The Dragons of Noor

by Janet Lee Carey

  Taunier patted Breal. “I have to go now. My dragon is waiting.”

  Hanna rubbed Breal where Taunier had just withdrawn his hand. “Please be careful.” It was the same thing Taunier had said to her moments before, and he, too, did not make a promise.

  “I’ll join you soon.” Miles tried to hide his irritation as he said this. He couldn’t wait to go to battle, and the Damusaun still hadn’t told him which dragon he was to ride.

  Farther down the beach, Meers Eason and Kanoae were mounting their dragons. Taunier climbed over a driftwood log and headed for a golden terrow. The red-ringed neck showed it to be a male.

  Miles fought jealousy as he and Hanna followed his friend. They came to a stop at the driftwood log. The Damusaun had honored Meers Eason and Kanoae when she’d seen the blue meer signs on their palms, so he understood why she would send them out in the first wave of fighters. If I’d been blue-palmed before I left Othlore, he thought, she would have chosen a dragon for me by now. Yet Taunier was going out. The dragons seemed to revere his power over fire, for they could not rein it in or make it move the way he could.

  Miles kicked the wet seaweed. The Dragon Queen didn’t seem to value his shape-shifting gift. Instead, she seemed to view it as dangerous. Well, wasn’t herding fire dangerous?

  “Look,” whispered Hanna.

  Just down the beach, Taunier was bowing to his terrow. Miles heard his formal speech. “May I ride with you, Findarr?”

  “We will greet the sky together, Fire Herd.” Findarr knelt down, extending his long neck. His ridged tail, which ended in sharp spikes, curled about him like a spiraling staircase. Taunier paused a moment before stepping closer to the giant kneeling form. Putting his hand atop the base of the scaly neck, he climbed on.

  Miles and Hanna followed Taunier and Findarr as they joined the first group of dragons parading down to the water’s edge. Meers Kanoae and Eason both waited atop their taberrells. Meer Kanoae seemed as sure on dragon’s back as she did captaining her vessel. Her thick hair was braided and tied back with a leather strap. Meer Eason wriggled on his perch, less confident than she. Still, he gave Miles and Hanna a nod from above. Breal wagged his tail and barked, which made the meer laugh and wave, and Hanna waved back.

  Miles tried to look cheerful. There are plenty of dragons left, he told himself. But with every minute, his mood was darkening. When would the Damusaun choose his partner?

  Hanna couldn’t fly into battle after the warning in her dreamwalk. No one wanted to risk her and the Damusaun being shot down from the sky. And anyway, Hanna was bound for the Waytrees, higher up Mount Olone.

  At some invisible signal, the dragons all unfurled their wings, some golden, some blue-green, and lifted over the water. Taunier, Meer Eason, and Kanoae glided higher and higher above the thin clouds. In the gentle rain, Miles watched Taunier and Findarr turn and disappear beyond Mishtar’s Prow star as they headed for the glade in search of the hidden trebuchets.

  Breal nudged his side.

  “Come on,” Miles said.

  Hanna didn’t budge. “I’ll stay here a moment longer.”

  Miles took off up the beach. More dragons were lining up, and he was ready to fly. His heart raced. He wasn’t going to miss the next departure. He crossed the beach to where the Damusaun waited. The queen’s vast form glowed iridescent in the wet moonlight, the crosshatched scars on her breastplate lit up like lettered runes.

  Bowing, he addressed her. “May I ride with you, Damusaun?”

  It was the formal speech of the rider’s ritual, delivered as perfectly as Taunier’s request. The she-dragon spat a javelin of fire at Miles’s feet. He jumped back, the toes of his boots smoking.

  “Your ride is mine to choose, pilgrim,” she growled.

  “Forgive me,” he said, trembling with fear and awe. Taberrell dragons were the largest living creatures in Noor, and their queen held enormous power. It would have been easy for her to spit her fire directly at him and burn him to a crisp. He saw again how forcefully she held back her great power.

  On the rain-pocked sand the Dragon Queen flicked out her tongue.

  Miles’s eyes fell on the queen’s broken talon, the saw mark just above it. He’d heard a Cutter had used his saw to sever the tip as she’d flown him away from the azures. The she-dragon did not speak of her talon or the man who’d severed it, but he’d overheard one of the terrows talking to another dragon in a hushed voice last night.

  The Damusaun caught his gaze, buried the broken talon deeper in the sand, and gave her order. “You will greet the sky with Endour.”

  Miles felt a presence come up behind him, warm breath drifting through cold rain, the sound of a tail dragging in the sand. He pivoted, saw One-eye, and privately winced as he bowed.

  “May I … ride with you, Endour?”

  The dragon’s long orange tongue flicked out. Knots of muscle rippled beneath his scales. The fiery burns along Miles’s arm began to sting under his sleeve. Endour had scorched him in their brief battle, so why had the Damusaun picked One-eye, out of all the dragons on the beach?

  Endour lowered his head. “One who fights is willing to risk all,” he said in a husky voice.

  “I will risk all.” Miles wondered what his pledge meant and how he would be asked to fight when the dragons expected him to follow the law of the Old Magic. He and the meers had joined them without spears or swords, having no weapons at all but their hands and their wits. Still, Endour had claws, fangs, and fire. He found some comfort in that.

  Endour said, “We will greet the sky together, pilgrim.”

  The rider’s ritual was complete as Endour’s voice washed over Miles, and the dragon knelt for Miles to climb on. They’d fought against each other, but that was in the past. They were out to protect the Waytrees. He would go anywhere with this dragon now.

  Endour soared over the dark cliffs. Miles met the wind, feeling as if he were swimming in a great black sea. In that moment he found the gift the seal shape-shift had left him. Not a physical change of heightened hearing or keener vision like other shape-shifts, but a gift he’d abandoned long ago—a sense of playfulness he thought he’d never have again. He’d found it again when he tumbled in the sea in his seal’s form, and that same sense of playfulness came back to him now as he greeted the sky with Endour.

  The wind filled him like an empty flask. He drank.

  They were still far away from the Cutters’ camps. He let out a loud whoop as the land sped by below. The dragons before them seemed to swing from the very stars.

  Turning east, terrows and taberrells rode the thermals high above Jarrosh, rising up and dropping down as the wind opened the way. They glided toward the base of Mount Olone, flying over mile upon mile of clear-cut forest. The Damusaun’s words came back to him. All the Waytrees were bound in their making, and the azures are the greatest of them all. When they fall, the others fall with them. How many dead trees were below him?

  Under the racing clouds, he stared down through the drizzle. Even with his heightened vision, it was hard to make out distinct shapes on the mountainside.

  The dragons flew northeast of one of the lower work camps. As Endour swept soundlessly over the hills, Miles spied a long pole protruding from the bushes. And wasn’t that the glint of metal?

  “There.” Miles pointed down to his right.

  Endour spotted it with his single eye and swooped down. Two landed near the trebuchet, half hidden in a mix of saplings and boulders. Miles was surprised to find it unguarded. The Cutters must be too busy drinking ale or sleeping in their huts. He slid to the ground beside Meer Eason and looked up at it in wonder. The weapon on its wheeled stand was more than twelve feet tall, and the spiked iron balls piled beside it were each nearly a foot in diameter; he wondered how the men could even lift them.

  Meer Eason’s dragon helped Endour lift the weapon. Gripping the base in their strong talons, the dragons pumped their wings hard, sending up a pungent wind. It held the scent of fennel, of ear
th, and the sharp evergreen smell of azure needles, an odor Miles had not known before coming to Jarrosh.

  Eason stepped closer and wiped the rain from his face. Together they watched the dragons struggling with the trebuchet. The great long-armed weapon of wood and iron was heavy, but they lifted it at last. Their flight seemed almost drunken as they dipped up and down with the weight; they flew over the hills to the deep, black water and dropped the trebuchet into the sea.

  Miles was too far away to hear the splash even with his sharp ears. But he saw the weapon fall, and he raised his fist with Eason in a silent cheer as it sank out of sight.

  “One down,” said Endour triumphantly as the dragons returned. Miles could swear old One-eye was smiling. He laughed as he climbed on Endour’s back and gripped the warm neck folds. Soon they were speeding through the night.

  An hour passed as they crisscrossed the high hills, and still no sign of a second weapon. Dawn would break in a few hours, removing the covering of night.

  In the clearing just above the second camp, Taunier and his terrow wheeled down with the other dragons. Endour sped in. There! Another trebuchet. But unlike the first, this one was guarded. A shout came from below. “Dragons! Dragons overhead!”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WING HOME SWIFTLY

  Good friend, as you cross the sea,

  Take your boat and sturdy oar.

  Wait for me when you have crossed

  Over to the farthest shore.

  —SONG “GOOD FRIENDS PARTING”

  The camp exploded with screams and shouts as half-dressed men burst from their huts and plunged into the bushes.

  “Load the ball!” one man shouted below. Endour winged down, claws extended to grip the trebuchet before the Cutters could use it.

  Thwack! The first metal ball flew skyward, striking a riderless terrow in the belly. She lurched back, screaming, wings flapping. Vicious roars came from the other circling dragons as her head drooped and she spiraled helplessly down.

  Endour and Findarr flew in. Men panicked and ran. They were found out now. No need to haul the weapons secretly out to sea. They’d burn this one.

  Cutters darted through the bushes below, shouting and scattering like rabbits. Still Miles spotted few manning the weapon. Two of the youngest terrow fighters, Agreeya and Yint, soared in, taunting the fleeing Cutters with squeals: “Jit! Jit! Jit!”

  Endour circled the terrows. “Draw back, younglings!”

  His call was answered by another spiked ball. Miles heard the telltale whistling through the night air before he saw it.

  “Watch out!” he shouted. Endour doubled back and flew directly before Agreeya to shield her from the hit.

  There was a horrendous jolt. Miles gripped Endour’s neck, his feet flying upward with the impact. They spun back in the smoke, wings flapping, as Endour roared with rage and fire. Dragon’s blood spattered over Miles’s face and chest as they plummeted down and bashed into the treetops. The violent impact ripped Miles from Endour’s back. He tumbled after the dragon, hurtling from branch to branch until he came to a sudden painful halt in an azure tree. Miles sucked in a sickened breath.

  “Endour?” The dragon was somewhere on the ground below. Miles waited for the dizziness to subside, then carefully pulled himself closer to the thick trunk. His body throbbed with pain. The rough branches had left long bloody scrapes down his arms. The stinging cuts along his burned arm made him suck air between his teeth.

  Screams and shouts from the continuing battle came from higher up the hill. Miles wiped the blood and snot from his face and peered down from his uneasy perch.

  “Endour?” His eyes found the outline of the great, long body on the forest floor. Then he saw the gaping hole where Endour’s belly had been ripped open by the spiked metal ball.

  “No!” Miles jumped to the ground. At Endour’s snout he waited to feel the dragon’s warm breath, but there was none.

  Dead. Miles drew back, shuddered, and looked away. It had all happened in a moment, the sound of the trebuchet, the ball careening upward.

  He placed his hand on Endour’s broad neck. Wind rustled the wet branches. Quietly at first, then louder, Miles sang the death knell for the great taberrell. Kaynumba, eOwey, kaynumba. The ending comes, O Maker, the ending comes.

  In the time it had taken Miles to hear the spiked ball, Endour had flown between it and the young terrow. He’d given his life to save little Agreeya without a moment’s thought.

  Miles wept as he sang, though he’d flown with Endour only this one night. He sang the requiem they’d sung over Othlore Wood the night the great forest fell, and he felt as he did then that something very rare and very old had passed from the world.

  Running his hand along Endour’s neck, he wrote the Othic mark of passage in blood on his scales, Walk home swiftly; then, wiping the first word away, he changed the runes to Wing home swiftly.

  When he cleaned his hands in the grass, the dragon’s blood was still warm, and some of the stain remained on his skin.

  Men’s voices shouted down the hill. Thwack! They would kill another dragon tonight if they could.

  Miles’s legs shook. Endour had followed the law of the Old Magic; he hadn’t killed a single Cutter. But the men did not follow such laws.

  The King of Kanayar paid the Cutters to fell the finest timber in Noor, and neither the king nor his men seemed to care how many dragons they had to kill to get it. The wet wind had the metallic smell of dragon’s blood on it. A fiery bolt shot up Miles’s spine. He knew the danger of shifting in anger. He’d been sucked into the Shriker’s form this way. But he let himself lose control. Let the rage over Endour’s death pour through him and shape him with its fiery hands. Beneath the windblown trees his flesh began to stretch.

  A scream ripped up his throat as the shift tore open his human form. The rapid change made him stagger. He fell onto all fours, his arms and legs growing, thickening; his fingers and toes sharpening into long, deadly talons. Heavy wings jutted from his splitting spine. Scales spread over his body like tarnished armor.

  Roaring, he beat his wings, lifted higher, and soared over the clearing.

  He was king of the air, masterful and mighty.

  He was a dragon.

  High above the mountainside, he inhaled the wet air like wine. Never before had he known such power, not even when he was the Shriker. He was ten times stronger than any beast alive, a hundred times stronger than a man. Taking on speed, he careened toward his enemies.

  His nostrils caught the smell of the Cutters’ fear-drenched sweat before he saw them. Their scent heightened his desire for revenge. Down below, two men grunted as they loaded a spiked ball onto the leather basket of the trebuchet. A third man helped them pivot the great weapon on its metal axis.

  “There’s one!” The men’s backs were to Miles. The one who’d shouted was pointing at a soaring terrow. “Filthy dragon! This will down him soon enough. Release the—”

  Miles’s deafening roar overpowered his next word as he wheeled down, breathing molten fire to the earth. The men fled, screaming. Miles winged in closer and tore the garments off the back of one. The man lost his balance and fell headlong down the steep hill.

  Spinning about, he captured another man and dropped him into the trees. He heard him scream as he tumbled down, cursing as he hit and broke the branches of the sapling in his fall. He’d fly back to kill him and the others later. First he had to destroy their despicable weapon.

  Miles doubled back and lit the trebuchet. He circled overhead and watched the long launch arm burning. He could not burn the spiked balls, but he flew down, took several in each claw and hurled them down the mountainside.

  He soared upward. Below him, men were running, shouting, terror sharpening the pitch of their voices. He dove down, letting the angry fire build up in his chest. He’d set the putrid men below alight. He’d kill them for killing Endour!

  Two taberrells flew past on his right. Kanoae rode the second. Miles turned
and dropped back out of sight. Dragons had a heightened sense of smell. What if the taberrells caught his scent and recognized he was not one of them but was a human in dragon’s form? Would the Damusaun be angry if she knew? Uneasy with the thought, he headed toward the cliffs.

  Thwack! A ball had been released. A third trebuchet? Where? He pivoted too late. The flying metal ball spun him sideways as the spikes tore through his scales and flesh. Searing pain swept through his body. He screamed fire as he plummeted down.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE HOLLOW ONE

  Can a sister find a brother?

  —WILD ESPER

  The she-dragon bore Hanna above the sea cliffs to another beach on the west side of Mount Olone. The constellations shone through a rent in the clouds high overhead. The prow star of the Mishtar’s Ship sparkled, and down below, Hanna saw herself and the Damusaun skimming across the starry reflection in the black mirror of the sea.

  All the trees had been felled at the base of the mountain here along the shore. The Cutters were gone, and the camp amid the stumps stood empty. The queen landed on a wide strip of sand.

  Hanna dismounted. “Why bring me here, Damusaun? You know I have to search for a way into Oth. My brother—”

  “Come.”

  They crossed the deserted beach. The seaweed coiled in green piles like discarded gowns. Thriss wriggled in her sleep and nudged Hanna’s neck with her cool snout as she rounded a driftwood pile. Up an incline, the Damusaun stopped where sand met brown, uneven earth: the edge of what had once been an azure grove. One towering tree remained amid the stumps. Even at night Hanna could see the giant tree was hollow, too damaged for the Cutters to harvest.

  The Dragon Queen nodded. “It is like an open doorway, is it not?”

  Hanna stepped closer. “Damusaun, if this is the way into Oth,” she said breathlessly, “if you found it for me—” She hugged the queen’s leg, thick and rough as a tree trunk. A little shy over what she’d done, she let go. “I wish you could come with me to look for Tymm.”