“I am loyal to the dragons and the land, and I have been since I became a dragonseer,” Charth said.
“That’s right. For now…”
All this time while the exchange between Alsie and Charth was happening in the collective unconscious, I was trying to work out what to do next. Faso was screaming out his own worries from the back seat, but I wasn’t listening to him too much. Wiggea was characteristically and courageously quiet, seemingly trusting that whatever action I took would be for the greater good.
“Pontopa, can you hear me?” Faso shouted. I’d zoned out a little during my conversation in the collective unconscious. But now, I decided to grace Faso with an answer.
“I can, Faso. And if we retreat, Alsie will follow us to the base and that will be the end of us. This battle needs to happen here and now.” I wasn’t entirely sure that Alsie would follow us, of course. But I didn’t trust her one bit.
I could feel the strength of thousands of dragons from Fortress Gerhaun approaching. Gerhaun hadn’t decided to accompany them. But if she had, she would have needed to leave the pirate at the base. She needed the answers out of him even more urgently than before. If Alsie and King Cini hadn’t kidnapped Taka, then we needed to know who had.
“Pontopa, you’re crazy,” Faso said. “We fly in and they’ll shoot us down for sure.”
“We have a whole force at our disposal,” I pointed out.
“And dragonheats knows what else that woman has in store.”
“Oh dear, oh dear.” Alsie’s voice sucked me back into the collective unconscious again. “I ask you to retreat and still you don’t think it wise. You know, I really don’t have time for this. And, I guess there’s no harm in reducing the numbers in Gerhaun Forsi’s forces.”
There was a shudder again and I looked over my shoulder to see a hatch opening on one of the Mammoth’s backs. Out of it, came a swarm of Hummingbirds, glowing green in the low light. “Dragonheats,” I said.
I turned the dial on the front of my mask to let more secicao gas through. I took a deep breath of this and alertness suddenly washed over my senses. The entire battlefield ghosted into a faint green and I could see all the automatons. Thousands of war automatons in a line. Hummingbirds, emerging not just from the back but from several compartments arranged across the Mammoths’ huge hulls.
“Retreat!” I shouted out loud. And I let out the song to instruct the dragons to do the same, urgent and stochastic. Staccato notes that told them, indeed we had to act fast.
“Finally,” Faso shouted.
But I kept Velos towards the back of the retreating flock. We’d need the firepower of the Gatling guns to shoot at the Hummingbirds as they attacked us from the rear. The aim was to meet up with the larger flock of reinforcements before the automatons even reached us.
The swarm of Hummingbirds approached us in swift force. Many of our dragons couldn’t get ahead of them, and they were brought down to the ground. “The scream, Charth.” I said. If he used it, he could bring them down.
“Dragonseer Wells, if I use that then… It’s a gift of Finesia.”
I tightened my mouth. Alsie had said that the more Charth uses Finesia’s abilities, the closer it would bring Charth to the edge. “We don’t have a choice,” I said.
“But, it’s still no use. Alsie would just overpower it. And there’s too many of them. Fleeing is the better option.”
Meanwhile, Velos’ guns started working on their targets and shooting them out of the sky. But still this was a battle I knew we couldn’t win. Beneath us, on the ground, the soil crumbled beneath the secicao and more war automatons popped out like moles. Wellies knows how many of these Alsie had posted and when we’d finally leave them behind. We had no way of telling how large the size of the enemy was.
They fired as soon as they came out of the ground, felling more dragons. Strangely, none of the shots seemed directed at Velos. Almost as if they had some kind of central intelligence coordinating them all. Something had certainly changed in them, and I wondered if somehow Finesia was also within the secicao that powered these things, orchestrating the whole thing. Beneath me, Velos’ dragon armour pulsed green. Did that mean Finesia could control it too?
I shuddered at the thought.
Meanwhile, more dragons fell around me. This tore at my heart, as I had a connection with each of them. Each loss of life killed a part of my soul. They were my responsibility and I’d failed them. Just as I’d failed Sukina by letting Taka go. And failed everyone by letting Sukina die all those years ago.
Fortunately, soon enough, after we’d got far enough out of range, the automatons stopped firing. They turned back towards their makers as the larger flock of dragons approached us from the front. I looked into it, and I wondered if I should turn around and order a full-scale assault. But something told me that we’d be annihilated on the spot. I certainly didn’t want to have the fall of Fortress Gerhaun as part of my legacy. So, I sang the song to order all the dragons to turn around and head back to Fortress Gerhaun.
“Now you’re learning,” Alsie said. “Run back to safety. Oh, and if you want to know where Taka went, I suggest you start looking for Captain Colas’. I hear he expressed quite an interest in the boy when he heard he’d disappeared from the king’s palace.”
I shook my head. “Taka stays with us,” I said. Just in case Alsie was having any bright ideas about taking him again.
“Obviously not, because you don’t have him.”
“And when I do, we’re going to keep him. I’m not going to let this happen again.”
“Big words, Dragonseer Wells. But Finesia has plans for you. You, Taka and I, together we will become a great race of immortals and part of Finesia’s grand scheme.”
“I will serve no mad goddess,” I said.
“We shall see. Alsie said. We shall see.”
And with that her voice cut off out of the collective unconscious. And when she did, it reminded me of the rift caused when Sukina had left us all.
I was left feeling strangely alone.
8
I’d caused quite a traffic jam at Fortress Gerhaun. The fortress had been designed for letting in only around twenty dragons at once. So, to orchestrate the landing of over a thousand dragons was a task within itself.
Hummingbirds were sent out to relay orders between men and the control centre, a room presently full of men and woman on typewriters deciphering information from the Hummingbirds and typing out messages to General Sako and his officers.
Of course, Velos being the celebratory dragon around here, we were allowed to land early. We pushed ahead of everyone else and, as we landed, we saw General Sako scurrying around the courtyard, sending messages to the sky with red semaphore flags. One of his guards waved us in towards the head of the golden dragon mosaic at the centre of the courtyard. A brass scaffold on wheels had been set up there so Velos could land without damaging the cannon. This was climbable, allowing Wiggea, Faso and I to quickly dismount.
Several strong looking olive-suited guards then wheeled Velos into a position besides two other Greys. Velos didn’t seem so happy with the idea. Even with his celebratory status here, he couldn’t quite find a connection with his own kin. He’d much rather had gone straight to his stables, I’m sure and wellies knows how long he’d have to wait in the courtyard. Still, he stood there on his two hind legs and waited patiently for more guards to come in and remove the cannon from his underbelly.
General Sako rushed over to me as soon as he saw me. “Dragonseer Wells. Gerhaun wants to meet with you at once.”
“I know,” I said. She’d already told me in the collective unconscious that she had news.
“Well, I just thought you might want to be quick about it. She knows of Taka’s whereabouts.”
“Captain Colas,” I said.
General Sako furrowed his eyebrows. “Blunders and dragonheats, you’ve heard already? I might have known it would be my old nemesis. So he went and delivered the boy to the
king for a bounty, I guess. You can’t trust that old man with a piece of straw.”
“I don’t think the king has him,” I said. Somehow, I think Alsie would have told me otherwise. I mean one thing I knew about that woman was that she never lied. “But you’re right, I need to see Gerhaun.”
“Let me know what you find out,” General Sako said. And he rushed back to his duties beckoning Greys in to land.
Just before I walked off, Ratter scurried off Faso’s shoulder and ran off towards the edge of the castle. “What’s he after?” I asked Faso.
“Beats me. But I programmed into him with a little more autonomy lately, so I have more time to work on other things. He seems to be in pursuit of something.”
I watched for a moment as the thing scurried up the ramparts. One of the guards noticed it and called out to it. The guard raised his rifle and Faso rushed over and pushed the man’s rifle back down, shouting out his protestations. I left them arguing and darted into the corridors and towards Gerhaun’s treasure chamber.
Even after knowing her for a couple of years, Gerhaun’s immensity still amazed me every time I saw her. People said that the Greys were towering beasts, just under three times the size of man. Velos was even bigger than them, and often struck fear into those that encountered him for the first time. But, in comparison, Gerhaun was as large as three cathedrals stacked one on top of the other, and she had had her treasure chamber built with a chimney that she could fly out of and which rose even taller than her.
She wasn’t scaly like the other dragons and didn’t have reptilian skin. Rather she was made out of the gold of the earth, as shiny as the treasures she guarded that funded Fortress Gerhaun’s military operations. And she always looked so noble with wise eyes and an expression that commandeered both fear and respect in those that met her for the first time.
But it was clearly fear in the mind of the pirate she’d just interrogated. In fact, in this particular instance, I would describe it more like abstract terror in his expression, as if he’d just been down to the underworld and encountered all the demons that lived there. His eyes were wide, his pupils constricted, his jaw long, his skin blanched of colour. He looked as if he had lost his soul.
“What did you do to him?” I asked Gerhaun in the collective unconscious.
“Exactly what you had asked,” Gerhaun said. “I found out where he had taken the boy.”
“And how exactly did you manage to get out of him what General Sako and his troops couldn’t?”
“My, my,” Gerhaun said. “You should never ask a lady about her methods of torture.”
I looked at the man, astounded. He didn’t have a scratch on him. Gerhaun must have used some act of psychological torture, which I hoped one day she’d teach me herself. It could come in useful.
“So, what did you find out?” I asked.
“The man works for Captain Colas.” Gerhaun said. “He’s a mercenary pirate hired for gold, and the older man wanted to take Taka hostage. Apparently, a contract with Captain Colas comes with a promise that if they fail, he’ll send out more mercenaries to kill the contractor and everyone in their family. But, for success, he offers enough gold to feed a family for several generations.”
I nodded. “Alsie expected Colas to have the boy too.”
All of a sudden, there came a rush of air from the chimney. Before I could even react, a huge blackened form shot down it and landed on the ground. A dragon, black except for the oily rainbow sheen which ran across its body, now stood right next to Gerhaun.
The giant dragon queen turned her head, ready to bite it to pieces. I also readied the rifle on my back, worried this was Alsie Fioreletta come down to exact her revenge. Not that a rifle would do much good, unless I was an excellent shot.
Meanwhile, a cloud of black dust rose up from the dragon’s position. Out of sight behind the dust cloud, the dragon began to morph into human form.
“If you excuse me,” Charth’s voice came in the collective unconscious. “It’s about time you started to let me into these private conversations.”
Charth sounded much more cavalier than I’d remembered him in the palace. More like his deceased brother and less like his former, dour self.
“Charth,” Gerhaun said. “You know that you’ve been banished. You’re not welcome here. If the men see you… if General Sako gets a hold of you.”
“I’ll be out of here before they even ready their rifles,” Charth said. “But I wanted to talk to this pirate man myself.”
The dust cloud had now settled, and I could see a ferocity in this man’s eyes. Really, Charth looked even scarier than General Sako right now. And I could tell he had a thirst for revenge. When Charth spoke in the collective unconscious, his voice had much more timbre than was usual. Certainly, something within him was starting to change.
Charth in human form had blonde hair swept back and greying slightly. He wore a grey cardigan and corduroy trousers as well, kind of old-fashioned looking and almost matching the colour of his hair. Remarkably, a dragonman’s or dragonwoman’s clothes never got lost during transformation, and I sometimes wondered where they disappeared to.
“Very well,” Gerhaun replied to him. “If you must…”
“He worked for my father,” Charth said. “And I’ve wanted to know for a long time where he is. I have debt to pay to him.”
“Charth. I’ve told you before, vengeance is never the answer. Sukina had to learn that the hard way and you must too.” And I could sense intense concern in Gerhaun’s voice.
“But if my father hadn’t betrayed us in the first place and snatched Taka away, Sukina would still be alive.”
“Colas wasn’t the one that killed Sukina.”
“Still, he deserves to die.”
My jaw had dropped incredibly low by this point in the conversation. I certainly hadn’t expected to hear so much anger and hate in this flat, emotionless man.
“Do you know where Colas is now?” I asked Charth. “Or Gerhaun, maybe you managed to get that information out of the pirate?”
Charth shook his head and I looked up to see Gerhaun do the same.
“My father worked for the king for a long time,” Charth said. “But he only did so for a lot of cash. I thought I might find him in his manor estate in Spezzio. After what happened to Sukina I wanted to deliver my wishes. But I arrived and the whole place had been deserted. Clearly, he’d packed his bags and all his inventions and flew off to live somewhere else.”
I walked over to the pirate, who looked up at me wide-eyed as if an orphaned child found in the streets and starved of food. “Where is he?” I asked the pirate.
But as before, he said nothing.
“He doesn’t know,” Gerhaun said. “I got him to speak the truth through my own methods, and I’m pretty sure he’s told us everything he can. He made his deal with one of the old man’s liaison in a bar on the Southern Approach and he never even met Colas.”
“Who does know?” Charth asked. “And what the hell would the old man want with Taka?”
“So many questions which I wish we had the answer to,” Gerhaun replied. “But for now, we only can act on the information that we have.”
Charth walked over to the man. He looked him up and down, and then lifted him up by his shirt collar. “You better be telling us everything you know. Because whatever you’re scared of, I can do a lot worse to you, I’m sure.” I was slightly off to the side of Charth and I saw the features morph on his face into dragon form. He let off a snarl, displaying razor sharp teeth, before his face went back to normal.
“Leave him, Charth,” Gerhaun snapped in the collective unconscious. And Charth sighed and dropped him to the floor, where the pirate collapsed into a heap.
We hadn’t noticed Faso enter the room, who stood by the double doors with a small piece of paper in his hand. “Well, well,” he said once I turned to him. “I wanted to pass over the news, but this is quite entertaining. Say, aren’t you Charth Lamford the dragonman?
We’ve met before, right, in the secicao jungle? Pontopa, you do know he works for the enemy…”
“He works for us now. He helped our escape from Cini’s palace, remember?”
Faso clearly knew nothing about the brief love affair that Sukina had had with Charth, after she’d broken off his relationship with Faso. Nor did he know anything about the forced marriage between Sukina and Charth that had happened at the palace two years ago, nor consequently the marriage between me and Charth’s brother. Nor did I intend telling Faso about any of this anytime soon.
“Well, I’ve never got my head around all the allegiances around here. But wellies, man, look at you. You could do with some fashion advice, for sure.”
Charth rose his head high in the air. “I’ll bear that in mind next time I’m wading through secicao resin.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care so much what you wear. Although you might be pleased to hear that I know of Taka’s location.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Captain Colas has him, we know that already.”
“Ah,” Faso smirked. “But do you know where?”
“Let me guess, you’ve got some information from the office and wanted to rush ahead of the messenger and claim credit?”
“What, no. This didn’t come from the office. It came from one of Captain Colas messenger automatons. A mechanical crow flying overhead that Ratter went chasing after to disable. We have the crow in the laboratory, which Asinal Winda is dismantling to discover it’s inner workings as we speak.”
I walked over to Faso and snatched the piece of paper out of his hand. “Captain Colas sent a message to us? Why on earth?”
I unfolded the slip of paper, stained yellow with smears of secicao resin.
“HURRY UP SLOWPOKES!” it said. “WE’RE ALREADY MILES AHEAD OF YOU. I HAVE THE BOY AND YOU CAN FIND HIM ON EAST CADIGAN ISLAND. BRING ONLY PONTOPA WELLS, ONE DRAGON AND A COUPLE OF ESCORTS. ANY OTHERS AND THE BOY WILL DIE.”
Dragonseers and Airships Page 36