That struck Wistala as nasty work. She could understand making slaves of a vanquished army—part of the chance one took in setting out on war—but to hunt hominids like wild animals solely to enslave them . . . that led to what? An empty land reverting to wildness. No trade, no camps full of song and the shrieks of children at play.

“How far until Wallander, Yefkoa? These steppes are depressing me.”

“We should reach it tomorrow, I think. The ground is more broken now as we approach the river. I understand your dislike for this country. It makes me feel like the only presence in the world, too. Or that someone is watching me.”

Wistala had no love for the Ironriders—she’d won some distinction among the Firemaids and the Tyr’s dragons fighting them, as a matter of fact. But she couldn’t help feeling that some continent-spanning wrong had been committed and that sooner or later the crime would demand atonement.

The crickets in Wallander were happy in the balmy spring evening. Yefkoa and Wistala had their wings partly spread out, carefully massaging hot muscles, cleaning wing skin, and flexing and contracting tender tendons to distinguish injury from exhaustion.

It felt good to be with a female close to her own mind. Scabia was so busy playing elder dragon-dame and head of household that one could never feel friendship, only condescension, and Aethleethia’s mind ran on a very few well-worn tracks.

“Why this hunger for slaves?” she asked Yefkoa.

“We go through thralls like chickens these days,” Yefkoa said. “Remember when there were herds and flocks in the Lavadome? Now the pens are filled with thralls, waiting and being examined for work, or breeding stock, or even training to support the Aerial Host. The old and sick are simply eaten, and most of the rest are worked until they drop, then slaughtered for food.”

“Life is cheap in the Empire these days. NiVom’s doing, or the twins?”

“NiVom has plans to enlarge the living space and passages in the Lower World. He has an army of demen now and he plans to have them move below the earth at speed, so they can appear in any city of the Empire without warning. In the end, I think he means Lower to rule Upper. So we’re all eating more worn-out thralls than we ever have.”

“Seems inefficient. Pigs put on flesh more quickly and easily,” Wistala said.

“Pigs can’t tunnel. There are vast works in process, under Hypatia and the other Protectorates. Any dragon who wishes to be thought a Someone needs a resort, above- and belowground.”

“What do they do in these resorts?”

“Stuff themselves and hold parties for each other and try to attract some rich hero of the Aerial Host. Even the Hypatians, who’ve benefited from the Empire’s extension the most, now are grudging about feeding. Hardly a drakka goes into the Firemaids anymore; they want a position in one of the Protectorates where they can sunbathe and send thralls out into the markets for paint and dye. Most of the young males fight to get into the Aerial Host, for the glory and the plunder. The Drakwatch is also withering down to little more than a cadre of impoverished or outcast families, supervising thralls in their work.”

Yefkoa was an unusually attractive dragon, if you liked the slim-framed type. “Why haven’t you found a place in the Empire? Taken a mate from the Aerial Host and joined the painted set?”

“No mates for me. I was once betrothed to a fat old gasper who already had more mates than he knew what to do with. After my parents agreed to my mating him he took me to survey his hill and almost as soon as we were out of sight he pinned me, wanting to mate then and there, out in the rocks like a couple of herdthralls. He was too fat to fly and too lazy to swim for mating, I imagine.” She shuddered at the memory. “Tyr RuGaard took pity on me and put me into the Firemaids.”

“Anyway, no mates for me. I’m oathed into the Firemaids and meant every word of the Third Oath. Nowadays there are Second-Oathers who speak the words as though they mean to say, Sundering myself from mated life for the protection of all (until a likely dragon starts a-courting, that is).

Wistala chuckled. She’d been oathed into the Firemaids as well, but political troubles and DharSii had come along before she’d spent enough years among them for the most solemn Third Oath vows.

Wallander was still a dumpy little collection of hovels on the riverbank. All it had to recommend it was a lake of slack water in the Falnges River and a wide beach for landing trade-craft. The only difference Wistala could mark was that the wall had fallen into even greater disrepair, and there were slave-pens everywhere, inside and outside the walls.

Wistala watched the wretches in the pens. Poor things. The dwarfs would chuck them into one of the barges, and from there they’d be taken to a tunnel portal. How many would never see the sun again, sicken, and die after a few years of hard work underground?

She’d never given much thought to thralls before, but the ones she’d known were the descendants of warriors who’d fought the dragons and were warm and clothed and fed decently. If the occasional gravely injured or sick thrall had been given quick death to ease their passing before being devoured, she shrugged it off as part of the long, unfortunate history between hominids and dragonkind. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a dragon of any age caught by men or elves or dwarfs would be pierced with spears and end up with its bones adorning some thane’s trophy room or great hall. Gentlebeings like Rainfall were the rare exception in a hard world.

Remembering Rainfall’s kindness, his hatred of cruelty and injustice shamed her. What was her excuse for coarsening over the years? Rainfall had been cast away and forgotten by the Hypatian Order, its chivalry he’d preserved and kept until his dying breath.

“They aren’t part of the Empire yet, are they?” Wistala asked, pointing with her tail tip to the pens.

“They’re still outside the walls. The dwarfs are probably negotiating the sale,” Yefkoa said.

“There’s a problem with taking a long time bargaining. You may be shocked to find out your wares suddenly aren’t worth so much.”

The men and dwarfs of Wallander barely looked at the pair of winged females idling beside the river. When they’d washed the dust of travel—an amazing amount of spiderweb and bug-grit would get caught in one’s scales during flight and the ability of insects to reach every claw’s-breadth of the world continually impressed Wistala—from their bodies, they sunned themselves and cocked their heads to get a better view of the headhunter dwarfs and their captives.

Old animosities burned like embers deep in Wistala’s hearts. Slavers had come for her family, once, killing her mother and sister. She tussled with herself. The first job was to pass through and into the Dragon Empire.

Yefkoa introduced her to the Protector of Wallander.

He was a young silver dragon with black tips on his scales, with wings so fresh they were practically still wet. Wistala could see the faint scars of the emergence of his wings, where scale had not quite overgrown the crocodile-smile wounds running along his back.

“I am Yefkoa, and we are of the Firemaids. We are on our way back to the Lavadome and seek permission to reenter the Empire.” Yefkoa had chosen her words better than Wistala could have hoped.

In one of the wood-beamed lodges behind, Wistala heard shouts. Human and dwarfish voices were trying to win one another over in a debate of noise rather than ideas, as Rainfall might have put it.

“I am OuThroth, page to NoSohoth, exchequer of Wallander and knight-esquire of the Empire.” Wistala thought he’d collected an interesting assortment of titles for such a young dragon. “You are welcome, Firemaids. Enjoy the poor hospitality of Wallander before continuing your journey. There are some nice fish running in the river, if that’s to your taste.”

“Is this your own Protectorate, or do you serve as steward for another?” Yefkoa asked, carefully keeping her head below the young dragon’s and setting and resettling her wings, as a flirtatious young dragonelle might.

“I speak for NoSohoth. My father used to run the uphold trade in oliban.” Wistala remembered the strong-smelling resin burned in the Lavadome to subdue dragon odor. Male dragons became fierce and argumentative when crowded among the smells of too many of their sex. “Wallander is one of the smaller provinces NoSohoth oversees and they sent me here to gain experience.”

The Empire had changed, Wistala thought. Stewards now, for Protectors who had amassed more lands than they could manage. No surprise that NoSohoth would have a collection of provinces; he always was a rapacious dragon.

“Have you gained any, young dragon?” Wistala asked.

He blinked, perhaps unused to questioning from Firemaids. “I’ve learned how to survive with no polite society. If you’ve been out in Ironrider lands, you’ve been long without wine. Would you like some of mine?”

“Please,” Yefkoa said. They followed him from the gate. The contest of voices faded.

“What was that ruckus with the thrall-gatherers?” Wistala asked.

“The dwarfs are exhibiting their usual arrogance in pricing their captives. It’s more than the Hypatians are willing to pay, yet I’m still expected to fill a tally of thralls or NiVom and NoSohoth will have me supervising diggers, with one day in the sun out of thirty. I’ve never been able to figure out where all this pride comes from in dwarfs. Unless being dirty and uncouth is something to be proud of.”