Dragon of Ash & Stars: The Autobiography of a Night Dragon by H. Leighton Dickson

Author:H. Leighton Dickson [Dickson, H. Leighton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Working Tiger
Published: 2016-07-25T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

RUE

I watched him from the tower top, sleeping in one of the lower nests with a lantern by his side. He stirred after several moments, rubbed his eyes and stared up at me for a long time. Finally, he stepped to the floor, picked up the lantern and walked out the main floor door. I could hear him outside and I swung on my perch, watching the lantern light swing across the rocks. It stopped on a narrow plateau between cliff and trees and I could see him making a fire on the grass. It was not high enough for snow here and I wondered if the rains would come even to the mountains. If so, warmth and dry wood would not be taken for granted for long.

Then again, the sound of the pipes.

Low and trilling like the music of dragonsong and my heart lurched within me. I leapt from my perch and soared through the night sky, sweeping down over his head like a great black wind. I rose up to the mountains but the pipes were so sad and sweet and they called me with a sharper tug than any rope, so I circled and swept over him again. I heard him laugh and call my name, my old name, my first name before I knew that dragons could have names. I wheeled in the air and dropped to the ground several spans away, wings wide and ready to fly at the first sign of others.

In the light of the fire, I could see him. Lankier, older but still the same.

Rue.

Alive, not dead like Serkus had said. Alive and Rue.

My Rue.

He turned as he sat, lowered the pipe and smiled.

“I can’t believe how big you are,” he said. “Cirrus was right. You’re magnificent.”

I shook my head, snapping my mane of spines.

He reached into a pocket, pulled out a gold coin, held it up in the firelight.

“Look,” he said. “I still have it, the coin he gave us to enter the Citadel. That was so long ago. We were both so young.”

I stared at him. My Rue. I didn’t know him.

He looked down, sighed. Slipped it back into his pocket.

“You used to sit on my shoulder, remember? Even when you were too big to do it, you did. Scared all the girls on the docks. You’d scare them plenty now, you’re so big. You’d crush me like a beetle.”

I snapped my beak at him, like the old days.

“I don’t have any lemonwhites for you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”

His voice caught in his throat and he drew a long, shuddering breath. His eyes were filling with moonshine and oceans.

“I’m sorry about so many things,” he said. “I didn’t look for you when Serkus sold you. I was so angry then, so broken and defeated and angry. I left the Shores and never looked back. But I thought about you all the time.”

I couldn’t smell other dragons or sticks or traps. There was only Rue so I took several steps toward the fire.

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