Still here? I congratulate you! It gets MUCH better near the end, you'll see. Hang in there!
Disclaimer: Earthsea is not mine, I'm just playing around in it for the time being.
Miril
The next morning Ged rowed down the center of the channel, deigning not to use a magewind. He saw dragons winging high above him or slithering over the rocks of distant islands, but they did not acknowledge him. They suspected that he had some business with the black she-dragon, and left him alone for the present.
By midday, Ged had passed the twin islands on his right, and two more on his left, and had truly entered the Dragon's Run. As he was lunching on an oaten cake, the she-dragon landed on the southern rock face of the nearest isle and hailed him.
"Approach," she called to him, rasping voice boring into the wizard's head. He obeyed cautiously, again keeping a good length of water between them. He held his staff in his hand, spells of binding and fire ready on his tongue.
The she-dragon lowered her great black head. "Eight sons," she sighed, breath scalding the rock between her taloned forefeet. "Six dead." She glared at the young mage with her haunting emerald gaze that would be death for any man to meet.
"How?" she asked, thrashing her spiked tail.
"Ah!" cried Ged. "So now you would speak to me rather than eat me?"
She turned her scaly head and viciously spat a column of flame into the air. "You are still no Dragonlord," she rumbled, half-opening her bat-like wings.
"Yet I hold information you would have for your own." He had that one power over her. She was quite small for an adult dragoness, and young also. The worms of Pendor had assuredly been her first brood and Ged knew that she- dragons spawned at most once every half-century. She was anxious to know the fate of her offspring, despite her efforts to hide it.
"I will tell you all that I saw and did on Pendor," said the mage, trembling yet composed. "I ask only that you swear not to harm any man ever again."
The dragon snorted, sending twin spurts of fire dangerously close to the Lookfar's prow.
"A harsh price," she grated. "I could seek out the Old One of Pendor myself."
"You will not," Ged said suddenly, standing up tall with a tiny gleam in his eye.
She stared at him, incredulous. "I will not?" she repeated venomously. "How could you, youngster, know what I will and will not do? My whim is my own!" She slashed a set of talons along the rock, trailing sparks as she left great scores in the stone. Ged winced at the sound, but straightened his shoulders.
"You will not," he proclaimed, "because Yevaud is still mad with fury at his defeat, and the sight of you would drive him to kill you. You know this; I know this. I know it as I know your name, Miril."
The moon shone silver and tranquil upon the Dragon's Run. It softly caressed Ged's face as he lay on his back in the Lookfar, staring pensively up at the stars.
The she-dragon Miril had heard out his tale, and bound by her promise she had laid not a claw on him. Ged admitted that he had been lucky that the first dragon he'd encountered this far West had been a weak one. She was young, inexperienced, and easily stirred by passions. He had been able to divulge her name not from books of lore as with the dragon of Pendor, but by that innate art that all mages have to some degree.
The other dragons had left him be, cautious ever since they had seen the she-dragon's grief go unpunished. They expected that he had some mastery over her, and were uneasy. He had seen it as they watched him out of the corners of their deadly eyes. Ged knew that he could not count on their caution for long; soon another dragon would draw near for a taste of human flesh.
Ged, you lucky dog! I hope you all picked up on the hints I dropped as to Miril's identity. If you did not, go back to "A Wizard of Earthsea" and read the bits describing Yevaud and his children. So, on to the next chapter!