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And getting rarer, Auron thought But he said, "It would be a desperate dragon to go against all this for a wagonful of gold"

"Once the Caravan gets , I’d like to co drake It’s a long, slow trip You’re a new experience I’veon the push-pull level, and you’re the first live drake I’ve seen"

Auron wondered how

Long, slow trip Auron had ti of those words as his cave-on-wheels ground along, day after ever-so-the-saht of it as a cave because it was dark and enclosed There were solid doors at the rear, but they stayed locked from both inside and out--the dwarves showed hi bolt that secured it from the inside Auron had a source of air in the roof: there was a ventshaped like a ht be able to see out the slit, if he had so to stand on, but Auron could not work his crested head into it so that he could see He settled for looking up at the sky at an angle, or sticking his nose up into the vent and experiencing the steppes through his nostrils He srasses, overlaid with dwarf

They locked hi wraxapods, moved away from the walls of Wallander To the drake’s ears they round across the steppe Auron’s oagon had a tea, and those numbers were often doubled at fords on the rare watercourses running across their paths The double teaon, burdened as it ith iron-banded chests of gold and silver

Auron ate well and slept better, war rain and flecks of snow like blown sand He got to know the sound of the traveling towers crunching snow beneath the rotating roads they carried with theuely pleasant visions of clouds and landscapes, or vivid experiences frohts and sounds and sh his consciousness without explaination

He found ti, should he ever rown All the while, his lung healed, and the wounds froray skin Best of all, his tail slowly lengthened

A doon--fed him twice a day as the teams were hitched and unhitched At those tiain and again, paying out small arain, eggs, andtree branches and rolling bales of hay to feed the wraxapods All had to be bartered in workmanship or paid for in coin

At night, the dwarves allowed visitors into the ca or serf Auron’s one and only alar trip ca the vent at the top Spoiling for action, Auron gave a growl that corkscrewed into a full-throated dragon cry, and whoever explored the roof jumped off with the speed of a cat that had unexpectedly landed on an iron stove

Auron got his promised dinner with the commodore While Sekyw stood watch in the cart, the commodore took Auron to his room just under the command-cupola, and showered drake and Djer with food and tales Auron heard stories of young s and dotards over the course of long years of Caravan He showed the, where Storainst the towers until the Hurth turned red with their blood They heard of ageless wizards living in icy wastes, writing in lost tongues on the skins ofof the Un carpets How end, Auron had no way of knowing

"What do you know of NooMoahk, the black dragon?" Auron asked

Stal flicked crumbs of his meal frooes back years, must have been around the tiood forty years ago We had a band ofwith us They had camels as well as horses, and planned to cross the desert to kill hirown feeble He h, for they said they’d meet us for the return trip at the rustless iron te place There’s a well there that’s never e is buried there, but no one rerip on the tail offor us"

A day later, when the accountant dwarf and Djer did a full counting of the coin, an arguo," the accountant insisted "After we bought that herd of ht How can there be so ?" Djer said "None have been here but Auron and Sekyw"

"Perhaps the drake eats coin after all, though I beg your pardon for saying it"

"Nonsense Who searched Sekyw?"

"Myself, and then two others We felt his clothes, he removed his boots--"

"Yes, I know the procedure Perhaps he ate it The fat would "

The accountant bristled "Never There’s a old with powdered poison myself He had no water to wash it with"

"So you told on with a wounded expression

Auron lifted his head "My friend, I did not touch so much as a coin And if I ate it, wouldn’t it have killed on," the accountant said

"Send for Sekyw," Djer ordered

"I don’t mean to add to theat a crevice between thick planks of the wagon bed