by Marc Secchia
Pip’s neck twizzled to follow his flight, along with every Dragon on both sides of the battle. The gaping mouth shovelled up Night-Reds with abandon, those too slow to evacuate his path. The Marshal’s jaw dropped as Shurgal’s banded belly soared by a quarter-mile above his head. His instinctive discharge of magic did nothing whatsoever to stop that leap as Shurgal shadowed the battle. So massive was the Land Dragon, the flight seemed languid, absurdly graceful. Pip gasped, wondering if he might fall short, imagining the impact of such a body once it reached the bottom of the Cloudlands.
Stretching forward with every fibre of his body, Shurgal caught Eridoon Island in his forearms. His chest and muzzle smashed into the purple-forested hills on the near side.
KAABOOOM! Every Lesser Dragon felt that impact.
The impact of Shurgal’s body made the Island lurch and shudder. Rock cracked with sharp reports and groans as his fore-talons scrabbled for and found a firm grip. The Land Dragon curled around the Island, bringing up his flaming hind paws. Sinking his talons hundreds of feet into the living rock, Shurgal began to quarry his way into the Island, seeking the Egg.
Marshal Re’akka bolted for his Island with an anguished cry. All the Dragons stared in amazement, the battle quite forgotten, as the Island slowly tipped on its side, leaving Shurgal dangling underneath by his talons like a gecko on a ceiling–only, Shurgal was himself a mountain, and his fury was a primal vision, like a volcano erupting or an avalanche sweeping down a mountainside. Granite and quartz crumbled beneath his assault. Eridoon quivered but somehow remained airborne, slewing toward the low hills just east of the Academy volcano.
Academy Dragons, to me! Kassik bellowed.
The Night-Red Dragonwings wheeled en masse, following their Marshal as he raced toward the Land Dragon.
Pip shook her head in disbelief. The Marshal had finally made a mistake, bringing the Island too close to land. Yet, who could have imagined? Those big lizards really could fly.
Chapter 33: Treachery
SECONDS LATER, DRAGON fire engulfed Shurgal and the entire flank of Eridoon Island as the Night-Red battalions fell savagely upon the invader. Columns of oily black smoke billowed into the sky. Shurgal had emerged looking battered, his scales rent in dozens of places; now, with fires raging the length of his body, his bellows of pain drowned out the uproar of battle. Yet still his hind paws worked at a frantic pace, spilling countless tonnes of rock and forge-fires and supplies and a lake of water out of the Island. Amidst the suns-yellow conflagration, the Marshal’s strikes burned brightest, white-hot, each blast of his magic a detonation distinct from the general roar.
The Academy Dragonwing formed rapidly around Kassik. The Dragon Elders Blazon, Cressilida, Verox the Green, the Yellow Lavador and Imogiel the Hatchling-mother took the fore, while her friends gathered around Pip. Silver looked dreadful, more grey than silver. Having one’s three hearts stopped and restarted … Pip looked on gratefully as Shimmerith touched him again. Chymasion looked ready to drop, and Emblazon was bleeding from an astonishing number of flesh wounds, but Oyda saluted jauntily from her mount’s back.
“Ready to serve, Master Kassik,” she spoke for them all.
Pip’s eyes blurred as she looked around the circle of dear faces. So many present. Some, glaringly absent. Nak, Arosia, Maylin … Maylin? Pip blinked rapidly to focus her sight. But her friend was back at the Academy …
Maylin? she gasped.
Her mental exclamation startled them all. Pip, staring at her friend, was more than startled to spy a crossbow quarrel spitting at her from the region of Maylin’s stomach. Her hesitation was almost fatal, but Arrabon’s paw snapped out. The arrow plugged in the webbing of his right forepaw.
Silver shouted, Burn it out, Arrabon!
But a huge battle-roar drowned him out. Suddenly Rambastion was a mere twenty feet from Pip’s muzzle, closing the gap with a huge thrust of his wings. Dragons flung themselves at him. He had been disguised! Waiting to ambush her, with his Rider Telisia wearing the likeness of Maylin! Pip flung herself aside as Rambastion’s dripping talons sliced the air where her muzzle had been. She blurred again as Silver shouted something about poison. She somersaulted over his back faster than even her own reactions could credit, snagging Telisia’s saddle harness in her left hind paw and ripping it free. The girl slewed off Rambastion’s back as the Night-Red whirled, trying to orient on the fast-moving Pygmy Dragoness. Her double crossbow fired its second bolt, but this one flicked off Kassik’s scales and headed uselessly earthward.
“She’s mine!” Arosia yelled.
Pip had a fraction of a second to watch Balthion’s daughters slugging it out, Telisia unleashing powerful blows of her magic even as she fell, Arosia jolted about despite Chymasion’s shielding, blood sheeting down her face from a cut above her left eye. Arosia waited … and swung a piece of broken Dragon lance at her sister’s head. Thud. Telisia went limp; Lavador it was who caught her in his paws, and a Dragon Rider Pip did not know jumped down immediately to divest Telisia of her weapons.
Meantime, Rambastion fired fireball after fireball at Pip, who dodged at high speed. Then suddenly, Emblazon swooped in, catching Rambastion’s right wing in his jaws. He bit down, a savage bite, roaring, “For Zardon!”
Pip goggled. Had he regarded the old Shapeshifter so highly?
Then, as if stung, she whipped back into the fray, her draconic part refusing to have the glory stolen by another Dragon, even one as powerful and noble as Emblazon. Tangled up with the huge Amber, Rambastion could not defend himself as Pip sliced across his neck, the talons extended, gouging first ten then twenty trenches into the flesh of his throat. Rambastion arched his back in pain, thundering his rage to the skies. His poison-dripping talons clenched only the air as Pip corkscrewed away.
That strike gave Emblazon opportunity to switch his hold on the massive Night-Red into a death-grip, clasping him four-pawed from above, around the flanks and lower belly, so that the Dragon could not fight back except by whipping his head around–but Rambastion was too old and chunky, not supple enough to reach easily over his shoulder. Sinking his teeth and talons into his arch enemy, Emblazon shook him like a hapless rat. The Amber Dragon rent the old-timer’s flesh again and again, snarling horribly. But Rambastion had one trick left. As the Amber rode the canny pirate earthward, the larger Dragon flipped them both in the air, intending to crush Emblazon between the ground and his spine-spikes, and Oyda beneath them both.
Pip, sensing the gathering of magic nearby, rapidly imbued Shimmerith with Onyx power. The Sapphire struck hard, driving four huge spears of ice simultaneously into Rambastion’s exposed chest.
The old Dragon convulsed, and died.
Emblazon flung him off with a growl of disgust, eyeing Shimmerith with baleful anger. “He was mine!”
“That scaly pirate wasn’t worthy of the touch of your talons,” Nak called from Shimmerith’s back. “Alright, precious Yelegoy?”
She raised her sword in a tired-looking salute. “I ride the mightiest Dragon of all!”
Another monstrous challenge shook them even as Oyda opened her mouth. LEANDRIAL! The familiar grey-green Land Dragon came charging around the southern edge of the volcano, kicking up a storm of trees and debris that sprayed hundreds of feet in every direction.
“What now?” Master Kassik groaned.
The Amber grinned fiercely. “Now that’s a Dragon!”
Ignoring the Academy Dragons completely, Leandrial charged toward Eridoon Island, clearly aiming to strike the region of Shurgal’s neck. Her size was stupefying. Over a mile in length, the stubby, powerful legs of a lizard became as great as the tree trunks of the Crescent Isles giants, and her head topped a thousand feet. Her approach was the low thunder of an earthquake, and her roar split the air with stunning power.
Rather squeakier of voice than Pip had ever heard him, Kassik gathered his force. Academy Dragons, to me. Not too many eyes were focussed on him, but every ear heard his gruff demand, “Strateg
y?”
“Easy,” said Pip, pointing with her fore-talons. “Shurgal, evil. Leandrial, good.”
The Brown made a draconic half-bow. “Your grasp of tactical subtleties is unparalleled, Pygmy Dragoness.”
Then, a strangely sweet, bell-like sound pealed above the sounds of battle. Pip’s brain clicked to the obvious conclusion. “He’s reached the Egg! Master–”
Torrents of magic poured past Shurgal’s knees. With the Egg uncovered, the Marshal seemed to swell with renewed strength, blazing with a malevolent light of his own as he pounded Shurgal with every force and artifice at his disposal. The Land Dragon responded with repeated blasts of his eye-fires, driving the White Shapeshifter backward.
The Shadow! cried Chymasion.
As if the release of the Egg from its imprisonment had summoned all creatures and powers that desired its possession to a climactic confrontation, Pip saw the Nurguz floating down above the battlefield, changing form, its silken black folds deepening in opacity as it approached the Dragons clashing around the Egg. Dozens of insubstantial tentacles reached out, touching Night-Red after Night-Red, draining away their fire-life. It touched Shurgal as if wishing to sample his magic, but an answering flare of urzul seemed to repulse it–momentarily, at least. Pip sensed the calculations of a predatory mind evaluating potential food.
The more it fed, the more it seemed to need. Pip considered how the creature seemed to grow and deepen in colour in accordance with its frenzied feasting. The beginnings of a plan materialised in her mind …
Pip. Pip! Kassik’s paw thumped her shoulder. Assess and report.
Dreamily, she said, Now is the hour to strike down the Marshal. Cinti, Silver, Chymasion, Shimmerith–to me. Everyone else, help Leandrial and at all costs, do not let Shurgal steal the Egg. Do not approach the Shadow.
Kassik wasted no time commenting on the nature of her response. Dragonwings!
The Dragons flowed rapidly into a new formation, winging toward the stricken Island. Following his rapid-fire commands, Kassik’s forces split into three behind the Brown, and Blazon and Emblazon. Pip led her smaller Dragonwing directly toward Re’akka, exchanging ideas with them at the speed of thought.
To Silver, privately, she said, Are you ready for this?
Never better, he lied cheerfully. I’m with you, Pip. I would not be anywhere else in this Island-World. Never again.
That means more to me than you know, Silver. Now–help Leandrial!
The First Egg was now exposed in a section roughly two hundred feet in diameter. Soon, it would be in danger of dropping out of Eridoon Island entirely. Leandrial stampeded through the thick of the fray, her eye-magic knocking Dragon Assassins about like an angry man swatting mosquitos. As she reached Shurgal she leaped, raising her right forepaw to strike him a devastating blow beneath the right armpit. The larger male Land Dragon groaned as her Onyx-powered strike, amplified by Chymasion’s unique power, ripped an entire rib out of his side.
Then Pip and Cinti closed with the Marshal, spiralling through the battle to engage him. Flurries of blows and bites flew between the Dragons. Re’akka beat them back repeatedly, his power augmented by the Egg; only the help of Silver, Shimmerith and Chymasion kept Pip and Cinti in the fight, bolstering their shields and confounding the Marshal’s attacks. A mere wing-flip away, Leandrial and Shurgal renewed the battle of monsters, writhing and rolling heedlessly over the bodies of the fallen, their talon-strikes landing with a dull, booming rhythm all of their own. From the corner of her eye, Pip observed Silver eyeing the First Egg and turned slightly to berate him. Mistake. Re’akka swooped in that instant, blasting Pip aside with a Kinetic strike meant only to shovel her out of the way as he lunged toward Silver. She flapped furiously, bouncing off Shurgal’s knee or elbow, she could not tell which.
You! The Theadurial’s scream was a thin screech in her mind. Now, watch your Silver die.
Re’akka swelled visibly, stuffed with so much power that even his eyes bulged with it–the White Dragon was as surprised as anyone. He unleashed his most intense cold fireball yet, aiming directly at his shell-son’s head. Cinti leaped in the way, taking the brunt of the blow full on her chest. She groaned terribly. Silver still shook, struck by the backlash, but his mother was mortally wounded, speared through by a half-dozen spears of ice Re’akka had concealed within or just behind his fireball.
Cinti fell, wheezing, Silver … thou wert my delight …
She was dead before she struck the ground.
When Silver lifted his eyes, it was to fix such a terrible gaze upon his shell-father that even the powerful Shapeshifter balked. Pip gulped. Vindictive, clearly pushed beyond any remaining shred of reason, her Silver went feral. He fell upon the Marshal and savaged him. Shield or no shield, it seemed not to matter, for his silver-fire burned with a keenness of grief that made his attack unstoppable. Pip threw her strength at Silver, desperate to see him overwhelm the White Dragon. Re’akka tried to draw on the First Egg’s magic, but Silver was all over him, moving at speeds impossible to credit. Pip sensed the blurring and blending of powers through their link, the shared magic somehow seeming to feed upon itself, to become greater than before.
Silver, in his weakened state, could not sustain that tremendous output for more than a handful of seconds. Re’akka cuffed him across the ear-canals, sending the smaller Dragon spinning. A second blow, bolstered by his Kinetic power, made Silver stagger drunkenly in the air. He puffed out his chest, laughing, lording it over Silver as he gathered his power to finish off his shell-son.
That was Pip’s cue. She screamed, Taste the vengeance you deserve!
Pip plunged into the fray, barely twenty feet of dark fury, yet she drove the massive Shapeshifter backward with blow after blow, her paws moving so fast even her draconic sight could not follow, her fists like granite, each blow falling like an explosion against his flesh. Re’akka’s cold blasted around her. Pip drove it back with her own fire. He tried to fight her off, but her sustained mauling forced him into a vertical position, then backward toward the Egg’s exposed surface. His great body vibrated beneath the relentless pounding, faster and faster, the ribs and bone-cages protecting the heart fracturing and splintering audibly; all Pip heard was a seven-throated harmonic roaring, as though Fra’anior directed his fury and grief through the action of her fists, and all the stubbornness and iron of her will forged in those years in the cage pushed her onward, not with hate, but toward justice. Remembering the fallen. The burning of towns and villages. The wanton, wasteful destruction this man, this Shapeshifter had chosen to wreak upon the world in the pursuit of his ambition.
Then, she stopped.
For several seconds, the White Dragon’s body continued to quiver as though invisible fists persisted in their assault. Then, the great eyes focussed slowly on Pip.
“Surrender, Re’akka,” she snarled. “This is your last and only chance for mercy.”
“Mercy?” he coughed.
“You are overmatched.”
“I am … not!”
The Marshal struck out in one final, convulsive assault. Pip shielded instantly, but was unprepared for Silver’s usurping her shield through their oath-bond. He inverted her shield, pushing it around the White Shapeshifter as his shell-father unleashed his most desperate attack, an unbridled, raging tornado of powers including cold-flame, urzul, Kinetic power, Shivers and a mind-destroying psychic blast. Re’akka gave every last drop of magic he possessed.
The shield turned it all back on him. Silver, Chymasion and Shimmerith held firm in concert, belatedly, Pip joined them, thrusting the Marshal flush against the First Egg as he was enveloped in a perfect storm of his own making.
HSSSS-KERRAAAACK!
Blue lightning flared within the shield. Pip did not recognise this power, perhaps the Egg protecting itself, perhaps a result of that furnace-melting of unique Dragon magic. Within, all went still. Tendrils of stinking white smoke drifted around the s
hield’s edges. Nothing more. When they lifted the shield, not even Dragon bones, one of the hardest known substances in the Island-World, were left. Just smoke, and a foul odour.
Was the Marshal truly dead? Slain by his most precious possession?
The realisation made her wings shiver convulsively. Gone.
Pip lifted her eyes to see Leandrial and Shurgal, still tussling mightily, drop over the edge of Jeradia Island three or four thousand feet away. By the looks of things, the Dragoness had the upper paw, so to speak. Her eyes widened. The Egg! Relieved of Shurgal’s weight, Eridoon Island wobbled slightly in the breeze, already starting to drift toward the volcano on a collision course, with the Egg still embedded in its side.
The Nurguz drifted toward her, pulsating horribly.
Pip froze.
Chapter 34: Infolding
THe nurguz paused to suck the life out of several Night-Red Dragons. Pip sensed it knew it had time, now; the leisure to feed. She and her Dragonwing had destroyed perhaps the only force capable of reining in this creature’s appetite. It cared neither for the Egg nor for Land Dragons, but only for the delicious food scattered about its immediate environment. The Nurguz’s siren-song whispered around and inside the Dragons, inviting them to its ghastly banquet. Glazed of eye, hundreds of Night-Reds and Academy Dragons drifted about, waiting their turn to be eaten.
Nak immediately yelled a horribly off-key song about–well, Pip could not repeat the words in polite company, for it concerned Dragon Riders’ toilet habits–but the shock value was enough. It took her mind off the Nurguz’s seductive song.
These were all the Dragons left North of the Rift. Pip had no idea of the situation in Herimor, but she knew one thing. This creature lived to feed. It lived on magic. There was nowhere in the entire Island-World a Dragon could hide from this scourge, for it burned darker and darker, feeding faster and faster … apparently tied to its food source! Its behaviour had changed … suddenly, bits and pieces of the puzzle fell into new patterns. The creature expected her to sacrifice the Ancient Dragons on the altar of her need, to save her own kind by opening the door to those great Dragons who assumed they were safe somewhere else in the cosmos. The Ancients had left a little Onyx Dragoness to deal with the menace which had forced them to sacrifice their own children. Just look at the Nurguz now. Feeding ten, twenty Dragons at a time.
