Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  So when Grandion’s laughter reverberated against her belly, she voiced an involuntary squeak of dismay, Dragon!

  Aye, Dragon, he laughed, touching her right wingtip with his left. He rolled smoothly beneath her, before popping up on her port flank with a discomfiting grin. Wingtips!

  This time, his touch deliberately rocked her in the air.

  Grandion! What are you doing?

  Ugh, squeak-monster, her Human complained within. Can we act our age, please?

  What do you mean? He’s the one chasing me.

  Humansoul managed to project a mental image of folding her arms across her chest, accompanied by an infuriating smirk. Let me draw the runes for you, wing-sister. One fine morning over the Islands, a gorgeous chunk of male Dragonhood spies a pretty Dragoness. He’s brewing molten lava for her. The thought of him makes her fly like a drunken windroc …

  What? You pesky little–

  But the Dragoness’ furious response was forestalled as Grandion whooshed beneath her, turned an aerial somersault-and-a-half almost in front of her muzzle, and tapped her wingtips somehow from above, upside-down in the air. Wingtips. Don’t you know the game?

  The Star Dragoness gulped, No … will you teach me?

  Her Human almost split her sides laughing. Now who’s flirting?

  What are you doing, Tourmaline? The Dragoness scowled mutinously at the insouciant male Dragon, who flipped her left wingtip again before she could snatch it back. Stop that at once.

  Make me.

  Honestly. Fires back of the fangs, smoke, the conceited posturing of a strapping young Dragon. Ooh. Irresistible. Dragon-Lia struggled to keep a level flight, and failed. Human-Lia could not stop chortling. The Dragoness decided she would slap that irksome Human girl so hard–Grandion!

  Now he was flying backward through the air, his forearms folded across his chest, while from the crook of his left elbow, he waggled a talon at her in an extraordinarily faithful mimicry of her royal tutor back at Fra’anior. He boomed, “Now, Princess, you shall recite the lay of the major Islands from West to East, not missing a single one, or we shall be at our lessons all day.”

  Her jaw dropped. Had he spied on her? When?

  Breaking that Human pose, he flowed like a river of gemstone-blue scales about her bedazzled, irresolute flight-path. Wingtips. Wingtips. Everywhere she turned, Grandion was there. Dizzying. Maddening. Resplendent of scale. The fire-scent of his presence, deliciously overwhelming. Wingtips. Come on, Hualiama. You ask what we’re doing? We’re dancing. This is how Dragons dance.

  Dancing? Of course.

  Memories of courtship-rituals filtered slowly into her mind as she whirled around and around, both unwilling and unable to abscond from the adoring ambit of her Dragon. Dancing aloft. Shooting the fragrant breezes above the Islands with her beloved. The ages-old ceremonies that preceded the breathing of ascending fire-promises between male Dragon and female, which they had already begun. One was even her namesake, Blue-star.

  Was love not a dance? When knowledge and purpose and tenacity failed her, where had she always turned? Dance. Yet now another craved to join her. He wanted to be her focal point, her flame, her muse. There was much that was not possible between them, which might never become possible, and would undoubtedly be consumed in days to come by the violent paroxysms of war. Yet the moment presented itself to her. All that was required, was to take destiny into her paws, and dance.

  Stilling herself in the air, Hualiama lifted her muzzle imperiously. Alastior, I affirm that I am Blue-star, shell-daughter of Istariela and Fra’anior the Onyx, and I would have this dance with thee.

  It was not a request.

  * * * *

  Dragon and Dragoness danced a stately prelude. Wingtips patting. Necks entwining. Fire-eyes fixed upon each other in the slow, spiralling ascent of matched flight.

  It was Hualiama who wriggled free first, with a bright shout of laughter and a cheeky dart aimed at his left wingtip. She slapped it with her tail before spinning away. A coy wing-flip shot her past Grandion’s nose, which she managed to tap on the way past with her fore-talon, the rascally mite! Then she was somersaulting, diving, pirouetting and jiving to the beat of their Dragonsong, her bright laughter washing over him like the suns-shine. He matched her every manoeuvre, a larger, more dignified counterpoint to the irrepressible celebrations of his tiny companion.

  Linking paws and wingtips, they tumbled carelessly through the air, carolling wildly, whispering sweetly, the songs of linked-love, bonded-love, air-under-wings-love, which Lia’s Dragoness remembered from memories passed down from her mother.

  They danced far above the city, alone and undisturbed, following only the melody of unfettered hearts. As they circled ever closer, Grandion began to breathe his fire, creating great billows for her to laugh and sport and play within, diving through the flame or batting it mischievously with her wings, until it seemed she existed solely because of the scent-closeness of him, and the wonder of white-fires began to sheet over her vision, and a new magic flowered in her heart. She could not yet give of her belly-fires, but there was more to a Star Dragoness than he or she imagined. Hualiama drew to herself and into herself the warmth and essence of the rich golden suns-beams, feeding deeply on the primal life granted by warmth and light, and radiated back her love for the Tourmaline Dragon, whose gaze across the intimate space of their dance was fixed upon her, ever burning.

  Faster. Closer. Sweeter burned their ardour, the commingling of draconic fire-life now endless, an eternal ring of fire. They flew through realms of golden fire, and that fire was each other.

  This was why she had blown apart a mountain for him. This was the memory of the first time she had seen Grandion break free of the dark lake by the monastery, sleek and monstrous and beautiful, and the marvellous lightness of her first flight upon his back. This was the reason a fey Human girl had dared to sing for a Dragon. For it was right. It was right and true, and sparked concentric circles of white-fires which raced toward the curvature of the far horizons, leaving in their wake vast, circular rainbows of white and blue gleaming upon the clouds–incredible, unfathomable magic.

  Thus a Star Dragoness danced with her Tourmaline, and the rainbows over the Islands were love.

  * * * *

  Jinichi held out his palm. “It rained some kind of incense. All over the Island. Smell this. The apothecaries are already devising perfumes and draconic love-potions and selling them for sacks full of gold drals.”

  “Oh,” said Grandion.

  “It’s disgusting!” snorted the teenager.

  “It’s magic,” said Hualiama, nuzzling Grandion as best she could. If only she could grow up faster! She might romance him as high as two feet above his knee.

  Jin spat, “You two. You could’ve told me. Rainbows. Dancing. And what, by the point of my sword, happened to the girl? Where’s the Princess?”

  “You don’t have a sword,” Grandion pointed out. “You’re a scale-scrubber. Junior rank.”

  Hualiama put in, “Grandion, why do you have a warrior and prospective Dragon Rider scrubbing scales and carrying water?”

  “And sweeping the sleeping quarters,” the Tourmaline clarified.

  Jin began, “I–”

  “We should find him a Dragon,” said Lia.

  “Do you think?” Grandion scratched his chin, pretending to consider this idea. “Would this miserable waif perhaps be raised out of a state of ruinous ignorance by being assigned to one particular Dragon?”

  “Now listen–”

  “I’m hungry, ragamuffin,” announced the Tourmaline. “Scuttle off to the pens and fetch me the biggest ralti sheep you can find, whilst we converse about important matters–such as your future.”

  “I am right here!” Jin almost screamed.

  Grandion looked amazed. “Still? Run along, boy. My beloved could eat just about anything right now. Except you, because I can smell your armpits from the next Island. You shouldn’t forget to bathe at the en
d of a day’s work slaving in service of the Dragonkind.”

  Poor boy. He spluttered and snorted in a fist-clenched fury. Hualiama helped by sneaking up behind him and slipping a paw over his mouth. “Shut the muzzle. Grandion’s a rotten tease. But we should find the right Dragon or Dragoness for you. I sense the magical imperative; I sense you know this too. Is there a particular Dragon you feel drawn to?”

  Over her paw, Jin’s eyes grew wild with emotions she did not understand.

  “Or is there more? We should talk, but not now. Zulior is about to sound the alarm.” Glancing sidelong at Grandion, Hualiama said, “Will you bear this apprentice Dragon Rider upon your back, noble Tourmaline?”

  He growled, “There is but one for me–”

  “Train him,” she interrupted. Handle our secrets with care, Dragon.

  His belly-fires raged. How dare you lecture me about secrets, o daughter of Onyx. Why do I sense, Hualiama, after all that I have done and suffered for thee, that you are still unprepared to trust me?

  She gaped at him, speechless.

  Above the city, Zulior the Red bugled the rallying-cry. Dragons, arise! To me!

  Grandion deliberately turned his flank to her, a posture of rejection. “Come, Jinichi. Let’s get you to the weapons-master. Today, you’ll fly with me.”

  From dancing among suns-beams to the misery of isolation. Hualiama winged heavily to a sky riven with the smoke of Dragons, above the dark slate roofs of Kerdani, nestled amongst low green hills, and looked to the horizon. Darkness. A storm? The southern horizon was the same slate-grey colour as the town below, strangely speckled with orange and green, as if the clouds had been infected with an unimaginable fungal contagion. Dragons, Lia realised. Her eyes focussed carefully. There was more. Dark columns of ant-like men crawled along the ground, shepherded by many more of Shinzen’s Dragons. Even at a distance of over fourteen leagues, her Dragon sight picked out the glinting of metal armour, the spears and pikes rising above the thickly-packed, marching Giants. An invasion force.

  Riding between her skull-spikes, Flicker shuddered slightly. Bad Humans?

  Aye, and bad Dragons, Lia replied.

  Flicker help straw-head, he piped, bravely.

  She laughed softly. That you shall, my brave flame-heart.

  Come to me. Zulior’s command interrupted her dismayed, wing-frozen response to the sight of full-blown invasion. Obeying his orders, Hualiama flew up to land upon his shoulder. He said gruffly, You and Grandion picked your morning to dance the first level of fire-promises, didn’t you?

  She hung her head.

  It was inspiring, he added, unexpectedly. Did Sapphurion and Qualiana’s spirits not dance with thee, amongst those rainbows above the Islands? Thy power hath beautified the dawn as I have never heard, or seen or envisioned, in all my years of draconic fire-life. We Dragons were honoured to be spectators to the first promise of your union, Star Dragoness.

  Yet she had hurt Grandion. And must continue to, until the fates were known. Who could she trust with the secrets of her lineage and powers, if not the Tourmaline Dragon?

  Numistar knew. Stirring upon his shoulder, she checked the northern horizon. Empty.

  I meant that you must save your strength, Hualiama, Zulior added, with an emotional timbre of fatherly-concern. Be not ashamed to be who you are.

  She snorted smoke, moved and delighted. He could not know how profound such an idea might prove, for to accept all that she was–she might more easily move the suns backward around the Island-World. Kindness and fiery directness wrapped into one statement. Drolly, she said, Truly, shell-uncle?

  Be not ashamed, he repeated. In this fire-life a Dragoness must strive, above all else, to be true of heart and paw. That way, we can stand against the day of evil, and even when all flesh and blood and bone and magic should fail, we may yet stand.

  Words to seal within her hearts forever.

  Flashes of fire lit the South as Burliki led his Dragonwing on raid after raid, cutting into the belly of Shinzen’s forces; undeterred, the mighty army rolled on. Above the city, Dragons gathered to Zulior. At the western periphery, activity had exploded across the Dragonship fleet as the soldiers checked the vessels, securing armour and loading crossbow bolts and shrapnel, stoking the wood-fired engines and causing the airships to strain against their mooring hawsers. Soldiers dashed along the defensive ramparts and walls, taking their assigned positions.

  Hualiama knew that King Taisho had placed ten divisions of his army in the far South to oppose the landing. If they were to survive an encounter with Shinzen’s Giants, they would need the support of Dragons from the air. That was Zulior’s strategy, long since worked out with the King.

  The ground troops will not reach the city until the day after tomorrow, the Red briefed his Dragons. Chamuko, check the North. We expect invasion imminently.

  The veteran Yellow growled, Aye.

  We’ll need every Dragon we have. In four hours, I’ll expect your Dragonwing to return South to blood their fangs in battle.

  By my wings! snarled the Yellow, with bloodthirsty enthusiasm.

  Zulior did not waste further breath with pretty speeches and niceties. Bellowing, For the Great Onyx, for Fra’anior! he pounded the air with his wingbeats, and the Dragonwing formed up behind him, a dense wedge three hundred strong. It was some minutes before Hualiama spotted Grandion rising behind them, with Jin upon his back. Was she jealous? Madly! With him came twenty Dragons and Riders, the balance of the force drawn from Naoko’s warriors.

  Fourteen leagues was a small distance for Dragons. Zulior set a rapid twenty league per hour pace, enough to put strain on wings and ligaments while balancing the need to conserve strength. She caught Grandion having a quiet word with the Red, demanding that he take care of the Star Dragoness. With a low chuckle, Zulior praised his shell-nephew’s envious heart.

  The low-lying band of squally weather had hid the true mass of Shinzen’s Dragonwings. Hualiama’s hearts sank even as she responded to Zulior’s request to help the Blues shield half of their Dragonwing, which would attack low while Grandion’s command would strike higher up, providing necessary aerial cover. Zulior the Red ordered optical shielding. No warning for the Giants. Hualiama sensed several thoughts in the Red’s mind, disquiet at taking a hatchling into battle, concern for the ‘fire-asset’ who was a Star Dragoness, and the desire to have her learn, to see, to bring her unique abilities into the battle. Ah, so he did have reason for separating her from Grandion. A leader with an eye fixed upon the future. She should have guessed.

  Closer they swooped. The front of Orange-Green Dragons was a mile high and ten miles wide, uncountable numbers. More slunk upon the ground. Transport Dragons swung up to the Island, dropping off their loads of Giants, male and female who formed into battalions one hundred strong. As if they were not already powerful enough, these Giants wore heavy metal breastplates, shoulder plates and arm guards, and greaves upon their calves. Their feet were shod with leather sandals, and each Giant wore a skullcap with an additional nose guard and flap of chain metal that protected the back and sides of the neck. Their spears were twelve feet tall and as thick as sapling trees, and their black war-hammers sported heads the size of Human-Lia’s torso. Strapped to their left forearms, each Giant carried a convex shield nine feet tall by three and a half wide, emblazoned with the symbol of a Red Dragon rampant upon a field of gold.

  Each Giant looked absolutely identical in stature and demeanour. They marched in ranks ten deep, the beat of their exacting tread audible from a mile distant.

  Hualiama sensed magical potentials rising all around her now. Fire for the Reds. Lava for the Yellows and Oranges. Ropes of poison-like jungle vines writhing in the bellies of Green Dragons. Electricity and Storm in the Blues. A darker, earthier scent about the magic of the Brown Dragons, and here, the unique signature of the Grey Dragoness called Makani.

  In their midst stood a Star Dragoness who understood why she had to play a secondary role, and hat
ed it. If she was to win this war, to contribute with her rare powers, why had the fates seen fit to make her but a hatchling? So that she might dazzle them with her cuteness? Bat her fire eyes and mesmerise Shinzen’s horde into casting themselves into the Cloudlands? She gritted her fangs. Ha!

  Zulior picked his target, a column of Giants five hundred strong. He swept his wings forward. Leave none alive! Strike, my Dragon-kin! Attack speed. Wait for my mark–they arrowed toward the Giants at a blistering pace, all but invisible. ZULIOR!!

  A staggering wave of flame, acid and lava seared the dawn.

  Chapter 22: The Siege of Kerdani

  CRashing! Thundering! Roaring! Dragon fire engulfed the Giants, sweeping onward to smash into the Orange Dragons just behind them. Hualiama found herself roaring right along with them, as though a single, primal beast voiced its animosity from many throats. Yet many Giants leaped or sprinted out of the conflagration, apparently resistant to fire even though their shields and armour glowed red-hot. Others lay unconscious, smouldering where they had fallen. A flurry of rocks and javelins soared up from a second column of Giants just ahead; Oranges sprang skyward, orienting on the marauding Dragonwing.

  A shattering roar! Grandion’s Storm pounded the converging Oranges half a mile overhead, smashing Dragons into each other as a funnel churned through their formation. Her Reds and Oranges drew breath.

  Lia leaped in mentally. Pure-fires, my Dragon-kin.

  Her intervention was imperfect, a surprise, too esoteric for some of the Dragons to understand. But many responded, internalising the touch of white-fires she brought to their magic, and the resultant second wave of fire that swamped the marching Giants was laced with lightning-like streaks of white, far hotter than before. This time, screams and a loud sizzling of flesh rose from the burning column as the Giants broke ranks in many places. Inhuman torches charged out of the conflagration before collapsing. The answering barrage of rocks was ragged; the Browns now charged in, flipping large boulders to crush stricken Giants beneath. Seconds. That was all it took to devastate the column, wiping hundreds of lives off their Island.