“Ah, you are admiring the Illustrious Maajhasha. How appropriate that the last sight you will see on earth is my magnificence.”
“You’re not bad looking for a dragon, I’ll grant you that,” Ruell said.
“Not bad looking?”The eyes spun in sudden anger, but then the dragon’s mood shifted to amusement.“You have a sense of humour, pretender. I like that. It is unexpected in a human, for the sacred memories make no mention of such a thing. But why are we wasting time talking? It is time to make you bend the knee to me. Then I shall kill you.”
Ruell was quite happy to talk for a bit longer, all things considered, but he needed to make Maajhasha angry enough to flame him. There was something unnatural in the idea of prodding a dragon to deliberately raise its ire. The previous times, the flames had just happened. What did it take to make the beast release its fire? How much belligerence would it take?
“Yes, you’re wasting my time,”he said, lifting his chin.“You cannot harm me.”
The dragon raised itself on its haunches and spread its wings, which stretched from the tower wall almost to the first warehouses on the river. Raising its head, it bellowed with such ferocity that the very sky seemed to shake. Its head towered over Ruell, so that he had to crane his neck to see the spinning golden eyes. Ruell shuddered from head to toe, but he tried very hard not to flinch, not to move a muscle. With a great effort, heart pounding, he straightened his back and stood proudly before his challenger. If he was about to die, at least he wouldn’t die cowering in terror. Although hewas terrified. The beast was huge and could flatten him with a casual swipe of one foot. It wouldn’t need to flame him at all.
Above them, the sky darkened as Maajhasha’s companions gathered in a glimmering cloud at his call, although their aid wasn’t needed. One dragon was quite enough to see Ruell off, as he was perfectly well aware, looking up at so much mighty dragonkind. He was very small and insignificant and alone, his life at the mercy of one bellicose reptile. How under the stars was he to get the creature to flame him?
He was not quite alone, as it happened. Around his head he had a dragon cloud of his own, its members much smaller and very, very afraid, but they were not going to let him go to his death unsupported. He laughed out loud, and spoke to each of them in his mind, one by one, calling each by its name. What would happen to them when he was dead? Would they be punished?
It was Khanassha who answered him.“They will not punish us unless we openly defy them, but we will do whatever you want us to do, Ruell.”
“Don’t get involved. This is my fight, all right?”
“But you might be hurt.”Khanassha’s voice was desolate.“We want to protect you.”
“You can’t protect me. No one can. If Maajhasha decides to flame me—”
The great dragon lowered its head almost to the ground, so that its eye was level with Ruell’s head and hissed, its sulfurous breath a gale that flattened his shirt to his body.“I shall never flame you, pretender. I flamed you once before, and the fire gave you power. I shall not make that mistake again. No more flames. When I am tired of playing with you, I shall eat you.”
Shit. But that was clear enough. No flames, no power, no transition to dragon caller. It had always been a long shot.
“Now, pretender, you will bow to the Illustrious Maajhasha. You will acknowledge my supremacy, and the superiority of dragon-kind over humans, for you are like beetles scuttling on the earth to us. We shall crush you all! Bow to me! Bend your knee, pretender!”
The urge to kneel slammed into Ruell with such force that he gasped. He swayed on his feet, and one knee twitched, so that he jerked awkwardly downwards. Anger rose in his throat. Kneel to these arrogant reptiles? Never!
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes, channelling all his concentration into resistance.No! I shan’t kneel, I mustn’t… must fight…The dragon’s mind bore down on him relentlessly, but beneath the mental power was exultation. The dragon was gloating, so sure was he of victory.
“No!” Ruell focused more intently. Somewhere deep inside him was the power to resist – more than resist, to fight back, to bring the dragon underhiscommand. It was there somewhere, the stone under his breastbone, deep inside him, waiting to be summoned. He was a dragon caller! The dragons were his to command…“No! Never!”
“Kneel to me! Kneel, human or—”
“Or what? What will you do to me?”
Now Maajhasha was filled with anger. Ruell almost smiled.Yes! Come on, you arrogant sod, flame me, and then I’ll show you!
The anger vanished from the dragon’s mind like a bubble popping.“Ha! You are cunning, little human. You want me to flame you, but I am not so stupid. The game bores me. You are not worthy of the Illustrious Maajhasha’s time. I shall eat you now.”
So that was it, then. All over. He had not knelt, so at least he would die standing proudly, but he could do no more. He had no power, no stone under his breastbone, no means to subdue Maajhasha. One small, weak human could not stand against an adult dragon.
Ruell bowed his head, and turned his last thoughts to Taia’s lovely face.
But Khanassha had not accepted Ruell’s fate.“No!”he screamed, diving straight at Maajhasha’s head, so that the dragon had to twitch backwards in surprise. Then,“I will flame him!”
He spun round and dived at Ruell, flames pouring from his mouth, but Maajhasha calmly batted him aside. Khanassha bounced on the ground, but almost immediately was in the air again, belching fire. It didn’t reach Ruell but it was closer this time. Now the red dragon was behind Ruell, out of Maajhasha’s reach. The great dragon’s eye glowed as bright as the sun.
“Obey me, dragonet!”he boomed, his thoughts ricocheting around Ruell’s mind, making him wince.“Obey me or die!”
For answer, Khanassha dived towards Ruell again. With a roar of anger, Maajhasha shot a trickle of fire at him, not enough to kill him but a deterrent, an angry slap to bring the little dragon into line. Khanassha dipped out of the way just in time. Again he dived towards Ruell, and again the larger dragon tried to flame him and missed. Ruell stood helplessly in the midst of their aerial fight, terrified to move in case he distracted Khanassha and the little dragon was caught. Yet he was surprisingly agile, like a gnat bothering a horse, and Maajhasha missed him again and again.
Ruell saw the exact moment in Maajhasha’s mind when Khanassha’s actions moved from a minor annoyance to being intolerable. The great dragon drew himself up to his full height, his eyes spinning with dazzling intensity, and opened his mouth, a volcano of fire pouring from him.
And at that precise moment, Khanassha flew directly in front of Ruell…
Warmth.
Golden, life-giving warmth all around him, enclosing him, drowning him… and yet giving him a new kind of life. Power poured through him, and he was aware of every bone, every muscle, every hair on his body. Golden tendrils wove deep inside him, snaking through his veins, mingling with his blood, searching, searching… Deep inside him, something shifted, awoke, stretched… some sense he’d never had before, a reservoir filled with power, waiting for him to draw on it. Power at his command, the power of a dragon caller.
He’d done it!
Ruell threw back his head and arms, and howled to the morning sky, and every dragon responded, lifting their snouts and bellowing in unison, in acknowledgement of the new order.
Maajhasha lowered his great head to the ground at Ruell’s feet, his golden eyes half-hooded.“You win the challenge. I accept your mastery.”Despite the submissive words and the regret in his tone, there was a hauteur in him too. The Illustrious Maajhasha indeed. But he was not entirely arrogant, for hesitantly he added,“Please do not be angry.”
“Why should I—? Oh.” There at Ruell’s feet was all that remained of Khanassha, a small bundle of blackened and twisted dragonkind, still smouldering. He knelt beside the wreckage of the red dragon. “Oh, Khanassha! You sacrificed yourself for me.”
“He was very foolish,”Maajh
asha said, but his mind was sad.
“He was brave! He tricked you into flaming me, so that I wouldn’t have to die, even though I told him not to interfere. Poor Khanassha. I never thought—”For a moment, he had a vision of the little dragon playing in the tower, chasing glass balls, happy and affectionate. “He was a fine little fellow, who didn’t deserve to die.”
Maajhasha said nothing, his head resting on the ground, but for a moment he closed his great eyes in sorrow.
But Ruell would have to mourn his friend later.“Right, we need to get things on a proper footing between us, now that everything has changed,”he said to Maajhasha.
The head lifted alertly.“Master, command me.”
“I command you to treat Khanassha’s remains with respect, as for any other of your kind.”
“I obey.”
“And I command you not to eat me,” Ruell said.
Maajhasha opened one eye fully, then the other.“I obey,” he said with a swirl of amusement.
“And now I’m going inside to tell my human friends that, to my very great astonishment, I’m still alive. Play nicely with my dragon friends while I’m gone, won’t you?”
“I obey.” And this time he was definitely laughing.
35: The Northern Ocean (Garrett)
Garrett was half asleep. He’d forgotten how warm the northern ocean could be, but a shady spot behind the upper cabin was perfect for the afternoons. All around him, in every spot of shadow, sailors lay stretched out or curled up, sleeping away the hottest part of the day. Garrett sat with his back against the sun-heated wood, trying to stay awake. He never wanted to sleep, not when he could watch Elestra’s lovely face instead.
Just now she was some distance from him, standing beside the helmsman, a wide-brimmed hat shading her face, making some delicate adjustments to the wind. She had five ships to manage now, but it seemed effortless to her. He loved to watch her at work, her face serious, concentrating for a few heartbeats, then scanning the next ship and another moment of concentration. To be honest, he loved to watch her whatever she was doing – working or sleeping, dressing or eating or laughing. She laughed a lot, and that made him laugh, too. Just looking at her made him happy.
“What’s the big grin for?” she said, skipping across the deck to join him.
“You. You make me smile.”
“Silly! That’s not a reason.”
“It’s the best reason,” he said, lifting one arm so that she could tuck underneath it and settle herself close to him, her body warm against his. “Still can’t quite believe my luck, that an old man like me could possibly have a woman like you.”
She chuckled. “You’re not such an old man in bed, which makes me the lucky one, I think.” She turned her head to kiss him softly on the lips. “Not regretting you took a chance on me, then?”
He laughed. She knew the answer to the question, because he showed her every day, but he said the words anyway. “I love you, wind-blower.” He gently rubbed his nose against hers, and she sighed with pleasure.
“I know you do, and I love you too, but wouldn’t it be nice toseeit, too? Like Ruell and Second do when they touch, always knowing what the other’s feeling. It must be— Whoa!”
The deck darkened momentarily and they instinctively ducked as a dragon passed not far over their heads. From its back, Ruell waved cheerfully and, with a shriek of pure joy, tipped the dragon into a barrel-roll.
Garrett covered his eyes with his free hand. “I wish he wouldn’t do that. It’s bad for my nerves.”
Elestra chuckled and gave him a squeeze. “He’s enjoying himself, and he knows what he’s doing. Besides, the dragons take good care of him. They won’t drop him in the sea, or if they do, they’ll fish him out again.”
“Oh, that’s very reassuring! His life is in the hands – claws – of man-eating reptiles. Life was simpler when his bodyguard was just me and my sword. I knew where I was then.”
“But you still worried about him,” she said, with a merry laugh. “You’ll always worry about him, I think.”
“Well, he’s my only child, after all.”
She was silent for such a long time that he wondered if he’d said something to offend her. But no, she was too forthright a person to sulk. If he said the wrong thing, she’s say so, at once. So he let the silence stretch between them like a spring.
Then, quietly, she said, “Would you like to change that? Because we can, now. With the glass balls. We could fix me so that I can have a child.”
Ah, so that was it. “Is that whatyou want?”
“I think it is, yes. If you wouldn’t find it too much of a bore to go through all that again.”
“I never did go through it,” he said. “Not the baby stage, anyway. I didn’t meet Ruell until he was six, and quite a single-minded little person, even then. I’ve heard men talk about how wonderful it is to grow a baby together, to feel it move and talk to it, even before it’s out in the world, and then watch it learn and grow and… and become a dragon-riding terror!” he added, as Ruell went by again. “Gods, that one’s big! What’s its name again?”
“Haanish, I think. It’s difficult to keep them straight, when there’s so many of them. He will send some of them away, won’t he? He’s not going to keep all of them dangling at his tail forever?”
“He just wants to put on a bit of a show at Mesanthia,” Garrett said.
“Abit of a show? They’ll be talking about it for years, I imagine.”
“So they should be,” Garrett said uneasily. “It’s timesomeone talked about it. There’s not been near enough talking yet, it seems to me.”
She shifted to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“The dragons. It changes everything, doesn’t it? The dragons have been gone for so many years that we got used to life without them, but now they’re back and everything is different. The world has changed, and no one seems to be worrying about it much.My son changed the world, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Proud? Happy that he’s still alive? Excited? Everyone else is excited, Garrett.”
“That’s because they’re Mesanthians and they think they’re finally going to get their empire back. But they haven’t thought it through.The world has changed, Elestra. Nothing will ever be the same any more, not for Mesanthia and not for anyone else, and no one knows whether it’s going to be better or worse. Ruell has extraordinary power, and what is he going to do with it? He’s just a boy, and he holds all our futures in his hands. I once killed to stop someone having power like that, and yet I’ve done everything to help Ruell, just because he’s my son. And I don’t know whether that was a mistake or not. Maybe… maybe it would have been better if he’d died in the tower, when the Tre’annatha shot him.”
“Don’t ever say that!” Elestra cried, thumping him in the chest with one balled fist. “It cannever be a mistake to help your child.” She took his hand and gently stroked it. “Everything changes, my love. Nothing stays the same for ever. The Spirit made him a dragon caller, and there must be a reason for that. It was meant to be. Besides, Ruell is your son, so he has good sense in abundance. And the Mesanthian Keeper is wise. She will guide him. Everything will be wonderful, you’ll see.”
And her wide smile warmed his heart and drove his fears away, as it always did. Such an optimist, his Elestra.
Far off in the distance, gentle bells sounded.
“Time for me to visit Mikah,” Elestra said, jumping up.
“I wish they wouldn’t keep him locked up like that,” Garrett said fretfully. “It’s a poor reward for a man who’s fought his way through the Drakk’alona army, seen off a paid assassin and lost his two comrades. His loyalty to Ruell is unquestioned.”
“But Hytharn sees something in his mind – self-interest, or ambition, perhaps,” Elestra said. “He doesn’t trust him, and he’s in charge. Mikah’s treated well, Garrett, and once we get to Mesanthia, he’ll be able to convince them of his loyalty, or they’ll send him
home. He’s not accused of any crime. Any message for him?”
“Tell him I’ll bring his evening ale, as usual.”
For a while, Garrett was alone, watching Ruell sweep across the sky, diving and swooping, with a little coterie of devoted dragons circling him. As the sun dropped down the sky, the sleeping sailors woke and began their evening chores, whistling.
With a rush of air, a dragon hovered a few handspans above the deck as Ruell slid gracefully from its neck, landing not ten paces from Garrett. “You’re getting good at that,” Garrett said. “You haven’t fallen into the sea for a couple of days now.”
Ruell laughed but said, “It’s the dragons who are getting good at it. All this is just as odd for them as it is for me, so it takes some practice. I’m flying each one in turn – those that will let me, that is.” He plopped down beside Garrett.
“Those that will let you? Can’t you make them? You’re the dragon caller, after all.”
“That’s not quite how it works,” Ruell said, slowly. “Dragons that have flamed me – proper flames, that is, the magic kind, not just charring a piece of meat – well, that makes us fire-bonded, you see. Like Maajhasha, and poor Khanassha. They will do whatever I ask, they have to. If I give them a clear order, they are compelled to obey me. But the others are just mind-bonded with me. It is Maajhasha they obey, not me. He’s their leader.”
“Same thing, though,” Garrett said. “You compel Maajhasha, and he compels the others.”
“No, no, they don’thaveto obey him. They can choose. But they arebound to him, in some dragon way that I don’t quite understand. There’s a lot I don’t understand. It’s quite humbling, Garrett, being able to share Maajhasha’s mind. Dragons are fascinating creatures, very different from us – so much intelligence and wisdom and deep history locked inside them that we weak humans can’t begin to comprehend. I thought I would have mastery over them – that I could rule the world through them, but it isn’t like that at all.”
The Dragon Caller (Brightmoon Book 9) Page 33
