Legacy of Steel

4

The next several days remained pleasantly cool and sunny. Sara was able to fulfill her promise to Cobalt for something meatier. She brought down a buck with her bow and carried it back to the cave on the back of the old mule.

Cobalt grabbed for the deer so greedily he almost snatched the mule. The mule squealed in terror, kicked up his heels, and bolted down the beach at a speed that belied his age.

Sara spat a curse and ran after him. By the time she returned with the mule, Cobalt slept happily in his sand nest a few broken bones lying scattered around him. She smiled and shook her head. Whether he knew it or not, the blue had taken the path to healing.

She brought him several more deer in the following days and continued to cook the fish and seaweed soup. He ate everything she gave him. His leg took the new set and slowly healed as straight as before. The tears on his back remained clean and free of further infection. New flesh began to grow and the wounds gradually closed. Sara knew he would always have scar tissue marring the beautiful symmetry of his scales, but his muscles worked well enough and he still had the full range of movement of his wings.

His color improved, too. From a dull, tarnished metallic appearance, he brightened to his usual shimmering blue. Sara had forgotten how handsome he could be when he was healthy. She stood in the entrance to the cave one afternoon and watched the setting sun bronze his shining body. His scales gleamed a bright sapphire blue along his head, neck, and back, then his color deepened down the extremities of his body until his feet and tail were a dark, almost greenish blue-thus the origin of his name. In the golden light of sunset, he looked as if an artist had overlaid a gilt patina over molded enamel.

Sara smiled at him. He cocked an eye at her and shook the rough spiny frill around his head.

"I heard what happened with you and Steel," he said abruptly.

The woman nodded once. She sat down in the warm sunlight by the entrance and stretched out her long legs. "I freely admit I never wanted my son in Takhisis' dark knighthood-"

Cobalt interrupted her. "And you tried to get him out Flare told me."

"And I tried," Sara repeated softly. "I am glad now I failed. Steel was where he needed to be. He died as he wanted, courageously, with honor, doing what he thought was right. Even his father, Sturm, could not ask for more than that."

The dragon stirred in his nest. His eyes glowed like fire in the light of sunset. He dipped his head and looked at Sara with his fiery eyes. "Why did you try to take him away from Takhisis? Why did you yourself join if you did not believe in her Vision?"

Sara knew these questions from Cobalt were inevitable. He had been a knight's dragon, after all, a servant of the dark goddess. She realized, too, that the only way she had a hope of earning his trust was to tell him the truth.

"I do not believe in the sovereignty of evil," she replied firmly. "There is more to this world than darkness and tyranny. Ariakan lured Steel into the dark knighthood against my wishes with promises of glory, riches, and power, I was desperate to get Steel out. I went with him to stay near him, to try to protect him. I endured years as Ariakan's mistress and servant just to be with Steel. I trained dragons, learned the ways of the knighthood, and stayed at Storm's Keep long after Ariakan was finished with me, hoping to find some way to convince my son to leave before he took the final oath. I failed in that. I even kid napped him and took him to the High Clerist's Tower to see his father's tomb. Unfortunately his birth-mother's blood proved stronger that day."

Sara hesitated, her face creased in a sad frown. Cobalt watched her closely.

"Now you know the truth about me," she said with a small shrug of her shoulders. "I am no minion of Takhisis and never will be."

"But you like blue dragons," he said, a faint undertone of hope in his voice.

She laughed softly. "Some of them."

The dragon flipped his wings in his version of a shrug. "There is no more Queen of Darkness to obey. Ariakan's knighthood is dead. My rider is dead. There is only you and me now." He tilted his head and peered down at her. "I see no problem we cannot work through."

Sara met his gaze eye for eye, pleased more than she imagined she would be. "You do not have to stay with me if you do not want to. There are probably real knights out there who would be pleased to have you for a partner."

"You are the one who came to help me," he pointed out. He dropped his head back to the sand and scratched his chin on a small rock. "We will see when 1 am stronger."

Sara crossed her arms. "Now it's your turn. Tell me about Vincit. What happened to you two?"

Cobalt hesitated, reluctant to put the past into words. But he had started this conversation, and he realized he owed Sara his tale. "We were with a wing in Northern Ergoth, laying siege to the Solamnic fort at Gwynned during the Summer of Chaos. That's why we were not part of the final assault on the Abyss. After we lost the Vision and all contact with Lord Ariakan, our officers abandoned us. The remnants of our group tried to stay together, but the entire population turned against us. Even the kender from Hylo hunted us through the Sentinel Mountains. We tried to leave the island, only to fall into an ambush. Most of our companions were killed. Vincit and I barely escaped. We could have left then- should have, I suppose. Vincit was consumed with rage. He wanted revenge, so we attacked a small party of Solamnic Knights near the coast. Stupid, really. One had a silver dragon with him." Cobalt fell silent, remembering the aerial battle that day.

"A silver dragon did this to you?" Sara prompted.

"I was weak from hunger. The silver was bigger stronger, faster. It wounded Vincit in the second pass. I fled with the saddle dangling from my shoulder. Vincit was still alive, still clinging to me, but he died before I found a place to hide. I made my way across the water and eventually found this cave."

"So now we both know what has happened to the other. What do we do now?" Sara mused, more to herself than to the dragon.

"Eat?" he suggested.

Sara laughed. Her robust sound of merriment filled the cave and fell pleasantly on Cobalt's ears. He would not tell her, not yet, but he liked her laughter and the sound of her voice when she talked to him. Her voice helped fill the aching emptiness in his thoughts and soothed his sadness. He lifted his head from the sand to watch as she lugged her fish pot within his reach.

"Eat well," she ordered. "Tomorrow you are going outside to stretch."

Cobalt obeyed.

The sun shone warm on the sand the next day when Sara urged the dragon out of his nest and into the light, He chose a sheltered place by the stream to bask in the sun, and he looked so comfortable stretched out on his belly, Sara patted his side and bade him good-bye.

"I need supplies from the village south of here," she told him "I should be back by dark. And don't eat the mule." She shook a finger at him.

"Humph," he snorted. "That old thing is too stringy."

"Good. Just remember that," she said, shouldering her bow and quiver.

She left him soaking in the sun and hiked south along the faint path back to Godnest. In the village, she purchased loaf of bread, some cloth for bandages, a new blanket, a round of cheese, and for a bucket of clams she picked along the way, she got a small bag of potatoes. She enjoyed a mug of ale at a different tavern, then put the sea to her right and walked back north.

It was nearly dark by the time she reached the cliffs with her supplies and a brace of rabbits she had brought down along the trail. She saw Cobalt's place by the stream was empty. She hurried past the waterfalls and climbed the mound of sand before the cave. Halfway up, a sound froze her in midstep. A guttural voice whispered something. Sara did not catch the words, but she recognized the tongue. Goblins.

Vile little scavengers! She dropped to the sand and peered cautiously over the top. A dark, squat shape hunkered in the darker shadows by the opening. At least three, maybe four, shapes hovered close by. Their attention seemed to be focused on the interior of the cave. Sara listened and thought she heard the soft snoring of the dragon. If Cobalt was asleep, the goblins probably intended to sneak in and steal whatever they could find.

Sara curled her lips back in disgust. She hated goblins ever since her stay at Storm's Keep. Nasty, sniveling, boot-licking, conniving… her list was endless. She would be strung out on an ant nest before she'd let those brutes near the blue.

She dropped her bundles to the sand and silently strung her bow. Fitting an arrow to the string, she took aim at the shape by the door.

At that moment, the other three crept cautiously into the cave's mouth.

The woman loosed the string. Her arrow sped true and pierced her target before it could utter a cry. The goblin collapsed to the sand. Sara sprang up and over the top of the mound, slithered down to the cave entrance, and crouched by the stone wall. A second arrow waited in her bow.

How many more are there, she wondered. The stench of the dead goblin filled her nose. Her throat, irritated by the smell, tickled a warning.

"Cobalt! Goblins!" she yelled before a sneeze could give her away.

A loud squawk and a squeal erupted from the blackness in the cave. All at once the darkness was splintered by a crack of lightning, the blue dragon's breath weapon In that flash, Sara saw three goblins caught in the brilliant explosion of light. They stood immobile, frozen in the blinding radiation.

The light flicked out. The goblins yelped and bolted for the entrance. Sara waited as they charged past her then she fired at the nearest fleeing form. It toppled face first into the sand. A second blast of lightning arced out of the cave and caught one more goblin in the back. The other vanished into the night.

Sara hurried into the cave. A terrible stench hit her like a blow. "Cobalt, could you start the fire? I want some light."

Another bolt of lightning seared from the blue and ignited a roaring fire in her fire ring. The flames illuminated the front of the cave, revealing the source of the horrid smell. A goblin Sara had not seen before had caught the full force of the dragon's lightning. It lay sprawled on its back, its short, red corpse smoking gently.

"Ugh," Sara managed to gasp. She did not bother to say more until she had hauled all the dead goblins away from the cave and left them where the tide would carry them away.

She came back wiping her hands and looking disgusted. "Well, the mule is gone, and there are several tracks leading up into the hills," she said. "That must have been a small raiding party."

Cobalt huffed a cloud of steam from his nostrils. "Little thieves probably thought I had treasure or something in here. As if I'd ever let any of them have it!"

The woman dropped her bundles by the fire. "But now we have a problem. At least one escaped and probably made it back to the main camp. If he didn't get a good look at this cave, he may convince the others to come back here to check it out. Goblins can be very tenacious."

"I can handle goblins," Cobalt said with a ring of derision his voice.

"Of course you can," Sara responded, patting the big dragon on the neck. "When you are healthy and strong and not trapped in a small cave. But both of us are familiar with some of their nastier weapons. What if they threw a pot of scavenger mold in here? Neither one of us could escape it."

Cobalt looked thoughtful. "I am too weak to fly yet. What if I walked? We could find another cave."

Sara examined his splinted foreleg then climbed up to look at his back. The lacerations were healing nicely. "I know of several near my home," she told him. "I could take you there to recover your strength until you make up your mind what you want to do."

He grumbled deep in his throat. "I do not like to run before goblins. It is not seemly."

Sara said with a laugh, "Then consider it simply an expedient move. I should be closer to home anyway. I have crops to plant and things to do."

She fixed his soup with the rabbits and ate her own meal of cheese and bread. Before she went to sleep in her blankets, she strung a trip wire across the cave's entrance and added extra wood to the fire.

Despite her casual tone to Cobalt, the presence of goblins in the vicinity of the cave worried her deeply. Although goblins were minions of Takhisis, they would not be reluctant to kill a blue if they realized the dragon was injured. And they'd certainly have no compunction about killing her for her blankets or her bow or the bits of gear she had in the cave. She needed to get Cobalt back on his feet and strong enough to travel soon!

She roused the dragon at dawn and urged him outside to walk in the sand while she fished for his breakfast. This time she did not have to cook the soup; she simply tossed the fish to him, and he scooped them up as fast as she unhooked them. When he was finished eating, she urged him into the water and had him swim back and forth until he was so tired he could barely stand upright She left him basking in the sun and went to hunt for meat. Wary of goblins, she stayed near the cave and hunted in the hills nearby.

She found more goblin tracks and considered following them to see if her hunch about a larger raiding party was right. Then common sense returned, and she veered off the path to stay close to the bluffs. One woman wouldn't stand a chance against a pack of goblins.

She brought down a wild cow for Cobalt and, cursing the theft of the mule every step of the way, butchered the beast and dragged it, piece by piece, back to the dragon.

Cobalt devoured every scrap, belched his thanks, and went to sleep.

Sara settled down on the sand and leaned back against the dragon's warm shoulder. She was so tired after her exertions to feed the big lummox, she also promptly fell asleep in sun. She hadn't napped very long when a sound intruded upon her peace.

"Sara" whispered a faint voice. "Sara, they're back."

The woman stirred, startled awake by the urgency in the voice. Her eyes flew open.

"Don't move. They think I am still asleep. They're in the rocks by the waterfall. They do not see you."

Sara stayed still and slouched lower behind the dragon's back. She glanced around, saw it was late afternoon. The sun's rays slanted nearly horizontal across the white-tipped waves. "Are they moving?" she hissed.

"Not yet. They are just watching. I think there are only two"

"Scouts."

"do I blast them?"

"I think you'll have to. If you tried to move from here, they would see immediately that you are hurt."

"With pleasure." Cobalt leisurely lifted his head and looked in the general vicinity of the lurking goblins. A fierce blast of lightning seared from his mouth and exploded on a cluster of rocks midway up the waterfall. Pieces of rock and debris flew everywhere. Something shrieked, and a small reddish figure bolted out of the cloud of dust and scrambled up the glen.

Cobalt loosed his lightning again. Another thunderous blast exploded into the hillside. When the dirt and rubble settled down, the glen was still.

The dragon heaved himself to his feet and limped slowly over to the creek to examine his accuracy. Sara hurried after him and climbed up among the shattered rocks to make certain the two scouts were dead. She found them-or what was left of them-and after a cursory check, she hurried back down.

"They're just like the others. Flat faces, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and all. And look at this," she said, thrusting something under Cobalt's nose. "They all had bits of stolen armor and old clothes, but every one of them had this badge on his chest."

The dragon tilted one eye to study the patch she had torn from the goblin's uniform. It looked black, with a red hatchet crudely painted in the center. "Only a large tribe with a recognized leader bothers with badges," he remarked. "They are going to be curious when their scouts do not return."

"Yes," Sara affirmed. "We don't have much time left How do you feel?"

The dragon stretched his wings out as far as they would go and gently flapped them in the evening breeze. "I am stiff and sore, but I feel stronger. You feed me well."

"Do you think you will be able to leave in a day or two?"

"Yes." He suddenly bobbed his head and rumbled a dragonly chuckle. "Think how disappointed they will be when they find only an empty cave."

The next day was a repeat of the previous one. Sara spent the morning fishing for Cobalt and accompanying him while he swam, then she hunted in the afternoon. They saw no goblins that day and Sara went to sleep that night hoping fervently that the goblins had decided the dragon in the cave was not a good prospect for looting.

On the following day, though, Sara realized they would have to leave the cave, goblins or no. When she returned that afternoon with a hunk of freshly killed deer, she looked out over the ocean and saw storm clouds massed on the western horizon. Her heart sank.

Cobalt sat on the beach, his head into the wind, his nostrils flared. "The air is changing," he said to Sara. "That storm smells big."

Sara could not judge a storm by its smell as easily as Cobalt, but she didn't have to for this storm. The signs were very clear. She studied the towering masses of clouds that piled up like battlements across the sky; she saw the distant lightning flicker in the stormheads; she felt a new damp chill in the wind; and she knew he was right. She also realized that the tide was running out. By the time the storm hit, the tide would be coming in and their cave would offer little protection from the rising surf.

"We need to leave," she told the dragon. "If we go now, perhaps we can find other shelter before the storm breaks."

Cobalt agreed. He ate his meat and waited for her outside while she hurriedly packed her gear, her blankets, and some dry tinder in her pack. She buried her fire ring, then, as an afterthought, buried her pot, too. The goblins got her mule; she wasn't going to give them her pot.

The clouds had obscured the sun by the time Sara emerged from the cave. The air was noticeably colder, and the wind beat against the cliffs with gusty enthusiasm.

She debated about climbing the bluffs to look for shelter in the more rugged hills, but she thought about Cobalt's leg and his bulk and changed her mind. He didn't need to be climbing rocky slopes or plowing his way through trees. She took, instead, the more open southern direction. There wasn't as much cover that way, but the going was easier for the dragon.

With Cobalt close on her heels, she waded out into the edge of tide and led the way back along the headland. The waves would obliterate their tracks and, with luck, throw off the goblins.

Cobalt still limped on his front leg, but he made no complaint about the pain in his leg or the stiffness across his shoulders. He followed Sara through the shallow water as best he could and kept a close watch on the approaching storm.

They had progressed about two miles along the beach when Sara turned up onto dry land and led Cobalt through the tall sea grass and dunes to the path that paralleled the shore. She walked past several clumps of tangled shrubs and vines, came down a gentle slope, and was about to jump over a low, wet spot in the trail when she looked up and stopped so quickly that Cobalt nearly stepped on her.

The dragon choked on a snort of surprise. There, not more than ten paces away, was a large band of goblins coming along the path toward them.

The leader of the goblins saw them about the same time. He slid to a stop, startled. His band screeched to a halt behind him, half of them crashing into each other to keep from hitting him.

For the space of two heartbeats, the two groups merely stared at each other.

The goblin leader made the first move. In a blur of motion, he yanked up a loaded crossbow and released the bolt directly at Sara's chest.