The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood

by J. Marshall Freeman

  “Crispin, now!”

  I yelped and dug into my pocket for the stones, dropping one in the process. As I picked it up, I realized I couldn’t bang them together with my left arm out of commission.

  “Damn it!” I yelled, looking around desperately.

  Translator called out, “Kras-pa-han, what are you doing?”

  I spotted a flat rock and ran for it, placing the blue stone in the middle and raising the crimson one high in the air. I brought it down hard and missed, sending the blue stone shooting sideways off the rock. I retrieved and reset it, raising the stone again.

  “Are those trigger stones?” the cat hissed in alarm. “No, wait! Don’t!” But there was no time for different orders.

  I slammed the crimson rock down with all my strength. A flash of light erupted from the fissure, and the ground rumbled beneath us. Everyone except Sur was knocked off their feet by the underground explosion. Fire and smoke belched high into the air, and the pit collapsed on itself.

  I looked up at the strands that led to the Realm of Air. They were fading, blinking fainter and fainter, and finally failing. With no strands above and no firepit below, inky darkness engulfed us. Only the red and yellow glow of Sur’s fringes remained, dancing in triumph like a hundred snakes at a club.

  Behind me, Translator gave a heartbreaking howl. I turned and saw a glint off his black eyes. “My home…” he said. “My family…The strands are broken. I cannot return.”

  My stomach dropped in horror at what I had done to him.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. I had no words. I turned and walked away in shame.

  Korda and the guards pulled out torchstones and scrambled down from the ridge in the dim glow. Now that I could see where I was going, I hurried over to Sur.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as she licked a wound on her shoulder.

  “POETRY IS ACTION/POETRY IS MUSCLE/POETRY BREAKS THE BACK OF THE WORLD/NEVER DOUBT THE POET HERO.” She leaned down and sniffed me. “YOU ARE INJURED, DRAGON GROOM.”

  “It’s not too bad,” I said like a freaking war hero.

  Up on the ridge, Davix shouted my name, and I waved my good arm at him.

  Korda called, “Stakrat, Davix, remain on the ridge. The compound is not secure.”

  Sur sniffed me again. “I BELIEVE YOU HAVE MINGLED BODIES WITH THE IMPUDENT YOUNG HUMAN/YOUR BLOOD MAKES FIRE WHEN IT FLOWS WITH HIS.”

  “Not that it’s your business, Ms. Nosey. But yeah, he’s my boyfriend.”

  “CLIMB UP ON MY HAND,” she commanded, “AND I WILL REUNITE YOU.” I did as I was told, and she lifted me up to the ridge.

  Sur’s head remained close, inspecting me and Davix as we hugged, which made Davix pretty nervous. He said, “Come, X’risp’hin. I’ll make a sling for your arm. And give me those stones.” I had forgotten I was still gripping the trigger stones. I felt the ache in my hand as I finally let them go.

  When he was done with his nursing duties, we kissed. I knew Sur was checking us out again because I could feel her hot breath on my back. I turned and said, “Are you researching human love? Or are you just waiting for someone to scratch your head?”

  Stakrat gasped. “X’risp’hin! We do not speak to the Five like that! Forgive him, Great Sur,” she said, bowing. But a deep rumble was bubbling out of Sur’s chest, and I recognized her dragon version of a laugh.

  “HUMAN AND DRAGON FOUGHT TOGETHER/PERHAPS IT IS TIME TO LOOSEN THE TETHER/FOR HUMANS TO SPEAK TO FIRE BEASTS/AS EQUALS, NOT AS MOSTS AND LEASTS.”

  Sur had recited this poem in the modern version of the Tongue of Fire. Stakrat and Davix looked stunned by her revolutionary pronouncement.

  I said, “Ha! Grav’nan will shit his pants when he hears that.” I reached out my good hand in their direction. “Come on! Sur’s right. We won this war together.” With surprised smiles spreading across their faces, Davix and Stakrat took my hand in theirs, and we lifted them together, whooping and cheering.

  Sur spread her wings and, rising up high on her back legs, proclaimed, “HEAR US, ANCIENT SPIRITS OF EARTH AND REALMSPACE! THE REALM OF FIRE IS NOT FOR THE TAKING!/IN BALANCE, NOT WAR DO WE…” But her words collapsed into a strangled cry, and her yellow eyes went wide. We watched in uncomprehending horror as a glowing white spike emerged through her chest.

  “No!” I screamed as the wounded dragon of Air, more skeleton than living beast, rose behind Sur and withdrew the spike of its remaining wing. Hot, yellow blood spurted from Sur’s chest, and she fell, body smashing against the ridge, knocking us all off our feet. She crashed to the floor of the compound at the Air dragon’s feet. The wind began to rise again, putting swirling flesh on the horrible bones. Below, Korda and her guards shot useless arrows and spears at it.

  The dragon’s voice was a long, deep, growl, and this time I couldn’t find any meaning in it but Death! Death! Death! Unable to stop the howl coming out of my own throat, I reached to take Davix’s hand…but he was gone. The world was ending, and the boy I loved was nowhere, sucked into the abyss, into death, death! I stumbled in circles, calling his name. Maybe he’d fallen from the ridge like I did before. Maybe he was lying unconscious, about to be trampled by the horror creature of Air. Dropping to my knees, I squinted into the darkness below. Then I heard his voice.

  “Hail to the mighty ruler of the Realm of Air!” Davix called against the howl of the wind. He was down below in the compound, holding a lantern high above him. Just behind him, the tethered sky steeds stomped in panic and rose on their wings to escape, only to be pulled back down by the ropes that held them.

  “Translator,” Davix yelled, “I need you to relay my words.”

  Translator was as tough a soldier as Korda. Despite everything that had just happened—to us, to him and his family—his voice now called out clear and strong, translating Davix’s greeting to the Dragon.

  The Air dragon turned and looked down at Davix, who stood too close to the monster. Way too close.

  The voice he used was one I had never heard before—authoritative, cold, and confident. “The earliest verses of our DragonLaw command the People to put their faith in their mighty dragon leaders. You, great dragon of Air, are the leader we have awaited for thousands of cycles. Bless us with your might and mercy, and in return, we offer our worship and obedience…and more!”

  No one moved. No one breathed.

  Then the Air dragon spoke, and Translator translated. “And what ‘more’ can weak creatures like you offer to one such as I?”

  “This, Great One.” He put down the lantern and lifted something else into the air. At first I didn’t realize what it was, but then, in an instant, I understood his risky, maybe suicidal plan. A cold chill went through me.

  “This is the crown of our realm,” Davix called. “Worn only by the mightiest of dragons. It would be a mockery for it to sit on the heads of the weak creatures hiding in Farad’hil. What kind of rulers are they, who sent their youngest and least experienced to fight you? No, this crown must go instead to the noble dragon of Air who now graces our land.”

  The dragon’s question was the sound of cyclone and storm. “The one who wears this crown…That one is the mightiest?”

  “Yes, Great Master. Please grant me the honour of placing it on your head as a token of our obedience.”

  I felt like I was going to scream. I wanted to run to him, pull him away to safety. But this had to happen. If death or life awaited us, Davix’s plan was maybe our last chance.

  “IiiiiissssffffffaHhaaaaNnnn-haaaaa,” breathed the dragon.

  “You may,” the cat translated.

  The dragon lowered its head. Even from where I stood, I could see Davix’s hands shaking as he closed the end of the circle into the clasp. The red crystal lit up. Davix placed the hoop on a pointy bit of the Air dragon’s bony head. Careful not to let the crown fall, the dragon raised its neck slowly, raised its chest up and up, towered as high as it could so we could all appreciate its newly crowned majesty.

  “And thus
is justice done in the Realm of Fire,” Davix said, and I realized the voice he had been using was more than a little like Grav’nan-dahé’s.

  He held the trigger stones in his upraised hands.

  “For the Realm of Fire,” he said, bringing the stones together.

  Light, force, a noise like the end of all things.

  Then nothing.

  When I finally struggled to my feet, I had no idea how much time had passed. Through the shifting dust, I could just make out pinpricks of light from the fallen torchstones.

  “Davix!” I called, though it was hard to hear my own voice through the ringing in my ears. I staggered in what I hoped was the right direction, calling his name, coughing. I found him sitting up, dazed, hugging his knees. I wrapped my uninjured arm around him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “I killed a dragon,” he said, his voice flat.

  “Yeah! You were amazing!” I enthused, because I didn’t understand yet what was going on with him. Korda appeared through the cloud of dust, holding a bright lantern. In its light, we saw the shattered Air dragon looming above us, its head and neck gone. And as we watched, it disintegrated, turning to mist and smoke that sailed away in little spinning eddies until all that was left was a pile of ash.

  And then I saw Sur.

  I ran to her, dropping to the ground beside her head.

  “Sur? Are you alive?”

  She wheezed, and finally managed to say, “THERE ARE MANY STATIONS ON THE ROAD FROM LIFE TO DEATH.”

  I laughed through my tears. “You talk kind of cryptic sometimes, anyone ever tell you that?”

  “VIXTET OFTEN CLAIMS MY VERSE STEERS A POINTLESSLY MEANDERING PATH. I OBVIOUSLY DISAGREE.”

  “Obviously.”

  “BUT YES, KHARIS’PAR’IH’IN, I FEAR MY OWN DISSOLUTION IS NEAR.”

  “No!” I cried. “Don’t worry; we’ll get help. And screw Vixtet, I understand you fine.”

  “PERHAPS BECAUSE SHE IS OLD, AND YOU AND I ARE YOUNG.”

  “Yeah, you’re not a day over a hundred and seventy-five.” I leaned my head against her, my tears running down her cool scales. “Hey, Sur, you know that rhyme you couldn’t find? K’rizat-zhis? I was thinking about it when I was in the cage. What about d’niz’that-khis?”

  Sur was silent for a long time, and just when I thought maybe she’d died on me, she let out a long, shaky breath.

  “YESSSS,” she whispered and recited a verse in the ancient dialect with faltering voice: “Lok’lik khrav k’rizat-zhis/Nof’fethan karu dniz’that-khis…TO THE SOULS LOST AND SCATTERED WHEN CAME THE FLOOD/COME YOU TOGETHER AT THE CALL OF THE BLOOD.”

  “I like it,” I said, stroking her fringes.

  Her reply was almost inaudible. “IT COULD STILL BE…MORE…CONCISE.” And she died.

  I pulled myself away as her body, like the Air dragon’s, disintegrated. But unlike that beast of darkness and death, Sur decayed to a pile of embers, glowing low and red in the night. And in the embers were the coloured jewels from her breast. Davix and Stakrat joined me, kneeling on the ground as the embers slowly went dark. We were witnesses to all that life, all that history crumbling to ash.

  PART VI

  The Dragon Groom Awakens

  Chapter 46: Rising Up

  “What will you do with Translator?” I asked Korda as she ate her breakfast. We wore matching slings.

  “He will return to Cliffside with us. If he wants any kind of clemency, he’ll have to tell us everything he knows about the cat soldiers. We must round them up before they can establish a stronghold.”

  I walked over to the cage. Translator sat inside, cross-legged. He hadn’t said a word to anyone since the strands were broken.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “Can I get you anything?”

  He didn’t move, didn’t even look up at me.

  “Translator, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t have a choice.” My words were pebbles thrown at a stone wall. Their inadequacy humiliated me, and I walked away. The cat didn’t owe me forgiveness. I’d stolen his life from him.

  Translator wasn’t the only one silenced by grief. Since we’d woken up, Davix had been perched on a rock, staring out at the Badlands, crying quietly. We’d already spent half the night having variations of the same discussion:

  “I killed a dragon. There is no greater crime.”

  “You saved us.”

  “I killed a dragon.”

  “Someone had to. It murdered Sur.”

  This time we said nothing; I just held him so he wouldn’t fall into a pit of despair. Truth was, I needed the support as badly as he did.

  One of the guards came over with two bowls of soup, and we drank in silence. When we were finished, I followed Davix over to Korda’s tent, where she was staring into a grace book.

  “I wrote a message to Great Renrit,” Korda told us, “and I’m waiting for a reply.”

  Davix asked, “What did you tell him?”

  “That we secured the enemy outpost and shut down the strands. That we’re ready to return to Cliffside.”

  “What about…?”

  “Yes, I told him all about the dragon of Air. And Sur.”

  “You told him what I did?”

  “I had to file a complete report, Davix.”

  His shoulders slumped. I couldn’t do anything to make him feel better, and it broke my heart.

  Just outside, Sur’s jewels were laid out on a piece of rough cloth. Through the door of the tent, I watched reflections of the early morning light dancing playfully inside them as if they didn’t know everything was about death today.

  “We have to take Sur’s jewels with us,” I said. “For her funeral or whatever.”

  Before Korda could reply, the page of the grace book went blank, and large, loopy writing appeared in its place.

  “YOU WILL BRING THE DRAGON GROOM TO FARAD’HIL IMMEDIATELY. TIQOKH WILL ALSO ACCOMPANY YOU.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Wait till you see Farad’hil, Korda. It’s super swank.”

  “You will go to the dragon abode,” Korda told us, “but I must take one of the steeds and return to Cliffside with the prisoner.”

  “But don’t you want to see Farad’hil once in your life?” I asked her.

  I’m sure she was tempted, but she shook her head. “I must return to the city so we may defeat the threat of the cat soldiers. Perhaps Davix should come with me.”

  “What?” I had to stop myself from shouting. “No, I need him with me.”

  Davix’s voice was quiet. “X’risp’hin, I am not worthy to enter the holy mountain.”

  “No, shut up. I’m the Dragon Groom and I totally need you.”

  “Very well,” Korda answered. “Stakrat and another of the guard will accompany you. They must assess the security of the dragon abode in case any of the cats make their way there.”

  We struck camp, and soon, three sky steeds headed off in two different directions. As we flew over the top of the world, I gasped at what I saw. The endless fog that had covered everything since the day I arrived in the Realm of Fire was burning away in the morning sun. For the first time, I saw huge, awesome views—mountains, forests, fields; I even thought I could see Cliffside in the distance—the Atmospherics Tower and the Citadel shining in the sun. I turned around to look at Davix, who was sharing a sky steed with me, and saw he was crying again. But he smiled when he saw my excitement and squeezed me tighter.

  “Sarensikar is finally over!” he yelled above the rushing wind.

  Chapter 47: The Groom of Etnep

  No one greeted us when we landed at the entrance to Farad’hil. Tiqokh had to hammer on the high gates with his big fist before someone opened up.

  “Greetings, Lak’wyr,” Stakrat said to the bedraggled, exhausted guy at the door. I seemed to recall him from Cliffside.

  “Please hurry inside,” he replied. “We have to serve the dragons their dinner shortly, and
we are behind with cleaning their quarters. Do any of you know how to repair a fountain? Great Vixtet says she cannot concentrate on her tasks since the one in her workshop went out of service.”

  Without its little army of mixed beings doing all the work, Farad’hil was not the well-oiled utopia I remembered from my last visit. Nonetheless, it was fun to watch my friends freaking out with awe at actually visiting this sacred place. Even I had kind of forgotten how impressive the central core was, dropping down twenty stories below us, and rising ten above, the road spiralling around its edge.

  Davix, his voice choked up, said, “I didn’t think I would ever see the halls of the Dragon Lords.”

  “It is truly wondrous,” Lak’wyr said. Was it my imagination, or was he giving Davix some creepy side-eye? “However, we have been so busy since we arrived, I’ve hardly had the chance to appreciate it. And now the news of Great Sur…” Everyone lowered their heads a bit.

  Stakrat said, “I must speak to the Dragon Lords, Lak’wyr. I need to gather details for Korda on the defences of Farad’hil.”

  “Mostly we’ve been meeting with Great Vixtet. You can accompany us when we bring her dinner.”

  “May I be allowed to accompany you as well?” Davix said. “Vixtet is patron of my house, and…and I feel I must explain what happened in the Chend’th’nif.”

  Lak’wyr’s mouth grew thin and hard. “Great Vixtet was most emphatic. She does not want you brought into her presence. I’m surprised you would ask.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why not?”

  Davix walked away until he was standing at the edge of the road, looking down into the core. “I am a dragon killer, X’risp’hin. I am not fit to stand in the presence of our honoured lords.”

  I was furious. I told Lak’wyr, “What a load of crap! That Air dragon needed killing. Davix is a hero! Let me go talk to Vixtet about it.” And to Davix, I said, “Don’t stand so close to the edge.”

  “Dragon Groom, you are to be brought to your sleeping quarters where you will await instructions. If you don’t mind, D’gada-vixtet-thon could accompany you there.”