I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2)

by Marc Secchia

  Arrows and then javelins spat at him out of the darkness. Defenders up on the battlement. Gathering his legs, Dragon sprang sideways and then ran up the steep side of the gulley, throwing them off their aim, before leaping free with a violent, exuberant twist that brought him down atop the gully-spanning wall. Four-pawed catch.

  He bared his fangs in fury. BBRRROOOARRRGGHH!!

  White fire blasted out of his jaw, bathing the length of the battlement in blistering flames. Several men leaped away before the fire reached them, but a fall from this height for a Human was no trivial matter, he had learned. Dull thuds proclaimed their demise. That left this gate unguarded. Next, he must deal with whatever trouble had beset Azania and Yardi. Ripping the huge crossbeam out of its slots with a violent flexion, Dragon hefted the wood onto his shoulder and rushed toward the innermost gate, where Chalice’s flame flared bright through the cracks.

  “Get that net secured!”

  “Ballistae – load up, you fools!” another voice cursed.

  Clong! “Take that!” Yardi’s voice, no doubt punctuated by the fine ring of her hammer.

  He loved grammar, especially when an exclaiming enemy came to a full stop.

  One must always be sure to hammer a point home.

  Thundering in rage, Dragon leaped for the top of the final battlement, and came up short. The crossbeam slewed off his shoulder, knocking three soldiers off the wall.

  Why had he even been carrying the beam?

  Bruised ribs, scraped belly and a wrenched knee later, he was over. Fire! White hosed from his mouth, bathing the battlements, the courtyard and the castle itself as he used the brightness of his fires to target the enemy wherever they moved. Chalice squirmed beneath a heavy reinforced net, while a squad of soldiers tried to fight their way into a narrow stone doorway that must lead to the portcullis mechanism.

  Dragon slapped them aside with the flat of his paw. “Leave my women alone!”

  Whirling, he tail-lashed them on the fly, crumpling the squad against their own battlement. “Stuff that up your semicolon!”

  Erm … whatever.

  “Princess, alright in there?”

  “Now we are, thank you. Yardi’s hurt but alright. Safe to come –”

  Whurr-whap!

  Dragon roared as a ballista quarrel slashed through his upraised wing, missing the arch of his spine by a talon’s breadth. Trying for the disabling shot, were they? Consumed by a blind fury, he sprang twenty feet into the air and clawed his way up the side of the castle, beating his wings to help him reach the ballistae set on a pair of turrets. The quickness of the second crew saw a quarrel embedded shallowly in his right flank, a long wound but not deep, as he dealt with the first ballista. He sprang over and smashed the second off its mount.

  By then, Chalice had thrashed free of the net and was making merry down below, clearing the courtyard area.

  Yardi called, “Smashed the mechanism. Just the gate now, Dragon.”

  Rushing down the side of the castle, he paused briefly to aim fire at several faces he glimpsed in the narrow windows.

  Little dots in stone parentheses.

  He landed hard but safely and stalked over to the castle’s main doors. They had been barred at multiple levels, as best he could tell.

  “Fire them!” Azania ordered, rushing up to his neck.

  Pure white billowed before him. Thirty seconds. A minute. The Princess picked off an archer, while Chalice amused herself by setting the keep’s door and then the wooden storage sheds inside the battlements on fire.

  His white stream guttered.

  “Oh! That hasn’t happened before.”

  The main gates were burning merrily now, however. He hoped he could produce an artistically charred ruin for the King’s forces to admire on their way in.

  Dragon cracked open his jaw. No fire at all. He had a raging –

  “Drink from the fountain?” Azania suggested.

  “Good idea.”

  He drank thirstily, while the Princess helped Yardi to secure a temporary bandage around her left forearm. Sword cut. He gulped hard as with a dull whomp inside his chest somewhere, the ignition process restarted and he had to gush fire once more at the gate, or something inside of him might tear all over again. Imagining himself to be a blacksmith, he played the stream against the crossbeams and locks, experimenting with where the fire was hottest. Metal dripped and ran like water.

  Grr! Chalice snarled. GNARR! “Stupid door!”

  A loud crash advertised more destruction. Having a merry old time, Dragoness? He saw darkness through the massive timbers now. Turning about, Dragon cocked his hind paw and smashed the wood apart with a powerful kick. GRABOOM!

  “Maybe rip that one off its hinges?” Azania suggested politely.

  He wanted to warn the little Human not to sneak up on a Dragon while he was engaged in honourable pillaging, but realised that would only sound foolish and ungrateful. Instead, he said, “I think you could do it at this stage, Princess.”

  He pressed through the stone archway and finished the job, heaping up the burning timbers in order to maximise the damage.

  “Yardi? Princess? Let’s mount up.”

  Chalice purred, “Just when I was getting started.”

  “I left an entire gate for you to tear apart,” he grinned back. “Yardi, I dropped that outer portcullis by mistake. Shall we take a stroll out of Lord Varlan’s castle, tidying up a few items along the way?”

  After all, one would not like to leave any participles – or particles – dangling.

  Dragons preferred complete sentences. So erudite.

  Chapter 16: Beginning of the End

  SMOKE STILL BILLOWED OUT of the castle by the next morning. Something must have caught in there. Unlucky. A nice, thick and symmetrical plume, however. Rather tasteful, all things considered. To his left, the Princess changed Yardi’s bandages.

  He sidled over to admire her stitches. “See? You can do fine needlework, Princess.”

  “Hardly a skill I prized until now. Still, all that instruction does seem to have come in useful, especially as pertains to sewing up your mouth – I mean your flank, Dragon.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I know, I’m in stitches.”

  “Sew what?” he guffawed. “Keep needling me until you find the right thread.”

  Contrived, one had to admit. Worth at least half a snort.

  Up and away they flew. The route was northerly at first, skirting the foot of The Anvil, before the Dragons were able to swing their muzzles to the northwest for the straight run to the Kingdom of Dorline. With Yarimda taken moderately ill, they flew four short stints during the course of the day, crossing the Rillimis River on the second leg. Dense forest cover stretched to the horizon, a beautiful sea of summery greens and a few patches of deep burgundy leaves to break up the monotony.

  Dragon worried over his passenger. Ninety-four was a ripe old age to be gallivanting around the kingdoms as a Dragon Rider. Far from being daunted, Yarimda alternated between dozing in Yardi’s arms and telling him she was having the time of her life.

  She said he was a gift.

  He actually blushed in all of his fires. Grr. Giving the elderly license was one thing. Having to put up with compliments, however well meant, was quite another.

  The next day was Yardi’s turn to be taken ill – in her case, in bouts of alarming violence that started during the night. All the worst of Human illness, too, with nasty, offensive things coming out of both ends, sometimes at the same time. Yarimda distracted her Dragon companions by telling them story after story. She had lived a full and exciting life, she claimed. By sundown Dragon was more than convinced, but the old woman talked beyond midnight. He did not grow bored, not even once. Fascinating! Especially her descriptions of Sea Dragon song language. Experimenting with his new bugle, she agreed that it sounded similar to what she remembered from her beloved Wavewhisperer.

  He might have a built-in capability, with not the foggies
t notion how to speak a single word in their tongue. Perfect.

  Blank slate. Clay to be moulded.

  He grimaced. All he needed was his long-lost mommy, to put it in the Human way. Azania had lost both her parents. What right had he to feel unfortunate in any way?

  With Yardi doing her best impression of a limp but recovering dishrag, they journeyed on into the Kingdom of Dorline. Human homesteads appeared to be few and far between, but they stopped at a likely-looking place in the late afternoon to inquire after herbs to help Yardi’s upset stomach. With the Dragons standing a short ways off and out of sight, so as not to upset anyone, they greeted Azania by setting their pack of hounds upon her.

  It could have gone badly. So badly.

  He did not understand the pack’s baying until the last second. Chalice was already streaking ahead, but the thought had been in his mind that the canines intended to greet his Princess.

  His roar hit a shattering peak that threw the dogs into confusion for long enough that the charging Dragoness was able to blow fire in their direction and keep them at bay. She skidded to a halt above Azania, somehow managing to keep her great paws from stomping her flat.

  He remembered charging, too; and an incongruous moment when the jet stream of his fire picked the hounds up and flung them away in the blink of an eye, so fast that only a couple were actually engulfed in flame. After landing in a smoking heap, the rest were able to run away, yowling in fear. Then he was at Chalice’s side, panting, snarling, wondering what to do with all the fire churning inside of him.

  A sense of knowing shook him to the core: The flash of a fang, and her life could have been much shorter.

  Emerging from behind Chalice’s paws, Azania gasped, “I think they thought I was a ghost. Or a corpse.”

  He turned slowly toward the wooden house.

  “Dragon. Dragon! Don’t –”

  “Don’t what? Give them a piece of my mind?”

  “They’re just … frightened.” She said it as if the realisation had only just struck her. “They’re frightened of me. My blackness.”

  Staggering up to them, Yardi said, “People are often afraid of – blugh!” She threw up. “Sorry. Differences. Let me go and knock at the door. Maybe I’m white enough not to earn the dog treatment.”

  He stared at Azania.

  “Look, as you can tell, not all black peoples’ experiences are the same, nor are they the same in different places,” she muttered. “I’m alright, Dragon. Shocked and … sad, I suppose.”

  “Angry?”

  “Spitting mad. They’re so ignorant, yet I understand why.”

  “Aye. The woman inside just said she’s never seen a black person before.” Nudging her shoulder gently, he said, “And here I thought you had earned your very first mob of pitchfork-wielding peasants. Doubtless you can look forward to that pleasure in the future, Princess.”

  “Hopefully not. I’m not a big, stinky, fire-stuffed reptile, after all.”

  “Almost, but I have noticed a few differences.”

  “A difference in scale?”

  “Me being upscale and you, downscale?”

  They shared a gloomy chuckle together. Amazing to him – he should not be amazed, but even so, he was – that at this most shocking juncture, her spirit shone. Bravery was not always what he expected it to be.

  She said, “Inzashu said I should share this joke with you: ‘Why do Dragons make such great musicians?’ ”

  He frowned. “No idea.”

  “They know their scales inside out.”

  “Groan.”

  “I told her that’s what you’d say.”

  Half an hour later, they shared the Dorline tradition of an afternoon cup of bark tea and ginger biscuits with a family of seventeen, sitting beneath a huge, spreading tree in their front yard. Following Dorline culture, the husband, wife and five children lived together with his brother and wife and their three, plus various other relatives that Dragon never did get straight.

  They all stared at the Princess as if she had dropped from the stars above. However, it was the children that surprised him most. They accepted her within moments. Had it not been for the mother’s reaction, most of them would never have had a second thought about a black-skinned person – just now, two girls sat behind her playing with her hair, and another little boy had plopped himself down in her lap with the air of one who never intended to leave.

  Was this business of noticing difference inborn, he mused, or learned?

  When did Dragons learn to value blue scales above brown, for example, and who taught them to fear the white fire of Sea Dragons?

  On another note, who taught his kind that Humans were fleas, cockroaches and vermin? Or that they did not deserve to be treated with dignity and respect? Shame at who he had been before burned from his paws right up into his wingtips. He had thought these things. Lived these lies. Should have known better, Dragon – but it was easier just to wing along with others and not think too deeply about it, wasn’t it?

  Four children played happily between his paws. The adults smelled deeply unhappy about this, he had noticed, but everyone politely ignored the perfectly obvious. Perhaps they feared to point it out, lest he become angered and sup upon their tiny progeny?

  One tripped and fell. He plucked her up and righted her. “There you go.”

  “Thanksh, mishter Dwaggin,” she lisped.

  Oh, alright then. Human children could be tolerable, at times. Although, this lot had clearly never learned a healthy fear of the Dragonkind.

  He hoped none of his kin ever happened along to teach them.

  * * * *

  Reinforced with herbs that ought to settle Yardi’s misbehaving stomach, two Dragons and three Humans flew on up to the Kingdom of Dorline, to the City of White. White people wearing white, who lived in whitewashed houses with white roof tiles. It was a matter of some relief to the eye that local competitiveness appeared to major upon growing flowers lusher and more beautiful than one’s neighbour.

  Also, all of the citizens acted weirdly detached. They wandered about the broad, white-cobbled streets with an air of deep contemplation. Far too deep to notice two Dragons strolling into town. They merely avoided the approaching Dragons as if they were oddly mobile houses.

  Yardi said, “There’s meant to be a Blacksmiths’ Quarter here somewhere. I’ll go ask for directions.”

  “How odd. They don’t even notice you, Azania,” Dragon commented.

  “I was thinking about what you said about seeing difference,” she replied, her mind evidently not dwelling upon a place a white Dragon could blend into perfectly. “It should matter, yet it should not.”

  “Aha. At the same time, right? As in –”

  “They should be held in tension. Aye! Differences absolutely matter. Differences are what make for uniqueness and diversity, art and beauty; it’s what makes us stronger. Yet differences are not to be feared – even, not to be noticed at all. Why should it matter that Yarimda is light and I am dark? We are both Human beings; we bleed the same, yet we’re also very different.”

  “We fear the other, that which is not us, the not familiar,” he said. “We Dragons joke that like likes like – it’s just Dragon nature. And Human, if your frown is anything to judge by.”

  She thought out loud, “I guess it’s what’s inside that matters, isn’t it? It’s about how in the case of that family we met, perhaps one is taught from a young age to fear the black robber from the desert. I’ve never been mistaken for a robber before. It’s as stupid as believing black people hide better in the dark, so we must of course be wonderful robbers and own the night. Built for it.”

  “Blergh.”

  “Precisely my point. I was wrong to be so furious with you before.”

  “Ah … about what?”

  “Last time we spoke, when you lectured me about there not being any actual white or black people. I kicked you. I mean, if you don’t see me as black, then you don’t see all that I am! You don
’t see me! Blackness is my core identity – or at least, what I’ve always been taught is my identity. I guess I’m starting to learn that identity isn’t necessarily rational or even coherent, and it’s far more complicated than I ever imagined. The Black Rose of the Desert is as much an idea and an ideal of beauty, as I am a real person. Those knights were all chasing an idea about my identity, but they had no clue who the real Azania is. This person who befriended a Dragon and somehow stumbled into becoming a Dragon Rider – that hardly feels real, oftentimes, yet it is me.”

  Raising a paw, he touched her cheek. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I’m so happy.”

  Just when he thought he understood the first thing about a Human woman.

  “Oh Dragon, you’re so silly. My heart is so full it could burst, but right now, happiness has bubbled to the top, because I believe I’ve learned something.”

  “So have I.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I do think I’m thinking what you’re thinking, but you had best tell me in case I’ve somehow got it wrong. There’s a fairly high chance.”

  “Is there?” the Princess smiled, clasping his paw with both hands. “You’re the best friend ever. What I wanted to say is … I’ve realised that it doesn’t matter. What a release! I feel so light, I’m almost floating – because skin colour has been such a burden for me, bigger than any mountain. This nonsense that I’m supposed to be the most beautiful woman in Solixambria because by some cosmic accident I was born black, born a Princess, and –”

  “Stop,” he growled. “First talon, you are beautiful for many reasons, and aye, some of those do have to do with differences. Smallness, darkness, crazy curly hair, physical magnetism, and let us never forget the ability to make trousers smoke –”

  “Dragon! Serious conversation. Mmm?”

  He pressed his talon to her lips. “Be silent until I have finished being exasperating. Now, where was I? Aye, more importantly, I could expound many points relating to your character and deeds, and the fact that some people are born into royalty and some are royal, and there’s a royally enormous difference right there. Second talon, you were and are no accident! What a frightful pile of droppings that statement was, I can hardly begin to spit off the end of my forked tongue. Do we understand one another?”