Dragonsoul

by Marc Secchia

  FOR THE ONYX! Burliki bellowed, sweeping by overhead from an angle Hualiama had not even seen. Suddenly, the battle closed in from all sides. The Giants rallied, pounding the pillaging Dragonwing with boulders they tore from the ground with their magic; some even leaped tens of feet into the air, swinging their hammers with devastating effect to break ribs and wing-bones. The huge men behaved as if impervious to pain. Zulior jinked through the field of fire, picking off a Giant with a molten boulder that visibly caved in his skull, before rallying his Dragons with another cry.

  Danger! Oranges closed in thickly, trying to overwhelm and snarl the advance. Grandion and two Blues flashed by not ten feet from her position, spraying shards of ice from their gaping mouths. Hualiama flinched beneath the assault, digging deep to keep the shields intact. Even so, they lost two Reds as a volley of javelins pierced the shield, pinning them three or four times each in the chest and belly.

  Bolster that shield! Zulior snarled.

  Unfair. Impossible. Yet she must try. The power required to shield so many … her strength would fail within seconds. What could a Star Dragoness do in this situation, when Dragons fell all around her, snarling with the incoming Oranges now, fighting tooth and nail, claw and fang? As injuries mounted with inconceivable speed?

  At this rate, they would not last the morning.

  Grandion tore through the fray, mixing Storm with Ice and Lia’s penetrative shielding, fighting with the strength of ten, driving green-headed enemies before him like a herder forcing ralti sheep to hurry across his pasture. No wonder the Dragons followed him. Awesome Tourmaline! Yet he was unique. Few Dragons could match his achievements. And when the enemy numbered thirty for every one of their allied force, and those numbers were not diminishing in the slightest, they’d need the strength of Fra’anior himself to bloody Shinzen’s nose.

  Fra’anior, Flicker whispered in her mind.

  Green heads continued to pour forth from the approaching storm, as though spitting forth from a vast dark maw. Suddenly, the Star Dragoness saw all with extraordinary clarity. With three Dragons commanding Dragonwings, Burliki seemed to think the plan was to attack, not to disengage and find relief for his exhausted force. He swirled back into the thick of the enemy, taking his Dragons and Riders with him, sustaining terrible losses. That note in his thunder! Had he gone feral? Scroll-lore claimed that was always a danger for Dragons consumed by battle-rage. Now she knew the legend for truth.

  Quick as lightning she tried to touch his mind, but recoiled at his crimson rage. Grandion and Zulior, seeing their kin in trouble, closed in from above and below. The Oranges poured over and around like a Cloudlands-bound river swollen by torrential rains. Surrounding them. Trapping them, penning them for the slaughter.

  She had so little magic. Hualiama had expended it dancing with Grandion that morning. Fool! Igniting the Islands with rainbows of romance … still, as Dragons said, ‘How beautiful over the Islands are the wings of love.’ Perhaps he thought her a beautiful fool.

  Fra’anior, Flicker insisted. All Dragons … straw-head.

  The Dragoness blocked him out. How could she change the Balance? How–

  Human-Lia’s voice, however, could not be denied. She called urgently, Listen! Flicker means, every Lesser Dragon ever born carries the essence of Fra’anior within them.

  The Dragoness gave a mental shrug. Huh?

  Your shell-father, fire-wings. Show them your father. Rouse them–

  Of course!

  Dragons ripped into each other in the terrible press. Each two-headed individual of Shinzen’s group possessed a crucial advantage in one-on-one combat. Lia caught a glimpse of Tadao being hounded off his Dragoness’ back by a snapping head. He dropped into the fray, but Raiden snatched him up mid-air with a reflexive back-footed swipe.

  Deep breath. Summoning her memories of the one they called the Great Dragon, the Onyx of the Ages and father of the Dragonkind, the Star Dragoness thrust his presence into every friendly mind she could reach. Channelling his multiple-throated fury, she roared:

  Awaken thy ardent hearts, thou my kin, and smite thine foes with the wrath of ancient thunder breaking the Islands asunder! Thou art imbued with mine magic, and with the zeal of myriad mighty Dragons! Strike! Rend the adversary, thou Dragon-pride of Fra’anior’s right paw!

  Perhaps pretending to be a veritable Dragon-God was less than honest, even if she could claim to be his shell-daughter. But the rage she provoked was not. The Dragons’ snarls deepened to an impossible, almost subsonic level, unnerving both her and their enemies, viscerally. Muscles clenched and jaws champed. And the magic! Every ounce of marrow in her bones froze. She had created belief, but could not herself believe what rose in these Dragons. Strength of Onyx. Somehow the sound, the mood and the magic passing between her friendly Dragons created a collective force beyond anything she had imagined or intended, where they not only drew on each other’s powers, but together, possessed the strength of paws that raised the very Islands.

  Suddenly, the space into which the Dragons had been forced became a killing field. Snarling like fiends, they rounded on Shinzen’s Dragons. Rending. Maiming. Tearing off limbs and biting through necks. Hualiama saw Burliki plucking an Orange Dragon’s wings off its back with his bare paws. She wanted to vomit.

  What had she done?

  She cried, Grandion, take them out!

  The Tourmaline heard. Leading the way with mighty blows of his paws, he punched, kicked and tore a path to clear air, quickly followed by the Dragon Riders and then the insanely strong Dragons of Zulior’s force. Grandion immediately turned to defend the stragglers, the injured Dragons, cleaning Vinzuki’s back of three Oranges and slamming himself bodily back into the trap’s jaws to pull Raiden loose from a snarl of gnashing fangs by main force. Then he flipped on a wingtip and streaked though the final gap, causing the Orange Dragons to close ranks over nothing but air filled with droplets of golden Dragon blood.

  Despite that he had ten thousand enemy Dragons at his back–or perhaps because of it–Grandion winged toward Hualiama with a discernible swagger. She had to shush her inner Human, who evidently thought his pretension hilarious.

  He reached out to caress her muzzle with his right wingtip. Quite the clearest image of Fra’anior a Dragon ever did see. Smart thinking, Blue-star.

  It was Flicker’s idea.

  Eep! he squeaked happily. Awe-eep? Aw-ship?

  Awesome, Grandion advised rather solemnly, touching the dragonet with the same wingtip. Not just a pretty little dragonet, then? Say, ‘I’m awesome.’ The Tourmaline bowed his muzzle with exaggerated regard. You saved our fire-lives, noble ally.

  So puffed up with pride was he, Flicker could not even voice his customary ‘Eep!’

  The noble Lesser Dragons fled the enemy lines with alacrity. Looking back, Hualiama saw that the Orange Dragon advance had stopped. Odd. That many Dragons, what were they waiting for? The keys to the city gates? Shinzen’s Dragonwing hovered as though waiting for an as-yet-undetected signal. Within minutes, they were swallowed up by the storm.

  * * * *

  “You just can’t resist meddling, can you?” Grandion said, bracing Hualiama’s upper legs and torso with his palm halfway up Raiden’s flank as she struggled with a leather strap. She set her feet either side of the eight-inch buckle and heaved a third time. “Another Hualiama engineering feat.”

  Vinzuki snorted, “The day I wear a harness like that is the day I fly over the twin suns bleating like a ralti sheep.”

  “Got it!” Hualiama finished threading the belt, and paused to wipe her forehead. “And I said to myself, the day I let a male paw my backside–and look at me now.”

  Grandion and Vinzuki both laughed smokily.

  Raiden said, “Yours isn’t scaly enough by half, by my wings! Now this …”

  Vinzuki nipped his shoulder fondly as Raiden swatted her haunches a punishing blow. She purred, “Paw away, o thou passion of mine third heart.”

  “Now sh
e’s a warrior-poet?” asked Fumiko, taking pains to appear amazed.

  “Take notes, my fierce wife,” said Tadao, from up above. “How’s this catapult emplacement, Hualiama? Jin and I have affixed and tightened the ratchet straps as you instructed.”

  Fumiko folded her arms in unconscious imitation of Vinzuki’s pose. “Huh.”

  Poor Jin. He was trying to be Eastern-inscrutable and failing miserably. Hualiama only had to glance in his direction for him to start blushing. What did he think about a girl teasing her Dragon? She should desist. Or she should tell him. Many of the Dragon Riders already knew, or had worked it out. How long could this secret truly remain with her and Grandion?

  “Ready the Dragonwing!” Grandion commanded. “Vinzuki, Raiden, you have your orders.”

  Raiden, heavily armoured and carrying four catapult emplacements upon his back, nodded gravely. “No rolling. Keep those poor Humans on my back. They’ll be affixed with safety ropes. Two men to each emplacement, a loader and a weapons master.”

  Hualiama knew the plan. She had worked out Jin’s idea with the teenager, turning concept into reality–jury-rigged reality, but that was her specialty. Raiden the Blue would be hunting Giants. Fire only tickled them. A six-foot metal crossbow bolt through the gullet tended to demand a better level of attention. Add a touch of Eastern poison, proven to work on the Giant-kind … she scaled the belt to the top of Raiden’s back. Decision time. Trust, that was all she knew. She must offer trust.

  “Jin. A word.”

  “About the emplacements? They’ll turn through two hundred and seventy degrees, and sixty vertically or horizontally,” he said, waggling one bearing-mounted crossbow to demonstrate.

  She leaned close to him, hearing his heartbeat leap. “Jin. You’re right about me. I am the Dragoness–the Star Dragoness. We are one and the same.”

  “You’re magical? A trick of Dragon magic?”

  Sweet boy. He sounded mortified. She said, “No, I was born a Human, but also a Dragon. I’m a Dragon Shapeshifter, Jin. The first and only of my kind.” His grey eyes clouded over with shock. Lia said, gently, “I’m a woman with a woman’s feelings. I’m also a Dragoness, the small blue one you met the other day. I can be either Human or Dragoness when I wish. If you like, I’ll show you my Shapeshifter–”

  “No,” he gasped. “That’s wicked. Just … impossible, I mean.”

  He meant exactly that. Repugnant. Unthinkable. Hualiama began to touch his arm sympathetically, but Jin shrank back. Harshly, she said, “I won’t apologise for who I am.”

  The troubled eyes flicked to Grandion. “He’s mine–he was … I’ve work to do. See you aloft, Princess.”

  Grandion was his? The yearning in the boy’s heart, the way the Tourmaline had taken him under his wing–he had assumed he was to become Grandion’s Dragon Rider. Then a girl had interfered. She had stabbed him in the heart, and ripped his dreams from his eyes and trampled them underfoot. For the first time, Hualiama felt ashamed of her powers.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at last, to his back.

  Jin’s spine stiffened.

  * * * *

  Seated once more upon Grandion’s back, Hualiama glanced across at Jin. He had returned her gaze just once, his expression unreadable from that distance, but she felt his magic burning. Mercy, what that boy had inside of him she just did not know, but it was not comfortable.

  Raiden rose heavily, weighed down by eight catapult engineers, Fumiko and Jin, who would provide cover for the engineers with his powerful Haozi war bow and, judging by his preparations, more than a few esoteric weapons. Grandion had informed her that Jin came from a warrior people, the Nikuko, much like Saori’s people but more secretive, oppressed and misunderstood. Her heart softened toward him. He would come to understand, in time, how it must be between her and the Tourmaline. Meantime, she would keep a weather-eye out for a Dragon or Dragoness for him.

  Shall we fight linked? Grandion’s thoughts intruded.

  I’d like that, she replied, knowing what he meant. Together, they were powerful. In part this was a draconic challenge. Try to be rid of me, his undertones snarled. Just you dare break your oath, Dragonfriend!

  They rose into the still night air. In the two days following his Dragons being bested in battle at the South of Kaolili Island, Warlord Shinzen had committed his forces on land–his entire force. The patrols had confirmed it; the leagues south of the city were crawling with Orange Dragons and Giants. Not a single uninjured individual remained on the Islands further afield.

  Zulior had snarled, “Either Shinzen’s stupid, or he knows something we don’t. I scent the latter. Find out what it is!”

  That very afternoon, the long-distance patrols had spotted the Lost Islands one hundred and fifty leagues offshore of Kaolili Island itself, drifting along slowly. They saw no signs of life, but signs of a great battle were rife. Clouds of scavengers could be seen from leagues off. Thinking upon this, Hualiama balled her fists. Elki. Saori. Affurion and Mizuki, and all the Dragonkind … what had happened? Why had they not sent word?

  For her part, Hualiama wore Eastern warrior armour designed for women. Pliable, tacky-soled leather boots gave her good grip on Grandion’s scales. Her greaves concealed four throwing daggers at each calf. Her knees and lower thighs were bare, the upper part protected by a blue split skirt made from pleated armour, with further under-armour fitted to her hips and thighs, all belted tightly at her trim waist. The belt would ordinarily hold scabbards, but for her, held a further brace of curved hunting daggers and the first of several quivers full of short Eastern arrows. For her Nuyallith swords, the King had ordered shoulder-scabbards found and custom-fit to a sleeveless leather-backed, banded plate-metal corselet that made her look like a miniature Grunt wearing its silver-red armour.

  According to the armourer, it was very important that her outfit look meticulously fitted and match her ‘mystical pond’ eyes. At which, Hualiama rolled said ponds and buckled the forearm guards in place, similar to the wristlets her friend Inniora had once fashioned for her. She balked at the helm. The field of vision was far too restrictive. In an aerial battle, that would be a deadly restriction. Instead, she braided her long hair, which had returned to fully blonde, and tied and clipped it firmly in place behind her neck, where it could not interfere with her sword draw.

  In moments, the Dragons rose above the warehouses and sideslipped on a brisk north-easterly breeze, keeping low, fully shielded. The night was fully dark due to low cloud cover remaining after the squally storms of the last two days, but Hualiama found her vision brightened noticeably after she connected with Grandion. Wow.

  He said, Mind-meld. We work together so naturally.

  An emotional sledgehammer. Dragons could be so direct at times; at others, they could be enamoured with subtlety to the point of obfuscation.

  Lia wondered if a Human Dragon Rider could take advantage of other facets of a Dragon’s battle-awareness, such as sighting, taking reaction shots or avoiding debris. Grandion thought so. She touched her bow; checked the four extra quivers of arrows arranged around a seat. A saddle arrangement would be so much simpler, if only Dragons would shelve their pride but for a moment …

  Feints and covers. Take the starboard and port, high-left, high-right, the Tourmaline ordered, peeling off his covering Dragonwings efficiently. Check all shields.

  His wing-commanders reported back in turn.

  They rose over the shallowly-sloping rooftops. No need for angles to shed snow here, for the weather was almost never severe in Kaolili. Lia gazed out over the more industrial and mercantile zones to the inner wall. Pray it held against Giants who could leap twenty and more vertical feet in a single bound. Beyond the thick inner defensive curtain wall, over three hundred years old, was a newly built range of outer fortifications designed to hold Shinzen’s ground troops at abeyance. The great Brown Dragon-fashioned ramparts stood eighty feet tall, crowned with further defensive towers and battlements forty feet thick. Sharpe
ned stakes lined the base of the wall above a moat a further thirty feet deep and sixty feet wide. Would it be enough?

  We’ll make for Shinzen’s tent, Grandion said quietly to his small command. They numbered just four Dragons–Grandion, Makani, Raiden and Vinzuki.

  That wasn’t the plan, Raiden observed. Zulior should be informed. By my belly-fires, you never actually agreed, did you? Cunning.

  The Tourmaline snorted immodestly, Aye. We must test this new form of warfare, but the chance to strike that worm Shinzen should not be missed.

  Hualiama shook her head. Dragons!

  La-La?

  She patted the dragonet seated on her lap. Not upset with you, my friend. Eyes and claws sharp.

  Suddenly, her head popped up. Jin. Staring at Makani, a dull light burning in his eyes. What the volcanic hells was that countenance? She had better watch the boy. The roots of his Island ran deep.

  The foursome whipped rapidly over the outer rampart and over the moat, turning sharply onto a bearing three points south of east. The watch-fires approached already. Soft wings, said Grandion. The green pavilion tent. Quarter-mile. Raiden?

  The hulking Blue swept into the lead, shadowed by Grandion directly overhead. Silence enveloped the Dragonwing as they glided over the enemy camp, barely disturbing the flames.

  I will prove you are not the aberration you think you are, Grandion said abruptly.

  Lia’s concentration shattered. What?

  I will prove to you we are meant to be together. That you are mine.

  Possessive beast! The word slipped out. Hualiama bit her tongue mentally. Sorry. But how, by all the stars above, Grandion, do you intend–

  The more you try to deny me, the brighter I will burn for thee, he declared. I have no doubt. I will be yours and you will be mine, as oath-bound fire-soul lovers, Hualiama. We are destined to be together.