home

search

Chapter Three hundred sixty-six (Li)

  Viscid was the worst rune, even in unborn hatchlings. Li focused on the most recent egg the xiyi had brought her, ignoring the deep ache in her dantians and channels, and held the image of a sort of opposite rune in her mind, using it to push the original out of pce. The rune had a sort of branch at the ends of two of the strokes, and these were always hooked into the dantian itself, in some way that Li could barely understand, much less remove cleanly. No matter what she did, there was always at least a little damage left behind when these hooks were removed, but the younger the dragon was, the less damage there was, and the more quickly it healed.

   Kaz said with satisfaction as the rune finally faded into a mist of gray mana.

  Li snorted, knowing he would sense it even though he wasn’t there to hear.

  She could feel his slightly chagrined agreement, though he said,

   There was a long pause, and Li sat up from her position encircling the egg.

   Kaz finally admitted.

  Li felt a thrill of concern go through her, though honestly she’d known. How could she not?

   Kaz said.

  Li had never met this Nura, who had become chief simply by virtue of being the strongest surviving member of the Goldbdes who wasn’t either directly reted to Id or involved in Id’s attack. She wasn’t much older than Ija and Avli, leaving Tisdi as the senior chief in the Deep. This, along with the fact that the chiefs were no longer needed to open the mountain, meant that the time of great chiefs and great tribes might well be over. Several ‘lesser’ tribes were rising to prominence, and while Kaz was concerned that conflicts over territory might lead to problems, he was also hopeful that the kobolds in the Deep - who had built a society based on cooperation - would figure it out without bloodshed.

  She shifted as another egg was pced by her paws, but this one held no spark of life. She nosed it aside, wondering, as she did every time this happened, if her parents had believed that no dragonling could possibly hatch from an egg as small as her own. She knew her fear of missing a viable egg was unfounded, since every dragon had a core, and Li could always see cores, but she still had the xiyi carry the rejected eggs over to a section of the egg cavern where they could wait until the time they should have hatched had passed.

  The next egg was very close to hatching, and Li pulled it close, then began to remove the runes she could see inside. They always became more defined the older the egg was, while freshly id eggs held little more than slightly darker lines of fog that filled the entire egg. It was hard to grasp that fog, so Li had had to have those eggs put into yet another section to develop a little more, but it was also difficult to remove the more defined runes because they were firmly hooked into a fully-formed dantian.

   Kaz said, as she started to focus on the insensate rune. Li’s head hurt, and she was tired, so she had to bite back a retort. They had agreed that they would each allow the other to make the best decisions they could, and-

  Something like a gentle embrace surrounded her, and Kaz said, She did, blinking as her eyes failed to shift from ki-sight to normal sight, showing her a familiar fog of mana that her nose confirmed was Snen.

  “We think we’ve found your family,” the Snen-fog said, and Li stood up so quickly that the egg in front of her rocked, almost tipping over. She quickly righted it, then pushed it back to the winged xiyi who had brought it.

   she told him, then blinked some more, finally convincing her vision to return to normal.

  “In the breeding grounds, as we suspected,” Snen said.

  Li had been informed that most wild dragons were sent to this ‘breeding ground’, where they were essentially allowed to live freely so long as they didn’t become dangerous. Their eggs were taken whenever a nest was found, and the eggs brought here so they would have the best possible chance of hatching, and the hatchlings could begin training as soon as they were born. Snen had hoped that Li’s siblings might have been taken to be trained, since they were only hours old when they were captured, but he hadn’t been able to find anyone training a young dragon found at the right time.

   Li asked, finding that her legs felt almost numb as she took a step.

  “Five young dragons and their mother. Most of the young ones are blue or white, but there’s another one with mostly gold scales. That’s unusual, since dragons tend to be red, brown, or bck,” Snen said, leading Li toward one of the two tunnels out of the cavern.

  This was the passage that led back into the area containing what the xiyi called their ‘burrows’, which were actually short tunnels that led to small caves, all dug into the walls of an enormous, open-roofed cavern. Stairs had been carved into the wall leading up to the burrow entrances, which all faced the cavern. Anyone who lived on the top levels had to go up and down hundreds of stairs each day, unless they were one of the lucky ones with wings and could jump down a flight at a time.

  As Li entered the main living cavern, a small horde of xiyi pups, or shaoshao, ran by, emitting the clicks and whistles Li remembered making when she was newly hatched. The shaoshao were very small when they hatched, but grew quickly in their first year of life, just like dragons. That meant that more than one of these little ones had bits of pale, shed skin dangling from their limbs and backs. Like very young kobolds, none of them wore any sort of clothing, but unlike pups, they all ran upright, using their curling tails to counterbance their weight.

  Snen paused, allowing the shaoshao all the space they needed. Hatchlings were rare and precious to the xiyi, and every adult watched out for every shaoshao, making sure they were safe and happy. Until the little ones were three years old, they were allowed to run wild, receiving food or help from any adult nearby, and only returning home when the sun began to set.

  Once the young xiyi were gone, Li continued on, but Snen did not. After a moment, the dragon stopped as well, gazing at her guide with obvious impatience. Seeing it, Snen’s head swayed in a xiyi shrug. “It’s good to see the shaoshao again. I had forgotten what peace and safety look like.”

  He tilted his head toward a pair of particurly tiny hatchlings drowsing in a patch of sunlight. They had no horns yet, so they looked a great deal like a few of the small lizards that sometimes ran across the path when she and her friends had traveled to and from Cliffcross. Their necks were too long for those, but otherwise she would be hard-pressed to tell the difference. Not that she was going to mention that to Snen or any of the other xiyi.

  Snen saw that Li wasn’t as enthralled as he was, and his tail thumped briefly in amusement. This caused one of the hatchlings to open a zy eye, but it was closed again almost immediately as the shaoshao saw nothing to detract from its enjoyment of the warm rock and sunshine. Snen gave his version of a smile and circled around the sleeping pair.

  The xiyi lived in and on a ft-topped mountain that they called a mesa. Their burrows y inside, as did other caverns such as the one where the eggs waited to hatch, but several tunnels led to the top of the mesa, where even adult xiyi could be found resting in the sun. There were also small shrubs and pnts whose pcement looked random at a gnce, but had actually been pnted and tended by the xiyi. All of these were used for medicine or food.

  As Li and Snen emerged into the open air, Li immediately stretched her wings and took off, flying up and around the xiyi. She knew where they were going, at least in general, and this was a good chance to stretch her wings and feel the sun on her own scales after days in the hatching chamber.

  The dragons and the unmated scouts lived together in a second cavern that was disturbingly simir to the one where Kaz and Li met Snen. Trained dragons with riders had roosts at the very top, while dragons in training lived in smaller roosts down lower on the walls. Like the xiyi burrows, these roosts had been cut from vertical rock walls, but unlike the burrows, they were rger in front than in back. The back of each roost opened onto a narrower tunnel connecting it to the others, where the xiyi trainers could retreat if a dragon became aggressive.

  The youngest dragons, those recently selected by scouts, sometimes lived in small roosts near the floor of the cavern, and sometimes lived with their future riders until they became too rge to do so. This was somewhat dangerous for the scout, but rewarding when it resulted in a retionship like the one Snen had with Intong.

  Much of this training had come to a halt when Snen and Li expined that she would be able to remove the ‘curse’ from many, if not all of the dragons. Now, riders and trainers still tended to their dragons, but they didn’t try to teach them to be mounts, because whether the dragons even stayed would be up to them once their minds were restored.

  After much thought, Li had decided to start with the eggs, then work her way up to hatchlings, juveniles, and then adult dragons, because she could help a greater number of them more quickly that way. It also gave the xiyi time to speak to and teach the dragons, hopefully making sure that no dragons were abused the way Yanshi had been. Even if none of the dragons decided to stay with the xiyi, it would be best for all concerned if the dragons didn’t decide to enact some form of vengeance on the people they could well see as their captors. Besides, Li would be very, very upset with them if she found out that such things were still happening.

  As Li flew in through the wide open top of the cavern, and Snen began to climb down the carved steps, Intong called a welcome. He and the other freed dragons who had chosen to remain with the xiyi - Renao and Yanshi - wore no bridles or chains to keep them in their roosts. They could leave whenever they wished, and Li was often surprised that Yanshi didn’t choose to do so.

  He did refuse to carry any riders, and caught his own food from the area around the mesa, but he returned to the roost every day, yellow eyes watching the xiyi as if making sure they kept their promise to treat the other dragons well, and free as many as they could. It was quite possible that was exactly what he was doing.

   Intong said as Snen approached, patting the dragon’s long neck, then scratching the spot around the base of his wing that no dragon could reach for themselves. Li sometimes thought having someone to scratch such itches was an excellent argument for keeping at least a few kobolds or xiyi around.

  “Xiongdi,” Snen said, seeming just as pleased to see Intong as the dragon was to see him. “Can you lead us to Li’s family?”

   Intong said, dipping a shoulder so Snen could climb up into the small saddle that rested at the base of his neck. He no longer wore any form of bridle or reins, so Snen hung onto the horns that grew along the scaly neck.

  Intong was much rger than Li, and she backed up as he unched himself off the cliff, his wings occupying far more space than hers did. To her surprise, Yanshi did the same, following as the two dragons and Snen rose up out of the cavern again.

  The ‘breeding cavern’ was the only one that was completely enclosed within the mesa, allowing only a little sunlight to pass through deep cracks in the ceiling. One of the rotating doors Li and Kaz had become so accustomed to allowed xiyi in, but dragons weren’t really supposed to go in or out after reaching adulthood, which meant Yanshi had to wait outside, though Intong was just able to squeeze through. There was a way to get full-grown adults in - which was presumably how her own mother had gotten inside - but it required several xiyi to move the even more massive stone door, which had no ki crystals embedded in it, so it wasn’t something that could be done without prior pnning.

   Intong said as he tugged his long body through an opening that was very nearly too small for it.

  Li looked around. This cavern was even rger than the one where the scouts’ mounts lived. The roosts carved into the walls were seemingly random, too, rather than going from small ones on the bottom to the rgest on top. Thin shafts of sunlight streamed from openings in the ceiling above, motes of dust dancing in the narrow beams, and dragons of all sizes and colors basked in the diffuse patches of light. There were even a few small, stunted trees, along with several pnts Li recognized from Kaz’s mountain.

  While Li and Intong could enter this space without too much fear, some of these dragons would try to attack xiyi, so Snen stayed behind. There were xiyi who ventured into this cavern on a daily basis, looking for eggs or newborn hatchlings, but Snen wasn’t one of them, and there was no need for him to go. That was why Intong had come.

  The two dragons flew through the cavern, with Li growing to her rgest size. Many of these dragons would kill and even eat a hatchling or younger dragon, and it was unwise to look like a snack. Hopefully, once the insensate rune was removed from their dantians, this behavior would stop. If it didn’t, Li might have to take more serious steps when she could.

  Intong led Li to a particurly shadowy section of the cavern, where smaller dragons flew under and around deep overhangs. He nded just outside a dark roost that didn’t look rge enough for an adult dragon. Kaz had said Li’s mother was quite a bit smaller than her father, but she would have to be very small indeed, at least for an adult. Then something shifted in the roost, and a dragon’s head became visible.

  It was like looking at a reflection of herself in a cloudy pool. The color was the same, but the scales were dull, with several lifting away from the too-thin body. The bones were clearly visible beneath the skin, and no effort had been made to clean blood and shed skin from around the cws. But still… But still, there was that sense of familiarity, and when the golden eyes lifted to Li, she knew the other felt it, too.

  Something pressed against her mind as the older dragon gave a long, low growl. It wasn’t threatening, but more like the sound a creature might make when it was tired and injured and simply wanted to be left alone.

   Li managed, reaching out toward that faint pressure, and the growl stopped, the golden-scaled head raising so suddenly that horns scraped against the stone ceiling of the roost. Li’s eyes went to the other female’s dantian, and to her shock, she saw that the runes there were barely visible, more like the foggy shadows that filled the eggs than the sharp, clear lines found in older dragons. Almost without thinking, she overid that fog with the rune for silence, and pulled the smudged rune away.

  A voice came into her mind. It was rough, but not as empty of true self-awareness as Intong and the others had been before the insensate rune was removed. it said, and as if in response, five young dragons flew in from behind them, cws extended, roaring their displeasure.

Recommended Popular Novels