by Devin Hanson
"If that's what it takes. Move forward, you idiots! She can't shoot you through the armor."
Muffled footsteps and the clank of armor. Andrew leaned around the lip of rock he was hiding behind and saw three men in suits of plate armor. Even in the dim light, he could make out the pattern of runes etched into the metal and a lot of cosmetic golden curlicues. Despite their protection, Andrew could see they were afraid in the way they hugged the rock and hid behind their shields. In the back was Trent, arrayed in finery that Andrew couldn't even begin to put a price to, holding what looked like a large shard of bone in his hand.
A flash of white made Andrew duck back behind the rock ahead of a flurry of ice shards that shattered on the rock where he had just been.
" Jules, if you don't want your guide getting hurt, tell him to stay out of this!" Trent shouted.
"Leave him alone!"
"You're so sensitive, Jules! What's he worth to you? Worth giving up your life of wandering? Maybe I'll just kill him and get him out of the way."
"I'll kill you, Trent, I swear to the gods."
Trent laughed, a high-pitched giggle. "You were never able to compete with me, Jules. I've always had the better flux. Your daddy never could spring for basic supplies."
"Do. Not. Bring my father. Into this. So you want to play that way?" Jules reached into a pouch and pulled out a dragon scale clenched in her gloved fist. "I've the mother of all fluxes now, Trent, you pig whore!"
Syllables rolled off her tongue and though Andrew recognized a few of the runes, it was far different from the Sayings he had learned. A lance of fire shot from her free hand and Andrew saw it rip through an armored figure and burrow into the cave wall behind. Syrupy molten rock blasted away from the wall before the flames disappeared, leaving a gaping red hole behind like a freshly yanked tooth. The man collapsed, his armor ripped open in the center of his chest, the edges glowing red hot and fused; the flesh and bone of his chest had fared no better than the armor and a hole was burned clear through, from collar to sternum.
He was dead before he had a chance to scream.
Andrew stared, horrified. Igan was bad enough, but such a concentrated blast of fire was... he couldn't even think. It had never occurred to him what the results of Igan or other runes would have when applied to a living person. The smell of flash-charred flesh rolled over him and Andrew was violently sick.
"Pull it together, Andrew," Jules called over to him, her face grim.
"If you run, I'll kill you myself," Trent shouted, then made his own Saying, murmuring under his breath. The air shimmered about Trent and his three remaining men. "There, you're protected. Now move forward, damn it!"
"Come on, Trent! Fight me like a man!" Jules shouted. "Or are you too afraid to face me on your own?"
Trent pushed through his guards and shouted a Saying, sending shards of ice screaming through the air. Jules ducked behind her cover and waited it out, then swung out, the air about her rippling as the last few ice shards shattered a foot in front of her.
Jules shouted another Saying, some of it runes that Andrew knew. Da, stone, Ig, fire, Ir, air, and others that went by too fast for him to identify. The walls exploded inward around Trent and his guards sending rubble and stones the size of Andrew's head slamming into the shield Trent had throw up. The left side of the shield failed and one of the guards was buried under a slide of rubble.
"Move forward!" Trent screamed, drawing out a whip-thin sword and slapping the flat against the backs of his guard. "I can't hold her off forever!"
They stumbled over the strewn rubble, their helmets making it hard for them to tell where rocks were. Trent repeated his ice shard Saying and Andrew ducked back behind cover. Jules held her hand out almost contemptuously, calling out the shield Saying. The shards blasted themselves into slivers.
"The same old Sayings," Jules derided Trent. "Two years in the Academy and you haven't learned a thing."
"I've more than enough Vitae to take you down!" Trent replied, sending another wave of ice shards at Jules.
She laughed. "Your money has always been your only power. I know gunnies with more strength of will!"
Andrew smiled at the sideways compliment. He was better than Trent was? He bent back to his carving. The Igan was almost complete. Despite the taste of bile lingering in his mouth, there really weren't many options he could take. He had to support Jules. And doing that meant fighting.
Trent's face went red. "You will submit yourself to me! I have a writ from the Council of Lords! Enough of this nonsense!"
"The council can sit and spin on their writ," Jules called back. "You're just afraid you can't best me."
Trent replied by sending wave after wave of ice at Jules. Andrew saw her concentration deepen, the muttering of her repeated Saying muffled beneath the cacophony of shattering ice. Despite her words, her shield wouldn't stand up against that beating for long.
With great care, Andrew put the last jag into the Igan, taking the time to make it at precisely the right angle, exactly the right length and just the right depth. A storm of flame leapt from the torch, a pillar of raving heat. The rocks near the flames softened and started to drip, the sand glazed and bubbled.
Andrew saw his gloves begin to smoke. It felt like he was standing in front of a forge fire at full stoke. The shards of ice shooting towards Jules were reduced to blasts of steam. Andrew whooped and stood, ready to push the advantage.
"Andrew, get down!" Jules shouted.
Trent shouted something lost in the roar of flame and a solid wave of air crashed into Andrew, sending him flying back into the cave wall. The torch spun out of his grasp and landed facing Jules. She spun, redirecting her shield to deflect the flames.
Trent shouted a Saying and the torch blasted into splinters; the flames winked out as the Igan was destroyed.
Winded, Andrew sagged to the floor, writhing as he fought to get his breath back. His vision blurred, a giant sunspot blacking out everything but his peripheral vision.
Jules took two steps toward him then the rock wall behind her exploded. A rock caromed off her head and she collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. After the deafening roar of alchemical combat, the sudden silence echoed in Andrew's ears, broken only by the slow bubbling of the melted sand.
"You idiot!" Trent's boot crashed into Andrew's ribs, doubling him up again. Trent sheathed his rapier and straightened his jacket. "You two. Escort Ms. Vierra aboard the ship. I'm going to have a little chat with this illegal alchemist."
Andrew watched from the ground as the two armored guards hoisted Jules between them and carried her off. He felt dazed and his ears rung both from the noise and from having his head bounced off the cave wall.
"You must be Ms. Vierra's guide," Trent said, his lip curled in refined distaste. "Or perhaps her pet?"
Andrew moaned.
"Yes, very intelligent." He knelt down next to Andrew and turned Andrew's head with a hand gloved in fine kidskin. "What did she bring you up here for? It's not like her, going after a living dragon. Oh yes. She's not nearly as brave as she might lead you to believe. Just a lost girl who needs to be sent home to daddy."
Andrew made it to his knees. "Jules is twice the alchemist you'll ever be!"
Trent casually backhanded Andrew across the face, knocking him on his back. "Don't speak of what you know nothing. Now, I'll ask you one more time. Why did she bring you up here? There must be something here worth the danger."
"Why don't you ask the dragon?" Andrew groaned from the floor. "I'm sure she'll be more than happy to inform you."
"She? The dragon is a she?"
Andrew rolled over and worked his way up to his hands and knees again. Spat out blood. "You've got Jules. Just go." Inwardly, Andrew cursed himself for the slip of the tongue.
"No, I think not."
Andrew felt Trent's boot slam into his chin and sparks shot through his vision. He struggled to stay conscious as his vision flexed strangely and blackness crept in. Strang
e sounds assaulted his ears; in his disoriented state, he couldn't make sense out of anything. Shouts, boots pounding past, more shouting. A man screamed. The ground shook.
The ceiling of the cave flushed red. Andrew rolled onto his back, holding onto awareness by a thread. A deep thrum shook him to his bones then a deafening roar echoed through the cave.
Andrew's last conscious awareness was the light from the cave entrance being eclipsed by something huge.
Chapter 19
Kossirith
Andrew woke to a screaming headache and a crunching sound. It was sweltering.
"You are awake."
Andrew sat up with a groan and pressed one hand to his damp forehead. His eyes were open, but all he could see was a red glow in the darkness. "Where am I?" He looked around, trying to place where the voice had come from.
"Do not move." The voice seemed to come from nowhere, and everywhere at the same time. "If you move, I will kill you now. Why are you here?"
That didn't sound good. Andrew stopped moving. "What am I doing here?"
"I tire of asking. Answer!"
Andrew squeezed his eyes shut, counted to ten, then opened them again. No, he must still be dreaming. "Sorry? I mean, if I knew where here was, I might be able to answer your question."
"You are in my cave."
Memory returned to Andrew with a crash. Oh. Tiny gods. Suddenly the red glow resolved to the light given off by a pool of sluggishly bubbling magma. Darkness shifted in darkness and Andrew got the impression of a massive presence next to him.
"You're the dragon!"
"Yes, I am of the Koss. I will repeat the question. What are you doing here?"
Andrew took a deep breath and pressed the heels of his hands against his throbbing skull. He was having a really hard time thinking. "I..."
"Your friends left you."
"Trent is not my... oh gods, you're a dragon! I'm talking to a dragon!"
"It is strange." The dragon agreed. "But you still have not answered my question. What are you doing in my cave? I grow tired of speaking to no result. Your vitae is needed."
Andrew swallowed. Tried to come up with a good excuse, figured the dragon would see through any hasty lie and decided to tell the truth. "We came seeking for scales."
"Ahh..." The dragon rumbled a long sigh that seemed to go on for nearly a minute. "And what did you plan for this theft?"
It came to Andrew that the words the dragon was speaking were not actually words of the usual sort. The dragon made noises, yes, grunts, clicks and growls, but meaning was transferred more directly. It was almost as if Andrew knew what the dragon was going to say before the ‘sentence' was complete. He fumbled for words, trying to summarize what he knew of alchemy into a single sentence. "I carve runes, and hoped to learn more," he finally managed.
"Mmmm." The black bulk moved and suddenly the dragon's head was inches from Andrew's, one gleaming eye nearly a hand span across looking into his own. Red light from the nest gleamed off the subtle curve.
The burnt cinnamon smell was so strong Andrew felt his eyes start to water. He forced himself to hold still, to meet the gaze. He trembled, but oddly the overwhelming fear was gone, replaced with awe and a creeping suspicion that he really should be running for his life rather than having a conversation.
"You are a Runemaster?" The dragon's breath washed over Andrew. Instead of the horrible stench he expected, it was merely hot and dry. A pleasant surprise, to say the least.
"I am learning," Andrew said carefully, unsure what to make of the sudden interest.
"But you know Igan, the fire?"
Andrew nodded mutely.
The dragon reared and roared, beating her great wings and driving Andrew to his knees with the buffeting gusts. His ears rang with the echoes and he curled in on himself, desperately shielding his ears from the clamor. His efforts did nothing to stop the dragon's voice from pounding into his head, "Come, Kossirith, your vitae is safe. Carve me an Igan and I will let you live, even forgive you your transgressions against the Koss."
The dragon settled with a ground-shaking crash and Andrew warily peeked out between his arms. The dragon was once against watching him, one eye staring at him a few feet away. Feeling sheepish, Andrew made his way to his feet. "I will carve you a powerful Igan," Andrew promised, "but it might help if I knew the purpose?"
"Hm... Indeed." The dragon swung her head around to regard him with her other eye. "I was badly wounded in the fight with the ship that flies. My store of vitae," she whuffed, blasting sand and pebbles with the force of it, "gone. The effort of healing my wings to return to the cave drained my stores. My eggs, they will die without the flames, the Igan. I cannot keep them hot now without dying myself."
Andrew stared up at the shadowed form of the dragon. The light from the nest glinted off the edges of the dragon's scales, making her seem ephemeral, like a cloud of sparks. The heat that he associated with the dragon was gone. He felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the dragon. If Jules had been right in how infrequently dragons breed, the loss of the clutch of eggs was devastating.
"I will do everything in my power to aid you," Andrew promised. It was odd, but right. Humans, in Andrew's experience were rarely worth sacrificing for. There were the exceptions that proved the rule. Jules, for one, he would fight for. Milkin as well. But there were precious few others in all his life who were worth any degree of effort. The dragon, though, needed his help, and he felt a strange kinship with her, more so than any human he had ever met.
"Of course you will. You are Kossirith," the dragon said. "Dragonspeaker, in my tongue."
"I'm what? How do I understand you?"
"You are Kossirith," the dragon repeated, as if stating the obvious.
"Oh… Sorry. I'm… this is new to me." Andrew walked over to the nest, stepping carefully to avoid kicking a boulder in the uncertain light. The nest glowed with heat, four eggs nestled close to each other sunk halfway into the liquid rock.
"Four!"
The dragon screamed in rage, deafening Andrew. Pebbles and sand sifted down from ceiling, and the dragon's tail lashed around, carving gouges through the walls of the cave in explosions of rock shards. "The ranno kossar! Egg thief! Forbidden is it, for a hundred generations! The Koss will avenge my loss with blood and fire. Humankind has spread too far and the Koss have been too lenient."
"Please!" Andrew shouted, "please wait. And can you please be quieter? I am human, remember? The man who stole your egg, Trent Priah, he is a… he is evil, even among our kind. Do not judge all humans on the actions of one man."
The dragon's head swooped down, five yards from snout to the horns on the back of her head. She looked at Andrew, her eye within touching distance. "You are Kossirith," the dragon said, her rumblings quiet, barely audible. "You are not human. Not just human."
Andrew shook his head. "Listen, I have no idea what you're talking about. But I promised to help you. In any way I can. If that means tracking Trent down and getting your egg back then I will do so. Until I do, hold off on the genocide?"
The dragon's nictitating membrane flicked over her eye. "You would go against your own kin?"
Andrew's face twisted with a sudden flare of anger. "Trent is no kin of mine," he spat.
"Mmm. It has been over two thousand years since one of the Kossirith was in league with the Koss. But I have not yet forgotten. Not Avandakossi. You will make the kossarigan, the egg flame, and you will hunt down the ranno kossir. Such is as a Kossirith should."
Andrew swallowed. What had he just agreed to do? Hunt down Trent Priah, one of the richest men in the kingdom? His determination hardened. Lord or no lord, Trent didn't deserve the egg. No man did. "Is that your name? Avandakossi?"
"Such is as the Kossirith of old called me."
"Okay, Avandakossi, or can I call you just Ava?"
The dragon rumbled and Andrew realized she was laughing. "You are impudent." The great head swung back down for another closeup inspection. "But I like that.
You may call me Ava."
"Okay. Ava, I will make you a, what did you call it? Kossarigan? But I've no idea what it is. Or how to make it."
"You know the Igan?"
Andrew nodded.
"Then it will be a simple matter. You must carve it into a rock. The rock will heat up, turning it into a kossarigan. It must be hot enough to melt the da, the stone."
Andrew wiped some sweat from his brow. This close to the nest, the heat was like the inside of a smithy. "Alright. I can do that. What size stone did the Kossirith use to make the kossarigan?"
In response, the dragon reached out, pushed a clawed hand into the wall and tore out a boulder the size of Andrew's torso, roughly equivalent in size to one of the eggs. Ava placed the boulder at Andrew's feet and he danced back to avoid having his toes crushed on accident.
"This one will do."
Andrew placed one hand on the boulder and pushed with no effect. He gave it a cursory inspection and found that despite its rough edges and corners, it was solid. He could detect no fractures, but he was no mason or sculptor. He didn't even know how this particular stone would react to being heated to high temperatures. It looked solid enough, it wasn't sandstone or some other softer rock. Jules' words came to mind, cautioning him against runing or performing alchemy without first considering the consequences.
He smiled wryly. All things considered, this was a poor time to grow cold feet.
"I need my pack, Ava. It's in the tunnel."
"Then you had better get it," the dragon responded
Andrew felt his way toward the tunnel, visible in the ruddy darkness as a vague area of refracted white light. How long had it been since Jules had been captured by Trent? How long had he been unconscious? Where was Jules now? Was she still alive, even?
He found his pack and slung it on his back. The movement put pressure on his belt pouch and he was surprised to discover his scale was still inside. Apparently Trent hadn't thought to search him for a scale. If Trent had been in Jules' position, his guide would not be carrying around a king's ransom in his pocket.
It wasn't his scale. Not any more. It was Ava's scale. Dreams of wealth beyond measure fizzled out and died. It was a loss of something he had yearned for years to acquire, but the decision to give the scale to Ava filled him with a sense of rightness and well being.
