“I do not know, other than he chose to act alone; he did not call on me. He sent away those who might have aided him. I saw once, from a distance, that he was training them … I thought for war, but they told me after it was to run and hide.”

“He chose death, you mean.”

“He chose not to risk the others,” the dragon said. “If he had chosen death, he could have died before.” He held out his arms. “Will you take him?”

Arcolin felt tears running down his face. “Yes,” he said. Stammel seemed heavier without life in him; Arcolin almost staggered under the weight. The dragon picked up the crossbow and the ring and put out an arm, just under his own, and together they walked back to the gates.

They cleaned the body and dressed it in uniform once more—the uniform Stammel had sent back over a year before. Arcolin fitted the foxhead ring on Stammel’s heart-hand, and they laid his body on a plank to carry it out to the Company burial ground. Arcolin sent word to the villages, where veterans who had fought alongside Stammel now lived. Solemn-faced recruits who had known Stammel only from veterans’ tales stood at attention in the courtyard when his body was carried past.

As they came through the gates, Arcolin saw in the distance a shining helm glinting in the sun and a red horse galloping toward them beside a road already crowded with people from Duke’s East. Arcolin held up his hand, and they all halted until she rode up.

“I hoped you would come,” Arcolin said.

“How—?” she began, and then shook her head. “Afterward,” she said.

With the veterans, she sang the “Ard hi Tammarion,” so long the traditional death song of the company that Arcolin had never considered changing it. The dragon-man came forward and looked Paks in the face but did not ask if she was wise.

“Sister and daughter,” he said. “Blessings.” Out came the tongue. “Honor me, if you will.”

“Blessings,” Paks said, and touched her tongue to the line of fire with no hesitation at all. Arcolin heard gasps from the others.

The dragon did not stay after the funeral rites but changed, there in broad daylight, in the sight of all. Then he rose into the air and glided away on dark wings.

“Dragon wants everyone to know dragons are back in the world,” Paks said.

“It is not the first time you met,” Arcolin said.

“No—but how did you know?”

“It did not ask if you were wise,” Arcolin said. “As far as I know, that is what it asks everyone on first meeting.”

“It called me, summer before this last,” Paks said. “I thought it was the gods’ call at first. I left the Marshal-General staring after me when I rode away. Maybe it was … but what I met was Dragon.”

“You don’t know its name?”