It was nearing the time when the hatchlings would be able to fly. Their wings had spread enormously, and the muscles that would drive their flight were powerful. Restlessly they would beat potent strokes with their wings, driving up miniature dust storms as the displaced air disturbed the dirt on the cave floor.



Unfortunately, it was also in these days that the first real winter storms started to blow cold from the north, roaring like a challenging drake through the crevices and formations of rock on the cliff face. The howls and battering sometimes frightened Rhehala and Iissell, and Khrath would rage about the cavern in his own whirlwind at the missed chance to test his wings. On a few occasions the storms became so terrible that even Hanorh was grounded to sit out the weather.



Aurha, by contrast, relished the wild weather, soaring off into the eye of the worst storms to pit her strength and wiles against the ice laden gales.



'Why does she go, Father?' asked Threha one time. 'Surely it's dangerous?'



Hanorh looked down at his daughter. There was no doubt that out of all the hatchlings she looked the most like her mother; the same shining scales, lithe form and eyes that almost seemed to glow. 'That is why she goes, My Star,' he explained. 'She is as wild as the wind itself, and needs to feel the strongest of storms beneath her wings.' His eyes took on a faraway and wistful look as he recalled the shining dawn when he had seen his mate for the first time.



'But why? When she can stay warm and dry inside the cave?' The small drakka was huddled close to her sire's flank, seeking warmth from the heat of his fire. She had definitely inherited the silver's love of the sun.



'She doesn't feel the cold. She is known to her own clan as the Northern Star and is renowned as the wildest of drakkas.'



'I never knew Mother had a clan.'



'Only northern dragons do.'



'Is this going to be a story, Father?' Threha asked. If it was, she was going to have to be more comfortable. Hanorh smiled indulgently and nodded, requesting softly that Threha's siblings come and listen too. Khrath, Seshkra and Handreth turned reluctantly away from the cave entrance where they had been looking out longingly and were watching flakes of white stuff falling through the wind, beating Drethse and Rhehala, who left off their bout of wrestling and raced Iissell to the best spot on their father's haunches. It went without saying that Seshkra got Hanorh's head.



'Tell us the story now, Father!' Threha begged. She loved falling asleep to the sound of her father's lulling voice.



'Very well.'





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Despite the dark skies that swelled like the steely crests of waves on northern seas, churning with the brooding of storm threats, the air was eerily empty. Aurha, the sole creature in the sky, glided above the black branches of the forest, the boughs like grasping claws making no sound save for the creaking of wood. There was no prey here, and no storms to chase. Her keen dragon sight was trained instead on a slight figure dressed in white, and a small contingent of badly concealed guards. Banking lower, the copper smiled to herself. Humans were such queer animals; so certain of their dominance, and yet so unaware of their fragility – one failed harvest, one disaster, and they would all die away.



None of them noticed anything until the displaced wind from beneath the dragon's wings ruffled the bushes of the clearing. By then it was too late. The copper dragon landed with force enough to make the ground shake, a snarl curling its lips and fire glowing in its hungry eyes. The men rushed to the aid of their queen and prince, daggers flashing, shouting curses. Aislinn halted them.



'Stay your swords,' she commanded. 'This dragon is a friend.' To the utter amazement of the soldiers, the dragon chuckled. Or, at least, a deep rumbling sound echoed from the dragon's chest that sounded like laughter.



'You have them well trained Aislinn,' Aurha observed in the Celtic tongue. She cast an amused glance at the startled men. Obviously to them dragons were just dumb beasts.



'It's been a long while, Arach,' Aislinn replied, bowing reverently. 'I have missed seeing your flight.'



'I have missed our conversations,' Aurha added. 'Is this your hatchling?' The infant, knowing he had turned the topic of conversation, jerked his head towards the giant copper dragon above him, and Aurha saw something unsettling in his blue gaze. Something cold and cruel as steel.



'Einon,' Aislinn called him. The tiredness in her voice showed that she had seen what lurked in the child's soul, too.



'Hmm,' the drakka growled. 'Half Celt, half Saxon. Arthur was such.' This musing Aislinn knew was tipped by a darker sight. Since time immemorial her people had listened to the wisdom of dragons, and she trusted Aurha's judgement completely.



'What is wrong, Arach?' she asked anxiously when she said nothing more. Despite the likeness of Einon's features to his father's, and the suspicion that he could just grow up as mean-spirited, she still bore a mother's love and worry for him.



'I feel a shared fate with this boy, a bleak future for my family,' the copper said slowly, feeling her voice rising from a recess of her soul that had once been called prophecy by one far older and wiser than herself. 'I see blood. Though alike Arthur in ancestry, he bears no likeness in temperament. His father's blood flows too thickly in his veins.'



'That is what I feared,' Aislinn admitted.



'Do not despair so totally, Aislinn,' Aurha said sternly.



'But what shall I do?' the queen almost begged. 'I see his father's evil inherent in his eyes always, and every moment spent with his sire only increases it.'



'He needs a tutor,' Aurha observed, watching the young prince find a snail in the grass and crush it, giggling with delight at the squelch. 'One who knows the once ways, and will teach him honour. A knight of the Old Code.' The copper's eyes took on that faraway glaze again. 'Only a knight of the Old Code, a friend of dragons, can still the darkness in the boy's heart.'



A sharp wind gusted through the clearing, cutting the silence that had welled up. The guards shifted their weight nervously while their horses pranced and whinnied for fear of the dragon smell. Einon continued crushing snails. Eventually Aurha looked up into the sky; the clouds swirled with a greenish tinge that meant the worst of storms was closing rapidly; snow froze its scent on the wind.



'You should return to shelter,' she advised. With one last glance at the boy, the drakka spread her wide coppery wings, and with one mighty beat, launched herself back into the sky.





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If you go far enough north, the land never ceases to be white with ice, and the very air is frozen still, because it is so cold. In the summer there is no night, and in the depths of winter there is no day. The land at the top of the world stays in darkness for half a turn of the year. These are the lands that your mother was born in.



In that place there are no men, save for a nomadic people who worship dragons as the bringers of sun in the Spring, and the stars shine so closely that it seems you could touch them if you flew high enough. Because prey is scarce, dragons live solitary lives, feeding on herds of large hoofed mammals and warm bloods that are almost like fish and raise their young under the ice in the summer. Once a year they gather at a half-moon of black rock to choose mates, present young to the world, and reunite with family. The young drakes and drakkas are presented to an old white drakka who, as the stories go, was once the mate of Rheshrah. She is blind, and her wings are withered, and they say she has the Gift of divination. She sees into the souls of the hatchlings brought before her, and titles them according to what she sees.



A new sound in the wind made the silver pause, tensing for battle, but it was only Aurha, landing at the cave entrance with all the weight of a feather, snow collected on her wings.



'Don't stop because I'm here,' she purred, her claws clicking on the rock. The hatchlings peeped in joy to see their mother safely returned, and she greeted each of them in turn.



'Your scales are like ice,' Hanorh complained as she settled down next to him. She ignored the comment and laid her head on his talons.



'Get on with the story, drake.'



Hanorh tenderly licked his mate's muzzle. 'If you so command.'



When Aurha was brought before Lhuthall, great shafts of green and red and gold lights appeared in the sky – the Lights of the North – and glittered off the scales of all the dragons present. They all took it as a sign of specialty. Lhuthall herself whispered the future to the young copper. Nobody knows what she said.



'Except Mother,' Seshkra pointed out, looking expectantly down on her mother, who cracked one eye open lazily. Suddenly there was a clamouring to hear the secret words, but Aurha refused. She had been forbidden from retelling it, but the words still echoed in her head as if she were among the Moonrocks still.



You will fly further than any of us, Daughter, the old drakka had whispered. You will hatch a warrior, on whom the greatest destiny will be laid. Blood will be shed for you, and you will be the cause of a terrible revenge. Your freedom and fire is your curse, but it will bind you to the South Wind and bring you no more to the glittering tundra of your home.



The last part had come true, she was bound by love to a dragon of the south, and she had not seen her home since the night she was named Northern Star. She was he fixed point around which Destinies navigated, the pebble that set off the landslide, the spark of rage that caused a dragon to burn his enemies to ash.



'Please mother, tell us?' persisted Threha. 'It'll help with the story.'



'Your father is telling the story,' Aurha replied sternly. 'All he knows he will tell you.' Her head dropped back onto her mate's claws and snuggled into his warm chest. Hanorh sighed.



Lhuthall then looked into the young drakka's soul, and saw her free spirit, her heartstrings twined with the wind itself. This drakka would try to touch the moon, and soar through the skies of every land, making great tempests her playthings. And thus, the drakka was given the title of Northern Star, and she did indeed roam far, across mighty oceans and vast continents, learning the ways of men and beasts and all of Nature, until, after many turns of the year she settled in a jewel studded cave high up on the side of a cliff, and there she has remained ever since.



Hanorh fell into silence and nuzzled his mate. Almost immediately there were clamourings from those of his hatchlings that had not been lulled into sleep by the melodious tones of his voice. The silver sighed, deciding Aurha could handle the situation.



'Tell us more!' Drethse demanded.



'Yes, mother, tell us more about your adventures!' Threha agreed. Aurha raised her head with deliberate slowness and looked at them indulgently.



'Some other time perhaps,' she said. 'But right now you all must sleep – I have been speaking with the wind, and it tells me that tomorrow is the day that you shall fly.' The excited flapping and squawking of young dragons echoed around the cavern for several minutes. 'Hush, now, and sleep,' the copper scolded. 'You will need your wits about you when the day breaks.'



Obediently the hatchlings settled down and, with one sly eye on their parents pretended to sleep, though excitement sent shivers through their untested wings.