by Marc Secchia
“Well, lady,” he rumbled, his accent thick and unfamiliar. “I hope you know how to use those swords in this town. I am Jarrik the Armourer. How may I serve you?”
“I am looking for a good bow,” said Lia, realising she had been foolish on two counts. She wore rare Immadian daggers on her belt. First mistake. The second mistake, not remembering Remoyan attitudes to women who bore weapons.
“Long, short, crossbow or recurve?”
“Recurve. Compact size with a strong draw.”
Without a word, Jarrik moved to a weapons rack affixed to the wall above three neat heaps of round shields, and selected a bow. “How would this suit you?”
Lia raised an eyebrow at him, which was a long way up. Jarrik looked to be the kind of man who could beat through walls using nothing but his head. “It’s pretty, I’ll grant, but I’d need something sturdier.”
He presented her the weapon. “Test the draw for me, please. What’re you hunting?”
“Windrocs,” she said, drawing the bowstring to her ear with ease.
“Aye? Would you indulge me with two further impositions, lady? Show me your palm, and show me one of your swords.”
With a slight bow, Hualiama drew the Nuyallith sword from her preferred left side, and laid the weapon in his hand. The Armourer’s brow furrowed. He tested the sword’s weight and balance with a professional flourish, and then ran a finger reverently along the blade. “Sweet. Windrocs, eh?” He turned her palm over in his blunt-fingered paw, pursing his lips at the well-used calluses which her training had developed. “Hmm.” He passed her the blade; Lia sheathed it without hesitation.
Jarrik dismissed his rack of bows with an irascible wave. “None of these. Come into the back, lady.”
He moved to a cupboard opposite the furnace, reached inside without looking, and selected a weapon. Lia’s eyes moved to the little apprentice, who stared at her open-mouthed. She winked at him. Sweet lad.
“This is the weapon for you.”
Hualiama examined the bow curiously. It appeared to be constructed of an exotic type of lacquered hardwood, and the recurve of the tips was slightly more pronounced than she was used to. The grip fit her hand as though crafted for her alone. The craftsmanship … aye. Gorgeous.
Jarrik explained, “It’s a Haozi hunting bow, from the far southern end of the Eastern Isles. They ride a type of giant boar on their hunts, beasts that rival a ralti sheep for size. With practice–” his teeth flashed a quick grin at this “–you should be able to draw it fully.”
Right he was. Hualiama grinned back at him as she managed just over a three-quarters draw. “This is an excellent weapon. I don’t have enough coin for a bow of this quality, however. Would you accept an alternative form of payment?”
“As in?”
“Excuse me.” Reaching down her tunic front, Hualiama liberated a ruby the size of the top joint of her thumb from a secret pocket. A shadow fell upon her spirit as she remembered Inniora’s plight. Please let Ra’aba have mercy on her … “Will this do?”
Jarrik raised the gemstone to the light. “It’s more than adequate, aye. You will require a quiver and arrows? My best for you, lady.”
“And a few leather belts,” said Lia, measuring rapidly in her mind as an idea popped into the forefront of her mind. Aye, she could ride Grandion alright. He was about to be thoroughly vexed by her plan, however. She knew exactly how she would pull his leg, or wing, or whatever …
Having settled with Jarrik the Armourer and wrapped her more obvious weapons in a cloth he provided her, Lia stepped out into the dazzling suns-shine. Unease tickled her spine. In the narrow road to her left, a dozen youths played a strategic game of stone-tossing against a wall. Right, a similar number, standing and staring at her with the peculiar intent of those inciting each other to mischief–not of the humorous kind. Pretending to rub her eyes, Hualiama adjusted the cloth to provide easy access to her swords, knowing in her bones that if Grandion was prowling somewhere high above, these youths were already dead.
The youths closed in rapidly from her right, limbering up a motley assortment of weapons. Lia had expected a few insults, perhaps a way she could use her feminine wiles to slip by. No posturing from these. This confrontation was planned, organised and dangerous. She spied the town guardsmen looking on from the mouth of the alleyway with bored inattention. No help there.
“Sword-wearing rajal!”
“You trying to start a riot, foreign girl?”
“Beat her!”
Thankfully, the viler comments were swallowed up in a general ruckus as the youths broke into a run.
Little Lia briefly considered retreating into the weapons shop, but a fierce fire burned in her breast. Bullies. She hated bullies. Lia dropped her bundle, leaving a sword in each hand. Stepping out into the cobblestone street, she gathered her concentration as Master Khoyal had so painstakingly taught her. Mentally, Lia saluted him. ‘I never appreciated you enough, Master. This is for you.’
The thudding of feet matched the thudding in her senses as Lia’s mindfulness expanded in concentric ripples. The footing, the precise quality of the dust in the air, the smell of silverback trout baking in a nearby shop, the sound of Jarrik pumping the bellows to bring his forge up to heat, all filtered into her awareness. Time seemed to slow. The foremost youth charged in with his iron-shod staff levelled at her belly, his fellows just a couple of steps behind. Lia stood still, arms relaxed at her sides, her blades hanging toward the dirt. But inside, she was as taut as a coiled spring.
Now.
Let the dance begin.
A step off her left foot allowed the staff to slide by her torso, not an inch from her skin. Her red-tinged Nuyallith blade lifted gently, severing the youth’s arm at his wrist. Spinning beyond her howling victim, Lia gutted an intrepid swordsman with a clean slash across his belly, her right arm rising into a vertical parry, the left swinging beneath a club to spear a man in the thigh. These were ill-trained fighters, but the onrush caught up with her. Lia collected a cudgel blow to the shoulder and a painful stamp upon her foot, momentarily arresting her dance. Her blades shimmered darkly, left and right, leaving attackers screaming in their wake. Those at the back skidded to a halt. Vaulting a fallen dark-headed man, Hualiama rebounded off a shop wall, smashing her head into the jaw of a man just behind her.
She stumbled, dazed by the violent clash of heads. Crossbow quarrel! Her left blade, the red one, deflected the incoming quarrel before its presence even registered in her mind. Where was the archer? Springing upright, she executed the double windroc technique on a luckless rogue who was still facing the wrong direction when her blades pierced his neck and right kidney simultaneously.
Here came the other dozen youths, aware now that their intended victim was not about to lie down and beg for mercy. Lia whirled out of the dancing crane into a modified kingfisher skill, pausing just long enough to allow a blade to swish past her stomach, before leaping high into the air and striking from above, lightning-quick. Her left sword pierced a man’s eye, the right slid into another man’s cheek.
Bellowing a Western Isles war-cry, Jarrik the Armourer came charging out of his shop, using his shield as a battering-ram to crush four men against the opposite wall.
“Fancied some exercise,” he grinned, abandoning his shield to twirl a two-handed war hammer about his head. “Just bop these thugs, one, two!”
Spill their brains was what he meant.
“Thanks!” Lia ducked a javelin and used the momentum to knock a man’s feet out from under him. Jarrik finished him off by the simple expedient of dropping his knee on the man’s chest, crushing his ribcage. Grandion would have approved of that move.
For a few moments they withstood a siege of cudgels and swords, before the youths saw the better value of cowardice and fled. Gathering her weapons with exasperated haste, Lia quickly armed herself and slipped her swords into their sheaths. No point in skulking about now.
&nb
sp; “That way,” said the Western Isles warrior, pointing.
Halfway down the road at a dead sprint, Lia heard a tramping of booted feet ahead. A cohort of Rolodia’s grey-clad guardsmen marched into the narrow street between the shops, blocking it. She turned.
“Run!” yelled Jarrik.
The sound of more boots echoed up the street. The real trap was sprung. Lia spared a half-breath to wonder if Ra’aba might not somehow be behind this, before she realised what she must do. She bounded up onto a barrel and from there, sprang up to the eaves and swung herself smoothly onto the roof. Lia raced across the uneven surface as the monks had so often trained to run across the uneven boulders near the crater lake.
For a long drawn-out second, she thought she had made her escape.
Whap! A weighted net snarled her body. Hualiama had not seen a rooftop guard post, but they had seen her and fired a net in her direction. Deprived of the use of her arms and legs, Lia toppled helplessly, rolled down a shingled slope, and tumbled into the street below. A mound of red-dyed cloth broke her fall, but she had no time to struggle free of the net. Cruel hands seized her.
“Now you’ll pay, girl!”
An unseen cudgel slammed her head into the cobblestones. Blackness overwhelmed her instantly.
* * * *
A Princess locked in a tower. The same prekki fruit of old, Flicker chirped, slipping between the bars of Lia’s tower cell.
Flicker! Hualiama gasped. What … where did you come from?
The dragonet inquired archly, Good shopping trip? What’re you still doing in here?
Escaping, of course. Lia worked vigorously at the lock on her left ankle. Toss it in a Cloudlands volcano, this one’s so blasted stiff …
Shall I fetch the keys off that hook, straw-head? Her brilliant smile made him flip an aerial somersault–gingerly, to avoid further hurting his ankle. The dragonet chattered, Aye, thank you Flicker. You are my saviour, my best friend and indeed, the true dragonet-king of all Fra’anior. Here. Loosen those chains while I call Grandion.
As the jail tower was a little ways out of the city, down near a garbage heap which smelled emphatically appealing to Flicker, he and the blue blunderer had decided that with a touch of Grandion’s concealing magic, they could rescue the Human girl and earn themselves kisses. Well, kisses were his privilege. By his wings, there was no way he’d allow that prowling Lesser Dragon to muscle in on his girl, shiver the thought and turn his fires to ice!
Having signalled Grandion as agreed, Flicker returned to the cell to find Lia gone! The door yawned open. In a flash he whizzed down the spiral staircase. He narrowly avoided crashing into the back of Lia’s head and instead, violently assaulted the man facing her with a crossbow levelled at her chest. Meantime, Grandion landed on the roof, shaking the building. Twang! A quarrel quivered in the wooden ceiling of the room beneath Lia’s previous cell.
Hualiama chopped the man down with the hard edge of her hand. “Flicker, I had it under control!”
“That’s what you’re doing with a lump on your head, in jail?”
“I was in the middle of escaping, you brainless lizard,” she complained. “Look, the guard captain laid all my things out nicely on his desk so that he could choose what he wanted for himself. Let me just collect–”
“Grandion is so upset with you–I’m upset with you!”
The Tourmaline Dragon thundered, “WHERE IS THAT PEST?”
“Hmm, sounds like he’s planning to rip the roof off,” said Lia, strapping on her daggers with a studied unconcern that had the dragonet gaping. Would he ever understand the ways of a two-legged female? “Tell him to wait just a rajal’s whisker, Flicker.”
Flicker coughed up fire as he squeaked, “You tell him!”
A huge blue paw smashed through the floorboards, shooting splinters and chunks of wood across the room. Grandion snarled, “You come here right now, you wretched bundle of vexation, or I swear I’ll pulverise this place–”
“Coming, Grandion,” she cooed.
Flicker blenched. That was completely the wrong tone to take with a Dragon … on cue, Grandion’s fury erupted in spectacular style. He roared so deafeningly and so long that the Islanders could probably have heard him back on Gi’ishior, never mind Rolodia. Rock detonated just a couple of feet above their heads, while the south tower wall bulged and cracked as he flexed his muscles. Nails shrieked as the incensed Tourmaline Dragon tore through the floor, tossing boards and sturdy beams to the winds.
Hualiama shrugged her Nuyallith sword harness over her shoulders. “Right, Flicker, just a couple more things and I’ll be ready.”
A wordless squeak of dread escaped the dragonet. Hualiama deftly sidestepped a grasping paw, as if the Dragon were fishing for her like a dragonet fishing in a pond, and scooped her belongings into her arms.
“Quick, Flicker. Upstairs now.”
“There’s neither an upstairs nor stairs left anymore,” he pointed out.
Grandion’s forepaws swept the room from either end, eventually corralling the Human girl near the middle. His muzzle punched through what remained of the ceiling. The Tourmaline Dragon glowered at Hualiama from a distance of six inches, panting great gasps of smoke, growling deep in his belly as his tail idly demolished another section of the Rolodian jail tower behind him. Flicker sensed that his righteous wrath had robbed him of words, or more accurately, he did not wish to open his jaw and embroil her in a deadly firestorm. Grandion’s sword-like talons flexed as if longing to burrow into a certain Human’s impudent neck.
Flicker decided that at this precise moment, the path of valour would be to bury himself beneath the rubble, or be flying a hundred leagues an hour in the opposite direction.
“I’m ready when you are, Grandion,” Lia chirped, with a radiant smile. “Oh, and this is for coming to pick me up after my shopping.” Leaning forward, Hualiama planted a kiss directly on Grandion’s left eye. “You’re the best.”
Although, a dragonet could be moved to contemplate murder on occasion.
Chapter 22: Maroon Madness
Human, Dragon and dragonet camped that evening on the wild, uninhabited northern shore of Rolodia Island, beside a terrace lake shimmering like fiery stained glass as the lambent twin suns fired their rays beneath the broad underbelly of waxing Iridith, dominating the south-western skies as only the yellow moon could. The mile-wide fourth and lowest band of terrace lakes, buttressed by mighty dam walls only the Ancient Dragons knew how to build, was home to a vast cornucopia of bird life which loved the violet-tufted reed beds and towering, impenetrable bamboo forests, and filled with the silverback trout famed throughout the region. An optical illusion made the far side of the unspoiled lake appear to run right into the Cloudlands, giving an impression of infinite distance. Warmly tinted in an awe-inspiring palette of colours, the evening was without equal.
Why a soul-lost sadness to darken such a day?
Hualiama sat on a grassy knoll overlooking this tableau, and hugged her knees to her chest. Grandion and Flicker bathed at the lakeside, the deft dragonet engaged–with much lip-smacking and trills of happiness–in plucking mites from beneath Tourmaline Dragon’s scales and gobbling them down.
The song of her heart was a haunting ballad:
Alas for the far shores, my heart, my third heart,
Alas for the stars, illuming thy doom,
Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires …
And fly to thee.
Alas for the fair peaks, my love, my fierce love,
Alas for the scorching winds, which stole thee away,
Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires …
And fly to thee.
So she had sung for Amaryllion, unwittingly, in the darkness beneath Ha’athior’s Island-massif, and the darkness had turned to magic and light, and that light was the naissance of a friendship few could have imagined.
Flicker’s voice rose, carrying clearly to
her ears because of the stillness. Evidently, your large cranial cavity is woefully underutilised, Grandion. Insipid follicular filaments my shell-mother’s warty backside! Let me teach you about Human females. I am an expert, after all.
From beneath her lashes, giving no outward sign that she overheard them, Hualiama spied on her draconic companions. This should be entertaining.
Firstly, you need to understand that just as a Dragon has three hearts, a Human female has three minds.
Three? Grandion was as nonplussed as the Human eavesdropping on their conversation.
Aye, three, and you never know which one you’re going to get from one moment to the next. Ooh, she was going to give that overgrown, armour-plated mosquito a piece of her mind–one of her minds. Lia hushed a giggle as the dragonet continued, They can switch from one brain to the next at a speed that would make a bat’s head spin. At least one of their brains possesses a dismaying tendency toward contrariness and wing-shivering vexation, as you observed in the tower.
Aye, that makes sense, Grandion nodded.
Secondly, a woman’s hair is always perfect, the dragonet pontificated. It is neither too long nor too short, too dark nor too light, nor does it ever resemble a windroc’s nest. Clear?
Give me scales any day, muttered the larger Dragon.
Flicker drew himself up. Lia’s hair is wondrous amongst her kind. It falls down her back like spider-silk threads of the whitest Dragon gold.
Grandion’s paw, upraised in the act of scratching his spine spikes, curled as if with a sudden cramp. Hualiama shivered at the tenor of his glance. Dragons were said to be covetous. Surely, that could not be what he wanted of her, to add a Human to his Dragon hoard? One fable told how Dragons could breathe out a magic which converted any object into pure gold. Nonsense, she told herself. Silly tales for children–and who would want a golden statue of Hualiama?
