Shadowed By Wings

by Janine Cross

  The three chosen inductees moved in stiff-legged terror. One wept silently, eyes protruding like those of a dead fish. One looked angry, held his poliar tightly, shivering. The third was being tugged up the tunnel by a rope the dragonmaster had fixed about his neck; I recognized him as the inductee who’d fled the exercise field upon first sight of Re. He began calling for his mother in a breathless whisper, over and over.

  All of the three inductees were younger than nine years old.

  Strike one of them down to save my own life? Watch Re rip their guts from their small, smooth bellies? Never. I would never stoop to such.

  From where he walked alongside the dragonmaster, each footfall landing just slightly ahead of the Komikon’s, Dono looked at me. There was so much anger in that narrow, unshaven face, so much determination and bloodlust, that my footsteps faltered.

  I wanted to say something to him, wanted to remind him of how we’d swung together on the same vine, as children, in the warmth of a summer twilight. We’d both come bawling from the wombs of separate women within the space of a week; we’d both nursed from the same breasts.

  But my voice wouldn’t come, dammed by the fear freezing my blood and the fury raging through his.

  To the great rolling, quavering sound of water gongs struck by the plethora of monks in the Arena tiers, Cinai Komikon Re led Dono, Ringus, three twiggy-limbed boys, and me through a guarded gate and onto the stadium grounds.

  The sunlight after the tunnel was overbright. The lot of us came to a stop, blinded. At the sight of us, a low roar started up from the tiers of Malacarites packing the stadium. The eerie noise swelled, just like the gale that rips over a jungle canopy before a hurricane tears leaf and frond asunder. The crowd moved as it roared its disapproval; the tiers rippled as if alive. Awed and terrified, I craned my neck up, up, as the clitter-clack of more than two hundred thousand finger sheaths beat a hail of outrage upon my ears.

  The amphitheater was roofless, but instead of a bowl of blue sky gazing down at me, huge arcing columns extended like protruding ribs toward Arena’s aerial middle. The massive, tapering spars did not meet at center, for no feat of Malacarite architectural engineering could yet make such possible. But to create the illusion of a roof, silver netting had been strung from rib to rib, festooned with objects that glittered and twirled, catching the sun rays, sending prisms and blinding diamonds of light dancing over the crowd below. Faceted mirrors, bells of hammered gold, and glass baubles encrusted with jewels glittered in the sunlight, though I could discern no individual shapes from the silver netting’s great height, only knew by stories I’d heard as a child what the objects were.

  I was looking at the renowned Fa-Tigris Wamanarras, the Emperor’s Ceiling of the Firmament, each silver link and ornament polished and strung annually for Abbasin Shinchiwouk. The dazzling chandelier display looked impenetrable to a dragon’s eye, and only once in the history of Ranon ki Cinai had a bull attempted to perforate it and escape.

  Far below the ceiling coiled the great ring of spectator tiers. Though I knew it not then, each tier jutted out somewhat. The subsequent concavity beneath the overhanging ledges, behind the knees of every seated or standing spectator, was called the iyamunas, the grottos. Whenever a bull launched himself into flight, either during shinchiwouk or when Arena reverberated with the wing beats and lust-bellows of the loosed onahmes, most spectators crouched into the iyamunas. Much infamous behavior took place then, consensual or otherwise, as thigh was pressed against thigh and breast against chest, while dragons swooped overhead in musky passion and a bull mounted whatever onahme landed upon the ground.

  Those who chose through bravado or dignity to forgo the iyamunas ran the risk of being splattered by a cascade of onahme guano. Guano boys darted hither and yon among the stands with great baskets on their backs and shovels in their hands, the inebriated spectators either cursing or throwing coin at them.

  Situated at regular intervals throughout the tiers stood canopied balconies, each emblazoned with a Clutch insignia. Daronpuis, bayen women, skilled ebanis, Clutch overlords, and tables groaning with wine flagons, wagering ledgers, fruits, cakes, and nuts crowded such balconies. On some, orgies would ensue after each shinchiwouk, the spectators intoxicated by wine, the scent of dragon musk, the spectacle of spilled blood, and the sight of a great bull pumping atop one onahme after another.

  My dazzled eyes skittered along the tiers and stopped at a heavily garlanded balcony topped by a magnificent purple canopy bearing the cursive, elaborate insignia of Ranon ki Cinai. Ah. The balcony of the Ashgon. From where I stood, I saw the great man as nothing but a blurry plumed hat and mound of embroidered cloth sitting upon a great crimson throne. The gore-bellied man beside him was the Ranreeb of the Jungle Crown. I felt sure of it.

  The Ashgon ponderously raised a hand. The monks throughout the stadium stopped striking their water gongs. The crowd fell silent. The air grew taut with expectation. My mouth went dry. My heart hammered even faster.

  “Fan out,” the dragonmaster cried, and we apprentices began moving, placing distance between us. I moved as if in a dream, couldn’t feel my feet or legs beneath me. Perhaps I floated.

  Two of the inductees stood together, paralyzed with fear.

  Dono stationed himself to my far left, legs braced in a half crouch, facing halfway between me and the massive iron gate that held Re out of the stadium bowl. The dragonmaster stood crouched in his simian stance between myself and Dono. Ringus stood a goodly distance to my right.

  Time stretched, sound elongated. I became aware of the dust under my bare feet: hot, gritty. A fly buzzed about my head.

  The Ashgon lowered his hand.

  A pause. Then the squeal and clank of rusty cogs reverberated through Arena as the great iron gates that separated Re from the stadium bowl were winched up. The crowd murmured, moved, rustled like a wind through a grove of trees.

  Behind the series of gates, mighty Re bellowed.

  His roar was my heart, thundering wild in my chest. I could not breathe, could not move, could not think as his blast of outrage distorted reason.

  His battle cry stopped. It felt as if my heart, too, ceased.

  The onahmes visible behind a gate adjacent to him bugled in response. A cloying wave of musk filled the air.

  The iron gate in front of Re winched higher. Dono hefted his poliar and looked at me.

  At that moment Re lunged forward.

  My heart convulsed; my fingers went slack. The dragonmaster sprinted toward Re, yelling insanely. The crowd surged to its feet with a great cry.

  Re altered his charge and swung toward the bellowing dragonmaster. Dono charged toward me.

  “Mother!” I tried to yell, but no voice came from my throat, no power erupted from within me, and no massive otherworld form crashed through the Emperor’s Ceiling.

  “Mother!” I screamed again, but still she did not come, she did not appear, she stayed away.

  No. No. It was not possible, she couldn’t abandon me again, she would not, she could not …

  She had.

  I turned and ran.

  There was nowhere to run to.

  I slammed into the high coliseum wall, scrabbled ineffectually at it, bludgeon falling to my feet. Ten feet above me, leaning over the rail of the first tier, rishi spectators hurled insult, rock, and rotted food at me. The onslaught hailed down upon my head and shoulders. With a cry, I staggered away from the wall and sloppily turned about.

  I saw, in the periphery of my vision, the dragonmaster cracking his whip at Re while Ringus darted toward the great beast’s testes. And I saw, direct in front of me, Dono, fast approaching.

  My vision collapsed to encompass only Dono.

  He slowed to a stop a short ways from me and adjusted his grip on his poliar. My body moved by rote: I back-stepped, took off my vebalu cape, and spun it into a rope, chain-end down.

  As if we were wary partners in some primitive dance, we began circling each other.

&nbs
p; “You’re my milk-brother, Dono,” I said hoarsely, mouth dry. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Dragonwhore. Deviant.”

  “Don’t be Temple’s assassin. Don’t sell yourself to the Emperor.”

  “You corrupted me once, Zarq. You won’t do it again.”

  “Corrupted you!” I cried. “Look to Temple for corruption, not me.”

  “Demon’s spawn. Djimbi get.”

  And then, just like in my childhood, just as always throughout my youth, I couldn’t hold my tongue when I should have, couldn’t dam the anger and indignation flood-swelling within me.

  “Ebani-basa Coldekolkar,” I shot back.

  Ebani-basa Coldekolkar: Womb-Ripping First Son of a Many-Men Pleasurer. It was Dono’s inglorious, long-buried birth name, a name replete with a childhood filled with humiliation and mockery. It was a name he’d almost killed himself to get rid of.

  With a roar of outrage, he charged at me.

  I sidestepped his charge. Misjudged. His poliar caught me on my hip, sent me spinning round with a blast of pain. The crowd roared. The pain turned my head airy and fuddled.

  The ground reverberated beneath me. From one corner of my eye I realized, shocked, that Re was close, engaged in combat with the dragonmaster and Ringus, his snout darting forward, his venom-coated tongue snapping forth.

  How big he was, how muscled and fast! He exuded heat and fury. His great scaled hindquarters were swinging toward me, talons shredding up clouds of dust. The dragonmaster danced about him, wielding his whip, while Ringus darted in and out between the bull’s hindlegs.

  The two inductees who’d stood as if paralyzed shrieked as Re’s hindquarters loomed suddenly closer. They both dropped their weapons and fled, blindly.

  The panicked movement caught Re’s eye. With breathtaking speed, he spun round, nearly trampling Ringus, knocking the dragonmaster into the dust with his furiously lashing thin tail. Re’s neck snaked forward, his tongue shot forth: Smack! He hit one of the fleeing inductees square upon the back. The stricken inductee sailed through the air and landed hard facedown, skidding upon belly and chin through dust. Re’s snout shot toward him, his jaws opened, and he picked the fallen little boy up in his mouth. A gurgled scream. A blur as Re shook him. A foreleg talon slashed up toward snout. The ground turned red with blood.

  The crowd roared anew.

  Dono smashed his poliar against my ribs and I crumpled.

  Blinding pain white-hot through my torso. My head turned buoyant and cotton clouded.

  Dono came at me, poliar raised like an axe above his head. Fear injected adrenaline through my veins and I scrambled for my cape and snapped it wildly at him as he brought his poliar smashing down to my face. I rolled. His poliar slammed into dirt. I felt the chain hook-clasp of my cape catch on something, and as I rolled, the clasp tugged reluctantly along the rolled rope of my cape.

  Dono screamed.

  The clasp had snagged upon his left eyelid.

  He clawed at his face, ripped the thing out of his lid. I stared in horror as blood poured over his cheek from his self-shredded eyelid. Behind me, Re bellowed, close, too close. Still on my back in the dust, I turned, looked wildly over one shoulder. One of Re’s great clawed feet scored the ground a hand’s breadth away from me, and the ground shook.

  I screamed shrilly.

  Confusion, clouds of dust, a mountain of heaving belly scales above me.

  Through the clouds of dust, a figure. Ringus.

  “Get out, get out,” he screamed, and as I struggled to stand, Re shifted again, lightning fast, and I saw two slitted, amber red eyes appear suddenly above me, and then Ringus was snatched up in Re’s maw.

  Re reared up on his hind legs. In typical dragon fashion, he used the sharp, hooked talons of his forelegs to eviscerate the prey in his mouth.

  I staggered away, terrified, half blind with the pain that radiated outward in crippling waves from where Dono had smashed his poliar against my ribs.

  I heard Egg’s voice in my head then:

  “If you’ve been hurt bad in Arena an’ Re is chargin’ at you, your only hope of survivin’ is pundar. You drape your cape over yourself, drop to the ground, keep your mouth shut, an’ don’t move.”

  But I had no cape.

  I espied one of the inductees, standing terrified near the very gated entrance we’d come through, a clawful of feet away from me. I launched myself at him, tackled him about the midriff. We both went down hard.

  Clapping one hand over his mouth, I wrenched the cape from his neck.

  And covered us both.

  “Stay still!” I hissed into his ear. “Pundar, pundar!”

  Quivering mightily, the terrified young boy obeyed.

  The ground reverberated beneath us as Re’s great feet slammed into earth, growing closer, closer. I held my breath, closed my eyes, fought the shrieking urge to run, run, run.

  A mighty, bone-rattling roar from the bull.

  Beneath me, the inductee screamed shrilly.

  I waited, tears of dread rolling freely down my cheeks, for the snap of Re’s teeth upon my spine.

  But it didn’t come. No.

  Only a dusty gale of wind, whooshing over us in violent, rhythmic gusts. Our cape was blown away.

  Exposed and helpless, I squinted through the billowing dust. Mighty Re stood in the center of the stadium, the dragonmaster bellowing at him.

  The great bull had spread his massive wings and was beating the air. Along the coliseum’s lowest tiers, canopies shuddered and veils and bitoos flapped like flags.

  I saw it then. Re’s erection. His great, forked phallus glistened a red-mottled pink in the sun’s light.

  Relief and incredulity rushed over me: Ringus and the dragonmaster had succeeded. Re was ready for mating.

  As the iron gates holding back the onahmes were rapidly winched open to the cheers of the crowd, I staggered upright and hauled the bawling inductee to his feet. I leaned heavily on him, as if he were a crutch, and we returned to the tunnel from which we’d emerged beneath Arena, a lifetime and yet only moments before.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I begged the dragonmaster for venom that night as the pain from my smashed ribs rolled up and down my torso in agonizing waves, as Eidon bellowed again and again for my head, for having caused the death of his lover. I craved venom not just to end the pain, understand, but to erase the horrific image of a young boy being ripped apart, of Ringus’s guts dangling in glistening loops above me. I needed venom to obliterate the fear inspired by the certainty that such would be my fate on the morrow.

  The Komikon denied it to me.

  “Think you I can repeat today’s performance?” he bellowed. “None but Ringus could work the bull so swiftly alongside me! Tomorrow you go in with dragonbait at your side: a maimed veteran who would kill you, and four lackluster inductees.”

  “Please, I need venom.”

  “You splayfooted crookback!” the dragonmaster screamed, causing the onahmes stabled about us to snort and shift in agitation. “You yolk-brained screw! Summon the Dirwalan; summon your bird!”

  “I can’t!” I roared back, and was at once limp and sweat-slicked by the pain that laced across my ribs. “She won’t come to me, understand? She’s abandoned me; I called for her, but she didn’t come …” My voice choked off into a series of rib-tearing sobs.

  I was shattered. I was forsaken. My mother had not come.

  “Give me some venom, please!” I wailed, and I think the dragonmaster would have fled then, either to find me an analgesic potion or because he realized that all was truly lost and his public execution was now a certainty.

  But he couldn’t leave.

  Not just one Auditor stood in my stall now, see. The onahme that had been stabled there had been relocated; four Auditors, all of them tall and enveloped from crown to toe in white, stood in her place—guarding both the dragonmaster and me, that on the morrow, we both could be publicly eviscerated by Re.

  I knew
Temple would not make the mistake the day following of allowing either of us to survive.

  Dawn again, and I could barely move. Heedless of my pain, the Auditors led me, shackled once more, to the carts waiting to transport us to Arena.

  The dragonmaster, too, was shackled about wrist and ankle, though he moved not in stiff, silent agony, but flung himself against his chains, twisting, snarling, utterly wild. It had taken seven brawny nashvenir stable-men to fetter him earlier, upon Waikar Re Kratt’s orders. All of the seven bore bruises, bite marks, and gashes from the brawl, if not broken bones.

  Screaming invective and Djimbi curses both, the dragonmaster was tethered by three of the Auditors to the back of the last cart in the procession. He would be forced to walk the distance to Arena.

  Clank.

  The chains about my own wrists were likewise fettered to the back of the cart. I would be forced to walk the distance, too.

  I would not make it. If I didn’t faint from pain, I would be stoned to death by the crowds en route. A dense numbness descended upon me, so complete that when my eyes fell upon Dono, whose left eye was grossly swollen and bruised, I felt nothing. Nothing.

  The carts creaked forward, trundling down the long, tree-shaded avenue of Nashvenir Re. Halfway down the avenue, Waikar Re Kratt’s daronpuis and lords waited upon their wing-pinioned destriers, glutted with the certainty that Kratt’s folly over me would soon be ended, that his unfathomable mistake in allowing me to live this long would soon be corrected.

  Waikar Re Kratt sat at the fore of the procession, indifferent and imposing upon his magnificent beast. He lifted his reins and started the slow, stately walk for Arena.

  I fell. I was hauled upright. I fell again. An Auditor stood me upright a second time, but the ground would not stay beneath my feet. I crumpled from the pain in my ribs.

  Kratt rode down the length of our parade and studied me from atop his bejeweled dragon, his golden hair a dazzling crown. “Throw her in the wagon,” he said. “We waste time.”

  And so I was not forced to walk to Arena.