by Marc Secchia
The tall, graceful Queen of Fra’anior had never seemed more shocked. “Lia? My girl–it’s really you?”
“I came for you, mother!” Hualiama hugged her fiercely. “Now, grab a sword and help me.”
“What?” The Queen smiled uncertainly, ambushed by hope. “You brought Dragonships? Troops? You’re alive? My darling petal–warrior? What’s this outfit you’re wearing?”
“Mom! Explanations later!” Stooping, Hualiama robbed a fallen soldier of his sword and lobbed it to Ari. “Are you with me, brother?”
There was Elki–oh, great Islands! Shouting, “Every man grab a weapon!” her scamp of a brother grabbed Lia about the waist and planted a swift kiss on her cheek.
More soldiers charged them from the direction of the forges. Lia exchanged weapons with lightning speed. An arrow leaped to her bowstring. Zip! A man in that dozen-strong formation fell.
“For the King!” someone shouted.
“Sound the alarm!”
Hualiama drew and fired as fast as she could, downing four men before they fell upon the slaves, who had begun to scatter in search of weapons and soldiers to kill. A huge brawl developed as the slaves mobbed the soldiers, beating them down by sheer numbers. Pity those men.
“Fright at night!” said Elki, sword in hand. “Where’d you spring from, sister?”
“Get them on the platform and get moving!” she rapped at him. “If they close the gates up top, we’re finished. Where’s father?”
“Over there.” He pointed at the melee. “We’re all here except Kalli, who’s sick upstairs. Oh wow, would you look at Mom?”
Gentle, artistic Queen Shyana put her foot to a soldier’s belly to pull her blade free. Shouting orders, she herded slaves toward the platform.
“Arrows!” cried Lia, yanking Elki down.
Flicker took care of the archer, ripping out his throat with his claws. The dragonet fought like a swarm of maddened hornets. Anyone wearing a purple uniform seemed to be fair game. Hualiama helped Flicker with a stream of arrows, but he was causing enough trouble all on his own. Chuckling, she turned away, and rammed her head into her father’s breastbone.
“Lia.” King Chalcion’s eyes were as hollow as the cough that rattled his chest. “How come you’re alive?”
“That’s a story!” She threw her arms around him; the King patted her shoulder absently. “Briefly, we’re starting a rebellion to take back the Onyx Throne. With a little help.”
“But Ra’aba has Dragons.”
Exile had been unkind to her father, Lia thought. He looked little better than an ambulatory corpse. Perhaps the poisons of the deep mines did that to a person. She shoved the King toward the platform. “Will you get the family together, father?”
Was that thunder? Lia’s head snapped about. Queen Shyana bundled people onto the swaying platform, slapping shoulders and shoving anyone not moving fast enough for her liking. Aye, Dragon thunder without a doubt. Grandion had come, and not a moment too soon, because she heard an answering challenge reverberating somewhere in the depths of the caverns. It sounded large and decidedly unimpressed.
“La-La!” A muscular pair of arms picked her up off the ground.
“Little brother,” she smiled at her dark-haired brother. At just nine years old, her brother Fa’arrion or Ari for short–whom her father called ‘the simpleton’–was already four inches taller than her and twice her weight. “It’s me.”
“La-La die?”
“La-La is definitely alive. Now get on that platform before I put you over my knee.”
“’Oke?” He seemed confused.
“Just a joke,” Lia agreed. “Help Mom, Ari. Get this platform moving.”
Ari ran to apply his muscle to the levers. The winches groaned and began to rotate.
Lia scanned the cavern. Where was that Dragon? They would be meat on a mobile grill-rack if a Dragon caught them before they reached the top.
Elki screamed at her, “Lia! Come on!”
Taking five running steps, Lia launched into a vertical leap for the rising platform. Leaning dangerously over the side-rail, her brother caught her wrist. She swung on board. Arrows pinged the underside of their platform, but there were still slaves down below battling with the soldiers, some of whom appeared to have switched sides. Hualiama wished she could go back for them, but the King and her family came first.
Flicker, will you fly ahead and see if you can delay the gates from being shut?
“Is that a dragonet?” asked Elki, peering upward.
“Aye. All the way from … uh, Fra’anior,” she said. Flying ralti sheep, she needed to start watching her tongue. Lia made a curtailed courtly bow. “Islands’ greetings, Prince of Fra’anior.”
“You silly girl!” he laughed, throwing his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. A month or two back, Ra’aba visited and took great pleasure in recounting for us how he threw you off his Dragonship. Now you pop up here like the proverbial white rajal kitten, all fluff and vicious claws, and decide to mount a rescue?”
She chuckled at his turn of phrase. “I didn’t like being dead, Elki. Flying like a wasp up Ra’aba’s left nostril seemed to offer better entertainment. Watch out!”
Everyone ducked reflexively as a body came hurtling down from above, narrowly missing the platform. Lia gazed upward. Just a few hundred feet left. They might just make it. Then, the unmistakable clang of a heavy gate sounded from above. She had barely begun to exclaim in frustration when from below, a monstrous growl shook the platform and its chains.
A stalwart, hundred-foot Green Dragon pursued them up the mine shaft.
Hualiama slung the Haozi hunting bow off her shoulder. Perhaps she could strike an eye or a nostril before that Green Dragon caught them–or worse, melted them in a puddle of acid. The distinct crack of Grandion’s lightning attack lit the tunnel way overhead, above the winches. Lia gasped as her head turned reflexively toward the sound. Two more Greens! How were they ever going to escape this Dragon trap? Two above, one below … no time for inane thoughts. Drawing the bow to her limit, Lia aimed downward, past the massive chains, to ping the Green Dragon’s nose with an arrow. It ricocheted off his armoured scales. She immediately sent another arrow after the first, but he crisped it with a fireball that rushed toward them, but was already expiring by the time it struck the platform.
“Come to Gaffazor, little Humans!” roared the Green.
Hualiama called, “Ready to jump, everyone? Get under cover–any cover you can.”
The cage bumped to a halt. Lia saw the gates, closed. There was Flicker, scratching at the face of a soldier behind the bars, another lining up a bowshot at her friend. So many! They had sealed off the exit, just as she had feared. Arrows spat toward them. Leaping over the railing, Lia fired a reflex shot at the man threatening Flicker, catching him in the upper thigh.
“Go! Take cover!”
The Humans surged off the platform, led by Queen Shyana and Elki. “Down this corridor,” shouted the Queen.
Hualiama knelt behind the large toolbox, and set herself the task of picking off soldiers behind the gate. Meanwhile, a group of forty or fifty people scrambled down the corridor, spilling into the slaves’ living quarters. What now? Dragons growled and clashed in the shaft, the cough of their fireballs like hollow thunder. The Greens made a different, wetter sound. Acid spit?
Grandion thundered, DIE, GREEN SLUG!
That was her Dragon!
Aware of a lunatic grin curving her lips, Lia drove the soldiers back with a flurry of arrows. Right behind her, Gaffazor’s claws gripped the edge of the shaft, forcing her to leap aside or face being crushed between talon and stone.
She had a crazy idea of how they might escape. “Flicker! Go to the gate! Insult the Dragon!”
* * * *
Picking up his battered body, Flicker stared at straw-head. Whatever was she thinking? Meantime, the Green Dragon heaved pas
t the metal cages, lifting his muzzle over the tunnel’s edge not five feet from Lia. She stood stock-still, frozen in that ready position which he hoped by his wings was the one that could spring into action in the flip of a dragonet’s wings, not the rooted-in-terror possibility which he had also seen a couple of times. Right. Insult the beast? Lia had picked the right dragonet for the job.
Over here, you crusty thousand-year-old swamp leech! Flicker shrieked. You decrepit son of a flatworm, you bilious glob of phlegm!
The Dragon’s head jerked.
Can’t catch me, you corpulent sot! Cud-munching quadruped! You’re a disgrace to your sire and your lineage, you wheezing, toothless lump of mouldy windroc excrement! You hang from that ledge like diseased snot dangling from a Human’s left nostril–
That was more than the Green Dragon could tolerate. His shoulders bulged as every muscle in his body tightened. The Green shot a Human-sized glob of acid spit at the dragonet. Flicker zipped out of the way. Direct hit! Two soldiers who had been creeping down the stairs behind him collapsed, screaming as their clothes and flesh hissed and boiled. The metal grating sagged as the powerful acid devoured the metal.
Oh, Lia was definitely his fire-eyes again! How cunning … Flicker performed a celebratory aerial somersault as Hualiama thrust at the Green Dragon’s eye, but her stroke only pierced his cheek. The Green Dragon’s paw blurred as he struck! Flicker gasped, but Lia twirled on the axis of her body, her blades lashing out with fantastic speed. Two of the Dragon’s talons spun into the air, surgically amputated by the venom of her strike. As the Green reared, bellowing his pain fit to bring down the mountain, a higher, whistling sound registered on the dragonet’s ears. The bravest Humans, cowering at the edge of the tunnel, were treated to the spectacle of Grandion’s stunning strike. The Tourmaline Dragon smashed into the far larger Green at a staggering velocity, his hind paws crushing his opponent’s neck against the tunnel’s edge. Bone cracked sharply.
Of course, Grandion could not resist striking a brawny pose atop the Green Dragon before its dead weight slithered back into the shaft. Flicker sniffed in annoyance, but was rather less annoyed when the Dragon’s paw snapped out to rescue Lia from an incipient attack.
“Over here, Princess of Fra’anior,” he said.
Vile green acid splattered the rock where she had stood.
“Allow me to deal with this ill-mannered lout,” Grandion continued, flicking Lia in one direction while he dodged to his left paw. Another Green smashed into the platforms where the Tourmaline Dragon had stood but a heartbeat before, roaring in fury and pain as he missed his strike. Grandion was in no mood to return the favour. Lightning flared. His fangs closed on the Green’s wing and with a ferocious bite, Grandion ground his fangs against the bone near the second wing joint.
The huge Green Dragon lunged, his jaw gaping so wide that he engulfed his opponent’s entire left shoulder in his mouth. Flicker shuddered at the power of that mauling. But Hualiama’s hands blurred into motion. She bent the Haozi bow so hard it creaked audibly, and suddenly an arrow leaped out to bury itself up to the fletching in the Green Dragon’s eye. The creature convulsed. It smashed Grandion against the tunnel wall before shuddering as it broke away, thrashing the cages like clanging cymbals and tumbling into the shaft.
The Tourmaline Dragon shook himself with the air of a wet hound. He rumbled, “Perfect shot, Hualiama. Thanks. Now, your Dragonship awaits. There is but one, a cargo vessel.”
“It will be enough,” she replied, smiling at the Dragon.
“One more matter,” said Grandion, thumping forward with all the arrogance of a victorious Dragon. Lia skipped out of his way. “These stairs must be cleansed of vermin.”
A Dragon’s fire roared up the stairwell.
Chapter 27: The Flight Home
Hualiama HUNCHED over the Dragonship’s controls, gazing out into the Island-World night. Grandion shadowed them upon the starboard beam, his scales lustrous in the moonlight, wings outstretched to glide at the slow speed of a Dragonship with a minimal expenditure of energy. Four more days to Fra’anior if the following wind kept steady, she thought, raising their overall speed to six or seven leagues per hour. King Chalcion had just finished shouting at her for her ‘familiarity’ with the Dragon and stormed off to his cabin. If he only knew … she gritted her teeth. She had enjoyed no word of appreciation from the King bar a grudging acknowledgement of their rescue effort. And a lecture.
Talking to her father was like trying to squeeze prekki juice out of a stone.
Flicker flew with Grandion, leaving Lia alone with her thoughts in the navigation cabin. She glared at the crysglass windows as though they supported Ra’aba’s regime. To her, the transparent panels symbolised the barrier between her and her draconic friends. Not very visible, but undeniably present. What Lia would not have given to be out there, with the scents blowing in her nostrils and the warm winds ruffling her hair …
Hearing the tread of someone stealing up behind her, Hualiama sighed. “I know it’s you, Mom.”
Queen Shyana said, “My Hualiama departed a girl, and returned a woman. What has wrought this change, daughter? Is it love, or loss? What has turned you into such a warrior?”
That girl might as well have been lost in the Cloudlands, for what had transpired after, must change a person’s very soul. But Lia rued the new distance between her and her mother.
“Mom, am I so difficult to love?”
“Oh, petal. It’s your father, isn’t it?” Her mother’s sigh contained depthless wells of grief. Tall and graceful in that most Fra’aniorian way, Shyana was a beauty like her daughter Fyria, and a dancer like Hualiama. Her raven hair fell to her waist, unbound for sleep. Her striking mauve eyes softened in sympathy. “He can be so stupid, so unbendingly proud! Chalcion sees being rescued by his daughter as an insult–to his kingship, to his manhood, I don’t know. He mutters about a royal ward issuing orders. That nonsense about the Dragon is just the smoke of those inner fires, petal.”
Nonsense? Lia allowed herself to be drawn into her mother’s embrace. That was exactly the problem. To Chalcion it was not nonsense. It was the tripartite pillars of honour, law and unshakable belief. Prejudices that ran as deep as the roots of Islands.
“Our main concern is who that Dragon is,” Shyana added. “Grandion is Sapphurion’s son, and not a good egg, petal. He’s been a liability to peace and a claw in his parents’ side since he cracked the shell. You just don’t see the evil in people, or in Dragons, for that matter. You’re kind and sweet–”
“Dragons can change,” Lia said.
“Petal … what attachment have you with that Dragon?”
Now she must tiptoe most carefully, because Shyana was so emotionally perceptive, she’d winkle the truth out of Lia before she knew it. She must tell herself that the Queen’s concern was legitimate, that Grandion could indeed be manipulating her as part of some overarching Dragonish scheme against Humanity. He might have lied about being a changed Dragon. Shyana, for her part, must sense something of Lia’s conflicted feelings and fear that their roots might drink from the most forbidden well of all.
Ironic. She had told Ja’al things could not be more or less forbidden, but she had been wrong. Some things were anathema, beyond the pale of reason.
Lia said, “It’s a debt of life, mother. Grandion feels obliged to me because, as I shared with you, I saved his life on Ha’athior.”
“Then he’s treading dangerously close to the Dragon law about interfering in Human affairs.”
“He is–but Ra’aba is allied with Dragons.”
Shyana said, “I hope you’re right. Perhaps Sapphurion will overlook the matter of the Island from which you rescued his son, and not be shouted down in the Council of Dragon Elders. It’s a complex situation which we need to approach wisely. Grandion’s request to offer us aid could easily be cast as Dragons helping Humans against Dragons. And you know how jealously they protect their precious
holy Isle.”
Grandion’s exact fears. Queen Shyana evidently concealed a shrewd and calculating political mind behind her ethereal, often mystical exterior.
Lia drew breath. “Mom, there’s something you need to know. Something more.”
“What? Secret warrior training?”
“Uh … that too.” Hualiama chuckled. “I am apprenticed to one of the Dragon Warrior monasteries. Please don’t tell Dad! He’d explode.”
The Queen chose this moment to arch an eyebrow at her. “Were the monks nice to you, daughter? Was there a special one?”
“Mom! Aye … there was.” Lia willed her ears not to start burning. “We kissed. But he decided to take his vows of celibacy and service, and we parted as friends. Mom, it’s worse than that. I know who my real parents are.” Now that she had cracked open this chest of secrets, she had to throw the lid right open in a rush, or her courage would fail her. “My mother was an envoy from the East, a woman called Azziala. I’m not sure she ever came to our court, because she was bound for Gi’ishior. But my father … well, you’ve seen my ears.”
Shyana’s hand flew to her mouth. “It wasn’t … he didn’t have an affair, did he?”
“Not Chalcion, no.” Lia had never considered that possibility. Which was worse? Swallowing painfully hard, she rasped, “Ra’aba.”
“Ra’aba? Truly, petal?” Her mother’s shoulders stiffened until she resembled a petrified tree, but when she spoke, it was to add, “I don’t believe it. Never was a daughter less like the father, were that the truth. Why would he not have told us? Clever, though, to keep you nearby where he might watch over you.”
Mother and daughter shivered as one. Lia said, “He never admitted it, because it was neither a happy nor a willing union.”
Shyana searched Hualiama’s eyes, her expression at once so empathetic and affectionate, it evoked tears effortlessly. “Oh, petal. And you believe you’re fated to oppose him? Your own blood-father? My heart weeps terrace lakes.”
At last, she could grieve with one who understood. Lia wept a Cloudlands storm of her own making, thoroughly wetting her mother’s tattered clothing. Such a burden of loss. The pain of the past, translated into the present. The father she had never known, and wanted so desperately to hate. The King and father she did know, who misunderstood and beat her; ungrateful and immovable as an Island. The love of a mother whose arms embraced her now, who would never have given Hualiama up–that was as certain as the suns rising to warm the Island-World. And a fate which drove her beyond what any soul should have to bear.
