Sara removed her cloak and hung it over the driftwood to dry. Then she pulled in a deep breath and summoned all her courage. On their best behavior, blue dragons tended to be willful, arrogant, and stubborn. Wounded blues were downright dangerous in their pain and unpredictability. If this dragon had set his mind on death, he would not appreciate her intrusion and could easily remove her from his cave with a single bolt of his lightning breath.
The only things she could rely on were her years of experience dealing with dragons and her inner hope that this one still wished to live. Her face set in a calm mask, she walked to the cave entrance. She gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom.
"I am here," she announced boldly and strode inside.
The cave Sara entered was large and roomy by human standards, but for an adult blue dragon, it was small and cramped, a last resort for a sick and wounded dragon. Sara had walked barely ten paces inside when she came to a stop in front of a large mound of sand that extended back into the rear of the cave. A smaller mound lay slightly to one side of the larger pile.
Two baleful eyes stared at her out of the sand. "Go away!" hissed a voice in the language of dragons.
But Sara, who had trained dragons for the late Lord Ariakan, replied in Common tongue, "No. I am here to help."
Sand exploded in all directions. A dragon head, lean and fearsome, reared up out of the mound on a long, scaly neck and loomed over the woman. "Go away!" it roared, and it drew back its head to loose a bolt of lightning.
3
The dragon suddenly jerked in mid-breath, his eyes grew huge and smoke leaked from his nostrils. "I know you!" snarled the blue.
"Cobalt!" gasped Sara in genuine surprise.
"I thought you were dead," they said in unison.
A long silence fell as the two stared at each other. Sara knew Cobalt could still blast her with his dragon's breath. The dragons loyal to Takhisis and the Vision were as strict in their code of justice as their human Counterparts. Although few of the knights stationed outside Storm's Keep knew of her crime, Lord Ariakan had condemned Sara to die for her treason to the knighthood. Any Dark Knight or blue dragon had a duty to kill her on sight.
But so many things had changed since the Summer of Chaos. The Knights of Takhisis no longer existed as a viable organization. Only Cobalt's sense of loyalty to a dead cause could persuade him to kill Sara now. She fervently hoped another loyalty would be stronger. Cobalt had been the nestmate of Flare, the blue Sara had loved and trained and eventually left with Steel. She had trained Cobalt, too, for a while, before turning him over to a new rider, a handsome young knight named Vincit. Old friendships faded slowly in blue dragons. Perhaps this one would remember.
"Blast it," murmured Cobalt, and his horned head sank slowly to the sand. "I'm too weak to kill you now.
"Well, that's fine," Sara said matter-of-factly. "In the meantime, I'm going to make a fire and have something to eat. It was a long hike over here to find you, and I'm quite hungry."
The dragon's breath slipped out in a long, ragged sigh. His eyelids slid shut. "Do what you want, just leave me alone."
Sara knew better than to push her attentions on the blue. Cobalt could be terribly stubborn when confronted It would be far safer to encourage him to accept help willingly.
Trying to look as casual as possible, Sara unloaded hen mule and brought her packs and the dry firewood into the cave. Against one wall, near the entrance, she built a fire ring of stones and laid a fire. As soon as the flames were hot, she set the caldron filled with water over the heat.
Fishing pole in hand, she walked to the opening. "Keep the fire going for me, will you?" she called over her shoulder.
Cobalt did not answer. Sara hadn't expected him to, but besides being stubborn, he was also curious. There was a good chance he would keep her fire burning just to see what she intended to do. Since he had not killed her yet, she suspected the dragon's strong sense of survival had not totally faded. Perhaps his stomach was hoping for something to eat.
Sara fished for several hours in the cold surf by the cliff. She was not very good at it, being a farm girl herself, and she missed a catch more often than not. But the water swarmed with fish rising to feed after the storm, and with only a few curses and tangled lines, Sara was able to catch enough fish to make a meal for a dragon.
She made three trips into the cave with her catch, trying not to pay too much attention to her fire. As she hoped, the flames burned hot and the water gently boiled She cleaned the fish in full sight of Cobalt, where the wind could carry the smell to his nose. She left the heads and entrails in a pile on her cleaning stone and carried the tidbits to him. Without a word, she laid the stone in the sand by his head and went back to her fire to make the soup.
Pieces of fish, a little salt, and some bits of seaweed. Sara knew to be high in nutrients went into the caldron to simmer. The results looked nasty to her, but it would be nourishing and tempting to a starving dragon.
While the soup cooked, Sara sat back against the wall and studied Cobalt. Although it was difficult to see much through his covering of sand, Sara could tell the blue was in bed shape. Just as her dream revealed, he was emaciated from starvation and illness, and he appeared to be favoring his back. His normal vivid blue coloring was faded to a dull gray; his brilliant eyes were lackluster and full of pain. His horns and the spiky frill around his head were flattened tightly against his skull. The torn ruins of a dragon saddle dangled from his chest.
Cobalt stirred. "Why did you come?" he asked Suddenly.
Sara saw his yellow eyes upon her and she returned his gaze, unblinking. "I dreamed of a blue dragon in trouble. I did not know it was you."
"Would you have come if you had known?"
"Yes."
"Even knowing I could kill you?"
Sara smiled slightly, remembering her earlier reluctance. "Yes."
He clicked his teeth together. "Huh. Doesn't matter now. Oaths to a vanished goddess aren't much good. Who is going to listen? Everyone is dead."
"We are not."
"I will be soon."
"You do not need to be. I can help you. The world has lost enough blue dragons."
"Not without Vincit." The eyes closed again, and he slipped into sleep.
Sara removed the caldron from the fire and set it in the sand to cool. She cooked some fish for herself, checked the mule, and retrieved her cloak. Night had come by then, filling the cave with dense darkness. Sara hauled the caldron close to Cobalt and curled up by her fire for some much-needed rest. She slept well and deeply, without dreams or distress.
In the morning, Sara woke to find Cobalt buried in the sand again. However, the fish soup and the pile of fish entrails were gone. She smiled to herself and went fishing again.
The next few days followed much as the first. Cobalt remained stubbornly embedded in his mound of sand, refusing to move or talk or cooperate in any way except eating. Silently, when Sara was out of the cave or asleep, Cobalt ate whatever offering she left for him.
Encouraged by his willingness to eat, Sara used most of the daylight hours finding things to tempt an ailing dragon. She fished, set snares in the hills for rabbits, raided birds' nests, caught crabs, and collected seaweed and clams. Every day her catch was thrown in the soup pot, simmered for a few hours, and left by Cobalt's head at night. Every morning the pot was empty.
In the evenings, Sara sat by her fire, eating her own meal and talking to the dragon in her firm, melodious voice. She told him about her village and the years she had spent there; she told him stories about Steel and Storm's Keep; she talked about anything that came to mind just so he could hear her voice. Although he did not respond, he kept an ear cocked in her direction, and he didn't once ask her to be quiet.