Dragon Thief

by Marc Secchia

  There. Kal saw an armoured cage of bone-like substance sporting a two-foot crack from which blood jetted with each slow pulsation of her heart. The third, most mystical of Dragon hearts and the avowed seat of emotions, which harboured a Dragon’s fire-soul.

  He could not plug that hole with his hands, nor could Kal struggle out of his shirt in such a close space. Chuckling an ode to muffled despair, he thrust his fist deep into the gap, struggling to stanch the leakage. Untold litres of blood squirted against his neck and chin, running away past his legs.

  Fire! With a curse, he snatched his hand back. Unhurt? In the dim light, he could see no burn-marks. Yet it had scorched … convulsively, Kal shoved his hand through the armour plates and touched the pliant muscle of the Dragoness’ heart beyond. Pain! He bit his lip. Hold! Hold against the fire. For he must cover as much of the wound as possible. He squeezed the slit edges together. A scream bubbled in his throat, but Kal forced through the pain and the extreme heat sapping his strength. He held firm and prayed, though he might more comfortably have closed his fist around an ember in the heart of a bonfire.

  Faraway, Tazithiel spoke to him, but the pain was too great. Kal searched deeper than ever before. He did not deserve anything, but she did. She deserved life. Justice. To fly against Endurion and destroy him. To laugh at the fates which had scarred her so terribly. He leaned his head against her heart-armour, surrounded by a Dragon’s fading magic, and for an endless time, fought to seal the gap. He wrestled with the fates for her life. He begged with words he did not even understand, for a miracle which he could not expect and a future yet to be imagined.

  Her mental voice had vanished. Any moment, Kal expected to smell the dank Cloudlands closing over his worthless head; then, the agony of slow suffocation and poisoning would commence. Outside, he heard Riika shouting at the Indigo Dragoness, over and over, her words only audible in staccato bursts fired into the increasing gaps between each heartbeat.

  Kal forced his hand deeper. Had he any magic to speak of, let it now be made manifest.

  An interminable time later, Tazithiel’s body jerked. A series of increasingly powerful blows struck her body from without, crashing him about like dried beans inside a Sylakian rattle-drum. More Dragons? He could not believe it. But swiftly there came a final, almighty impact and the violent rasping of hide against stone.

  They must have landed. Only, were they above the Cloudlands? Or below?

  Chapter 17: Back to Basics

  HEsitantly, KAL WITHDREW his hand from Tazithiel’s heart, fully expecting blood to burst out. There was a trickle, but thankfully no further golden jets. He must have swallowed a fair few mouthfuls. Groaning, he began to slither backward the way he had come, listening intently to her heartbeat. Slower still. Though they had landed, Tazithiel’s ordeal was far from over.

  Slithering over her food stomach–quite certain that he trod upon the horns of the luckless spiral-horn buck she had guzzled back at Elidia Island–Kal landed about where he thought he should find the slit in her stomach. No light.

  “Riika? Tazi?” he called. Tazi?

  Nothing.

  Finally, a glimmer of daylight! Kal had a full-blown brawl with her stomach lining before managing to wriggle out. “Riika?” He wiped his eyes. “Are you alright?”

  Riika stood pressed up against Tazithiel’s slowly-rising flank, about as pale a shade of brown as was physically possible for a Pygmy. Wordlessly, she indicated the sky.

  Every drop of sweat froze upon his body.

  With a rush of wind, the Amethyst Dragoness landed, generating a minor earthquake. Boulders bounded down the cliff from above. Dust blasted outward. By the set of her jaw, she looked aggravated. More than aggravated. Blood seeped from a gash in her muzzle and her gemstone scales were blackened in numerous places. Worse, she was every bit as large as Kal had suspected, which was to say, she dwarfed Tazithiel, who in turn dwarfed the two Humans suddenly standing shoulder-to-shoulder beside her. Her Dragon-smile revealed fangs an inch or two taller than Kal himself. Her jaws could have snapped Tazithiel in half. Comfortably. She seemed almost as wide as Tazithiel was long; all the sleek, sinuous grace of the Dragonkind accompanying an awesome, mesmerising presence.

  Dragon monstrosity! Her size was too freakish even for the ballads. Her steps quaked the ground as she approached.

  Kal whispered, “Roaring rajals, now there’s a slab of draconic majesty.”

  Riika elbowed him viciously.

  The Amethyst Dragoness’ muzzle swung down. One talon rose, shaking slightly, to point at Kal. She rumbled, “I know you, thief. Get away from that Dragoness!”

  “Ah, your noblest draconic–”

  Kal never finished his sentence. A swipe of her paw flicked him up into the air, wailing, over two hundred feet to a landing in a patch of jiista-berry bushes. He lay stunned for a moment, and then scrambled to his feet.

  “Tazi!” he cried. “Help her–Tazi, I’m here!”

  The Amethyst Dragoness’ muzzle jerked away from a contemplation of the half-Pygmy girl’s snackish merits. Before Kal’s horrified eyes, fire blossomed behind her spear-like fangs. He wanted to run, but his legs refused to obey any rational command. Her fireball would toast him before he could blink. Besides, there was nowhere to run. Two Dragonesses and two Humans fairly filled the small ledge on the side of Jeradia Island Tazithiel had chosen for her landing–a swathe of broken trees and bushes before the actual ledge attested to that.

  Riika shouted, “You leave him alone!”

  The Dragoness swallowed back her fire with an effort. “What, little one? Who are you?”

  “I–I am R-R-R …”

  “Peace. I am Aranya of Immadia. My quarrel is not with you.” The Dragoness engulfed Tazithiel with her right paw. Strength, noble Dragoness. You fought well this day. Even from his distance, Kal sensed the outpouring of her magic. “Now, I will take this Dragoness to the Academy for healing. Stand aside.”

  “Not without me!” Suddenly Kal was on his feet, running. “Please … oh please help her, o great Queen.”

  “Silence, villain!”

  Fire blasted the ground at his feet; Kal dived, but not quickly enough to prevent his trouser leg from being singed. “I’m her Rider–please, her heart, you have to help her!”

  Aranya snarled, “I am! I’m taking her away from you, foul bandit! You’re no Dragon Rider. I know who you are and I will take pleasure in blasting your pestilent presence off the face of this Island-World!”

  “Stop!”

  Once again, Riika’s scream appeared to arrest the Amethyst Dragoness in her tracks. Shaking her head in apparent confusion, she growled, “What, little one? Why do you torment me, o voice of my past?”

  Riika stammered, “Great lady–Dragoness–Kal is not what he seems. Were you to know his story–”

  “I would slay him as he deserves!”

  “Please, take us with you. Tazithiel needs him and he saved my life. I beg you, noble Dragoness, for my sake if for nothing else.”

  Her enormous fire-eyes burned darkly upon Riika and Kal for a long, long moment before new, whiter fires engulfed the darkness. “A boon, little one? For the sake of your ancestors and for the sake of your young life, I shall desist. Bargain?”

  “Done and bargained for.”

  Kal, just rounding Tazithiel’s head, saw Riika’s trembling hand rise to touch Aranya’s foreclaw. He yelped, “Never bargain with a Dragon!”

  “Insect!” Aranya’s forepaw pounded a dent three feet deep in the soil and rock just in front of Kal. “Consider this my gift to you–your life. But you had better run far, little thief, for I, Aranya of Immadia declare this: you are my enemy and no Island is large enough, or far enough, nor is any cave deep enough, to shield you from my wrath.”

  Argue with the Empress of all Dragons? Kal fell to his knees, watching helplessly as the Amethyst Dragoness scooped Tazithiel into her paws, cradling her as easily as a mother clasping her babe.

  “You stay aw
ay,” Aranya hissed, flaring her wings.

  “You can’t make me.”

  “What?”

  Riika squealed and tried to come between them, but Kal was too mad to care about his life. “You can’t take her. She’s my Dragoness. She needs me.”

  Massive, fiery laughter shook the cliffs of Jeradia. “She needs you like she needs a case of the scale-rot. Try to stop me, little man.”

  “I’ll burgle your precious Academy to get her!”

  “A volcano guarded by a hundred Dragons and five thousand crack troops? That’ll be the day I vow to kiss your thieving backside. Fool. You were dead from the day you stole from me. You’d do better to start running.”

  Spreading her wings, Aranya tipped off the ledge. Shaking his fist at her tail, Kal screamed, “You’d better guard that Academy well, lady! No stuck-up Dragon Queen is going to stop me!”

  Laughter, wild and fey and sad, accompanied the Dragon-Queen’s departure.

  Placing her hand on Kal’s arm, Riika said, “You should choose your enemies more wisely, Kal.”

  He could not help himself. Kal covered his face and wept as he had never wept in his life.

  * * * *

  “Kal.”

  He ignored the small hand that shook his shoulder.

  “Kal, please.”

  “She’s gone, Riika. Can’t you see that? How by any miracle under the twin suns are they going to heal that … mutilation? My Tazithiel, o my Tazithiel.”

  “Aranya’s supposed to have healing powers,” Riika said patiently. “Can you help me? I think my shoulder’s dislocated.”

  Kal rocked back and forth. “Leave me the hells alone.”

  Riika began to turn away. Something blurred into his vision; pain exploded in his face. “Get up.”

  “Freaking feral Dragons, that’s my lip–again!” She had kicked him, not as hard as Riika was certainly capable of. “Can you dratted women just leave my lip alone?”

  She held out her arm–the good one. “Get up.” Kal scowled at her from where he had fallen. He did not appreciate her tight little smile one iota. Riika said, “You know, I’ve always considered Tabax of Telstroy a better sneak-thief than you.”

  He favoured this with a noise that was extremely uncouth in over a hundred Island-cultures.

  “As for Cliff-Fox Kazakka, I don’t know how you ever overthrew a villain of such extraordinary talent. Why, his solution to the Warlord of Ur-Garraba’s fortress was so novel–”

  Kal interrupted, “An army of plague rats? Unstylish amateur.”

  “Gaharag the Ghastly–”

  “Snot-tossing son of a goat.”

  “Dare I mention your illustrious predecessor, Laxurta–”

  “Illustrious? He accidentally dropped a poisoned dagger on his own foot, the feckless fool. That’s one story they told you wrong–although I do prefer the version in which … ooh, you think you’re so clever, little Miss Manipulate-your-Islands!”

  Kal leaped smoothly to his feet, making Riika scramble to avoid a not unintentional head-butt. He wagged his finger beneath her nose. “There will be due reprisal for the split lip, starting with setting your shoulder right.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less of the King of Thieves. So, Kal, what you planning to do now? Ouch!” Riika rotated her shoulder gingerly. “That’s much better, you bully.”

  He surveyed their pitiful supplies–essentially, what they had on their persons since Aranya had flown off with the rest. He looked at his blood-soaked clothing and Riika’s drawn but determined face. Aye. She was right to kick him out of his funk. They needed a plan.

  Kal was a master architect of grand schemes. What they needed now was concision. Precision. A swift decision. After that he would take that aerial arsonist of an amethyst animal and make a precise … incision. Self-hatred speared into his gut. Mercy, shut the blathering trap and get on with the job, fool!

  He said, “We’re going back to basics. You and I will scale this cliff, however many miles it is to the terrace lakes, and slop through the swamps up to Jos. On the way we’ll figure out how to burgle a famously impregnable Academy guarded by a hundred Dragons, who are now helpfully forewarned and on high alert. Having rubbed their noses in the proverbial heap of windroc droppings, I intend to thoroughly spank the Queen of Immadia’s royal rump for stealing my girl. After that, I’ll skin that Green Dragon and his Rider alive and feed them to the windrocs. How’s my plan?”

  “Eminently workable,” Riika lied with a blamelessly straight face.

  Kal quirked an eyebrow at her.

  “However, you are rightly notorious for possessing the most devious and despicable criminal mind in the Island-World, bar none.”

  He beamed. “Did I make it clear what a perfectly splendid girl you are?”

  Riika beamed right back. “Then will you please haul my perfect splendour up that cliff, because I can’t possibly climb with a recently dislocated shoulder?”

  “Argh! You really are a woman, aren’t you?”

  “And I get to call you a girl if you can’t manage to carry me up one little cliff.”

  * * * *

  One little cliff. Two and a half mostly vertical miles of unrelenting grey massif, tangled with vines, overhanging trees and prickly jiista-berry bushes. Climbing with scorched hands and trembling muscles, and a small but significant additional weight, Kal endured. He set manageable goals. The next bush. Circumvent this overhang. Do not slip and fall a vertical mile, which could be awkward. Meantime, he congratulated Riika on bringing Tazithiel to a safe landing. He berated her for not making it half a league higher and fifteen leagues inland, preferably just outside the city of Jos. Preferably in a perfumed boudoir with hot baths, fancy floral arrangements and a professional harpist on call? No mind. He was terribly sore about Aranya’s pinching his harp, however. Utterly inexcusable.

  One and a half days later, Kal and Riika crested the cliff in suns-shine so perfect it seemed the deadly mists had been but a dream, only to face a three hundred foot terrace lake wall. Riika slipped off his back to examine the smooth, almost seamless barrier built of monolithic grey granite blocks. “So, teach me about scaling such ramparts, o master of infiltration.”

  “Two words, my callow apprentice. Climbing spikes.”

  Kal raided his belt for his trusty spikes and strapped them to his wrists with leather thongs, then affixed similar spikes to the toes of his boots. Riika shook her head. “The things you keep in dark and nameless places.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, young lady. On board. Now.”

  Riika made a face. “You’re unstoppable.”

  Kal chinked his fingers into the first hold. “I prefer the sound of ‘resolute’.”

  “I prefer the sound of my boot striking your lip.”

  He hauled the chatty parakeet up the wall with flexion after flexion of his strong arms, teaching her how to negotiate the smooth sections and traverse horizontally where needed to find a viable path. Despite his fitness, Kal was blowing like a corpulent ralti sheep by the time he reached the top.

  “Only half a mile of lake,” Riika said brightly. “Will you swim me across? She’s worth it, Kal, I promise.”

  “Aye? But I have serious reservations about you, Razorblades.”

  A short walk along the top of the thick terrace lake wall, built in ancient times of stone so closely fitted that mortar was not required, brought them to an overspill gate. The mechanism appeared to have been rusted shut for centuries, but they found a good quantity of driftwood trapped there.

  “Great!” Kal smirked, with the same false brightness that Riika had displayed a moment before. “I’ll take a kip while you paddle, agreed?”

  After scaling and swimming two further layers of wide, mirror-calm terrace lakes, Kal and Riika plunged into the swamp beyond, fondly nicknamed ‘the Sludge’ by the locals. The early afternoon suns-shine vanished behind a veil of dank cloud, and the insects descended in their battalions to make Kal’s life a mi
sery. Kal hated swamps with a passion that bordered on mania. They were always crawling with two of his least favourite classes of creatures–snakes and biting insects. Riika, cute Pygmy jungle-warrior that she was, did not suffer a single bite. She found endless diversion in teaching him the names of all the crawling, buzzing, hopping bugs that homed in on Kal’s evidently toothsome flesh, and her trills and clicks in melodious Ancient Southern were accompanied by a steady chorus of slaps and curses on his part.

  “Che’ûka’xí,” she trilled. “Blue-shimmering trapper dragonfly.”

  Swat!

  “Toò’tàk. Borer beetle.”

  Whack!

  “S’x’xitoé. Ten-legged long-haired khaki caterpillar. Lays its eggs beneath your skin.”

  “Ouch!” Slap! “Darn it, isn’t four feet eight inches of sweet Pygmy flesh at all appealing to these bugs?”

  “Apparently not. Watch out!” A hummingbird-swift strike of her sword later, Riika held up her decapitated catch. “Yu’uàoe’tíl–the deadly purple-banded swamp cobra. Super-tasty. I think reptiles must like you even more than the insects, Kal.”

  “You cut out that waggling eyebrow at once, you incorrigible cutthroat.”

  “Did I mention an indigent Indigo? No, not I.”

  “Bah.” Thwack! “Here’s a present for you–cha’a’aúta, was it? Some shimmering dragonfly thing?”

  Riika plucked the hand-sized insect from his palm and popped it in her mouth. Chewing happily, she smiled, “Great! I haven’t had one of these since I was a child. Thanks, Kal. Your pronunciation was fairly acceptable, as well. You named it a giant farting warthog.”