The commotion Brutal’sloyal retainers raised, as they sought to keep him from harm, dropped to a jangling halt. Brutal reined in his own snorting horse, the beast half-rearing. At his shouted command, even his Sins wheeled their mounts, still trying to circle him and protect him with their living bodies. Brutal sat his excited mount, jerking his reins, his right hand raised high. Dust from their horses’ hooves roiled upward, clouding the sunlight.
“Cease!”
Silence descended over the hilltop. I saw the knot of colorful soldiers surrounding Brutal halfway down the hill, Brutal’s crown glinting in the mid-day sunlight. Horses whinnied, heads tossing, manes flying as those soldiers still afoot mounted up.
Beyond the hill, the main army camp also ceased its daily activities of eating, sleeping, making weapons, tending horses, sharpening swords, building cookfires, and teasing the ever present camp followers as the tension from the hilltop rolled its inevitable way down.
To this day, I’ll never understand how Rygel did it.
While still in the hawk’s trim body, Rygel’s very human voice shouted down and out. Through his power, he produced a voice that was heard not just on the hill, for Ja’Teel. Everyone in the camp below heard his rolling voice like thunder in the valley. Brutal and his loyal guards paused to listen. Horses quieted.
“Hey, Ja’Teel,” Rygel’s voice boomed, amplified, echoing from everywhere. Had I not known where he was, I myself might have been confused as to where his voice originated. “Remember that time in the great hall?”
Ja’Teel stiffened, his eyes and magic still searching for his enemy, his kinsman. I couldn’t help but notice how his skin paled when Rygel spoke. In that instant, I knew Ja’Teel knew his best could never defeat Rygel’s worst.
“Remember how you threw that stink bomb at me?” Rygel asked, laughter in his huge voice. “Remember how I translocated you to the ceiling and held you there? Remember, cousin?”
Ja’Teel wheeled, drawing his sword, searching for the source of Rygel’s voice, searching for his enemy to fight.
“Don’t tell me you forgot,” Rygel sneered. “Surely you remember how you bawled and babbled like an infant in front of the entire royal court. Are you still afraid of heights, Ja’Teel?”
The dark wizard wheeled. “Show yourself, coward,” he grated hoarsely.
“Did you tell your new friends how you pissed your drawers, little man?” Rygel asked, his voice heard not just on the hill and the camp, but probably in Soudan. “How you cried and wet your pants? Did you tell them?”
Ja’Teel screamed.
“Girl,” Rygel said deep within my mind, protocol obviously forgotten. “Spread your beautiful wings and fly now. Fly west, find Raine and absolutely don’t look back.”
Ja’Teel sprang into the air, sparks and smoke following behind his airborne boots. Instantly he changed.
Where a young man draped in black with clinking spurs at his heels arose into the thin air, a reptilian dragon now flew. Broad leathery wings, swept up and down, flames erupting from its blunted snout. A long tail tipped with a fork trailed long behind it, its front claws tucked under its belly. The dragon swept low overhead, then banked around, flaming at the snag where Rygel and I hid. The size of a barn, it flew awkwardly, barely maintaining any altitude if I were any judge of decent flight.
To my untrained eyes, it appeared sluggish, barely maintaining altitude. Its belly bumped over the top of the snag, breaking off tree limbs. Fortunately, Rygel and I were a rod or so below that, but I could not help a reflexive duck. Wings beating hard, it floundered its way higher and banked around, flaming.
It appeared too ungainly and awkward to be very fearsome.
But its sheer presence frightened me.
“Rygel,” I squawked urgently. “That’s a dragon.”
Rygel laughed, a deep-throated rumbling sound. “That’s not a dragon.”
Instantly, he changed.
I watched in horror and wonder as the red-brown hawk transformed between one heartbeat and the next. The snag of newly murdered trees bent, broke and fell asunder under the immense form that grew from within its heart. The branch I perched on broke under me, forcing me to flutter to another further away.
Where once a small hawk rested on a branch, a huge-reptilian shape now grew, doubled in size and grew some more. The snag popped and screamed, threatening to fall apart under the weight of the huge beast that now sat atop it.
If I thought Ja’Teel’s dragon was big, Rygel’s dwarfed it.
Birthed from the snag, a bronze dragon, three times the size of Ja’Teel’s version, with four limbs, colossal wings and twin horns upon its head, opened its leathery wings and roared its challenge. A creature of incredible, deadly beauty, Rygel’s dragon took my breath away. I couldn’t tear my eyes from him.
Impossibly huge, sail-like wings shadowed everything beneath them. The bright, hot sun could not possibly compete with its immensity, and the dragon’s shadow darkened day into night. A tail ending in a spade-like tip, razor-sharp at the edges, swung high over me. I ducked without thought, but the heavy barbed tail destroyed not me, but Brutal’s pavilion.
“That’s a dragon,” Rygel’s voice spoke within the depths of my mind.
The dragon’s sharply pointed, impossibly beautiful head, raised itself toward the ugly imitation above it. Rygel’s huge beak snarled, revealing rows upon rows of back-curving, wickedly sharp teeth. Reptilian eyes, green-gold in color with vertical slits for pupils, narrowed in rage as Rygel stared up at Ja’Teel.
From those huge jaws, flames erupted with the force of an angry volcano. Up and up, toward the firestorm above it, flames belched out of those marching ranks of long teeth. Dragon fire hit the dark wizard’s dragon and enveloped it.
Ja’Teel’s dragon banked sharply, almost falling from the sky, and winged frantically to gain more altitude.
I watched in dreadful fascination as the real dragon launched himself into the air. The down stroke of those incredibly colossal wings held all the contained force of a hurricane. Only the shelter of the huge tree pile prevented it from blowing me into oblivion. Below Rygel’s insane roar, I heard the screams of men and horses.
Below and slightly behind me, Brutal’s Sins and army commanders finally got Brutal to see sense. Two huge dragons from ancient legend battling in the skies above proved too much of a security risk for Synn’jhani comfort. I caught a glimpse of Brutal’s crown bobbing amid the plumes and flying manes as the mass thundered through the camp. Disregarding the safety of his own people, Brutal fled and, again, survived.
Turning around on my branch, I witnessed panicked horses galloping, many dragging their picket lines with them, as they careened blindly in all directions. Camp followers screamed, some dressed, many not, and fled in panic. Soldiers, servants, slaves, common workers, too, took to their heels, leaving the army camp almost deserted. Men in the uniform of royal troops ran side by side with slaves, chasing loose horses in a vain attempt to ride to safety.
For who was not safe once the King himself bolted? Whom, indeed, would survive the meeting of two dragons?
Was I safe?
Clinging to my branch, I found my curiosity a stronger need to satisfy than my need to fly and remain alive. Dammit, I wanted to witness the meeting of the two twins.
“Go!”
“But—”
Rygel’s voice slammed into my head. “Do it!”
I obeyed him, leaping off my broken branch and catching a warm thermal. Up and up I rose, flying fast, rising high. My body against the sun, I looked down at the dragon battle below me.
The dark, evil twin, flying as fast as he could, belched out flame as he dove toward the larger, slower Rygel. Rygel didn’t even bother avoiding Ja’Teel’s dragon fire. The dark wizard’s flame scorched all along Rygel’s left side. I winced, even from where I flew, expecting a roar of pain.
Rygel’s reaction? Zilch.
Rygel’s bronze hide where Ja’Teel’s fire hit it wasn’t even marred. Wh
ere I expected a black streak at least, I saw nothing. In turn, Rygel snaked his head under his wing, performed a swift barrel roll in mid-air, his wings wrapped close to his body, and rose under Ja’Teel’s belly. Flames burst from between his jaws with the fiery eruption of a volcano.
From where I flew, high above, I heard Ja’Teel’s bellow of agony.
The heat from the fearsome exchange created yet more thermals that sent me even higher. This just won’t do, I thought. I folded my wings and dropped like a stone.
In an attempt to evade Rygel’s flame, Ja’Teel tried to imitate the feat Rygel had just pulled and roll sideways. From what I saw, it appeared his wings tangled together and he fell several hundred rods toward the earth before he recovered himself.
Good heavens, I thought, doesn’t he know how to make his wings work?
Rygel pounced on him as I might stoop upon a squirrel. He dropped from the sky like a thrown rock, his front talons out. Ranks upon ranks of razor-sharp teeth gleamed in his huge, widely gaping maw. He hit Ja’Teel solidly, tremendously strong jaws bit deep into Ja’Teel’s neck, his talons slashing across his back.
Ja’Teel screamed.
His flames belching, his own teeth clamped tight on Rygel’s taloned foot.
Yet, his teeth did little damage I could see.
Hurt or not, Rygel let him go. His wings beating heavily, Rygel rose higher, catching a thermal, his long neck snaking under his wing to watch as Ja’Teel caught himself before he slammed into the ground. Forcing his wings into better action, Ja’Teel rose ponderously, sluggishly. His flames streaked past his jaws as he sought for, and found, Rygel.
The good twin, the strong twin, my friend, swept up and back, forcing his enemy to chase him. Higher and higher he flew, Ja’Teel’s awkward wings making him work harder than Rygel’s effortless flying. Gaping, I admired Rygel’s raw, primitive beauty, his sleek lines, his grace in the air that put even Bar to shame. Would that I could rival such effortless grace, or fly half so well—
Rygel ignored his enemy for a space, dove earthward. Wings wide, his long snake-like neck curving down, he blasted past a hard-working Ja’Teel. That idiot flapped uselessly in a circle to follow.
Rygel’s breath of fire blasted Brutal’s camp, sending anyone who hadn’t already fled into chaos. Horses whinnied in panic, men screamed in fear, tents and pavilions whooshed into flame as Rygel banked up, his forelegs tucked neatly under his shoulders, his clawed hind legs and tail streaming out from behind him.
Having never seen a dragon before, I watched in stunned amazement at his fluid elegance, his effortless flight, contained in a body so huge he dwarfed even Bar. Rygel’s dragon was a creature of unbelievable beauty. Did they truly look like that, fly like that? Maybe my hawk needed an upgrade.
The dark twin belched out smaller fireballs the size of ripe melons at the dragon he chased. Rygel’s scaly hide, whether by magic or by the very nature of itself, repelled every attack with nothing, not even a black stain, to mar its bronze, rugged splendor. Ja’Teel’s fire bounced off Rygel as easily as a stone skips across a lake.
Sweeping up, Rygel blew past my startled beak, rising higher and faster than I ever could.
“Why haven’t you gone yet?” Rygel’s angry voice hit me hard, striking like a blow to my head.
“Uh,” I replied, helpless. “I want to watch.”
“You idiot! Get out of here!”
I obeyed him. I dove down, folding my wings and dropping closer to the earth. Winging westward, I slowed and circled, unable to take my eyes off the two dragons fighting. I couldn’t help it: I had to watch.
After he swept up and past me, Rygel had banked, offering his unguarded flank to Ja’Teel as bait.
Ja’Teel took it, flaming hard, his fire catching Rygel broadside. Inwardly I winced, thinking Rygel must have been hurt by that one.
Ja’Teel flew past, still flaming. As he passed by Rygel’s immense body, Rygel’s heavy tail swung high and hard. It caught Ja’Teel across the chest, striking with all the force of supple tree trunk.
Ja’Teel flipped, head over heel, dropping once more toward the earth.
Mere rods from certain death, Ja’Teel forced his wings to work. Floodwaters spewed out in a fine spray as the wind of his awkward flight forced the water back upon itself. Ungainly and awkward, he climbed back up, seeking the altitude that kept him alive.
Unharmed and unscathed, his dragon wings beating quickly, Rygel suddenly shifted. His huge dragon head with his twin horns replaced the space where his tail had been the instant before. Had I been swimming, I might suddenly dive and turn in a pool of water in the same fashion. Yet, I’d never have achieved the same speed or grace.
His returning flame caught Ja’Teel hard, from above.
Again, I clearly heard a solid bellow of agony.
I circled, allowing the hot humid air to lift me, gazing to the north.
Ja’Teel threw the fight to Rygel then and there. Turning tail, he beat eastward, his awkward wings working hard to keep him airborne. Dark grey smoke trailed from his body in large plumes, the wind from his passage turning it into weird cylindrical orbs behind him. Though Rygel flew many rods behind Ja’Teel, his hugely belched flames burned his kinsman’s forked tail.
Climbing higher, Rygel gave chase, his jaws gaping wide to flame higher and faster. His leathery wings forced the air itself into slavery, flying with a speed and grace unequalled by any feathered raptor. Flames erupted from his jaws in sweeping bursts, driving the smaller dragon before it. Fighting fire with fire, I mused, holding back devilish laughter.
When I last saw Rygel, he chased Ja’Teel’s imitation dragon across the sunlit sky. The smaller, ungainly idiot fled from Rygel’s true dragon relived from the ancient stories. Rygel chased his cousin toward the distant horizon, his huge wings casting the sun into shadow.
I circled about, watching the cloudless sky. The battle of the air had long since disappeared from my sight and hearing. I supposed I should have followed Rygel’s order and headed west once Rygel’s dragon hit the sky, but dammit, I wanted to watch. Now there was nothing left to see except Brutal’s army trying to reorganize its forces and catch horses who earlier headed for home and stable.
I rose higher, peering down at the ruin Rygel made of Brutal’s organized camp of war. I choked back a laugh. What the Wrath of Usa’a’mah did to the forest and the city of Soudan, the Wrath of Rygel did for Brutal’s camp. Wagons, food, tents, carts and Brutal’s pavilion still burned. I saw nothing but wreckage; what wasn’t burning was broken, or damaged beyond repair. People—sobbing camp followers, servants, slaves, peasants—escaped, running in a steady stream toward the distant city. Horses galloped free, dragging lead ropes, bridles, pickets; hopeful riders chased them, cursing.
I saw no sign of Brutal. Nor, I observed with interest, did I see any Tongu, or hounds or big black panthers. Hmmm. They disappeared awful fast. I sighed. Time to go. There’s nothing more to do here.
Catching an updraft, I let it lift me high, my wings beating slowly as I flew west. I turned my head this way and that, under and behind, hoping to see Rygel winging back toward me after thrashing Ja’Teel soundly. No dragon. No red-brown hawk. No pretend dragon looking to singe my feathers. Still casting about, I noticed no other birds flew above or below me. Only the empty blue sky or the desolation below met my fierce hawk’s gaze.
I was alone.
Say what?
How could I be alone up here? Where the other creatures that usually filled the sky? Other hawks, sparrows, eagles…wrens, robins? Hello? That’s ridiculous. I swallowed hard. I was too far from the scene of the battle for the locals to have been frightened away.
“Rygel?”
No answer.
“Come on, Rygel. Talk to me.”
Only silence met my mental call. Fear squirmed its wicked way into my gut. Despite my being a hawk and Rygel a dragon, he spoke to me quite clearly. The mental link was still there. Was he too busy chasing Ja’Teel t
o answer? Was he perhaps out of, so to speak, earshot?
Was he dead?
“Rygel, so help me, if you’re dead I’m going to kill you myself.”
Could Ja’Teel have turned the tables on him, led him into some sort of trap? Was Ja’Teel more powerful and cunning than Rygel estimated? Could Ja’Teel’s awkward and incompetent flying and bellows of pain have been but a sham? If Rygel was dead—
What would happen to me?
At his death, would the magic around me dissolve, turning me back into a human? In mid-flight? I gazed down at the hundreds of rods of empty space between me and the miles of deadly spiked tree trunks and limbs.
I gulped. Had I been human, I might have sweated. That’s a lot of empty space below me. Maybe I should fly lower. Yet, I could fly mere feet above the tangled forest and still be badly hurt or even killed by suddenly falling into the tangled snags of downed trees. Lower was no good.
Another thought hit hard. If Rygel was dead, would I remain a hawk for the rest of my life? While I enjoyed flying and being a hawk, ruling Kel’Halla was out of the question. I might adapt to being a hawk for the remainder of my days, but my people would flat refuse to follow a bird whose commands they couldn’t understand. Nor could I blame them. I myself would refuse to have a bird as my monarch.
There was also Raine to consider. While hawks and wolves mated for life, we at least had to be of the same species.
As I saw the monastery’s buildings on the horizon, I put aside my crazy thoughts of Rygel’s death. I forced myself to relax. Until I knew for certain that he was dead, I suspected I worried in vain. Time would tell soon enough.
Lining myself straight west of the monastery, I flew on, searching for Raine, Kel’Ratan and the others. To my dismay, I found them quite easily. They hadn’t managed even a league. Riding in single file, Raine lead the way on his flashy stallion, Mikk’s reins in his fist. Behind him rode Kel’Ratan, leading Rygel’s black gelding. My boys rode at a careful walk, so busy watching the ground in front of their mounts’ feet, they never looked up. Corwyn brought up the rear, leading Arianne and Tor in the grey mare’s saddle.
Catch a Wolf Page 16
