Anza scowled and made a hand gesture that Shay didn't understand.
Burke gave a weary shrug. 'Thorny will just have to sober up. I need you to stay with Jandra and Shay. If anything happens to either of them, make sure their guns don't fall into the possession of dragons.'
Anza's scowl faded.
'Thorny won't be coming alone. Tell the villagers it's time to join me here in Dragon Forge.'
Anza nodded, looking serious. Shay found himself intrigued by the tall, dark-skinned woman dressed in black buckskins. He'd yet to hear Anza say a word. Ordinarily, he would have assumed she was deaf, or perhaps an imbecile. Yet she followed Burke's whispers easily enough, and she carried herself with an air that hinted of great intelligence.
Jandra sat cross-legged by the fire with Lizard in her lap. Lizard had numerous cuts and scrapes. She spoke to him in a soothing patter as she cleaned and bandaged his wounds. Shay knew Jandra by reputation-she was the human girl who'd been raised by the sky-dragon wizard Vendevorex. He assumed she'd been the dragon's pet. In general, slaves and pets despised one another. Both were legally the property of dragons, but slaves were regarded as little more than domestic animals, useful for certain labors, while pets were pampered and treated as children.
Having grown up as the pet of a wizard, it was said that Jandra had acquired supernatural powers. He'd heard she could turn invisible, and set things on fire by staring at them. Shay wondered if it was true. Chapelion had been a strict rationalist, dismissive of supernatural forces. Shay, however, had seen proof that magic had once been a powerful force in ages past. He was certain that Chapelion was too quick to ignore evidence of things beyond his understanding.
Jandra was currently eluding his understanding. She looked human enough, yet there was something unmistakably alien about her. Perhaps it was her voice; her words had an odd inflection, an accent that made her sound more dragon than human. There was also a strange quality to her posture, the way she carried herself. Most humans tended to keep their gazes toward the ground and walked with their shoulders slouched. Jandra had the unnerving habit of looking straight at people like Burke and Ragnar when she spoke, even though they were obviously her superiors. Finally, her fussing over the dragon child struck him as wrong on some fundamental level, that a human should be displaying such motherly behavior toward a creature covered with scales.
Jandra cradled Lizard in her arms and scratched him beneath his chin. The little dragon's eyes rolled up in his head and he made a soft humming noise.
'He doesn't need all that attention, you know,' said Shay.
Jandra looked up. 'What?'
'It's a waste to give him so much affection,' Shay repeated. 'Earth-dragon children are never coddled or cared for. They're regarded as little more than parasites by adult earth-dragons. They live like rats after they hatch, hiding in walls, eating scraps and bugs and their smaller siblings. They absorb the dragon language by spying. Earth- dragons raise themselves until they're old enough to hold a tool or a weapon, at which point they're put to work and treated like any other member of the horde. They don't get any mothering in their natural upbringing. They aren't even clear on what the concept of a mother is.'
Jandra looked annoyed by his argument. 'He's not a rat,' she said. 'He's an intelligent being who can talk.'
'It's probably nothing more than imitation,' said Shay. 'I'd guess he's as smart as a parrot.'
'If a parrot were injured, I'd treat his wounds too,' said Jandra.
'Good boss,' cooed Lizard, reaching up and stroking Jandra's cheek.
Shay turned away, shaking his head. He discovered their fourth companion climbing up through the trap door. This was Vance, a young man roughly his own age, with a wispy blond beard and close-cropped hair that looked as if it had been trimmed with a dull razor. Vance was dressed in the modest clothes of a farm boy; a simple brown wool coat and patched-up cotton britches tucked into boots badly in need of new soles. The only thing new in his possession was his bow-one of the now famous sky-wall bows, forged from steel, strung with wire, the tension tamed by a set of cams at each tip of the bow. Vance was short, barely five feet tall. A series of small white scars on his brow and around his lips, plus calluses covering his knuckles, gave Shay the impression that Vance was someone who'd survived many a tussle.
'Howdy, Shay,' Vance said, with a nod in his direction. They'd met earlier at the eastern gate. Vance had been the guard who'd allowed Shay's passage into Dragon Forge.
Shay raised his hand in greeting. 'I've heard that you're going to be our bodyguard. They say you're good with that bow.'
'I'm not anybody's bodyguard if Anza's around,' Vance said with a soft grin. He stepped close to Shay, and glanced nervously back toward Burke. He cleared his throat, and said, in a whisper, 'I heard tell you came here with books. They say you wanted to teach people to read.'
'Ragnar didn't approve of this plan, I'm afraid.'
'Well, um…' Vance said, his voice growing even softer as he leaned in closer. 'I've got a good head on my shoulders, but I don't have no formal learnin'. I did my part up on that wall fighting the dragons, but the battle was really won by Burke and his foremen. Them fellows are all the time looking over blueprints and books and sending notes back and forth. That's the kind of person I want to be. Can you teach me to read?'
Shay smiled broadly. 'I'd be honored.'
Before they could discuss the matter further, Biscuit came up through the trap door and announced, 'The horses are ready at the north gate. I've got men I trust standing guard. They'll get you out without Frost and his friends bothering anyone.'
Burke nodded. 'There's no point in tarrying. I told Ragnar you'd be gone by nightfall. I'm not sure I have the energy to face him down again.'
Anza leaned over to hug Burke. She gave him a silent nod as she grabbed her pack and headed for the elevator. Shay noticed the shiny steel tomahawks strapped to the pack. Anza was a walking arsenal, sporting swords, knives, darts, and a sky-wall bow identical to the one Vance carried. Shay picked up his own pack, and the shotgun with which he'd barely had an hour to train. He was impressed with the weapon, but if guns were as deadly as Burke claimed, why didn't his own daughter carry one?
He joined Anza and the others on the elevator. As it began to lower, he caught the grim, worried look in Burke's eyes. He had a feeling that there was some secret Burke was keeping from them.
Jandra waved and said, 'Thanks, Burke.'
Lizard waved as well, and said, 'Strong boss.'
Anza didn't wave. She stared ahead, her face unreadable, as the elevator carried them down.
BURKE SAGGED AS the elevator lowered Anza and her companions from his sight. He'd been in pain ever since his thigh had been broken, but the stress of his confrontation with Ragnar had pushed him to a new level of agony. It had taken all he had to hide his suffering from Anza. He'd always taught Anza to bear her wounds stoically and never surrender to pain. He was glad he hadn't broken.
Biscuit stood by the window, watching as the four adventurers left the foundry and marched toward the North Gate.
'They're on their way,' he announced. 'Let's get you started on the whisky.'
Burke flung back the heavy wool blanket that covered his lap. His right leg was thrust straight out before him, naked save for bandages securing it to a splint. The entire limb was blue-gray with bruises. Large chunks of his foot were now black, the flesh dead and stinking. Vicious red streaks ran up his hip into his torso. His fever had been rising every day. If he didn't act now, the infection would spread into his entire body.
'The whole leg has to go,' Burke said flatly, as if he were discussing a broken wagon wheel.
'I sharpened the saw,' Biscuit said, handing Burke a brown ceramic jug. Burke uncorked it. The fumes made his eyes water. 'Drink until the bottle falls out of your hands. It won't take me ten minutes once you're down.'
Burke tilted back the jug. Even though it was ice-cold, it burned his throat going down. He wiped his lips after the swig, not looking forward to how many more times he'd need to do that before he passed out.
'This might take a while,' he said, then hiccupped. 'There's some paper on the desk there. I have something important I need you to take down.'
'Sure,' said Biscuit, grabbing a quill jutting from an ink bottle. The quill was fiery red and almost 18 inches long, not a true feather but a feather-like scale from the wing of a sun-dragon. In the recent battle, the sky-wall archers had killed dozens of the great beasts as they'd attacked Dragon Forge. An unanticipated consequence of victory was that Burke always had a pen nearby when he needed one.
