“She shall come,” Lugerin grumbled, and so darkly that Matt was sure he had planned on an escape clause.
Lugerin leaned back into the hall for a few muttered words, then came out side by side with an older woman, tall and striking, with a mane of raven hair streaked by a central band of silver. They came forward, both clad in leather embossed with brass—not quite armor, certainly more than casual wear.
They halted five feet from Matt. Ginelur demanded, “Why have you come here?”
“Looking for my young friends,” Matt answered, “who are traveling to Maracanda and certainly did not deserve attack. Why did you try to kidnap them?”
“We do not sell slaves!” Lugerin snapped.
Matt caught the implication. “But you do enslave travelers. Do they farm for you in hidden fields?”
Both dragoneers flushed, and Matt knew he had scored. “If they offend us, and if the gales are too strong,” Ginelur said stiffly, “we sacrifice them to the wind-spirits at the changing of the year.”
The equinoxes, Matt guessed, those being the windy times. “What on earth makes you think you have the right to capture anybody you please?”
“The right of revenge!” Lugerin snapped. “Our ancestors farmed this valley in peace, but again and again barbarians swept in to raid. At last our ancestors built these cliff-houses for retreats when the reavers came, and thus saved their lives, saved their wives and children from capture and slavery—but lost their crops and became prey to starvation.”
“So you're taking revenge on people who didn't commit the crime.” Matt shook his head, remembering a girl or two who had treated him with suspicion and jealousy because old boyfriends had loved them and left them, and a man he knew who had loved and left a young woman in revenge for others' abandonment. “Well, it's a human failing. Still, you should have outgrown it by now.”
“That revenge was taken against the barbarians at first, you may be sure!” Ginelur told him. “Olien, our ancestors' shaman, learned how to tame the dragons with his magic. We then had mounts more fearsome than the barbarians' horses, and have repelled every raid since.”
“Repelled, and taken slaves and warriors to sacrifice in our own turn, as they did to us!” Lugerin spat.
“How many centuries ago was this? Not much for holding a grudge, are you?”
“Our safety lies in our savagery!” Ginelur retorted. “The barbarians have not ridden against us in three generations, you may be sure!”
“So when you ran out of barbarians, you started in on random travelers.”
“Would they not loot and pillage if they had the chance?” Ginelur said defiantly.
“Not these two.” Matt nodded toward Anthony and Balkis. “And not quite a few others over the centuries, I'll wager. They would now, of course, after suffering your enslavement. Even gentle people tend to do to others what you've done to them. But if dragons are your strength, why were you afraid of Dimetrolas?”
“Because she grew far more than was acceptable,” Ginelur said. “Now and again one of the huge wild dragons would turn rogue and burn houses, even people—so our ancestors bred them to become smaller and more manageable.”
Stegoman spat an oath. “You robbed them not only of their freedom, but also of the size that was their birthright?”
“They were dangerous to us,” Lugerin said, flint-faced. “Therefore do we cast out the throwbacks who grow toward ancestral size.”
“Stand away, Matthew,” Stegoman growled. “He deserves burning. They all do.”
CHAPTER 27
“There!” Lugerin pointed at Stegoman. “Do you see? If they can hurt us, they will!”
“Just like people?” Matt asked softly. “Any stranger might be a powerful wizard, is that it? So you trap them and enslave them to make sure they can't hurt you. Who do you choose for sacrifice—the ones who are big enough and strong enough to be threats?”
Lugerin flushed, but Ginelur said evenly, “They, and those who come riding, for any on horseback will surely attack us if they can.”
“Why? Because the barbarians who originally attacked your ancestors came mounted?” Matt shook his head. “Your whole culture is built on fear.”
“Indeed,” Stegoman rumbled. “I have seldom seen a band of fainthearts so devout in their cowardice.”
Lugerin reddened. “You would not say that if this sorcerer had not robbed us of our dragons!”
“If you had treated them well,” Dimetrolas retorted, “they would have become your friends, and no wizard could have robbed you of them by simply giving them their freedom.”
“Friends may turn against you, too.” But Ginelur was looking doubtful.
“Oh, friendship takes work, no doubt about it,” Matt said. “You have to treat each other well, you always have to be polite, you have to be there when they need you and vice versa. Sometimes you can even drift apart for a while just from having spent too much time together. But you can find ways to keep your alliance going, if it really means anything to you.”
“You shall have to now, in any case,” Dimetrolas called, “for your spells will no longer coerce your dragons!”
Lugerin brought the words up with great reluctance. “I shall apologize to your sorceress, if she will restore the power of our spells.”
“After you tried to capture her and enslave her?” Matt asked. “Who knows, maybe you meant even worse.”
Ginelur cast a dark glance at Lugerin.
“No, I don't see any reason why she should remove her freedom spell,” Matt said.
“But she must!” The words ripped out of Lugerin. “If she does not, the dragons are sure to destroy us!”
“They have old grudges to settle, too, huh?” Matt glanced at the dragon-cotes.
“Then we should let them come out and be about their business,” Stegoman rumbled. “That would be justice for any who sought to compel so wondrous a creature as Dimetrolas— and more than just recompense for her outcasting!”
Dimetrolas looked up at Stegoman with pleased surprise; then her eyes began to glow.
Matt was wary of glowing dragons. “I don't know, Old Smoky,” he called to Stegoman. “There is another side to the issue. Okay, the dragoneers enslaved your breed and cut them down to their own size—but the winged ones always had plenty to eat, and they certainly have multiplied. The humans even made them very secure roosts. If they just had the courage to trust the beasts, they might have a very profitable alliance here.”
Stegoman was silent. Dimetrolas burst out, “Such an alliance would require great changes in their ways! Can they bear it?”
“Well?” Matt looked from Ginelur to Lugerin and back. “Consider the alternative—a giant barbecue fueled by some very vengeful dragons. Even if we talk them into leaving you alone, you're going to find you have a lot of people with scores to settle—starting with your slaves. And if word gets out, the barbarians may come riding in to settle their old grudge.”
Lugerin paled. Ginelur looked up at him with anxiety, then asked, “What would the dragons want of us?”
“No slavery, that's for sure,” Matt said promptly. “Your dragons are already free, but you'd have to let your human slaves go, too.”
“Who, then, would till our fields!” Lugerin cried.
“Why,” said Matt, “you will. Have to do your own farming, I guess.”
Lugerin glared daggers at him but said nothing.
“And this matter of casting out must cease!” Dimetrolas snapped. “The dragons will not think of it if the humans do not urge it!”
“How should we deal with fifty-foot mounts?” Ginelur cried.