Chaos Shifter

by Marc Secchia

  Cactus-Dragon? Asturbar’s belly shook with amusement.

  Writhing to his feet as he took a pummelling from the Shadow Dragon, Azhukazi’s heavy backward step punched those long, needle-sharp and predictably purple spikes right through his paw. GRAAARRGGH!! howled the Iolite Blue, hopping about like a demented locust. GRROOUURRGHH!

  Ouch. That had to hurt.

  Azhukazi tried to twist his neck backward to bite the offending spike ball, which Nyahi improbably still managed to make look girly and cute, but a Dragon of his physical proportions could not easily reach the base of his hind paw, not without a few spine-wrenching contortions. Snap! Clack! His jaws trapped thin air as the Shadow Dragon piled into him once more. Ah, now he understood. They were trying to manoeuvre the Iolite toward Aranya’s posse of helpers!

  Suddenly, Miss Mischievous Spikes sprouted a tiny muzzle. She giggled, “Having trouble there, Azhukazi?”

  “GET OFF!” He shook his paw.

  “Can’t make me.”

  He was so proud of that girl, he could have popped. Snark! Attitude! This from someone who had to be coaxed into merely showing off her ankles a couple of months back?

  Azhukazi’s eyes bulged. He reared up and stomped! GRROOUURRGHH! His bellow struck an ear-stabbing note of pain, while the Iridium Dragoness again seemed unharmed. Ardan hammered his chest and neck with a series of fisticuffs so powerful that the impacts shook jewels loose of the walls. Actually, Nyahi’s giggling was becoming annoying – which was exactly the point. Indeed.

  As the rolling battle shifted away, with the Iolite Blue desperately favouring that paw, Shan-Jarad said plaintively, “Would you mind putting me down?”

  Asturbar set him down and wagged a very large finger beneath the man’s nose. “You. Me. We’re going to talk, Uxâtate.”

  “Right now?” shrilled the ruler. “Somebody, a scimitar! Archers! Hit that Dragon.”

  “Which one?” someone shouted.

  “The blue!”

  Roaring, “YOU SHALL DIE!” Azhukazi hurled himself at Ardan. The two huge Dragons clashed with angry roars, trading blow after brutal blow, each landing with a dull, booming thud against scale armour or a sharper report when bone came into play. Azhukazi punched Ardan in the lower jaw and again tried his bone-wrangling trick; Asturbar saw the Shadow begin to be dragged forward helplessly before Aranya, in the background, made a nugatory gesture that nonetheless freed her mate. Ardan slammed the point of his left elbow into Azhukazi’s ribs, provoking a pained wheeze, but his follow-up clawed strike of the forepaw only gouged the other Dragon’s throat a foot deep as Azhukazi flung his head backward. Sharp! Ardan poured forward, radiating menace.

  BLAM! BOOM! No holding back for these two males as the levels of violence escalated. Ardan would have the beating of the Iolite Blue physically, Asturbar judged, but victory depended upon keeping his bones within his hide.

  Ardan, Iridiana – watch out! Aranya warned abruptly.

  Lightning mingled with ice flared around the Iolite Blue, driving the Shadow Dragon aside in a ferocious flurry of razor-sharp shards and prising Nyahi loose with a squeal of spines against bone. Whirling with blinding speed, Azhukazi snapped toward the ball. His jaws clamped down; an obtuse expression creased the corners of his mouth as he tried to work out what had just happened. A neat bouquet of mauve petals dangled from his lower lip, chuckling fearlessly. He clearly tried to deploy the same power he had used to defeat Iridiana before, but a thin, shimmering stream of magic shot from Aranya’s battle group, negating his vocally frustrated efforts.

  The hind paw refused to take his weight as the Iolite Blue slewed beneath another blurred Shadow attack, while Nyahi taunted him with increasing boldness from her position upon his tongue!

  Azhukazi’s fire-eyes drew in entirely to black – a colour Asturbar had never seen in a Dragon’s eyes before. Then, hysterical draconic laughter boomed around the room. “You can never defeat me. I am Azhukazi!”

  With the help of a green flare of his signature, marrow-tapping magic, he tipped up his muzzle and bundled her dracofloral form straight down his throat!

  For the longest half-second of his life, Asturbar thought that was the end of all things Nyahi. Then, the Dragon made a gargling noise. His long neck convulsed. Choking! Tongue drooping, his jaw gaped as he tried to expectorate the Iridium Shapeshifter, but as Asturbar caught a glimpse of her lodged deep in the back of his throat, he realised she had switched back to that cactus-like form, her spikes sinking three feet deep into the powerful muscles of the Dragon’s throat. Azhukazi’s breath whistled agonisingly as he tried to cough or vomit up his attacker. He released his inner fires over and over, but the firestorm stuck behind the obstruction and only a little vermilion flame dribbled around the edges, together with billows of smoke. Lightning! Ice! This form seemed impervious to his attacks, or at least highly resistant. Was Aranya protecting her? The Amethyst Shapeshifter flinched frequently as she focused every ounce of her concentration upon the Iolite Blue, working her defensive techniques. Yes! This could work … even as he entertained the thought of victory, Azhukazi lashed out with a desperate psychic blast that poleaxed every soldier in the hall, and likely the better part of the citadel too.

  Even Aranya crashed to her knees, her head lolling, and her flotilla of seven dragonets fluttered to the floor like stray leaves. Killed? No. The Amethyst shimmered, replaced by a Human form that looked only marginally less dazed than her Dragoness. She tried to rise and promptly collapsed. Aranya’s forehead smacked dully against the rubies; crimson splattered upon gemstone red. That would not help her looks – he loathed himself instantly for this thought. O Fra’anior, heal thy granddaughter!

  White pain blotched Asturbar’s vision, replaced by a curtain of crimson that sheeted over his left eye. The pressure surge must have blown the blood vessels. He must be the one to fight. He was built for this, and he would never give up against the Dragon who had destroyed his home and tortured his girl.

  Despite that he was half-blinded, the Azingloriax warrior staggered to his feet, struggling to lift his battle-axe. He glared at Azhukazi, snarling, What does it take to kill you, you pox-sucking slug?

  One fire-eye rolled in his direction with uncharacteristic torpor. Kill? Ah, the Star … yes …

  The words seemed to take fifty diversions on their path to understanding in his brain. Yes. Aranya was the key. Go, soldier! Asturbar lurched forward one step. Now a second. The Dragon did the same.

  The strangest race of his life developed as they both angled for the fallen Star. Asturbar could not feel his feet. His legs seemed bolted to ten-tonne weights, so languid were his movements. Azhukazi, beaten and bloodied, could manage little better. For every five of Asturbar’s steps, the stricken Dragon took one. The Dragon’s knees wobbled severely, while the last of his breath whistled through his swollen throat. He had injured himself in trying to dislodge her. Talon marks scored his neck where he had tried to claw his tormentor out bodily. Yet, even at the crux of his distress, a Dragon of Azhukazi’s age and vast power meant he still possessed resources he could call upon, and a physiology that could withstand vast extremes of punishment. He gathered pace, each paw step thudding against the ground like the booming knell of the death-drum. Asturbar matched him, pushing his body beyond its limits as he eked out a tiny lead.

  Sapphire was up! Gathering the tiny ones to herself, the dragonet peered at Aranya, her eyes widening in shock. Asturbar hurled himself headlong across the final ten feet. Snaffling Aranya’s prone Human form into his huge left arm, he scooped up two of those white mites with a flailing lunge of his axe blade, and dropped them into his right palm. Pray he had been gentle enough. Here came Azhukazi’s fist, swinging down brutally to finish them both … he roared as he braced himself for the impact, curled all around a body that felt so acutely like Iridiana’s, in his mind his protective posture was for her alone …

  A paw clamped upon his left boot, and yanked them both backward!

  KERRUM
P!!

  Azhukazi missed his blow, but the bone of his wrist caught Asturbar’s helmetless head with a terrible, glancing crack! Good thing he had personal metallic reinforcement up top. Shaking his poor, much-abused cranium, the soldier was just in time to see the Shadow Dragon fold him and Aranya neatly through space as Azhukazi charged by – jaw, talons, tail, the Iolite Blue missed with everything he had and smashed headfirst into the throne, shattering the priceless ruby seat.

  GNAA-URK! coughed the Necromancer. GURK-GURK!

  Asturbar cried, Nyahi! Flare – now!

  Was she even conscious? Injured? Dying? Desperate, he willed her to respond. Please, please o Fra’anior, please let her be –

  O my Boots, for thee … a psychic kiss.

  There was no other sound, just a flowering of dazzling iridium whiteness that began beneath the scales of Azhukazi’s neck and spread upward toward his brain and downward along his chest and flanks. A second later, a neat butterfly-dragonet fluttered free of his disintegrating throat.

  The Iolite blue crashed to one knee, stricken. No … cannot die …

  No-one spoke. There was no need, for his final mortal breath rasped across his cremated lips, an accusation or a curse against Nyahi, it seemed. His fires fled into eternity.

  Sapphire squeaked, My heroine’s a dragonet?

  WHOOOMMP! Everyone ducked as Azhukazi expired in a pyre of black fire that licked up to the ceiling of the Grand Hall a hundred feet above their heads. His sooty sapphire bones stood like a perfect Dragon for an endless second, and then clattered in a heap upon the ground.

  The hush seemed to arrive like a thunderclap.

  An interminable second later, Iridiana performed a jubilant and decidedly wonky aerial somersault. We did it, Boots! Boots … why are you cuddling Aranya?

  Asturbar leaped to his feet as though burned. Wasn’t! What? Protecting … um … sorry! So sorry!

  Iridiana burst into peals of joyous laughter, and then exploded into pyretic celebratory fireworks, zooming up toward the vaulted ceiling. From way above she trilled, I love you, you silly soldier! I love, love, love … everything …

  Bones rasped across the floor.

  Asturbar wrenched his neck in turning. Yes. Not done yet. He met a pair of amethyst eyes, questioning him without speaking. We have to crush the bones, Princess. It’s the only way.

  Half a breath later, she wheezed, Ardan, would you go dance on those bones, please?

  With pleasure, thou my treasure beyond measure.

  Horribly clichéd rhyming. Aranya seemed to like it, however.

  The Shadow stepped carefully around them, minding his paws and tail with almost comedic concern for their wellbeing, and then he pounced! A grin tugged at the corners of the Marshal’s mouth. The Western Isles warrior Dragon was a dreadful dancer, but he did not lack for enthusiasm. He pounded that pile of bones as best he could. He whirled and leaped and stomped, but the Iolite’s skeletal structure seemed to have been made of unbreakable stone, for the bones did not shatter or suffer to be ground into dust. Instead, they kept shifting and trying to link themselves back together.

  Azhukazi’s greenish mist began to leach from the bones. His power seemed to coalesce from a place beyond death, proclaiming that he was not yet done fighting.

  More. Harder, o Shadow, Aranya taunted, but her twisted lips flattened into a grim, white line.

  This is ridiculous, snorted Ardan, doing a whirl-stomp-blast routine that whilst inelegant, shook the entire Grand Hall and dislodged a fair few tonnes of its finery in the bargain.

  Scan his allies. He was certain a number of Shan-Jarad’s soldiers had perished, but Yazina was just now coming around, moaning softly, and Aranya – crawling on hands and knees – was already at her side, no doubt touching her with healing power.

  Leandrial rumbled, “Honestly, can’t I trust you little ones to finish a job properly?”

  Asturbar glanced up, startled. The great Land Dragoness had to be lying flat on her belly, and had somehow contrived to tilt her head to peer inside a collapsed section down near the entrance of the Grand Hall. Her white fire orb entirely filled that view. Even he could tell she was amused. He would save his glee for the moment that Iolite Blue Dragon was properly dead!

  Shan-Jarad looked too, and turned even greyer than he had been before. Aranya should definitely check his heart.

  GRRR … Ardan snarled as pieces of Azhukazi’s paws gripped his left wing, piercing its membranes with talons that as yet lacked sheaths. “Doesn’t die easily, does he?”

  Asturbar said, “Yes, noble Uxâtate. If you hadn’t let us in, we would have requested our friend to tap gently upon your front door. Now, Leandrial – I take it you wish us to shovel this little pile of rubbish outside for you?”

  “Forthwith, little ones!” she boomed.

  Very soon, Asturbar had the impression that they might more easily have herded fifty feral Dragons through a combat training course than try to force these obstreperous bones to behave. They bucked, dodged resisted, clattered together, thwacked Ardan across the nose three times, and tried to strangle Nyahi before the Dragons eventually laid enough paws and shields and draconic whatnot upon enough bits of Azhukazi, keeping them separate for long enough to exit the Grand Hall through a wide doorway, which opened upon a ceremonial walled garden set in a courtyard area. Here, Leandrial gently rested her knuckles upon the emerald sward to receive their grisly offerings. Immediately, the bones tried to leap together and form a whole Dragon; Leandrial clamped her forepaws together, and slithered away with as much care as she could manage. The citadel survived, but her elbow snagged a hundred-foot section of the defensive wall. Oops. Remodelling needed.

  “The portico! Follow me!” shouted Shan-Jarad, apparently invigorated by the incipient demise of his enemy and lifelong tormentor. Asturbar was not sure he had followed the entire story of brother, Chameleon and Iolite Shapeshifter – too many details skimmed over for his liking – but he was more than eager to observe Azhukazi’s final downfall, too.

  They charged back the way they had come, gathering a posse of confused soldiers en route, exited the citadel’s front door at a run, and were just in time to see Leandrial’s paw descending past the top of the battlements.

  “Up!” shouted Ardan.

  To the further vocal alarm of the Palace Guard, their Uxâtate was whisked into the air by an enormous, sooty black Dragon, while the Amethyst Dragoness placed a weeping Yazina upon her back in Dragon Rider position and Asturbar rode upon Iridiana’s paw. Sapphire had meantime hitched a ride upon Aranya’s shoulder, together with her mites. Oh! He opened his hand carefully. Yes, his two were alive. He sighed in relief.

  BOOM!! The citadel leaped on its foundations.

  “Unbelievable!” snorted Leandrial.

  This was as she raised her paw, and the bones instantly sprung up from being pounded six feet deep into the edge of the Uxâtate’s portico, upon which his soldiers were still groaning and lolling about in various stages of distress, and began to arrange themselves like soldiers on a parade ground. Some of the joints were starting to re-form their sinews and ligaments already! That a Dragon could wield his might from beyond the grave …

  Asturbar’s tongue could not resist. With a noticeably hysterical edge to his voice, he heard himself yell, “Honestly, can’t we trust you great ones to finish a job properly?”

  Holy Fra’anior! The immensity of Leandrial’s displeasure shook a great deal of extremely expensive crysglass out of Shan-Jarad’s window frames. Then, she smiled. Asturbar was not convinced he trusted that exact grin contorting a leviathan’s lips.

  Scooping up the misbehaving bones, Leandrial hurled them into the air with an irritable flick of her wrist. Way, way up into the gathering purple of the evening they flew; a shinbone launched itself from below in a belated attempt to rejoin the skeleton which was patently taking on the fully embodied form of an undead Dragon.

  After a dreadful pause, her light cannon fired a series of ultr
a-concentrated pulses. KA-KA-KAABOOM!!

  Vaporised.

  That, and if there were any windows left whole in the entire Ruby City, he would be exceedingly surprised.

  Leandrial sniffed, Help me gather that dust, noble Star Dragoness. I plan to sink it into a volcano thirty leagues from here. How I despise practitioners of Dramagon’s lore!

  Iridiana whispered, Is he truly gone, Leandrial?

  Truly, little one, you own the boasting rights. There is no detectable trace of magic, living or dead, in his remains now. I am so very, very proud of you all, my tiny tyrant slayers!

  * * * *

  Less than an hour later, Shan-Jarad pressed shut the doors of his private apartments, having dismissed his servants with firmness that warned of terminal prejudice against ears pressed to keyholes, and turned his attention to his visitors.

  “Thank you for waiting so graciously,” he said. “This is the only place I believe we can talk undisturbed. Drinks?”

  Berry cordials, iced water and warm spiced arrabis tea were the orders of the day, while the Uxâtate openly stole glances most often at his daughter, but also at his guests – especially Aranya, who had returned to her customary, fully veiled appearance. Asturbar could almost smell the man’s mind sifting through the events of the evening and their implications. He had better not be concocting any fresh lies. At least his begging for Nyahi’s forgiveness a moment back had seemed genuine. That might save him a little future pain. Just a little.

  To his surprise, Yazina touched his arm. “May I?”

  Asturbar managed something along the lines of, “Er-um-yes?” The young teen perched on his knee. She had lost so much, he realised. Not that he knew much about mothers or fathers, having never known his. Her face appeared so pale and drawn. Surreptitiously, behind Yazina’s back, Nyahi took his hand and drew his arm about the girl. Oh. Maybe having children of his own one day would necessitate a bit more practice. More observation. The girl leaned her head against his shoulder, and heaved a shuddering sigh.

  “Yes. My thoughts exactly.” That was all he could think to say, but it seemed to suffice.