Dragonstar (Dragonfriend Book 4)

by Marc Secchia

  Rolling her eyes, Hualiama snapped, “Dragons. You’re all brave, magnificent and so stuffed with fire, it leaks out of inconvenient –”

  “Orifices!” announced the dragonet.

  Hualiama clipped him over the ear canals. “Silence, whippersnapper. Attend. Apparently, our Chrysolitic friends love the frozen wastelands of the far North –”

  “Obviously,” snorted Elki.

  “– and the most fascinating skill listed here is a magical power or property called ‘Flow’. This scroll, which was written by the notable Dragon scholar Sulgafuri of Xinidia, by the way, says that a number of legends developed around the exact use or effect of Flow. Apparently, it enables these Dragonkind to survive the most intense cold, to squeeze through impossible gaps and even to pass bodily through semiliquid or semipermeable substances – not solid rock, apparently, but through crysglass, ice and pumice –”

  “They can leach through pumice?” Grandion inquired.

  “In theory,” Lia grinned. “I guess that’s how they burgled the Immadian treasury. Here, at the bottom of the page, we also have a territorial range quoted as ‘throughout the frozen wastes of the Northland, from twenty leagues North of Immadia to the Rim-Wall Mountains. I assume that encompasses the Human-inhabited Islands, Queen Imaytha?”

  “Aye. According to our records, those Islands are some fifteen to eighteen in number, and lie between forty and seventy leagues north of Immadia,” she confirmed. “They’re fairly widely spaced, but definitely follow a curved path, with two spits out to the North.”

  Taking up a quill pen, the Queen called for a scrap of paper and drew a neat schematic that depicted the inhabited Isles in a wide, shallow arc north of Immadia, with a pair scattered away from the main curve to the northeast and another trio lying at a similar latitude to the northwest, some seventy leagues north of Immadia. “Like this. Further –” she added shading between them and the Islands “– these are the frozen mists. I know we’ll have Dragons, and that they represent perhaps our best chance of penetrating this area, but we do need to fly with due caution.”

  Peering past Hualiama’s shoulder, Grandion said privately to her, Immadior’s spine and Her paws lying to the North?

  Intriguing … and mind-blowing in scale, if that’s a true word, Lia agreed.

  “The main danger is Ice-Raptors,” Shayitha put in. “There’s terrible weather, of course, and throw in a few storms, atmospheric whirlpools and – some say – flying Islands.”

  “Flying Islands?” scoffed Qilong, reading over Hualiama’s shoulder.

  “Like Herimor?” Makani and Mizuki chorused.

  Shayitha shrugged her powerful shoulders. “Legends. Suffice it to say, seven expeditions have travelled North in these last forty years, four authorised and three unauthorised. Not a single Dragonship returned.”

  “We have Dragons,” Elki noted innocently. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  That was the cue for everyone to yell at him.

  * * * *

  “Since you offered, Grandion – trumpet fanfare! Dragon Rider saddle mark one.”

  Grandion stared at the Dragonfriend, nonplussed. “When did you – how? And the measurements? How did you take those?”

  “Girls multitask.”

  “When did you take my measure?” He did not bother to temper his tone. She was a Dragoness. Smoke and fire were nothing to her. “When did you start this project? This leatherwork is very fine – how long have these craftsmen been employed by you?”

  “I paid them handsomely to let me talk,” said Hualiama, eyeing the five craftsmen and women who clearly wished they were fifty miles away on another Island, rather than facing a tetchy Tourmaline Dragon. He found their Dragon fear mollifying, unlike the behaviour of his snarky beloved, who was clearly out to itch his scales worse than an infestation of mites. “Shall we fit you, Grandion? Now, we didn’t make a girth-strap because the colours of your fire-eyes suggested that was a poor idea, but we’ve worked hard on ratchets and fixings to hold the saddles and storage between your spine spikes. What do you say?”

  “When?” he roared.

  Blue-Star pretended to block her ears with her fingers. “Why don’t you just compliment me on how very hardworking, dedicated and incredibly talented I am?”

  “Before I agreed?” he pressed, re-sheathing his talons before he tore up the flooring of their Dragonship hangar. Ripping up allies’ buildings was generally regarded as impolite in Dragon society.

  “Before.”

  GNARRRGGGHH!!

  The outer doors rattled in their casements.

  “Very good.” Hualiama beckoned to the Immadians. “Right, if you can still hear me, prop the ladder against his flank. Dragon, hold still. You can rage at me later. Grandion, how many are we?”

  “Three Dragons, one dragonet, six Humans plus one foetus, and four Shapeshifters, potential and actual,” he said promptly, waving a paw to clear the billows of sulphurous smoke his ire had produced. “Being the biggest Dragon, I’ll bear four Riders and you can use me for a launchpad as well. Makani and Mizuki will take three each.”

  “You’re the strongest Dragon by leagues, of course,” she said. Grandion appreciated the complete lack of irony in her tone. That would have curled his talons! “I’d also request some hatchling flying-training, Grandion – you’ve been a Dragon from birth, and I could do with drinking the milk of … ah, that saying doesn’t work, does it?” Over his rumbling agreement, she added, “Right. Saddles. Qilong! Let’s get moving. Shayitha and Imaytha, are you both coming with us?”

  Ever the dancer. Grandion observed her pensively, remembering something his shell-mother had said before her passing on to the eternal fires. She started life dancing, Grandion, Qualiana had advised. It is said that when an eggling is abhorred by her shell-mother, and detested by the shell-father, these influences might adversely affect the nascent eggling in situ. She’s always dancing away from something or toward something. Your natural draconic instinct is to hold, even to bind. To you, this fey behaviour smacks of an undraconic inability to settle, to roost, to commit. I think that may come – I hope with all of my third heart, shell-son, that it will come – but it will take far longer than you imagine, because such soul-tremors underlie the very fires of a Dragon’s eternal soul. Do you understand?

  Aye, he had responded, ever so glibly.

  Now, he knew how wisely his shell-mother had spoken. Bless thy fires, Qualiana! May they ever burn in me. The Tourmaline knew he was just as hidebound as his shell-father, a rebel who secretly adored the traditional ways of Dragonhood. Now, the slow, seeping-acid feeling swept over him once more. Hualiama was dancing away from him. Most recently she had done so in recruiting Zanya and Brazo. Not all of her soul’s depths availed themselves to his perception when he considered her nature, and while he valued her attempts to unfold the art of Shapeshifting, for example, he knew there was more. Hidden depths to her Island. Despair settled heatedly in his third heart as he summoned the dark-fires memories of Ra’aba and Azziala, each as grasping and ruthless as the other; the brokenness between Istariela and Fra’anior, and Hualiama’s brutish adoptive father and helpless-victim mother. What must it mean to grow up in the shadow of such parentage?

  Fra’anior, help me to understand, he groaned in the depths of his fire-soul.

  Must he always pursue? Why could she not simply trust in the tenor of his fires and the clasp of an ardent paw?

  Still, Dragons were natural predators.

  A different vector of thought struck him. Did she not want to be caught? Could it be love-spawned fear that spun her about his orbit, always close but never quite touching, a comet that approached ablaze in a luminous glory of white-fires, only to accelerate in passing about its object and streak away into the outer darkness once more?

  Grandion chewed over this problem as Hualiama saw to the fitting of saddles and the settling of supplies, effortlessly whirling everyone and everything into her febrile ambit. Perhaps this was t
he cut of a Star Dragoness’ wings across the moons. Such a dazzler. Beauty untouchable … before he knew it, Grandion’s throat thickened deep inside his chest, and he sang in dracotonic harmony:

  O beauty of starlight recondite,

  Blue-Star, true-star, be mine tonight.

  She spun. Blue-blonde twirled about her slender person. He noted a wink of blossoming pleasure, and the warbling laughter he had come to associate with her untrammelled delight. Grandion! You … knockout!

  Both Mizuki and Makani gurgle-purred, flicking their wingtips with approval.

  He dipped his muzzle to greet her brilliant smile. She said nothing, but lifted her left hand to snag a teardrop upon the crook of her knuckle.

  * * * *

  They were not entirely ready, but they must be.

  Three Dragons swirled through the mountains of Immadia, their scales gleaming in the first blush of false dawn as they slipped away from the great treasuries. A fourth Dragon rode upon Grandion’s hulking right-shoulder flight muscles with orders to absorb the complex movement; she was not permitted to take off, but must spread her wings and work on assimilating the feedback of all the nerve structures of the wing surfaces, bracing struts, and even the joints, bones and arteries. A Dragoness could even monitor blood flow along the primary wing bone and through the secondary and tertiary joints, to the wingtips and trailing wing edges, and back again – an essential competence for surviving the bone-chilling Northern climes, even for the Dragonkind.

  Meantime, the three larger Dragons worked on shield constructs against cold and the mysterious cold-fire attack. Their Riders huddled beneath woollen cloaks, lined with fur, and tried not to turn blue. Elki, shivering, whined about having grown up around a volcano until Mizuki took pity upon him and threw up a thermal shield.

  Aah, lovely Dragoness parakeet-toes, Elki complimented her, making a hash of his Dragonish nuance-indicators.

  Mizuki suggested he might need to keep certain body parts intact in order to secure the future of Fra’anior’s royal bloodline. Elki fake-sneezed, Aaaa … Affurion! Oops. Overgrown dragonfly.

  The Dragoness’ laughter belled out over their group.

  As dawn’s rising tinted the turquoise Cloudlands with peaks and waves of fiery pink, the Dragons winged away from Immadia’s spectacular northern shoreline. The vibrant blue below lapped against onyx cliffs, surmounted in turn by the mountains with their green-fringed coniferous lower reaches, and then the jutting white peaks, so sheer and stark, they stole the breath clean out of her lungs. This scenery was the fodder of poets and balladeers. In her future realm, she imagined with a droll Dragoness-smile, she would despatch all would-be court balladeers to Immadia to learn their craft.

  Once they had been humbled and inspired, they might return.

  Hualiama pointed out a village perched on the lower slopes with her wingtip; it stood just above the third and uppermost terrace lake layer, a fishing village whose livelihood had been stolen by their desperate Dragonship crash landing.

  Imaytha said, “Look, the lake’s already a few feet deep. A few months of good snowfall and then snowmelt, and they should be back in business. Sister, do we have the schedules –”

  “Aye,” Shayitha confirmed. “Two Dragonships a week will visit all of the outlying villages. They must not starve this winter.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Prince Qilong said. He was the fourth Rider on Makani’s back, together with Jin, Isiki and Brazo. Mizuki carried Elki, Saori and Zanya, while Grandion bore the huge Eastern warrior, Sumio, in addition to his three royal Riders.

  “Not half as sorry as these people will be if they starve,” Shayitha returned bluntly. “However, you and your Dragons have completed the hard work of repairing the terrace lake, for which we thank you. This lake can be seeded from the lower lakes later on. We are also well advanced in negotiations for a Dragon cluster-roost of Gemalka to relocate to Immadia under a new alliance.”

  “Good,” growled Grandion.

  The Princess added, “I don’t know what the Dragonfriend said to them to change their minds, but their enthusiasm apparently had nothing at all to do with abject slavery.”

  The Easterners all blinked at her dry sarcasm, a peculiarly Immadian trait that Hualiama was coming to appreciate. She shot back, “Abject slavery comes highly recommended. Just look at Grandion and me.”

  The Tourmaline began to guffaw, and then clearly realised her barbed statement could be taken both ways. GNARRR! Hot, sulphurous yellow smoke rolled back over the company; the Dragonesses chortled appreciatively at Lia’s wit.

  Flying at a steady seven to eight leagues per hour, they would reach the frozen mists by midmorning. Lia practised different methods and orientations of launching off Grandion’s shoulder as a band of whiteness spread across the scattered rocks and Islets north of Immadia. A few places near the main Island’s shoreline were inhabited; those within relatively easy reach of the mainland and well away from the mists. Launching with an upside down swoop, the Midnight-Blue Dragoness wondered what the Immadian people would make of this developing alliance with Dragons. Fra’anior Cluster had a very long history of coexistence, and not all was good. Misgivings were more than understandable. She flipped around for a double-somersault landing as directed by Grandion, misread her rotational speed and bounced off his shoulder.

  “Oof!”

  “Pay attention!” he snarled. “Again. Always aware of the conditions, Dragonfriend.”

  The Dragoness aimed a reflexive nip at his muzzle as she darted past, then curved about for another landing. Try the manoeuvre again. Flicker made it look like child’s play – well, dragonet’s play, natural acrobat that he was. She missed him already, as the dragonet had requested to stay behind so that he could show his kin a number of new ideas, gleaned from the lore scrolls and Amaryllion Fireborn’s teachings, that would better serve to keep the internal temperature of warrens stable during the deep-frozen Immadian winters. After she mastered the somersault landing Grandion had her working on spiralling landings and take-offs, purposed for closer quarters such as forests or cave-mouth landings. Some Dragon roosts of Gi’ishior were infamous for the manoeuvring required to make a safe landing in their inaccessible entrances.

  After her fourth failure in succession to land with anything resembling actual style, Elki called over, “Aren’t you getting bruised shoulders, Grandion?”

  Hualiama spat an involuntary hiccough of fire as her Tourmaline chortled contentedly. Good. Along with the steady growth of her physique, her hatchling fires were starting to develop. Nothing resembling Grandion’s firestorm efforts as yet, but at least she wasn’t just smoking at the nostrils anymore. The true thrill was Dragonsoul’s uninhibited joy in flight, and the dancing of a spectral girl within as they swirled through the aerial vapours toward the spreading band of murk covering the horizon.

  What had appeared as just a smudge upon departing Immadia, waited in ominous stillness for the Dragons, an apparent storm front that did not show the slightest sign of outward movement. Yet any of the Dragons, searching ahead with their penetrating senses, could detect the powerful natural and unnatural forces lurking behind that relatively benign façade. Even the colour did not suggest massive thunderstorms, just a light grey with streaks of pure white toward the spreading zenith of the phenomenon, four leagues and more above the height the Dragons flew. There would be no overflying these mists, not even by the Dragonkind.

  The Queen said, “That’s magical weather, isn’t it?”

  Grandion returned, “Aye, o Queen. We’ve seen our share during the battles against the Dragon Haters and Numistar Winterborn, but this appears different again in every sense of the word. Dragons, ready shields. Archers. Blue-Star –”

  “I’ll land.” She sighed, “With my flying skills, I’m probably more use out of your way in a battle against Ice-Raptors.”

  Her Dragoness snarled, Says who! Shall we fight, Human girl?

  Dance contest? her second-soul suggested cheekily.r />
  “Imaytha, my dress!” Hualiama tried to roar. Pathetic. Hatchling-squeakiness. With a sigh that shivered her every scale, she somersaulted over the Queen’s head, snapped through a transformation and plopped down into her saddle as naked as the day she was born.

  Shayitha, seated in second position, promptly shoved the garment over her head. “Shameless volcano-girl!”

  “Lia!” Elki shouted.

  “Ooh, that was a sight fresher than the morning dew,” said Prince Qilong, looking rather dewy about the eyes himself. Saori turned in her saddle and playfully slapped him upon the shoulder. Qilong added, “It’s a shame she scares the living pith out of me, isn’t it? What a woman!”

  Lia folded her arms petulantly. “Bite me.”

  “Gladly,” Makani quipped.

  Shayitha pressed the recurve bow into her hand. “Be irritable with this, alright? Starlight-infused explosive arrows would do very nicely if we meet any Raptors. Trust me.”

  “Belt up,” said Grandion.

  Lia disguised a stab of remembered pain. That was what King Chalcion used to say when he wanted a royal ward to keep quiet; later, it had become his phrase of choice for a whipping with his belt. Freaking windrocs, why did she have to recollect this now?

  Grandion did not appear to notice her reaction.

  The Dragons swept onward, keeping a steady course and height above the Cloudlands. The temperature plummeted. Zero, Mizuki reported. Minus ten … minus twenty … five minutes later, as the mists closed about them, hemming in a world of grey, she said, Steady at minus sixty-seven.

  When Hualiama repeated this data aloud for the Humans in their company, Princess Shayitha swore feelingly and added, “How?”

  “This is why the northerlies are so damaging,” said Imaytha. “They pick up the cold from this region and dump freezing moisture on our Island.”

  The Dragons flew on in silence, until Grandion said, “That’s odd. I feel as if my directional sense is compromised.”

  “Mine too,” Makani confirmed.

  Hualiama listened through her Dragoness’ senses, feeling her awareness rippling outward as she strained to understand the unfamiliar workings of the ambient magic. Her Balance sense prickled. That could not be. Something was present, yet was not? “Shields … highest alert!”