by Marc Secchia
And then she tossed her good work off the proverbial Island cliff. Grandion knew he had to intervene. The fury building in Vinzuki would find no good outlet. Behind the Dragoness, muttering between the Dragons reached a different, dangerous pitch.
Lia, he warned.
We want Hualiama’s Way for all of us, said Raiden.
What by the volcanic hells is Hualiama’s Way? Lia shouted, losing her cool. Grandion felt his own dark-fires rise, resentful.
Raiden, clearly aiming to be the voice of reason, said, We Dragons call this magic Hualiama’s Way, or Grandion’s Gift. He bowed slightly to the Tourmaline, who voiced a low rumble of endorsement. Vinzuki’s voice is our voice. We enter this partnership with Humans willingly, but charily. Mistreatment and favouritism warm no Dragon’s roost.
As he spoke, darkness closed around her vision. Distinctly, Grandion sensed his Rider giving in, a moment of weakness. She sought oblivion, to simply shut these Dragons out. No! Faster than a draconic heartbeat, his pride switched to scorn. Not like this! He snatched Lia up in his paw, growling, You won’t faint.
Hualiama struggled weakly. Mercy, Grandion. They ask too much. How can I give what isn’t mine to give? Help me. I need space to think it through … tomorrow. Make them understand.
Raising his Rider to the level of the Dragons’ eyes, twenty feet off the ground, Grandion said, Allow me to instruct you, my Dragon-kin, in how this Dragon-Human relationship works. What you call Hualiama’s Way, is a state of being between a Dragon and his Human–
Tyrant! Lia hit his fisted paw. Release me this instant. I can’t–
Shut the chattering monkey-mouth, Grandion growled. Lia hissed furiously, but he ignored her. Attend my words, noble Dragons. Lia, ‘I can’t’ is unacceptable. Listen–
I will not listen until you release me, you fire-breathing fiend!
He breathed, Thou.
What? Lia tried to kick his nose, but could not reach. Despotic Dragon! Don’t teach them your overweening ways.
Thou, Grandion said softly, putting his hearts into it.
Her pulse skipped a beat. Grandion … n-no. You’re embarrassing m-me.
Through the connection between them, he sensed the heat rising in her face. Now she understood. The Tourmaline knew he had won, but his third heart dictated the gentle pulse of his response.
Thou–he wafted the invisible magic of his soul-fire into her face–art mine, and I, thine.
* * * *
With the fire came understanding. On the wings of the Dragon’s magic, Lia felt revitalising strength infuse her being. There was no need to struggle. Grandion was right. It was a way of being between Humans and Dragons. The Dragon was asking her if she was alright, but Hualiama was already five steps ahead. She wanted to chuckle. Males and females were so different, no matter the creature-kind they represented.
The watching Dragonkind seemed torn between laughter and outrage. Right. Time to work. Thank you, Grandion. Turning to Raiden, she said, Raiden, do you third-heart-love Vinzuki?
Aye! His eye-fires blazed.
Does the flow of this Dragoness’ wingbeat not conjure visions of hot lava racing down a mountainside?
AYE! The Blue Dragon thundered. He lowered his muzzle with a toothy Dragon smile. Why these poetic words, Dragonfriend?
I seek what is hidden, she replied. Vizuki, do you truly love this breathtaking Blue beast?
Somewhere below her, Elki said to Saori, “What’s she doing?”
Grandion whispered, “Finding connections.”
Vinzuki’s eye fires blazed. Of course I do. What truths are these idiotic questions meant to divulge?
How can you be certain? Lia inquired.
You insult me! But the Orange Dragoness glanced at Raiden. He …
The Blue Dragon flexed his massive shoulders and wafted fire playfully against his mate’s flank. Tell me, how do I soulfully-love thee, o fearless sky-warrior?
Vinzuki blurted out, Every morning at dawn, he sings to me. Her belly-fires roared in a Dragon’s blush, but Lia was motionless in Grandion’s paw, wholly focussed on the soft effulgence she began to detect between them. Could a Dragon’s fire-soul be seen, even as she had seen Amaryllion’s inner essence? Raiden warms our roost, and his eye-fires incite … Dragonfriend, you aren’t listening.
Hualiama waved a hand dreamily. Tell me more. Tell me–she switched languages abruptly–“Elki. I understand now. Go fetch everyone from inside the fortress. Every Human.”
Saori protested, “But that’s the men and children. It’s not our way–”
“It’s a family’s way!” Lia threw back her head, laughing merrily, and the more so at the stir of draconic and Human confusion that greeted her eruption of mirth. “Dragon Riders are not only warriors.”
“They are warriors first and foremost,” said Elki, doubtfully.
Lia smiled down at her brother. “In your circle, brother–” she indicated Saori, Mizuki and Elki “–who are the warriors?”
“My women–my Dragoness and my Human love,” he said. “Me–well, not so much. Warrior in training. Slaying the enemy with perfect comedic timing … oh. Now I get it, sister.”
“What I get is the stink of fresh windroc eggs,” snorted Vinzuki.
“Aye, my third heart?” Raiden nuzzled her neck fondly. The Orange Dragoness nipped his shoulder.
“Saori, please fetch them.” Lia aimed another futile kick in Grandion’s direction. “I’m rather held up, presently.”
Elki groaned, “Terrible joke. Right. Back in two shakes of a dragonet’s tail.”
Shortly, people began filing out of the fortress–a surprising number–the men and youngsters dressed in soft animal skins against the underground cold, the female warriors wearing light, loose cotton-weave clothing beneath hard leather armour. Naoko folded her muscular arms across her chest and took her stance, legs akimbo, signalling her displeasure with the Fra’aniorian who flagrantly disrupted her arrangements. Never mind that. Lia was about to usurp their entire social structure. For Dragons, while fierce and noble masters of the sky, were not all the warring beasts Humans imagined them to be. There were scientists and doctors, engineers and explorers, and Dragons who kept the nursery and trained hatchlings. She had been too narrow-minded in her conception of who Dragon Riders might be.
Dragons, listen with your fire-souls. To Raiden, she said, I’ll need your help, Blue. Would you sing your love for Vinzuki? Dragoness, while he sings, we shall seek out your Rider, should he or she stand among the people.
Hualiama drew a deep breath, but Grandion interrupted, pitching his booming voice to carry across the Human congregation, “The Dragonfriend seeks more Riders! Listen to Raiden’s Dragonsong and search your hearts, Humans. Hearken to magic’s call.”
As Raiden’s Dragonsong rose to salute the gathering evening, Lia turned to survey the watching faces. So many lives. What hid behind the dark, slanted eyes–what stories, what grief, what capabilities or fears, she could not possibly know. They looked to her as a visionary, yet Hualiama knew her own failings and lack of understanding. How could she inflict this fate upon others? Yet here they had gathered, Dragons and Humans alike, seeking a greater future, or simply one different to what had been before. Bridgers of the divide. Brave souls, all.
And that courage was what moved her most profoundly.
White-fire swirled around her, ethereal and frustratingly aimless. There must be something. Perhaps the magic depended not only upon her bringing Dragon and Rider together, but upon their faith? For the threads rising from Vinzuki seemed frail and few, and above the Humans, she saw but a hint of white mist.
“Closer,” she said aloud. “Grandion, let me approach them. Vinzuki … come.”
In a moment, she was upon her feet. The Orange Dragoness trailed her with unexpected meekness as Lia approached the silent ranks. So orderly, these Easterners. They had arranged themselves by family group and height, in rows she could not have drawn straighter with the edge of the suns
-beams streaming beneath a band of storm clouds on the horizon. Lia gazed at them. She had to create … expectation. Why? Could she explain that she had a magical itch? Hardly.
Dipping her gaze, she called, “I sense your presence, Dragon Rider.”
This provoked a stillness she could have bottled and sold to kings and princes. Behind her, Dragonsong swelled afresh as Raiden, his new Rider still seated upon his back, drew near.
She swept her eyes from left to right. “You must believe. One of you burns with fire uncontainable. One of you knows this is for you. I cannot explain such a knowing. It springs from the unfathomable depths of our being, an echo perhaps of a time when Humans first trod the Isles of our world. It is magic. Good and pure magic–what was that?” Lia whirled. “Over there.”
Vinzuki’s muzzle jerked as though slapped by an invisible blow. Still the fire would not find its target. Lia squeezed her eyes shut. This was stupid. This was–Flicker? Flicker?
This way, straw-head, chuckled the dragonet, his image dancing in her mind. Follow if you dare.
Keeping her eyes firmly shut, Lia stumbled into the crowd, treading on toes and bumping against arms and hips. “Sorry. Sorry, everyone.”
Her hand fell upon a muscular, fire-scarred arm. Yes!
Hualiama smiled up at a tall young man, a blacksmith judging by his fire-scarred leather apron. Jet-black eyes widened as the import of the moment sank in. “Me?” he squeaked, squirming. “I’m an armourer, not a warrior.”
“Him?” said Raiden’s Rider. “That’s my husband.”
Vinzuki purred, “He’s that Human’s mate? I mean, Fumiko’s mate?”
Fumiko, the warrior on Raiden’s back, suddenly broke into a high-pitched ululation of delight. “Perfectly matched!” she whooped. “Come on, husband, how’s about you get used to forging with living fire?”
Fixing her ardent eyes upon the man, isolated now as the crowd instinctively shrank back from him, the Orange Dragoness said, “Dragon fire has been used for centuries to forge the finest weapons in the Island-World. I would be honoured–careful!”
The young armourer extracted himself from a tangle of people he had bowled over. “Sorry. Forgot anyone else existed …”
“Quite excusable.” Lia grinned at his ralti-struck expression.
Gripping his battered hammer as though he intended to employ it on Vinzuki, the blacksmith advanced toward his Dragon. “So,” he inquired, “how does one stoke Dragon fires?”
* * * *
When Lia awoke in the dark of night, it was with a despairing groan. She could not possibly have enjoyed more than a blink of rest. Her body felt as though Grandion had used her to clean his fangs. Mercy, how could magic’s use lead to such physical enervation? By her tenth introduction of a Dragon-Rider couple, as she had come to call her peculiar brand of matchmaking, pale-as-clouds Hualiama had to resort to clutching Grandion’s paw in order to stand upright. The Tourmaline Dragon, with profuse draconic non-apologies, whisked his Rider away.
Lia scowled at the sleeping Dragon. Nice of him to tidy up after his ridiculous, roundabout performance of forcing her to push beyond her limits.
Ten more Dragon Riders. None had been as romantically convenient as the paired couples of Vinzuki and Raiden, with Tadao the blacksmith and Fumiko respectively. One had been a female warrior of barely her fourteenth summer, paired with a fifty-foot Green fledgling. Hualiama had heard the girl’s mother yelling at Naoko afterward.
She had been but a year older than that girl when Ra’aba tried to murder her.
Dark clouds smothered the five moons. Hualiama shifted restlessly, quite convinced an unseen Dragon’s claw was quarrying holes into her spine. All around her, she could just about make out the dim shapes of Dragons sleeping with their new Riders. Mizuki slept near Grandion’s left forepaw, her right eye cat-slit, alert. Elki lay between his Dragon’s forepaws, having kicked his blanket into a fine tangle. Where was Saori? There, seated on Mizuki’s right forepaw. Gazing into the darkness. Hualiama wondered if she rued not having found a Dragon. Saori always acted the tough girl, keeping her illusions intact.
Naoko was the kind of mother who demanded her daughter go farther, go beyond. Perhaps she had been even more disappointed than Saori. Failure was unthinkable for the chief’s daughter.
Mizuki? Lia roused the Dragoness. Is Saori alright?
The eye cracked slightly wider. Hardly, Dragonfriend. Dragons go to mountaintops to brood. This night breathes dark-fires even to a Human’s soul.
Lia rose. Grandion, I’m going to Saori. You sleep.
But he lifted his muzzle, scenting the air. Who patrols–aye, Hideki. Have you seen him?
Disquieted, Hualiama scented the night air, much as her Dragon had done. Where was the Green Dragon? Dragon night-sight was leagues better than a Human’s, but Grandion was blind. Did this hint of moisture signal an incoming storm? No, it was something else–sulphur and cinnamon? Suddenly, she was moving. Checking her weapons. Snatching up her hunting bow.
Mizuki.
The Copper Dragoness’ eye-fires surged. What?
I sense … she shivered. Nothing she could have placed, just an unaccustomed chill down her spine and an awareness of a pressure against her mind.
Grandion growled, Lia, speak to me.
The ground quivered ever so slightly. Lia swayed, gripped by an escalation of a familiar feeling, the nearness of great magic when she had approached Amaryllion …
Hualiama snapped, “Saori, wake Elki. Mount up!”
The Tourmaline Dragon bawled, DRAGONS! AWAKE! DANGER!
Lia had never mounted up so fast. Grandion practically threw her at his spine-spikes. She had barely begun to fix her long belt when the Dragon crouched and hurled himself skyward. The snap of his massive thigh muscles wrenched her neck, but Lia wound her legs around the spike in front of her and rode the buffeting, searching the gloom with her weak, inadequate eyes–knowing it depended on her to keep Grandion alive in a combat situation. Black shadows raced across the ground. Magic swelled.
She screamed, Shield them all, Grandion!
A Dragon’s fireball at ground level lit a fifty-yard swathe of rock over which Shinzen’s giants pounded, closing the distance to the encampment with fearful speed. Hideki broke through the clouds above them, caught in a coiling battle with three or four other Dragons. Had he been ambushed? Where were the other three sentries?
The Tourmaline Dragon twisted in pain as a mountain seemed to strike his mental shield. Tonnes of rock, perhaps meant for the sleeping Dragons, fell short of their mark. Now, helped by the flaring of Dragon fireballs, Lia finally saw a Dragonwing striking low for the fortress, sweeping the ground ahead of them with fireballs as they attacked the ground-bound Dragons. All was a welter of confusion below. Dragons sought their Riders and fought each other for wing-space to take off. They launched attacks with scant regard for who or what stood in their path. Below the attacking Dragonwing came a spread-out line of giants, perhaps four dozen in number, who paused to fracture massive boulders from the living Island beneath their feet and to propel them through the air–some upward, aiming for Grandion, and others shooting horizontally, battering one of the Red Dragons who had stormed outside of the ambit of Grandion’s shield.
Can’t hold … that many, he gasped, wallowing.
Left! she cried. But her mount shuddered as a rock struck him on his hindquarters. We need–
Yukari! Grandion thundered in recognition.
With a monstrous battle-challenge, the Aquamarine Dragoness rose from her position near the fortress and launched herself into the fray; Akemi swung from her paw, waving a crossbow. Sweeping over the top of the untested Dragon and Rider force, somehow avoiding the Dragons taking off with a cunning twist of her wings, Yukari’s jaw gaped open to expel a dazzling white fireball at the enemy Dragonwing. It detonated in their faces. Multiple chains of lightning seared Hualiama’s vision, leaping between the Dragons and down to the giants below as though possessed of a
destructive insanity all of its own. Chain lightning! Lia and her Dragon gasped as one. The rarest and deadliest of Blue Dragon powers, the awesome power of her attack struck the enemy Dragonwing as if an earthquake had split an Island asunder.
Now Grandion followed suit with a powerful attack of his own, sending lances of ice spearing into the tumbling Dragons. Suddenly they were among the enemy, claws flying and fangs clashing. A heavy impact threw Lia off her aim. Grimly, she raised the Haozi war bow, determined to make her shots count. She had no idea how Grandion could fight blind, but the Tourmaline Dragon grappled with a Red and ripped a twenty-foot tear in his wing before Lia drove an arrow right into the Red’s ear-canal, if she saw rightly. Grandion’s ice attack had downed three Dragons, one of whom brawled briefly with those still on the ground, only to be crushed beneath four attackers.
Dragons tumbled from the sky. Hualiama recognised two of the sentries before a Green Dragon’s split-second attack distracted her. Grandion fought free, panting, roaring his wrath. A second Dragonwing drove in from the west, dropping off a load of giants on the run. Lia saw magic as flashes of light, whether real or through the eyes of her second sight, as the giants paused to rend the earth with their strange, ruzal-like magic. The sky filled with boulders and smaller stones. As Grandion ducked and weaved, his Rider plied her bow with terrible effect, scoring head-shots on several giants and a difficult eye-shot to down a stalwart Yellow Dragon, perhaps the leader of the attack.
Lia ducked reflexively as a fireball sizzled past her left shoulder, and directed Grandion into a tight turn. Reflexively, she placed an arrow into a giant’s throat, but the man kept on running. She blinked as the man’s head leaped off his shoulders. Mizuki corkscrewed past them with her wingtips brushing the ground, having made the killing blow. Elki lost his grip on his sword as he gutted another giant who dared to confront the Copper Dragoness. Those massive men knew no fear.
