Bitar nodded. “Yefs. And they were much too fsalty.”
“We need fsome chewy food. We’re teething.” Smitar proudly displayed tiny flecks of white in his pink gums.
“fSome fsquid would be nifce.” Biter showed his gums too. And then the sphinx turned up with Cruz. Liz’s assessment of the bio-dynamics of a flying creature the size of the sphinx was not inaccurate. Only with effort could Throttler carry more than one adult human.
Still. The “gap” between Ur-Egypt and a sphinx in Ur-Greece seemed to be a narrow one. She was able to ferry them “through” quite fast. The dragons left Lamont to cavort around Cruz.
“How old are they?” Lamont asked.
Medea shrugged. “Quite young, I think. My grandfather stole the eggs from the mountain eyrie. About sixty years old, I suppose. They’re very slow growing. And quite rare. Apparently they do not breed until they are at least half a century old. And they lay very few eggs.”
Liz, standing nearby, began to understand why the species might have become extinct.
* * *
The small coastal town, with its sphinx-guarded temple, was abandoned. Understandably, as the dragons had been hanging around for a few days.
Looking at the nets hung out to dry, Jerry cleared his throat. “Look, this is what I suggest. Let’s feed Bitar and Smitar . . . ”
“Good idea!” Bitar caressed him affectionately with a long forked snaky tongue. At least Jerry hoped it was a caress. Snakes tasted with their tongues, didn’t they?
“Yefs! Ecfthallent!” agreed Smitar, sticking a snaky tongue-point into Jerry’s ear.
“Shut up. Let him finish,” said Medea. “Go on, Doc Jerry.”
“Um, as I was saying, get them full of gas. Then hook up one of those nets . . . ”
“Can we use it to catch fsome fsquid firfst?”
“Shut up, Bitar. Or I won’t scratch you any more,” said Cruz.
“Hook the net between the two of them and get Throttler to tow it. That should be much lighter for the dragons than a chariot, and much faster than their ‘swimming’ through the air.”
“One of you dragons wouldn’t like a fight, would you? I haven’t fought anything like you before,” said the small bowlegged man, clad only in a loincloth and his short leopard-skin cloak.
“Bes! What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Liz.
Bes scratched his topknot so that the ostrich plumes danced. “Told you. I came for the fighting. My sort of fight, against the odds. Besides, I’m the Protector. I’ve got a feeling you might need me. Oy! Leave off with the hugging!”
* * *
The concept worked remarkably well. Of course, in practice it meant you only had some flax cord from a fishing net between you and a long fall. The sphinx needed to take advantage of thermals to fly any real distance. That meant getting up really high. A long way above that wrinkled landscape.
Looking across the water from a height, they could see a dark pall to the west. “Greece. It is burning,” said Throttler grimly.
Jerry clung to the netting. The four layers of net seemed pretty fragile from up here. But he was doing better than Henri, who had been sick several times. The Frenchman was gray and sweating, and rather blue around the lips.
Still, by the time the sun was sinking and the thermals were getting harder to find, they’d covered many miles.
They landed in an open meadow, in the late afternoon. The sphinx and the dragons were tired. Besides, the dragons needed regassing. The rest of the party, glad to be on terra firma, set off for a small village they’d seen from the air. It looked like there were about six little buildings, surrounded by a patchwork of fields and gray-green olive groves on a little plateau above the blue Aegean. It hardly seemed a threat, and it beat hunting for food. They could trade some metal, and everyone would be happy. Bitar and Smitar didn’t understand why they could not come along.
“Phtt! Why do you want to trade for food when we can frighten them all off and just help ourfselvefs?” hissed Smitar.
“Yefs, and maybe there’ll be some maidenfs.” Bitar was ever hopeful. “I fstill want to tafste maidenfs cooked American-fstyle.”
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