Mary Herbert: Legacy of Steel

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.