‘In a few months. If a babe has begun, I’ll lay in the spring.’
‘And if not?’
‘I’ll have another chance in a few years.’
“A few years?” I squeaked.
Donavyn looked at me curiously, but Barak apparently figured out what I was talking to my dragon about.
He chuckled. “As a rule, most females enter heat every four or five years. Sometimes longer if they’re already raising young. I think mothering is a drain on their energy.”
“Do the males not help?” I asked.
“They do, but mostly when the babies are much older. Those first years, the entire herd will assist the young in growing and learning. But it’s the mother they shadow. As they reach puberty, they tend to be drawn towards their fathers—especially the males.”
“When do they reach puberty?”
Barak shrugged. “Fifteen, twenty years?”
I gaped. “They’re babies until then?”
The Furymaster chuckled again. “A baby dragon is the size of a wagon horse. A ten year old wouldn’t fit in that horse’s stable. As I said, the young are raised by the herd at large—taught and disciplined by all the mature dragons. But they follow the mother to learn how tobea dragon.”
I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a baby following Akhane, and my heart thrilled. “Do they all stay?”
“After they’re sexually mature, the young males may fly solo for a time, either to increase their strength before returning to the herd, or, if the herd needs thinning, they may look for a mate or another herd in which they’ll have higher status. Or if they cross paths with a Primarch who dominates and orders them to stay.
I frowned. “Kgosi would let them leave for another Primarch?”
“As a rule, no. We don’t have the problem in Vosgaarde, but it’s not uncommon for herds to lack a Primarch, and those herds tend to scatter. With Kgosi here, we have no issues with dominance. Our problem is that we don’t find enough young. Our numbers are declining. We’re strong now because our herd is mature—mostly adult, not yet ancient. But in fifty, or onehundred years, things look very dire for the Vosgaarde herd unless something changes. Which is why we’re sending for the Fyrehold dragons.”
As we made it into another chamber, this one more steamy, with what appeared to be mud-pools at the back, I looked around, trying to pick out the dragon eggs among the rocks.
Barak walked towards the back, then stopped in front of a pair of what Ithoughtwere eggs because their shape was a little too uniform.
When Donavyn reached them he frowned and ushered me forward.
This cavern was much darker than the one near the cave entrance. The back walls rose high over our heads, glittering because water trickled from cracks somewhere overhead. It smelled here, too.
When I reached the men, Barak turned and gestured at the two eggs behind him. “These are the two we think aren’t viable.” He looked very concerned.
“How do we find out?”
“Normally, if the egg were unfertilized, the female would remove it herself and take it away. I’m not sure what the females do with the unfertilized eggs. So, when these were left, we assumed they were fertile. But they’ve both been here over a year and were from females that don’t have mates. Still, they haven’t removed them either. So, we’re unsure.”
“Wait, they’ll take them away?”
Barak nodded. “Any female who enters heat without taking a mate can make an egg. But those that have no young will take them away.”
“Take them where?”
“We don’t know.”
“What do the females who laid these two say?” Donavyn asked. His voice was deep, and it echoed in this space so I felt it in my ribs. Or maybe that was the bond.
It was hard not to touch him. We weren’t often in each other’s company casually, unless we were with my brothers, who knew about our bond. I had to keep catching myself before I touched his back, or reached for his hand.
“One left the herd. That’sodd. Usually if a female demonstrates that she’s fertile, she’ll be fought over by the younger, unmated males. But this one wasn’t home bred. She joined us as a young dragon, from the wild. I’m not sure she ever settled. Well, she must not have, because she left alone, then disappeared. The other mother doesn’t want to talk to me about it.” When I looked at him, confused, Barak shrugged. “When a dragon isn’t bonded, they’re pricklier about what they’ll share,” he said. “I don’t press if they don’t want to talk.”
