Dragonfriend

by Marc Secchia

  “Right now, you are the twin suns rising above the Onyx Throne,” rumbled Chago, rushing to do Lia’s bidding, “and I am at your command, my lady. We have other Palace soldiers ready to rise against Ra’aba. Only say the word. We will stand with you.”

  “Rebellion is evidently catching,” said Ja’al.

  “It’s always the little ones that cause the most trouble,” said Inniora.

  Suddenly, from an unexpected quarter, formality slipped into Lia’s manner. Drawing herself up to every one of her five feet and two inches, she declared, “The true King of Fra’anior is at hand, Chago. Rouse your men and follow me.”

  “And women,” said Inniora.

  “And women,” said Lia, laughing softly as the tall Islander grabbed her into a rib-crushing embrace. “Glad to see you too. We brought you a present–your favourite sword.”

  Inniora nodded. “Thank you. I hope I can hold it.” Showing Lia her left hand, she said, “I lost two fingers to Ra’aba’s men, but they did not torture me much once they realised they had the wrong person, and knew nothing of your plans.”

  “Not much? Oh, Inniora.”

  “You’ll be weeping like Chago in a minute,” said Inniora, with a discomfited growl. “Lead on.”

  The dragonet said, You should send monks with Chago, or there’ll be confusion, Lia.

  Good idea, Flicker, she replied. “Brother Ja’al, will you detail ten of your men to accompany Chago and his Guards?”

  Ja’al’s lips twitched at the stress she placed on the word ‘brother’. “Aye. Second squad. See to it.”

  Lia explained, “Some of them can try to get the servants to safety and let these people out. The rest of us need to concentrate on finding our way to the Great Hall.”

  Chago’s appearance in the guardroom with a female prisoner caused an eruption of hilarity amongst his fellows. Their uncouth laughter lasted less than two seconds as a group of grim-faced monks crowded in right behind him, with Hualiama in their midst. Curses! Weapons slipping from sheaths! Sleepy men leaped from the pillow-roll, scrabbling for their weapons and armour.

  “Silence!” Chago bellowed.

  Lia stepped forward. With more than a crackle of Dragonish fire in her voice, she said, “Men, I am the Princess Hualiama of Fra’anior.” Her title did occasionally come in useful, she thought ruefully. “If you stand with the true King, then stand with us. Today, the traitor Ra’aba will fall.”

  With a flick of her Nuyallith blade, she deflected a thrown dagger onto the floor. The room exploded in violence. Soldiers grappled with each other. Monks raced forward, deadly shadows on the move. Hualiama found herself facing three sword-waving soldiers, with Ja’al at her side and Flicker above them. The dragonet scratched one man’s eyes out. Lia finished him with a straight thrust to the chest. Her hands blurred into a series of parries as a second swordsman took her on, only to be ambushed by Flicker. She glanced around to see Hallon and Rallon charging the stairs to the upper levels of the palace, where a group of soldiers tried to shut and bolt the dungeon door.

  “To me!” bellowed Chago. “Take them!”

  The metal door stood on strong ratchet hinges designed to halt egress from the dungeons. Behind it, Hualiama saw two or three dozen men wearing unfamiliar livery and wielding large war hammers, perhaps the mercenaries from Yaya Loop. The three big men charged the door. Rallon threw himself bodily into the gap, groaning as the door slammed against his chest and shoulder. Hallon hacked away above his brother, trying to stop the blades and war hammers homing in on the trapped monk’s head. Above them, the dragonet whizzed through the gap, turning side-on to fit his wings through.

  Having picked up a war hammer, Chago attacked the hinges with mighty overhand blows. Lia jerked forward. Arrows! Rapidly, almost falling on top of Rallon in her haste, Lia swung the Haozi hunting bow off her shoulder and began to place arrows through the gap, not caring what she hit as long as she drove the mercenaries back.

  Suddenly, an image flowered in her mind, taking over all else. She was in a different place. From afar, Lia saw a Dragonship slewing toward the pink quartz and black granite Palace building. Dragons lounged all over the Receiving Balcony, a flat, paved area where the King of Fra’anior traditionally met with the Dragon Elders. Sleeping, a watching mind told her, from what felt a great distance. Lia’s body shivered, but she realised her spirit was not there. It watched with one who powered through the first flames of dawn’s sky, driving his body to the utmost speed to reach the Human Island.

  A Green Dragon sat up. Her vision zeroed in on the Dragonship, magnifying the scene to an incredible degree. Men appeared on the Dragonship’s gantries, yelling and milling about in an obvious panic. They leaped over the side. Ha, she thought. Monks with the ability to levitate. But the Greens did not know that.

  Bellowing in shock and anger, the Green Dragons began to leap into the air, flapping, diving over the edges of the wide balcony. Too late. Less than five seconds separated their first warning from the Dragonship’s arrival, targeting the bunched Dragons perfectly.

  KAAAABOOM!

  White light flared, brilliant. Dark smoke mushroomed from the point of impact. Immolation in fire was no great danger for a Dragon, for they were armoured against it and even bathed in lava for sport, at least for short periods of time. But the force of a hydrogen blast did pose a danger for outstretched wing membranes. Two Dragons right in the centre of the blast fell immediately, howling in mortal agony. A third somersaulted off the balcony, crashing headfirst into the palace gardens. The others, smart enough to tuck in their wings or roll away, survived, but not unscathed.

  Lia shuddered, sensing the shockwave through her knees. For a second she felt disoriented by being back in her own body.

  Ra’aba must be awake now!

  Scrambling to her feet, Lia squeezed her petite frame through the gap, even as Chago’s prodigious blows made the door shudder and sag on its hinges. She rolled beneath a half-seen blow and stabbed her swords into the nearest mercenary’s gut. Monks crowded behind her, but Inniora beat them all, her long sword flashing in a huge overhand blow that cut down a mercenary to Lia’s left, who had been lining Rallon up for a fatal hammer strike.

  The bearded mercenaries gave no quarter. Again and again, Lia found herself having to curtail her flowing Nuyallith forms for lack of space. This was a problem she had not envisaged. The style was not only useful for single combat, was it, or combat against Dragons?

  Outside, a rousing roar similar to the onset of storm winds and rain announced the arrival of the King’s forces, the third prong of the attack. But above the rumbling sounds of battle, Lia heard the thundering challenges of Ra’aba’s Dragons. That was her concern. Even given Master Jo’el’s idea of mobile war crossbows on carts, any ground force battling Dragons had to be at a severe disadvantage. However, King Chalcion would have it no other way. No sneaking about for him. He intended to lead a glorious frontal assault on the palace gates.

  The monastery forces spread out through the below-ground servant quarters, securing them despite the mercenaries’ fatalistic, last-man-standing attitude to defence. Bloody hand-to-hand fights developed, with the outnumbered monks slowly prevailing by superior skill and passion. Gaining a few seconds’ space, Hualiama surveyed the battle from an alcove just within a large hallway, hung with ten-foot tall artworks depicting common scenes of Fra’aniorian life, which housed the only two staircases leading to the upper palace levels. The Royal Palace had been designed this way for security.

  Around her, knots of monks and Chago’s warriors of the Fra’aniorian Royal Guard led servants and families down to the safety of the dungeons, while the battle on the two wide, parallel staircases raged without ceasing, neither side gaining an advantage. The mercenaries were well armed and shielded their archers at the top of the stairs with tall oval shields. Any unarmoured monks attacking across the open areas leading to the base of the stairs, were vulnerable. Scores already lay inj
ured or dead. Lia knew they needed to change the balance. Their dwindling force would pose little threat to Ra’aba otherwise.

  A Grandion-sized fireball would have been useful in this situation.

  Racking her brains for ideas, Hualiama’s gaze fell on Flicker flying overhead, dive-bombing mercenaries. Aye. That was it.

  “Chago. Inniora,” she rapped. “Get every water gourd you can find in the slave quarters and empty them. Ask those families downstairs. Ja’al, there are stores at the back of the Palace. We need oil. Fast. Get five of the small barrels. Hallon, Rallon, tear up cloth for fuses.”

  Ja’al’s eyes widened. “You’re going to burn them.”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  Shortly, out of sight of the mercenaries, oil began to glug into gourds. They stuffed the mouths of the gourds with oiled cloth and prepared braziers with fire.

  Lia handed out gourds. “On my mark, we light the fuses, charge out there and throw these at their heads. Flicker, you take a few and drop them from above. Then, we break for the Great Hall. Chago, you and Inniora will lead a force upstairs and try to break through to the Great Hall–but you’ll be the diversion, so please don’t risk too many lives. Ja’al, I need a dozen monks to come with me. We’re going another way. Maybe we’ll surprise Ra’aba.”

  They lined up in the rooms opposite the stairs, dozens of monks and Fra’aniorian soldiers grimly clutching their oil gourds.

  Lia nodded, remembering their battle cry from Ya’arriol Island. “For the Dragon!”

  The monks all shouted as one, “For the Dragon!”

  “Light up … go!”

  Shouting their battle cries, Lia and her group burst through the doorway and across the twenty feet of open space leading to the stairway. Flicker shot ahead, already above the mercenaries. He dropped his deadly load. Lia flung her own gourd, scoring a direct hit on their shields. Flame sheeted toward the ceiling. Black smoke and terrible screams filled the hallways.

  Oh well. King Chalcion would have to put up with a few of the kingdom’s treasures being burned.

  “Go!” she screamed.

  Crying, “For the Dragon!” the mixed group of soldiers and monks charged the stairs.

  A few arrows winged their way, but mostly the mercenaries were rolling on the ground, helplessly trying to put out the oil fires as they burned alive. Lia knew that she would hear their agonised shrieks in her nightmares forever after. The monks dived through the leaping flames, charging into the halls beyond, clashing violently with the squads of Ra’aba’s mercenaries waiting there. More gourds flew. More treasures burned, but Lia cared little for them. Each life lost wounded her afresh.

  Lia broke to her left, past a blazing tapestry. “Follow me!” Ja’al and Flicker paced her, the other monks a step or two behind. Sprinting through a series of richly furnished reception rooms, they came to the western wall of the palace building. “Through the windows,” said Lia, fighting with the window locks.

  “Oh, Islands’ sakes,” said Hallon, shouldering her aside. With a swing of his war hammer, he shattered the priceless, stained crysglass panels. “After you, Princess.”

  Hualiama leaped out almost onto the back of a Royal Guard. Flicker was already all over the man, razor sharp talons slicing any exposed flesh. Lia despatched the soldier with a thrust of her blade, while the giant twins leaped past her, closing with a further couple of Royal Guards. The purple robes fell.

  “Around here,” Lia panted, leading the charge through the ornate formal gardens, called the Queen’s Joy. “The Great Hall’s just above us. There’s a balcony… some vines on the wall … played here as a child.”

  “Give me that,” said Ja’al, helping himself to a throwing knife from her wristlet. He hurled it into the throat of a guard running toward them.

  “Up here,” Lia pointed.

  Without a word, the monks began to climb the dark walls. Meanwhile, the royal ward plucked a couple of poisoned darts from her bodice and flicked them at a pair of mercenaries who seemed to think that she presented an attractive target. They fell, convulsing uncontrollably.

  Now it was her turn. Lia swarmed up the linger-vines which covered most of this wall of the palace. Up past the senior servants’ recreation rooms, up past her old tutor’s chambers, she climbed the three floors to the balcony outside the Great Hall. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the King’s forces beset by Dragons, fighting at a standstill just a few hundred feet from the palace gates.

  Then she was up and over the protective wall of the balcony, whipping out her Nuyallith blades to join the fray. Ja’al and his monks hammered into a squad of four or five dozen Royal Guards.

  “For the true King of Fra’anior!” she screamed. “Are you with us?”

  The soldiers laughed.

  At last she had the space to truly fight, and fight she did, in that curious mental state where rational thought was suspended by the imperative of the battle-song raging in her veins, the roaring between her ears and the clash of metal against metal.

  Whirling the ultra-sharp Nuyallith blades about her spinning body, Hualiama sliced into the squad of soldiers, causing even the veterans to fall back with alarmed cries. She was fire. She was the dance-step before death. She breezed between their clumsy blows. Lia was appalled to hear her own laughter rise over the clash of battle, hungry and fierce, all bloodthirsty passion and a Dragoness’ delight in the kill. She skidded to a halt beyond the soldiers, confronting a second squad of purple-clad Royal Guards pouring out of the hall.

  What was she doing? What had she become?

  “With me!” cried Ja’al.

  Thrusting with his hands, the young monk impelled a number of the soldiers out of their path. The purple robes smashed into planters filled with exotic flowers and tumbled over the edge of the balcony. Riding the force of Hallon and Rallon’s charge, the monks broke between the enormous green marble pillars which separated the Great Hall from the outside world.

  The fighting was fierce, but Hualiama had eyes only for the far end of the Great Hall, where the Onyx Throne of Fra’anior stood. A single monolithic block of dark, sparkling onyx carved in the likeness of a seated Dragon, the arms were the Dragon’s paws and the seat back, a stylised Dragon’s head rising above the king’s head, which had rubies the size of a man’s fist for eyes, and six-inch garnets for teeth. Its wings spread fifteen feet either side of the seat. This was the symbol of Fra’anior, the ultimate seat of power.

  Upon that cold stone throne, flanked by two stolid Green Dragons, clad all in black save for his purple robe of office and a golden circlet upon his brow, sat the false king.

  Ra’aba.

  Chapter 29: Ra’aba

  CHills racked Hualiama’s spine as she locked her gaze upon her nemesis. Finally. All of her life, it seemed, had been spent in preparation for this moment–since before her birth. Ra’aba sat deep in consultation with two ranking soldiers, as if the fighting did not concern him in the slightest. Then, he appeared to sense her special animus. Great rivers of fire rushed in her ears as his sallow, unfeeling eyes sought her out, unerring. Piercing her soul.

  Ra’aba’s brow furrowed.

  Was that a flash of concern she saw, of recognition, before the fighting closed in? Hualiama threw herself furiously against the Royal Guards, those same men who had bent the knee, swearing to serve the true King of Fra’anior. Her blades burned the air. Pain scored her side. She stumbled over a fallen soldier, but Ja’al leaped in to turn aside a blow aiming to detach her head from her shoulders.

  When Hualiama had an opportunity to look again, Ra’aba was on his feet. His usual sneer had reasserted itself. Making a curious gesture with his right hand, the Roc said, “Separate her to me.”

  At once, the disciplined Royal Guards closed about Lia like fingers pinching a bud. Hualiama fought like a madwoman, but the soldiers worked in concert to beat her away from her friends. Suddenly, she was ejected into the open. Alone. A half-cir
cle of steel cut off her retreat. For a second, all Lia could think of was how exposed she felt, similarly to the time Grandion had become strangely possessive of her at the blue pool. Then, her anger surged.

  “So, Ra’aba. Pleasantly surprised to see me alive?”

  “Surprised, aye,” he growled, stalking closer. Lia noticed his hand did not stray far from his sword-hilt, even though he appeared relaxed. “Pleasantly? No. Why won’t you just lie down and die like the good little girl you always were, Lia?”

  Flicker landed on her shoulder, baring his fangs at the Roc. Lia was grateful for the dragonet’s support. Having wished for the courage of a Dragon to confront her father, hers was more dragonet-sized. Nevertheless, she forced scorn into her reply.

  “Dying’s overrated, Ra’aba. Besides, you’re fouling the Onyx Throne with–”

  “Big words, little Lia,” he sneered. “How’s your back?”

  She shrugged, allowing her Nuyallith blades to fall to her sides, palms held outward in the second ready position as she matched his slow approach step for step. “I was healed by a Dragoness. You see, while you’ve been trying to grasp a kingdom which is not your own, I’ve been out there, learning and growing in my skills.”

  His derision bellowed around the Great Hall. “You still think you can beat me?”

  “That prophecy is so awkward for you, isn’t it?”

  His yellow eyes blazed. “What do you know about the prophecy? Nothing! Besides, I don’t need to fight you. There are a dozen arrows trained on your heart even as we speak.”

  His gesture brought to her notice archers arrayed on the galleries around the magnificently appointed hall, where the great balls and functions of royal Fra’anior took place. Lia returned her attention to Ra’aba, pretending unconcern.

  “How then shall I address you, o false king of Fra’anior? The coward king? He who hides behind his soldiers and archers and Dragons. King yellow-belly the toothless. More sparrow than roc. You’re a liar, a traitor and above all a fool, because you’ve stirred up the wrath of the Dragon Elders. They’re on their way here right now, Ra’aba.”