This one was still coming, and Hanner began to realize that this wasn’t just any dragon, it was a huge dragon, easily a hundred feet long. Its wings and flanks were a rich emerald green, and its throat and belly were golden yellow, and it was so big that its wings seemed to fill half the sky.
And as it drew closer, he could see that there was something on its back, at the base of its neck. Hanner blinked.
Meanwhile, all around him people were screaming and running. Some were bright enough to scatter into the surrounding forests and hills, but most were simply fleeing directly away from the dragon, running more or less due east.
Hanner was not going to do that. The dragon could overtake anyone it tried to, he was sure, so there was no point in running. If it intended to eat someone, it could pick whomever it wanted.
But if it wasn’t just looking for a snack and planning to grab the first person it could, then perhaps it could be reasoned with. Hanner had always heard that some of the larger dragons could talk; maybe he could talk to this one. If all it wanted was a meal – well, it wasn’t a pleasant idea, but Hanner knew there were dead bodies in the pit, people who had been crushed or smothered before they could climb out. He would have greatly preferred to give all those poor people a proper funeral and burn the bodies, but feeding them to a dragon was certainly better than letting it eat living people.
A dragon this size couldn’t be stupid, or it wouldn’t have lived long enough to get so large. It surely couldn’t make a habit of eating people, or it would have drawn the attention of dragon-hunters.
At least, that was what Hanner tried to tell himself.
And that thing at the base of its neck…Hanner realized that it was a person, a man seated in a sort of saddle. Hanner blinked again, and shouted, “Hai!” He waved his arms over his head.
The dragon wheeled and turned upward, craning its long neck to look down at Hanner; it looked around, and found clear ground nearby – all the other former warlocks in that area who were capable of it had fled, leaving a space large enough for the beast to land without stepping on anyone. It settled gracefully to the ground, and the wind of its arrival forced Hanner back two or three steps. It folded its wings, then swung its immense head around to look at Hanner with slit-pupiled golden eyes the size of cartwheels.
The man riding on its back leaned over to look at Hanner, as well, and Hanner looked back, seeing a handsome, black-haired young man dressed in fine leathers.
But it was the dragon, and not the rider, who spoke.
“Our compliments, sirrah, and are you, perchance, in a position to speak for all, and to explain your presence here?”
Its voice was deep and rumbling, as if a thunderstorm had spoken, and on top of that it spoke Ethsharitic with a curious accent, a little like one Hanner had occasionally heard from very old people when he was a boy in the overlord’s palace. It took a moment for Hanner to make sense of its words.
His comprehension was not aided by the constant awareness that he was standing a few feet away from a mouth that could swallow him in a single gulp. Hanner’s instinctive terror was tempered by the realization that the creature seemed more interested in talking to him than in eating him, but he was still terrified.
It did not help that he realized he could smell the dragon; he was that close to the great beast. Its odor was not quite like anything he had ever smelled before, but reminded him of dust, blood, and hot metal.
“As much as anyone is, yes,” he said at last.
“Pray you, then, speak, and expound to us how you come to be standing untroubled not a hundred yards from the Warlock Stone – if indeed, the Stone remains.”
The stone the dragon spoke of could only be the source of the Calling. “It doesn’t,” Hanner said. “It’s gone, back where it came from.”
“And was that then the great disturbance that we saw from afar a few hours gone, in the depths of night?”
Hanner had reached his limit in making sense of the creature’s questions. “I…what?”
“May I, Aldagon?” the man in the saddle called.
“And you would,” the dragon replied, turning to look at its passenger.
The black-haired young man smiled, and slid from his place on the monster’s back. He dropped a few yards to the ground, but managed to stay on his feet, and came walking up to Hanner, hand extended.
They shook, and the young man in leather said, “I’m Dumery of the Dragon, and this is Aldagon, She Who Is Great Among Dragons. Aldagmor is named for her.”
This seemed to Hanner to be an extravagant and unlikely claim, but he was hardly in a position to argue about it, and after all, these were unlikely circumstances. “I’m Hanner,” he said. “Formerly Hanner the Warlock, formerly Chairman of the Council of Warlocks.”
Dumery nodded thoughtfully, and looked around. “Formerly a warlock,” he said. “I didn’t know that was possible. Interesting. I saw hundreds of other people here before they all hid from Aldagon; were they all warlocks?”
“Yes,” Hanner said. “They used to be.”
“So the Warlock Stone is gone, and…what? It released you? You had all been Called?”
That was close enough to what had actually happened that Hanner just nodded. “Yes,” he said again.
“There were a lot of you.”
“Yes,” Hanner said, and this time he thought a little more explanation was called for. “It was everyone who was ever Called, ever since the Night of Madness. We were caught in the…the Warlock Stone’s protective spells.”
Dumery let out a low whistle. “All of you? But there must have been thousands!”
“Yes,” Hanner said again, hoping he didn’t sound stupid, saying the same thing over and over.
“What will you all eat?”
“That’s a very good question,” Hanner said. “We have some theurgists, and they were able to summon Piskor the Generous. She gave us those bundles – see?” He gestured toward the one at his feet, and then at the hundreds that had been dropped by people fleeing Aldagon’s approach.
“That doesn’t look like enough to last very long,” Dumery said.
Hanner turned up an empty palm. “Three days, the goddess said.”
“Then what?”
“We were hoping we could reach civilization by then.”
“’Twould be a vigorous walk, to reach a city so soon,” Aldagon rumbled.
Hanner started, and looked from Dumery to the dragon, then back. “How… You were riding it.”
“Her,” Dumery corrected him. “Yes, I was.”
Hanner gave the dragon a sidelong glance, not wanting to say anything that could possibly offend it – or rather, her. “Have you… Is she…”
“Is she tame?” Dumery grinned. “No. Far from it. But we’re business partners.”
“Partners?” He looked back and forth from the dragon to the man, but could read nothing from either’s expression. “Is that…is that sort of thing common? I was caught in that spell for seventeen years, so I don’t know what the World is like now, but – partners?”
Dumery smiled. “No, it’s not common. I think Aldagon and I are the only such partnership since the Great War. We’ve been working together for about ten years now.” He turned his smile toward Aldagon. “I think we’ve both been pleased with how it’s worked out,” he said.
“Aye, I am not displeased,” Aldagon said. “Though certes, I am kept from my repose more than e’er I was these four centuries past. Dumery would work me to skin and bone, did I allow.”
“Oh, you were bored silly until we met, and you know it,” Dumery said, reaching up to slap Aldagon’s jaw – the only part of the dragon he could reach from where he stood.
“Said I not, I am not displeased?”