by Marc Secchia
Three pairs of eyes, two Human and one Dragon, stared down at the shipyards of Yorbik Island. They had flown in low and fast in the early hours before dawn. Now, a dense wood on the brow of a hill sheltered the threesome from enemy eyes. They needed every scrap of cover available.
Darron thumped Zip’s neck with his fist. “Nice mess you made back there, Dragon.”
“Would you prefer an arrow in the gullet, Commander?” she sniped back.
“You tore his heart out with your talons.”
“Can’t fault me for enthusiasm.”
Estalia, telescope pressed to her left eye, hissed, “Islands’ sakes, husband, stop flirting with the Dragon and take a look at this.”
Zuziana’s eyes ranged over the shipyards of Yorbik Island, which occupied a space between four steep, wooded hills in the precise geographical centre of the Island. Some parts of the sprawling works, subsidiary factories and construction gantries were hidden behind the far slopes, but from their vantage-point they could see enough. More than enough.
Darron grunted, “Tubular catapults?”
“Look behind them,” said his wife.
“Pipes? Am I seeing pipes?”
“By the mountains of Immadia, this is why I’m the engineer and you’re a military man. Those are gas lines leading to gas-powered catapults. I’d stake anything you care to name on it.”
Zuziana ground her fangs together. “I assume you mean the cluster of thirty tubes atop that scaffolding?”
“Aye,” said Estalia. She had a no-nonsense way about her, which jarred with her habitual sweet expression. Beneath a fashionable turquoise headscarf, her eyes were a cool blue that reminded Zip of Immadia’s snow-capped mountains, so different from the jungles of her home. “It’s a rapid-firing catapult machine. Shiny and new. The opposite tower has a similar construction, but by the lines coiled on the platform I surmise grappling hooks, which can be fired to take down Dragonships.”
“To what height?” asked the Commander.
Estalia shrugged. “Gas powered, by meriatite engines? A thousand feet plus. Depends on how good the technology is. Two thousand might be safe.”
Zip squirmed as she imagined a grappling hook slamming into her belly. Fired by one those machines, they could doubtless pierce and reel in an unlucky Dragon, too.
The Commander said, “We don’t have enough troops for a ground assault.”
“Or Dragons who can avoid thirty crossbow bolts at once.” And that was just one of three or four dozen such emplacements scattered throughout the shipyard. Although her tone was light, Zip stiffened beside her companions. “Oh, roaring rajals. We’ve a bigger problem.”
“What?” said Darron, scanning the shipyard with efficient sweeps of the telescope.
At least two dozen Dragonships lay in their bays, in various stages of construction. Zuziana noted three of the huge, armoured Dragonships she and Aranya had tangled with before. They were being fitted with the new catapults and crossbows, smaller than the ground emplacements, but just as deadly. Her Dragon sight allowed her to pick out a dozen tubes per bundle, slightly angled to ensure a spread of quarrels or shot in the air. These Sylakians clearly had no love for Dragons. The aerial forces patrolling the shipyards were no less well-equipped. Zuziana counted three dozen Dragonships aloft, and they had passed silently beneath another dozen at least on their route southward across Yorbik’s enormous hardwood forests.
Thoralian was assembling a mighty fleet once more.
The Commander blurted out a few colourful words, drawing a chuckle from Zip, “Seen him now?”
“Report, Darron,” said his wife, as though she were the commander.
“It’s only the fattest ruddy Red Dragon I have ever seen,” said Darron. “That beast is so obese it can’t possibly fly.”
Estalia, with a wink in Zip’s direction, relieved her husband of the telescope. “Your eyesight’s failing, old man.” But after a moment, her knuckles turned white on the instrument. “You’re right. A hundred feet if he’s an inch, nose to tail, and as fat as an overfull wineskin.”
As one, the two Humans turned to regard their draconic companion.
“I’m not afraid of that flabby red ape,” she protested. “Um, I suppose you don’t get apes on Immadia?”
“We understand,” said Darron.
“But you failed to mention his friends,” Estalia noted, peering again through the telescope.
“What?” Darron and Zip gasped in concert.
“I see three Reds, a Brown, a Green … over there, by the sinkhole. Not one of them is less podgy than that fine specimen of a Red.”
Zuziana’s belly-fires announced their discontent at this statement.
Her gleaming Dragon eyes focussed on the scene below. The girth of those beasts beggared belief. For the first time, she realised that she and Aranya could only be described as slender girl-Dragons–but surely, the size of those Dragons had to be unnatural? Just look, they were forced to lift a Red out of the pit by a towering hawser-and-pulley system. Surely adult Dragons did not reach such an overweight state under ordinary conditions? The Brown’s belly was so grossly distended, he had to drag himself across the ground on stumpy-seeming legs, which had to be thicker in the upper thighs than her entire torso.
So, were the Sylakians secretly breeding Dragons?
Her gaze leaped to the sinkhole, that thousand-foot-wide black pit slap in the middle of the shipyards. What was Thoralian hiding down there, she wondered? New inventions? New ways of killing Dragons? And, clearly, he was assembling a whole new Dragonwing of fully-grown adults to supplement his already mighty forces. How many years had the Supreme Commander been planning this? How many of these beasts might be Shapeshifters, like Garthion, who had tortured her so pitilessly?
“Easy, girl,” said Darron, patting her neck.
Zuziana realised she had whimpered, and hung her head.
“Strength to you,” said Estalia, reaching out to touch the Azure Dragon, too. Her tone suggested she knew something of the Remoyan Princess’ history. “That’s in the past.”
“Garthion burned for his deeds,” said Darron. “We’ll spend the day spying on these overgrown slugs, before taking our intelligence back under the cover of darkness, best we can. The Yellow moon’s waxing tonight, more’s the pity. Look. That one’s flapping his wings as hard as he can, but he can’t move an inch off the ground. They’re–”
“Training,” Zip whispered.
The Commander froze in the act of stroking his beard. “Aye. That they are. How has Thoralian hidden this mystery, I wonder? These are no juveniles.”
“Why are they in such poor condition?” asked Estalia. “That Green has patches that look like fungal growth. You’d never let yourself go like that, would you, petal?”
Now Zuziana understood why Aranya had always bristled at being called ‘petal’. It was such a ridiculously off-the-Island descriptor for a Dragon. On cue, a deep growl issued from her throat.
“I thought not.”
Darron said, “Right, wife, I’ll have my quill and–”
“Wife–in that tone of voice? Who am I, the windroc’s mother?”
“Shall I leave you two alone?” Zip griped, after a brief interlude. “Couples of a certain age should not, well–”
“Should not what, petal?” Estalia interrupted, with a wicked grin. “You go marry your monk, then you can complain all you like.” But she wriggled away beneath the undergrowth, claiming that she was ‘off to bury the Dragon’s kill’.
The Azure Dragon flexed her talons. Grr.
“Right, to work, Dragon,” said Commander Darron. “You sing out the numbers; I’ll scribe. I want a detailed map of this place before sundown, right down to the number of fangs in those Dragons’ mouths. You don’t think we can peek inside that hole, do you?”
“Not likely,” said Zip.
“But it’s intriguing, isn’t it?”
“As only a hole in the ground guarded by half of Sylakia cou
ld be.”
Perhaps Ri’arion’s magic could have seen within. Perhaps it would only have alerted the Dragons lazing in the suns-shine down there. Darron’s quill pen scratched across the scroll, sounding startlingly loud in the silent forest. A forest in which every animal smelled a Dragon, and would not dare to stir until she departed.
Zip peeked over the Commander’s shoulder. “Right. Time to correct all your mistakes, old man.”
He jabbed at her muzzle with his quill. “Shut the trap, you insolent, overgrown reptile.”
They worked steadily, filling in detail after detail.
An hour later, he said, “My guess is that Thoralian’s a thousand leagues away.”
“How do you know that?” asked Zip, losing count of the number of grappling hook emplacements. She hissed in annoyance.
“The fortifications,” said the Commander. “Dragons, Dragonships, new technology … we can’t attack here. He knows it. Thoralian will be elsewhere. Plotting.”
“Aranya could flatten this place and serve up those overgrown wild pigs for dessert afterward,” Zip declared, stout in defence of her best friend.
Darron raised an eyebrow. “Bravely said, Princess. But you see what I see, don’t you? The air’s secure. The ground’s secure. The only way Immadia could raid this shipyard is if we burrowed beneath the Island, like the mythical Land Dragons of old.”
“Which are not nearly as mythical as you think, Commander.”
“I wish your Nameless Man could be here to see this,” said Darron, ignoring the smoke wafting from her nostrils. “What’s that wife of mine doing back there?”
“Rajal prints,” said Zip.
“Ah, disguising your lizard-mess?”
Zuziana showed him her right foreclaw. “Shall I draw a map on your back with this?”
But they both knew their jokes were only a disguise of a different kind. Immadia could no more attack this place than they could know what mysterious world hid beneath the Cloudlands, or what lay beyond the legendary mountain-wall that surrounded their Island-World, twenty-five leagues tall. Perhaps with the help of Aranya’s storm powers, Zip thought, an attack on the shipyards might be possible, or if they could attack before those Dragons exercised themselves into shape, which might take weeks. But Aranya was also weeks away, hopefully engaged in a conquest of Jeradia Island.
Zip’s sigh flattened the grass in front of her muzzle. If only her friend would send word. What if Aranya encountered this new technology without being pre-warned?
Evidently, Supreme Commander Thoralian intended to reintroduce Dragons to their Island-World–his Dragons. Given enough Dragons he’d have an unstoppable force, especially since the Dragons of old had conveniently disappeared. There was no balance. No counter-force to give him pause. Did that mean he had been keeping Dragons captive? Or were these all members of his family? Clearly, Thoralian had the Islands in the grip of his hand … or paw. When these Dragons were ready for war, he would smash the Immadian forces in a single stroke.
Suddenly, she shifted her head. “Commander, to have a hope of taking this place, we need Aranya. Ri’arion needs Aranya. The place to join Beran’s forces is at Fra’anior Island.”
“But we need to secure the northerly route to Immadia,” said Darron.
Zip curled her lip into a smile.
“Oh, very sneaky, Remoy. Aye, that could work. If our intelligence pinpoints Thoralian’s location, we’d know what he’s up to. You could rush over to Fra’anior and brief King Beran about what we’ve seen here, because he needs to know about these Dragons and the new weapons. Take Ri’arion. Get Aranya to heal him–but how would we do it? Can’t go in a Dragonship equipped for war.”
“A small force sneaks westward around The Spits, just as we planned,” said Zip. “We take the long passage to Remia, skipping Jendor and Horness. Swiftly on to Noxia, then Rolodia, and then Fra’anior lies within striking distance.”
Darron snapped his fingers. “Those long-distance trader Dragonships we captured at Helyon. I knew I’d find a use for them.”
“Exactly.”
“Disguise for an Azure Dragon, plus excellent range and speed,” he said, nodding with increasing enthusiasm. “Meantime, I’ll order my spies and specialists to sabotage these works. A few well-placed attacks will create havoc. We fortify the northern route at Ferial and Helyon, building up our forces, not wasting them in a major but futile attack here. We put Yorbik Island to siege.”
Dragon-Zip’s chuckle was full of ominous rumblings.
But Darron’s eyes rose to the horizon. “First War-Hammer Ignathion will attack at Jeradia Island, because every man is a crazed rajal in defence of his homeland. I hope Beran is prepared for the battle of his life.”
Chapter 14: Battle for Jeradia
ARanya Placed A tray before Yolathion. “Brought you a treat. Surg-gogi.”
“It isn’t every evening my dinner arrives so beautifully dressed,” he said, easing his splinted leg. “Islands’ sakes, I can’t wait to be rid of this thing.”
She smiled, “One more week.”
“Aye, thou art beautiful, Immadia,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “But why you are wearing neither Immadian purple, nor amethyst to match your eyes?”
“Flying right off to a new Island,” she said, trying not to wilt at his tone. He hated the dress, evidently. “White for the Immadian snows.”
With a twirl that wafted her expensive dorlis-flower perfume in his direction, Aranya, every inch the Princess, slipped into the chair opposite him.
“Although, I’d love to see you in a traditional Jeradian dress,” he mused. “You have the height.”
Aranya masked her irritation by adjusting the position of the dishes. Dragon-Aranya thought the meal smelled delicious. Her Human part was not nearly as certain. Meat, certainly. But not any type of meat she had ever eaten. It smelled … sharp. Gamey. Probably richly spiced, in the way of most Jeradian dishes Yolathion had introduced her to.
Right. Tonight was about reviving their relationship. She would not let his obsession with all things Jeradian ruin their evening. She was finished with that meddling Ancient Dragon. She harboured no more desire for Ardan. This Dragoness would fly to her own stars above the Island-World; nobody else would choose them for her. But Aranya had to quash a mindfulness of inner storms, embodied by the thunder rumbling behind their Dragonship as it sped on a direct course for Jos, the capital city of Jeradia Island. Deny the magic, she ordered herself. Bite down on the weeping rains, the swelling thunderheads of guilt, and the pregnant hailstorms of betrayal.
She said, “What’s this dish, Yolathion?”
“First, you must taste it,” he said. “The meat goes with these peppered flatbreads. You slice the bread open with your knife–like so–and then spoon in a few curried string-beans. Take it easy on the miniature sweet chilli-pods, they’ll set your mouth afire. Now, a healthy helping of the main attraction–here. Take a bite.”
Aranya almost gagged on her mouthful. The meat was foul. She had to think Dragon-thoughts just to force it past the knot in her throat.
“Good?”
“Distinctive,” she mumbled. Her tongue smarted as she discovered one of the chillies. She gasped, “Oh–water, please. You rotten fiend!”
“A pinch of colour to those pale cheeks,” Yolathion teased.
“While I’m dying over here!”
“See, we Jeradians know about breathing fire,” he claimed, but Aranya’s coughing and teary eyes brought him gallantly out of his seat to help. Patting her back was pointless, but the kisses which followed improved the situation dramatically.
Aranya swatted away an opinion that Ardan’s kisses had been far more enflaming. She had returned his ur-makka before she destroyed it in one of her transformations. How did he do it? The wristlet vanished when he assumed his Dragon form, only to reappear when he turned Human again. That would be a trick. She could keep her clothes on, for a start, which would reduce the opportunity
for embarrassment. She felt Ardan’s eyes upon her even when he thought she was not aware. Did he not realise that Kylara must notice? Women were shrewd about these things, and the Warlord of Ur-Yagga was no fool.
“So,” said Yolathion, returned to his seat and shovelling the surg-gogi meat dish into his mouth with great zest, “who will ride the Dragoness into battle tomorrow?”
“Not Ardan, in case you’re wondering.”
“No, not him.”
Aranya could gladly have bitten her own tail for mentioning Ardan. “After all, you’re my Rider,” she added belatedly. Lame, Immadia. “Two of Kylara’s archers have volunteered. We’ll be fighting your father, Yoli. You saw the intelligence. How do you feel about that?”
“My duty is to stand with King Beran.”
Clearly, a taboo subject. Drawing on her years of courtly training, Aranya smiled at him over the rim of her water goblet. “So, what is that meat? Rajal brains?”
“Excellent guess. You’re right.”
“You’re joking.”
Yolathion’s jaw tightened. “I said, you’re right. Brains and heart. There’s an old Jeradian tradition which says that to eat the heart and brain of a rajal is to become as wise and courageous as the great predator itself.”
She slugged down her mouthful with the aid of a swig of water. “I hope people don’t think that of Dragons.”
“Only those who can slay a man’s heart with their beauty,” he said, saluting her with his glass, and then he spoiled an interlude in which Aranya’s heart was sighing over his handsome smile, by adding, “of course, we Jeradians excelled at hunting Dragons–feral ones, or Dragons which chose the paths of evil, raiding our towns and villages. Jeradian warriors used to be hired by our neighbouring Islands in the great Dragon hunts of old.”
Testily, she replied, “But Jeradia had a school for Dragon Riders, didn’t it?”
“Oh, that old fable?”
“Garg–a Jeradian man I met in the Western Isles, told me–”
“Come on, Aranya. You shouldn’t believe every legend floating around the Islands.” He essayed an engaging grin, which she slapped. Hard.