Another push and his head craned over the summit and peered down into the High Tree Valley. Humans were so unoriginal with their names in this region, Yaz’noth mused. The settlement glowed, the lights shining out from their little dwellings, making the trees look decorated for a celebration. They’d know him soon, but not tonight. Tonight, he’d…
The thought stilled as the flash of something caught Yaz’noth’s eyes. A star danced beneath the clouds, its tiny light entering the valley. He extended his vision and the dot of light grew larger. Pale blue light, the hue of a power crystal. An airship? Yaz’noth watched it with curiosity. Frustration peeled his lips back from his teeth as he pulled back. Stealth was so tiresome. Yet he dared not revel himself to even the smallest of vessels. An alarm could spread faster than he could rampage.
He went still, waiting. An hour passed, then two, before Yaz’noth could be sure. The dot was heading directly for him. But in the light he saw the motion of wings.
Wings?
“Hammer,” Yaz’noth whispered to himself. Why would Cog hold a crystal like that? She could be seen for miles. Only from above, though. Hammer’s body would block the light. Only those on an airship could see it. Or him.
Yaz’noth stretched out his uninjured wing. “Deploy it!” he commanded, and people in the cage strapped to his back stirred. A clack of metal sounded as a steel boom swung out from his back. With the soft whisper of steel on steel, blades fanned out from the end, creating a flat wedge of metal. Yellow glimmers studded the entire surface of the apparatus. Carefully extending his injured wing, he aligned it with the boom. “Clamp,” and a dozen curved fingers extended along the length of the boom and gripped the arm of his wing, securing it in place and aligning the wedge with the still-healing rip in the membrane. A strong flap and the wing would tear. Yaz’noth concentrated and the glimmers brightened; a gentle breeze caught the wing. Yaz’noth smiled to himself. Only one way to find out if his jury-rigging worked.
He pushed back onto his hind legs and bent them until his toes touched his belly. With a motion swift enough to surprise the wind, he flung his body into the air and dived over the crest of the mountain. The dozen humans on his back cheered or simply screamed.
Don’t flap, don’t flap, he told himself as he mentally stroked the wind crystals to full life. The mountainside below him was a blur of reflected pale light. He pulled himself up out of the dive right before he’d hit the tree line and shot up into the air. The air bore him up but not quite as high as he’d like. Still below Hammer. His wings itched to flap, to grab the air in the fingers of his wings and pull himself high.
Instead, he reached his mind to the large wind crystal he carried in one of his many stomachs and pushed it to his lips. Through it, he commanded the winds to lift him higher. They hated him for this; it bit at his scales and wrestled with his antlers. Yaz’noth wasn’t too fond of it either, but the winds obeyed the crystal’s compulsion and surged up beneath his wings, pushing him higher.
He glided toward Hammer and hissed when he saw that the power crystal was wielded by a wingless whelp and not Miss Cog. A rush of concern tightened his forge. He had worried that Ishe managed to kill Hammer, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Cog might be a more tempting target.
The wind howled in his earholes as he commanded it to bear him higher, his back brushing the clouds and obscuring the Mad Eye. Dingdingding! The sharp ringing of a bell pierced the noise of the wind. A glance back at the cage revealed all the humans shivering in their thick blue cloaks. Too high for them. Yaz’noth grumbled in annoyance; so annoying, fragile humans were. The thought did not ease his worry for Cog. Diving lower and gaining speed, Yaz’noth spread his forelegs.
A wait. Yaz’noth counted the many heartbeats until Hammer drew closer. He had hoped Hammer would see him, but the never-very-observant dragon kept on, wings flapping against the summer breeze. Yaz’noth plucked them from the air as easily as a raptor takes an unwary sparrow and then banked back toward the valley wall.
“FATHER?” Hammer did not struggle. The little sliver whelp on his back did a little dance with his long neck.
“Biiiiig!” the little one sing sang, the power crystal in his jaws.
“Put that out,” Yaz’noth boomed in his best authoritative voice.
“Yes-um!” The little dragon quickly stashed the power crystal in a pocket of the harness Hammer wore. In that moment, Yaz’noth spotted Miss Cog. The current Miss Cog. Her waxen face stuck out from a mound of blankets that were secured to Hammer’s back by what looked to be stakes driven into Hammer’s scales. Dead? Yaz’noth clamped his jaws together to hold his tongue. Miss Cogs, how many had he gone through? They thought themselves so clever, switching out on him. But he always noticed, always grieved in the dark of his lair. Don’t be dead, he urged her. Not yet.
He made for a peak where he knew there was a small cave, nestled in the side of the mountain. Landing with only hind feet proved interesting. The ledge cracked beneath his weight, and he had to use the wind and his good wing to steady himself. A blast of fire into the cave’s interior sterilized it of a cave-spider infestation. The survivors screeched and smoked down the mountain. He gently placed Hammer, then folded his wings to follow, ignoring the sensation of the humans venturing out from their cage to retract the boom.
“Is she dead?” were the first words he spoke.
“No, lordy!” the little wingless dragon said. “She hurt real bad! Nassty blackcoats got her! Smurg bite her! Burn her but she frosty! Cold! Brr!”
“Hold still, Hammer.” Yaz’noth gently brushed the tiny dragon aside and used a claw to peel Miss Cog from her cocoon of blankets. The woman moaned incoherently. Yaz’noth could not prevent a hiss from escaping between his teeth as he took the injuries in. One leg was entirely missing below the knee, the other black and bloated. It should have been cut off a day earlier. Belts squeezed around both thighs.
Eyes opened but did not focus. “My…lord,” she breathed.
“Medical crystals now!” he barked at the humans on his back, sending them scrambling. Healing crystals or not, that leg had to come off now.
Nothing for it. He opened his jaw as wide as he could and vomited up everything he had been working on in his forge. Half-baked contraptions and weapon ideas, they all fell out in a shining pile.
“Here, my lord.” A human servant held up a bright new medical crystal.
“Don’t give it to me! Give it to her!” He roared so loudly that pebbles fell from the ceiling of the cave.
The man hurried up to Miss Cog and placed the crystal next to her.
“Now give her to me.” Yaz’noth laid his head as close to Hammer as he could and extended his tongue.
“Smurge do, Smurge do.” The sliver whelp took the healing crystal in his mouth and, displaying a dexterity uncommon to dragons, slipped his forelimbs beneath Miss Cog and lifted her. Long tail whipping back and forth, he teetered on his hind limbs for a moment before delivering Miss Cog with the grace of a biped.
As the whelp skittered back, Miss Cog spoke in a whisper. “My lord, I don’t want to go back to the mountain. Not without my legs. I don’t… I want to see the city. It shines in the dark of the night. It shone so bright, my lord.”
Yaz’noth swallowed her down. Concentrating internally, he had the leg off in less than thirty seconds. She didn’t even scream, a mere whine and a flinch in the grip of his tendrils. Her entire body was slack within him. Yaz’noth made her as comfortable as possible and let the medical crystal do its work.
“Hammer, give me the report. What happened?” Yaz’noth asked as he refocused his attention on the outside world.
Sitting up, Hammer hung his head. “Couldn’t stop Ishe.” He didn’t even bother to refold his wings, displaying a section where the membrane had been replaced with a stretch of sailcloth. Yaz’noth’s tail gave a lash of irritation.
“Details, Hammer. I need more than that,” Yaz’noth said.
The little wyrm danced out in fr
ont of Hammer. “Blackcoat hide in big trees! Smurge smell her. So, Miss Cog have us hide! Watch!”
Yaz’noth made to sweep the small dragon aside for speaking gibberish, but Hammer, never one to waste his own words, had begun to nod.
“Then ship come! It head for High Tree. Can’t let blackcoat get on it. Hammer can’t smash through ’cause Cog and Smurge on back, so he burn its wings and it falls.”
Yaz’noth hrrmed at the little dragon, He was surprisingly articulate for his size, similar in build to Spine but a quarter of his size and wingless. A sure sign of starvation, dull scales were the second sign. He smelled of aluminum, one of the rarest metals in the mountain.
The story continued. “Not fall hard enough. Cog want it to buurrn! So, Hammer brave popping pokies to burn ship. But too slow! Blackcoat come with cold pokies! I go rawr! And she freeze me! Freeze my fire! So cold, so cold. Hammer come help. He burn blackcoats. I bite rawr bad Blackcoat. Toss her good ’cause flame not work good! But but she poke. I back and then I hear poker go pop. And and and.” Everything about him suddenly drooped slumped on the ground. “My Cog get hurt bad.”
“Ice shell,” Hammer added glumly. “They don’t hurt me. Forgot human like wings.”
“Still, Miss Cog not dead. We finish mission! Little ship go up come night! We chase. Go into storm. It so cold. Little ship dances but Hammer smart. Hammer not use eyes. He follow power stone like big lord can!”
“She knew!” Hammer burst out with a snap of anger, cracking his tail down on the stone. “She go high! And then it just floating stone in sail! Wing freeze! We fail then.” He put his head on the ground and sighed out a jet of white smoke.
“Not a failure, Hammer,” Yaz’noth said, piecing together the story with Guro’s report. The timing had been razor-thin. Had they allowed that ship to dock at High Tree, Ishe might have reached the Golden Hills that afternoon, and then everything would have been for naught. “We have the quicksilver.”
“We do?” Hammer’s head lifted, eyes shining in the dim light.
“We do.” Yaz’noth’s attention flicked inside. Miss Cog breathed, but shallowly. If he sent her back with Hammer, then this Miss Cog would be gone; one of her daughters would take her place. Pretend as if nothing had happened. No. This Cog had asked to fly. He’d keep her until the bitter end. The time… He could wait one more day.
“Hammer, I need you to fetch me a few items from the lair.”
“Yes, Father?”
“Listen carefully… A large dragon egg, a bar of platinum, a bar of gold…”
Chapter Eleven
Wild liftwood trees were curious, dangerous things. On a sunny day, they drift on the winds, bobbing through the sky, and as the sun sets, they drift down without a care to where they land. The dragons thought it to be a good omen when they crushed a human’s hut.
Rictus Hana, author of The Great Wyrm, the Known History
The hunting party returned with two deer and befuddlement.
“I think we’re supposed to gut it.” Rufus had a knife in his hand and tilted the blade back and forth with uncertainty.
“Won’t that ssspill all the meat?” Naga clutched her stomach as she struggled to remain upright.
“No, but I think you want to get rid of the blood,” Rufus said, his half-muzzle scowling.
“Why would you get rid of the blood?” Naga blinked. “Thatsss where meat getsss all the flavor is right?”
Ishe smirked as she approached them, “What about chicken?”
“Chicken has no flavor until it rots,” said the dogman.
“Bird bleed too. I ssshot a gull once. Bloody explosion.” Naga smiled, showing a fair number of needlelike teeth. “Do you know how to prepare a deer, Commander Issshe?”
Ishe studied them and the rest of the crew, searching their faces for a clue. “Rufus is right, I think.” She thought hard; hunting had been an occasional thing on Fox Fire, but the cook had always taken care of the carcasses and butchered the meat.
They were all city-dwellers, forced into the bottom rung of it, but nobody had fled to be among the peasantry. Peasants were generally unkind to crystal-touched. “Can’t be too hard.” As Ishe reached down, she heard a voice chide her.
“If not careful, those be your last words, Ishe of Madria.”
Spinning on her heel, Ishe turned to find Drosa slipping into her personal space and planting a kiss on her cheek before she could even sputter. Ishe groped at empty air, as Drosa had already moved past and knelt to examine the deer.
“Where—” was all Ishe got out before cheers went up all around her. Gama and everyone else pushed through the brush and waved. Chimon carried a string of four fat pigeons with him.
“’Bout time you all got back.” Ishe placed her fists on her hips. “Nearly had to send out a search party.”
Gama actually looked abashed at Ishe’s teasing tone, and Drosa spoke first. “No thanks to you! You say you scout. Then shoosh!” Drosa shot her hand at the sky. “Leave us all behind. And then Lenses tell me to climb tree and shoot birds.” She gestured at Gama.
He straightened himself up and swallowed. “Well, I am the lieutenant. Yaki said so.”
Yaki patted him on the shoulder. Everyone found that hilarious.
“Uhhhh.”
Drosa cut in and saved him. “So, that make me lieutenant, yes? We kiss at least.”
The entire camp erupted. Yaki buried her face in her hands, unable to defend herself. Ishe felt like the nonexistent carpet had been pulled out from under her feet. “That’s not how it works. I’m sure Gama know his way around an…” Ishe trailed off as Yaki shook her head.
“You ever been on an airship before last night, Gama?” Simon asked pointedly.
Gama swallowed hard.
“I trust Gama,” Yaki announced. “I not sssssss—”
“Ssssailor?” Naga offered.
Yaki pointed at her. “Yes. I en. Gi—” She jabbed at Sparks.
“Engineer, ma’am?” Sparks offered.
Yaki nodded, flashed a smile. “Commander Ishe”—her face twisted in effort as she sounded out the word—“Saaai-lor. Her loo-”
“Lieutenant,” Gama said.
Small nod. “Must sssail.” Yaki let out a heavy breath and leaned against Simon, sliding an arm around his back. The other hand scribbled on the journal in her lap. Simon tilted his head to look at the page with his good eye.
He mumbled something and Yaki handed the book to Gama, who adjusted his glasses and read it out loud. “My words have been taken but a captain needs a voice. While Ishe is my sister, she definitely has her own voice. Until I speak without effort, Gama must be my voice. He will speak for me in a crisis.” Gama’s voice stopped and he swallowed, eyes flicking to Yaki before continuing. “If he screws up badly, I’ll bust him down to cabin boy.”
Chimon snorted loudly. “So, you’re going to reward him if he shatters on the job?”
Ishe laughed the loudest. “He’s not going to be Yaki’s cabin boy.” Good-natured snickering spread though the group. “Good that we’re talking ’bout ranks, though. Let’s talk about what comes next.”
“Dinner!” Grim shouted out.
“Then you get to cook it!” Ishe countered.
“He doesn’t even have a stomach!” someone else called out.
“I still eat!” Grim said, crossing his skeletal arms.
“Someone better volunteer or Grim is this crew’s Cookie.” Ishe scanned the crowd.
Xiy raised his hand. “I cooked sometimes for my family. Never on a ship.”
“Aww, that’s sweet.” Ishe grinned at him. “Anyone with experience feeding more than a family of four?”
“Simon had recruited a cook but”—his nose dipped—“he didn’t make off Scale.”
The largest of the human crew stood; Ishe had heard his name, Raiju. He and Sparrow had come back down the mountain, apparently. “I spent some time in the naval academy. I spent a bit more time than I would have liked in the kitchens
there. I can figure out a galley.”
“Make do with the campfires and get those deer roasting. If that’s all right with the captain,” Ishe said. Yaki nodded her assent, and Ishe stepped up on a log. “All right; listen up, everyone. Food’s taken care of. Wounds sealed for those who can use medical crystals. We have a ship with a couple cannons on it.”
Conversation quieted.
“That means the hard part is next. Yaki and I need to enter the city and tell Steward what’s going to be coming for him.”
“Why’s Yak”—Gama swallowed— “the captain have to go with you. We all stole several tons of quicksilver. You’re the only one not on the Steward’s shit list.”
Yaki herself warded him off. “Cause price.”
Ishe nodded at the assembled group. “Yaki’s heart is the best evidence of Yaz’noth’s existence. We have to convince him to recall the navy; it’s our only shot.”
“Uhh.” Gama raised his hand as he scanned the journal that Yaki thrust in front of him. “Not true. Ahem.” He shifted his voice so everyone could hear. “The Steward has a torchship the size of Fox Fire. It has five power crystals. That’s the best weapon against Yaz’noth.”
Ishe blinked;, a torchship that large? Possibilities whirled. That might even be able to outmaneuver a dragon. “We need that ship. Either the Steward gives it to us or we steal it.” A slightly manic giggle escaped her lips as she imagined reducing Yaz’noth to sliced meat. “Yes! That’s the plan. If it goes well, the Steward gives us that ship. If not, then we’re gonna steal that ship. If it’s been moved from the Foundry, Lion should be swift enough to find it. Then we use it to cut a dragon in half. Afterward, Golden Hills has to accept this crew, and we will have an unquestioned safe port. Anyone who served on an unaffiliated privateer before knows how important that will be.” In the back, both Grim and Glub made affirmative noises.
Dragon's Siege Page 7