by Marc Secchia
“Therefore I, Aranya of Immadia, declare that I was mistaken to set a price upon this man’s head, and a death warrant upon his life. And today, you are all my witnesses as I keep my vow.”
Mmmmweeeehh!
An enormous, blisteringly hot pair of lips kissed Kal right on his upraised posterior.
After laughter both fiery and Human had subsided, Aranya inquired archly, “Are we clear, Kallion of Fra’anior?”
Blast the little mosquito, his daughter was down there splitting her sides laughing. She had known all about this humiliation! And arranged it? That Riika. Just wait, he’d twist her guts into bowstrings!
Muffled in Aranya’s paw, he called, “Could you not have done this in your Human form, o Queen?”
“I think not!” Tazithiel barked.
Jisellia whispered in Jalfyrion’s ear; the Red growled, “The man burgled our Academy not once but twice, o Queen.”
Kal howled, “Great Islands, will this never end?”
Mmmmweeeehh!
Chapter 26: All in a Day’s Burglary
SToRM WINDS. ARANYA’s answer to the required speed of their flight was to raise a storm which swept in from the North within the hour after the briefing finished, and snatched the Dragonwing away southward with whistling winds, sharp bursts of hail and the all-important benefit of cloud cover. Quietly, Kal triple-checked his and Tazithiel’s equipment. Riika checked her arrows, throwing knives and flechettes. It was sobering to see how professionally a young teenager handled her equipment. She slipped so easily into her assassin persona. As easily as a certain thief.
Aranya’s instructions had spread a network of Dragons not only south across Jeradia, as Kal had thought to do, but to every point of the compass. A Blue Dragon accompanied each force to employ their superior magic skills in the search. No chances. She included sweeps around Jeradia’s lower cliffs in case the enemy tried to sneak around the Island massif’s skirts to attack from an unexpected quarter.
Ahead and all around Tazithiel in the sky, the massive, rain-slick bodies of Dragons drove southward. Each Dragon stretched to their utmost, their paws tucked up beneath their bodies to ensure optimal streamlining. Many of Aranya’s force carried Riders, ranging from new graduates such as Jisellia and Jalfyrion, to a hoary old Green with a hundred and fifty year-old Rider aboard. Kal wondered who had the more dangerous assignment–bait Talon, or raid his bedchamber? Endurion and Talon had avoided Aranya the previous time, but only because of Endurion’s focus on exacting his revenge on Tazithiel.
As they rocketed out into a space above the clouds after several hours’ flight, briefly overflying the driving storm, the Yellow and White moons’ radiance gleamed upon the Dragonwing’s scales, turning them into effulgent jewels.
Damping, Aranya commanded.
Tazithiel’s magic spread around them like a rippling of invisible waters, joining two other Blues and Aranya’s shielding magic. Kal shook his head. The subject of shielding was enough to fill a lore-library in its own right. All he knew was that flying Dragons left a detectable signature, a magical equivalent of the aurora which had so entranced a boy in Immadia. This type of shield would damp that signature and attempt to trick any Dragons who happened to be looking at the moons at that particular moment, as a thirty-strong Dragonwing raced through the night.
And we’re past Jeradia already, said a young, powerful Blue Dragon, who winged to Tazithiel’s starboard flank, repeating this statement in Island Standard for the Dragon Riders.
Riika waved at the Blue. “Thanks, noble Cyanorion. All directions gratefully accepted.”
“All cheeky Pygmies instantly barbecued,” he retorted.
“Just remember, I tear into Master-steaks for breakfast. Snarky Dragons are hardly a challenge.”
“Little one, you aren’t even worth the trouble of snacking upon. You’d only sour a Dragon’s stomach.”
“Whereupon I’d stroll out on your tongue, cool as a jungle spring.”
Cyanorion clipped his wings to shift over to Aranya’s flank, discussing something with her in a low voice.
Tazithiel rumbled, “Riika, were you flirting with that Dragon?”
“He’s a Shapeshifter,” said the girl, squirming in her temporary saddle. “It’s all perfectly above the Island.”
“A rather dashing Shapeshifter, from what I hear,” the Dragoness needled. “Kal, I smell sulphurous gases on the breeze–must be the teenager brewing trouble.”
“That’s normal Pygmy body odour for you,” he agreed, joining in the fun.
“Bah. Typical backstabbing thief,” she groused.
Four and a half hours later, as the Dragonwing neared Elidia Island, having sustained a jaw-dropping average speed of thirty-seven leagues per hour according to Cyanorion’s calculations, Tazithiel peeled away from the others to circle westward, while Aranya’s force angled off first to attack a series of enemy supply farms and warehouses on Elidia’s western flank, before moving on to the citadel at Mejia itself. The timing would be crucial to ensure the success of Kal’s plan.
Go burn the heavens, Dragon and Riders, Aranya’s soft exhortation followed those of the other Dragons as they parted ways.
She had no need to spell out the dangers. Her briefing had covered those succinctly. Every Dragon knew that if they encountered Talon, many would fall.
Flying at a more sedate ten leagues per hour, Tazithiel slipped away with her own mist puffing about them, generated by the extreme cold of her ice stomach. That was a new skill which she had not yet mastered, Kal thought, shifting uneasily as his legs and thighs started to numb at the chill emanating from her scales. What if they left a vapour trail? Would Talon detect that?
An hour before dawn, Tazi, Kal and Riika were in position four leagues southwest of Mejia Island. Tazithiel pointed out Endurion’s citadel. “That rock.”
Nothing special. A square, artificial-looking summit perhaps a quarter-mile tall surmounted a ragged, rocky base that must split off from the Mejian mainland somewhere beneath the Cloudlands. Kal saw a couple of lights twinkling up top–watch-fires and sentries, the Indigo Dragoness said. Higher up, four Red Dragons circled endlessly, while other eye-fires burned at the base of what Kal took to be the fortress itself.
“Time,” said Tazi, having examined the stars.
“Break out the gliders,” said Kal.
He and Riika raided their saddlebags. Within ten minutes, they had assembled three Western Isles gliders and laid out Tazithiel’s clothing and equipment on her shoulder. Kal and Riika took turns helping each other strap on the lightweight frames, which supported silk wings twelve feet wide and terminated in foot-operated flaps that provided basic control in the air. Western Isles warriors used these to glide between their Islands. Great warriors, but too suicidal for Kal’s liking.
Black hoods. Gloves. Blacking around the exposed eyes. Tacky, soft-soled climbing slippers that most house-breakers stored beneath their beds for reassurance. He checked every detail.
“Ready, Dragoness?” Kal patted her shoulder.
“Aye. You go.”
Kal wondered what manner of courage it took for a master of aerial flight to entrust their fate to a flimsy tubular metal frame and a few scraps of black silk. Tazi had her Kinetic power. She could always Shapeshift back into her Dragoness manifestation, he knew, but once they were inside the shield, she would need to remain Human if at all possible. In seconds, he had his answer. Tazithiel transformed. The idea was to dress and arm herself before strapping into the glider as quickly as possible, but her yelp and a scattershot grappling of magic betrayed a panic Kal would never have credited the Dragoness.
She tumbled inelegantly.
Tazithiel! Kal tipped his glider and chased her. Calm. I am your Island; cling to me. Clothes first. Now weapons …
Recovering, the Indigo Shifter straightened her glider, and made a few last-minute adjustments to the razor ribbons in her hair. Bit a hole in my lip. Kal, what was that?
It’s calle
d being Human, he smiled. Most Humans don’t fly terribly well.
Almost failed and we’re not even close.
“Time for my Sylakian farmer to make an appearance,” said Kal, angling his glider toward the faraway dark rock. Smacking his lips lasciviously, he joked, “Girl, your trousers are so smoking hot, you’ll march down the ranks knocking ‘em left and right with every swish of those hips. And, my sweet, sweet petal, don’t you dare bend over! Because I’m not killing no men discovered in the act of worshipping your sweet rondures.”
“As Kal butchers Island Standard to invent a language of his own,” Tazithiel chuckled. “I intend to employ my ‘rondures’–a word basic to every farmer’s vocabulary–to perpetrate acts of devastation and anarchy inside that fortress.”
“Bah, Dad, you’ll just talk them to death,” Riika quipped.
Three black-clad Humans speared through the deepest night, peering ahead as the dark fortress seemed to grow against the opaque Cloudlands, casting a long shadow by the light of the crescent Blue moon. Beneath the clouds, he saw the orange glow of lava vents and the drifting smoke of fumaroles, causing the cloud cover to bubble or creating patches of choking steam. That was the source of the sulphur and acrid smoke that tickled his nostrils, even at this distance. Dragons had always been attracted to symbols of natural power–volcanoes and cliffs and mountaintops–and often loved to play in storm winds or toss lightning bolts about.
Kal said, “Evil Dragon citadel type four.”
Riika and Tazithiel shot him identical glances of befuddlement.
“Form the stack as we practised,” Kal ordered. “Tazithiel, you’re up top where I can’t be distracted by said rondures. Riika–”
“Already here, Sticky-Fingers.” Dropping her hands from the wing-handles, Riika clasped his waist. “Don’t take this as a sign of affection.”
“Ready,” said Tazi, clasping Riika in turn.
Kal had control of the stack, the physical contact allowing them to merge their shield much more effectively. The Indigo Shapeshifter cocooned them in an invisibility and magical damping shield. Kal latched on and injected his Shadow power, changing the shield’s nature fundamentally. From the perspective of those Dragons lurking near the fortress, three gliding Humans vanished from existence.
He dipped the glider stack slightly, increasing their horizontal speed.
A league from the fortress, as the spies had reported, a slight tingling signalled the magical outer shell of Endurion’s defences–not a shield, Kal realised. An alarm system. Tendrils of magic whispered against his senses, a world of white-fire filaments that denoted a pure core of Dragon magic. The Shadow-cloaked trio ghosted through with less presence than a passing breeze. The waiting Dragons showed no sign of alarm.
Soon enough.
The citadel walls were famously unclimbable. Legend told how they were forged of Brown Dragon magic and fire, but Kal had a solution for this too. Closer. Any second now … dong! Dong! Dong! The warning gong sounded within the fortress. Exactly on time. Dragon fire flared high overhead, perhaps a league or more, as Aranya’s force made its first incisive engagement. Those sentries up there would not know what had hit them.
Silent now, he made a fist and swept it upward. The three separated, Kal swooping swiftly for a narrow window on the fortress wall, four hundred feet above ground level, while Tazi and Riika raised their wings, braking slightly. Judge the angles. Flow with the breeze. Check for Dragons, but they had all responded to the attacks from the North and above. Kal flicked his feet, snapping the glider upward. He snatched at the barred window. Perfect strike. Shrugging out of his harness, Kal rapidly folded the glider into a single, narrow apparatus eight feet tall. A whisper of air heralded Riika’s arrival. She clutched his belt, landing with the deftness of a spider on the vertical surface. Slipping a vial of powerful Green Dragon acid from his belt, Kal set to work on the bars.
Watch out! Tazithiel yelped involuntarily in Dragonish. He heard a sharp cracking sound.
Shock clamped Kal’s fingers in place, which was for the better as a dead Red Dragon tumbled past, deflected by Tazithiel’s magic, he realised belatedly. Where was the Shifter–there!
Shrugging out of her broken glider, Tazi lurched toward them and clutched Riika’s legs gratefully. By my wings, that was too close.
Kal wrenched a bar loose and placed it carefully on the windowsill. One more. Then, wiping clean the acid with a rag–or anyone climbing within would find a few holes in their hide–he tossed the steaming cloth away. It would disintegrate before it ever reached the rock or Cloudlands below. He pointed at Riika. Silently, they changed places as Kal clung to that final bar. The Pygmy scaled his shoulders deftly and vanished inside. Then Tazi. Now Kal, the largest of the three, scraped his shoulders as he wriggled snakelike through the four-foot deep gap and into the storage room beyond.
“Injuries?”
“Lump on my head,” said Human-Tazi. “Earn your keep, noble thief.”
“No drooling back there as you admire my haunches in my new silk trousers,” he whispered, moving to the door to pick the lock.
The thief, the Dragoness and the assassin sneaked deeper into the granite fortress.
* * * *
Kal led his small team confidently past five squads of Mejian heavy infantry, stationed at various armouries and levels, before they came to the type of obstacle that always made infiltrators roll their eyes and sigh like Sylakian ladies of the night. Squeaky metal gates. Bane of his life. Beyond the grating, fifty feet ahead, a squad of Mejian soldiers stood looking in the opposite direction. Good. The gate in that grating, however, was not good.
He signalled to Riika, ‘Come. You take two.’ Nodding, Riika padded up to the gate beside him. Flick. Flick-flick. Thud.
The soldiers collapsed in a clatter of weaponry that could likely be heard on the next Island, never mind within the fortress. Kal picked the lock within two breaths and eased the gate open, raising a rusty shriek of protest. Bah. No way to do this one without raising some kind of alarm. They rushed down a wide stone staircase. Riika vaulted over the banister and disappeared. Two thuds proclaimed downed soldiers. Tazi cocked an eyebrow at Kal.
He shrugged. “She’s young.”
The threesome rushed down four further levels, falling upon a squad of soldiers at the base of the stairwell. A flurry of darts and daggers ensued. Tazi ran her sword through one fellow who tried to raise the alarm. She scowled, “Leave a few for me.”
“Come on, Razorblades. The great hall your victim described is a bit of a run down this corridor.”
“Don’t slow me down, old man.”
They jogged, but only to minimise the noise of feet traversing dark granite stone. Kal kept imagining what would happen, out there, when Aranya ran into Endurion and Talon. Oddly, he thought he heard the booming sounds of Dragon attacks on the citadel itself. What did that portend? Distracted, Kal slowed a step or two as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. That was when the Indigo Shapeshifter slammed into an invisible barrier. She recoiled, holding her nose; Riika sprinted on, entering the gloomy portico of the great hall. The doors slammed in the Pygmy girl’s face. A half-dozen huge Jeradian warriors, armed with war-hammers and encased in full plate armour, stepped out of the shadows.
“You lost, little girl?” snarled the squad leader.
Kal skidded to a halt, torn between finding out what was wrong with Tazi and helping Riika.
The half-Pygmy stood calmly in their midst. Taut as a wire, yet apparently unconcerned. “No. Are you dead yet?”
The men drew a collective breath, perhaps at her defiance, perhaps trying to work out if they were dealing with a child or a fearless warrior. The squad leader smirked. “No, but you–”
Riika’s hands blurred. Two of the men clutched their faces, pinned in the eyes by her flechettes. Barely had their bodies begun to jerk from the effects of her favourite neurotoxin, when Riika struck with another throwing dagger and rolled, taking her beyon
d the vicious swing of a war-hammer, which sparked off the stones beside her departing feet. Her forward roll brought her smoothly to her feet beside a thick marble column. Riika stepped up and flipped backward, over the heads of the converging warriors, and backstabbed them simultaneously with remarkable precision.
She spun to take on the last warrior, but he was preoccupied with trying to gargle Kal’s throwing dagger.
The girl glared at him. “Don’t spoil my fun, Dad.”
“Spare one for a tired old thief?”
Riika bent to retrieve her weapons. “What’s keeping the Dragoness? Nerves?”
“Magical barrier,” said Kal, examining the problem. He had a horrid feeling that somewhere, unheard or undetected, alarms were ringing within Endurion’s fortress. But where were the Green Dragon and his cohorts? Why did he sense their plan unravelling? “Come, Tazi. Princesses enter this way.”
She blew him a kiss in passing. “You do know that your ability to breeze through impenetrable barriers is freaky, don’t you?”
Kal’s right hand became very disobedient at that point. Tazi jumped.
Riika hissed, “Dad. Mind on the raid, please?”
“Did I or did I not warn you both about those trousers?”
“You’re such a fusty Fra’aniorian fusspot,” Tazi snickered.
Examining the closed doors, Kal found nothing to suggest a magical trap, but his danger sense had woken up properly now. After crossing the hall, they would soon arrive at the sharp end of matters, what was effectively the guardhouse to Talon’s inner chambers, which were carved into solid rock and allegedly Dragon-proof. Bah. A handy little Anubam swarm would reduce this dreary dump to rubble within minutes. Talon’s home had all the hallmarks of ‘evil lair’ stamped upon it–featureless granite walls, heavily armed soldiers parading about uselessly everywhere, doors of impractical thickness, torches in blackened sconces and a perfectly jovial miasma of oppression and suffering. Kal expected to wander into fully-equipped torture chambers at any moment, where the Master and his Dragons probably enjoyed socialising with their slaves, or to find lamps made of Human skulls.