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the inside of me, where the heart is, and all the things I know and
remember and hope and dread. In that moment, I stood more naked than
the old brown bones scattered around the dragon's lair, and the beast
hovered on the edge of the opening, moonlight darting from talons and
teeth.
Aren't you going to help your friend, Ryle?
Tarran groaned. We knew it, both of us-he was bait again.
Are you afraid? Are you afraid you won't be fast enough? Or brave
enough? Are you frozen there, Ryle Sworder?
My belly churned with the fear he accused me of; my hands shook so that
the arrow I tried to nock rattled against the bow.
I'll give you the chance you didn't have the courage to take for your
father. Claw laughed as he wove two nightmares into one. Run for the
dwarf, Ryle Sworder-I'll give you a count.
"Ryle! Don't!" cried Tarran, cried the bait. "Don't!"
I tried to place the arrow again, and cut my hand on the steel head.
Blood ran down my arm. I'd sent one arrow into the beast's mouth,
another to wound him near the eye. He was hurt, but he was a long way
from dying. This futile arrow of mine couldn't harm the beast.
With the voice of winter, Claw hissed: The man's got no more courage
than the boy, does he? The boar killed your father while you stood
quaking, Ryle Sworder. Things don't seem much different all these years
later.
In Tarran's glittering eyes, in his hollow pallor, I saw sudden
understanding and swift despair.
The dragon laughed, seeing into both hearts. Tarran Ironwood! Old
friend! Do you suppose he'll be calling this latest cowardice a
'hunting accident,' too?
Tarran got to one knee, tried to get his good leg under him to rise.
When he couldn't, he crawled, elbow and knee, elbow and knee again, an
agonizing progress. He didn't get but a yard before he fell.
That dragon had the cold soul of a cat; he liked to play with prey.
Laughing, he spread his wings, fanning the air. The stench of his feast
filled the air with death-reek. Shadows skittered all over the lair and
some magic-or guilty terror-changed every patch of darkness into the
ghost of my father. And the bones littering the ledge were his, the
blood staining the lair, even Tarran's panting groans as he tried to
get to the stairs.
It was sweat or tears running on my face now. It felt like blood. It
was going to happen again. As my father had died, so would Tarran die,
killed by my fear. Or, as Tarran's kinsmen had, I would be killed
taking the bait the dragon offered, the chance of saving Tarran's life.
You are helpless, Ryle. You have always been. Now Claw's voice was
hollow, like a ghost's. Helpless, useless, and it wouldn't have
mattered if you had seen the boar in time. No puny arrow from your bow
would have stopped it. Helpless!
Utterly. Then, as now. And my puny arrows, the honed steel tips,
wouldn't hurt Claw, but he could snatch Tarran up and dash him to death
before ever I could reach him. There was no way to win this cruel game,
as there had been no way to stop the boar fifteen years ago.
Fear drained away from me in one sudden rush. Shadows were shadows
again, and no ghost was here to haunt me. Forgiveness is that achingly
swift and final.
I turned to change my aim. Claw stopped laughing. In the silence I
heard Tarran's labored breathing. I sighted down the sure, straight
shaft, dead center on the dragon skull glittering in its jeweled garb.
Swift, I caught the edge of the beast's unguarded thought.
Flame!
So had his mate been named, the copper she-dragon who'd shone like a
blaze, like flash and glare and, in the light of the moons, like
shimmering golden fire. And if my aim was true, my arrow would strike
the brittle relic and turn it into a pile of gems and bone slivers.
Claw and I both knew that.
"Tarran, " I said, like a soldier snapping an order. "Come here. "
Elbow and knee, he crawled again, and it seemed like forever till he
touched the first step with his hand. Claw rumbled. Fat drops of acid
spilled down into the lair, hissing. But that was an empty threat, a
useless gesture. If once that corroding slaver came so close as to
splash near Tarran, I would loose my arrow. Claw knew that, and the
knowledge was like an iron shackle on him as he watched Tarran make a
painful way up, one blood-wet step at a time, bracing on one hand,
dragging one leg, sweat running on him as if he were a man in a
rainstorm.
When Tarran passed me on the stairs I couldn't watch him anymore, only
hear him. A step at a time, I went up behind him. I never took my eyes
off the dragon skull, and that wonder-dressed relic was like a
lodestone locking my arrow's aim. Tarran got onto the ledge, the
rounding gallery strewn with gore and bones and offal. He got into the
shadow of the opening. His groaning sigh told me that he'd got as far
as he could on his own.
Claw knew it, too, and he turned, his long neck snaking toward the
gallery and the shadowed opening where Tarran lay.
The beast was just starting to laugh when I loosed my arrow, sent it
whistling low through the lair. Moonlight winked on the steel head. The
treasure-dressed skull, the relic of his beloved Flame, shattered like
ice, shards flying everywhere.
Claw screamed as if he were dying, and I bent and lifted Tarran in my
arms. He made no sound but one, a groaning like a man waking from
nightmares. Or maybe that was me.
We were not hunted through the caverns, but the sound of Claw's grief,
of Tarran's revenge, followed us all the way.
* * * * *
We came back to Raven at the end of the summer. It was no easy thing
getting out of the caverns, and once out I wouldn't leave Tarran alone.
I nursed him carefully, as if he were my kin. Once he said that he owed
me a fee, for we'd not taken the smallest trinket from Claw's hoard. He
said he'd make it good if I would wait till we got to Thorbardin, for
he wasn't a poor man among those mountain folk. But I told him that I'd
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