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Too big a meal with too much left to do Auron’s conscience roused hier did Hoofbeats thudded faintly, far off but all around The woods had been turned into a cage with innuaps in the trees and started a sloalk through the forest His iination turned the trees into watchful elves with ready spears, waiting for him to step under theirpinpricks of watch fires on the hills ahead
So much effort for one small drake! Hundreds of men hunted him, a drake of no reputation He counted nine watch fires between forest and cliff; behind hie where he had first encountered the prowling dog He heard dogs in the forest barking at shadows, and the cracking sounds ofinto branches
He felt it was still early in the night With enough hours, he could creep between the watch fires and get up the cliff before they knew he had slipped the encirclean a slow and stealthy journey toward a fire Dru him for a moment, but no men appeared, and he relaxed--the fearsoned to drive him west and deeper into the wooded valley He could pick out the silhouettes of s Curse the hus’ senses ht, he saw a hunter in one of the tall fur hats leaning against an outcrop of rock A stillwatch The wind blew out of the west, and would carry his scent parallel to the watch fires rather than toward it, thankfully, but this hunter was directly doind Thehim, and Auron thanked the Sun for Her absence and the peculiar weaknesses of huht-wide eyes with a painful glare Auron heard sos, but the sounds could have been anything from picketed horses to a herd of sheep He had two options: slip through the shadows between the fires, the ht across, traveling in and out of the light in a matter of a few seconds Auron preferred the latter, and he nerved hi a load of firewood on his back appeared in the light He duh and started to build up the fire The boy’s ht be confused with his, and Auron took his chance
When the boy turned his back, Auron raced up the slope toward the hilltop fire Under other circumstances, the boy would have been an easy kill, but Auron whipped past hi to its feet and barked, but Auron was already out of the light
"Niy! Niy!" a et to its feet A horseno, a pony, got wind of him and reared before it turned to run
Auron strung out his dash as long as he could, overfilled belly scraping the ground in between stretches Curse his appetite! One of the mournful horns of thedown the other side of the hill He turned and ran along the top of the wall, hopeful that the pursuit would continue in the direction he had beenThe cliff beckoned, but he trotted parallel to it until he heard the baying of dogs on a scent and thudding hooves behind
He looked up at the cliff It loo on its side The sky around it glowed a faint pink Dawn already? But then it was high suhts would be short
There was nothing to do but try He turned for the cliff
The baying of dogs behind and the mens’ shouts froze him in alarm
He stood atop a shelf of rock The shelf jutted from one of the boulders scattered at the base of the sheer wall, like fallen pinecones around a tree, and he watched the s both free and leashed, boys with slings and reat recurved bows stood atop the rocks to either side with arrows nocked, ready to shoot when they saw a target
A pack of dogs had caught up to him; he had killed two before the rest backed off and set to baying Now the horseathered He could hear but could not see the mounts in the mist
The archers would probably kill hi by thethe rocks While the dogs were still keeping their distance, he crept to the cliff face, letting his nose lead the way and slowly curling and uncurling his body as he flowed frorip cracks in the stone with short-clawed sii He had un
One of the archers shouted, "niy!" and an arrow tapped off a rock next to hi like a notch a dozen body-lengths above If he could reach that, the archers would have trouble getting an angle on hih
He felt so pull at his haunch, and looked down to see an arrow piercing the thin webbing between leg and stoly black shafts with barbed points and red fletching Auron looked back: two archers stood shoulder to shoulder, speaking to each other out of the sides of their , and he threw hie of the arrows before they hit bare stone where his chest had been, sending sparks from their steel heads Auron flattened hi If only he were a real armored drake! By noould have scales on his back that would allow these assassins to rain all the arrows they could at this distance, without effect unless they caught him in the throat or eye The fissure protected him from arrows for the th or two
A boanged again, and it would be hard to say as more surprised at the hit: the archer or Auron The drake felt so like a horse-kick in his side An arrow stood out froe, blood welling around the edges of the wound Auron took a surprised breath, and pain racked the right side of his body He lost his grip and tuhted hi ed to skewer his tail, holding him pinned while the others closed in to kill
Auron spat fire in a great arc at the spear points closing in and was rewarded by screa roar of his fla the spear in his tail The man put up an armored forearm, and his rip Auron clawed the s and leaped away into the rocks before others could get hi between cliff walls and boulder, careful to keep the arrow shaft fro a blood trail, and he knew it The screarim satisfaction He felt short of breath, weak but content He ht be trapped, but he had taken his share of hunters and their ani roar that on! Co fire, tooth, and claw, foul creature"
Foul creature, indeed! Auron thought Even bleeding, he was cleaner of skin than any of the greasy ue of women and children! You face a man this time, not a child Coths behind, so the rocks The hunter would see the blood trail soon Best to distract him
Auron lowered his head and tried to sound as much like Father as possible "Do you throw a spear,his best to rattle his griff as loudly as a winged dragon ’ in this tongue, and wield Dunherr, ‘the thunder’s edge’ Their bearer is known as the Drakossozh, ‘the dragon blade’ Hear my name and despair, for I hunt your kind up and down these hills!" The voice e Auron heard words hissed back to another voice using the huue
Auron extended his neck around another rock "Noble titles Kill me today, and you will have earned them"
"I will only have dispensed justice, child-snatcher It’s been a hell of a spring forWheel dwarves at the Highlake: a great bronzefemale I’ve been on your trail since the coast, when you did e of Sars but to feed their families ‘The sooner a blood debt is collected, the better,’ as ainst his stone Wistala, Father, it had to be! His fire bladder filled even as his heart went cold He heard a heavy tread a the boulders He finally saw Drakossozh, a tall onblade wore a shining silver hel like two crescent lea on’s on’s tongue before ending at twin points He wore scale arh if they were dragon scales, some craftsman had carved and polished them into art A red sash was thrown over his shoulder, hurams stitched into it in a series of white dots, and tied at his sword hilt