by Carol Berg
Then her clear voice sang out to rouse the monster. “Awaken, child of fire and wind. Wake from the sleep of dying and heed my command.” The hot, humid air moved uneasily. “Wake from winter’s death and take your place among the mighty of the world. I command you drink your fill of the water of fire and life.”
Open your ears, Aidan MacAllister, and listen. It is the gift you have been given. ...
I felt his breathing change from nature’s rhythm to the tempo colored by waking will—a mighty will, pulsing through the cave. An ominous growl vibrated the stone at my head and beneath my feet. The cry would come at any moment like the blast of a thousand hellish trumpets. I had to be ready, but what preparation can mute the scream of a thousand tormented souls, the rolling thunder of a thousand hurricanes? I raised my arms to cover my head just as he bellowed. The sound reverberated through my very bones until I was sure they must be shattered to dust; searing pain tore through my chest like a hot knife used to carve out my heart. My knees gave way as I fought to keep from crying out. Through my closed eyelids, even sheltered as I was by the rocks, I could see the brilliance of fire. A shower of hot droplets fell from the air, but I forced myself still. If Lara was a victim of the dragon’s waking, I could do nothing for her, but if she was not, then she would tell me when to come, and I had to be able to hear it.
The first bellow subsided into a series of horrific growlings and snortings, accompanied by rock-shattering blows that could be nothing but the beast’s mighty tail, slamming into the cave walls. Astonishingly, in the midst of it all, I heard the soft whickering of horses and an unconcerned clopping of hooves.
“MacAllister!” The quiet call pushed its way through the throbbing of my head, and I let out the breath I’d held since her last word. I hauled myself up three boulders until my eyes were on a level with Lara’s boots. Her leather-clad hand held the bloodstone like a pulsing heart. She called down to me softly. “The kai drinks. Come quickly, but stay low.”
I scrambled up to the top of the flat red rock, crouching as low as the bulky leather armor would allow, and looked out over a poet’s vision of the netherworld: steaming mud pits, brimstone-laden smoke obscuring the view of burning rubble heaps, rotting carcasses. And the beast itself, repulsive, horrid, its head not fifty paces from me, the white-filmed eyes of scarlet flame, open and fixed in malevolent, unseeing madness on the bloodstone, even as it poked its snout into the black pool. Bursts of steam shot upward as gouts of flame streamed from its nostrils.
Ludicrous. Lara was right. Intelligence and sentience were far more likely present in the wild horses that shared the pool or in the very rocks of the cave than behind those devil’s eyes.
“I’ll move to the mouth of the cave,” said Lara, keeping her arm stretched high and her eyes fixed on the dragon. “We must put distance between you and the kai’cet. Count fifty; then I’ll say the words that release my command. I can reclaim control if you don’t wait too long to tell me. Do you understand? At the first sign of trouble, call my name.”
“Thank you” was all I managed to say, my wit completely abandoning me as I looked up at the worry on her face and yearned—foolishly—that it was for me. “Fifty, forty-nine ...”
Slowly she eased down from the rock, keeping herself and—more important—the bloodstone exposed to the wakened monster, calling to him, “Hear me, kai! Drink your fill and open the doors of your mind.”
The dragon raised its head from the water to follow the movement of the stone, and it rumbled ominously, rippling the muscles of its towering shoulders and the long copper barrel of its throat, flexing its wings so that I caught glimpses of swirling green and gold gossamer. It could not stretch its wings fully, of course. No cavern in my knowledge was so large it could hold a dragon’s wings unfurled.
“... forty-one, forty ...”
Lara disappeared into the gloom, and I was alone with the restless monster.
“... thirty-four, thirty-three ...”
One of the wild horses nipped at another who had pushed him away from the water. The dragon shifted its head toward them and the rumbling grew louder. The smoke from the corners of its mouth shot upward.
“... twenty-three, twenty-two ...”
The rumbling took on an edge of brass, tearing at my head until my vision began to blur. I would have sworn that the dragon’s red, leathery nostrils moved.
“... fourteen, thirteen ...”
Frantically I blinked my eyes and willed the throbbing aside. I had to be able to see. The horses cantered one after the other about the pool. What were the words? The nostrils flared wide. Gods. I stepped backward, ready to dive off my platform, but it was almost time.
“... five, four, three ...”
Crusted with jibari, the barnaclelike parasites that grew unchecked until blasted with dragon’s fire, the monster’s head rose up. The long, scaled neck twisted, the mouth gaped wide, revealing the brown leathery tongue. Another deafening bellow sounded, threatening to rob me of my reason. Every particle of my being was on fire. If the dragon spoke in its roaring, I would never be able to hear it. All my skill at listening would be of no use if I was deafened by the pounding of my blood. I could hear only the roar, different this time, a soaring note. Triumphant. Wild. He was free of Lara’s bloodstone. I hadn’t needed to count to know it.
The horses seemed disturbed at last and trotted across the floor of the cave. The dragon’s head moved to follow them, and the nostrils flared again, spewing thin trailers of flame, but despite the sweat that broke out beneath my stiff and stinking leathers, there was no full blast of fire. The horses left the cave, and the dragon shifted its head back to the water and drank again.
Now. The time has come. Take the words and weave into them your memories ... of Roelan and mystery ... of joy and faith . . . of the years of dedication to one who was as a god to you. ...
I raised my right arm. “Teng zha nav wyvyr, child of fire and wind, hear me.” He heard me, though I could scarcely force my voice above a whisper. The head turned toward me, and the cruel, slavering mouth. As I opened my mouth to say the next words, the nostrils flared wide, once, then twice, and the low-pitched rumble changed to hatred ... bestial fury ... death. ... I heard it even before the massive head began to dip.
“Lara!”
As my shout was annihilated by the blast, I turned and leaped from the rock. My hair burst into flame as I sailed downward beneath the arc of fire. Stumbling over the rocks as I landed, I smothered the back of my head with my gauntleted hands, then dropped to my back to ensure no untended spark found a path through the leather vest. A flash of red, boots narrowly missing my head; then Lara was screaming commands from above me. Flame lit the ceiling of the cavern, and the unending screech of the damned threatened to burst my brain from my head. I rolled to the side with my hands over my face and hot drops streamed from my eyes like tears, but they were dark as they soaked into my gauntlets. When silence fell, I struggled to all fours, then straightened and climbed slowly up the rocks.
She sat with her arms wrapped about her knees, beads of sweat running down her scarred cheek, the bloodstone gleaming in her hand. The dragon’s eyes were closed, though remnants of his fury burned everywhere in the cavern.
“What happened?” she said, craning to see the back of my singed hair and charred vest while grinding out a spark with her boot. She wasn’t even out of breath. “I couldn’t see.”
I told her.
“Fool! Why didn’t you call sooner? I told you if the nostrils flared—”
“He didn’t burn the horses. The nostrils flared, but his head never went down. Not until he was facing me.”
“Are you saying the fire was aimed only at you? That the kai knew the difference between you and the horses? Impossible.”
I flopped down on the rock beside her. “That’s the way it seemed.”
“This kai cannot see. It burns what moves, what disturbs it. Even after drinking the water.”
“Except the h
orses.”
“The horses were quiet. It didn’t know they were there. It aimed at you because you spoke. I’ve brought every manner of deer and mountain sheep, wild pig and goat in here. They squeak and grunt and bleat, and it burns them all. Every one. Every time. The water made no difference.”
“Horses are sacred to Keldar.”
“Nonsense.”
“Bring in the horses again. Wake him again and you’ll see. He knows what’s food and what’s not.”
She glared at me in angry disbelief. “And so it thinks you are food?”
“No. He tried to burn me because he hated me.” Even as I said it, I was more convinced.
“You can’t have it both ways, Senai. Four weeks ago you said it spoke to you ‘with love.’ Today it hates you. What’s the difference?”
That, of course, was the essential question. “I don’t know. The words. The weather. Today he was free of your stone.” My head ached miserably. I was nauseous with the stink of dragon and carrion and the fireproof grease on the leather. The stink ...
“He smells us.” I wanted to shout it out, but my head hurt too fiercely.
“What?”
“That’s the difference. Stupid of me not to think of it. He can smell the difference: horses, deer, pigs ... Riders.”
“We’ve never seen evidence they can smell anything. They burn and kill whatever moves unless it holds a bloodstone.”
“And any Rider who wields a bloodstone—the thing that drives it mad—wears armor like this.” I drew off my gauntlets. “They all smell alike. Who’s to say dragons would kill any human if they weren’t commanded so by their Riders?”
“You’ve no proof. You know nothing of dragons.”
“We’ve no time for proof.” I stripped off my vest and the breeches, the boots, and the greaves. “Wake him again.”
“You can’t mean this.”
“Give me time to wash off the smell.” I jumped down again and dodged a pile of burning bones to find my way to the waterfall. Standing in the shallow pool at its base, I scrubbed my skin and my clothes with handfuls of sand. Lara stood beside the pool watching my antics with angry astonishment.
“You’re mad. Absolutely mad. If it weren’t for the armor your bones would still be burning. They’d hear your screams down in Cor Talaith.”
“If it weren’t for the armor, I’d be talking with Keldar.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Lara”—I stepped out of the pool dripping and shivering though the cavern was not at all cold—“it’s the third day. Your brother will have the legion at our door anytime now. If this is going to happen, if the gods—whoever they are—wish the dragons to be free, then we’ve got to find the way right now. Help me.”
She hadn’t moved, and I was closer to her than I had ever been, close enough to know that beneath her leather vest she was quivering, strung tight as an archer’s drawn bowstring. Her face was carved from rose-colored granite, but her brown hair was shining and I wanted nothing more than to bury my face in it and forget about everything else in the world.
Lara, of course, brought me quickly back to my senses. She shrugged with a muttered curse and turned her back, climbing the red rock tower once more. I watched her go; then I set off an entirely different way, circling the steam pits and jumping cracks in the stone until I reached the edge of the dark pool, twenty paces from the dragon’s head. The water trickled into it from Narim’s stone trough, water stolen from the fiery lake of my visions. I settled myself on the stone and looked up at the copper-scaled head so close I could feel the hot breath from the raw, red nostrils. I did not look over my shoulder. No need. I just raised one hand briefly, then rested it in my lap again and held myself ready.
As I knew it would, her voice rang out soon after. “Awaken, child of fire and wind. Drink of the water of fire and live. Be troubled no more by the stone that galls you so sorely ... and harm not the fools who put themselves at your mercy.”
I smiled to myself and awaited the onslaught.
LARA
Chapter 20
I am a warrior born. My father was a Dragon Rider, seventh wingrider of the First Family of the Ridemark, and the Riders of our line had been no less than a tenth flanker for nine generations. In Gondar, in Eskonia and Florin, in the farthest provinces of Elyria, never did the line of Govin reap anything but honor and victory for the clan. From the first days of my memory I believed that the blood of the Ridemark flowed true within my veins and that I was destined to follow in the footsteps of my ancestors.
We did not live as the soft races did. My family—mother, brother, two grandmothers, two uncles, one aunt, and three cousins—slept in a tent twelve paces square. We owned only what we could carry on our backs as we followed the legion from one encampment of mud and beast-filth to another. Warriors cannot afford comfort; it brings weakness. I could not understand how anyone who slept under wood or stone held up his head without shame.
My father lived with his dragon. We were sure to see him once a year when he came to mate with my mother to keep her his wife. And he would always return if he heard any report of disrespect or disobedience from Desmond or me. Whenever a dragon flew above our tent, I imagined it was his, and I held my head high.
My fighting skills came early. I stood still for no insult from my older brother or any Ridemark child. I did not lower myself to fight children of other races, but frightened them with my whip and did as I pleased. In the strip of mud between our tent and the next, I played at strategy and tactics with bits of wood and stone, choosing wild dogs and prowling cats as my enemies if I could find no one willing to stand up to me.
And on the day that Desmond began his training to prepare him for our family’s rightful place as a Dragon Rider, I stepped forward, too. I told the Ridemaster that I was also ready, though I was only six instead of eight. I knew the Rider’s oath and the Twelve Laws. I could hook my whip and climb anything. I could recite the names of our heroes to the tenth generation and the names of our enemies from the beginning of time, and I could argue the long grievances that festered in our hearts. But on that same day I learned the hard truth no one had bothered to tell me before: that females could render any service the Twelve Families required except ride to war on the back of a dragon.
For three days I raged and wept every time I saw Desmond take his whip from its hook and leave for his training in the lair. “Quit your mewling,” my father told me, “or I’ll marry you into the Twelfth Family, where men take multiple wives. You’ll not be allowed to speak save with your husband’s leave or show your shameful face without a veil.” My mother slapped me and said, “What worthy warrior requires a beast to shed our enemies’ blood? The swordwomen of your clan fight alongside the men who are not Riders born. That is enough.” By the time I was eight I was resigned to the belief that unyielding honor was the only true glory of a clansman. Though I was not happy with it, it would have to do.
Then Aidan MacAllister, “beloved of the gods,” came to our camp. His music—his glorious music that my clansmen swore came from the fire god Vanir himself—turned my head inside out. I lived in the visions he made that night. I felt my hair streaming behind me as I soared through a world of wind and clouds and stars, and from that time forward I could think of nothing but flying. No warrior can be at peace when his master denies him the weapon he was born to wield. I resolved to ride upon a dragon, even if my clansmen cut out my heart for it. Because of Aidan MacAllister I forsook my oaths and betrayed my honor. I lied to my commander. I hid. I plotted. I stole. And for the span of two heartbeats I owned the wind and clouds and stars. Then came the terror and the screaming and the fire.
Aidan MacAllister had cursed my life, and when I saw him in Cor Talaith, I relived every moment of the horror he had brought down on me—the day I fell from the sky burning and knew it was just retribution for my sins. Is it any wonder I hated him?
Narim told me the Senai had been a prisoner of the Ridemark all those years s
ince my fall, but I would not believe it. No Senai singer, so weak, so soft, so cowardly, could survive seventeen years in a Ridemark prison. “He’s been hiding,” I said, “while I’m forced to live forever with what he’s done.” The everlasting ugliness I wore on my face. A lifetime of exile from my clan. There was no going back to the Ridemark. I had done the unforgivable, and the price on my head was almost as high as that on MacAllister’s. I would not be killed or imprisoned, but have one hand cut off so I could not steal and one foot cut off so I could not run. I would live in servitude baser than any slave. I was sure that the despicable Senai was using the Elhim, weaving tales with his lying tongue to win their sympathy, making them believe he was their savior so they would protect him from our justice. “He was a spy,” I claimed in my unending arguments with Narim. “He was sent into Ridemark camps by Senai nobles to corrupt our honor.”
So why did I not kill him? If will alone could shed blood, MacAllister’s veins would have been emptied at my first glance. But I was bound to Narim’s wishes, a sacred debt because he had saved my life. It was enough to drive me crazy, so sure was I of my hate.
But then the singer came to live with me, and all my beliefs were confounded. I scorned him for huddling by the fire, and he offered to share his tea. I reviled him for his cowardice at the kai’s lair, and he made me soup. I ridiculed his noble ancestry, and he laughed at himself and cleaned my hearth. I drove him unmercifully in his schooling, and he devoured it as if I’d gifted him with jewels. No matter how I goaded him, he would not get angry and free my revenge from Narim’s bond. I had never known a man of such gentle ways and teasing humor, and I could only chalk it up to weakness, because I had no other way to explain it. I counted him pitiful ... until the night I first saw his mangled hands.
