by Jody Wallace
“We don’t know why, but it’s a common reaction to old magic for strong wizards.” Nadia recognized the speaker—an assistant physician named Kinjo that all the dragons hated because she was rough. Some said sadistic. But she clearly feared Victoria’s wrath. “We’ll also need privacy. We should return to my laboratory. The fewer who know the location of the new thrall crystals, the better.”
Nadia’s fate, it seemed, was sealed. But she’d known this the moment she’d poured her magic into Barnabas to save him.
“Right.” Victoria eyed Nadia as if measuring her for a torture rack. The soldiers confining her tightened their grasp until it hurt. “And she’ll need to be unconscious, so she doesn’t know where they are, either. Easily arranged.”
Nadia saw the fist coming but didn’t duck in time.
# # #
Barnabas leapt through the portal with an Earth gun ready to shoot anyone who interrupted his rescue mission. He landed in the crumbling portal room without mishap, though the portal spun a good deal of sand and dead leaves after him.
He appraised the area. No signs of Victoria or Shula, no signs of a dragon army. But no Nadia, either. The glowing moss was undisturbed on the damp rubble, giving the small, square room an eerie green glow. Whatever spores emanated from it instantly clogged his sinuses.
He was ready for it this time. A twist of the healing amulet on the bandolier and his allergens dissipated. No sneeze would give away his position to the enemy or distract his aim at a crucial moment.
He taped an orange amulet to his top hat, activated it, and strode forward with much better lighting. He’d used a healing amulet—he did have extra of those—to heighten his senses, and he didn’t hear anyone else in these blasted catacombs.
Would he be too late? He broke into a jog as soon as he exited the oldest section of the ruins. His backpack rattled, full of ammunition and amulets. Though he hadn’t known about the city-beneath-the-city a week ago, it seemed obvious the humans did. Even at a steady trot he could detect signs of their presence.
Unfortunately that meant he found no obvious trace of Nadia. No scent of her flowery soap, since he’d stoppered his nose, and no sound of her arguing voice. If she had gotten lost down here…but no. She had found the portal, and she could find the surface. And if she did not, well, Victoria had the tracking amulet and would locate her before she starved.
He paused before entering the final cavern, the one that had partially collapsed and allowed a murky lake to form. Did he—yes. A murmur of voices, which he placed at the nearly undetectable entrance to the ruins.
Victoria had already come and gone, and she had left a guard. They were discussing the mysterious catacombs and its origins with great puzzlement. As such, the women didn’t seem in a panic, so the war between dragons hadn’t yet begun.
He crept silently through the cavern until he could make out the glimmer of torchlight, voices, the faint sounds of the capital. The entrance to the catacombs was near the river docks in one of the busiest parts of the expansive city that had been built against some old earthworks.
The soldiers might be protecting the labyrinth from intruders, but they weren’t expecting an attack from behind. He counted down the bandolier until he reached the purple control amulet, whispered a spell, and sent the power of the dragon to put the guards to sleep.
Night had fallen in Tarakona, as it had back on Earth. Barnabas brushed off the shoulders of his greatcoat, buttoned it up to hide the bandolier, and marched down the alley, into the lamp-lit street that was teeming with traffic. His apparel would be out of place here, making him a target for pickpockets, but he didn’t plan to remain for long. The humans of the warrens slept in shifts, so the city was always awake. There was much industry here, much money to be made.
“Excuse me, my good man.” He approached a chestnut seller with his steaming cart. Lorries, carriages, and horses rattled by on the cobblestone street. “How long ago did you see the governor with her soldiers on this street?” There was no question in his mind they’d retrieved Nadia, else they would still be in the ruins; the question was whether he could still rescue her.
“You buying or asking?” The old man’s single eye gleamed at him with avarice. “I gots me ten childrens at home and—”
An explosion rocked the area, sending carts rolling, people screaming, and buildings swaying. Smoldering scarlet smoke lit the sky in the direction of the palace.
The battle had begun.
Barnabas clapped his hand on his hat and dodged the cart when it bounced off its moorings. Flower pots, laundry, and more tumbled down from the tenements above.
“Halp!” the old man cried out. “My cart!”
The steam cart careened off a lamp post and into the street, where a delivery lorry promptly smashed into it. Horns blared. People shouted. Refracted magic from wrecked lorries hissed and popped. Barnabas gauged the distance of the expanding cloud and retrieved his transportation amulet.
He had one hop left. His guess had better be right.
Chapter Eleven
Nadia woke screaming and cursing due to a fiery pain in her thigh. She jolted up, or tried to, but found herself bound by chains.
She was in chains, and Kinjo stood over her, crooked teeth bared, with a glowing poker that had a thrall crystal attached to the tip. An oblong brazier heated by red-hot coals contained a perfectly sized indentation for the poker. And her thigh had a long, thin burn mark straight across it.
“Hold still, little dragon,” the green wizard crooned. “If you’d remained unconscious, this wouldn’t have hurt as much.”
The burn throbbed, blistered, and boiled. There was no reason for Kinjo to have wounded her that way. No reason except malice.
“Why in the Goddess’s name did you wake her?” Victoria exclaimed, somewhere off to the right.
Nadia twisted around as much as the chains allowed and realized she was on a medical table in a tower room she didn’t recognize. Slit-shaped windows without glass allowed Tarakona’s chilly air and flakes of snow to whistle into the huge circular room. The temperature, of course, was bloody frigid, but not enough to negate the pain of her fresh burn. The stone table beneath her curved inward, cupping her body—and diverting any blood or fluids into a central channel. Diagrams of human and dragon anatomy covered the walls, as well as cabinets full of implements of medical evil.
Victoria, along with two white dragon attendants, waited by an iron door. Nadia, through her pain, was surprised to see anyone in the room besides Victoria, Kinjo, and a green and purple dragon pair needed for the ceremony.
“If she’s conscious at the time of implantation, the thrall will take deeper hold. It’s an…experiment I’ve been working on.” Kinjo’s gaze flicked toward Victoria and away again. “Don’t you want her bettered? I can subdue the more repugnant aspects of rebelliousness and ingratitude.”
“You can’t!” Nadia exclaimed. The other dragons whispered things about Kinjo. Bad things. No one admitted to being sick or injured when Kinjo was on duty, but sometimes the physician fetched them anyway. “Thrall crystals don’t work like that. Thrall magic doesn’t work like that.”
“Magic works however the wizard can channel it,” Kinjo hissed at her. “It is yours to provide and ours to control.”
“I don’t know, Kin. I confess, I would miss her…sass.” Victoria rubbed her long, elegant fingers over her mouth. “If she were a male, perhaps she’d need refining, but as a female…no, I can’t allow her nature to be changed. We’re risking too much, leaving her unthralled this long. Just get it over with.”
What precisely were they risking with her chained up and helpless? A spout of ugly cursing that injured their pristine ears? Nadia yanked at the chains and provided said spout of cursing, but her human form had little of her dragon strength.
Or…was that the risk?
“Cob-sucking jackhole. Mumbly cove. Rotten, moldy meater.” Nadia delved deep for the most offensive slurs she could muster. “You could
n’t magic a feather into the air. I notice you weren’t sneezing in the ruins. Weak, you are. Weak and grimy, which is why you’re always bullying the dragons.”
“Shut up, dragon, or I’ll poker your face.” Kenjo snapped her fingers at the green and purple dragons, and the small women obediently placed their hands on either side of Kenjo’s bare neck. Her hair was swept up in a knot of thin braids. “We’ll put the first one here.”
The physician inhaled in the magic of the dragons. Their lattices gleamed brightly beneath their skin through their diaphanous gowns, and their expressions remained stoic. Then Kenjo jabbed the molten poker into Nadia’s thigh.
Nadia screamed so loud she thought she might have ripped out her own throat. Healing magic poured into her, stopping the gush of blood, but the agony of the purple magic creeping through every centimeter of her lattice was worse than any physical pain.
She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t allow it. She fought against the invasion with every second of her stolen freedom, every ounce of her love for Barnabas Courtier, every spark of her silver magic. Out, out, out! She would not be this thing, this possession. Perhaps it would be better if she died.
Pain blinded her. Snow and steam whirled around her, green flashes, purple lighting. What was happening?
“She’s shifting, hurry!” Victoria cried out. “Trigger the crystal.”
Kinjo cursed. “Dragons can’t shift that quickly. Stop fretting, Your Grace. I just need to—”
Immense pain in her wrists, her ankles. Why was Kinjo attempting to squeeze off her hands and feet? Punishment for running? Metal clattered, pinging against walls, and someone screamed. Was that her? Repeated, agonizing jabs in her thighs, her side, her tail, as if Kinjo was attempting to tenderize her instead of implant her with a thrall crystal
Her…tail?
She didn’t know if her rage and magic caused the explosion, but she certainly took advantage of the chaos.
When the ceiling erupted in a firebomb, Nadia launched her dragon body out of the tower and into the black sky.
# # #
Barnabas popped into the castle courtyard and promptly shot the two guards who came running at him. Detonations that had nothing to do with him surrounded him. The rush of magic sparkled on all sides, and so many fires burned that the immediate area was bright as midday and almost sweaty. With a flick of a talisman, he opened a sun shield to ward off arrows. It wouldn’t work against fire spells, but against archers it would suffice.
One of the towers in Victoria’s grand palace had blown off its top, and red dragons swarmed the sky. The wizards shot gouts of fire at the palace complex in a suspiciously coordinated effort. Already the Great Hall ceiling, a domed masterpiece of stained glass and filigree, was in flames. Dragons from the stables, further from the courtyard, bugled a challenge as Victoria mounted a counterattack.
White dragons, iron dragons, black dragons, and orange barreled out of the darkness, wizards astride them. Magic flew between the opposing forces, striking dragons, the palace, and people below, as indiscriminate as the Goddess of Nature.
Apparently he’d interrupted a coup, or Nadia had precipitated one. It was his vision come to life, only he hadn’t recognized the palace in all the flames.
It didn’t matter. All he wanted was to find Nadia before the rest of his vision transpired and take her away from here, or die trying.
Where would she be? Caged in the palace, in the dungeon? Leashed to Victoria’s wrist, like a dog? The vision had placed her in rubble, chained, helpless, perhaps dead. He made a decision and headed for the shattered tower, skirting fires. It seemed most familiar…and the closer he came to it, the more sure he was she’d be near the top.
How could he climb this dratted thing? Would the stairs be traversable? He would use the special amulet on any thrall crystals implanted in Nadia and worry about the blood tracker later. If he got lucky, it—and Victoria and Shula and any who knew of the Earth portal—would be destroyed in the battle.
But then he saw something that absolutely had not been in his vision.
A dragon, huge, silver, and magnificent, curled on the other side of an intact tower. Her tail wrapped around it and her talons dug in, steadying her as she attempted to avoid the blasts of fire and ice. Black scorches marred her hide.
Was she enthralled? She had no defenses against flames, bombs, and whatever else Shula and her reds drummed up. She had no defenses against friendly fire. Silver dragons were not made for war.
But wizards were.
A red wizard produced fireballs that ruptured against the walls of the palace on impact. One exploded on the opposite side of Nadia’s tower, setting the roof aflame. Thanks to his enhanced senses, he could hear the wizard directing her dragon to fly closer. “There’s the trollop. Thinking she can hide that fat body. Sisters, over here!”
Well, that was that. Barnabas sought out his white dragon amulet. The pearl was cold as ice beneath his fingers. As a red dragon swooped toward Nadia, he sent out a rain of frozen blades, straight into the wizard’s back.
One clipped the dragon on the wing, and the squeal of injured beast resounded off the walls. The wizard toppled from the saddle and fell to the ground somewhere.
One down. And he knew where Nadia was. If he had a transportation amulet, he could whisk them both away, but they would need to escape via mechanical means, provided he could gain her attention.
The battle raged above. None of the combatants seemed worried about any wizards below. Indeed, most of the palace residents hollering and running in the courtyard were human, and few questioned him. Victoria’s wizards, after all, had dragons of their own. They were governor’s wizards. They didn’t stoop to amulets.
And his amulets were not endless. He ran a hand down the bandolier. Would they be enough?
He bolted, dodging falling masonry, across the embattled courtyard toward the base of the tower where Nadia lurked. Why didn’t she fly away? As he grew closer, he saw that one of her shining wings was mangled and bloody.
Dragons might be able to withstand injuries and germs in dragon form, but that had to be driving her nearly insane with pain.
“Nadia!” he called from the training grounds below the tower. “I’m here!”
She gave no sign she’d noticed. The humans appeared to be coordinating themselves, forming ranks of archers and catapults. Sergeants bellowed orders, waved battle flags. A horn blew and a volley of arrows shot into the sky. More soldiers appeared along the battlements. Victoria the Valiant had trained her army well, even against itself.
His time unhindered due to the chaos was limited. It appeared Nadia’s time was, too.
A trio of red dragons converged on her. The wizards blasted fire. Nadia scuttled around the tower, trumpeting her hate, barely avoiding the flames. Her good wing fluttered wildly as she balanced herself.
Barnabas shot ice at the three taunting wizards, but their flames sizzled it. Something better against fire…or fight fire with fire? His fingers found the flame talisman, and he dug a fingernail into the pumice like retribution.
When he smacked a concussive fireball into a red dragon’s armored belly from below, the beast went tumbling through the air. He could hear a wizard cursing. “Down there! The man in the hat! He’s with the silver.”
Two dragons dove for him, their wizards already flaming at the fingers. Shula, cursing his existence, thrust up her fist for a fireball. A dragon had a great deal more power than a mere amulet. Barnabas lunged behind a pile of hay bales used for archery practice.
The hay burst into flame. The dragons whistled past, blanketing the area in fire. Barnabas scrambled to extinguish the hay with a water amulet so the billow of smoke would hide his rapid relocation.
Somewhere less flammable. In the palace complex, that meant stone, as there was no moat. He listened intently through the crackle of burning grass to assess where the red dragons had gotten off to.
But those were not the dragons he should have been minding.<
br />
“BARNABAS!” Nadia screamed. “BEHIND YOU!”
Barnabas whipped up his sun shield and peered through the thick white smoke. Flapping wings parted the cloud. A green wizard on a small purple dragon hovered behind him.
“I’ll handle this, Shula!” she called to the others. “Take out Victoria before the reinforcements arrive. She’s on a white.” Her fingers glowed with a spell as she prepared to destroy him.
Defense against purple? Grimly, he turned his shield on its side and hurled it straight at the dragon’s neck. He hated to injure dragons, but it was the dragon or him.
Purples, like silvers, were not trained for combat. The dragon reared back, nearly unseating the wizard. The shield struck its soft underbelly like a saw blade. Blood splattered and the dragon screamed, rolling in the air in an attempt to dislodge the sun disc.
The wizard tumbled to the ground, barely saving herself from a right crushing when she cast an air spell that slowed her descent. Regardless, she landed with a thunk.
Barnabas drew his pistol. Fire surrounded them. “Wizard, surrender or die.”
The woman’s green hood flipped back, and she laughed. “You first.”
He fired, missed. Greenish-black strings leapt from her hand, striking him before he could properly aim the gun. Healing magic turned sour. The sensation was like all the wounds he’d ever had in his life reopening at once.
The rope of magic lassoed his torso. She yanked, using him as a counterbalance to drag herself to her feet. She howled with triumph and shot another surge of torture through the thin, throbbing wire.
Barnabas’s fingers went numb. He fumbled with the ice amulet. Lost the water amulet. He fell to the ground, finding it difficult to breathe. He hadn’t seen how he’d die in the vision, but it appeared that it would be at the hands of a mad green wizard.
But again, his vision proved inaccurate. Thunder shook the earth as Nadia launched herself off the tower and hit the ground beside him. Hard. Without wings she couldn’t slow her descent.
