Dragon Unleashed

by Grace Draven

  There had to be a way to break him free. Halani closed her eyes, turning inward, away from the crowd’s screeching din, the percussive clap of giant wings, and the image of Dalvila’s gloating, triumphant features. Away from the growing burn of the paint raising blisters on her skin. She stood on a platform high above the ground, and here, the earth’s hymn was much more muted in her head. So faint Halani had to strain to hear it. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need her feet planted in soil to call on the magic of the earth. She was surrounded by gold, precious metal that was one blood among the many different bloods running through the earth’s deep veins.

  She imagined the sorcerous tethers, envisioned them in her mind as skeins of twisted ropes, much like the torsion springs on the ballistae, stretching taut every time Malachus flew toward the sun. Ropes broke. They also unraveled, and sometimes the anchors that held them gave way. Halani focused on the anchors, embedded into the earth by its magic. There were five, and they were strong, woven by those whose sorcery was far more powerful than her own. Such knowledge didn’t deter her. Their magic was in service to a malice that rejected all the life-giving earth represented. Halani’s was in service to a child of Pernu and Ninsurgha. Lightning might love the draga, but so did the earth.

  Halani concentrated on one of the five anchors, using the metal paint covering her body to find the specific earth hymn bound up in the anchor.

  Only silence greeted her questing at first. Then she heard it, a bass note reminiscent of a heartbeat. Unlike the sweet bell chime of the gold, but no less beautiful. And strong, ungodly strong.

  Halani focused even harder on her vision of the anchor, imagining it wiggling free of the earth holding it, soil falling slowly away as it slipped toward the surface. A tickling pop teased the inside of her nostrils, and soon twin ribbons of warmth leaked from her nose to drip over her lips. The bass note in her head thrummed and thumped, swelling and contracting as she worked to break the magicians’ spell. The gold covering her skin shifted, the paint tightening and hardening, blistering her skin even more.

  She groaned at the sudden burst of agony inside her skull, and her stomach heaved in protest. The hymn halted with a snap, and in her vision the anchor ripped free of the earth, dissolving the rope to which it was attached. She didn’t hesitate in turning her magic toward the remaining anchors, despite the fact that her stomach lodged in her throat, her head threatened to crack open, and her eyes bulged from their sockets. One by one, the anchors broke free, and the sorcerous chains fell away. Earth’s hymn resounded in her ears, pulsating through every shard of bone, every vein flowing with blood, until she was Ninsurgha herself, who opened her hand and set her last child free. Blood no longer trickled over Halani’s lips. It poured.

  A roar trumpeted above her, and she opened her eyes in time to see Malachus swooping toward her once more, his wings flapping fast as he drew nearer, until he hovered dangerously close to her and the ballistae. Her gaze met his fiery one, his elliptical pupil dilating to dwarf the red iris.

  The draga roared again as he dodged another bolt and shot toward the clouds, no longer leashed by earth magic. Sick, exhausted, with her vision blackening at the edges, Halani dragged her gaze to Dalvila, who watched Malachus’s flight with an expression that changed from victorious to feral the higher he soared. Her red lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl. She lunged from the couch, face a mask of hatred as she screeched at the ballista soldiers. “Bring him down!” she bellowed. Madness twisted her features as she turned toward Halani, the glitter of sunlight bouncing off the knife she clutched in her hand.

  Halani watched, helpless, as death, dressed in colorful silks, raced toward her. Fear no longer plagued her. Her mother was safe and Malachus free. She relaxed against the pole to which she was bound and grinned at the furious Dalvila. “I win,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Malachus trumpeted another victory call as he gained altitude in preparation for a dive. Resourceful Halani had found a way to break the empress’s invisible shackles on him and allow him to break hers.

  He arced toward the city walls far below him now. As a draga, he’d gained superior vision, even this high up. His great heart, pumping furiously to give his wings the strength they needed to power his bulk into the air and fly fast, seized at the sight of the empress herself sprinting toward bound Halani, a knife in her raised hand.

  The roar he emitted cracked the sky as he tucked his wings tight against his body and dove hard for the battlements. He slammed, clawed feet first, into the ballista and its team nearest Halani, exploding wood shrapnel, body parts, and stone masonry in every direction. The crowd’s raucous bellows turned to terrified screams as Malachus hurled pieces of the ballista into their midst. He raked a claw across the parapet where archers with their bows trained on Halani stood, flinging them off the wall to the ground and into the churning mob below.

  Dalvila, slowed by the rush of people trying to escape the battlements, checked her headlong dash toward Halani, but only for a moment. Even the threat of being hurled off the battlements wasn’t enough to stop her from wreaking her vengeance on Malachus for spoiling her plans. He launched into the air just in time to avoid a shot from the ballista positioned on the wall perpendicular to the one on which Halani stood. The bolt split the air with a whine before embedding itself in a section of wall, exploding a corona of mortar and stone across the panicked crowd.

  This time he didn’t go as high as before. He needed to reach Halani before the empress did. Bound to the pole, she wouldn’t survive Dalvila’s attack. The thought made his wings beat faster, and he turned once more, diving fast.

  Ballista crews scattered like rats in every direction as Malachus whipped his tail against a ballista, slinging it behind the city walls and into the streets. He closed a claw around the pole to which the now-unconscious Halani was tethered, ripping it out of the ground with an effortless jerk.

  People ran pell-mell across the battlements, looking for any escape route, screaming and praying for mercy. One voice rose above it all, nearly incoherent with rage.

  “Shoot that fucking draga, you bunch of craven shit stains! Shoot him now!”

  His own fury almost blinding him, Malachus gently grasped his precious cargo in his claws and swooped toward the raving empress, her once sublime features monstrous. She didn’t run when he dove toward her, standing her ground to hurl every filthy epithet in existence at him. She didn’t flinch when Malachus opened his mouth and snatched her from the wall into his jaws.

  Nor did she make a sound when he bit down, shredding flesh and crushing bone as her blood burst hot and coppery across his tongue. What remained of the fleeing crowd screamed in unison at the sight, wailing their horror even louder when Malachus cocked his head back before lunging forward, spraying them all in a shower of gore, saliva, and the empress’s remains.

  He didn’t return for another attack, desperate now to get as far away, as fast as possible, from Domora and the remaining ballistae. His leg throbbed from the bolt embedded in the scales and muscle there, and his torn wing burned. Worst of all, Halani hung limp in his clasp.

  Malachus winged toward a forested part of the nearby foothills. He could land at the tree line and limp his way into the forest’s wider spaces. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, and he couldn’t count on the shock of the empress’s gruesome death to stop her army from immediately setting out to hunt him. At least half the city had witnessed him flying in this direction. He had a few hours at most before they reached this place.

  The forest offered a cool, quiet sanctuary, its thick canopy a shield from the sun. Malachus landed lightly on one foot, folding his wings tight to his body. He hopped toward the trees, searching for the places where they grew tallest so that they concealed his height. He found a shady spot where the understory grew thin and lay Halani carefully down on a heap of dead leaves. He used one claw to sever her bonds from the
pole. She crumpled before him. For a moment, terror seized him at the sight of her blood-smeared face. Had the magic she wielded to free him killed her? The thought rammed a ballista bolt straight through his soul. He could accept the idea of him dying for her, but not her for him.

  Never that.

  A low, rumbling growl traveled up his throat, relief and half-dead hope mixing together when her chest rose and fell on a slow breath. If he could change back into a man, he’d gather her in his arms, bury his face in her neck, and whisper her name over and over until he finally convinced himself she was alive and safe.

  But he couldn’t change back. Not like this, with injuries he could survive as a draga but not as a man. He barely understood the workings of this new, unfamiliar body. His inaugural flight possessed all the grace of a fledgling tossed out of the nest and nearly got him killed more than once. And if changing back to a man meant suffering through the same convulsions as changing into a draga, they, plus his wounds, would end him for certain.

  His more sensitive hearing picked up Halani’s faint sigh. She looked so small, lying there in the bed of leaves, no bigger than an infant to his draga eyes. Her eyelids fluttered before opening, revealing a gaze made demonic by burst blood vessels that turned the whites of her eyes red. She stared at him for a long, silent moment before her lips curved in a bloody smile. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered. “And so big.”

  A bubble of laughter traveled up his throat, escaping between his teeth in a deep snort that shot a plume of smoke out of one nostril. Halani’s bloodshot eyes rounded before she too gave a weak laugh. Malachus wanted to tell her he thought she was beautiful as well, and very gold, but the words wouldn’t shape themselves within his draga mouth or on his draga tongue, and his teeth seemed enormous and more numerous than the trees in this forest.

  Halani reached up to caress his snout, the flat bridge and wide, curving nostrils, the smaller, more flexible scales that covered his cheeks. “I can’t believe you ate the empress,” she said in a voice both wondering and aghast.

  I didn’t eat her, he wanted to say. I just rearranged her before returning her to her admiring subjects. Instead, he settled for another snort, this one conveying his disgust.

  Her weak laughter held a trace of revulsion, though it seemed such revulsion was reserved for the fact that he actually had to bite down on such a foul specimen as the empress. “I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

  So was he. The woman tasted foul, but he was glad she was dead, and even more glad he’d been the one to kill her. The gods only knew who would take her place on the Kraelian throne, but surely they could be no worse than the Spider of Empire.

  While Halani was alive and even able to laugh, she’d suffered her own ordeal and was far from well. Not only that; she was naked and painted gold, and as she became more conscious, her discomfort grew. “The paint,” she said, grimacing. “I’m blistered from it, I think.”

  As a draga, Malachus was big, powerful, and pulsing with magic. He was also utterly useless in his ability to help her out of this predicament. Flying off with her to find a stream to wash in was too dangerous. He could lick the paint off her, bursting blisters and stripping off the first layer of her skin for his efforts.

  Halani patted his snout at his frustrated rumble. “Don’t fret. It’s not so bad. I just need to rest for a moment, to sleep. We’ll figure out what to do when I’m more awake. We’ll find a way.” She drifted asleep after that, sheltered within the tent he made of his wings.

  In the end, the way found them. The crackle of leaves under a wary footfall alerted Malachus to the presence of others. He coiled around the still sleeping Halani, his body hiding her from view, and waited to see who emerged from the trees. His uninjured wing involuntarily snapped open at the sight of familiar faces, making the group who faced him leap away with frightened shouts.

  Saradeen and four other free traders gaped at him, slack-jawed, their gazes passing over him in disbelieving awe. Saradeen was the first to recover his composure and gave Malachus a lopsided smile. “I bet you can eat a lot of sheep, Malachus.”

  Malachus’s stomach rumbled at the notion. He hadn’t eaten in days and had no doubt he could decimate a couple of flocks, either as a man or as a draga.

  The old free trader gestured to the men with him. “We were outside the city and saw what happened. You’re damn lucky that Kostan here is part of our band. He grew up in this area and knows these forests like the back of his eyelids. He led us straight to you once you flew off with Halani.” He scowled. “Which means we can’t linger here. We’ve broken camp and left Domora. The city’s in chaos, and half the Kraelian army is looking for you two.” He glanced to the side of Malachus. “Where’s Halani?”

  Malachus uncoiled his length to reveal Halani’s head and shoulders but not the rest of her. All of Domora had seen her unclothed on the battlements. It didn’t mean they had to keep seeing her that way.

  Saradeen clucked. “Poor girl. She’s a brave one. Always has been. Kind, too. She didn’t deserve what Dalvila did to her.” Malachus nodded, buffeting the smaller humans with a gust of air from the movement. The trees around him rustled. The free trader reached inside a small pack he carried, pulling out a long overtunic. “She can wear this to cover up. There’s a stream not far from here. We can get her there to clean the paint off, certainly before Hamod sees her like that, or he might try to sell her.”

  Malachus’s lips curved back from his teeth in a silent snarl. Every man uttered a prayer, except Saradeen, who flinched. “Sorry. Poor joke.”

  At the sound of new voices, Halani woke a second time. She gasped her joy when she saw the free traders. “You found us!”

  Saradeen grinned and offered her the tunic he held. “It wasn’t hard, thanks to Kostan, but that’s both a good and bad thing. If we found you, others will too.” He kept up a flow of light chatter, staring into the forest while Halani pulled on the borrowed garb. “We weren’t sure how we’d get either of you out of there,” he said, “but after Malachus ate the Spider of Empire, it didn’t matter anymore.”

  I didn’t eat the empress. Malachus was beginning to miss his human voice.

  “How is Mama?” Halani’s features held a yearning Malachus recognized. He still felt it for his mother, long dead but never forgotten.

  Saradeen helped her clamber over Malachus’s tail before he could shift it out of the way. “She’s resting and eating well,” the free trader said, adroitly sidestepping the fact that Asil walked the Dream Road. Malachus was grateful for the man’s discretion.

  A zephyr wind wrapped through the trees, carrying with it the scent of men, dogs, and horses. Malachus rose to his feet, towering over the humans, who once more gaped at him in awe, all except golden Halani. The hunt was on. They had to leave. Now.

  Saradeen pointed to the bolt sticking out of Malachus’s flank. “That’s a deep wound,” he said. “I don’t think the four of us can pull it out, and I’d caution against it even if we could in case you bleed out.”

  Halani’s small hand was cool on Malachus’s scales, her painted features fearful, sorrowing. “What can we do to help you?”

  There was nothing they could do except let him go, and escape the Kraelian hunters themselves. For a long time Malachus had searched the world for his birthright, eager to embrace it, become a draga and leave the guise of humanity behind, if not for good, then for a very long time. Now he wished he could be a man once more, even if it was just long enough to tell Halani those things he should have told her when the power of human speech was his to command. Instead he nudged her gently with his snout and half closed his eyes.

  As if she read his earlier thoughts, she echoed them aloud. “You can’t stay here. The Empire is no place for a man made into a draga, a wounded draga at that. You must fly away from here as soon as you can.” Tears filled her eyes, turning them even redder. She clasped either
side of his nose in her hands before leaning forward to press a light kiss to the tip, her lips as cool as her hands against his scales. “I’ve not lived an extraordinary life. Not until I met you. Until then I was asleep. You awakened me, and in you I see all that is noble and brave, and beautiful.” She sniffed, letting the tears course freely down her cheeks. “Thank you for saving my mother. Thank you for saving me. I’m proud to have been your lover, privileged to have been your healer, blessed to have been your friend. And I will never forget you all the days of my life.” She kissed him a final time, leaning her body into his scales for a far-too-brief moment. “I love you, Malachus. Don’t forget me.”

  His claws dug trenches into the earth in the bid not to snatch her back to him and deal with the consequences of such a shortsighted decision later. Halani turned away to join the free traders, her back straight but her head bent.

  Saradeen offered him a deep bow, one of a man before his sovereign. “Should you ever find yourself on the trade roads again, Malachus, know you’ll always be welcomed in our band for as long as you choose.”

  The other men followed suit, offering bows and words of gratitude for the aid he’d rendered to them. Malachus barely heard them, his focus on Halani.

  Saradeen motioned for the others to lead her out of the forest. She looked back once, a long gaze both accepting and grieving, before following them. Saradeen remained behind for a moment. “We’ll split up,” he told Malachus. “Two of us to get Halani to the stream, the other two to lead that hunting party off your scent long enough for you to fly off without being shot full of bolts.” He glanced at Malachus’s torn wing. “Can you still fly?” At Malachus’s nod, the free trader brushed his palms together. “Then I bid you good luck and fair journey, draga. You’ve given me a lifetime of stories to tell my grandchildren. May you live long to do the same for others.”