Free Dragon Fate: Book Six of The Age of Fire by E.E. Knight Page B

pasture, and assumed food preparation was under way. He glided down to investigate, wondering if they would accept a trade of manual labor in hauling whatever sides they were smoking in exchange for a hearty meal.
    It turned out that the flames weren’t from pits for charring and smoking flesh, but banks of light for thralls already at work decorating.
    He scanned the waiting crowd of dragons for familiar faces—their own hatchlings all served the Empire in one capacity or another, and they would quickly recognize him from his twice-stumped tail. Not recognizing anyone, he landed and settled his wings so that they tented and changed his outline as much as possible. All eyes were on the workers, mostly men and blighters, shaping and prepping scale.
    Some of the cosmeticians were creating outlandish, colorful designs on their dragons, working paint and shaping scale into swirls or spikes or what looked like vines or jagged bolts. He recognized some iconography from the Lavadome. He knew enough to recognize a toothy Skotl sigil from the pen-quill-like flourish of the Ankelenes.
    At the other end of the spectrum were dragons just giving scale, teeth, ears, and wings a good cleaning and oiling.
    AuRon opted for something in the middle. He joined a line for an artisan who was deepening faded greens on older females and pulling misshapen scale from male dragons’ faces, making them look neater, sleeker, and wind-friendly.
    “I’m Jussfin, your honor,” the human said when AuRon’s turn came, in decent Drakine. He had the squat body and heavy shoulders of a Ghioz stonelayer. “Some skin-painting, sir?”
    “Make me look a little heavier and more imposing, if you can,” AuRon said.
    “Of course, sir.” He gestured to some colors and a blighter assistant started to pour paint into a pan.
    “So, where will you be seated, your honor?” Jussfin asked.
    “Near the roasting hogs, I hope,” AuRon countered.
    They fell into chitchat. AuRon decided to try his story, that he was a small-time trader who flew into the Far East selling “medicinals.” He’d been east a lifetime ago with the Chartered Company in its traveling towers and could describe the markets of the East from memory.
    “Ah, so you’re an aboveground most of the time,” Jussfin said.
    “I’ve always been a traveler,” AuRon said.
    AuRon tried to imagine what a dragon of the Empire might possibly talk about with someone painting his body, and finally asked if he knew what color the Queen would be wearing.
    “Black, I hear,” Jussfin said.
    “No,” the dragon next to AuRon countered. “I’m sure it will be red, to commemorate the battle. Yellow highlights.”
    AuRon deployed DharSii’s famously noncommittal throat-clearing, lest he fall into a conversation with this dragon.
    “You’re done,” Jussfin said, coming to his rescue. “No scale makes for light work. I appreciate the rest. I feel up to pulling misshapen scale from the most elderly dowager now.”
    He surveyed the results. Jussfin had taken his natural dark stripes and enlarged them, adding a bone-colored outline around them to make them more pronounced. He’d dusted his wings with something that made the skin redder and a little reflective.
    They settled on a price. AuRon argued only a little; Jussfin had named an amount lesser than any other he’d seen pass up and down the ranks of dragons. He ended up giving over two golden coins and telling the artist to never mind about the change.
    “Many thanks, your honor,” Jussfin said. “I think you’ll find the roast pork at its most succulent to the north, by the overhang and the waterfall, your honor. Keep well above and behind the Queen’s dinner-path.”
     
     
    AuRon made a special effort to rise early the day of the feast. He wanted to find a few hiding spots, should there be guards checking names or who knew what sort of introductory rituals. Still, he was not the first dragon aloft—there were messengers and a few dragons of