by Marc Secchia
“What kind of food would you prefer, o sizzlingly majestic one?”
* * * *
“Ouch!” Lia glared at the dragonet. “You bit my ear, you flying rat.”
You deserve it–you can’t talk to a Dragon like that, Lia. You just can’t.
Says who? What was wrong with Flicker? His eyes blazed darkly, a shade of burned orange that rarely filled his eyes. Was he afraid the Dragon would burn her again? But he sounded so friendly. Her heart danced skittishly, behaving like a dragonfly investigating a pond.
Grandion called, “Who’s up there with you?”
“Some dragonet a windroc dropped in passing,” said Lia. “He’s called Flicker.”
Grinning toothily at her, Flicker said, “O Grandion, would you prefer Human meat, lightly toasted? I have the perfect candidate.”
Lia tried to smack his rump, but he danced out of reach.
The unseen Dragon rumbled, “While I agree that she’d make a royally tasty snack–” Hualiama gestured at Flicker, ‘See? He’s the one flirting!’ “–the girl I trapped beneath my paw was so dainty a scrap she’d barely whet my appetite. No, I’d prefer a whole ralti sheep, if you can manage that, dragonet.”
“Maybe in ten thousand pieces,” said Lia, rolling her eyes. “Grandion, we’re here to help you escape. Can you see any possible way out of that cave? I really need your aid–can we come down into the cave and help you find a way out?”
“Ah, rather not,” said Grandion, in a strange voice.
“Why not?”
“I’ve been feral for some time, I’d imagine.”
“Three months,” said Lia.
The resonant voice performed the audible equivalent of squirming as he said, “Let’s just say there’s a great heap of rancid meat, rotting bones and worse down here.”
He’s covered in Dragon droppings, Flicker tittered.
Why can’t we smell that? There’s a definite whiff of rancid meat …
Dragon droppings don’t smell. But everything else down there stinks like a windroc’s breakfast.
Raising her voice, Hualiama said, “Of course, I understand that any self-respecting Dragon would want to look his best for a lady–for royalty, no less.”
“Oh, naturally,” Flicker teased, flicking his wings beneath Lia’s nose. “Grandion, it’s getting dark and Lia promised Master Khoyal she would return before nightfall. I must tuck the Princess into her plush bed and sing her to sleep.”
“That would be a hard pallet,” Lia put in, with another fruitless swipe in the dragonet’s general direction, “and Grandion, I’m a royal ward, not a–”
“You won’t leave me in this grave?”
The Dragon’s plaintive cry was far removed from his confident basso rumble. In it, Hualiama perceived an undertone of terror, the madness of a creature accustomed to gracing the measureless realms of the skies, now trapped in a stinking hole.
Before she could formulate a response, Flicker called, “Grandion, Lia’s been telling you stories and singing to you every other day for three months, even though you tried to kill her. What does that tell you?”
The rasp of the Dragon’s breathing sounded over-loud in the enclosed space. Faintly, he said, “I remember some things. I can never apologise enough, Hualiama. My honour is smoke, not flame.”
She choked out, “I will return.”
Chapter 17: Kidnapping
HuAliama HAD NOT anticipated the onset of crippling Dragon-fear. She had been so elated, so soaring over the Islands at Grandion’s recovery and his unexpectedly thrilling voice, that she had not stopped to consider his true nature. Now, dread brought a Northern winter to her heart. This Dragon had burned her. He was powerful, alien, a creature born of fire. As the twosome returned to the monastery, she fretted herself into a fearsome knot of anxiety. How could she ever trust a Dragon?
They emerged as the surreal light of a four-moon conjunction broke out from behind a cloud-bank to bathe the scene in eerie moonlight.
Flicker said, “I can see why Humans never made good slaves.”
Lia patted him absently.
“Humans are cheeky, lippy, stubborn flouters of every law under the known–what’s that?”
“What’s what?”
The dragonet yelled, “Two Red Dragons, incoming!”
Hualiama barely glanced at the sky before she broke into a sprint. There was no mistaking the intent of those Dragons as they swooped from a height of several thousand feet above the monastery; their outstretched talons, the angle of their descent, the fire just beginning to glow behind their bared fangs–unmistakable.
“Attack! Dragon attack!” she screamed.
A group of monks who had been meditating on the open balcony at the front of the building, scattered like a flock of fowl ambushed by a rajal. Hualiama followed them indoors at a sprint.
Master Jo’el’s hand clapped down on her shoulder. “Down to your cave. Now!”
“What?”
“They’re after you.”
“Master, I want to fight.”
“Now’s not the time, Lia. Go! Ja’al–you know the drill.”
Jo’el whirled, barking orders. The monks appeared to be prepared for this type of attack. Hualiama had never before appreciated why the upper levels of the building were left unoccupied–now she knew, and while she did not appreciate Ja’al thrusting her toward the secret stairway which would lead to her cave, she understood the necessity. They slipped behind a statue of a warrior-monk, triggered the door and dashed within.
“Hurry,” Ja’al urged.
From above, a low whistling sound suddenly rose to a shriek. KAAAABOOM! The monastery shuddered on its foundations. Fireballs, most likely, or the more powerful Red attack in which the Dragon first chewed up rocks, reduced them to molten slag in one of its special stomachs, and then expectorated the molten rock mingled with Dragon fire as a stream of fluid lava. The Red Dragons’ challenges rolled like thunder over the lake.
The narrowness of the spiral staircase forced them to proceed carefully. Lia held the railing lightly, her superior agility allowing her to outstrip the much bigger monk. Flicker, having flown ahead, reappeared in a rush. “Battle, below.”
Lia stopped. “Oh no.”
Betrayed! Her mind raced. Many of the monks must know about the secret caves, or have knowledge of her presence. Ra’aba had visited the monastery. Was this attack his doing?
“Blades, Lia,” Ja’al ordered grimly. “Let me past. Cover your face.”
Mercy. Master Khoyal, in his thoroughness, had anticipated even this. She pulled an Eastern Isles-style face veil over her nose and mouth, clipping it to the hood of the new outfit Inniora had designed for her–an outfit intended to conceal the identity of a certain royal ward, while including her modifications for weaponry and concealed items.
Whipping out her twin Nuyallith blades, Lia shadowed Ja’al down the remaining steps.
Metal clashed upon metal. She heard Inniora’s battle cry. Chaotic shouts and orders beat against her ears, while Lia was certain the low growl of a Dragon throbbed somewhere nearby.
“Great Islands!” Ja’al surged forward, snarling, “Hua’gon, you traitor!”
Lia darted behind him, sliding her blades across the face of a man Ja’al ignored in his maddened bid to reach his brother. They burst into a cavern filled with brawling soldiers and monks. At least five soldiers, wearing shiny body armour which bore an unfamiliar motif of the twin suns setting over an Island, had Inniora surrounded. Judging from the two bodies lying by her feet, they had developed an instantaneous respect for her skills with that huge blade she wielded.
Her Nuyallith forms came so naturally. Burned in her brain months before, they flowed through her veins like smelted ore. Three men faced her. Lia performed the whirlwind technique, generating tremendous centrifugal force in her opening parries to open up her opponents’ defence, before flicking her blades outward in rapid succe
ssion. Two men fell. The third thrust at her. A breaking the hammer skill flowed from her body before she knew it–a powerful downward parry from her right hand, driving his blade into the sand and causing him to stagger forward a step, juxtaposed with her left hand extending in a rapid cross-cut. The man sliced his own throat open on the rising blade.
Master Khoyal fired his throwing knives into a knot of soldiers. Then the Master crumpled, a surprised expression crossing his face; a soldier stepped out from behind him, wiping his dagger on his leg.
There were so many men between her and Inniora, Lia had no chance to help her friend. They tossed a net over Inniora’s shoulders, and then beat her down with clubs and sword-pommels, crying, “Get the Princess!” The tall girl collapsed under a heap of bodies.
The soldiers drew back rapidly in tight, well-disciplined formation, hauling their struggling, spitting captive along in their midst. Monks flung themselves at the soldiers, flying from above or clashing with the soldiers, in some cases striking so hard that their swords shattered on impact. Two, three more soldiers went down, one due to Flicker clawing out his left eye, but the formation shifted to close the gaps. They retreated steadily, resiliently, keeping their shields high and their swords ready, through the shattered secret doors leading from the section of caverns used by Inniora and Lia, into the hanger which housed the monastery’s Dragonships. Out there, fires burned fiercely where the vessels had been moored. Through the billowing smoke, Lia saw that the invaders had a Dragonship–and another Red Dragon to protect it.
Upon the port gantry–Ra’aba! Calmly, he watched the battle, a smile playing upon his lips.
Traitor! His men had taken the wrong girl, unless they assumed it was her sister Fyria living in the monastery. Someone had betrayed them. Lia was not glad; instead, a Dragon’s claw of white-hot fury speared into her belly. When he found out, Ra’aba would slay Inniora.
His calmness intimidated Hualiama. A bloody clash boiled right ahead of him, and the Roc’s expression did not change. A decision crystallised in her mind. Much as she hated the man, Inniora came first. Crossing the Nuyallith blades in the first or ‘rest’ position, Hualiama ran lightly through the smoke, dancing, dodging the unexpected spray of arrows from a half-dozen archers ranged on the starboard gantry. Ahead of her, two monks fell to the archers. She saw all with a disconcerting clarity. The Red Dragon drew breath to shoot Dragon fire at the monks. Ja’al bounded over a low sword-stroke, slamming his knee into his brother’s chest. Five bald-headed, baton-wielding monks crashed into Ra’aba’s soldiers in a wedge formation, ripping shields aside, breaking jaws and arms. More monks poured downstairs into the cavern, responding to whatever strategy Master Jo’el had decreed above.
Lia knew that the Master dealt with a diversion. This was the real attack.
With a puff of his cheeks, the Red Dragon expelled a stream of fire. Lia somersaulted over the path of the sweeping flames, tucking her body tight to increase her rotational speed. Landing lightly on her toes, she burst into a second leap, higher even than the first. Her swords sliced in tandem, distracting her intended victims while failing to kill them, as Lia described an arc over the heads of Ra’aba’s troops. She landed nimbly on Inniora’s stomach. Flick. Flick. Her blades sang, separating the soldiers’ fingers from their hands and the net from her friend’s body.
Clubs beat against her speedy defence, snarling her swords; a flurry of blows that ended with her being kicked brutally in the stomach. Her abdominals, hardened by exercise, absorbed the blow, but the powerful kick booted her ten feet out of the formation. At their leader’s command, the soldiers closed ranks again.
Distinctly, she heard Ra’aba command, “Red! Kill that monk. The little one.”
Rounding the retreating soldiers, who still maintained their grip on Inniora, the Red Dragon charged.
Blood pounded in her head, each beat a slow hammer-blow against her consciousness. The Dragon’s vicious bite seemed to slow, to proceed along a predetermined path, while Hualiama became the breeze blowing before his attack, shifting capriciously, impossible to pin down. Snap! The Dragon’s jaws clicked on thin air. Snap! The departing threads of her sleeve tickled his nostrils. Roar! Snap! Not even the reaction speed of an exasperated Dragon could catch up with her.
Hualiama whirled, rolling beneath the Red Dragon’s neck, her blades scoring twin slashes on the slightly softer underside of his throat. Really? These Nuyallith blades could cut Dragon armour?
GRRAAAAAGGGHHH!
The Red Dragon’s thunder blasted against her back as Lia fled, barely half a step ahead of the flame spurting from his nostrils. A burning Dragonship superstructure filled her vision. Soaring heron, she thought, leaping eagerly toward it. Flex the knees, soft to land. Hualiama rebounded off a leaning stanchion with a backflip that took her up onto the Dragon’s neck. Full extension of the arm. Her blade slashed his left eye.
Now, the Dragon’s thunder of before was as a zephyr. The crazed, half-blind Red Dragon thrashed in agony, spraying steaming, golden Dragon blood across the cavern, crashing through a pile of burning supplies, flattening the remains of a Dragonship. His bellows shook the cavern. Lia, flung aside as if she weighed no more than a kernel of mohili wheat, crash-landed on the sand. Groaning, she pushed to her feet. Where was Ra’aba? And Inniora–there, being loaded onto his vessel, which shifted as the turbines reversed it out of the cavern!
The stricken Red blasted past the Roc’s Dragonship and out into the night.
Hualiama scrambled to her feet, screaming incoherently. One more try. She could catch Ra’aba.
She pumped her arms, breaking into a lung-bursting sprint across the cavern from the point to which the Red Dragon had driven her. Her feet pounded the hard-packed sand. Suddenly, Ja’al was beside her, his jaw grimly clenched. They raced neck and neck for a few seconds before Lia began to outstrip him, her light frame filled with the memory of a Tourmaline Dragon’s fire, the swords beginning to gleam before her startled eyes as she closed the gap with the Dragonship. To her right came Flicker, screaming an incomprehensible but chilling challenge in Dragonish. The Dragonship gathered speed. Ra’aba’s brows rose as if he could not quite believe the prospect of their pursuit succeeding.
Ja’al hurled a throwing knife at Ra’aba. He flinched aside, his speed inhuman. The knife ricocheted off the crysglass panel behind him, striking one of his soldiers squarely between the shoulder blades. The man pitched off the side with a wail. Ra’aba’s eyes did not so much as flicker.
Hualiama was just twenty feet from the Dragonship when the Roc’s right hand rose from his side. Clawed. Outlined in orange fire.
Taking aim, Ra’aba hurled a fireball at them.
Hualiama began to duck, but Ja’al was faster. BOOM! The fireball detonated against the air right in front of their faces, flinging the trio backward. Ears ringing, head swimming, Lia staggered to her feet. Another fireball! Ja’al deflected it with a wave of his hand. The fireball detonated against an already gutted Dragonship. The gap was a hundred feet now, widening rapidly as Ra’aba’s Dragonship caught the breeze. That distance might as well have been a hundred leagues.
“Inniora!” Lia crashed to her knees.
Ra’aba’s smile widened. He threw them a mocking salute.
* * * *
Master Khoyal died. The Master of Arcane Arts, To’ibbik, perished, but he took one of the Red Dragons with him in an explosion that destroyed the northern quarter of the temple building. The monks were still pulling the dead and injured out of the rubble when Master Jo’el called together his Masters, together with Hualiama, Ja’al and Flicker.
Sober faces ringed the conference in the Chamber of Dragons, the same room where Ja’al had taken his vows so joyously, just months before.
“I’m going to kill Hua’gon!” Ja’al bellowed, storming into the room. “He brought Ra’aba down on us, the traitor!”
Master Jo’el said, “Your brother is a minor issue. Now, Master
s–”
“Leave him to me, uncle!”
“Silence!” bellowed Jo’el. It was the first time Hualiama had known him to lose his temper, and it silenced his nephew’s ranting. “Hear me speak!” Glaring at the wall, the tall monk collected his thoughts. “Ra’aba allies himself with a faction of the Dragons. Sapphurion’s kin would not move against us in this way. Therefore, we must conclude that these Dragons of Ra’aba’s are a threat to Gi’ishior. Dragonet, I have a dangerous mission for you.”
“Me?” squeaked Flicker. Then, his wings unfolded and with a showy bow, he declared, “Command me, o Master.”
No mirth stirred Lia’s lips at her friend’s posturing.
“We have no Dragonships left. Until our remaining two vessels return from Jeradia Island, we’ve no means of travel either,” said Master Jo’el. “Therefore, I charge you to bear a message to Sapphurion, the Dragon Elder. It is vital that you deliver our missive personally, Flicker, and convince Sapphurion that we require protection against Ra’aba. Draconic law is clear. Interference in Human affairs is tantamount to a declaration of war.”
Flicker nodded gravely. “You can rely on me, Master.”
Lia noted, “We should alert the monasteries on the way. There are at least five I can think of.”
“King Chalcion knows the location of our monasteries?” Master Jo’el gasped.
In a voice as bleak as a Cloudlands storm, she replied, “Don’t you trust me? Can you not distinguish between father and daughter?”
That was a sure way to lower a room’s temperature, Hualiama thought, meeting the Master’s stare with all the honesty she could muster. But he did not know her adoptive father as she did. King Chalcion was neither an easy man, nor a good father–she had earned bruises and contusions enough to prove that many times over in her lifetime.
He nodded curtly. “I trust you, Hualiama. Flicker will pass eight monasteries on the flight to Gi’ishior.” Turning to Master Ha’aggara, Jo’el said, “Compose message scrolls–small ones. One to request Sapphurion’s help without demanding it. He will know we refer to the law. The others to alert the monasteries.”
