I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2)

by Marc Secchia

  Azania said, “Keep lying right through those fangs, Dragon. Chunky is hunky, eh? I think we can go with that – but you can’t fit through that outer entryway, that’s for certain. Over to your left wing, Dragon, there’s a marketplace. Shall we land there and walk up?”

  “As long as those guards on the battlements don’t get too excited.”

  Chalice hissed, “Vertical drop? They can meet us in the marketplace – if they dare.”

  The Princess said, “Dragons. I give up! What is it about your devious, fiery hearts that you love to scare Humans witless? Is it some predatory instinct?”

  “Hours of fun,” he purred.

  Chalice shrugged. “I’ve never tried, but it sounds enticing. Do they scream and panic and run around like headless chickens?”

  “Fairly much. Try not to step on any. Nasty, squishy, warm fluids between the talons. Blergh.”

  “I need to brush up on my pillaging.”

  “Me too. Royal roar to announce your arrival, Princess Azania? Mwaa-haa-haa!”

  “As long as you promise not to harm so much as a mouse while we’re down there, be my guest. This is an official royal visit with a kingdom that might very soon be allied with mine through marriage. For my brother’s sake, best behaviour. You too, Chalice.”

  The Dragoness winked. “As you command, Highness.”

  “Or, if they threaten you …”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Dragon, would you just get on with strutting your stuff?” Azania cried. “Aye, you are handsome! Aye, you’re so huge my eyes water just thinking about it! Aye, you’re a fire breathing, muscle-stuffed egomaniac … we understand all of this! Block your ears, everyone, because mister pompous over here just has to show off his masculinity!”

  “The word you’re looking for is, ‘draculinity.’ ”

  “Whatever!”

  Cupping his paws to his mouth, he voiced a cry that was more sonorous and haunting than he had expected. He almost cut it off in surprise. What was this? But then his usual thunder reasserted itself, and he boomed, I AM DRAGON!!

  Ah, rattle those windowpanes and shake behind locked doors, puny Humans!

  Two Dragons were flying to town.

  Chapter 13: Royal Visit

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE Watch bowed with faultless formality. “To what do we owe the honour, Dragons?”

  His men, however, continued to hide behind a wedge of shields. Dragon wanted to be genteel and point out that their armour would not exactly save them from becoming hot tinned food, should the fancy take him. Darn it. Why, by his itching wings, had he agreed to behave himself?

  Oh, just a talon’s width of fun. Why not?

  He raised his forepaw for Azania. “Your Highness?”

  Despite the dripping cloak and waterlogged boots, his progressive royal was never one to miss the opportunity to seize an occasion by the scruff of its neck.

  She stepped regally onto his palm. “Honoured Dragon.”

  He conveyed her to ground level, whereupon she nonchalantly stepped off as if they had practised this manoeuvre a thousand times, glanced about as if she owned the very heavens, and bowed formally to the guards.

  “Good sirs, I am Her Royal Highness the Princess Azania of T’nagru, here on an official royal visit to my sister-to-be, the Princess Yuali of Amboraine.”

  “Your Highness,” said he, bowing once more. “How may I best serve you?”

  Ooh. He wanted a few servants to call his own. Maybe a royal butler. And fifty staff! This man pleased his draconic hearts very much indeed.

  “I should greatly appreciate it if you would appraise King Harilan of our presence. Please convey our apologies for the unannounced nature of our visit and our mode of arrival. The Dragons will harm nothing and no-one here during our stay. You have my word of honour.”

  “And mine,” Chalice cooed, looking his men over.

  They shrank back a step. Two actually fainted, slumping to the cobblestones with resounding clangs of their helmets.

  “Is this normal?” she inquired.

  The Captain appeared utterly unfazed. “They’ll recover. Cohort! I want two men to run to the castle at the double, two to alert the battlement leaders, and four to inform the town criers that the populace should not be afraid of the Dragons. The rest of you, form an honour guard for our visitors. Follow me, Your Highness. I should be grateful to receive all of your names to ensure that you may be announced properly. The King was injured whilst out visiting the villages to the east, I regret to report, and thus has been delayed. He should arrive tomorrow.”

  “I am sorry. Will he recover?”

  The Captain said, “Highness, the injury is said to be grave. His horse slipped and fell upon his leg.”

  “My sister is a magical healer. If we can be of any help at all …”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  Another Human warren. The streets through which the escort led them were not large to begin with, and matters did not improve. Each house was two to three levels in elevation, the lower being made of solid stone blocks, while the upper floors were made of dark timber frames that contrasted prettily with the whitewashed filling between. For Dragon, the issue was that the upper one or two floors of the houses overhung the road at crazy angles, almost as if the buildings leaned together in conspiratorial conversation. His shoulders did not appreciate the conversation quite so much.

  “Grr, sorry about your house,” he growled, setting another building creaking upon its foundations. The person who had been peering out of the upper window fell back with a low cry. Another fainting episode?

  Chalice said, “You might need to fly up to the castle, Dragon.”

  “I will not leave my Princess.”

  “I’ll watch over her.”

  The Dragoness fit. Looking ahead … he stood no chance. Not even if he slunk along on his belly, which was not happening. Seat for Princess’ rump, aye. Crawling, no. Even he had his limits – not many, nowadays, but there it was. He did not want to break down anyone’s dwelling.

  He said, “Try not to make too many of them faint. Yarimda –”

  “I’ll continue riding, if it’s all the same to you, Dragon. It’s been a long day’s travel.”

  “I’ll sit with you, grandmother,” Yardi decided at once. “Inzashu, you walk with your sister and try not to look quite so amazed at all these pale faces around you.”

  She giggled. “Was I staring?”

  “They’re all staring at you – probably never seen a black person in their lives. Act normal. They’ll soon figure out you’re a real flesh and blood person.”

  “Smile like me, and hope yours doesn’t make them faint,” Dragon said helpfully. “See you up top, Princesses.”

  After switching about, he walked back to the nearest open space, a communal fountain, and decided he could make the jump without risk of random demolition. “Watch out, folks. Hold onto your hair.”

  As he coiled and sprang upward, he heard a child yell, “Wow, mommy! Did you see him go?”

  Obviously not one of the fainting mob.

  Go he did. A series of rapid, circumscribed wingbeats saw him clear the rooftops without slamming his wings into any of the houses. Beating a town flat? Straight to the top of his to-do list. Dragon swung up over the town, dislodging a couple of roof tiles with the blast of his passage. Little white dots of faces swung about to follow his progress as he surged up over the large battlements, and baulked at the last. The courtyard below looked less than immense.

  “Battlements?” he suggested to Yardi.

  “You’re the Dragon.”

  “Undeniably.”

  Clearly, the couple of soldiers stationed upon this stolid, eight-foot-thick battlement knew what to do when their doom was upon them. They fainted. Shocked, Dragon performed a landing lunge that both bruised his sternum and put him in position to catch one of the hapless fools before he fell fifteen feet into the courtyard below.

  “Nitwit!” he snarled.

&nbs
p; “Excellent reflexes, Dragon,” Yarimda approved. “Pop him out of the way, the poor boy. Oh, quite the reception.”

  He glanced up. A confused crowd milled in the large main doorway of the castle, at the top of a low set of stairs that repeated the semicircle pattern. Nobles, perhaps, or courtiers. All were richly dressed. The girl in the front wore a tiara – she was perhaps Azania’s age, but as pale as his Princess was dark, and her hair beneath the simple tiara was straight and blonde in contrast to the fine sable curls of the desert-born. Her face was sweet and open, but this one clearly had some sort of backbone, for she stood apart amongst her court for her serenity as she faced most likely the largest Dragon anyone in this Kingdom had ever seen.

  Definite potential.

  Hearing Chalice’s paw step approaching in the tunnel below and to his left that must lead into the courtyard, he poured down off the balcony with all the sinuous grace he could muster.

  Bowing upon his foreleg, he smiled and said, “Princess Yuali, may I present –”

  At least twenty people atop the steps promptly fainted – actually, all of the females bar the Princess, who turned the colour of a freshly starched sheet, but held her nerve. Not only that, but every swain and companion from the youngest to a sprightly, white-bearded elder of some sort, caught their female in their arms and lowered them solicitously upon an arm or a lap. Rehearsed? All except for the two younger men who flanked Princess Yuali. They were left standing in foolish tableaux, hands extended as if pleading for their lives.

  The males set about reviving the females with smelling salts and, in some cases, kisses or tender entreaties.

  How truly bizarre.

  The blonde Princess descended the steps gracefully, extending her hands in greeting. “Azania! I bid you most warmly and royally welcome to the Kingdom of Amboraine.”

  “Uh, that’s Azania. I’m Inzashu, her younger sister.”

  “Azania – Azania! I am so sorry, I had no idea – you’re so tiny – ah … I mean, welcome, Princesses. Oh, another Dragon? You truly travel in style.”

  “I am a Dragon Rider, and this is my magnificent Dragon,” she said proudly.

  He growled in pleasure. Magnificent! Now, when could he have that inked on a scroll and sealed with the royal seal? Or, could she be tugging his wingtips?

  “Oh!” cried the foreign Princess. This time, surely, she would faint … but no. With a gracious gesture, she added, “Welcome to Amboraine, Dragons. We have never received quite such a delegation before. I apologise, but my father the King is not available to receive you, nor the Queen.”

  “We heard the news,” Azania said, clasping the other girl’s hands as if intent upon keeping her on her feet. “I trust your father will return safely. Inzashu has a healing gift. If we can be of any assistance, please allow us to offer help.”

  “We’d be most honoured.”

  Her courtiers began to revive as Dragon helped Yarimda dismount, and the Princess indicated that servants should come and help with their belongings. That more than half fainted along the way attracted no comment whatsoever. Yuali meantime made introductions. The two younger men who had flanked her were her fourteen year-old twin brothers Garaine and Ramuine; both appeared very much taken with Inzashu, kissing her upon either hand simultaneously. She did not know what to make of that!

  Dragon considered threatening to trim their fingers if they did not keep their hands to themselves. He had heard things about teenage boys one could not repeat in polite company.

  Queen Sahira had taken to her bed, indisposed, at the news of her husband’s accident. Azania passed the Princess the pouch of scrolls from her brother, stating that she was looking forward to the day that they became family.

  “Your cloak, Your Highness?”

  “Thank you,” said Azania, slipping the sodden garment off her shoulders.

  There was a collective gasp around the courtyard.

  Most of the men collapsed on the spot.

  Dozens of women cried, “Oh, the scandal!” and did another round of fainting of their own – delicately folding up upon their male companions once more, Dragon noticed with an eye which was growing severely jaundiced due to all these vapid goings-on. Not one lovely coiffed head struck a stone. All landed with miraculous poise and perfection upon an arm, a chest, a lap. What strange malady afflicted Amboraine?

  Princess Azania smiled uncertainly at her hostess. “Woman in battle gear?”

  Yuali nodded. “You wear … those? Wow.”

  “Riding a Dragon wearing skirts would be ridiculously impractical.”

  “Of course.”

  A few more men fainted. All of the servants had dropped like flies. He quickly checked that no-one else was trying to throw themselves off a battlement. Oh, alright. Toss good behaviour in the Lumis Ocean, by his wings!

  He growled, “Princess Yuali, tell me truly, is fainting a national pastime?”

  “Quite ridiculous, aren’t we?” the other Princess snorted. She stood a full head taller than Azania, and had yet to let go of the other’s fingers. “I suspect I’m going to enjoy this visit a great deal. Princess in trousers indeed. You’d think that the world stopped turning a hundred years ago, the way we behave around here.”

  She directed a glare at her brothers. “Stop blushing.”

  They spluttered their way through a couple of sentences that contained not an intelligible syllable between them.

  “Would it help if I wore a dress?” Azania inquired archly.

  “A prerequisite for the slightest hope of intelligent conversation, it seems.”

  Dragon put in slyly, “Ah, the trousers that slew a nation.”

  Chortling behind her hand, Princess Yuali said, “The stories we’re going to have to put up with after this. Desert barbarians, wicked Dragons and outrageous trousers. Our poor kingdom has never seen a scandal to compare – but Princess, such a sudden visit … this isn’t just sisterly concern, is it? What happened, is something wrong?”

  “War. The Skartunese invaded.”

  “Oh no, that’s terrible. We’ll have to find a way to help T’nagru.”

  He purred happily. It was becoming clear that this generation of Princesses must have thrown the rulebook out of the window. Another victim … mwaa-haa-hargh! Corruption being an integral part of the service.

  * * * *

  Princess Yuali not only had a pleasingly well-developed backbone, she was practical, too. She had messengers visiting all of the blacksmiths in the city before dark, choice portions of veal brought for the Dragons – one could hardly refuse such succulent offerings – and a chamber prepared for the Princesses which overlooked a small, private courtyard assigned to the Dragons. Her mind was clearly preoccupied with her father’s reported condition, however.

  Late in the evening, Dragon leaned his forepaws upon the balcony just eight feet above the courtyard where he and Chalice had been resting, while he and Azania looked over the map and tidal almanac Aria had provided.

  “You still game for this, Dragon?” she asked.

  Sober question. “Aye. If this was only about me, I don’t think I’d do it. I must face the fear that she will already be gone – and no, I’m not sure there would ever be another. I couldn’t imagine as much, right now. I would make it clear to the Isles Dragons that we need an army, nothing more. You?”

  “No Aria –”

  “Would be brutal, aye. There’s a good chance we might also be able to wait for the migration. I’m not sure even the Skartun could cross the desert in the height of summer.”

  “No. As for me, I guess I’d have to admit to feeling mildly terrified. Everything could change. Or nothing. Nonetheless, this is my duty to my kingdom. If we could come away with a small army of warrior Dragonesses who don’t have loyalties to other Clans but to you and me … I would feel a great deal better about the storm that’s about to hit T’nagru. As you’ve said before, fifty of Aria might make all the difference.”

  They examined the map together
.

  “So, up to these islands on the northernmost tip of Mornine, which will give us the best angle to reach this pair of specks,” he said, tracing the route with the tip of his talon. “Then, we fly almost directly north for the worst and longest stretch of the trip.”

  “And land on this gnat’s backside over here,” Azania agreed.

  “Aye. It’s not even marked as a proper island, more a reef, which is barely visible even at the lowest tides.”

  “The previous stop isn’t great either. Three feet above sea level if we’re lucky and it’s pretty calm, or we’re definitely getting our paws wet. After that, it’s fairly much west with the trade winds for the run in to the Dragon’s talons. We can choose to jump onto Wave Dragonhome on the first major island, or Zunityne on the second. Whose love life do we start with first, do you think?”

  They stared at one another.

  “Yours.” Both spoke at the same time. Chuckle.

  Azania said, “We should ask after Ariamyrielle at Wave Dragonhome first. That makes sense. Depending on what we learn, we fly on to Zunityne, where she might be anyways, and snaffle me up a nice King for breakfast.”

  “Ho ho, very draconic of you, Princess.”

  “Rubs off after a bit, doesn’t it?”

  “Roast royal thigh?”

  “Mmm, tasty.”

  “Man fillet?”

  “Stop making me drool.”

  “You are positively wicked, sister,” Inzashu complained from over at a desk, where she had been reading a tome from the royal library on healing herbs. “My ears are burning.”

  He growled, “Younglings should learn to listen only when they are supposed to. It’s a terrible habit you’ve picked up.”

  “Years of fearing how my mother’s ambitions would affect me. Ah, sorry.” She rubbed her temples tiredly. “Not the most cheerful soul, am I?”

  “Inzashu, you’ve been through a great deal,” Azania said stoutly.

  “The instinct for self-preservation runs deep,” Dragon agreed. “So, when are you planning to tell us that you’re thinking about staying here to treat the King?”

  The girl gave him a startled, even frightened glance. “I …”