Longfang

by Mark Robson

  Her face began to go numb with cold as the icy flakes leeched the heat from her flesh. Glancing down she found her jacket and the front of her trousers were white with snow. More was accumulating on the front of Fang’s ridges and the leading edges of his wings. As the cloud was thickening and the snowfall intensifying, so the light levels were dropping. It felt almost like dusk, though the sun would not set for some time yet.

  ‘I cannot say I’m happy,’ Fang reported. ‘But the consensus amongst the dragons is to press on and try to get clear of the mountains. We must hope for the conditions to improve. It will be less dangerous once we are out of the range. Shadow is going to descend to see if the visibility is better lower down. I’ve agreed to try climbing. Hold on tight. This is likely to get very uncomfortable.’

  Kira did as she was told, leaning as flat as she could against Fang’s back in an effort to minimise the biting cold of the wind and snow cutting through her jacket. The temperature would get colder as they climbed and Kira already felt as if the seat of her trousers was frozen to her saddle.

  Fang had barely begun his climb when the spine-chilling screech of a night dragon rent the air. For a horrible moment Kira imagined that Shadow had crashed into the ground, but then she realised the sound had not come from below them, but from behind. And it was close. Very close. They were under attack.

  Chapter Two

  The Dark Orb

  Pell gripped the pommel as tightly as he could as Shadow dropped with a stomach-turning lurch. As they dived, he found his eyes began to play tricks on him. Unless he looked specifically at something nearby, like one of Shadow’s ridges, or a wing, his focus shifted, unable to settle on anything. This made his eyes hurt as if he were deliberately crossing and uncrossing them.

  A distant screech rent the air. It was a dragon’s cry and it came from somewhere above them. Pell’s chest tightened. He knew the voices of his companions’ dragons well enough to know that the cry was not one of theirs. It was the cry of a night dragon. Another voice replied, this time from ahead. Their enemies had laid an ambush. And he had led his companions right into it.

  The night dragons were closing. Pell could almost feel their proximity. His skin crawled with the anticipation of an imminent attack. As Shadow dived lower and lower, he scanned the swirling curtain of snow overhead for any sign of incoming dragons. Where were his companions? Had they already been attacked?

  ‘The others scattered,’ Shadow said, her voice calming. ‘We will try to meet up later some way south of here. The night dragons should leave them alone. It’s us they are really after – us, and the orb. The snow should work in our favour, though. Barring accidents, or blind chance, the blizzard will make it impossible for the night dragons to coordinate an effective pursuit.’

  ‘But what if they—’

  ‘Don’t start with the “what ifs”, Pell,’ Shadow interrupted firmly. ‘Let’s concentrate on getting ourselves out of here. The others can look after themselves.’

  Chastened, Pell clung tightly to the pommel as they levelled out from their shallow dive and skimmed across the smooth white surface of the snow-filled valley basin. The wind picked up fast as the snowstorm struck with its full fury. Flurries of snow whipped up from the ground, racing on the wind in dense white rolls of cloudlike foaming waves on a storm-tossed sea, mixing and whirling with the myriad flakes falling from above. He felt helpless. It was all up to Shadow again.

  The icy blast of the bitter wind cut through his clothing and his face began to sting as the large flakes suddenly changed into pellets of soft hail. Shadow hugged the contours of the valley floor, staying as low as she dared. Weaving and bumping, she threaded her way along the valley, manoeuvring her gigantic frame like a dragon half her size.

  ‘Try to watch our backs,’ she warned. ‘It’s taking all my focus to keep us from hitting the ground. I can’t watch for incoming dragons as well.’

  The responsibility of watching the sky for enemies was just what Pell needed. It gave him a sense of purpose that warmed him inside and set his mind alight.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he told her, though he quickly realised that his best was not very good. It was impossible to see much at all.

  ‘I think we’re nearly through the worst of it,’ she warned. ‘As soon as visibility begins to improve, we’ll become more vulnerable to attack. Stay alert.’

  Pell could feel Shadow’s shoulder burning with pain again. Not with the heat of Firestorm’s flame, but with the fatigue that comes from pushing muscles too hard. They had not flown far from the Valley of the Griffins, but they had completed an exhausting series of flying challenges before they left. Shadow’s injury was well forwards of her wings but, with the pain as a reference, Pell could trace the interaction of the muscles in her body through the bond. The combination of fatigue and her injury meant that every beat of her wings now carried a penalty spike of pain that was slowly building in intensity. She was brave, but he could feel her weakening. She was strong enough and stubborn enough to keep flying for some time yet, but at what cost?

  ‘I’m sorry, Shadow, but it’s no good. We’re going to have to land,’ Pell told her, his mind made up. ‘My hands are numb. I can’t hold on much longer. Try to find the deepest snowdrift you can. Set us down and I’ll do my best to camouflage you with snow. If it keeps falling at this rate for even a short while longer, then the weather will complete what I can’t.’

  There was a pause as Shadow considered his suggestion. Pell did not know if she could see through his lie, but he was confident she would know he had her best interests at heart.

  ‘Very well,’ she replied reluctantly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  The wind flow was generally westerly, so Shadow eased across to the eastern side of the valley, where the snow was drifting deepest. Picking her spot, she landed, limping to an awkward stop as the tricky wind conditions made it impossible to touch down gently. Pell looked down and saw that the snow was barely deeper than her talons. It was certainly nowhere near deep enough to bury her.

  ‘This won’t do,’ he told her. ‘The snow looked deeper from the air.’

  ‘On the lee side of some of the bigger rocks there are drifts up to a couple of spans deep,’ she replied. ‘Look over here.’ The dragon stepped gingerly across to the grey face of a huge boulder, folding her wings tight against her sides as she went. The closer she got, the deeper the snow became. ‘You had better get down and take your saddlebags. They might be difficult to get at in a minute.’

  A screech sounded high overhead. It made Pell jump. He looked up, but he could see nothing. Moving as quickly as his cold fingers would allow, he did as he was told. It was hard to unbuckle the saddlebags, but he managed it. The first, he threw down. It landed with a whumpf in the soft snow. The second, which contained the orb, he held in his arms as he slid down Shadow’s side. He landed heavily, sinking almost knee deep into the white powder. It was deep, but not heavy. The flakes falling now were large and quite wet, but the main depth already on the ground was formed of fine particles of snow that parted easily, almost fizzing around his legs as he started to wade through it.

  No sooner had he moved clear of her side than Shadow stepped forwards, pushing into the much deeper snow behind the gigantic rock and easing the bulk of her body behind it in a great semi-circle. She curled her tail tight in to the front rock face and wrapped her head and long neck around to meet her tail. Although her purple-black colouring was not a great match with the dark grey rock, as the sun set and the snow continued to cover her up, her body shape would become progressively harder to pick out from the air.

  ‘Are you comfortable there, Shadow?’ Pell asked.

  ‘Surprisingly comfortable,’ she replied. ‘The snow on my wound is most soothing.’

  ‘That’s great. Now stay still,’ he told her. ‘I’m just going to break up your outline a bit and then we’ll wait for dark. Once the sun’s gone down, we’ll search for the others. It’ll be far safer to move und
er cover of darkness.’

  ‘If we were anywhere else in the world, I would agree with you,’ she said, her voice carrying more than a hint of doubt. ‘But the short period of darkness here will not bring the safety it might elsewhere. My black scales will stand out against the white of the snow by day or night. Even the slightest starlight will be enough to make me conspicuous from above. When we move, we’ll have to climb quickly if we’re to avoid Segun’s men spotting us.’

  She was right, but there was no time to worry about that now. The snow was coming down so hard, it was already beginning to mottle her back, which was great, but not good enough to hide her. Pell had to work fast to camouflage her effectively.

  Placing the saddlebags by the dark rock face, he waded around to the base of Shadow’s back where he began to scoop up armload after armload of snow and throw it over her body. His intention was to break up her shape, so that anyone looking from the air would not see the obvious outline of a dragon. Creating an uneven path of white across her back did not take long and the vigorous exercise warmed him. As soon as he was content that he had effectively severed Shadow’s tail with a broad path of white, he moved in front of the enormous rock and repeated the exercise at her neck.

  ‘What will you do when you’ve finished, Pell?’ she asked him as he threw more and more snow over her. ‘Where will you rest? There’s not much cover here.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he replied. ‘I’ll dig a hole into the side of the big drift behind you and wait out the storm there. I’ve holed up in a snow bank before. It’s actually quite comfortable once you’re in it.’

  A few more minutes of frantic shovelling with his arms and Pell knew he had done all he could realistically do to camouflage his dragon. The cold would not harm her, so he began working on digging himself a shelter. The wind was howling now and the temperature was dropping fast as the big flakes and snow pellets gave way to the much finer crystalline flakes that formed the body of the snow around him. Driven by the wind, the fine flakes pricked his skin constantly like a million tiny needles and soon he could no longer tell the difference between hot and cold.

  It took a few minutes of digging before he realised his plan held a serious flaw. The powdery snow was great for throwing over Shadow’s back, but it was so fine and loose that burrowing a safe hole into the side of the drift was impossible. Every time he began to get any way into the bank, the roof of his hole collapsed. Within a few minutes he saw it was hopeless. Even if he did manage to dig a hole of suitable size and depth, it was likely to cave in on him. The thought of suffocating under the snow was not a pleasant one.

  ‘Looks like I’m going to need a new plan,’ he muttered aloud as he abandoned his efforts at digging. He paused for a moment to think, and then he turned to address his dragon. ‘Can you ease your head away from the rock a little, Shadow? I’m going to squeeze into the gap to keep out of the wind. Sunset can’t be much more than an hour away now. We’ll move again then.’

  Shadow was happy to oblige. She shifted her head and Pell squeezed into the hollow, pulling his saddlebags in behind him. He sighed with relief as he crouched down. It felt fantastic to be out of the wind and for a moment he just squatted there, listening to its cruel howling voice. In the comparative stillness of his shelter, he began to feel a gentle burning sensation in his ears, cheeks and fingers, as blood began to work its way back into his extremities. Although the renewed circulation brought pain, it was nothing like the deep burning of Firestorm’s blazing breath earlier. This heat in his flesh felt wholesome and almost pleasurable.

  Fumbling through his saddlebags, Pell pulled out his spare cloak and wrapped it over his head and around his shoulders like a shawl. The material was soft and thick, bringing a further sense of comfort and protection. Tucked up against Shadow’s cheek, he felt safe both from the elements and from the pursuing dragons. He listened long and hard, but he heard nothing apart from the wind. If the night dragons were still above them, they were no longer calling to one another.

  How long it was before he began to feel the pull of the orb, Pell did not know. The urge to get it out was subtle at first, beginning with daydreams – flashbacks of how he had attained the orb and then images of how it felt in his hands. The images were twisted. As he daydreamed, he felt a shock of pleasure every time he pictured himself holding the orb, yet in the back of his mind the truth haunted him like a nightmare. The aura of the orb had been colder than any snowstorm. He had not been able to dump the thing into his saddlebag fast enough. He had certainly not held it with bare hands, as the images in his mind portrayed.

  Slowly, but surely, the desire to draw out the orb grew. Teasing. Tantalising. Taunting. His natural instinct was to resist, though he had no idea why. Eventually, however, the pull became less subtle and too strong for him to ignore. A sour taste formed in Pell’s mouth as he looked down at the saddlebag containing the orb. It was open in front of him, but he had no conscious memory of having undone the straps. Tiny wisps of mist curled from the open top. His sight dimmed as he tried to remember the last few minutes and his heart rate accelerated as he sensed a dark cloud in his mind. A palpable aura pulsed inside the bag as if the orb were alive.

  ‘Shadow!’ he gasped, straining to prevent his hands moving towards the bag of their own volition.

  ‘I see them,’ she replied. ‘Don’t panic. There are a lot of them, but most of the animals are completely harmless. What do you think brought them here? They are acting very strangely. I’ve never known animals deliberately come anywhere near me before.’

  ‘Animals? What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘It’s the orb, Shadow! It’s doing something to me. I . . . can’t . . . stop . . .’

  ‘I feel it now. Sorry, Pell. The pain in my shoulder distracted me. What . . .’ Shadow’s voice was full of concern, but a sudden whooshing noise drew her attention away.

  Out of the murky snow-filled sky emerged the unmistakeable shape of a night dragon. Shadow tensed, her muscles bunching as she prepared to get up and fight. To her surprise, rather than launching an attack, the dragon landed in silence behind the strangely organised rows of animals. Incredibly, not a single creature so much as flinched at the huge new arrival. Rather than challenging her, the dragon meekly joined the back row of animals and waited, seemingly in a sort of trance. The dragon’s rider slid down to stand alongside her, similarly in thrall.

  Muscles still tense, Shadow waited. A wary few moments passed, but still the night dragon made no move to attack. Confused, Shadow lifted her head on her long neck and turned to her rider. She was just in time to see Pell’s hands plunge into the open saddlebag and emerge again clutching the dark orb. Shadow recoiled. The globe was pulsating with dark, repulsive energy, and there was a strange mistiness about it that had not been apparent when it had first formed on the plinth. She could see a fine forest of thin, wraithlike tendrils forming across the surface of the orb, spurting from its surface and writhing with a life of their own.

  The look on Pell’s face matched the horror Shadow felt in his mind. She turned her head again to look at the lines of animals standing around her in a perfect semi-circle. Hares, foxes, birds of many kinds, a solitary bear, the dragon and her rider – all stood, or sat, as silently as they had approached. In all her long years, Shadow had never seen anything like it before. It was eerie. They looked as if they had been enchanted. They were standing absolutely still. Mesmerised. Waiting for something to happen.

  ‘NOOOOOOOOOO!’

  Pell cried the single word aloud and in his mind with equal intensity. He felt the orb do it. And, through the link, Shadow felt it too. The misty tendrils suddenly shot out like darts from the surface of the orb and a pulse of energy simultaneously surged through Pell’s body. Each tendril raced through the air like an arrow to attach itself to one of the waiting creatures, dragon and rider included. To Shadow’s surprise, not one of them so much as flinched. Only she and Pell did not have tendrils attached to their chests.

>   For a moment Shadow felt Pell’s horrified awareness with total clarity. He was like the anchor point of a giant spider’s web, but she instinctively knew that what he was holding was far worse. There was a second surge of energy and the tendrils abruptly sucked back as one into the orb. At that same moment, each creature the tendrils had touched – the dragon, the rider, and every last animal arrayed before them – dropped soundlessly into the snow: dead.

  Chapter Three

  Hide and Seek

  Kira sat up straight, craning her neck to scan the swirling white curtain of snow falling behind them. She could see no sign of the night dragon she knew was there. Suddenly another piercing scream ripped through the air. This time it came from ahead of them. Fang stopped beating his wings and started to glide, deliberately slowing his forward speed as he considered their options.

  ‘Have we flown into a trap?’ Kira asked, her heart racing.

  ‘The night dragons know we’re here, but I don’t think they can see us,’ Fang replied. ‘We haven’t exactly been sneaking along. I imagine they anticipated our flying this way and were lying in wait. They will have sensed us coming, much as we sensed their approach at our last encounter, but the weather has foiled their ambush. It appears they’re trying to spook us into doing something foolish.’

  ‘Just flying in this weather is foolish! What do they expect us to do that’s more idiotic than this?’

  ‘They are trying to panic us,’ Fang explained, sounding as calm as ever. ‘In this sort of weather it’s easy to become disoriented and fly into the side of a mountain. They are trying to engineer a convenient accident.’

  ‘Where are the others? Are they all right?’

  There was a short pause and Kira felt Fang communicating with the other dragons, though she could not hear what was said.