Beautiful Fury

by Marc Secchia

  She extended her arm toward the Marshal. “Allies?”

  His huge, hot hand engulfed her forearm. She was no petite girl, but each of his fingers was thicker than her wrist. “Honoured to face this enemy with you, o Star Dragoness.”

  * * * *

  Ardan Shadow-swept the Thoralians directly into the great hall, following a flowering of battle magic which had convinced them that the fray was already well advanced. Prime had decided to intervene immediately; now, ice-cold fury pounded through the triplicate as they realised that yet again, the Star Dragoness had outwitted them. Lured them into her trap. She was masterful, a worthy enemy.

  So much the greater pleasure when she fell. All that was within the Thoralians hungered to wreak vengeance upon that irrepressible chit of a girl who dared to defy their rightful dominion!

  The Shapeshifters ranged on the worn granite floor below snapped immediately into their Dragon forms. Amethyst. Navy Blue. Burgundy Grey, or whatever colour Gang was becoming. Dragons at the ready! At the same time Ri’arion drew his huge, two-handed sword, but the dangerous Nameless Man shifted only to assume a watchful, balanced pose.

  The huge man in their midst, who could only be Commander Asturbar, snapped, “Bantukor. Defensive positions at the entrance. Turn half of the catapults toward the Hall. And get those idiots off the landings!”

  “Sah!”

  “Where’s Azhukazi?” the Thoralians snarled.

  Everyone was rightly confused about that question. Spreading his wings, Ardan drifted down after the Thoralians. Given their overwhelming power, this battle could only end one way – but where was the prize, the power they sought? Was Azhukazi cunning enough to deceive them all, and was this trace they had followed some Herimor glamour magic of an ilk unfamiliar enough even to hoodwink the Marshals Thoralian?

  This must be the Amethyst’s paw work.

  Training her unbearably poignant gaze upon him, Aranya breathed, Ardan, thou my soul’s Shadow, wilt thou not turn from this course?

  A spark conveying the quintessential character of her radiance momentarily blindsided his thoughts from within, but the dark bonds immediately reasserted their hegemony over his psyche. Enemy. She was the enemy, hateful to the core. How dare she stand against the restoration of honour to all Dragonkind?

  Only one of Fra’anior’s kin could measure a dinky forty-plus feet, a third of the size of most of these Grey-Greens, and weigh in at barely a quarter of his tonnage, yet appear to dwarf her companions by the sheer immediacy of her draconic presence – the fabled soul aura of the Dragonkind, akin in some senses to the Human notion of charisma. The Amethyst was slimmer than most, too, and the scarring of her hide failed to detract from her physical attractiveness – she was neat-pawed, and her musculature compact and clearly delineated in the manner of a master athlete or warrior’s defined physique, with a modest, regular ruff of skull spikes and that unique, gemstone colouration to her amethyst scales that more than gladdened every draconic eye. The effect was mesmerising.

  If only one could see beyond the scars …

  The three Thoralians rasped as one, Ardan is mine to command.

  Was he? The Shadow considered the bond he had once forged with the Dragoness, a bond picked out in his memory as soul deep. Chains of the mind could never bind his soul. They could taint a Dragon’s truest fires, however, and turn his deeds to dark paths. Held helpless thrall to the Thoralians’ will, the Shadow Dragon followed the triplicate of hulking Yellow-Whites down to the cavern’s floor. Already, their scales were rimed with steaming ice, their signature power. Only the acid-etched dullness of Ardan’s fires betrayed the inner rebellion that stubbornly contested their mental dominance – the knowledge that this choice was not his. A Dragon should choose his own flight path, and not be subjugated by another.

  His thoughts twisted.

  Only in the freedom granted by her death would he become whole, freed from dark fires doubt. The Star must perish! Enemy!

  As the foursome landed, Gangurtharr bared his fangs and said unpleasantly, “Back for another whipping, you yellow smears of slug slime? You fled with your poor little tails tucked between your legs last time, as I recall.”

  The Thoralians snarled as one, “You are insignificant, flabby-belly. BE SILENT!”

  Their roar was a psychic uppercut. Battle on! It was calculated to place the enemy on the back paw; to instil the fear of death in his craven soul. The blot of his oath connected magic flared painfully as Aranya responded, somehow pliant and responsive to her companions’ need. She deflected rather than opposed outright, and that was what saved her. As it was, the Gladiator Dragon staggered, and the Azingloriax Marshal flinched. Ardan’s eyes flicked to the bulky soldier. What was that strangeness about him? His psyche and his person seemed somehow concealed even from a Shadow Dragon’s powers of insight, and that bracelet he wore upon his arm was stranger still.

  He carries a weapon or artefact with unknown magical qualities, he dutifully informed the triplicate. No data as yet. Observing.

  Continue, said Secondary. Ah, the advent of Azhukazi is at paw. Prime.

  Swaggering toward the petite Amethyst Dragoness, the better to menace her from his lofty height, the Prime Thoralian snarled, “Indeed, you are all insignificant blemishes on my path to the ultimate destiny – a destiny you of pathetic minds and stunted ambition cannot possibly imagine! But my prize is about to drop into my paws. Don’t you dare interfere, Aranya – you or your coterie of tiny paw lickers – or I will channel the First Egg’s power to pinch out the wick of every life upon this pathetic Island!”

  His shell brothers prowled upon either flank, watching the Star for the slightest move, but she seemed uncannily cool. Ardan stood slightly off to one side, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

  GRAABBOOM!

  With a sound like an Island’s cliff collapsing, the ceiling crumpled and the Iolite Blue punched through in a spray of rock fragments, his power at once palpable and fey. How had he concealed the very fire life within his bones and veins, making himself undetectable to the Thoralians’ every artifice?

  The great Necromancer’s battle roar rattled the cavern’s very stones. AZHUKAZI!!

  As one beast, the Thoralians charged into battle.

  Chapter 11: Necromancer

  GRANITE Shards SPRAYED across the chamber as Azhukazi, a mighty bruiser with scales the colour of smoky sapphires, his distinct iolite gemstone colour, plunged toward the group of Dragons. No creature was waiting for permission this time. Iridiana seared into battle with the artless impetuosity of inexperience, making Aranya, closely linked with Zuziana so that they could apply two minds rather than one to the complexity of what they were attempting to achieve, bite her tongue in annoyance. Amateur. The Iridium clacked her fangs against a Thoralian’s ice-cold hide before discovering just how impenetrable the Amethyst knew it to be; she concentrated on the inner battle of keeping Ardan at bay by deploying a cunning multiphasic shield which was triggered each time by his appearance-disappearance routine – the concept essentially relied upon a ‘filled-in’ shield that did not bound a volume of space so much as permeate all of the available space, reacting whenever and wherever he re-embodied by flashing scorching white fires in his face.

  The Shadow seemed to find this approach suitably exasperating. For long seconds he did not land a single successful attack. Iridiana clobbered him in the jaw with a straight punch that he shrugged off, clearly mistaking her for Aranya as he roared, Immadian traitor! Gang somehow managed to wriggle around her gyrating body mid-air to slam his open-pawed, raking talons across a Thoralian’s unprotected underparts, but the Yellow-White Shapeshifter ignored a blow that would have disembowelled any other Dragon. Those brilliant Iridium scales flared and winked back the fireballs and lightning strikes of an all-claws-in Dragon brawl as Huari weighed in with a few meaty strikes of her own, and Azhukazi was not even in the picture as yet!

  Right. Iridiana finally managed to chip a few of Thoralian’s
fangs with a strike that had Aranya nodding in approval, even as she wondered how that manoeuvre had been physically possible, since her blow appeared to pass right through Thoralian’s upraised defensive paw to bruise his lip. Decent going for a mite. The Thoralians responded by propelling her and Gang across the chamber with a scything wall of ice, pummelling them mercilessly until Aranya whisked a shield around them and yanked the pair out of harm’s way.

  The fledgling returned to Asturbar’s side with her tail drooping and mouth agape, panting heavily. Iridiana had that slightly glazed look about the eyes, shock mixed with the overwhelming feedback of Dragon battle reactions and a Dragonship-load of fresh awe for her foe. Aranya clenched her right forepaw. Aye, she knew exactly how that first taste of real Dragon battle felt!

  Iridiana’s whisper was low, but nonetheless carried to the Princess’ hearing, “Wow. Tough crew.”

  Tough? She had no idea! Crudely, Aranya jammed the Thoralians’ efforts to draw power from the First Egg, hissing to herself as a backlash of pain set her spine afire. Her eye membranes blinked. Odd. Had she felt a draw from somewhere without the Island? Sneakily, carefully, she compartmentalised her mind and set a small tendril of magic to work. Were the Thoralians being devious? She started by answering her own question with ‘aye’ and worked from there.

  “You alright?” Boots asked.

  Iridiana voiced a burbling laugh. “I’m tougher.”

  Ugh. It would not do for her to start liking the feisty-shy Dragoness, would it? Aranya grinned at her sizzling reaction to words which might as well have been her own, and then scrambled to throw up all shields as the linked Thoralians tried to blast-freeze everything within the hall with a coruscating whirlwind of ice, this one infused with explosive dark fires kernels and arcane, mind-jolting powers. How the volcanic hells did he even begin to achieve that effect? Her posture was necessarily defensive. The underlying strategy was to force the Thoralians to over-expend their power while denying them the opportunity to draw more from the First Egg. That font could not be illimitable, could it?

  Before, she had always been the first to attack and had led from that position. Now, she must allow her companions to draw the Thoralians’ fire. It was harder than she had anticipated. How could they succeed without her leading the charge?

  Fiercely, Zuziana hissed within her, You should mix it up, Immadia!

  Mix what up?

  Danger – move!

  The Amethyst Dragoness jolted into action as the Thoralians, rising into the air, set about firing chunks of ice about the chamber – chunks the size of houses. The rare Iolite Blue displayed his own prowess by dodging, deflecting or shattering the strikes on his bleeding, ice-encrusted knuckles as he descended, apparently unmoved by the flurry. Breathtaking arrogance creased his features and blazed in his eyes as he considered the Thoralians with a calm demeanour, learning. Plotting. Several times he gestured as though attempting to deploy his unique powers, but the Thoralians fended off the attacks, as slippery and unruly as ever. Meantime, her companions were forced more and more onto the back foot or paw. Ardan still could not find a way to make a clean strike. His muzzle smoked both with charred Dragonflesh and his broiling temper. Eventually, he gave up on Shadowing and embodied fully, stalking Gangurtharr about the tan-walled hall, which suddenly seemed half the size now that it was stuffed to the rafters with wrathful Dragons. She noted that Asturbar’s troops had assumed pre-planned defensive positions out of harm’s way. They had already pinned one Thoralian through the tongue with a crossbow bolt, while Azhukazi wore a brace of bolts in his left flank that he ignored.

  We must attack too – be wily, or he’ll sniff out a purely defensive strategy and counter it, the Remoyan clarified. I’ll keep a fiery eyeball on that disturbance you sensed.

  How to tackle these beasts differently, though, Remoy …

  Fight like Sapphire, chirped a smaller voice.

  Fight like a dragonet? She had heard worse ideas, some of them spilled from her own mouth. You’re a shrewd one, Sapphire!

  The dragonet’s soul presence primped and smirked up a minor whirlwind in there.

  She could use that.

  Rising, Aranya launched into the path of several of the Thoralians’ tumbling ice blocks, jinking and feinting multiple times with dragonet-worthy deftness to throw off their aim, before she sensed Ardan coming. Without looking she kicked him brutally in the jaw – slug! She channelled Sapphire’s knowledge to somersault away between chunks of flying debris, causing one of the steaming Thoralians to inadvertently spear another in the belly with a twenty-foot ice shard. BRAAOORRR!! the pair thundered at each other. Meantime, Aranya whisked Ri’arion out of harm’s way with a neat wingtip’s edge swerve-and-pilfer manoeuvre. Perfect. She cartwheeled down the side of a tumbling ice boulder, clamped her talons to its underside, and used the rotational momentum to slingshot free.

  Ha! Watching this, Sapphire?

  Swishy! screeched the dragonet. Swirly-fun!

  Her answering laughter emerged low and hungry.

  I’ll take the Necromancer! cried the monk.

  She launched him up toward Azhukazi as the triplicate rose higher, rotating slowly in their characteristic circular configuration as they fed off and supplemented each other’s power.

  Whatever was the matter with Asturbar? He looked as if something were eating him from the inside out. Given half a chance, Aranya would have loved to offer aid, but she had bigger issues to deal with, not worrying about the way that – unholy smoking volcanoes! A fourth Thoralian? Aye, by triangulating the location of his attempted power-drains with Leandrial’s help and that of the Land Dragoness’ spread-out kin, she had clearly identified the location of an additional Thoralian four miles North of the fortress.

  As guileful as ever.

  One of these within the hall must be an imposter, or the most incredible illusion she had ever encountered.

  Barely had the thought formed, when a breathless word from Zip alerted her. Twirl! Air-bounce! She twisted fractionally above an ice shard flurry from two Thoralians on one flank and Ardan’s fireball incoming from the other, a perfectly orchestrated attack, and could not avoid all. Ardan’s shot enveloped her in a roaring, roiling mass of dark-crimson flame that clung to her head and upper torso, while she had the satisfaction of hearing him grunt in pain as the Thoralians’ ice attack stitched holes all along his flank. Nasty. There was a disruptive quality to this Sapphire-led choreography.

  Ari clumsy-fun, giggled the dragonet. Learn good?

  Great. Vote of confidence, friend.

  As the fires cleared from her eyes, she saw a light mauve blur extend across the chamber at an impossible speed, suddenly resolving into the Marshal’s battle-axe somehow having grown two hundred feet long and thirty broad. In a blink, the Asturbar-Iridiana meld scythed their unearthly weapon into one of the Thoralians with such immensity of purpose and power, she thought for a moment Fra’anior’s own paw had reached inside the hall to smite the foe.

  KRAKABOOM!!

  The weapon dissolved in shuddering, undulating disarray at the mighty backlash their overstretched attack provoked, while the Thoralian expired in a puff of sallow smoke. The decoy!

  What misfortune.

  Asturbar fell from a height of two hundred feet with Gang in hot pursuit; Aranya’s neck twizzled to see Azhukazi’s blurred talons snatching the dazed Iridium Dragoness out of the air. Healing Iridiana … she touched – ouch! The Dragoness’ mind was like touching a churning fireball comprised of razor sharp blades.

  Nothing amateur about that knockout blow!

  The Iolite Blue snarled, Got you. Marshal! I’ll have the Jewels – what the –

  The Chaos Beast went mad. All within the Necromancer’s cupped paws become a blur of different Dragon forms before the creature slithered free, hewed a chunk out of his tongue and promptly vanished down one of his nostrils with a wild contortion of impossibility, only to reappear out of the other accompanied by a shower of golden Dr
agon blood. Clearly, her dragonet impressions were far superior to Aranya’s, but then she was doing ten things at once – shielding Gang from a lurking Shadow Dragon, slapping a Thoralian with a psychic blast, denying the third member of their ghastly trio access to the Egg, and snarling up Azhukazi’s paws so that he missed four successive strikes and Iridiana was able to essay a decent attempt at beheading him. Had her talons been four times longer, she would have succeeded. Gold spurted from three deep incisions beneath his throat, but the Dragon’s natural healing magic forced the muscles to close over a spurting major artery.

  Gang flashed into an assault! Spinning upon her axis to monitor his movement, Aranya delicately applied a touch of kinetic force to bolster Gangurtharr as he flipped with incredible grace for such a marvellously chunky Gladiator Dragon – he had Asturbar upon his back in Rider position now, in a way that neither she nor Iridiana could have managed – as his full bulk body-slammed one Thoralian into another, and drove them both so hard into the hall’s floor, they produced ring-shaped blasts of grey dust and cracks splintered around their bodies.

  GRABOOM!! The Island shuddered at the impact. The Azure Dragoness’ laughter bellowed within her as one of the Yellow-White Shapeshifters gasped like a speared trout, jaw agape as he tried desperately to suck air into his collapsed lungs. He was hurt. Badly.

  “Guess what the flabby belly’s for?” Gang roared.

  The stricken Thoralian clearly had no idea where his opponent even was, for the Gladiator kicked a ten-foot trench into his flank, his talons plucking the other Dragon’s ribcage like a ghastly xylophone, while Huari swept overhead, bundling the second shell brother away from her mate with a flurry of ferocious strikes and fireballs so white-hot, they sizzled through the enemy Dragon’s armour and cremated his flesh. Thoralian’s bellowing hit a shrill peak of pain as she bundled him away. Huaricithe did not give him an inch. She stuck closer than his own scales as the Dragon rolled over and writhed, for a second appearing as if he were a hound exposing his belly for a scratch. Despite her diminutive size, the Navy Blue Shapeshifter knew a thing or two about dealing out damage, and she was in an implacable mood.