Shadowed By Wings

by Janine Cross

  I shook my head, barely trusted my voice. “I stay here.”

  Behind Daronpu Gen, someone emitted a strangled cry. I jumped, startled; the dragonmaster had appeared at the threshold of my stall, and he smacked his bald pate with both hands. “She’s cracked! All is lost.”

  “What are you saying, Babu?” Daronpu Gen said quietly, his eyes boring into mine.

  “I want to enter Arena.”

  “How so?”

  I took a quavering breath, let it out on a flood of words. “I want you to lay a wager at Arena, a large one, a very large one. With Clutch Xxamer-Zu. The odds will be heavily against me, and if I survive against those odds, Clutch Xxamer-Zu will never be able to meet its debt. That estate Roshu is infamous for his reckless wagering; I want him to be forced to forfeit his entire estate to me.”

  “Madness,” the dragonmaster spluttered, almost dancing in his outrage. “The crackbrained fool!”

  “No,” I whispered, and I felt a tear slide down one cheek. I was shaking badly by then, could scarce draw an even breath. “Kratt has Misutvia in his hands; by his own admission we know he’s keeping her in Cafar Re. One of you must fly to the Caranku Bri of Lireh, the merchant guild clan in the coastal capital. Find Malaban Bri and tell him that you know where to find his sister, Jotan. Tell him you’ll divulge the information only upon the agreement that he underwrites your wagers.”

  Daronpu Gen stared at me. “And then?”

  I swiped a hand across my eyes. “Once the agreement is in writing, tell him that Jotan can be found in Cafar Re, but that he must arrive unannounced and with others, else Kratt may kill her rather than release her.”

  “If she’s alive yet,” Gen murmured. “He oft plays in the fields of algolagnia with unwilling partners.”

  “She’s alive,” I said with certainty. “He wants the secret to breeding bulls in captivity more than he wants that kind of pleasure from Misutvia. She’s alive and well looked after.”

  Daronpu Gen conceded the point with a grimace and a nod.

  “So it’s true, then?” I asked him, voice quavering. “Any woman who lies before a dragon can hear the dragons’ song?”

  “Yes, yes, but only the Dirwalan Babu will understand the words!” the dragonmaster interjected, eyes rolling. “The prophecy says so.”

  Daronpu Gen nodded, a thoughtful look entering his eyes.

  “Nashe. Freedom. Manumission. Only the Dirwalan Babu will answer the riddle that will lead to such,” he murmured. He straightened, glowered at me. “You’ll have to disappear from sight during Arena the moment you’ve performed shinchiwouk.”

  I nodded, and my teeth clattered together as I shuddered from the realization that he was agreeing to my wild plan.

  “Can you arrange such?” I asked, voice small.

  He sighed heavily, shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. This is such a risk you take, Babu. Such a risk.”

  “And all for what?” the dragonmaster hissed. He came at us as if he would tackle me in his outrage. “Look at you, girl! You’re weak still from your imprisonment; you’ve not regained half your former strength and skills! You’ve no allies amongst the apprentices; Temple’s poisoned them all against you. And make no mistake, Dono is slated to enter Arena alongside you, his sole intent to strike you down.”

  “These are poor odds, Babu,” Daronpu Gen said gravely. “Your Skykeeper will be hard-pressed to come to your aid in time.”

  I shuddered mightily, felt another tear slide down one cheek.

  “ ‘Advances are made,’ ” I whispered, “ ‘by those with at least a touch of irrational confidence in what they can do.’ ”

  The line was famous, attributed to Zarq Car-Mano. My namesake.

  The dragonmaster all but yanked his goatee braid from his chin in frustration. “Why take this mad risk? Why?”

  “I want my own Clutch.”

  The dragonmaster snorted and threw his hands into the air. “She is mad, mad!”

  Daronpu Gen rumbled in his throat like an unhappy cat. “Even if I place the wager, even if Roshu Xxamer-Zu forfeits his estate, Statute declares that only a Temple-sanctioned warrior or lord may hold a Clutch. In case you haven’t noticed, Babu, I’m neither. The Ranreeb will whisk the Clutch from my hands the moment I win it.”

  “No,” I whispered. “He won’t.”

  “He most certainly will!” the dragonmaster shrieked. “You crackbrained fool, after all my scheming, it comes to this, to this idiocy—”

  “Let the child speak, man,” Daronpu Gen rumbled. “There’s reason behind her risk, hey-o.”

  “You encourage this insanity? You let her commit this useless suicide?”

  “I have faith!” the daronpu boomed, and a film of dust was loosed upon us from the stall’s cobwebbed rafters. “I see in this girl a seed, pushed deep beneath sod; I await to see it push its way forth. Never forget that faith is the subtle chain that binds us to the Winged Infinite; I will not sever a single link in that chain until I’m sure I have a better one to put in its place, blood-blood!”

  The two men regarded each other, passion joining and separating them.

  At last, Daronpu Gen turned to me.

  “Speak, Babu,” he said. “Speak.”

  “This is what we must do,” I slowly began, and I couldn’t stop shivering; I was cold, so cold. “We find a Clutch lord who’ll govern Xxamer-Zu for us. One who is above Temple reproof, one who is already suited perfectly to inherit a Clutch. One whose pride is chafed sorely that he has no Clutch himself, though he ought to; one who won’t balk at governing a Clutch secretly owned by you.”

  The dragonmaster jerked like a doll caught in the teeth of a dog. “And where in the name of the Pure One are we going to find a lord who meets those requirements, hey? Where?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Here, on Clutch Re,” I said. “Kratt’s half-brother. Rutkar Re Ghepp.”

  TWENTY

  Daronpu Gen journeyed to Lireh, the coastal capital, upon a winged destrier he later told me he’d stolen in the dead of night from Wai Bayen Temple, the principal temple on Clutch Re. He flew hard for seven days and, on the morning of the eighth, found audience with Malaban Bri of Lireh.

  Seven days after that—flying as ruthlessly as the daronpu had done—Malaban Bri reached Clutch Re. Five dragons flew in a tight formation across Re valley that afternoon, outstretched wings shining like sheets of wild honey, ivy and rust scales glimmering like faceted jewels. They flew direct toward the Cafar.

  Kratt, I learned many months later, wisely acted the gracious host and benevolent reuniter to Malaban and his sister. For his part, Malaban judiciously played along with Kratt’s facade and aimed no accusations at him while under his roof.

  But all this I learned later, as I said.

  All I knew at the time was that I’d committed myself to a terrifying risk, and Calim Musadish was fast approaching.

  Much preparation was taking place in the stables for the momentous departure. It would take almost a week for holy Re, our bull dragon, to fly to Fwendar ki Bol, the Village of the Eggs, where the great stadium of Arena stared up at the sky like a colossal, unblinking gray eye. As was customary, Re’s flight would progress in manageable stages, with Re constantly surrounded by destriers to keep him on course.

  Abbasin Shinchiwouk—Arena to most—was scheduled to begin a scant few days after Re’s arrival in the Village of the Eggs. It was a mark of the Ranreeb’s disfavor that Clutch Re’s Calim Musadish had been scheduled so close to the beginning of Arena. Our mighty Re did not have much time to recover from his long flight before the important event, unlike on previous years, when our Clutch’s Calim Musadish had occurred weeks prior to Arena, giving our bull plentiful time both to reach his destination and to recover from the journey.

  While the servitors and inductees readied tents, cooking gear, vebalu weapons, and fodder for the trip, the veterans practiced removing Re from his quarters to the exercise field. The whole while I sweated
frantically alongside the dragonmaster, dodging his bludgeon blows, parrying his poliar attacks, and practicing my trademark move with my vebalu cape.

  I fretted terribly all the while.

  I had no means of knowing whether Daronpu Gen had had the opportunity before his frenzied flight to the coast to speak with Rutkar Re Ghepp. Over and over in my mind I imagined the exchange between the two men: the daronpu clothed in the ragged, worn remains of his gown of office, delivering his tale of prophecy and perfidy while shaking his half-shorn head; and Ghepp, a sheltered, deliberate, pragmatic man, listening with open incredulity. He would have dismissed Daronpu Gen as a madman, no doubt.

  Yet if Gen had phrased his words right, perhaps, just perhaps, he’d managed to penetrate Ghepp’s skepticism and appeal to the part of the man that was always scheming to obtain what would have rightfully been his, save for the fierce affection his father had shown an ebani and the pride he’d had in the get she’d borne him.

  So much depended upon how Kratt now played his dice, how effectively he wooed Temple while his father lay gaunt and unconscious at death’s doorstep. That Kratt had abandoned me—that he no longer believed I was the Skykeeper’s Daughter of an obscure prophecy—was a given. After his visit to the mock mobasanin and his subsequent inquisition of Misutvia, he thought he stood an excellent chance of obtaining the secret to breeding bulls in captivity without the mess of using a deranged dragonmaster and his deviant apprentice.

  I could well imagine Kratt’s discussions with Daron Re, could envisage the flurry of messages between him and the Ranreeb. Could imagine the Ranreeb, in turn, deliberating with the Ashgon himself how best to proceed with Kratt, a loaded cannon that, if loosed, could further damage the already tremor-marred Temple.

  Would Temple assassinate him? I believed not.

  Kratt had numerous allies throughout Malacar and had no doubt informed them that he knew how to unearth the bull’s secret. All eyes were upon his fate. No, Temple would not assassinate him. Better to pull such an enemy under your wing and call him ally, at a time when your very foundation was cracking.

  So I fretted and could scarce sleep at night for fear of what I’d committed myself to, and gear was packed, saddles were readied, and veterans practiced for the fast-approaching day when they’d fly the destriers out of the stable domain, alongside Waikar Re Kratt, his half-brother Ghepp, Daron Re, and a clawful or so of influential Re bayen lords.

  And then, the day before Calim Musadish, something unexpected occurred. Unexpected, I say, only in that it caught everyone off guard, so inauspicious was the timing. The news traveled fast, swept across our Clutch like a raging fire. A great wail rose up from Re valley and reverberated off the mountains. Dogs howled; dark clouds covered the sun; troops of monkeys in the sesal fields howled while wild cats shrieked like gutted pigs. Men beat their breasts and plastered their bodies in hot ash, and women remained in their barracks until nightfall,

  clutching their children close. The father of Waikar Re Kratt and Rutkar Re Ghepp had died in his sleep, see. Roshu-Lupini Re was dead.

  An heir for the estate needed to be announced.

  The announcement was postponed.

  Daron Re declared that his mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical faculties would dwell solely upon Calim Musadish, Vale Ascension. He would therefore not announce whom the Ashgon had chosen as Clutch Re’s overlord until after Arena.

  He would not announce it, understand, until after I’d died beneath the talons of Re, and the dragonmaster who’d succored me had suffered subsequent public evisceration and decapitation. Only then—after Kratt denounced me and recanted—only then would Temple set him on the overlord throne of Clutch Re.

  My death was necessary, first.

  This brought a fresh wave of alarm crashing down upon me, for if I didn’t die in Arena and Kratt was therefore not presented the opportunity to publicly recant, Temple would give Clutch Re to his brother, Ghepp, to govern. Who then would rule Xxamer-Zu for me?

  “This is madness, madness,” the dragonmaster fumed, tearing out invisible clumps of hair from his bald head. “All is twisted and opaque!”

  I longed for Daronpu Gen’s stalwart faith, for the eccentric warden’s steady presence. But he was gone, long gone, awaiting the day of Arena in the safety of Malaban Bri’s mansion, on the coast of our nation.

  He knew nothing of old Roshu-Lupini Re’s death.

  Calim Musadish.

  Vale Ascension.

  Though dawn had only just caressed the cinereous sky with an ochre-dipped brush, outside the stable domain’s great sandstone walls the susurrus of the crowd was like a flood-swollen river. Inside the stables, dragons bugled, Egg and Ringus shouted orders, and servitors and inductees swarmed over the destriers, pinioning their wings with great brass bolts, grooming them, saddling them, muzzling and hobbling them.

  In all the upheaval, only I stood still. Shackles hobbled my ankles and bound my wrists. A chain ran through all four shackles, then up to the stout leather collar about my neck. Though I couldn’t see the collar, I was keenly aware of the metal ring through which the chain ran beneath my chin, for every time I turned my head, the chain clanked through the steel and the sound reverberated against my throat.

  Waikar Re Kratt had insisted that I be transported to Arena in such a manner. Clearly, he would succor me no more.

  A guard clutched the end of my chain in one fist. I could not stop shuddering.

  When every destrier chosen by the dragonmaster for the journey to Arena was saddled, hobbled, muzzled, and wing-pinioned, the servitors led them toward the point of departure: the exercise field. The procession was chaotic as agitated dragons lashed tails, shied, tossed snouts, and bucked. Ringus led the haphazard procession by sheer dint of will.

  The guard tugged me forward, though he needn’t have; I clearly knew we were leaving. Fettered and shuddering, I brought up the rear of the parade. My breath came erratically, too swiftly, inadequate for my lungs.

  We crossed through one courtyard, then the next. The dragons still in their stalls bugled and butted their domed crowns against gate and wall in agitation. Sight and sound collapsed and expanded around me. The air turned fulsome with the musk of impassioned dragon, the reek of steaming dung, and the sharp tang of venom.

  We reached the exercise grounds.

  There, in the center of the field, surrounded by every veteran in the dragonmaster’s employ and fettered so thoroughly that his snout, wings, hind legs, and forelegs looked as if they were made primarily from metal bangle, stood Re.

  I cried out at the size of him.

  He was immense and beautiful and exuded raw power. Over sixteen feet high at shoulder, his massive tawny wings folded and bolted together across his dorsal ridge, the great bull dragon shimmered like a hillock of emeralds and amethysts. With every ripple of his muscled hindquarters, those purple and green scales shone as if each had captured the sun.

  His head and neck were tethered, by many thick ropes, to one of the pillars sunken into the ground; his stooped neck imparted the impression that he was kowtowing. With his snout that low to the ground, his great opalescent dewlaps brushed the earth, glittering milky pink and blue despite the red dust. The majestic olfactory plumes arcing in iridescent feathered fronds over his domed head swiveled in the direction of the parade of female destriers entering the field, and his twiggy tail with diamond-shaped membrane at tip lashed to and fro like an enormous agitated snake.

  Even though his snout was staunchly enclosed in a gem-encrusted muzzle, Re bugled.

  The noise was pure fury. It blasted like a hurricane over my skin and blew my wits far from me.

  A brief flurry of chaos broke out amongst the destriers at both sight and sound of the great bull. The ground reverberated under my feet. Clods of turf flew this way and that. Foam fell from snouts, whips cracked, hooks glinted in nares as snouts were caught and held steady. One inductee turned and ran back toward the hovel courtyard. Where he thought he mi
ght hide, I don’t know. Certainly, there was no escape. If he even attempted to leave the stable domain on foot, the fevered crowd outside would rip him limb from limb for avoiding his Re-chosen destiny.

  The destriers were battle beasts, trained to fly unflinchingly into a maelstrom of slashing talons and flapping wings; their training held them in good stead. After a brief commotion, they calmed, and Ringus was able to lead the procession forward a goodly ways, where it fractured so that each dragon was led to one of the great pillars sunken in the ground. One by one the destriers were tethered to the pillars.

  While the inductees next strapped gear aboard the destriers, the dragonmaster wove among them, giving directions. Egg and Ringus left with the servitors to prepare more destriers for flight. Surrounded by veterans bearing whips, nares hooks, blow darts, and spare wing bolts, Re watched everything in shuddering agitation, his nostrils close to the earth, each breath blowing up clouds of dust.

  I could not tear my eyes from him, was riveted by his wicked, curved talons. Each looked half the length of my forearm. Even a scratch by one would eviscerate me.

  Dawn swelled with fly-buzzing warmth into noon. Waikar Re Kratt and those accompanying him on the flight to Arena arrived outside the sandstone walls, to much cheering from the crowd. I didn’t know it was Kratt, of course, until a little sally port in the domain’s great sandstone wall was opened at the end of the field. Although I stood far from him, I knew it was Kratt striding through the door. His hair gleamed like spun gold in the sunlight. He followed Daron Re, who first came through the sally port, his white cape as clean as a dove’s breast, his tricornered hat topped by bobbing bull plumes.

  Rutkar Re Ghepp ducked through the sally port third, his sable hair a stark contrast to Kratt’s saffron locks. And, after a string of daronpuis and lords, a creature cowled, veiled, and gowned entirely in white came through the door.

  A moan escaped my lips: an Auditor.

  The Auditor scanned the vast field that teemed with action, and though I couldn’t see his face beneath his cowled veil, I knew his eyes rested upon me. He came toward me, gliding over the rutted ground as if he were windblown through water.