by Marc Secchia
“What?”
Tazithiel hooted with laughter. “Aye, Kal. You’re to blame. If I could sustain this magical output–which is a huge drain–we’d fly from here to Immadia within a day. Easily.”
“What?”
“Could we try an intelligent question?” Riika goaded.
“What? Right, Tazi. We need to sound the alarm. Thunder away.”
“Poor Kal,” continued the irrepressibly mouthy girl seated ahead of him on Tazithiel’s back. “Don’t you understand what flying faster than the speed of sound means?”
Between gritted teeth, Kal mangled a sentence involving an apology and simultaneous throttling and defenestration, whichever worked quicker. The Indigo Dragoness roared up to the Academy volcano at the same terrifying speed, before relaxing her wings and extending the shield, generating instant wind resistance. Kal and Riika both protested as the deceleration mashed their noses against her spine spikes, but Tazithiel ignored them, opting to bugle the alarm instead.
“All clear down below,” she panted, between bouts of producing an unbelievable din.
“No sign of Talon?” asked Kal.
“Another ralti-stupid question, Dad?”
He swatted Riika’s head from behind. “No smart comments from you, young lady.”
Tazi said, “Not yet. Why aren’t they responding?”
Kal peered across the volcano. “They are, it just takes time to mobilise that many Humans and Dragons.”
Hovering a few hundred feet above the Academy’s topmost buildings, the Indigo Dragoness and her two Riders surveyed the scene as Master X’atior’s readiness drills swung into operation. Minutes began to tick by. Kal sweated impatiently. Nurseries emptied as Dragonesses herded neat clusters of hatchlings aloft, while others transported nets bulging with child-sized Dragons’ eggs. The smaller fledglings formed a Dragonwing which winged eastward under the watchful supervision of a dozen adult Dragons. At the speed of telepathic Dragon speech, Tazithiel kept up a running briefing of every Dragon who approached them for information. Many were the gnashing fangs that greeted news of an imminent attack.
Dragonwings of Riders and Dragons gathered aloft, taking up defensive positions, while the Human staff and students assembled beside the main hall and began to file away section by section, through the secret caves and tunnels which would eventually lead out into the maze of ravines and forests outside the volcano. Kal only prayed the Anubam would not choose that route for their assault.
Suddenly, the afternoon seemed unbearably hot. Kal fidgeted. How could one fight Anubam? How could they neutralise or destroy Endurion or Talon? Perhaps Aranya’s strategy was sound. Over two hundred Dragons joined together above the slate tiles of the Academy buildings and the Dragon roosts a quarter of a mile beyond, until the afternoon’s partial eclipse of the suns behind the Yellow Moon took on an ominous, shadowed aspect, and the lava runs criss-crossing the active parts of the volcano glowed like bloodied cracks in the skin of a slumbering beast. His eyes kept leaping to the South. That speck of Amethyst was fifteen minutes away. Ten. Making her utmost speed.
Out of time.
Aranya and her Dragonwing were still leagues distant when Kal saw the wide field fronting the Academy buildings begin to judder. The careful exodus turned into a stampede.
Riika palmed her bow. “A dozen explosive arrows left, Dad. You want a couple?”
“Aye.”
“Make them count, Sticky-Fingers.”
“Like a pack of tiny but toxic Pygmy warriors,” he agreed, accepting four arrows. “Keep sharp, girls, and we’ll get through this.”
“By my wings, you’re the worst liar that ever lived,” snorted Tazithiel. “Here’s the plan, Kal. Let these other Dragons deal with whatever’s down there. We deal with Talon, no other. Understood?” But she softened her words with an oddly Human-sounding laugh. “If you’re planning to target any other aspects of reality and rob them blind, you scurvy, apostate son of a kleptomaniacal spider-monkey, then don’t wait for my permission. Endurion certainly won’t.”
Kal laughed, “Great Islands, how many hours did it take you to figure out that insult?”
“Been polishing it for weeks.”
In ominous silence, half of the field dropped away into a black void.
The thief patted his Dragoness fondly. “Today, we win back your honour, Tazithiel.”
With a round of battle challenges that resounded in a single, continuous peal of thunder, the earth spewed Dragons.
* * * *
Talon was one for the grand gesture. Kal added this to the picture forming in his mind. Megalomaniac? Probably. Despot? Doubtless. But this assault was not being made without purpose and structure. The hole was seven hundred feet wide. Tens of Dragons at a time erupted from the hole, shielded by Blues emerging at planned intervals. The Academy Dragons’ opening salvoes expired against strong shields, save for a trio of Green Academy shell-sisters who, by some mysterious sleight-of-paw, managed to slip a volley of rajal-sized acid spit-balls into the enemy ranks. Four opposing Red Dragons fell, squirming and screaming, back toward the hole from which they had emerged. But they never passed ground level.
With a volcano-shuddering roar, a great Anubam thundered up from the depths, engulfing the four Reds in its vast maw. Kal made a much smaller swallow of his own. If that feral freak was not related to the Anubam he and Tazithiel had scared up in the Island-Desert, then he was the son of a spider-monkey. At once, fifty Academy Dragons took up the challenge, bombarding the monstrous burrower with a range of Dragon powers–molten rock, Dragon fire, acid spit, boiling glue, shaped lightning bolts and shards of ice the size of trees. The Anubam twisted and collapsed in a landslide of flesh, venting a scream that chilled Kal to the bone. Its breath, able to pulverise rock, did the same to any Dragon who strayed into its path.
Kal saw an elderly Red Dragon lashing an enemy Green with tendrils of fire which appeared to erupt from his talon-tips. Dragon clashed with Dragon, chest against chest and fangs grinding against fang. Their growls and roars made the entire amphitheatre of the volcano vibrate to the spine-tingling tumult of the melee. Beneath him, Tazithiel trembled with readiness to join in. The battle began to drift apart. Meantime, the Academy Dragons worked in teams, making significant headway even though they were outnumbered two to one. More Academy Dragons slipped low across the remains of the field, trying to ambush the attackers from beneath.
Suddenly, Kal sensed the presence he had feared.
Endurion rose from the pit.
The Green Dragon wore a second hide of black, segmented Dragon armour in a style Kal had never seen before–not that he was an expert in Dragon armour. It gave him the air of a Western Isles millipede, a carnivorous pest which grew up to three feet long. But the Rider on his back mesmerised Kal. Set aside her standard ‘evil overlord’ attire–black velvet cloak, crimson armour and gauntlets with matching black trim, crimson helm and snarling-rajal faceplate, her malevolently stylish outfit finished with the customary gleaming black boots–that woman was a freak. A giantess. Kal had always thought Dragon Riders looked improbably diminutive perched atop their hundred-foot lizards. That mutant, or whatever she was, fit. She was taller than him, sitting down.
How had Talon grown so large since last he shivered at the sight of her?
Kal groaned as his stomach seemed to bounce off the underside of his throat. The Indigo Dragoness plummeted, furling her wings, corkscrewing through the thick of the battle. Kal and Riika both yelled as dozens of massive draconic bodies surged toward them and a Green Dragon’s fangs clipped off a few stray hairs near Riika’s left earhole, but Tazi’s phenomenal Dragon-reactions sped them through unscathed, save for shaving off a few years of a thief’s piddling life and a fireball that set Tazithiel’s tail aglow.
“Arrows!” Riika screamed.
Oh. He was meant to be part of this cheerfully explosive little family. Kal whipped out his Dragon war bow. He growled, “Right, Endurion. Time to suck up a dose o
f death.”
The Pygmy chortled, “Sticky-Fingers, you desperately need help with your lines.”
Tazithiel sucked in a huge, everlasting breath. Kal sensed the potentials building within her. Lightning attack. Compressed somehow within the organ misnamed a stomach, which Blues used to generate their electrical attacks, the power sizzled at a staggering pitch of fury. Aye, scorned women were weapons of unknown destructive potential. A scorned Dragoness? Kal wanted to duck or hide his face from the coming destruction, but in truth, he was having far too much fun.
Talon’s eyes rose. Casually, she swatted ten Academy Dragons out of her presence, sending them hurtling into the buildings a thousand yards away. She jolted the fallen Anubam into a thundering rage, forcing the beast to head groggily for the Dragons’ roost mountain. Tazithiel adjusted, closing the gap with Talon and Endurion with dizzying speed. Then, as the Dragoness’ jaw gaped open to launch her attack, as Kal began to see in strangely jerky segments of time, Talon gestured at the incoming Indigo Dragoness.
Shadow!
Monstrous power washed over them. Through them. Kal and Riika’s shots twanged off their bows and the arrows emerged from nothingness, detonating in concert against Endurion’s magical shield. The Indigo Dragoness’ lightning attack, a streak of bluish light across Kal’s retinae, struck the exact point of the arrows’ explosion and lanced straight through, blasting a cart-sized crater in Endurion’s flank and throwing the Green Dragon hundreds of feet across the pit to splatter a pile of boulders on the edge.
Roaring her mightiest battle-challenge yet, Tazithiel stormed toward Endurion.
“Anubam!” Riika shouted.
The Indigo socked herself with her own Kinetic power, tumbling high over the deadly breath of another burrowing beast as it crawled up into the golden afternoon light. Below, Talon and Endurion stirred, badly injured and smoking from various mentionable and unmentionable orifices, yet clearly still alive. What the hells? Kal’s eyes bulged. He blurted out an unfortunate word.
Riika gasped, “Stinking monkey bait, did she …”
“Aye.” Endurion’s wounds drew closed as though his flesh had sprouted a thousand worms that crawled across the bloodied wreckage, sheathing what should have been a fatal wound in new hide and muscle. Even the armour regrew over Talon’s charred thigh. Kal croaked, “We may have succeeded in annoying her. Just about.”
“Then we need to annoy her a little more.” The Indigo Dragoness cried, “Dragon-kin! Join me and slay the enemy!”
She too could work on her rhetoric, but a dozen Dragons and Riders champed at Tazithiel’s tail as she banked and dived. A rain of fireballs and Dragon acid bombarded Talon and Endurion, but incredibly, they shook off a barrage that turned the rock for a hundred feet all around them into a lake of glowing slag. The pair took to the air, flying unsteadily but implacably toward the battle above. Talon raised her fist. Tazithiel’s Kinetic power battered the Rider repeatedly, clearly disturbing whatever she had been intending. Still, Talon managed to down two of the Academy Dragons. The Indigo Dragoness increased the pace and power of her attacks, driving the pair toward the Academy buildings where many Humans manned the defences–war crossbows and catapults scattered in strategic locations around and atop the buildings. Many were of the new type, Kal saw, steam-powered multiple-loading crossbows that fired up to a dozen ten-foot metal quarrels at a time.
Hopefully they knew friend from foe.
Talon and her forces came under a withering barrage, but they drew together and began to fight back. Every time Talon landed a successful blow, a Dragon fell, its eye-fires snuffed out. In the thick of the battle, as Tazithiel rallied the Academy Dragons with fierce cries and the compelling force of her rage, Kal saw Jisellia and Jalfyrion grappling with a massive enemy Blue Dragon, an aerial bastion of magical power. Even old Yozora surged into the fray. Blind? That Dragon could fly! Kal saw him snag a hulking Green at high speed with his talons and make a slingshot around its neck, snapping the vertebrae instantly.
Talon straightened. Took in the scene. With a devious smile playing about her exposed lips, she gestured to the Anubam. Destroy these pathetic Human nests, my Dragon-kin.
Three Anubam swam through the Academy buildings, bringing them down in a rain of bricks and tiles and timber.
Cyanorion! Thundering his challenge, the stalwart Blue collided with Endurion’s shield at a fantastic speed, rattling Dragon and Rider. Cyanorion spun away, dazed. Jalfyrion headed off a marauding Yellow Dragon with a cunning spin that allowed Jisellia to drive her mounted Dragon lance into the Yellow’s left eye. A terrible screech cut across the din.
ARANYA! The massive Amethyst shot volley after volley of violet fireballs so rapidly she appeared to hose the enemy Dragons with a river of fire. Kal saw several enemy Dragons literally sliced in half as shield and Dragon imploded simultaneously. He took the opportunity in the chaos to land a few shots of his own, picking off a startled enemy Green as it flashed into his line of sight. Flesh and flame spurted from its shattered eye.
“Nice shot,” Tazithiel snarled. “Shall we help my shell-mother?”
Aranya was doing something fantastic with ten coruscating lightning bolts that crackled against Endurion’s shield from every direction, both freezing Dragon and Rider in place and trying by main force to shatter their defence. Yet, incredibly, they endured. Talon struck Aranya with her invisible power, shuddering the huge Dragoness. Again. At the third almighty blow, the Star Dragoness appeared to wilt.
“Get them!” Kal roared.
Tazi poured all of her strength into a lightning attack, but Endurion simply shook her off, raking her left flank with a blow that came perilously close to slicing off Kal’s foot.
“How the blazes does she do that?” snarled the Indigo Dragoness.
“It’s as if she gets stronger the more she’s attacked,” Kal mused. “Is Aranya alright?”
“She’s back.”
Back hardly covered it. Blazing like a sun in its glory, the Amethyst-turned-White Dragoness speared into the enemy with such power, Kal could not even watch. The resulting concussion shook every Dragon present. When the smoke and blaze cleared, Talon and Endurion drifted a ways off, watching with identically sly smiles. Kal could not believe what he was seeing. Teleportation? Absorption of another Dragon’s powers? For as Aranya tried to lash out again, her fire stuttered. The black-cloaked figure made a grand gesture, slamming the mighty Amethyst Dragoness into a spinning dive toward the green lake beneath the Dragon roosts.
The Amethyst Dragoness landed heavily between the lake and the field, folding up as though her body had grown too weighty for her wings to support.
“So, Aranya!” Talon’s booming cut effortlessly across the roar of battle. “How does it feel to be defeated? My Anubam will flatten this little hovel you’ve chosen for your fortress, and my Dragonwings will hunt down and destroy every single one of those pathetic hatchlings that fled my presence.”
Talon waved her hands, appearing to grow stronger and more confident by the second. Dragons began to rain from the skies, friend and foe alike. “You and your precious Riders can never stand against the power of true Dragons. Long years have I waited to wreak my vengeance on this wretched den of Human-lovers and sycophants. And this scroll, the precious Scroll of Ernulla-kul-Exarkin, gives me the means to destroy you.” She waved a very large, intricately-tied scroll to all quarters, as if asserting her right to rule. “Today, there will be no weeping and gnashing of fangs, for I shall silence them all!”
Aranya said, “You …”
“You don’t even remember who I am.” Landing a few hundred feet from the felled Amethyst Dragoness, Endurion and Talon stalked her. There was no questioning who was mistress now.
Jalfyrion and Cyanorion formed a small Dragonwing with Tazithiel, staring at the scene with growing horror as Endurion strutted and Talon postured, spewing vitriol about her time at the Academy and how she had been banished by Aranya herself. Talon roared, “Now you re
spect me. You only respect my power when you’re brought to your knees. See, o false Queen? I have come to take my revenge, and I’ll have it served fiery, in the inimitable style of the true Dragonkind.”
Her outstretched hand appeared to grip the enormous Amethyst Dragoness as Tazithiel had once been held helpless. The woman’s massive, gauntleted fist clenched slowly, with relish, raising such a cry from Aranya as Kal had never heard a Dragon utter. Golden Dragon blood flooded from her mouth.
“Yes, heal yourself, you pathetic purple slug. Heal yourself so I can do this again! And again!”
“Let them go!” screamed Aranya. “Deal with me!”
Talon’s hand unclenched, releasing the stricken Dragoness. “Aye, well do you wonder what power this is, o Aranya, which can destroy even a Star Dragoness. I have the power of Ernulla-kul-Exarkin, granted me by Dramagon himself, that most ancient of Dragons and the wisest of all. And with it, I am destined to restore the Dragonkind to their rightful place of dominion over this Island-World, heralding a bright new age!”
That fist-pumping, wild cry was enough to decide Kal about Talon’s state of mind. She was as cracked as an Island spilt asunder by an earthquake. The tone of voice, her gestures, the spittle spewing unheeded down her chin … and just look at how Endurion’s facial expressions mirrored hers! What did that mean? Were they bonded like fraternal twins sprung from a single womb?
Dominating the scene now, Talon’s Dragons raised a chorus of snarling, thundering approval. She looked up, smiling. “Ah, isn’t the voice of this world’s new draconic tyrants a song so beautiful, it outshines the very stars?”
The Queen declared, “You’ll never win, Talon–or should I call you Rhadhuri of Rolodia, the banished murderer of students?”
“I needed their blood. Their power.”
Talon’s laughter crackled over the massed Dragons, seeming to infect them with her madness, at least from what Kal deduced of the tenor of their eye-fires. She controlled these Dragonkind? Did the scroll grant that ability? Perhaps the scroll was the true target.