by Lucinda Hare
The great wings powered up and down. The Earl felt the shift of power beneath him as Stormcracker bunched his hind legs and raised his wings high. Steam bloomed from the great nostrils and pale purple flames licked along his tongue in eager anticipation of the battle to come. Around them, lighter, swifter dragons were already rising above the battlements and ramparts. Stormcracker sprang upwards, the great wings already on the downstroke.
Whumph ...
Whumph ...
The battledragon turned towards the west. All around the fortress, Imperials were rising up and dissolving into the night, thunder rolling from their wings.
That was when the first wave of hobgoblins rose up out of the gloom and their darts began to fall like black rain.
CHAPTER FOUR
Homecoming
Clang! Clang!
Quenelda woke with a start. A bell was ringing out across Dragonsdome. She blinked and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. What time was it? The fire in the hearth had died to an ember glow but no light yet showed behind the tapestried curtain.
Clang! Clang!
She cocked her head, listening. That wasn't the belfry ringing out the hour! That was the observatory bell! With a sudden eager smile she threw off the heavy fur bedcovers and sprang to the window, throwing the shutters open. Cold air and the deep voice of the bells rolled in.
Clang! Clang!
The beacon on Dragon Isle must have been lit! The SDS and her father were on their way home. Breaking the ice that had formed on the surface of the washing bowl, Quenelda plunged her hands into the water and splashed her face. Shivering, she hastily threw on warm clothing and a heavy cloak.
Collecting her flying belt and telescope, she ran along the great carved central stairway of Dragonsdome, skidded across the slate entrance hall and out past the Bonecrackers who guarded the huge oak doors. She bounded down the frost-crazed steps and turned to where the ancient keep lay hidden in the dark.
At the heart of Dragonsdome, a dozen saucer-shaped dragonpads eddied and drifted in the dark like deep-sea jellyfish bobbing in a current, the delicate struts of their landing decks, gantries and under-roosts picked out by winking light-sprites. And hanging beneath them, unseen in the dark, the great counter-weight pendulums and anchors. Somewhere up there her father's personal dragonpad was anchored and being prepared for his return. Quenelda headed towards it.
The sun was at its zenith when six squadrons of Imperial Black dragons, escorted by Vipers and Vampires, finally came into view, tattered battle banners rippling out behind him. At their apex flew the Earl Rufus DeWinter on Stormcracker Thundercloud III, his Household Guard in close V-formation behind him.
Quenelda watched the familiar rush and tumble below: people from all over the estate were converging on the keep. They raced against the swift shadows as wave after wave of dragons blotted out the sun overhead.
Dropping rapidly from three thousand feet above the sea loch, the dragons had slowed from a cruising speed of forty knots and were coming in from the west at nine knots. Cheers broke out, the sound rising thinly from the parade ground below.
Eight ... seven ... six ... five knots ...
Quenelda knew every move, every command, as if she were there landing with them. The dragons stalled one by one, their full wings capturing the wind like sails, sinews and tendons cracking with sudden tension.
Four knots ...
Tails swept ten degrees to starboard to compensate for a gentle crosswind.
Three knots ...
Spinal ruffs on Vipers fanned out, reducing their speed still further.
Two knots ...
Hind legs swung forward beneath the dragons' bellies.
One knot ...
Muscles bunched as they smoothly took up the immense weight transferred from the wings. Touchdown ...
Boom ...
Wings fully extended, spurred claws splayed, the Earl's huge Imperial Black executed a perfect landing, talons effortlessly gripping the decking mesh. A second later his front legs touched down. The SDS Commander's wingmen landed behind him, the dragonpads barely dipping as they absorbed the impact of one heavily armoured dragon after another.
Boom ...
All around the keep, battledragons were coming in to land, the downbeat from their wings whipping the still air into swirling gusts followed by the heavy rumble of the landings. Quenelda watched enviously as battle-weary SDS pilots expertly guided their dragons onto the crowded pads one by one; imagining that she was up there with them, returning from a dangerous mission.
Boom ...
Great sinews strained as wings came to rest unfurled, and commandos unstrapped themselves and dismounted down them.
Quenelda sprang forward with a cry. 'Papa! Papa!'
Dodging around the deck officer's half-hearted attempt to restrain her, she raced onto the landing deck, her feet pounding on the metal mesh. Stormcracker! Stormcracker! she called out.
The dragon's massive armoured head swung round at the sound of her voice as she hurtled up his outstretched wing, almost bowling the ground crew over in her haste.
Dancing with Dragons! Stormcracker Thundercloud III's singsong cadence filled her head, his golden eyes glittering. It is good to see you again! May the wind always sail under your wings ... he silently greeted her.
Stormcracker! May you ride the stars for ever!
The tip of the dragon's black tongue rasped Quenelda with rough affection as she climbed up the last few girthrungs to her father. All around, Bonecracker commandos, surgeons and dragonsmiths were dismounting wearily, many of them wounded. Dragons bearing the seriously injured were landing in the parade ground below, where the surgeons and apothecaries rushed forward with stretchers.
'Papa! Papa!'
Black pebbled armour sheathed the Earl from head to toe, moulded to the contours of his body like a second living skin. Horned and toothed in a mirror-image of Stormcracker, he looked half dragon, half man. At Quenelda's cry, the dragon's-head helmet swung towards her and spoke with the voice of a man.
'Goose!' The Earl stood up to greet his daughter.
With a cry of delight she hurtled into his open arms, hugging him fiercely. 'I've missed you so, Papa!'
He took her by the shoulders and held her away, smiling down at her. 'By the One Earth, it's good to see you! And I swear you've grown another three inches!'
Quenelda stood back, suddenly aware of the state her father was in. His armour was dirty, peppered with burn marks and scored with weapon strikes. The metallic smell of spent magic still lingered about him. With horror she realized that his pilot's chair had been damaged: the spell-charmed metal was buckled and charred. His staff, holstered on the saddle, was covered in soot.
'Oh, Papa!' She hugged her father again, grateful he was not badly injured.
'Goose!' the Earl protested. 'Let me take my helmet off.'
Quenelda smiled happily up at him, but as the rising helmet revealed her father's face, her response died in her throat, and she gasped with shock.
Her father's normally handsome face was gaunt, his skin the colour of cold candle-wax; his ragged scar stood out like a silver slug-trail beneath the soot and dirt. Bloodshot bruised eyes looked down at her through an unkempt mane of matted hair. A bloody bandage around his head oozed and more blood from a torn ear soaked into the scarf around his neck.
'Papa ... ?' Quenelda reached out tentatively to touch his grimy cheek. Surely that wasn't grey that touched his temples? It must be mud. My father is unbeatable, she thought fiercely. My father is the Queen's Champion, and Lord Commander of the most feared regiments in the land!
He saw her concern. 'The hobgoblins attacked the fortress at the Howling Glen. It was a bloody fight, but we won. Come, Goose' – he gave his staff to an esquire, and stretched stiffly – 'let's go inside. My bones are aching from too many hours in the saddle. A hot bath and clean clothes would be—' But before he could finish speaking, the Earl collapsed.
Only then did Quenelda re
alise that the dark stain on his leg greave wasn't rust.
'Surgeon! Surgeon!' she cried in panic. 'My father is badly injured!'
CHAPTER FIVE
Two Gulps and You're Gone
Root stood shivering in his thin cloak, tired red-rimmed eyes still gazing anxiously skywards to where the dragonpads bobbed. Fear was gnawing at him like hunger, knotting his stomach with dread. There had been no dragons landing now since half past the Hour of the Stealthy Lynx. Griffins were still shuttling the badly wounded between the landing pads and the hospital barracks; Root had been there half a dozen times until a surgeon told him he was only getting in the way.
The wind was picking up, swirling dust around the parade ground. As yet another troop of battle-weary dwarf commandos headed for their families and their first hot food in days, Root stepped nervously into their path, desperation lending a quiver to his voice as he asked the same questions over and over again:
'M-my f-father ... Are there any dragons overdue? Has anyone seen my father? Has anyone seen B-B-Bark Oakley? One of Earl Rufus DeWinter's scouts?'
The exhausted commandos shook their heads, most of them barely listening. Then a captain, his arm in a crude splint, stopped by the young gnome. Root couldn't tear his eyes away from the dwarf's ragged, rusty chain mail and dented axe. His desperate state frightened Root more than any words could.
'Ain't no one else coming home, lad,' the captain said, not unkindly. 'We're the last. We took heavy losses.'
Root stood there as if turned to stone.
The parade ground emptied.
Silence.
How long he stayed there he didn't know, mind blank, fists clenched. Shadows passed over the ground. Shading his eyes, heart thumping with sudden hope, Root looked up as a dragon swooped low overhead, but even he could see it was no battledragon. Escorted by four outriders, extravagantly attired, the white dragon flew the familiar banner of a red adder on black, the coat of arms of the Grand Master, who was coming to welcome the Earl home.
Pa was gone. He was all alone in the world. What would he do now? Root wondered. Where would he go? He couldn't think straight. He couldn't even move. The hobgoblins had once more killed his closest kin. He had been barely six years old when a banner had wiped out his village – he had been picking nuts and berries in the forest when the attack came, and was the sole survivor out of a hundred and fifty peaceful gnomes. Hearing the screams, he had hidden in the undergrowth and stayed there long after night and silence fell, too afraid to move. Finally, as dawn turned darkness to shades of grey, he had crept home to find his family lying like broken dolls in the ruins of their home. The SDS had found him three days later, filthy, starving and frozen, and had reunited him with his grieving father, stationed at Dragonsdome. But now the evil creatures had taken his father away too; what would become of him now?
'An escort flying with me? On my dragon?' Quenelda turned from the mullioned window high in Dragonsdome's keep; she had been watching Root far below with idle curiosity. Now she looked at her father in open-mouthed disbelief. Tangnost bowed out of the chamber, a smile tugging the edges of his moustache.
'But why, Papa?'
The heavy doors shut with a click. She wondered what Tangnost had said to her father during the hour they had been closeted away together.
'I'm perfectly safe flying on my own. I don't need an escort, and you're home now. I'll be flying with you – won't I?'
A cauldron of hot water with cleansing herbs swathed the Earl in billowing clouds of fragrant steam so that she couldn't see his face properly. Bloody bandages and swabs lay discarded on the floor at his feet, stained like his leg with yellow iodine. The Earl had taken a hobgoblin bite to the calf and thigh at the turn of the new moons, and several new scars puckered his forearms and chest. Quenelda shivered. He and Stormcracker must have been utterly exhausted for the hobgoblins to get close enough to wound him.
'Goose—' The Earl winced as the old surgeon restitched the torn muscles of his leg, clucking and tutting like a mother hen at the mess the field doctors had made. 'I have a great deal of military and Guild business to see to – and yes, you may come with me sometimes – but not even you, my daughter, may set foot on Dragon Isle unless and until you are accepted as a cadet.' The Earl gratefully took a steaming goblet of mulled wine from a servant. 'And that cannot happen until you come of age in two years' time, if it ever happens. And, meantime' – he looked up at her – 'I'm sorry, Goose, but I must return to Dragon Isle just as soon as the Guild has met.'
'But why, Papa?' Quenelda's face fell. 'The SDS are standing down for the winter – aren't they?'
The Earl continued as if he hadn't heard her. 'You need an escort when you are out flying. Earth knows, I have tried to find a matron or goodwife to chaperone you.' He shook his head ruefully. 'But most women won't go near a dragon – certainly no woman of noble birth. And I know you can out-fly your escort and most anything else ...' He smiled to take the sting out of his words. 'Oh, yes, I've heard how you take great delight in losing or humiliating every esquire Tangnost selects for you. This is why from now on you are taking one on your own dragon; that way you can't leave him behind. And this is also why, this time, I'm giving you someone who, unlike most other young men, would not be too proud to fly behind you; nor will he indulge your foolish escapades.'
'But, Papa! I don't need an—'
'Quenelda' – the Earl sighed in exasperation – 'my mind is made up. You're no longer a child. It's unheard of for a young lady to step out without a chaperone, let alone without an escort as befits her high rank. Let alone actually riding a dragon by herself ... wearing breeches ... and buckled leather boots.' He frowned. 'The war has made me into a poor father. Barely ever home, letting you run wild. When you were small it didn't matter, but you're a young lady now. Well,' he amended with a wry smile, 'you should be a young lady by now and should be chaperoned as befits your status. Most young ladies your age are already attending court.'
'But, Papa!' Quenelda knew how childish she sounded, and it only made her angrier. She almost stamped her foot in frustration. 'I'd die at court! Trussed up in corsets and dresses. Talking about fashion, endless ceremony ... My brother Darcy loves that; he is always at court! I'd hate it. I know I would. I don't want to ever be a young lady!'
Fists held rigid at her sides, Quenelda glowered unseeingly at the wind vector maps and sky cloud charts that hung above the big map table in her father's study. She bit her tongue: she didn't want to mention the ugly speculation and gossip about her unknown mother that always ruined her visits to court.
'You don't want to be a young lady?' her father teased her. 'You already are. You were born the Lady Quenelda Katriona DeWinter. What do you want, then?'
'To become a Dragon Lord like you, Papa! To join the SDS and fly Imperial Blacks!'
The intensity of her reply took him aback.
'I thought ...' Quenelda hesitated. 'Since Tangnost allowed me to help him treat Two Gulps, you might change your mind and let me apply to Dragon Isle now, before I come of age. I thought ...'
'Goose ...' The Earl eased himself into a high-backed chair by the fire, his injured leg stretched stiffly out before him. 'What Tangnost achieved with your help was truly incredible, and yes, that is bound to impress the Academy.' Far more than you know, he thought dryly. 'But' – he raised his hand to silence her protest – 'but,' he repeated sternly, 'even if the Academy decides to accept you, decides to accept a girl, there is a reason why you have to be of age before you may enter the Academy as a cadet. To become an SDS pilot or navigator you must first have mastered the rudiments of magic, runes and spells. All are required to study military history, master many weapons, dwarfish strategy and tactics, manoeuvring, weaponry, night flying, High Magic and Battle Magic – there is endless theory and exams.'
He paused to consider his daughter: her eyes were flashing fire like a wildcat at bay and the set of her jaw was fierce. His eyes narrowed. How she had grown. All angles like a ha
lf-grown colt. And her face ... so like her mother's ...
Earl Rufus held her gaze. 'You know how you detest study, detest discipline. How many times have you been flying when you should have been studying? Your tutors have all given up on you. They say you have the ability, but unless it has anything to do with dragons you don't have the discipline. You–'
'But–'
'– have yet to earn your first wand,' he cautioned. 'Let alone the staff of a Mage. And just because you can fly does not mean that you have the ability to fight. As the only girl you would have to prove yourself better than anyone else. Everyone will be watching you, thinking you were only accepted because you were my daughter. Tradition dies hard. Many would want you to fail.'
'But—'
'And there will be times,' he added gently, 'at the Academy, when you will not see a battledragon for months on end, let alone fly one! How do you think you would manage?'
'I'm certain I would pass!' Quenelda said desperately. 'All I need to learn is Battle Magic and how to fight. Mastering dragons is half the challenge and I can already do that. And then I'd be able to go to war with you, Papa, at your side. I'm nearly twelve. If I were your son and heir instead of Darcy, I could go to Dragon Isle now. It would be my right whatever my age!'
Seeing her father's disappointed frown at her brother's name, Quenelda paused. Although he was rarely at home and had little time for her when he was, she loved her handsome elder brother in his dashing uniform, but she could not understand why anyone would choose the Household Cavalry over the glory and tradition of Dragon Isle. Unicorns were beautiful creatures, and they had magic of a kind, but they could never compare with an Imperial Black like Stormcracker. And surely, exciting though it was, court ceremony could not compare with battle? Darcy's continued defiance in the face of his father's disapproval was baffling.
Sensing an advantage, Quenelda plunged on. 'Darcy joined the Queen's cavalry. He doesn't want to join the SDS. Let me fight by your side instead!'
