Dragon's Siege

by Daniel Potter

  “My mother spewed lies with every breath.” Ishe gave a strained laugh.

  “Then on the life of your sister,” Drosa snapped.

  Also as honest as an actor on the stage. Ishe thought better of going for a third oath anchor. “I swear on Yaki’s mortal life to be an honest Coyote with you.” As the she spoke the words, something clamped around her heart; it had teeth to let her know the oath meant business.

  Drosa’s hand trembled and Ishe wondered if she’d reject the promise. Then she threw Ishe’s head away from her. “Accept!”

  Ishe’s hands went to cradle her abused canine nose but found it to be suddenly nonexistent, fingers finding empty air where it had been. Only a sympathetic throb in her own human nose remained. As she pushed herself back, her feet she found that all her phantom features were retracted, beneath the surface of the human instead of over them. Not absent like before they stole into the alley. The air still had the biting scent of Drosa’s anger.

  Drosa herself leaned against the wall, arms crossed, lips pursed. Her skin had dulled somehow and the shadows clung to her body. Ishe cocked her head with curiosity and not a small amount of worry. “Drosa?”

  “Eyah gone now. He angry and tired,” she said. “He not help us today.”

  “And what about you?” Ishe asked.

  In response, Drosa laboriously pulled herself from the wall and stood in front of Ishe. With the stiffness of a military drill, she turned sideways and jabbed a hand out as if it were a blade. Cautiously, Ishe took it in her own. Drosa uncoiled a fraction and released her own sigh. “Can we get herbs that smell good in city while we find Yaki?”

  “Uh, yes?” Ishe frowned.

  “Good, ’cause your breath smell like dog’s and I not kiss you like that.” A wry smirk appeared at a corner of Drosa’s lips.

  “That’s better than a knife to the throat.” Ishe let herself chuckle under her breath as they walked back toward the street.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fear fire uncontrolled. For should a blaze get hot enough, large enough, it will birth the salamanders. Ten legs of flame hungry for anything that has escaped its mother.

  Seek Fire, Chief of the Turtle Clan of the Low Rivers Tribe, Lorekeeper

  “Yaki, I don’t think this is the right tunnel.” Gama’s tone had pitched up to an annoying octave as Yaki fiddled with the door in front of them.

  “Went left,” Yaki grumbled. The door had not been used in some time, and its iron latch shed rust as she turned the handle.

  “You have a strange definition of left,” Gama said as Yaki swung the door open. Light made her blink away the glare of the morning sun. She let out a snort, expelling a small plume of smoke from her nose. Only the sounds of scattered birdsong came to her ears. They were nowhere close to a market, any market. Shooting a warning glance at Gama, she stalked up the incline and into an alleyway. The tunnel door had been styled to resemble a cellar entrance for the house above it. The air greeted her with a lungful of horse manure and a total absence of people.

  “Yaki,” Gama whispered urgently, but Yaki ignored him as she scanned the still houses that lined either side of the alley. Mud-brick construction itched at her brain. Where were they?

  “Yaki, your eye!” Gama grasped her shoulder. She whirled to face him.

  He flinched back. “Seven gods!”

  “What?!” Yaki nearly shouted at him and then abruptly realized she had both eyes open.

  “It’s, uh, shiny?” Gama gulped.

  Her mind dredging up rude descriptions of dragon anatomy, Yaki dug in her bag. She pulled a bundle of linen from her bag and unwrapped the mirror shard of glass. “Bungholes,” she swore in Draconic, covering her mouth with her free hand. In the light of the alleyway, her eye, the same one that had been run through with a rapier, shone like a piece of glass. The golden iris, speckled with flakes of silver, seemed to be composed of overlapping leaves of metal that hovered on the edge of mechanical. The iris extended outward, to the very edges of the eye, no white to be seen. Even the tear duct had become silvered. Experimentally, Yaki probed it with a finger: warm and hard, smooth as a piece of glass. Instinct battled her to close the eye, but touching it produced no discomfort. She shut it, and still the rim of her eyelid caught the light. No eyelashes; rather, tiny golden scales glittered along her lid’s edge. .

  The shard dropped from loose fingers and she clasped the sides of her head as if she sought to prevent it from bursting with the despair that welled up inside. It had come for her heart, her stomach, and even her words. Now it came for her face? It really was spreading within her. Taking her over. She thought back to the night before. Had she eaten any of the meat the hunters brought back? When Ishe had sworn that they would fix this, reverse this, Yaki had thought her sister to be overreacting. She had been thinking all the perks: stronger, tougher, a weapon no one could take away. So what if the diet became unusual? Her friends were crystal-touched now. But now, seeing that this remaking would not contain itself to her insides unleashed a fresh wave of fear.

  “Yaki?” Gama stood over her, his concerned magnified in his thick lenses. Hands hovered uncertainly toward her. An offering she could take right now, she had no doubt. But would he dance with a dragon? Would he brave daggered teeth, kiss metal scales?

  “Hold me,” she growled in Draconic, giving in to the temptation and falling into his chest. His arms closed around her shoulders as her breath hitched. Mother of wingless whelps! Clutchless queen! she swore, but the dragon curses supplied by her mind lacked any sting. They did nothing to stop the sobs from coming. Gama squeezed her tight and made soothing noises as she clung to him, shoulders heaving and saturating his shirt with her steaming hot tears. She found that her inhuman eye bore a tear line beneath it just as her original did. Guess I’ll always be an ugly crier. The thought brought a small quirk of a smile to her lips, and she managed to throttle off the sobs in two more breaths. Mumbling a thanks Gama could understand, she pushed away and stood apart. When his hands rested on her shoulders, she did not brush them off; instead, she focused on drawing breath in and forcing it out her nose until it stopped emitting tendrils of smoke. This is no different than when I came to this city, she told herself. I’m dying a little differently now.

  Wiping a tear out of her human eye, Yaki closed her other one. It itched. Ignoring it, she walked out into the streets, head down. Even if she got an eye patch, she’d have priests chasing her around. They would be coming soon anyway; it was only a matter of time. “Let’s go,” she said, moving toward the mouth of the alley.

  When she saw the stables that dotted the street, Yaki recognized the skeleton of the neighborhood they walked through. Gama’s sudden paleness confirmed it. “They listened.” He smiled weakly when his eyes caught hers. “Looks like the entire tribe left yesterday.” He gave several of the homes a long stare as they passed them, but did not stop.

  They soon found the sounds of the city, the shrieks of small children first, then the general sounds of life filtered in. As they cut through the tribal neighborhoods, many of the adults paused in their daily activities to watch the pair of them. Yaki didn’t think anything of it; she and Gama were strangers to these communities, after all, but the wary watching persisted even as they joined the main thoroughfare toward the market. Careful to keep her dragon eye closed, she checked herself over, trying to find the cause. She didn’t look remarkable, her dress a bit a stained after three days of rough-and-tumble. She’d stick out like a sore thumb in the upper districts but not here, not where the countryside and the city exchanged people. Paranoia. Yaki stole a few glances around herself. Nobody made direct eye contact, but many people stared in her general direction.

  The mark on her shoulder tingled, and there in the dirt beside her were distinct paw prints. She exhaled a curse and clenched her teeth as they walked on. The crowd parted before them, the space around them centered on the tracks appearing next to her boots.

  Yaki found herself drawn to a hot b
un cart. People got out of her way. The scent stirred memories but no hunger.

  “Never seen a mountain lion that big before.” The vendor smiled nervously as she handed over a pair of snow-white buns on a sheet of cream-colored paper. “Or that black.”

  As Yaki’s fingers brushed the vendor’s, she caught a whiff of smoke, not the tasteless stuff in her own lungs but sooty charcoal of pine and oak. Giving her the broadest smile Yaki could muster, she said, “What lion?”

  The vendor’s brows knit as she her eyes went back to the empty air next to Yaki. “Oh, dearie, you best see a priest, girl. I think you’re haunted.”

  The mark went hot enough to force a hiss from Yaki’s lips, and she swallowed it down. Trying again, she reordered the sound in her head. “Death Panther,” Yaki said, loud enough to be heard. “If you see. Flee.”

  A gasp came from a man at the other end of the stand.

  Yaki took a bite from one of the buns. The hot gravy and spice of the pork were nearly perfect. “Good.”

  “No charge.” The woman stepped back from her counter, flexing her fingers as if it pained her. Several people seated at the booth slipped back into the crowd.

  Taking her buns, Yaki resumed her walk up to the market, ducking down into the alleyways to cut through les- trafficked areas. Yet eyes found her. Vagabonds not yet forced into Enshadowment scrambled out of her way, shopkeepers emptying rubbish into the bins in the back froze mid-step, a young woman baring the tattoos of Low Rivers shouted “NO!” as she snatched up her black-haired child and threw herself back inside a building.

  With each person who fled or stared or even screamed, another drop of icy dread fell into her stomach. Gama said nothing, but his hands kept touching his sword. By the time Yaki stepped out onto the market square above the shadow of the wall, her body shivered for the first time since her heart had been replaced. As she stepped out from the shadow of an archway and into the sun, the glistening white marble of the square’s fountain grew dark with soot, light changing from the white of the sun to the sinister flickering of flames. Turning her head, Yaki watched the paper shades explode out of the windows, spreading burning fragments into the streets.

  Nothing moved but flame and wind.

  “Yaki?” Gama prodded her.

  She blinked and the morning sun greeted her, the vision overlaid, each eye seeing into a different world. The still crowd that surrounded her stared suspiciously from narrowed eyes and burnt-out eye sockets at the same time. As they stared at her, Yaki found her gaze pushed back to the fountain: it depicted the Steward’s plain throne, rendered in stone, adorned with paper animals of all shapes, frogs, fish, and cranes, all spewing out water of crystalline clarity.

  Flame licked up from the stone, heedless of the water, the stone charring as if it were nothing more wood. Something splashed into the fountain and all the staring people gasped. Could they see the charring stone? Or did they see the Death Panther herself lounging in the waters? Displaying herself to the crowd, letting them know that soon the teeth of death would close on their own throats? Soon, very soon. No, not just the square, the entire city. The Golden Hills as a nation.

  Slowly, the attention faded, people looked away, remembered what they had come there for, began to hesitantly chat with their neighbors, ignoring the sight of wet stone on fire.

  Yet Yaki still tasted ash in her mouth, feeling the Death Panther’s mark pushing her. No. Not simply the people in this city; everyone in the city would see the Death that padded beside her.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Yaki asked, not caring that she spoke in Draconic.

  “YAKI OF MADRIA!” Her name howled across the market. Turning, she saw a woman standing at the entrance to the square, flanked by four priests bearing crystal-studded weapons. The tall, lean woman wore a paper mask in the shape of a dog’s muzzle, lips pulled back in a snarl. The foot-long blades sprang from each of the fingers of a single hand. “Let us dance again!” Shuri nearly sang.

  Whirling to run, she found two more priests, spears at the ready, blocking the mouth of the alleyway, Gama somehow on the far side of them.

  “I need to speak to the Steward!” Yaki growled, but Shuri had leapt into the air, claws glittering in the sunlight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What are crystals? They are spirits forced to manifest into stones. They are eager things who only wish to be used.

  Seek Fire, Chief of the Turtle Clan of the Low Rivers Tribe, Lorekeeper

  Shuri’s blades whistled through the space where Yaki had been standing a moment before. Yaki popped up from the ground, her own blade extending until she held a rapier, trying to keep Shuri at bay.

  “I wonder who kicked your ass so hard that you risked coming back.” Shuri held herself as if she were offering a dance ,but her bladed fingers promised a far bloodier intimacy. The tips of her blades and Yaki’s rapier flirted with each other but neither lunged.

  “Here talk,” Yaki managed to spit out.

  The paper muzzle’s feral expression stretched into a smile. “What’s the matter, Yaki? Demon have your tongue? It certainly has your eyeball.”

  Yaki pressed her lips together to compose a response, and Shuri’s hand shifted. She barely sidestepped an extending blade that would have pierced her kidney.

  “Sloppy. You beat me last time. So shameful that I had to bring backup today. Try to make this interesting.” Multiple crystals sparked to life; Shuri bounced to the side then sprang forward, her blades sweeping up. Yaki twirled, bringing a short sword down across all four finger blades, only for the fifth on the thumb to flash out toward her head. Reflex flinched her away, but the thin blade stung across her temple.

  “Ha!” Shuri barked as she slashed at Yaki’s legs, driving her back. Circling, Yaki put a bench between herself and Shuri.

  “I need to talk to the Steward!” Yaki cried, lowering herself behind the bench.

  “I don’t speak demon.” Shuri raised her other hand, and the gem in her palm lit with a brilliant blue. Yaki dived back as lightning struck out from the weapon. The bolt sundered the bench with a deafening crack of stone. “You burned me, Yaki. Let me share what it feels like.”

  The vibrational hum of a power crystal shook Yaki’s chest. She scrabbled back to her feet and ran for the market booths, only to skid to a stop as three men stepped around the bend to cut her off. Still, better them than Shuri.

  Yaki charged as they flourished their weapons, spears of ice and fire. Thrusting her blade ahead of her, she extended it forward, aiming for the man’s unarmored thigh.

  Shuri fell from above, landing directly on the thin blade as it ran through flesh. Trapped beneath her, the blade buckled and snapped right at the base, leaving Yaki stumbling to a stop, armed only with a bladeless hilt of a rapier.

  It fell from her hand and clattered on the paving stones. “Steward, talk,” Yaki managed to say, taking a few steps back.

  “What has happened to you?” Shuri shook her head. “Last time, you said the nastiest things to me and now can barely string two words together? Maybe Mitsuo Nishamura really did stab you in the head. The great daughter of Madria, reduced to a simpleton.”

  “Death comes soon.” Yaki tried to pitch her voice towards her old octave but the words squawked out like a trained raven.

  “Demons always say that.” Shuri jabbed a clawed finger in Yaki’s direction.

  “Not demon, dragon,” Yaki said.

  “I don’t care what you are or why you came back. But I’ll make you a deal. You pick that back up and you don’t drop it until I’ve decided you’ve paid for this.” Shuri lifted her mask partially with her un-bladed hand. Yaki caught sight of a black nose on a small muzzle, terrier-ish. “Or I let the priests have you before you get to trial.”

  The entire city was going to burn, and this sanctimonious bitch wanted to get in the way of the only way to save them? That had to be the nature of the vision, perhaps the entire reason the Death Panther even saved her in the first place. But
it didn’t matter to Shuri if she managed to stammer out the warnings or not. Yaki felt the warmth of the blood running down the side of her face. And if she let Shuri beat the tar out of her, how would it heal?

  Of course, Yaki reminded herself, she wasn’t without weapons. She took stock while starting her lungs burbling. The rectangle had the fountain and the benches that encircled one end, with three aisles of merchants’ and peddlers’ stands occupying the rest of the space. Behind Shuri and her temple goons, merchants were hurriedly throwing things in bags. More priests blocked all the exits.

  Yaki took a step back.

  Shuri mirrored her step and kicked the shattered weapon. “I said pick it up, girl.”

  The hilt skipped along the stone; Yaki stepped out of its way, letting it roll past. It stopped in front of the broken bench Shuri had shattered with her lightning gem. Yaki doubted that even Yaz’noth would be able to put her back together after a direct hit from that sort of weapon.

  “Fetch it.” Shuri thrust out the palm that contained the lightning crystal as encouragement.

  Yaki glowered at the woman and studied her posture. Shuri’s feet were posed to leap forward. No doubt Shuri planned to leap at her as soon as Yaki’s fingers touched the hilt. Letting out a huff of steam, Yaki began comply, broadcasting reluctance with every muscle of her body. No priest made slightest noise of sympathy.

  Kneeling in front of the bench, Yaki positioned herself to the side of the ruined sword. The bench’s seat had been constructed of two-inch-thick bars of granite held there by the positioning of the bench’s ends. Now that it was broken in half, nothing held it in place. She made a show of bracing; the same time she reached out to her side for her sword’s handle, her other hand tightened its grip on the bar of stone. As her fingertip brushed the hilt, Shuri’s feet left the ground. Yaki swung her body and whipped the bar around. It slipped from her small hand and up at an oncoming Shuri. She batted it away, but two of her fragile claws snapped from the impact. The attack blunted, Yaki snatched up the other stone bar and let the fire she had been charging rip from her throat. Shuri shot backward, propelled by her wind gem, carrying her out of the range of the ten-foot plume of flame. Before the flame dissipated, Yaki hurled the second bar of granite with two hands. It twirled end of over end, like a thrown axe.