by Marc Secchia
“Get the girl!” roared the leader of the green-clad Merxians. Their feathered helmets bunched as the men drove forward in a tight formation.
You deal with the catapult and those men, Lia called to the Dragoness.
The Green Dragoness blinked her nictitating membranes, clearly confused at fielding orders from a Human.
Lia taunted the soldiers, “Can’t catch me, slow-slugs.”
Hurdling bushes and bounding over boulders like a cliff-goat scenting a hunting rajal, the Nuyallith-trained warrior evaded their spears and charged across the fifty yards or so separating her from the second squad of soldiers and the trapped hatchling. Fire! She dived aside to avoid the splash of a stray fireball. Two of the soldiers were less fortunate, and were roasted in their armour. Behind her, the Dragoness roared an earth-shattering challenge.
Still flat on her stomach, Lia drew and fired a reflex shot into the catapult-crew, exposed by her new position. If that twenty-foot, metal-tipped quarrel struck the Dragoness from this short a distance … she howled as a spear-point lanced into her right buttock, while two more spear-tips pinged off rocks near her right hand. Rather than stand and run, Lia dropped her bow and rolled, coming up with a Nuyallith blade in either hand, the right held clumsily–Islands’ sakes, was the little finger so important to a proper grip? This inane thought sneaked into her mind as she witnessed the Green Dragoness rear up, and simply drop her belly atop the squad of soldiers.
Who cared about elegance or style? She grinned. Awesome! Spinning, Lia launched herself at the crossbow crew, briefly startled to hear an incoherent but clearly female battle-cry coming from further up the ravine. Then, Elki’s well-known voice, shouting the ancient monkish battle-cry, “For the Dragon!”
The Dragon! Oh, the Great Dragon! Amaryllion’s fire boiled in her veins and fizzed in her ears. Destroying the team of crossbow engineers as though a tornado had ripped through their little emplacement behind the boulder, Lia reversed direction, scanning the battlefield. Three more squads of heavily armoured Merxians approached along the ravine floor, marching in close formation, showcasing the awesome discipline they were renowned for. Four men ran toward the trapped hatchling. Here came Saori, unchained, wielding a type of long dagger unfamiliar to Hualiama. She ran gracefully, her long legs scissoring across the ground. Elki thundered along in her wake, brandishing his sword with far greater zeal than skill. The pair crashed into the closest knot of soldiers with a crunch that made Lia wince.
Lia skimmed across the tops of three large boulders in succession, almost airborne as she bore down on the Dragon hatchling with her swords upraised.
Fear not, little one, she called.
My baby! The Dragoness screamed as Hualiama pounced upon the soldiers, her twin swords blazing with fire, red and blue mingled into an intense purple as they crossed briefly. Perhaps the Green Dragoness thought Lia intended to execute her baby. Acid spit rocketed past her left shoulder, striking one of the soldiers squarely in the face.
Refusing to look at the result of that acid attack–the sounds were hideous enough–she clashed with the remaining trio instead. Lia danced around the hatchling, her swords cleaving armour and bone. Nuyallith techniques flowed from her body like a river of molten lava–the rajal pouncing, a sideways snake-strike, the two-handed cleaver to finish off the final soldier. Lia winced, holding her leg where a glancing hammer-strike had cannoned off her kneecap.
She hobbled over to the hatchling. I’m a friend, see? Don’t be afraid.
Despite being a hatchling, the several weeks-old male Dragon was twelve feet long and stood as tall as her shoulder. He blinked at her. Mama fire-eyes?
Your mama’s coming, my flame-heart. Be strong! Fire your courage.
With a mighty blow, the Princess sliced through a good four feet of netting. Though the hatchling snarled and tried to spit fire at her, she marched around to his forepaws and began to cut them free. Those squads were too close. A crossbow quarrel fell from above, right on the hatchling’s tail. Lia yelped as he made an involuntary snap at her, snagging her wristlet with immature but needle-sharp fangs.
MY BABY! The Green Dragoness’ pounce took her right over Hualiama, rolling her in a flurry of wings and paws and a jarring blow to her hip.
A deeper rumbling sound, however, undercut the sounds of the soldiers’ boots tramping in strict time. Lia gasped as a section of the opposite ravine-wall tumbled away, revealing three war crossbows and a catapult concealed in a flat cave entrance. The engineers rapidly oriented their weapons on the melee down on the ravine floor.
Now a high-pitched whistling rose over the sounds of battle! Lia knew that strange, ululating sound … it cut into her eardrums–wheee-yyiiii-boom! Hualiama recoiled as an entire squad of soldiers vaporised before her eyes. One moment they were marching, the next, even their armour and weapons exploded into a thin, crimson-and-silver mist. What Dragon power was that?
Take cover! The Copper Dragoness Mizuki hurled herself at the crossbow emplacements, while the Green did anything but take cover. Mizuki sprayed the advancing soldiers with Dragon fire somehow mixed with acidic Green Dragon spit–or was this her special attack once again? Shields drooped over the soldiers’ arms. Their flesh boiled. Lia felt a wash of magic as the Copper Dragoness swiped her forepaw across the emplacements, blew up the catapult with her weird vaporising attack, and took two crossbow quarrels directly against her chest without flinching. Stone skin? She had encountered that skill when fighting the Roc. That Copper Dragoness had more tricks stored in her belly than an entire Dragonwing of Blues. Freaking awesome!
Dragging her attention back to the fight, Hualiama charged out from behind the Green Dragoness and barrelled into the remaining squad of Merxian soldiers.
Mizuki roared at the Green, Protect your younglings!
Elki at her right shoulder, Saori at her left; they pounded the soldiers, who closed ranks and stood their ground grimly.
“Slow retreat?” Saori suggested.
Dragon-rancorous, Lia snarled, “Have I demonstrated my courage yet?”
“Oh, stop with the bickering already!” But Elki howled as Mizuki plucked him deftly out of her way, before whirling to vanquish six of his foes with a mighty snap of her tail. With his free arm, he threw her a jaunty salute. “Timely rescue, o mistress of might.”
Retreating, Hualiama cast about for her Haozi bow. Mizuki’s eyes whirled as she set the Prince down. The Dragoness said something to Elki which made Saori’s face darken, before she turned with massive, gleaming menace to start hosing down the ravine with fireballs, clearing their escape route. A few stray spears and crossbow quarrels rained down upon them as Hualiama, Elki and Saori sprinted after the departing Green Dragoness, who had all three of her hatchlings on the move as she fled the scene of the battle.
How had that hatchling been trapped? Which Dragons in their right mind would attack the famously impregnable fortress of the Men of Merx?
Now was no time to sit and ponder the lay of the Islands. She bolted.
* * * *
Having made good her escape and returned to Qilong’s Dragonship as promised, Hualiama found herself the subject of another insane argument in the navigation cabin as they made their best speed away from Merx. Mizuki had stayed behind to protect the Green Dragoness and her hatchlings. The Human Dragonship fled like a fat turtledove fleeing a hundred hungry hawks.
“I will not bind that wound on your hind parts!” Saori growled. “It’s shameful. Ask your brother.”
Elki, seated while First Mate Genzo bound a burn-wound on his upper arm, clucked his tongue unhappily. “She’s my sister, but–”
“I shall treat her alluring buttocks most tenderly,” said Genzo, with a gap-toothed leer at the subject of their conversation.
“You may eat my sword,” the royal ward glared at him, reddening. She began to unsling the Haozi hunting bow from its crosswise-slung position across her chest, but stopped. “Saori, at risk of offending you once more, I wanted t
o thank you–and Elki–for coming to my aid.”
“I, the piratical pestilence sweeping over two hundred and thirteen Islands, declare it a most noble deed,” said Qilong, unexpectedly joining their group. “I decree it most royally. Besides, if she who is no longer my intended can survive the humiliation of a barbarian’s ravishing kiss, she must surely consider the treatment of honourable wounds–”
He broke off as Saori tickled the underside of Elki’s throat with her dagger. “Prince of Fra’anior.”
“Aye?” Elki squeaked.
“What did that repulsive cultural gesture signify?”
Hualiama expected her brother to start babbling like a laughing dove surprised by a hunting cliff-fox. Instead, he fixed his grey eyes on the Eastern Islander. The corners of his mouth curved upward in a slow, quirky grin that even his sister had to admit, was not unhandsome. Though Elki said not a word, Saori seemed ensnared. The Eastern Isles warrior’s hand began to tremble. Her entire arm shook. A blush began at her collarbones, raced over the pulse suddenly fluttering in her neck, and exploded into her face.
Softly, the Prince said, “That’s what it signifies.”
“Oh,” Saori whispered.
Grandion had once electrified her with such a gaze. Lia’s own heartbeat escalated, thudding so loudly she was certain everyone knew the tenor of her thoughts. This was how the Tourmaline Dragon had melted her fears and her resolve, how taboos came to be trampled upon and the ways of two hearts–three in his case, of course–might dare to fly to treacherous, forbidden Isles. Fighting for calm, Hualiama moved to the starboard crysglass windows. Reason and prudence. Two words her heart clearly refused to listen to. She must crush her soul’s song. These feelings would only interfere with her mission to find the Scroll of Binding and return it, together with Grandion, to the Dragon Elders at Gi’ishior.
Her nape prickled. Magic. Concealed magic.
Suddenly rigid, only her eyes moved as Hualiama scanned the storm-dark afternoon sky. One of those strange, low-down Cloudlands storms had rolled in while they were fighting at Merx. Now, the storm front seemed to reach from the heavens above to the Cloudlands below, a massive rampart sweeping in from the northwest, consuming the Islands like a rolling avalanche. The weather had been too hot. Qilong’s orders had them racing for Tarxix, a small, usually unmarked Island lying forty leagues east and a few compass-points south of Merx. There, they must take shelter, for to be caught by those clouds spelled certain death.
But something else lurked out there. Something as deadly as the storm.
She called, “Brother, will you come here a moment?”
“If the warrior-maiden has finished shaving my beard,” he said, by his cheerful tone clearly oblivious to the premonition curdling her innards. “What is it, short shrift?”
Lia had never been more grateful for his strong hands on her shoulders. “I sense something out there. Hold me if I fall.”
Without waiting for any sign of assent, she pushed her senses out into the space around their Dragonship, already ten leagues out of Merx and five miles above the Cloudlands as they made their top speed. What had triggered her alarm? She saw nothing. She sensed …
Ah. I feel your presence, little one.
Elki’s grasp saved Lia from an inelegant collapse. That voice! She knew that voice!
Before she could cage it, a mental wail slipped free, Razzior!
Aye, Razzior. The slow, crackling whisper filled her mind. I failed to burn you once, clever little Princess. I shall not fail again.
Lia curled against Elki. No. No, no … not him, the brutal Orange Dragon, scarred like Ra’aba … even by his mental touch she knew he possessed the power of ruzal, for it ignited a dark flickering within her own being, an involuntary reaction to his dominant, hateful cry.
Brethren, we are discovered.
“Lia. Lia!” Elki shook her by her shoulders. “What is it?”
“Razzior.”
“Razzior?” he echoed. “Oh, roaring rajals, no …”
“Not rajals.” Hualiama pointed aft, off the port side, where Razzior the Orange and his Dragonwing had materialised from thin air. Less than a mile separated them. “Roaring Dragons.”
“Suffering volcanic hells, that’s at least two dozen Dragons,” Elki swore. He abruptly shook her again, harder than before. “Snap out of it. Short shrift, you swallowed the power of an Ancient Dragon. What’re you going to do? Make a plan. Hide us? Shoot us across the Island-World like a comet? Escape? Knock those flying reptiles out of the sky?”
Heat detonated in her belly. Aye. There was one chance, and Elki had just voiced it. “Elki. How secure is that solo Dragonship up top?”
He glanced guiltily at Qilong. “I loosened the moorings …”
“Great!” Lia clouted her brother on the shoulder.
“Ouch, darn it, for a guppy you’ve a punch like an angry Dragon.”
Saori said, “What’re you two planning?”
The Dragons swooped in with terrifying speed, making at least thirty leagues per hour. They would be overhauled in moments. Hualiama rattled, “No time to explain. Razzior’s the Orange at the head of that Dragonwing. He tried to kill me before. I’m pretty sure he and my father are trying to overthrow Sapphurion and the Dragon Elders, with the heartening aim of restoring draconic rule and Human slavery to the Island-World.”
“Your father?”
“Saori, not now.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Elki.
“No. You need to save this Dragonship and everyone on it. The only person aspiring to commit suicide is me. I need to get up top. Now.”
Qilong said, “What’re you going to do?”
“Stuff your ears, alright? Block them in layers of cloth, you and all the crew. Get three men on the wheel. Secure everything you can within two minutes, and damp the engine fires. It’ll be a rough ride–I hope.” Lia stood on her tiptoes to press her lips to her brother’s cheek. “Fly strong and true, brother. Love you.”
“You too,” he gulped.
And then she was out of his arms and through the doorway, darting to the nearest hawser that would take her up to the sack. Razzior powered toward the Dragonship with strong, sure wingbeats. He had nothing to fear. Two dozen Dragons against one Dragonship? Easier than swatting a mosquito. But the Orange Dragon did not know what he was dealing with–hopefully. Lia only prayed she could summon the power she had summoned before, without destroying the Dragonship she stood upon. Would it buy enough time to escape? The black storm-front already rolled beneath the Dragonship, she saw, perhaps three miles beneath their position. From afar, the dark, massed vapours appeared deceptively calm.
Lia climbed rapidly, yet when she turned, Razzior was only two hundred feet abaft the Dragonship.
His fangs gleamed against the backdrop of darkness. Ah, so good to see you again, Princess. No escape this time. No hiding places out here, between the Islands.
What do you want of me, Razzior?
She had to brace her stance against the wind’s buffeting. Hualiama’s long platinum strands whipped about her face as she tried for a confident glare, for the same audacity she had unexpectedly discovered when speaking to the Dragon Elders. This time she enjoyed no terrace lake brimming with courage. Razzior was right. Either her ploy would work, or the Island-World would be rid of one pesky royal ward and an airship full of Humans.
The Dragons slowed and spread out, confident of having cornered their quarry. Yulgaz the Brown was present. All told, fifteen Reds, five Greens, two Browns, a Blue Dragon and Razzior the Orange lined up off the Dragonship’s stern. When it came, the firestorm they could produce would rival that Cloudlands storm churning beneath them.
Razzior grated, War multiplies across the Islands. My power grows. Soon, I will uncover the precious Scroll of Binding the Tourmaline failed so miserably to track down. With that knowledge, I shall compel all Dragons to join our new age of draconic dominion and justice.
She said, I will not a
llow it, Razzior.
Great Islands, and now he cracked that smile that reminded her so keenly of Ra’aba, it seemed to Lia that it was her father’s lips forming the discomfiting, disdainful curve of Razzior’s muzzle.
You won’t allow it? the Orange guffawed, and most of his Dragons with him. You and what Dragon army? I see one pathetic little Human ensnared by my trap on Merx, and an everlasting drop into the Cloudlands. My fire-stomach holds a special fireball which shall wipe one bothersome Human, and the threat of the prophecy, off the face of the Island-World. FOREVER.
As he thundered ‘forever’, flame roared around his fangs and nostrils. There was so much power and heat in him, the entirety of Razzior’s body smoked. Lia did not wish to find out what that power portended.
Where was the magic? Would it not come? Yet even as she fretted, a faint tingling began in the mastoid bones of her ears. Without warning, an excruciating pain blossomed in her chest, a pain of fire uncontainable, a summoning of magic from across the vast leagues of the Island-World, gushing into a frail Human vessel.
Razzior’s eyes bulged as he evidently sensed the massive force of magic concentrated in her breast. What is this? He bugled, Burn her! Burn the Human, my brothers!
An inrush of air developed across the divide between the Dragons and the Dragonship, as the massed Dragonwing drew breath to stoke their Dragon fires.
Lia fell to her knees upon the soft, resilient air sack. Spreading her arms, she opened her soul to the knowledge of magic. Staggering. Breath-stealing. White tendrils of flame seared her vision. Below, many leagues away in the Cloudlands, she saw the smoky outline of a great Onyx Dragon. Amaryllion? Could it be that he lived?
She meant to cry, ‘Begone!’ But as the massed fires of twenty-four Dragons roared out of their long throats, their hatred spoken in tongues of flame, a different word emerged from her breast to resound across the deeps. It rocked the Islands upon their foundations.
