers, her cheeks flushing.
    Stilvoke Cave was marked by a large
triangular opening in the side of an ice-covered dome that lay at
the foot of the mountains. It was all the dwarfs and bards could do
to get the linked sleds into the cave and slide the dragonling off
onto blankets beside the central fire. King Flam was powerful for
his size. Once he removed his outer furs, Teb could see that he was
not fat, but strong and muscled. The cave smelled of roasting
rabbits and baking bread. Folk streamed in from side caves to see
the bards and the young dragon.
    The two big dragons dug themselves a nest
outside the cave, thrusting their heads in through the entrance now
and then to look at the dragonling. She had not stirred. The dwarf
women made a gruel, which Teb and Kiri fed her while Marshy propped
her mouth open. The little boy pressed his shoulder between her
upper fangs and with his crippled leg held down her lower jaw,
balancing on his good leg. Teb held the big cookpot as Kiri ladled
in trenchers of the gruel. Because the dragon had not waked, they
got her to swallow only with the power of bard spells. Teb watched
Marshy, gripped with