Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  Genzo’s smile conveyed the full magnificence of the gap between his front teeth. “Ah, my little quadruple overlapping rainbow of joy has appeared at last.”

  Sumio rumbled, “He’s been smoking tekiweed.”

  Whatever tekiweed was. Probably the contents of Commander Hiro’s favourite pipe, too. With a swish of her indecorously short shift, Hualiama paraded across Affurion’s talons and alighted on the Dragonship’s gantry. Genzo’s leer suggested he had just ogled the Isle of Paradise, but when he made to embrace her, Sumio stepped forward with startling swiftness for such a huge man and slammed a meaty fist upon the precise crown of the First Mate’s head. Lia remembered that manoeuvre rather too well. Genzo’s cheek struck the metal gantry with a fleshy slap.

  Sumio executed an abbreviated Eastern bow, which was all the bending his enormous belly allowed. “He’ll thank me when he wakes.”

  Affurion said, “Brief them thoroughly, Princess. Although, judging by recent events, I believe there’s one surprise you might want to consider not giving the noble Prince of Kaolili. The sight of you might just slay him.”

  “Already slain,” came from behind the door.

  Thus Lia returned to the territory of Northern Kaolili, boarding Qilong’s Dragonship with a suitable episode of drama and mischief-making. How long it seemed since she had essayed a one-woman assault on what she had taken for a pirate vessel, only to discover a new friend inside a sack, following which her own brother had attempted to offer his chained-up sister to the pirate-lord!

  * * * *

  Grandion extended the smallest talon of his left paw. “Last one.”

  “Aye, mighty Dragon.” Jin wielded his metal file manfully, despite his bruised, blistered hands and evident fatigue.

  “Then scare yourself up a decent meal, and work on putting meat on those bones,” the Tourmaline advised. “If I’m to swat you, I require something substantial to hit.”

  “Aye, mighty Dragon.”

  Grr … the boy never stopped. Grandion had never seen anyone, Human or Dragon, work like him–apart from Hualiama when she was in one of her moods that swung from immense discipline to self-punishment. Stoke his fires, he missed that girl. That Dragoness. His other forepaw clenched painfully, the sheathed talons bending with the force of his passion. He would have Hualiama for his own! Nobly and rightly, he would find a way to woo that incomparable Dragoness to his paw, his hunt, his roost! But how? How could he beat his brain into white-fire paths, not the madness and folly of Humanlove?

  Forcing his attention back to the boy, he said, “So, Jin, I’m about to travel South again. Just one hundred leagues to the battle-front. I trust you’ve considered the strategy problem I set you yesterday?”

  He bit his lip, sharpening Grandion’s talon with sure strokes of the file. “Aye, mighty Dragon.”

  When no reply was immediately forthcoming, the Tourmaline hissed, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Aye, mighty Dragon.”

  “Find another answer before I sit on you!”

  “Aye, mighty … Tourmaline.”

  Grandion mock-snapped at him, while secretly turning third-heart-backflips at the boy’s spirit. Aye, if any Human after the Star Dragoness should rightly have been born a Dragon, it was Jinichi. Fire. It burned within him, a heart of fire. “Speak.”

  “It strikes me that the problem is collateral damage, mighty Tourmaline,” he ventured.

  “Elucidate.”

  Jin shrugged. “Bluntly speaking, Dragons tend to tear each other to shreds. In any given encounter so much damage is done that the victorious Dragon must almost certainly retire afterward. To counter this issue, you require ranged weaponry, Dragon body-armour and more co-operative battle tactics. Many Lesser dragons might never learn to co-operate, but your Riders will.”

  A true word. Grandion allowed warmth to enter his voice. “Aye, Jin. How would you convince Dragons to wear armour?”

  “Is history not written by the winner?”

  “Indeed. And what manner of ranged weaponry do you recommend?”

  Reversing the file with the hand-speed of a born swordsman, the boy sketched rapidly on a flat patch of dust beside Grandion’s paw. “Perhaps, an adaptation of current technology. Imagine harness-mounted war crossbow emplacements carried Dragonback? Two, or even four emplacements on a bigger Dragon’s back. You said projectile weapons are the hardest for non-Blues to shield against.” His voice warmed as the sketch took shape. “Archers. They take shots as the Dragon closes with or breaks away from his enemy, when he is rendered vulnerable by a mighty strike. Dragon lances. Imagine the penetrative power of a thirty-foot metal lance driven by a Dragon’s explosive thrust!”

  Then he coloured, perhaps realising he had spoken more in one breath than he had ever spoken to the Tourmaline Dragon before.

  Grandion had a vision of this boy talking engineering and design with Hualiama in a cosy roost, just the two of them together, and he cricked his neck with a jerk of dismay. Green fires sizzled in his eyes, their colour clearly communicated to his Dragon senses. No! How could he allow her to be with another … how could he forbid it?

  Mighty were his paws, yet they could never be mighty enough to hold his beloved Dragonfriend–Hualiama!

  Roughly, he gathered his paws beneath him, forcing the boy to scramble aside. “I need to go!”

  The Tourmaline charged out of the warehouse, uncaring of which Dragons his tail or wings struck on the way out. With a mournful bugle, he launched for the skies.

  Battle! He must douse his sorrows in the ordeal of battle!

  * * * *

  Hualiama primped, Princess-style. She chuckled at herself in the small brass mirror in the shower-chamber of Qilong’s personal quarters. Nice black eye, girl. And enough cuts on her face alone to make one imagine she had mistakenly ambushed a thicket of rambling rose. A bucket-and-scoop bath in a small wooden tub proved an unexpected luxury. Prince Qilong had offered her the use of his grooming tools, oils, perfumes, scrubs, soaps, hair combs and trimmers, and a plethora of other items she honestly had no clue how to use, nor did she even recognise. He and her sister Fyria would have bonded like Dragons and lava. Fyria had a whole room in her chambers set aside for beautifying herself, not to mention eleven different maids.

  Poor Qilong. He was mortified he could not offer her the finest silks of Helyon for her raiment. She had suggested she did not expect to find silks on a Dragonship of war, and she was much more comfortable in a shirt and trousers, o gracious Prince. He looked offended. She apologised. He apologised more.

  She was just not used to the type of man who kept twenty-three freshly prepared, scented hair-oils on his dresser.

  And you can stop sniggering right now, Dragonsoul! she added privately.

  What? Poor, titchy Human, have you no conception of how much Dragons enjoy bathing, oiling, scrubbing and beautifying their scales, wishing merely to outshine a glorious twin-suns dawn?

  Oh. I forgot.

  Laughter diminished within her, as if her Dragoness drifted off to sleep. Enjoy your dinner with Prince Qilong, Humanlove.

  She did exactly that. Bemused, Lia eyed the Prince across the dining table, an hour later, after the third course of a feast of spicy Eastern magnificence. Aye, it had taken the entire first course to reassure him that death in boiling lava, lightning strikes from her hands, decapitation or rooting around his innards with the point of a red-hot poker were not foremost on her mind. The Prince of Kaolili appeared to be plagued by a basketful of phobias. But once they fell to discussing the war and strategy and the merits of the very fine wines he served, not berry-wines as enjoyed in Fra’anior, but a type of sweet Eastern fruit called subigrai, Qilong revealed a first-rate mind and a bone-dry sense of humour that had her chuckling multiple times. Her enjoyment infected him with confidence. No more declarations of mastery of many Islands. Making strong headway on his fourth glass of the heady wine, he had turned into a loquacious storyteller, regaling her with tales of a misspe
nt, bizarre youth, his misadventures flinging him from fumarole to volcano as his bewildered parents tried and failed to understand him in any detail whatsoever.

  For her part, Hualiama teased the Prince about secretly being Fra’aniorian, desiring to kidnap a bride for himself.

  The spectre of war remained ever present, however, so that when Emburifor the Red arrived to convey her to Kerdani City, the congenial dinner ended quickly. Qilong promised to closely consider her advice to retreat from the northern front and allow Azziala and Numistar easy access to Shinzen; the difficult part, they agreed, would be protecting Kaolili’s citizens.

  Parting upon the forward gantry as the suns-shine of early evening bronzed the Eastern Archipelago’s garden-like Islands, he bowed stiffly from the waist. “Fly safely to Kaolili, o Princess. Will you promise to brief my father as to the evils that beset us? And aid us with every power you possess?”

  From Emburifor’s palm, she bowed with equal formality. “It is my duty. I truly believe, Prince Qilong, that the Lost Islands will bypass the sparsely populated North and proceed straight to Kerdani City itself. I promise to do all in my power to aid your Kingdom.”

  The barefoot Princess sallies forth, murmured her Dragoness.

  Don’t make me blush. Besides, he has no clue about our powers.

  Better that way.

  Emburifor said, “I shall convey Affurion’s intelligence to the Dragons under the Tourmaline’s command.”

  Interesting. What had Affurion wanted to convey to Grandion? Hualiama glanced briefly up at the Red, but he did not otherwise acknowledge her presence.

  With mighty strokes of his eighty-foot wingspan, the stolid Red rose into the deepening evening. All that Lia knew of him was that he was a Dragon born and raised upon Gi’ishior. Emburifor seemed incurious about his passenger, giving monosyllabic answers to her questions, even in Dragonish. The scaly, silent type. So she gazed out to the West, thinking upon the almost-mythical Islands out there in the vast Cloudlands ocean, places with exotic names like Helyon, the Fingers of Ferial and faraway Immadia, famed as much for its mountainous beauty as, scholars fell over themselves to agree, the surpassing beauty of its women. Trust the fusty, male-dominated world of academia to agree on that essential fact! The Kingdom of Immadia was said to be the northernmost habitable Island of all, and to be guarded by legion Ice-Dragons and powerful Human enchantresses. She snorted quietly to herself. Aye, and the people probably piloted their Dragonships around the twin suns and rode Land Dragons for sport!

  Southward they drove at a rapid twenty-eight leagues per hour, given the urgency of their errand and the benefit of a strong tailwind which whipped in from several points West of North. Hualiama gathered her borrowed cloak around her body, and put up the hood to mute the worst of the blast. Island after Island rolled by beneath them, verdant with mohili wheat and often dotted with wild cattle. Such a green, temperate land. She spied tranquil lakes and waterways from the air, glistening like beads of furnace-heated metal as the suns set, while flocks of white doves, narrow-banded egrets and broadwing charmers regularly fled the Dragon’s low-flying passage. Several times, she heard the haunting song of the Eastern balladeer nightingale, according to Elki, the finest songbird in the Island-World.

  She sang several of her favourite ballads. To her amazement, Emburifor joined in enthusiastically and very skilfully indeed, but when she complimented him on his musicianship, he snorted and fell silent at once.

  Carried swift and sure across the leagues in Emburifor’s strong paw, they passed the fourteen hours of night in this season and at the limit of the Red’s endurance, approached the heavily guarded and patrolled metropolis of Kerdani.

  To the Palace, Dragonfriend? Emburifor asked.

  Nay, to the Dragons’ roost, for my Grandion should be there, Hualiama replied. Thank you for your mighty efforts, Emburifor. You burned the leagues with honour.

  The Red swooped soft-winged over the perfect grid streets and rows of ornate, identical houses, before banking sharply to come to a landing in the wide cobblestone courtyard between rows of towering, stone-walled storehouses. Dawn’s false blush had just touched the sky. Hualiama alighted stiffly. Three hundred and thirty leagues in a night. Awesome flying.

  Emburifor’s paw rested briefly upon her shoulder, staggering her. Strength to your paw, noble Dragonfriend, he said. Grandion roosts yonder, with a strange boy as his servant.

  A servant? Not like the Tourmaline at all.

  The Red ambled off at once, clearly seeking a meal and rest. Lia peered after him for a moment. All that gruff standoffishness, then a warm parting? Peculiar.

  After inquiring for directions from a snappish Green, Hualiama quickly moved between the resting Dragons to the rear of a huge, open room that smelled indelicately of tired, injured Dragons. Many were openly aggravated at the sight or scent of a Human; she kept her eyes fixed just ahead of her toes and moved on swiftly. Why? Did they not know who she was? Or did they resent a Dragon Rider? Next time, a grand entrance as a Star–

  “Oof!”

  “No Humans allowed! What’re you doing–”

  Hualiama gave the teenager attempting to place her in a stranglehold from behind exactly one second to spit out his challenge before she revived a wrestling manoeuvre Hallon and Rallon had taught her, at her considerable cost, on the hot arena sands of the monastery training ground. Despite that he was half a head taller than her and several sackweight heavier, she made him eat dust. He groaned, but she had a Dragon’s grip on the nerve-centres of his neck and left shoulder. Stubborn brat! She quelled his squirming with an agonising pinch of the nerve.

  “Right,” she hissed, more Dragoness than Human in the heat of her anger. “Who might you be? Grandion’s servant?”

  “I am no-one’s servant–aah!”

  “Shut the fumarole. Where’s the Dragon now?”

  “Flown south–creeping maggots, will you get off me, man?”

  “That’s lady, in case you missed it.” He made another groan, patently dismayed. “And no, not until you apologise for your cowardly attack.”

  “Never … gnarrrrr … alright, alright! I surrender. Only because you’re a so-called lady.”

  For that, she gave his nose an extra grind in the dirt before releasing her hold. The teenager, more a young man in her estimation, rolled over, but was not foolish enough to test her reflexes a second time. His shadowed grey eyes regarded her warily. Magically.

  What? Mentally reeling, slamming up barriers on every front, Lia essayed her most fatuous smile. “Islands’ greetings. They sent me from the North with intelligence for Grandion,” she babbled. This was the Tourmaline’s alleged servant? A boy with secrets? “Is there another Dragon I can report to? When will Grandion be back?”

  Her fists clenched. Wretched Tourmaline, had he not spoken of her to this boy? Was he a replacement Dragon Rider for Grandion? So help her, she’d make Tourmaline toast-bread out of that Dragon! She would etch her name in star-fire on both of his flanks and ride him roughshod through Fra’anior’s royal place, singing the Flame Cycle at the top of her lungs!

  Meantime, she pasted a smile in place, borrowed Fyria’s exasperating habit of batting her eyelashes, and placing her hand on the young man’s arm, cooed, “Ooh, are you a warrior? So … muscly.”

  “Jin,” he spluttered, turning scarlet.

  “Oh, Jin. What a fine name.” She squeezed his arm again, while occupying her seething imagination with the pleasing image of grinding Grandion’s guts through a meat-mincer. “So, Jin, who can I deliver my message to?

  It took him seven tries to form a coherent word after that. Lia counted.

  After all, she was a Dragoness.

  Chapter 20: Oaths that Bind

  GRandion GATHERED hIS Dragonwing for another pass. “Yukari, Akemi, cover us from above.” Dragoness and Rider nodded. “We should have relief from Kerdani by midday.”

  Rolling her fire-eyes, Makani the Grey snarled, “A Dragonwing of the li
mping and wounded, mighty Grandion?”

  Raiden snarled, “Some of us are still fighting!”

  A low rumbling from Yukari’s chest brought their attention to the largest Dragoness, the battered, blind Aquamarine, who fought courtesy of her Rider Akemi’s sight. “We honour you, Raiden and Fumiko, Vinzuki and Tadao–all Dragons gathered here,” she said. “Our work is to purchase time. For I sense a change in the breezes of the Island-World. Strange alliances will be forged. Mighty deeds wrought. I see … I see a girl with blue and white hair–why does she sorrow?”

  “That’s Hualiama,” the Tourmaline Dragon blurted out.

  “The originator of your starlight-assault-shield?” said Yukari. Surprise caused her to switch to Dragonish mid-sentence.

  She’s … creative, Grandion protested.

  Several of the Dragons laughed at the befuddled-wonder nuances in his speech, but Yukari said privately to him, I told you she was a Dragoness, didn’t I?

  He replied, Seventh sense. Wing-shivering!

  Truth be told, youngling, I was just being contrary, obeying the fates in ways I scarcely understood. A star? My seventh sense saw no such end. Perhaps in order to resolve this conflict which drives you so bitterly, you need to discover your inner creativity, the antithesis of logical, draconic-brained solution-making.

  Grandion bowed his muzzle. Aye, mighty Aquamarine.

  As always, his conversations with the venerable Dragoness came laced with white-fires truth, the searing power of her seventh-sense-insight humbling his lesser perception. With every fibre and fire of his being, he desired to be like her, formidable in wisdom, yet curiously humble in her ways. Certainly, she had been irascible and provoking that day he and Hualiama encountered her in her magical pool, but Yukari had also been immediately accepting of his feelings–most of his feelings–for Hualiama, deriding his use of Projection-magic while accepting his soul-deep yearnings. The Dragoness had seen the glorious flight of the future when all Grandion had seen was pain and defeat.

  Yukari said, “One more open-clawed talon-strike to the muzzle of the beast. Then, our noble leader will return to Kerdani.” His fires raged! “Aye. A Balance changes. A shift must come. We will continue the battle here. Grandion, o son of my fires, o quick-winged flame of truth, now is the hour to rouse your might and expend your righteous fury upon the adversaries of true-fires!”