The Place
The Drakemoor is a moor of black scale-stone and ash, and the ash is the whole of the place, because a moor that is ash is a moor that has been kept, and the kept is the law. The moor stretches twenty kilometers from the grey ridge to the black river, and the twenty kilometers is the measure the dragon-kin trust, because a moor that has been counted is a moor that has been sworn, and the swearing is the grudge. The ground is packed scale-stone, a black that is more scale than color, and the black is the color of the kinship, which is to say it is a color you can see in the hold and not in the field. The ash over the moor is a pale grey, a grey that is more memory than dust, and the memory is the calendar, and the calendar is the word. The sky above the moor is a hard blue, the color of the ridge when the storm is far, and the light on the ash is flat and even, the kind of light that does not flatter a scale, and the not-flattering is the law. It smells of old ash and old heat, a smell that is the moor and is also the grudge, and the one sound under the ash is the crack, a slow low stone-on-stone from the center of the moor that is the grudge being read as a word, and the word is the kinship, and the kinship is the long. There is no landmark the way a moor has a landmark, but there is one: the First Hold, a heap of black scale-stone at the center of the moor, the oldest hold and the first grudge, and the hold is the door, and the door is the crack. What makes the Drakemoor itself is the grudge: the moor keeps its kin the way the kin keep the moor, and the keeping is the kinship, and the kinship is the word, and the word is the end.
How They Live
The Dragon Kin keep their moor in the scale-stone, living in holds of black rock and ash, their halls above the moor and their entrances at the moor's edge, and a hold is raised one stone at a time, because a stone is the season and a stone is the calendar. The holds are low and deep, a dark scale over a colder floor, and the dark is the wall and the colder is the law, and the law is the heat. Light comes from the moor — the flat grey of the ash, which holds the thin sun of the season and gives it back, and the giving back is the daylight, and the daylight is the kept. Food is the moor: the small game, the ash-fish of the black river, the ridge-moss, and the salt the traders leave at the ridge, and the game is the staple, because the game is the grudge, and the grudge is the kept. Water is drawn from the moor's springs, which the kin-keepers tend like a garden, and the tending is the craft and the craft is the rank, and the springs are the cold threads at the moor's edge, and the threads are the kept. Heat is the scale in the season of the cold, and the season is the year, and the dragon-kin have stopped asking the ash for more. The defense is the moor itself — a visitor who steps onto the scale-stone is already in the grudge's path, and the grudge is the alarm and the welcome and the sentence, because the moor has a count, and the count has a grudge, and the grudge has an end. The day is measured by the kinship, which is also the calendar, because the moor is the only clock the word needs, and the clock does not lie about what is owed. Every kin that is named must stand at the First Hold through one full crack before the moor will call it one of its own, and the standing is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the ash ever gives back.
People
Home of the Dragon Kin, whose holds are counted by grudge. Nine holds at the last count, and the count is kept by the kin-keepers, which is to say the count is as reliable as the crack, which is to say it is reliable until the word breaks. The kin-keepers lead, and rank is decided by the keeping, because a keeper who keeps a grudge the moor has forgotten is the keeper the hold trusts. Nothing that cannot stand is welcome, and the not-standing is not an insult, because the moor has a word, and the word has a grudge, and the grudge has an end. A traveler who once crossed the moor at the hour of the thin sun called it a country that keeps its grudges the way other countries keep their fields, and the calling was the truest thing he said and the thing the moor paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the kinship is the only honest thing, and the thing is the grudge, and the grudge is the word, and the word is the end. The Forgotten have crossed the moor once, on the way to the black river, and the crossing was in the season of the thin sun, and the thin was the decision. Uaellaen heard the crack once, at the center of the First Hold, and the hearing was the grudge, and the grudge was the only thing that lasted.