29
Despite the blood spilling out of his groin, Varl Rednose was stout enough of body to continue giving orders
to the Kaal. ‘Find it,’ he growled, meaning Gariffred the drake.
‘But the boy?’ they jabbered. ‘What took ’im, Varl?’ Ren had disappeared from their sight with all the speed of a bubble bursting. The men were pale of face, scared. ‘And the fire from his hand…’
His hand, they repeated.
Devilry, they murmured.
‘I care nowt for the boy,’ Rednose thundered. ‘Scour the woods. Find the beast. It ain’t no flyer yet. Net it tight and bring it back.’
‘Fer what?’ said Oleg Widefoot, so called because his feet, when together, did not point straight. ‘I say it were wrong to kill Ned. Now we are four men dead. Who knows what magicks the boy can call with his father’s spirit set loose? I say we go back and seek Targen’s wisdom.’
‘And what of Oak and Waylen?’ Varl snapped, crushing the whispers before they could grow. He pressed a hand to his wound and grimaced. ‘Are we not here to rest their spirits? The boy has fled. And he will want to stay fled or eat on this.’ He placed a foot on Ned’s back and waved his sword under Oleg’s chin. Oleg stretched away from its point as if he had smelled a vile brew on the wind. ‘The boy has gone to his skaler masters. The only magicks he will bring will come on wings and fire. The young skaler will be our passage, our shield. Now find it, before the treemen do.’
And he swept them, every one, toward the woods as if they were seeds blown loose off a flower.
It took no time to find the drake. Within moments of entering the trees, those leading the search heard a high-pitched squeal and hurried to its source. In a small clearing, untidy with fallen trees and bracken, two treemen were rejoicing a hunting strike. Only one was armed, and he was soon persuaded to drop his spear when he saw he was surrounded by a circle of arrows.
Oleg followed the man’s wild gaze. High on the stem of a nearby tree, pinned by a spear through the centre of one wing, was the skaler. It flapped and cried out with a ragged yowl that almost clawed the branches bare.
‘Our kill,’ the treemen argued.
‘Ours now,’ said Oleg, showing them a knife. ‘Bring it down – and don’t lose it.’ He jabbed the knife to show he meant business.
The first man spat tamely at him, then sloped toward the tree and climbed it with ease. ‘Keep your aim,’ Oleg advised the bowmen. The treeman’s mossy skin was a perfect blend for the natural browns and greens around him. But he knew better than to risk a flock of arrows in his back. Keeping his face well clear of Gariffred’s claws, he pulled out the spear and let the drake fall.
Three Kaal swooped on the creature, netting it tightly as Varl had ordered.
The treeman found a branch and hid from sight, but he was no bother to Oleg now. Kaal and treemen had clashed before, and the outcome for the mossy ones had never been favourable.
Oleg took a bracelet of stones off his wrist and threw it so it landed at the other man’s feet. He was scrabbling for it quicker than a snorter could grunt. ‘For your trouble,’ Oleg said. And to keep the peace. He gestured his men back out of the woods.
They emerged into the light far cheerier of spirit, but their laughter was about to be swiftly arrested. As they filed in straggling lines toward the whinneys, a shadow swept over the ground, accompanied by a scream so unforgiving that no man needed to look into the sky to know what fury was coming.
The drake squealed back, bucking and wriggling despite its injury. The men carrying it panicked and let the net drop. One of them backed up into the trees. He was among the first to die.
Those who chanced to look at the terror would have seen a purple skaler with bright yellow eyes dropping at a steep, sharp angle, fire blazing out of its terrible jaws. It tore a wide line through the edge of the woodland, shooting its flame across the canopy of trees, instantly turning their tops to ash. The men caught under it never stood a chance. Those in the open scattered like peas rolling out of a pot, though any man sluggish of foot was caught by the heat of the creature’s next pass as it sprayed the ground in front of the drake. Men and whinneys died where they stood, but Varl Rednose somehow survived both strikes. In the rush to escape he’d been knocked to the ground, his sword fortuitously thrown from his hand. Had he raised it he would have been dead or on fire, and would certainly not have lived to see what happened next.
The skaler was turning, ready to swoop for a third time, when a challenger came out of the sun at its back. It was swift, the new creature. Much smaller than the skaler. Ugly. Vicious. Eyes the colour of dull plums.
Dark.
Making a sound like the jarring of steel against stone, it spat a stream of bile at the skaler’s head. The skaler saw it coming and lidded its eyes – but not fast enough. It roared in agony and banked away, flapping its head with so much force that its flight immediately began to falter. It quickly lost height. As it fell, the darkeye came in again, striking for the ears – or more precisely the navigational stigs that gave a dragon its manoeuvrability. Once again, its aim was perfect. The dragon flipped onto its back and dropped like a fading purple star.
It hit the ground with a thump that shook the erth. The darkeye screeched in triumph. It wheeled a full circle, and cast its gaze on the dragon in the net. But as it prepared to drop down and strike, it appeared to be distracted by something in the sky. It turned away rapidly, heading off in the direction from which it had come.
Varl Rednose staggered to his feet.
He picked up his sword and began to chuckle, a small dry sound which turned into a bellow of raucous laughter. ‘Men of the Kaal!’ he cried. ‘We have our VENGEANCE!’ And he walked up to the stricken skaler and dared to poke it twice with his sword. It didn’t move, but it was alive – the flicker in the good eye told him so.
Wiping Ned’s blood off his sword, Varl said, ‘So, Ned, it seems your spirit has sent us a prize.’ And placing his boot on the skaler, he whispered, ‘Now you are mine, beast. Now you are mine.’
30
Abrial was not kept long at Elder Givnay’s settle. He delivered the boy as instructed and was about to relate the story of his capture when Givnay gave a gentle whine and raised a claw to indicate he should stop. The Elder’s gaze fell on Ren’s arm. Those lines of scales on pale Hom flesh seemed to be all he needed to see. Is the drake alive? he said, pressing the words into Abrial’s mind.
‘We…believe so,’ said Abrial, stuttering slightly. A conversation with the mute was a strange affair. Although it was unnecessary to speak aloud to Givnay, most dragons found it awkward to rely on thoughts alone.
Givnay gave a silent nod. Leave us, he said, waving Abrial away. Abrial bowed, glad to be free. Now he could join the search for the drake.
Surprisingly, it hadn’t started yet. Despite the urgent orders from Grynt, Gallen was still on the peak of Skytouch, calling his fighting dragons together. The white, G’vard, was with him. As Abrial flew over, he heard them arguing.
The white was growling, ‘I don’t care how many of your wyng are missing. I’m leaving now, whether your sier pents fly with me or not.’ He exchanged a snarl with one of the two Veng Gallen had assigned to him, a belligerent-looking creature with darker eyes than normal who looked keen to murder anything that might cross its path.
G’vard took off, the Veng at either side, on a course that would take them toward the Hom settlements. Not entirely the wrong direction, but wide of the coordinates Abrial had i:maged.
Abrial sighed at the white’s foolhardiness and kept faith with his own instincts, flying for a point between his place of contact with the boy and the large area of woodland close to it. And it was there, at exactly that halfway position, that he encountered the darkeye that had brought down Graymere.
It came at him head on. He could see it was dark
and smaller than himself, but he simply assumed it was another dragon. The Wearle dominated the sky. What else could be up here with him?
The rule of grace in situations like this was that the smaller dragon should give way and bank, allowing the larger one to continue unhindered. For once, that right belonged to Abrial. He clearly had the greater wingspan. In fact, he was bigger all round than the other. But it was only as they veered towards a possible collision that he began to question what he was seeing. His optical triggers switched to a narrower focus, recording the creature’s ugliness, its high prominence of battle stigs, the strangely dull eye. Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was anything other than a dragon approaching. So he opened his jaws and roared a warning: ‘Get out of my way!’
Exactly what the darkeye wanted.
It sucked in and spat its venomous bile, aiming for Abrial’s open mouth. Luckily, a favourable gust of wind carried the stream sideways and only droplets hit their target. Abrial retracted his tongue, flooding his mouth with saliva as the bile bit into the soft parts of his palate. He was more stung than hurt, but the pain had done him a precious service: now he was fully alert to the danger.
His battle stigs came up and his scales locked down. Instinct had made him lift and swerve when the bile had hit, a move that granted him enough air space to avoid a slash from the darkeye’s claws. They were red at their tips, possibly even poisonous, but nowhere near as thick and sturdy as a dragon’s.
He turned fast, but the darkeye turned faster. It flashed underneath him, hacking at his wing with the hard ball of spikes on the end of its tail. Two of the veiny network of bones that held the sheet of the wing together broke, leaving one dangling in the wind. Spurts of bright green blood shot forth. The wing contracted a little, but held. A painful, but not calamitous blow. And Abrial had been lucky. The swipe had caught the rearmost edge. Losing tissue there was a jolt to his vanity, but not a serious injury that would impair flight.
His adversary, however, might not think so.
During his training sessions with per Gorst, Abrial had been warned never to assume an opponent was down until it crashed, unmoving, onto the ground. He put that philosophy to good use now. Rather than turn and re-engage the creature, he deflated his air sacs and allowed himself to drop, as if the strike had been a success. The darkeye gave a victorious aark! and followed him down – a little too leisurely. In an instant, Abrial rolled onto his back and filled the space between them with flame, using rapid blasts of air from his spiracles to flatten the fire into a broad wall of heat.
The creature screamed and dropped through the inferno, most of its lower surfaces on fire. It spat wildly, spraying the air with a red-hot mist of toxic venom. This time, Abrial dodged it with ease. He rolled again, stiffening his isoscele. With one swing, he brought his tail around and slashed through the creature’s wing, cutting it off cleanly, close to the body. Black blood burst from the wound. The creature spiralled down, dragging a trail of smoke behind it. Abrial followed it all the way to impact. It hit the erth and sagged, dead, dissolving in a pool of its own foul spit.
Victory. But the blue was shaken. The fight had left him exhausted and hollow. What, exactly, had he killed? More importantly, where had it come from? Clearly, this had to be reported to the Elders, but there was still the drake to think of. And where, he wondered, was De:allus Graymere?
On that thought the wind changed direction and the odour of burned wood pricked his nostrils. Turning his face into the breeze, Abrial scanned the terrain ahead. Right on the edge of his optical range he saw a plume of smoke and the damaged woodland. On the ground near to it, some dots of life were moving round a static purple mound.
It looked like a dragon surrounded by Hom.
He didn’t want to believe it was Graymere, but every wingbeat made it more likely. As he came close, the sight of a yellow eye confirmed it. His first impulse as he landed was to kill every Hom in sight. All except one had scattered from the body. A male, plump of build, holding a sword, double-handed, at Graymere’s throat.
‘One more step and I kill it by my own strong arm!’ roared Varl. ‘The Kaal will have their vengeance, skaler!’
All of this was mere noise to Abrial.
He started to growl and fill his fire sacs. If the Hom had not been standing by Graymere’s head, he would have destroyed it in an instant. But he had seen a faint flicker of life in the dragon and dared not risk extinguishing it.
‘If I give word,’ Varl barked again, ‘my men will fill your young one with arrows. I say stand back, beast!’
Suddenly, Graymere spoke. ‘Abrial, is it you?’ His voice was thin, as weak as water. To Varl Rednose it would have sounded like a terrified whimper.
‘What have they done to you?’ Abrial growled. ‘Why don’t you rise against them?’
‘Listen carefully,’ Graymere rasped quietly. ‘There isn’t much time. My limbs are frozen. I can barely speak. Do not come near.’
‘But I could crush it or—’
A gargle of pain left Graymere’s mouth. In response to Abrial’s muted aggression, Varl had roared another warning and leant on Graymere’s throat with his sword.
Graymere said in a quiet whine, ‘Do as I say. Don’t anger the Hom. I must speak while I can. They have the drake.’
On cue, Gariffred let out a pitiful skrike. Abrial swivelled his head and locked his optical triggers onto him. In his keenness to aid Graymere, he had forgotten one of the key rules of battle: keep all your senses
alert. He should have scented the drake the moment he’d landed.
Varl Rednose rocked his sword. Laughing cruelly, he said, ‘Aye, we have it. If you want to hear it squawk again you’ll be backin’ off and givin’ me the life o’ this beast!’
Abrial couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Everything he’d felt that day above Vargos came thudding back.
Grystina.
Her drake.
Alive.
With the Hom.
‘How did they bring you down?’ he muttered, assessing Gariffred’s situation. The young dragon was still netted, a short distance away, snared in an awkward splay of limbs. He’d been abandoned by his captors, but their weapons were firmly trained on him.
‘They didn’t,’ said Graymere. ‘It was Gazz.’
‘Gazz?’
‘You must take an urgent message to Galarhade. The mine must close. The fhosforent is poisonous. Too great an exposure causes a dark mutation in the Veng, possibly other classes too. Once it has taken, it develops rapidly. I saw the changes in Gazz and should have worked it out sooner. It was he who attacked me, I’m sure.’
‘Then…I killed him. I flamed a dark creature in the sky just now.’
‘Good, but there are going to be others. The Wearle must be put on full alert. Per Grogan was mutating at the point that he died. He took in a large amount of the ore. It occurs to me now that he might have suspected its ill effects and sacrificed himself to warn us of the danger. I have a remnant of his body lodged in my leg scales. It will match the stig the boy was carrying. It’s proof of what happened to the first Wearle. Some of those dragons must have mutated and— Raaargh!’
Graymere winced again. Varl Rednose was growing impatient.
So was Abrial. ‘If you can move a little, I can burn the Hom with ease.’
‘No,’ said Graymere. ‘Save the drake.’
‘I can’t. They have their sticks on it.’
‘How many?’
‘Four.’
‘Then pray to Godith their aim is poor. When I tell you to, raise your wings.’
Abrial locked his gaze onto Varl. ‘The Hom will kill you if I move. I can read his actions.’
‘I know. Let him.’
‘But?’
‘I’m dying, Abrial. Grymric and his potions can
’t help me now. You must do as I command and fly the drake to safety. Back away slowly, let the Hom think it’s won. Keep your wings down but keep on talking. Did you take the boy to Galarhade?’
‘The Prime is ailing,’ said Abrial, backing off. ‘The boy is with Elder Givnay.’
Varl Rednose roared to his men, ‘See this! The beast retreats, beaten!’
Graymere hissed uneasily. ‘I don’t trust Givnay.’
Abrial blinked in shock. ‘But…Elder Givnay is closer to Godith than any of us. How can you question his loyalty to the Wearle?’
‘He’s been taking too much interest in the mine. More than that, I cannot say. Make a plea to Grynt to keep the boy safe.’
‘You think he did come to warn us?’
‘I’m sure of it. The drake has been crying out for him. Make ready. Now is the moment. One last thing. Tell Grendel…I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? For what?’
The De:allus sighed. At the corner of his eye, a tear was forming. That immense yellow light was beginning to fade. ‘She will know. Be brave. Be strong – for her. I wish I could have known you longer – Gabrial. Raise your wings.’
A few moments of fury, and it was done. The instant Abrial’s wings snapped out, the men of the Kaal panicked. Two dropped their weapons and fled. One changed his aim and bounced an arrow off the blue’s shoulder. The fourth did loose an arrow at the drake, but his fingers trembled against the string and the dart buried itself in the ground.
Varl Rednose, screaming of death and glory, plunged his sword into Graymere’s throat. Graymere’s tear had fallen by then, but he had stored enough fire to remind the Hom of what it meant to threaten a dragon. A streak of flame poured out of the gash, igniting Varl from his boots to his beard in a swirling pillar of orange and red.
Abrial roared and ran to Gariffred’s side. It was pointless to attempt to free the drake. He merely clamped the net in his jaws, then went back for the remnant in Graymere’s leg. By then, the only Hom left on the scene was the burning fat man, Varl Rednose. Abrial moved closer. The Hom was still alive, screaming as he tried to beat down the flames. So Abrial made it easy for him. One stamp put the whole fire out. And with that he took off for Galarhade’s settle, wiping the Hom off his foot as he flew.
The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle Page 16
