Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  The Aquamarine Dragoness’ challenge fired his wrath and passion like nothing before. His scales thrilled! The song of his fires whitened to blinding beauty! Suddenly, the tiredness of days and weeks sloughed off him like lava running off a Dragon’s back as he rose from the magma, glowing like the heart of a furnace, and he drew a breath of the Island-World’s air and magic unlike any that had ever filled his lungs before. Grandion saw realisation burning in the eyes of the Dragons ranged before him–Vinzuki and Raiden, Makani, Ryuki the Red and Tarbuzi and Yenuko, the Eastern Greens, many Dragons and two dozen Dragon-Rider pairs, down to the youngest, Kimiko, a girl of Naoko’s tribe of but fourteen summers, and her Green fledgling, Chamako. Now they would fly. Fight. Smash the enemy from the skies!

  Sensing Grandion’s fierce gaze, Kimiko raised her Haozi hunting-bow aloft and yelled, “Dragons and Riders, let us burn the heavens together!”

  Hualiama’s salute! If it were possible, his inner infernos burned even higher. So searing was his inner flame that Grandion saw smoke rising from his own paws. He must expend it!

  Staggered, the Tourmaline whirled, and beat his wings. Follow me!

  In his ear-canals was the whistling of wind as Grandion accelerated toward the battle-front just three leagues distant, where Commander Hiro’s Dragonship fleet had come under heavy attack from a Dragonwing of no less than two thousand double-headed Orange Dragons; but in his hearts, all this Dragon knew was the pure, thrilling battle-song of white-fires. In that instant, he knew what compelled Hualiama to dance from fate to fate. Elemental force. The overwhelming desire to respond to the song raging in his hearts. The awareness of a Dragonish nature perfectly designed for the joy of soaring and battling and loving in the airy spaces.

  Immense skyward acceleration catapulted him far ahead of his fellows. Grandion rose higher and higher from his already great altitude of three leagues above the Cloudlands. The thinness of air screamed in his lungs. The Dragonships were dots beleaguered by a cloud of orange. Four hundred air vessels, holding off the green-headed Dragons with catapults, crossbows and arrows, their armour smoking as it came under sustained fire. The Oranges were not using their poison gas because the prevailing wind blew against them. Wind …

  Furling his wings, Grandion dove. He plummeted like a falcon hunting its prey. Faster! He stretched out his body and trimmed his wings for the ultimate slipstreaming, using Hualiama’s clever shields to shear through the frigid air of the heights. Five miles distant. Four. The wind in his ears built to a shriek as the Tourmaline considered the wind, the storming, blustering, restless winds of his Island-World, and funnelled those winds toward his plummeting body. Storm raged! In his mind, a tiny girl with fluttering white-blonde hair leaped into a treble spin before landing with butterfly grace, her bare right leg extended in sinuous, muscular perfection, and Grandion channelled that knowledge back into his attack. Corkscrew, the Humans called it. A sustained barrel-roll that would concentrate the winds about his rotating body, his draconic magic reaching far and wide to muster the forces of Nature to his beck and call … he spun! Again! A growl of thunder; the sense of clouds gathering both in his wake and before him, as though conjured into being as the skies conjured carrion-birds at the advent of battle.

  Below his position, the Orange Dragons reacted. He had taught them the meaning of hatred and fear; he had vented his Tourmaline-fuelled spleen upon them. They drew together, rising in a knot as if linked into a single organism, forming shields, and readying wings and belly-fires.

  Cloud-blackened sky and fertile green Islands switched places as he twirled toward the Orange Dragonwing, the fires and potentials tightening his belly into an unbearable knot. Closing in. Three miles. Two. The Oranges spread out like a field of ralti sheep exposed to the wingéd hunter.

  Did Hualiama not love the ballad of Saggaz Thunderdoom? The words raced through his mind:

  Bestriding boiling thunderheads, the Thunderdoom arose,

  His roar a trump of thunder,

  Like wingéd lightning his mighty paw,

  Struck the skies asunder!

  So the magic rose in him, the Blue Dragon power of Storm, and his throat enlarged with the voice of his thunder, and all four paws clenched as though to mimic the action of drawing his storm together, and Grandion the Tourmaline Dragon thrummed in every bone and muscle and sinew.

  He had never known speed like this. A dark windstorm to wreathe his wings. Lightning playing from wingtip to tail, from his paws to the clouds, lighting his storm tunnel from within. Flash! Flash! Grandion had a millisecond to consider the unexpected benefit of his having outpaced his fellow-Dragons, that the extreme angle of his attack would take him beyond the Dragonships, so that his Storm would fall primarily upon the enemy Dragons. Cutting shields! An infusion of her Star-power!

  Well within that final mile now, his challenge belled out: ALASTIOR!!

  He smote them with the paw of the Thunderdoom.

  * * * *

  Mid-sentence, Zulior snapped out his paw as Hualiama folded softly over his talons. She clutched her heart. “Oh, I feel … alright?”

  The stalwart Red touched her solicitously. “Strength to thee, Dragonfriend.” So huge was his paw, his talons covered her back from neck to knees, but Lia appreciated the outpouring of his healing strength. “I have not Qualiana’s gifting in the healing arts, but there are talon-times and knuckles-of-the-fist times, are there not?”

  She chuckled weakly at his rough jest, a transliteration of a draconic saying. Blunt instrument or not, she tingled from head to toe. “I thank thee, mighty Zulior. Roost-uncle.”

  His delighted bugle rang out over the courtyard, causing many Dragons to lift their heads in surprise. “How you do redefine the nature of familial relationships, Dragonfriend!” he boomed. “So, Grandion borrowed your power through the oath-connection you were telling me about?”

  “He did, I think.” Hualiama frowned, pushing off his paw with a self-conscious flexion of her arms. “Is he in trouble, Zulior? Should we fly to him?”

  He snuffled once in her direction, his foot-wide nostrils flaring, as if to ascertain that all was well with her. Gruffly, he said, “I have not the Aquamarine’s facility in the higher arts, but I believe you would know if Grandion were injured or worse, Hualiama. This oath-power is a strange, binding magic. Who knows the purposes of the Great Onyx in blessing the speaking of such an oath as shared between you and the Tourmaline?”

  Who knew indeed? She rubbed her chest thoughtfully, wishing strength to Grandion’s paw, wherever he was. Pensively, she pushed back her hood and shook her hair free, as if intent on shaking free the remaining cobwebs in her head.

  “Perhaps I should transform in secret, and try to heal some of these Dragons?”

  “Perhaps we should brief the King?” Zulior countered, lifting his massive chin to point behind her.

  Hualiama turned to spy the King of Kaolili marching briskly into the courtyard, flanked by his retinue of Councillors. Great. She had wobbly knees, an icky stomach and a mortifying memory of her previous interview with the King, clad only in her bath towel. One better, this time. She wore a grubby pirate’s cloak, a man’s shirt and Dragon-Hater coverall underwear, but still had bare feet–an insult in Eastern culture.

  Straight back and shoulders, o Princess of the Overlarge Volcano, her Dragoness teased.

  That’s the perfect compass-point, Dragonlove.

  Hualiama straightened her back, squared her shoulders and essayed a commanding tilt of her chin. Princess-presence, personified. Halfway through these adjustments, an invisible fist socked her mind into the following week.

  Her knees hinged and Hualiama remembered nothing more.

  * * * *

  The advent of the Tourmaline Dragon’s Storm-blast made the massed Dragonwing of Oranges unfurl and peel apart like the petals of a large flower.

  With the peal of his thunder,

  He smote them asunder!

  A tinkle of feminine laughter. Poetry etche
d upon his awareness, as clear-cut as the edges of his talons. The Blue-star rode with him! Grandion’s hearts sang! He existed between the complex beats of his pounding hearts, the moment of striking the Orange Dragons magnified into excruciating leisureliness in his acuity, so that his mind had time to resound with each individual note of his fury, and every sensation and scent and assessment of the situation arrived individually, to be tasted and savoured and acted upon. A fist of black-edged clouds crumpled a Dragon’s wing. Forked lightning blasted about him in uncountable multiple strikes, literally detonating three heads before his marvelling gaze. The leading edge of his shield pierced bodies like a living sword, an invisible talon-stroke worthy of an Ancient Dragon.

  WHAA-BOOM!! The impact rattled him to the marrow, a thunderclap that flung the Dragons apart for a thousand feet in every direction, smashing ribs and dislocating shoulders and snapping tails.

  Darkness engulfed him; a Dragon blinked in memory of his first sight after breaking the eggshell. He saw paws, wings and whole Dragons raining from the smoke-streaked sky all about, and a hole ripped through the Orange formation that perfectly framed the bulk of Yukari, rushing to his aid. Grandion shook himself slowly. What had happened? He smelled ozone. Lightning still played between numbers of the green-headed Dragonkind, dazing them; the balance of his Dragonwing struck almost unopposed, tearing further, smaller holes in the formation. Yukari’s attack was especially powerful, a chain of lightning that crackled through her foes quicker even than a Dragon’s eye could follow, striking seven beasts out of the sky.

  Yukari raced past him. A respectable blow, youngster.

  Her strength touched him briefly, shocking the Tourmaline out of his dazed contemplation.

  He had unwittingly raided Hualiama’s power, he realised. What damage would such a draw have wreaked upon her Human form, or done to a hatchling? He called for her within, but heard no reply.

  Were these his wings? He could barely feel them. Nor could he hear the sounds of battle, as he expected. When he flew, he felt like a wineskin sloshing about with water.

  The Aquamarine cried, Raiden, Vinzuki, protect the Tourmaline!

  With that, the green-headed ones rushed inward, bellowing their hatred of the Tourmaline and all that he stood for.

  * * * *

  Hualiama awoke snorting at a pungent scent. However, that was immediately followed by a sip of fresh water offered from a golden chalice, and a gentle waft of large feather fans to stir the air about her aching head. Sweet. Her nose wrinkled. She lay upon a luxurious pallet, her weary brow supported by cushions of Helyon silk, while four slaves held an awning overhead to shield her from the hardly ferocious morning suns, and two servant girls fanned her with very large feathers of a bird whose magnificent plumage had unfortunately been plundered to supply her royal comfort.

  Her eye further fell upon the King of Kaolili taking his ease upon a throne nearby, enjoying a similar standard of treatment as he spoke earnestly with Zulior the Red.

  She grated, “Why do I lie thus when the world is at war?”

  However, standing up was more than she could manage. Lia settled back on her pillows and accepted an Eastern candy-gum from a golden platter. Actually, life could be worse. She could be Grandion, pouring out heart and lifeblood for a foreign kingdom.

  Across the courtyard, Jin’s gaze prickled. Hualiama raised her chin. Deal with you later, young man. To his credit, he did look as if he had swallowed a mouthful of raw windroc egg.

  Zulior said, A modicum of respect for a King, Star Dragoness!

  Aye, noble Dragon.

  Not for nothing had she been raised the daughter of royalty in one of the noblest and most ancient Human courts in the Island-World. Hualiama raided her unique royal bag of manners, gumption and public show. Asking a servant to help her sit up, she greeted the King cordially. If he was surprised at her appearance, his expressionless Eastern face did not show it. His greeting, however, betrayed an underlying satisfaction which she took to mean calculation, perhaps a bride for Qilong, or leverage to gain a goal she could guess at–safety for his kingdom. Could she keep the secret of her Shapeshifting out of his devious grasp?

  Inside, her Dragoness looked on with alert interest, for which Lia was grateful.

  With the niceties dealt with, she set about describing to the King the dangers posed by Numistar, the Land Dragons and Azziala. A lump shifted beneath her clothing. Flicker! How long had he slept? Why was he waking only now, and how had he survived her ridiculous fainting antics?

  He should be a good conversation-starter.

  Reaching down her top, Hualiama extracted the startled dragonet by his tail. “Behold!”

  * * * *

  Following a three-hour cross-examination by the King’s Councillors, Hualiama sulked off to a quiet corner behind a stack of rainwater barrels and transformed into her Star Dragoness. She flexed her claws. Human-Lia might have exercised polite restraint, but her Dragoness was a different gemstone-cut. Hiding her clothing and weapons, she took Flicker upon her shoulder and snuck off in search of mischief.

  Well, injured Dragons.

  While her Human sweated pure lava dealing with Grandion and a King’s demands, her Dragoness had apparently been resting and recovering her magic. Now there was an unanticipated benefit of being a Shapeshifter!

  The infirmary warehouse was a hotbed of irascible Dragons. Scaly beasts made poor patients. Several Reds near the entrance were bellowing for Sunfyora, a pale Yellow Dragoness–no, her colour must be Citrine-Blue, Lia decided–working on an Eastern Green with a clearly snapped wing primary, over on the far side of the huge open area of hard-packed sand. When she stepped over to the Reds to ask about the Healer-Dragon, they quietened immediately with that draconic fondness for hatchlings that Hualiama had always noticed and appreciated. Dragons loved younglings. At once the fire-eyes mellowed to apricot, and the nearest Red, an eighty-foot bruiser with four missing fangs in his upper left jaw and a hole the size of a cart in his lower left flank, nuzzled her encouragingly.

  Sulphurous strength to thee, thou radiance of the skies, he rumbled, in a voice like a proximate earthquake. Ask after Sunfyora, the Citrine-Blue yonder. Art thou a student?

  Of life, aye. Of many things. Aye, noble Red, I wish to learn the healing arts, she replied, truthfully. She had learned a great deal of theory from Siiyumiel, but the practice applied to the real hurts and appalling injuries she saw about her, was another Island entirely.

  I shall take thee hence, youngling, the Red offered immediately.

  I thank thee, noble …

  Burliki the Red, of Fraxx, he declaimed, striking the obligatory draconic ‘admire-my-muscles’ pose.

  No older male would importune a hatchling for her name. This was standard Dragon culture. They wound between many Dragons who wore terrible injuries–amputated limbs, torn wings, fang-pocked hides and missing eyes, not to mention burn wounds and a number of Dragons that appeared to have been poisoned, who writhed about in terrible pain–and approached Sunfyora. She was a pretty, slender Eastern Dragon built along the lines of Mizuki–much leaner than the Western Dragonkind of Fra’anior, with a less pronounced neck-ruff and a leaner frame overall. Though she was sixty feet long, she stood only twelve feet tall at the shoulder, Lia estimated, and her harried manner bespoke too many hours spent treating too many Dragons.

  Sunfyora, your student, Burliki said.

  At last. Hold this wing while I pull the bone straight.

  Right. I can’t reach, noble Sunfyora, Hualiama said diffidently, earning herself a doting purr from Burliki and several other Dragons nearby, who were also waiting for treatment.

  Sunfyora barely glanced sideways. Those null-fire idiots! I asked for an experienced healer-Dragon, not some hatchling still yolk-slick around the skull-spikes. Make yourself useful, youngling. Your skills?

  Lia asked, Skills?

  Training! Where were you trained? Sunfyora examined the splintered primary closely, her secondary membranes
blinking in a way Lia had never observed before. Or were those tertiary membranes, or some property of a draconic eye unique to the Citrine-Blue? While I twist the bone back into alignment–are you listening, hatchling? Can you not follow the simplest instructions? On my word!

  Gripping the Green’s shoulder joint with one paw pressed flat against the hide and the other positioned near the secondary wing joint, Sunfyora flexed her muscles, pulling outward while twisting an eighth of an inch at a time. Concentrating deeply, Hualiama followed her instructions, settling the bone splinters back as exactingly as possible. The Citrine-Blue applied her magic along the bone; after a few minutes Lia unobtrusively joined in, first observing how the expert healer worked, before supplying her own sense of Balance. White-fires flowered delicately along the three-foot break site. The long bone splinters shifted slightly before drawing together as if welcoming wholeness. The Star Dragoness reached out to prod a recalcitrant splinter back into place before the flesh sealed over the bone. Good as new. Drawn on, she worked on the main arteries that ran along a pronounced groove on the inside of the bone, restoring full flow, and soothed the bruising and nerve damage. The Green’s wing trembled as the arteries and capillaries feeding the sensitive surface visibly swelled and stiffened. He flexed the outer third with a gasp of amazement.

  Hualiama lifted her muzzle. Oh. How was that–

  Sunfyora stared at her as if she had seen a two-headed rajal stroll into the room and start dancing the Flame Cycle. She said, Who did you say you were, little one?

  Uh, is it good? The wing, noble Dragon?

  The Green lifted his wing gingerly, then waggled it with growing confidence. By the First Egg … impossible! Look, wing-brothers!

  The Citrine-Blue snapped, Don’t you try flying just yet! A day’s rest at least–I think. No, go outside and test it, carefully. Hatchling. Over here. Show me what you can do with these poisoned bite-wounds.