How many humans fought against us? she wondered.

Hundreds. But what does it matter? They did not kill us, and those we allow to escape will carry the word to their kind that they were foolish to try.

Why did they attack us?

The attack did not fit with her experience with humans. The people she had encountered had always been in awe of her, more inclined to serve her than attack her. Some had squeaked defiance, but she had found ways to bring them into line. She had fought humans before, but not because they had ambushed her. She had killed Chalcedeans only because she had chosen to ally herself with the Bingtown Traders, killing their enemies in return for their help for the serpents that would, after metamorphosis, become dragons. Could this attack be related to that? It seemed unlikely. Humans were so short-lived. Were they capable of such reasoned vengeance?

Icefyre’s rationale was simpler. They attack us because they are humans and we are dragons. Most humans hate us. Some pretend awe and bring gifts, but behind their flattery and cowering, there is hatred for us. Never forget that. In this part of the world, humans have hated us for a very long time. Once, before I emerged as a dragon, the humans here sought to destroy all dragons. They fed slow poison to their own herds to try to kill us. They captured and tortured our Elderling servants in the hope of finding secrets they might use against us. They destroyed our strongholds and the stone pillars by which our servants traveled in an attempt to weaken us. Those few of us they managed to kill, they butchered like cattle, using the flesh and blood of our bodies as medicines and tonics for their feeble bodies.

I do not recall any of this. Tintaglia searched her ancestral memories in vain.

There is much you do not seem to recall. I think you were encased too long. It damaged your mind and left you ignorant of many things.

She felt a spark of anger toward him. Icefyre often said such things to her. Usually after she had implied that his long entrapment in the ice had made him partially mad. She stifled her anger for now; she needed to know more. And the arrow in her side was pinching her.

What happened? Back then?

Icefyre turned his head on its long neck and gave her a baleful look. What happened? We destroyed them, of course. Humans are nuisance enough without letting them think they can defy our wishes.

They were nearing the spring at the heart of the oasis. Human carcasses littered the sand; swooping down into the basin was like descending into a pool of blood scent. In the late afternoon sun the corpses were starting to bake into carrion.

After we feed, we will leave here and find a cleaner place to sleep, the black dragon announced. We will have to abandon this spot for a time, until jackals and ravens clean it for us. There is too much meat here for us to consume at one time, and humans spoil quickly.