Free The Eye of the Hunter by Dennis L. McKiernan Page B

cloud of poison, its spittle an acid spume which chars flesh and stone and metal alike.
    “Once there were no Cold-drakes, but in the Great War of the Ban, some Dragons sided with Gyphon. And after He was defeated, Adon reft the fire from these Dragons, causing them and their get to become the Cold-drakes of today.
    “Too, the Cold-drakes suffer the Ban, the light of the Sun slaying them, though their Dragonhide saves them from the Withering Death which strikes the other Foul Folk. Have thou not heard the saying ‘Troll bones and Dragonhide’? It comes about because there are two things among the Foul Folk which do not wither under Adon’s golden light: the bones of Trolls; the hides of Dragons. And so, when exposed to the daytide, Cold-drakes do not turn to ashes, as do the
Rúpt
, the
Spaunen
. Even so, still the Sun slays them, the Cold-drakes…though the Fire-drakes are unaffected by the light of day.
    “But Fire-drake or Cold-, terrible are they, massive and deadly and nearly indestructible, their claws like adamantine scimitars, their hides scaled in nearly invulnerable armor. Great leathery pinions bear them up into the sky, and their flapping wings hurl twisting vortexes of air to hammer down upon a foe.
    “It is said that they can sense all within their domain, and that their eyes see the hidden, the unseen, and the invisible, as well as the visible, too.
    “None knows how long they can live, and in this they may be as are the Elves, though I doubt it. Some have estimated that if the waking and sleeping times of the Drakes correspond unto that of Man—that is, three thousand years for a Dragon is likened to one day for a Man—then because the lives of some Men span as much as one hundred summers, say, thirty-six thousand dawns, then the equivalent span of a Dragon would be more than one hundred thousand thousand years.”
    Gwylly gasped, then blurted, “One hundred thousand
thousand
!”
    “Aye, wee one: one hundred thousand thousand years.”
    Gwylly turned to Faeril, his mind boggled by a number so large, unable to grasp even a glimmering of what it meant. The damman, seeing the confusion in the buccan’s wide eyes, said, “Let me see if I can put this in terms that we can understand, Gwylly.”
    She thought a moment as they continued trudging up slope. “Mayhap this will serve: I have heard that there are seven thousand grains in a pound of wheat.”
    Gwylly nodded, for he had heard the same from his foster father, though he surely did not know who would have counted them.
    Faeril continued: “And, too, I have heard that there are some fifty to sixty pounds of wheat in a bushel.”
    Again Gwylly nodded, for often he had helped with the harvest, and a bushel of wheat weighed nearly as much as he.
    “Well, then,” said Faeril, “if that’s so, then a bushel of wheat contains some”—the damman did a quick reckoning in her head—“oh, say, four hundred thousand grains altogether.”
    Gwylly shrugged, vaguely irritated, feeling ensnared in an arcane academic exercise. “If you say so. But what’s this got to do with—?”
    Faeril held up a hand, and Gwylly fell silent, and buccan and damman continued striding through the snow, while she did another quick reckoning. “Then that means that two hundred and fifty bushels of wheat contain one hundred thousand
thousand
grains.”
    Gwylly looked at her blankly.
    “Don’t you see, Gwylly, if each one of those grains was like one year in a Dragon’s life, it would take two hundred fifty bushel baskets full of wheat to have enough grains to number the years of a Drake.”
    At last this was something that the buccan could visualize, for Orith had sown and harvested wheat: In his mind’s eye Gwylly saw two hundred fifty bushel baskets stretchingout before him, each full to the brim with grains of wheat, each grain representing a year. He envisioned one basket spilled—for he’d spilled them—the grain spread in a uniform layer across a wide