by Janine Cross
These dreams weren’t the only way my mother’s haunt plagued me during that Fire Season in the dragonmaster’s domain; she followed me, in her mundane disguise of a buzzard.
Most days I could ignore her, the same way one ignores a nagging, muffled headache, but on those days when my fellow inductees sought to test again my vow never to strike an apprentice down, and on those days that I remembered, painfully, how I had once had the opportunity to kill Kratt and had let it slip away, and on those days when no breeze blew and the sun blazed and the air felt as thick and hot as smoke, I found myself glancing too frequently at the tongues of the dragons I served, found myself inhaling the citric fragrance of their venom with great longing.
But as I said, most days I could ignore the haunt’s presence.
Readily done, when there was so much work in the stables.
Each day, my hours were filled from dawn to dusk with grooming, mucking stalls, repairing tack, replacing roof tiles, or rehinging stall gates. Poultices had to be ground to treat wing sores and claw pad ulcers. Purges had to be distilled and forced down the throats of sick dragons by means of leather tubes, to treat intestinal parasites. Fodder had to be fetched from the grain silos, mangers scrubbed clean of all food residue, and faggots for the cooking pit made from manure and straw. The renimgars—our sole meat source in the stables—had to be fed and watered, and their hutches regularly cleaned. We inductees squeezed in our vebalu training between our stable chores, and truly, I could see why attaining servitor status and earning a decrease in tasks was so desirable. With all the work we inductees performed, we learned little of Arena fighting skills. With each passing day, our chances of learning enough to survive against Re decreased as Arena drew relentlessly closer.
But despite the constant, low-grade presence of the haunt, the nagging realization that I’d given up on killing Kratt, and the intense, ever-increasing anxiety concerning Arena, I did find pleasure in my work. As soon as Egg and Eidon discovered how adept I was at grooming dragons, I was told to work alongside the servitors doing that job, instead of mucking stalls with the inductees. All those years at Tieron, sweeping snake poles beneath the partially detached scales of the kuneus in search of kwano snakes, made me an expert in grooming. More than once, an impromptu race between myself and another servitor would interrupt the monotonous work, and amidst the wagering and shouts of spectators, I’d again and again prove my grooming mastery.
And, because I refused to strike an apprentice during vebalu, I concentrated all my efforts on learning how to dodge and parry and swirl my cape in an opponent’s face. I even developed a new technique, one that no one had used before, and while at first my clumsy attempts were jeered at, my eventual proficiency garnered much grudging admiration. My technique was this: I’d whip off my cape during vebalu, swirl it fast into a ropelike whip, and snap it, chain end out, at my opponent’s testicles. I’d had to revise my opinion slightly about striking an apprentice during vebalu, see, given the brutal reality of my situation; I’d decided that although I would never fell someone with a strike, I would strike to repel their attack against me.
Each evening in the privacy of my stall, I therefore practiced my maneuver over and over, so that I could perform it smoothly and swiftly and slip my cape back over my head while my opponent was dancing away from me, testicles smarting from where I’d stung him with the whip flick of cape chain.
Even though I never whipped hard enough to fell, I was sorely tempted many a time to do otherwise.
The dragons, too, were occasionally a source of pleasure for me, because each had her own personality and quirky character. While one dragon would submit to grooming with grunts of contentment, eyes closed, another would roguishly seek to toss me off her back, or snatch my snake pole in her mouth. There was the odd dragon that was feisty and foul tempered, but I’d had much experience in the convent with such a humor, for Ka, one of the retired bulls, had had an aggressive, touchy spirit. I soon gained a reputation of being able to handle such temperamental beasts, and while I welcomed the respect it garnered me, I didn’t relish being stuck grooming most of the unpredictable destriers.
I was lashed, on occasion, by venom-drenched tongues, when a displeased dragon vented her anger upon me. The infrequent attacks left me with blistering welts, venom-induced puissance, and giddy hallucinations. My high tolerance for the dragons’ poison also earned me some respect from my fellow apprentices, though that admiration was tinged with much trepidation, for a new inductee such as myself should show nowhere near as much familiarity with venom as I did, regardless of my history as an onai.
Where was the dragonmaster in all this? Often in the exercising fields, a place I’d yet to see, instructing the veterans how to saddle and fly a dragon, or aiding them in the giddy, terrifying task of exercising Re, our holy bull. Sometimes I saw the Komikon in the vebalu gymnasium, correcting a servitor’s hold on a bullwhip or improving a veteran’s bull-whoring style. Occasionally he could be found in Isolation, the stables near the Tack Hall, where we housed ill and wounded destriers. The dragonmaster’s rough affection for the dragons gradually became apparent to me, and his skill with the beasts was manifest in the way no dragon, no matter her temperament, ever misbehaved with him.
On two occasions, he joined us at dusk outside the apprentices’ hovel and regaled us in his hoarse voice with stories of past Arena battles. We listened raptly, though tensely, for the Komikon was as temperamental as our most unpredictable destrier, and we never knew when his delight in storytelling would switch to disgust at our reactions, or lack thereof.
He also whipped those of us who shirked our duties.
He cared little if an inductee was ill from exhaustion, and he was impatient with strained muscles, torn ligaments, or broken bones. We had no infirmary in the stables where we could go when injured, only the Isolation court for injured dragons. If ever any of us fell ill, we’d splint our own broken bones or medicate ourselves using dragon-meant supplies from Isolation.
On two separate occasions during this time, an inductee disappeared overnight from the dragonmaster’s domain. Each disappearance was met with communal silence and unease, as if we were all involved in a conspiracy to pretend such a thing hadn’t occurred, as if none of us, at any given time, had entertained fleeing the dragonmaster’s domain.
Throughout those days, Dono gave me as wide a berth as he could. Those who believed as he did—that I was a threat to their livelihoods—challenged me in small ways, frequently, to wear me down. I’d be given a snake pole that was bent, its guillotine dull and useless, or the axle of the fodder barrow allotted me would need repairing before I could use it. I’d be tripped, jabbed, or whacked with a pitchfork handle numerous times each day. Such relentless, subtle hostility was, thankfully, balanced by Eidon’s guarded favor; no bruises did I suffer when Eidon was close by.
Despite this constant, low-grade opposition from some of the apprentices, there was a sense of temporary reprieve in the stables in regard to how Temple would deal with me, for the uprising that had taken the Ranreeb away to Clutch Maht had been surprisingly successful. The Forsaken who’d invaded that Clutch had gone straight to the destrier stables, and rumor had it that a clawful of Lupini Maht’s best fighting dragons had been stolen by the rebels and couldn’t be located. Temple was too involved in ferreting out the rebel leaders who now hid in mountain, Clutch, and city alike to dwell much on the presence of a deviant woman in Dragonmaster Re’s stables.
Then one day, in Temple’s bid to purge Malacar of all insurgents, the Daron of Clutch Re remembered me.
Acting upon the orders of the Ranreeb, he spoke harsh words to Waikar Re Kratt concerning my ongoing presence in Roshu-Lupini Re’s stables. The Ashgon, the sacred Temple advisor to the Emperor and Malacar’s titular head of Temple, was sorely displeased with Dragonmaster Re for sanctioning my enlistment in his apprenticeship, regardless of what the as-yet-unfound Scroll of the Right-Headed Crane said. And Kratt, in a thoroughly foul tem
per, came direct to the stables to see me that evening.
I sat astraddle a destrier, grinning, having just won a grooming contest against one of Dono’s allies. The handsome, full-lipped veteran who’d challenged me just before we quit work for the evening had thought he’d stood a reasonable chance of winning, for only the day previous, I’d been beaten yet again during vebalu training, for my refusal to strike a fellow apprentice down. My back, arms, and calves bore the bludgeon bruises to show it. Despite the aching stiffness and pulsing tenderness of my bruises, I’d still won the contest. Standing to one side of the crowd of apprentices that had gathered to watch, Dono looked comically exasperated at my win.
I thought, too, that perhaps I saw reluctant admiration in his eyes.
I was just sliding off the destrier I’d groomed, my bruised and aching back turned to the crowd, when of a sudden everyone fell silent. The hairs on my nape tingled. With a feeling of presentiment, I turned around.
Waikar Re Kratt stood at the threshold of the stall, eyes shadowed by lack of sleep and brimming with deep purpose.
“You turn my stables into an exhibition ground, girl?” he said quietly, his voice replete with threat.
“No, Bayen Hacros,” I murmured, eyes cast down. Bayen Hacros: First-Class Citizen Lord Dominant. It is custom for a rishi to address the highest-ranking lord present as Bayen Hacros, and because Waikar Re Kratt’s father was not yet dead, Temple had not yet granted Kratt the title Lupini Re, Lord of Clutch Re.
Though most addressed him as such regardless.
My somewhat impertinent use of the title Bayen Hacros flamed his brooding fury. I’d been stupid, cocky with my recent win; I realized it the moment the words left my mouth. I should have addressed him as Lupini Re.
“You there,” Kratt said, and I glanced up to see him gesture at Dono. “Restrain the girl for me.”
Dono came toward me, eyebrows knit with uncertainty. He grabbed my left wrist.
“So that’s how one of the Komikon’s men restrains a woman, hey,” Kratt murmured. “As if holding the hand of a child. How disappointing.”
A muscle in Dono’s cheek bulged. He swiftly stepped behind me and forced my wrist up between my shoulder blades. I gasped and rose up on my toes.
“An improvement,” Kratt said. He approached, moving with languid ease, his blue eyes overbright in the gathering dusk. The crowd of apprentices moved back a short ways, instinctively creating space between themselves and Kratt’s smouldering anger.
Kratt stood before me. Not daring to meet his gaze, I stared at his chest, covered in a white silk shirt artfully unlaced at the front to reveal his lean muscles. He smelled so strongly of ambergris, the pungent perfume coated my teeth with bitter fumes.
I waited. Kratt didn’t move. My arm, pinned by Dono, began to throb.
Kratt’s chest rose and fell before me. Smoothly. Hypnotically. His stillness was a threat, his proximity menacing. My anxiety increased with each passing heartbeat.
When he backhanded me across the cheek, my head rocked back and bounced off Dono’s chest. He slapped me again, and again, then stepped away.
Reeling, eyes watering, I tasted blood in my mouth. My bleary vision focused on Kratt.
“Now, rishi whelp, I want you to free yourself,” he murmured, tilting his head slightly to one side.
Panting, I could only stare at him, uncomprehending.
“Free yourself,” Kratt repeated, his voice lower, insistent. I pulled against Dono’s grasp. Unclear as to his role, Dono relinquished his hold.
“Do not release her, boy.”
Dono jerked my hand into place again.
“Release yourself, girl,” Kratt ordered, and he slowly began circling Dono and me. I could smell Dono’s fear, sharp and sour, and the overfast rhythm of our breathing grew synchronized. “Show me some of your power and release yourself.”
I pulled with an arm that felt as heavy and useless as a roll of sodden cloth, and was answered by stabbing pain across my neck, down my shoulder, and through my biceps.
“Release yourself.” A whisper from Kratt’s dark shape near my elbow.
Dono stepped away from me slightly, still holding me—Kratt must have guided him to do so with a commanding finger upon his torso—and then thwack! Kratt struck me with a quirt upon the fresh bruises of my back.
I cried out, and he hit me again, and I felt myself falling, heard Dono’s grunt as he instinctively reached with his free hand to catch me around the waist, and for a moment there was blackness.
But the blackness did not last.
Kratt’s face before me. Again.
“Summon your bird, rishi whelp. Summon your Skykeeper to save you, hmmm?”
“I can’t,” I gasped, panting. “It won’t come; it won’t obey me.”
“That’s not what you told me before. Did you lie? I deal harshly with liars, rishi whelp.”
“No!”
“Then summon her,” he demanded. “Prove to me that you are what the dragonmaster says. Prove to me that you are this Dirwalan Babu.”
“But I can’t; she won’t come; she only appears when my life is threatened,” I babbled, fear running rampant throughout me.
“Only when your life is threatened, hey-o?” Kratt said.
A slow, humorless smile spread over his face. Oh, Re.
I gaped at him, aghast at what I’d said, at what power I’d just given him.
Because, of course, I knew what was coming next.
“Bring her out into the courtyard, boy,” Kratt murmured to Dono. “I think I’ll require more space.”
The past oft repeats itself, hey-o.
This is how my father died, when I was but nine years old: Four bayen lordlings dragged him from his pottery studio into our clan courtyard, and with the leather laces from his own sandals, they bound his hands and ankles. They led a yearling over to him, man height and twice as long, wings a-tremble and scales contracted, its claws fully intact: one of the warrior lord’s own dragons.
Using bullwhips, they drove the yearling into a frenzy; it attacked my father. Between drawing one breath and another, he was disembowelled.
Dono had seen none of that, had already begun serving his apprenticeship to the dragonmaster. So as he bound me upright against a barrow in the center of the stable’s courtyard, my gibbering story meant nothing to him.
No, not nothing. Confusion flitted across his features and his hands fumbled badly.
Waikar Re Kratt stood some distance away from us, pacing slowly to and fro, examining the long whip he’d uncoiled from his belt as the first evening bats began swooping over the stables. The rest of the apprentices stood clustered some distance away. At a subtle signal from Eidon, I saw Ringus slip away, unnoticed by Kratt, and disappear at a run through the adjacent stable yard.
Dono finished lashing my ankles together and rose from his knees. His narrow, never restful eyes darted over my face.
“Waivia,” he said, voice guttural.
I stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Did she see it?” he said.
Waivia, my sister. He wanted to know if she’d been present when my father had been killed, if she’d witnessed the horror; he had been listening to my babble as he’d lashed me to the barrow.
“No,” I said, the truth coming thick as old gruel from my tongue.
He nodded and dropped his eyes. He took a deep breath and mumbled, “You should’ve left when you had the chance, Zarq. I’m sorry.”
He quickly turned away and went over to Kratt.
Words were exchanged. Kratt pointed to one of the destriers in her stall. He knew the dragons in his stables, certainly; he’d chosen the most temperamental of them all.
Dono hesitated, then turned and barked at two of his allies to give him aid. The trio approached the feisty dragon.
Kratt snapped his whip at my belly. It ripped a hole right through my coarse tunic and snapped like fire against my skin. I gasped.
“Now, summon your bir
d, rishi whelp,” Kratt ordered, and snap! the tip of his whip cracked a hand’s breadth away from my mouth. “Summon your bird or be killed.”
The destrier Dono and his helpers led from the stall fought the muzzle hooks inserted in her flared nares. She was a beautiful creature, her crop dewlaps hanging from her throat like milky opals. Even in the gloom of dusk, her quivering wings—hastily bolted by Dono while in her stall so she couldn’t burst into flight—looked like amber, rich and tawny and almost pellucid. The finger claws at the end of her wings twitched like jointed ebony needles, and the talons on her forelegs were as curved and wicked as scimitars. She shied at the sight of me strapped against the barrow, and the muscles in her hindquarters bulged beneath scales green and glossy brown.
She was a magnificent beast, powerful and high-strung. Her talons would easily cut me in half. My vision swooned and my heart thundered like a thousand beaten kettle drums.
Kratt circled behind me and began flicking his whip at the dragon. She reared back, shied left, shied right, snorted and tossed her head. Flick, flick! The whip snapped against her muzzled snout. Infuriated, she bugled in her throat, charged forward several feet, and reared up. Her great, wicked talons slashed the air several feet before me.
I inflated my lungs and screamed. I screamed as if expelling my soul. Out of my wits from fear, I screamed and screamed.
Silence from the darkling skies. The slash of talons direct before me, the next blow sure to slit me open from throat to groin.
Then: a scream from the skies. Gravelly, earth-trembling, bloodcurdling.
“Mother!” I shrieked, and the Skykeeper appeared overhead.
She didn’t descend from the heights as she had done at the Lashing Lane, when the crowd had intended to stone me to death. No. She merely circled above us, her vast form casting a chill as cold as ice. Even at that height, her wings filled the air with the stench of carrion.