by Marc Secchia
Me?
Liar.
He chuckled gruffly. We had a Dragon-to-Dragon chat, aye. Why, did he say something to you?
Only that he had mistaken my intentions and wronged me, and would appreciate the chance to work together more closely in the future. The yellow Dragoness cracked her jaw open in a shy smile. Was it very hard work, convincing him?
No. I did no pleading or begging, and as you can see, I even avoided being beaten to a pulp for my temerity.
How?
He said, ‘Work closely together’ – in just that way?
She sucked in a sharp breath. Aye …
Well, it appears you must have made quite the impression, Chalice. I’ll tell you, dozens of other Dragonesses have tried and failed, but you – ouch!
The Dragoness snorted, Don’t even pretend that little tap hurt you. Dragon – the truth, please.
I told him to give himself a chance.
That brought Chalice up short! What? What do you mean?
I don’t know either. Juggernaut has always been a famously private Dragon. He’s told me nothing about his past. However – Dragon nudged her shoulder playfully, and teased in a lilting growl – I think his fires burn ever so bright for the yellow, the yellow, the fiery little yellow …
She clouted him again.
He grinned to himself. Job well done.
Chapter 12: Rains in Amboraine
AFTER LUNCH, THE RIDERS switched positions once more. Inzashu with Yarimda. Azania considerably out-muscled by Yardi. Seeing them together, it became clear to him that adult Humans varied in stature and bulk as much as Dragons. At six feet and two inches of solid muscle, Yardi stood a foot and a half taller than the Princess and measured a foot wider, too. She must weigh at least two and a half times his tiny Rider. Interesting. He wondered if Humans treated bigger people as special. His unusual stature amongst Dragons made others leery of him, or painted a target upon his back.
Such a massive bruiser.
So intimidating.
GNARR!!
“Something you’d like to share, Dragon?” Azania asked politely.
“Just clearing my throat,” he suggested, flexing his shoulders until the muscles rippled beneath her feet. Would Aria like the new, freshly peeled look?
Imaginary conversation: Aye, Aria, I’m like an onion, a complex, virile creature of many layers. And she would reply: Shall I peel you a little further, you big beast, to reveal yet more complexity?
Ouch. Not very appealing.
True to form, his reaction had absolutely not passed the Princess by.
“Ready to assault the high passes, team?” he roared.
Various ‘aye’s’ and ‘ouch, my ears’ greeted his outburst. On that note, they winged up into the sky in a long, long thirty-five-degree incline. After an hour, Chalice complained about his holding back for her. Dragon snidely suggested he might take her upon his back as well, which had the desired effect of firing up her rage as the slope turned to sixty degrees, finally soaring into a spectacular vertical cliff face that had the advantage of hosting a breeze that could only be called a thermal by virtue of the fact that it was warmer than the biting cold that otherwise surrounded them. Nice rest. Both Dragons spread their wings and circled upwards. He helped Inzashu to check all their Riders, including herself.
“You’re doing better this time,” he told her.
Desert Princesses were not half bad at growling, he had discovered. Now was such an occasion.
Chalice said, “I scent bad weather on the other side of the pass.”
“Storm?”
“Aye. I’ve a reliable weather sense.”
Intriguing. Like his emotional sense? He had heard of weather senses and even a gold-sniffing sense, for that matter.
“Let’s put down where the ridge flattens out, up there,” he suggested, pointing with his foreclaw. “Get our Riders ready for a rough ride – reason being, we need to straightaway go down the other side to get everyone back to a safe altitude.”
“Very good.”
“Is the Kingdom of Amboraine all white people?” Inzashu asked unexpectedly.
“Very much so,” Yarimda said. “All of the Kingdoms north of the Tamarine Range are white-skinned apart from Vaylarn, as best I know.”
“Kind of strange to imagine it,” she said.
“You’ve been to Chakkix Camp,” Dragon said.
“Mostly white, with a few tan and desert folk,” Yarimda pointed out. “Darker tones are definitely in a minority unless you’re in the south – and Thobe, Trondis and Lymarn, I believe. Are there not many peoples beyond Skartun, Princess Inzashu?”
“Very many,” she agreed. “Only one tribe is white. They are called albinos – not in a positive sense. Many people hunt them for their body parts, said to be useful in dark magic rituals.”
“Isn’t that in the realm of Unicorns?” Dragon asked.
“Mythical,” Azania said, at the same time as her sister said, “Real.”
They shared sisterly glares-into-smiles. The older sister made an inviting gesture with her hand.
“I once spent several months in Altyrine while living with my mother,” she said. “She was hunting Unicorns. I was young, but I remember that was the first time I learned that she was evil – this beautiful Unicorn foal, as black as the darkest night, had his hoof caught in her snare. I remember his terror all too well. We spoke … he helped me to understand, and I let him go. Nahritu-N’shula was so furious. I … I remember that, too. It was the first time she beat me until I bled.”
She rubbed her arms.
Raising his paw, Dragon touched her knee. “I am sorry about your dam, Inzashu.”
“I’m sorry about yours.”
“I guess we share that dam problem,” he put in helpfully, and then when everyone shouted at him, had to splutter that it was an unfortunate slip of the forked tongue.
Great. He’d misbehave more in the future if this was the kind of hornet’s nest he could stir up!
Could command of Equitone, the horse language, run in the family? Mental note to check that one of these or those days.
Shortly, they put down on a steep slope at the foot of the final climb up the pass, a crack between peaks which over many years must have been filled with snow and ice. Chalice urged quiet and haste due to the instability under paw. Right she was. The very instant they took off once more, the slope shifted and an avalanche began that quickly spread over a width of several hundred Dragon-lengths.
He nodded to Chalice. “Good call.”
The Dragons winged upward once more, each wingbeat tougher than the last. The air became noticeably thinner, their heavy breathing steaming like smoking fumaroles as they worked their way up the endless slope. Inzashu worked initially with Yarimda, but soon had to support the others as well. Here they went. Over the top and out onto a plain of several miles that led to one more smaller ridge. Beyond that? Nothing but a gorgeous blue sky into which the white tops of cumulonimbus billowed upward, visibly gaining altitude every second.
Decent storm, he gasped.
It’s boiling up nicely, Chalice agreed. Still ten miles off, but closing in fast. We need to shift tail, Dragon.
Aye. Slipstream me.
Thunderstorms could reach heights of over ten miles, Dragon knew from measurements taken from these very slopes. Another moment with his nose buried too deep in a scroll. No overflying anything like this. As they panted along and finally hit the top, he realised just how skewed his perspective had been. Monster!
“Wow!” Azania exclaimed.
“Spectacular even without my spectacles,” Dragon agreed. “Come on, let’s fly!”
Yardi said, “Azania, are his jokes always this bad?”
“No, they are wonderful,” she said. “Truly magnificent exemplars of intellectual prowess and mental agility.”
“One speculation is that you’ll be walking from here on out,” he clarified.
Yardi burst out laughing. “Figure
s.”
“Does indeed. So?”
“Wonderful sense of humour – cough, cough,” she replied.
“Cheeky. Drop you off halfway, shall I?”
Tilting onto the downslope now, he and Chalice picked up speed – which was just as well, because the wind began to gust directly into their muzzles. They charged together down a long V-shaped valley which must offer wonderful views of the lowlands beyond to those equipped to enjoy them. He saw a blur of green beneath a grey-black wall. The upper clouds turned crimson as Ignis eclipsed Taramis, but the red giant was in turn partially eclipsed by two moons. That lent the storm a malignant cast that made his new scales prickle urgently.
Careful as we go over the edge here, Chalice cautioned as they approached the end of the valley. It’s a drop like few others, and known for the vicious wind shear. Gain some height.
He followed her caution. Two hundred feet clearance as they hit the end. Sheer cliff! No wonder this was no viable route for foot traffic, for the drop off the far end was prodigious, perhaps exceeding seven thousand feet in several giant steps.
The yellow Dragoness cried out as the storm winds buffeted them sideways.
Dragon sideslipped with her, trying to control his speed and descent, to shadow her until she could regain control. Chalice wobbled as she righted herself. They swept outward in a fast descent, driving away from the immediate danger but further into the storm. Pockets of air caused them to wobble violently again, dropping tens of feet before suddenly pummelling them upwards. Dragon rode the roughness as best he could, but he felt every one of his riders’ cries as they were hammered mercilessly side to side, up and down.
Krack! His head twisted in shock. One of the leather belts on his back had snapped, slewing Yardi sideways. Azania grabbed her by the boot, but the larger woman’s weight combined with the gale-force wind was too much. Her fingers tore away. With a cry, the armourer slid out onto his wing surface.
Chalice whipped beneath him, clearly aiming for the catch, but a violent downdraught sent her tumbling; it collapsed his wing, too, but he barrel rolled with the wind’s punch to come in above Yardi – not where he intended, however. Hind paw snatch! He scragged her in the region of her extremely well-padded rear end, given how well they had covered up for the extreme altitude, and juggle-bundled her into his other rear paw before everything unravelled and he lost her again.
Tipping, struggling and jerking about, he righted himself. Now it was his turn to chase Chalice’s tail for a change, after she had been chasing his for the last hour.
“Yardi?” he called.
“Alive!” Aye, and as pasty as a poorly cooked Human pie. Good enough.
The storm winds finally eased as they continued to lose altitude, but now the rain sluiced down until Dragon could barely see ten feet ahead. The Dragoness led them lower and then a short ways along the cliffs to the west, until suddenly they flew in beneath an overhang and the rain stopped as if a door had been slammed shut.
Azania said, “Phew. Tell this desert girl again what’s to like about torrential rain?”
“Or storms?” the quivering bundle in his hind paw moaned.
“Or miles-high cliffs?” Inzashu put in.
“You silly children, that was amazing!” Yarimda crowed, throwing back her hood and shaking water out of her hair. “Decent flying, Dragon. What an adventure. Is that a cavern over there? Let’s land, please. This old lady needs to water a bush – too much excitement for the old bladder, I’m afraid.”
“Too much information,” Azania murmured.
Since Dragons usually landed on their hind paws first, he passed Yardi up to his forepaws before landing deftly on the rocky forecourt of the desired cave.
Chalice was already sniffing it out. “Wolf cubs. Let’s pick another further along.”
Everyone needed a rest after that short but entertaining episode. Dragon decided that when he wrote his memoirs, he would call this section ‘up and down the mountain.’ Was that not all there was to it?
* * * *
“It is plain that the rain in Amboraine gives great cause to complain,” Yarimda rehearsed with Azania and Inzashu, stressing the vowel glides of the Northern dialect.
“It is plain this rain does not fall down the drain, but onto my brain,” Inzashu quipped.
“If I may explain,” Chalice snorted, cracking one eye open.
Dragon sniffed loudly, “Puns are such a pain. Please refrain.”
“Don’t strain,” Azania said. “Look, I don’t think this weather is going to give up anytime soon. What say you we fly on to Amboraine and get dry there?”
“Dragons don’t melt in the rain.”
His Princess said, “It’s only twenty-seven miles from here. I want to check Aria’s tide schedule, but I’m worried about smudging the ink, what with everything being wet around here. No dry firewood either.” She pouted, “I want my silken sheets, a fragrant hot bath, fresh incense, girly clothes, a decent meal, a chance to primp my hair and paint my fingernails – is that too much to ask?”
“Aye,” he growled. “Watch out, I might mistake you for a real Princess.”
“Dragon!”
“Sorry, I mean a real storybook Princess. Not a real-real one.”
“Thin ice.”
“Do you rather mean the revolutionary sword-waving, Dragon-riding, battle-winning, kingdom-saving, setting leather trousers smoking sort of –”
“Dragon!”
He showed a few fangs lazily. “You haven’t tormented any knights in weeks. Losing your touch?”
Inzashu put in, “Why do dragons always sleep during the day?”
“Eh?” he grunted.
“They fight knights.”
GNARR!! “That’s a joke worthy of me.”
Yarimda said, “Call me old-fashioned, my dears, but I say that a true lady is entitled to wear whatever she likes within the bounds of decency without caring what others think – or indecency, in the case of a husband –”
“La la la!” Inzashu chuckled, covering her ears.
“There’s a good girl,” the old lady said, with a wicked smile. “You give that Azerim something to look at, Azania, and he’ll never look elsewhere.”
Blushing, Yardi said, “Grandmother, what kind of advice is that?”
“Good, honest advice. Just so we’re clear, it can be anything from the most magnificent ball gown to your silken scanties to just bare skin – you just wear it like a Dragoness wears her scales, and smoking will be the least of what you achieve.”
Inzashu puffed out her cheeks. “Ah … thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. What say you, sister?”
“Help?”
Yardi put in, “Grandmother, you’re absolutely terrible.”
“It’s about confidence – something you could stand to learn, dear one.”
“Me? I’m a muscly chunk of woman. Nothing girly about me.”
With a decent eye roll for a ninety-four year-old, she retorted, “You are curvy. Even your muscles are curvy. Yardi, you need to bear your body with confidence. You are big and beautiful; that is nothing to be ashamed of. By the time you reach my age, you’ll realise how silly society’s ideals are. I’ll give you a guarantee. Somewhere out there is a special someone whose eyeballs are going to pop out on stalks at the very sight of you, let alone when they discover the beauty that lives inside of you.”
Even Dragon had to glance away as they shared a tender hug. Such raw emotion. Would he be like this one day, aching to pass on just a few more of life’s lessons to his progeny before he passed beyond the fires of life?
With that, Yarimda declared her old bones were getting chilled.
Flying on … which meant soggy cloaks, steaming wet scales and a pounding rainstorm. Perfect.
Dragon flicked his wings as his team mounted up. “You don’t want to take a few fleas aboard, Chalice?”
“Oh no, you’re such a big, strong Dragon and doing such a fabulous job carrying all those people and equipment,
I’ll just admire you from over here.”
He pretended to preen. “Don’t admire me too much, or some other males might become jealous.”
The yellow Dragoness smacked his hind leg with her tail. “Insolent youngling.”
“Rain’s easing up – as in, diminishing from a raging torrent to a spirited river,” Azania chuckled. “Come along now, stop admiring yourself and shift your oversized behind, Dragon. I’ve a royal appointment to keep.”
“At least you won’t be half as smelly by the time we get there, Your Highness.”
With that, he stepped out into the streaming rain.
By the time the two Dragons spied the fortress town tucked up against the mountainside, it was not possible to be any more drenched. Inzashu had given up trying to wring out her clothing, or even complaining that she had no idea there could be so much water in the entire world. New rivers danced down the cliffs behind the city in playful white plumes. On the flat farmlands below the outer battlements, puddles ran together to turn into ponds and lakes. Not good for the crops. Was this unseasonable rain?
A break in the clouds presaged the rain finally deciding that enough was enough, at least for the moment – but as it cleared, they spied the next weather front looming close behind. Any more of this, and they would not be flying up to the Vaylarn Archipelago. Summer was supposed to be balmy weather.
He could not imagine flying through an oceanic storm.
Popping his spectacles on his head, he eyed the fortress city with interest. Someone must have had a few feisty neighbours in the past. No less than four semi-circular granite battlements protected the city. Right at the rear was a castle, carved back into the cliff itself if he was not mistaken.
It would take quite the hammer to crack this nut.
“Those lower gates are a touch small,” he commented. “Chalice might fit, but I –”
“Need to go on a diet,” his Princess giggled, kicking his back. Her boots squelched. “Do Dragonesses like skinny butts, Chalice?”
Chunky is hunky. How do you translate that, Dragon?
“I’m the toast of the Tamarine Mountains?”
