The Dragon Whisperer

by Lucinda Hare

  'Quenelda!' The urgency of his voice stunned her. 'Goose! Look—'

  Quenelda waved at him, but then she realized he was trying to tell her something, and slowly, reluctantly, she looked over her shoulder. A rank cloud of hot air buffeted her. Puzzled, she pushed back her hair. Bloodshot, smouldering eyes and an opening maw were almost upon her!

  She tried to scream out, but only managed a croak. Panicked, frantically slapping at her battledragon's armoured hide in her frenzy to communicate, she finally found her voice: 'Two Gulps!' she screamed, hair streaming into her eyes. 'Fly! He's right behind us!'

  Already sensing his foe's approach, Two Gulps leaped away, banking steeply down towards the floor of the arena, a manoeuvre that nearly unseated Quenelda. Then Midnight Madness was bearing down on them, the hot fetid stench of his breath vaporizing the snow as he came. Two Gulps rolled and swept backwards, wings beating frantically to pull away from danger, leaving Quenelda clinging precariously to his neck. Gobbets of tattered dragon flesh sprayed her, and then the rogue dragon thundered past, narrowly missing her with his talons. Suddenly her father's words came back to haunt her: Quenelda, I know you can fly. But there is a great deal more to becoming an SDS pilot ...

  She realized in a moment of clarity how foolish and childish she had been to think she could fight at his side simply because she could fly! But right now that was all she could do if they were to survive.

  Fly, Two Gulps!

  It was growing so dark she could hardly even make out the tiered seating around them. Braziers flickered briefly like marsh fireflies as they jinked to and fro, each dragon trying to win the advantage. Hampered by Quenelda's lack of battle experience or Battle Magic, Two Gulps knew he could not take the dragon on head to head or she might die in the fight. She wore no armour; her scales were soft.

  Quenelda forgot to breathe. Never before had she felt so afraid of a dragon. For the first time she saw raptors through Root's and her brother's eyes: the reptilian mouth full of needle-like teeth; the powerful jaw that could crush a cow as if it were a soft-bellied grub; taloned claws reaching forward to seize and slice and tear ... a predator.

  'Fire!' the archers' captain shouted as Quenelda and Two Gulps flew past. 'Fire at will! Make sure of your target, lads! Make every arrow count!' As dragon and girl swept around the lip of the arena, a volley of black arrows rained down behind them. Quenelda heard the bellow of rage from Midnight Madness as many found their mark, then the faint screams from the crowd below as the lethal rain fell on them.

  Leaning flat over Two Gulps' neck, she risked a look behind. She sat up. Where was the dragon? She frantically searched the driving snow – behind, above, below. The arrows must have killed him, she thought, and relaxed.

  He's gone, Two Gulps. We've lost him. The archers will take care of him now—

  Dancing with Dragons!

  Wha—? Quenelda turned and realized that she had been looking the wrong way. There, hovering in front of them, was the black dragon, his armoured hide sprouting arrows like a monstrous pincushion.

  I must fight, Dancing with Dragons ... Jump. Jump into the netting and let me fight him alone. It is the only way – you have never before been in battle ... Two Gulps feared for his mistress's life; why had she ordered him not to kill the rogue dragon? The battledragon pleaded for guidance: Dancing with Dragons, what is your command? This dragon is crazed ... His mind is brittle – fractured like broken ice. He must die ... It would be a kindness to kill him ...

  But then there was no time to do anything: Midnight Madness leaped at them and his open maw filled Quenelda's vision. She froze in sheer terror. She was going to die.

  'Quenelda! Quenelda!'

  At first Quenelda thought she must be imagining it, the familiar high-pitched cry. But how could it be Root out here?

  'Queneldaaaaa!'

  Then, out of a thick bank of snow, a tiny flash of violet-blue cut through the storm in front of her and then was gone, distracting the black dragon's attention away from her at a critical moment. Midnight Madness slashed out at Chasing the Stars. Taking advantage, Two Gulps slammed into his unprepared foe, tumbling him head over heels.

  Stunned, Midnight Madness hit the netting hard and bounced back into the air once more. He was beginning to weaken from his many injuries, and the magic that bound him was finally beginning to unravel. He was slowly losing his mind. Hovering, he shook his head, trying to focus on the waiting battledragon. His tongue licked out to taste the air. Quenelda was not his prey, but she smelled like the man who was. Pain thundering through his veins, Midnight Madness leaped upwards.

  But the little violet-blue dragon and her rider flashed across his path again and again. She darted to and fro like a sparrow attacking an eagle, forcing the raptor to strike out in increasing frustration, growing weaker with every strike.

  His movements slowed and tremors shook him from snout to tail. The fire in his eyes dimmed. As he snapped weakly at Chasing the Stars, Two Gulps and You're Gone didn't hesitate: his mistress's life was in danger and the SDS battledragon's training cut in to defend her. A vicious bite to his unprotected neck and Midnight Madness died, his broken body falling out of the sky.

  It was finally over! Wings spread wide, Two Gulps and You're Gone sank gently to the floor of the arena, where Quenelda's father stood surrounded by his household guard. The spectators, who had been streaming out, turned back to discover who had been flying the battledragon. In the swirling dark, the slim figure in flying boots, breeches and shredded dress was dimly silhouetted against the flickering light.

  ' 'Tis the Earl's son, the Lord Darcy.'

  'It's a girl, Father!' a young boy cried. 'It's a girl!'

  'Nae, lad.' His father shook his head. 'It can't be! That's a battledragon they've been commanding!'

  'It is, Father! It's the Earl's daughter!'

  'Quenelda! Goose!' The Earl shook off helping hands and limped over to embrace his daughter. As she dismounted, her dress shredded and spattered with blue blood, the Queen's men-at-arms thumped their swords on shields in acknowledgement of a warrior's success. The crowds took up the chant.

  'DeWinter! DeWinter! DeWinter!'

  The exhausted Earl asked one of his men for his sword. Taking the weapon, he wearily lifted his daughter's hand with his own, sword raised to the sky as they acknowledged the crowd's acclaim. Quenelda felt the persistent ache of fear drain from her, and with it all her strength. But somehow the crowd's adulation and her father's proud smile kept her on her feet.

  'DeWinter! DeWinter! DeWinter!'

  As the swirling snow shrouded them both in a veil of white, a deafening cheer erupted that roared around the arena faster than the storm. The very air vibrated. The stands shook beneath the stamping feet. The crowd recognized a gesture when they saw one. While the Earl's son had remained in the royal gallery, his younger sister had flown a dragon, an SDS battledragon no less, to her father's rescue!

  'Quenelda DeWinter! Quenelda DeWinter! Quenelda DeWinter!'

  'Easy, girl, easy.' Unnoticed by anyone, Root stroked his quivering dragon's neck as they watched the crowds below converge on the Earl and his daughter. He could barely hear their roar for his heart thumping in his ears. Chasing the Star's nostrils were still flared wide with fear. Her wings were caked with ice and snow, and her breathing clouded the air around her head in a sparkling halo. Root was in no better a state himself. 'Easy, girl,' he whispered. 'It's all over. They're safe now.' As a gust whipped gnome and dragon sideways and upwards from the list, he turned her towards the roosts; towards a warm stall and a rub down.

  'And you can have as many honey tablets as you want!'

  Pale with thwarted fury, the Grand Master found his veiled eyes meeting Darcy's cold, jealous ones, and a brief unguarded moment of recognition passed between them.

  What on the One Earth had happened? They had all felt it, a sudden powerful gust of icy-cold air that buffeted the arena, throwing his unbeatable Midnight Madness into the packed stands
with a clap of thunder. The tremor that followed a mere heartbeat later had shivered through the old stone bones of the castle.

  In the ensuing chaos, only the Grand Master had recognized it for what it was; had recognized the underlying ripple of Elder Magic that had flared and died in the blink of an eye. He knew it from the unmistakable aftershock that had nothing to do with twenty tons of dragon smashing into the great arena; but it was a magic so strange, so uncanny, that he could not identify its source. The epicentre was close to where he stood, he was certain of it. It had the potency of Battle Magic, yet puzzlingly it was so carelessly cast that scores had died in the fallout, and much of its power had rolled over the lip of the arena to dissipate in the glen beyond. Yet none nearby had raised wand or staff, and anyway, only an Arch Mage or Battle Mage could cast such a spell. With the Earl and the Queen's constable down in the arena, there were no others in the royal gallery save himself. Magical signatures were unique, no two exactly the same. In the confusion the Grand Master had cast a subtle rune but it had revealed no telltale signature.

  A small part of him was intrigued that someone was prepared to kill so many to save one man. It showed a single-minded ruthlessness akin to his own. But he was also incensed by his unaccustomed failure.

  Whatever strange magic it was, it had crippled his dragon, diverting him from his true purpose so that Quenelda and her battledragon could sweep down and save the Earl's life. It had been hard to follow the battle through the curtain of snow but he had recognized the battledragon's challenge – and who would have thought that the brat – that gnome she called esquire – would have been so brave?

  Conveniently, Sir Hugo's pale face, his trembling voice, his evident shock and rage would in fact protect him from blame or suspicion, had any been watching his little drama unfold.

  'DeWinter! DeWinter! DeWinter!'

  With a forced smile, Darcy also joined in the wild applause of the Queen and the royal court, keeping his thoughts to himself. All his efforts to make his sister an object of ridicule and derision had failed, undone by a single spectacular manoeuvre and the unbelievable sight of her controlling a battledragon in combat. What if Papa acknowledges her as his heir, here and now? he thought bitterly, panic rising like sour apples in his throat. Then I'm utterly lost.

  'DeWinter! DeWinter! DeWinter!'

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Maelstrom Magic

  The snow continued falling.

  Quenelda had spent her childhood dreaming of a moment like this: the splendour and excitement of the battlefield; a great act of heroism; her father watching with pride. But now that it had finally happened, the reality of combat was worse than anything she had imagined. Somehow in her dreams she never heard the cries of the wounded or smelled the bitter stench of spilled guts and blood. She had never felt so exhausted or been so wretchedly sick. Without Root's brave intervention, she knew she would be dead; in her ignorance she had thought that somehow she could beat a rogue dragon simply because she could fly.

  As the crowd engulfed them in a tidal wave of celebration, she was separated from her father. 'Papa! Papa!' she cried. but he was lost in the heaving, cheering mass. The Queen's men-at-arms tried desperately to keep the crowd back as the injured Earl was carried inside on a stretcher of shields. Suddenly remembering, Quenelda looked around frantically for Root, but could see no sign of him or Chasing the Stars. Then the blizzard had closed in again and she could barely see a yard in front of her face, making flying impossible.

  Sending Two Gulps to search the Cauldron for Chasing the Stars, she had allowed herself to be carried along by the soldiers streaming into the inner bailey yards. Dazed and exhausted, chilled to the bone, she somehow found her way to the great keep. By now her head was throbbing, the taste of magic still bitter in her dry mouth. She was shaking from exertion and her close brush with death. Dizzily, she leaned against the cold stone of the battlements, before the swirling snow wrapped her in white and she slipped down ... down ... into a silent shrouded world ...

  In the teeming corridors conversation remained at fever pitch as rumour and counter-rumour swept its viaducts and high-vaulted halls. Grim-faced, the Queen's constable, Sir Mowbray, had gone to the Earl's quarters and then left without a word. Some said the Earl Rufus was near death, that the rogue dragon had nearly torn his leg off. Others claimed that, already weak from his war wound, he had broken his back and would be dead within the hour.

  But another rumour was also rife: that it was the Earl's young daughter who had swept down to his rescue while his son looked on from the royal pavilion doing nothing. Only no one could find her ...

  'Quenelda!'

  It had taken Root nigh on two hours to find his friend. Searching the heavily guarded rooms and corridors outside the Earl's apartments in the Winter Tower, he finally spotted a distinctive pair of size-six boots peeking out from beneath tattered skirts. No wonder she had been overlooked: none would take her for an Earl's daughter dressed like that, covered in gore, hair in knots. Quenelda was curled up on a stone window seat, almost completely hidden beneath a heap of snow that had drifted in through the arrow-slit. Bending over, Root had recoiled at the stench – the fetid smell of rotting meat that still clung to her clothes.

  He struggled to wake her – he was close to panic when she finally opened her eyes, but her first words had chilled him even more.

  'It was n-no accident, Root.' She was trembling, the words tumbling out in a torrent as he guided her through the press of soldiers and courtiers towards a burning brazier to warm her.

  'What do you mean, it was no accident?' He helped her onto a wooden stool and looked at her anxiously.

  'That d-d-dragon that attacked Papa, it was a r-raptor.' Her voice was barely above a whisper, throat raw from shouting, tight with fear.

  'What? Wh—?'

  'It w-was a r-raptor, inside.' Quenelda's elfin face was deathly pale and she was shaking as if she had a fever. Root took her hands in his and tried to warm her freezing fingers.

  'It was magic of s-some kind. Really p-p-owerful magic, Root! It looked like an ordinary dragon, but it wasn't! The G-Grand Master's dragon was trying to kill Papa!'

  'Sshh.' Root looked around anxiously at the press of courtiers and soldiers, noticing some wearing the Grand Master's livery. 'What are you saying?' he whispered.

  Quenelda's voice was so quiet he could hardly hear her. He leaned down, his ear close to catch her words. 'The Grand M-Master was trying t-to kill Papa and make it l-look like a-an accident.'

  Root was seriously alarmed. He had to warm her up; she was clearly delirious – she didn't know what she was saying. He put a hand to her head and yelped as if he had been stung. Her forehead was ice-cold! A flake of frost fell away in his hand.

  'Wait here,' he told her, wrapping his heavy cloak around her shoulders. 'I'm going to see if I can find some help.' He ran off, but the castle was in uproar and no one paid a young esquire any attention.

  Then he spotted a familiar face coming through the crowds. He jumped up with his hand in the air. 'Quester! Quester!'

  'Root!' His friend hugged him. 'I've been looking everywhere for you! The Earl has been asking for the Lady Quenelda, and no one could find her. She was not in her chambers. He has half the palace guard looking for her – and for you. Is she ... ?'

  'No, no, she's not injured,' Root assured his friend. 'But she's ...' He paused. 'She's ill. Exhausted, I think, and burning up with a chill. Let me show you ...'

  He led his friend over the where Quenelda lay. 'Can you stand?' Quester asked her anxiously. 'There is an apothecary in your father's chambers if you can reach them?'

  Quenelda nodded. 'I th-think so.'

  Between them they helped her to her feet. She seemed as light and fragile as thistledown. Quester had begun to push a way through the noisy throng when the whispering began. Heads began to turn their way.

  'It's her!'

  'I tell you,' a soldier wearing the Earl's livery insisted loudly. 'I
t's her; I've seen her at Dragonsdome a thousand times ...'

  Then someone whispered Quenelda's name and it carried like a warm breath of wind in front of her. The murmur of gruff voices rose around her, wrapping her warmly in their admiration. Quenelda stood a little straighter.

  'Lady Quenelda ...' A courtier bowed. A lady curtsied.

  She looked up in wonder as they broke into a ripple of applause, all rising, the excitement of the day's feats fresh in their memory.

  ''Ere, yer ladyship,' a battle-scarred dwarf in the Queen's livery barked at his companions. 'Make way for 'er Ladyship Quenelda – make way ...'

  By the time she reached her father's antechamber, Quenelda had an escort of a dozen Bonecracker commandos. For the first time in her life, the guards came to attention for her and opened the doors. Trying not to stare, the crowd stood respectfully aside, calling out blessings on her and the Queen's Champion.

  Quester hung back with them. 'You go on, friend Root. You're her esquire now. They'll let you in,' he told the gnome. 'And Root, no one can say that you do not deserve to be her esquire after what you did today. No one will care what Felix and his cronies think any more!'

  'Papa!' Quenelda stumbled through the doorway, only her fear keeping her from collapsing. 'Papa! That dra—'

  The words died in her throat. There were two figures sitting beside the fire. The bright light put them in silhouette. Quenelda raised a hand to shield her eyes. 'Papa ... ?'

  'Goose! Where have you been?' Her father rose to his feet and limped two steps towards her, then wrapped her in a wordless embrace. Thank the Gods, he breathed silently.

  'I'm proud of you, Goose,' he said fiercely, using the hem of his cloak to wipe the tears that trickled down his daughter's cheek. 'Stoner's Manoeuvre no less, I hear?' He stood back to look her in the eye. 'No father could be more proud of his daughter!'