Shadow Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  Yolathion touched his flaming cheek, shocked.

  Aranya glared at her hand as though it had found a mind of its own. “I’m so sorry, Yoli … I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Evidently not!”

  She deserved his cold anger. She deserved worse, after what she had done to transform their relationship into a storm-wrecked Island. Was her guilt corroding their relationship from within? Aranya bit her lip, despising the desperate note in her voice as she apologised several more times. Treacherous, wild laughter threatened to overcome her at the expression on his face. She had to fake a coughing fit. Aranya sipped her water, feeling overheated and rather less repentant than she surely should.

  “Carry on, Yolathion.”

  “The Dragon-Rider Academy was meant to have been built inside an enormous volcano in the north-west corner of Jeradia Island,” he said. “We have many volcanoes, but none which match that particular description. If you check the records, the alleged location is completely absent. Just a sheer drop into the Cloudlands. Trust me, our Jeradian scholars have looked into it–exhaustively. It’s just a rumour that surfaces every few summers around Jeradia, spread by a group of crazies who call themselves the Order of Onyx.”

  “Onyx?” echoed Aranya, wondering why that word shivered the Islands of her memory. Why was onyx important?

  “Aye, they think they’re keeping the old traditions of the Dragon Riders alive. It’s nonsense. Dragon Riders with no Dragons? A cartload of ralti sheep droppings, if you ask me.”

  Aranya nodded, her politeness reduced in her mind to a taut, overstretched string. Too many stressors, Beran had said. She should rest more. But it seemed that she closed her eyelids only to find Fra’anior inscribed on the backs of them, and when she woke, it was to the knowledge of the storm steadily circumscribing her world, a hammer poised to fall.

  When he did not offer any more information, she said, “Thank you for making that clear, Yoli. Now, another helping of surg-gogi?”

  But she puzzled over his words. Order of Onyx? Where had she heard that before? Had Nak or Oyda mentioned it? By the mountains of Immadia, she knew two real Dragon Riders who were both alive and well, although very old. Was it likely that such an order existed? Might they know some Shapeshifter lore which could lead to a cure for her mother?

  Unbidden, a seed of hope lodged in her breast.

  * * * *

  As a glorious twin-suns dawn blushed over the jagged profile of Jeradia Island, Aranya stood on her tiptoes to kiss Yolathion’s cheek. Mercy, she might have surpassed her tall father, who looked on, but Yolathion practically kept a private patch of clouds to himself.

  “Go burn the heavens, Dragon,” he murmured.

  Aranya made to leave the navigation cabin of her father’s flagship, but whirled in the doorway. “I’ll try to keep your father alive, Yolathion.”

  “Jeradia’s greater than any man,” he said, stiffly. “Win the battle, Aranya. That’s your task.”

  Cold, unfeeling … he couldn’t mean that, surely?

  But his chin lifted, and beneath the dark flip of his hair, his eyes smouldered at her searching gaze. “If you expect any quarter from Ignathion, Aranya, then you don’t know the man.”

  “He was kind to me, once.”

  “You saved his life from a windroc so that my father could continue to extend the hegemony of Sylakia across the Island-World, Aranya–that’s all you achieved. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  Furious tears sprang to her eyes. “What? Yolathion–”

  “He’s the Supreme Commander’s lackey, his foremost bootlicker!” Yolathion shouted, shocking her. “I did the honourable thing, but my father has tossed his honour into the Cloudlands. I’m ashamed to be called Ignathion’s son.”

  Standing beside her boyfriend, King Beran’s brow darkened. Aranya knew what he was thinking. Even as his sworn enemy, Beran held Ignathion in greater esteem than his son. The King noted, wisely, “If Ignathion falls, then that is the path of destiny, Aranya. But I, for one, would prefer to accept my old enemy’s surrender in person. It is only fitting.”

  A brittle silence enveloped the room.

  Aranya turned away. Oh, Yolathion! Poor, tortured Yolathion. The decision he had made to betray his service to Sylakia and join the Immadian rebellion still weighed heavily upon him. Duty and honour were the unbreakable chains binding his soul. Sometimes, she just wanted to grab his shoulders and shout, ‘Forget the past!’

  Wrathful, filled to bursting with fire after her clash with Yolathion, Aranya tore off her headscarf as she marched down the corridor to the Dragonship’s stern. She threw that, and her cloak, at a startled Immadian soldier, but felt ashamed at her response.

  Clad in just a thin shift, Aranya clambered the ladder to the platform above the hydrogen sack, where her two assigned Western Isles warriors awaited her–Cherya and Ezziya, sisters from Kylara’s command, who had trained with her several times. Aranya would not have wanted to wrestle the muscular sisters in her Human form. She imagined they would have been far happier to take on Sylakian Hammers in a fistfight, than fight Dragonback.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Aye,” they chorused.

  “Stand back.” Shucking her garment, Aranya transformed. “Saddle? Extra quivers of arrows, oil pots?” The warriors fell to with a will. No Dragon fear for them. A saddle strap tightened around her chest. “Tighter,” she said. “Double-check your buckles when you’re in.”

  Four hundred feet off her starboard flank, a Dragonship groaned beneath the sudden onset of Ardan’s bulk. Aranya felt a wave of magic prickle her scales. Her gaze turned from the neat ranks of Beran’s thirty-one-strong Dragonship fleet to the equally neat ranks of Ignathion’s fleet, easily triple that number, idling a quarter-league or so south of Jos city. This picture struck her as too pastoral. What were they missing? Not that her Dad ever missed the tactical equivalent of a gnat. But Ignathion was not known to be blunt or straightforward in his planning.

  Aranya called to the Steersman, standing alertly nearby, “Alert King Beran that it’s too quiet. I don’t like it.”

  “Aye, lady Dragon.”

  “We’re in,” said Cherya.

  “Let’s go take down that fleet,” said Aranya.

  Her leap rocked the Dragonship. Almost simultaneously, Ardan flapped ponderously off his perch–eschewing a leap, she realised, lest he send his Dragonship spiralling into the Cloudlands. Enviously, she took in the sweep of his wings. Ha. She could fly rings around anything that moved; he would probably not bother, and just bore straight through his enemies. She almost pitied the warriors of Ignathion’s force. They must be wetting their trousers at the prospect of battling two Dragons.

  Ardan angled his flight until his wingtip was just a few feet from touching Aranya’s.

  Looking feisty but fabulous, Aranya, he greeted her.

  Feisty? With good reason. And, before she could think better of it, she told him what had just passed between her and Yolathion.

  The shadowy Dragon’s dark orbs glittered with understanding. You want to take Ignathion alive? I’ll work with that.

  And, Ardan–be careful.

  His colossal jaw opened in a Dragon’s smile–all fangs and menace. Why? They’re Dragonships.

  I’ve a Dragon sense, Ardan. Ignathion’s up to something.

  You’re probably just anticipating the smell of burning Sylakian beards, he said. I’ll keep a Dragon’s watch on the horizon, Aranya. You do the same.

  I’ll watch your backside–your back, sorry. Your back.

  Ardan said, very drolly, My rump does rival an Island’s majesty. I appreciate the thought, Aranya.

  Go burn the heavens, you overgrown chunk of soot.

  “Light up, ladies,” she said, aloud.

  Kylara, occupying the lead position in Ardan’s jury-rigged quadruple saddle, was doing the same. Three more Western Isles warriors lined up behind her, armed with bows and fire-arrows.

  Ardan surged up
ward, climbing to gain the height advantage on Ignathion’s fleet. This provoked an immediate response. A dozen Dragonships immediately began to drift upward to guard against the assault from above. Aranya searched the land, the Cloudlands, the perfectly clear skies. Bar the gaggle of smaller Dragonships left behind to guard Jos, the First War-Hammer of Sylakia had committed his entire force to this battle. Or had he? But the mountains of central Jeradia lay serene, as if never trodden by the foot of man. That dramatic wilderness was the only possible hiding place.

  Yolathion was wrong about his father. She did know him somewhat, having spent much of her first journey to Sylakia on board a Dragonship in his company. And if she understood the War-Hammer even in the smallest degree, his charming exterior concealed a shrewd, ever-calculating mind.

  Fine. A blast of Dragon fire would soon reveal the devious plan conceived in that many-terraced brain of his.

  Altering the angle of her wings, Aranya accelerated to attack speed.

  Closer, closer came the upper echelon of Dragonships. Aranya filled her mind with thoughts of the storm spanning the south-western horizon, of grey, billowing cumulonimbus clouds and jagged streaks of lightning, and bared her fangs as a familiar pressure developed in her belly. Storm power.

  First target, the uppermost Dragonship. Ardan would take the second, as agreed. Aranya drove herself forward to outpace him by several Dragon-lengths. Ready her fires, and … huh?

  The unexpectedly high-pitched whine of the meriatite furnace engines triggered her alarm. Aranya folded her wings to bank so sharply, one of the warriors on her back cried out in pain. Crossbow bolts! Faster than she had ever seen, they sprayed across her previous path. So many! Such fantastic speed. Only a Dragon’s reflexes saved her from being pinned like a trout feeling the sting of a fishing spear. As it was, a clutch of bolts passed through the membrane of her left wing so rapidly that a perfect pentagram of holes popped into being as if by magic.

  Aranya swivelled instinctively, eluding the catapult engineers’ efforts as she searched for the source of the danger. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ardan pull off a herculean stalling manoeuvre. A deadly load passed through the space beneath his belly. With a bellow of wild, cruel laughter that shook Ignathion’s fleet, he released a bolt of concentrated flame. Three Dragonships detonated in rapid succession.

  KA-KA-KAAABOOOOM!

  Her secondary optic membranes cleared. Aranya realised that his firebolt had achieved what she had never imagined. White-hot, spear-shaped, it had passed straight through two Dragonships before expending itself on the third.

  That Dragonship. ‘Ware the third on your port flank, Ardan! Aranya called.

  How did those tubes fire so many crossbow bolts at once? The engines howled. Aranya’s Dragon sight examined the teams of engineers frantically swivelling the strange new catapults on their bearings. They had improved the mechanism, making the weapons spin more freely. But the real danger lay inside those tubes. She muttered a caustic Remoyan word she had learned during her first fight with Zuziana, before they had become friends.

  A blast of steam from the twin bow catapults warned her. Reflexively, Aranya coiled, protecting her Riders. Her forepaws blurred, swatting aside three bolts. A further two sparked off her scales as she sucked in her stomach.

  “We’re going in,” she snarled. “Pick a target; destroy it.”

  “Aye,” said her Riders.

  A coil of smoke from their oil-pots whipped past her nose as the Amethyst Dragon flung herself into an all-out sprint. The change of velocity confused the engineers manning the traditional winch-operated catapults. Nets, six-foot bolts and loads of shrapnel flashed through the morning air, but only to slice through the wake of a furious Dragoness. Aranya pumped her stomach muscles. Eat this, Ignathion!

  Pfft! Pfft! Her tiny blue fireballs streaked across the swiftly closing gap between her and the Dragonships. She wheeled smoothly away from the hydrogen blast. One of her warriors cursed unhappily, but the other crowed, “First blood!”

  A double thunderclap struck her eardrums as the Shadow Dragon’s attack also found its target. Aranya homed in on the source of her anger. New technology from Sylakia? They were proving all too creative when it came to fighting Dragons. Pfft! She placed a fireball perfectly into the stern catapult emplacement. But it did not explode as she expected. Not gas? Had they been clever enough to employ steam rather than hydrogen gas to power the new crossbows?

  The note of the engines warned her again. “Hold on,” said Aranya, and spun her body on its axis. The tip of her tail sliced open the rear compartment of the hydrogen sack.

  “One for our fallen!” screamed Cherya, making her shot count.

  KAABOOM!

  Through the pall of smoke, the Shadow Dragon resembled a vast wraith, blazing arrows speeding from the warriors on his back. Aranya threw herself into a somersault, coming up beneath the cabin of the new-technology Dragonship. She was not finished yet. Chuckling, she sank her claws into the metal and then ran up the side, ambushing the warriors on the side gantry, and their fellows atop the Dragonship seconds later. Ezziya cleaned up the man aiming his catapult tubes at them with a perfectly placed arrow to the throat.

  “Nice shot,” said Aranya. “Now to the rear, Cherya.”

  As they left the crippled Dragonship behind them, Cherya leaned out of her saddle to slot an arrow into the gaping hole Aranya had left.

  “One less to bother King Beran,” she said. Aranya saw a flash of flame reflected in her eyes.

  She chuckled. These were warriors after her three Dragon hearts.

  If you’ve finished tidying up, Aranya, may I remind you that we’re in a battle? growled Ardan. Follow me. There’s more of those new-fangled Dragonships down there.

  Then you’d better be careful, hadn’t you?

  Me? Ha!

  You’re so fat they can’t possibly miss, said Aranya, archly.

  Ardan’s thunder of fury stung every scale on her Dragon hide. What a predator! Ever so appetising. Flinging her treacherous thoughts to the winds, Aranya spiralled after Ardan. What’s the plan, genius?

  I’ll tease them. You go in through the smoke.

  Fine. Aranya batted her eyelids in his direction. But remember, Ignathion is mine.

  If he’s even up here.

  Even at the speed of Dragon communication, this rapid-fire conversation was all they had time for. Ahead of her, Ardan flexed his jaw. Chew on this, boys.

  Dragon fire hosed out of his mouth. Rotating his neck, Ardan swept down on the Dragonships before jinking aside with a cunning flick of his wings. Still, Aranya saw a couple of crossbow bolts sprout in his right thigh as she whipped past him, through the smoking ruin of imploded Dragonships, and speared on into the heart of Ignathion’s fleet. Ezziya and Cherya released flaming arrows in perfect concert. The Amethyst Dragon beat her wings hard, slinging them over the converging firestorms and into the soft underbelly of a dirigible.

  A dirigible without a cabin?

  The thought, ‘Ignathion’s second trick’ had not even formed in her mind before Aranya folded her wings to drop away. Four enormous, clawed feet punched through the sack and clutched the air where she had been just a heartbeat before.

  Dragon!

  A Red Dragon tore the false Dragonship apart as though it were made of aged scrolleaf. He was more massive than Garthion had ever been, a hoary, ancient beast, with a muscled chest that rivalled a Dragonship in its stalwart breadth. His muzzle turned, and a rapacious eye raked the skies in search of his enemies.

  There was so much of Garthion in his mien. Aranya skittered behind the nearest Dragonship, panting. She cast about, soul-lost, momentarily disoriented by the impact of memories stampeding through her mind. The battle was her canvas, a stitching together of lives against the iron-grey storm clouds, standing so still in the sky that they reminded her of nothing more than vast sentinels; of Ancient Dragons of tempest and bluster, gathered to pass judgement upon the deeds of an Amethyst Drag
on.

  The nearby Dragonships did not want to fire at one of their own. A hundred feet away, no less, tens of warriors bared their teeth at her, or gaped in open-mouthed amazement. Aranya ghosted over a Dragonship, keeping it between her and the Red.

  “What now, Dragon?” asked Ezziya.

  Aranya remembered Garthion, burning. Garthion, speared through the brain. The rage and sorrow of his father, condemning her to execution at the Last Walk. She had to find a way to release the burdens she had carried since.

  Readiness quivered in her muscles. “Let’s take them,” she said, softly.

  During her approach, she had missed the signs–two, no three fake Dragonships suspended between the others by hawsers. They split open like melons dropped from a height, releasing two more Dragons. Both were Reds, more than twice her size. The trap was sprung.

  One sneered at her. I am Baralior. Come lie with me, little one. I’ll show you what a real Dragon can do.

  But a half-grown Amethyst Dragon had an advantage over these big, lumbering Reds, as long as Ignathion kept his fleet close together. She flitted between the looming vessels, playing a game of cat-seeks-mouse as she hunted for the War-Hammer. Where was he? His flagship, flying the rajal of Jeradia, hung to the rear of the fleet. A familiar, burly figure loomed on the forward gantry, in front of the crysglass windows. Ignathion.

  The twang of a bowstring from her back galvanised her.

  BOOM! She rode the shockwave, quicksilver amongst the trio of Red Dragons stalking her. On her back, Cherya screamed obscenities at the Dragons. Many of these Dragonships were armoured, but their armour was not proof against the fireball of an incensed Red Dragon. Two of them spat fire with casual abandon.

  Aranya spiralled upward, avoiding a fireball that scorched the scales of her tail. A Dragonship detonated behind her. She used the wild burst of superheated air to impel her between the Dragonships on an interception course with Ignathion’s vessel, but Baralior hove into view, heading her off.

  He cried, Come taste my fire, you little–oof!

  This is for Naphtha! Ardan roared, striking with all of his power. He sank his fangs into Baralior’s neck and shook the Red Dragon like a hapless rat.