by Marc Secchia
When she woke, what could have been only a few minutes later, it was to find Oyda stirring the contents of a small pot and playing a word game with Nak, who was teaching Yaethi how to punch a needle through saddle leather. Oyda shot her a quick, quirky smile. “Tired?”
“All flapped out for today.”
Duri, Kaiatha and Maylin had joined them around the fire, along with Emmaraz and Tazzaral. The huddle of Dragons was becoming a little claustrophobic, even for someone used to sleeping next to an Oraial Ape every night, Pip thought. The fire’s blaze was delicious, though, spreading warmth into her aching flight muscles.
“Your turn, Nak,” said Oyda.
He replied, “Perfectly pint-sized Pygmy paws pack a powerful punch. There, that beats your effort with seven ‘P’s’.”
Oyda pouted, “Oh, Nak, you’re such a man.”
Of course, that was an excuse for him to puff out his chest and strut over to her and drop a fond kiss on her forehead. Duri made a droll face behind his back, which set Kaiatha and Maylin off into helpless fits of giggles.
Dragon-Pip reached out and picked Nak up into the air by the back of his belt. “Protesting Pygmy Pip plucks pontificating pipsqueak precisely pending … er …”
“Pitiless punishment?” suggested Yaethi.
“Paddling his purple pants?” put in Duri.
“Who’s the pipsqueak around here? Put me down, you fluttering lump of soot,” Nak demanded. Dangling six feet off the ground, that was a rather ineffective complaint. “At least my Shimmerith knows how to treat a Dragon Rider with due respect.”
Pip grinned. “Make me.”
“Oh?” Nak swung around to face her. “Try this one for size. Thou, my dusky spirit of the night, didst descend star-bright to gleam in fulsome, oleaginous majesty upon this trembling spit of rock.”
A silly smile spread across her face before Pip could stop it, fuelled by the fires so blatantly ignited in her belly. She blushed heatedly. “Nak, is ‘oleaginous’ even a word?”
Durithion whistled softly. “Do Dragons always respond to compliments like that?”
“No,” rumbled Emblazon.
“Yes,” Nak disagreed. “Dragon hormones, as I was saying. Try it on your Jyoss, Duri. But don’t insult Dragons–eh, Pip? It turns them into mad, rending battle machines.”
Duri turned to Jyoss. Before he could speak, she blew softly into his face, ruffling his hair. Her beautiful, rose-petal eyes glimmered with their inner magic. “Thou wouldst say, my inexpressibly handsome Rider-heart?”
This reduced Durithion to spluttering, blushing confusion. Everyone laughed.
Nak, restored to his feet again, strolled over to Emblazon’s flank, winking at everyone when he thought the massive Amber Dragon was not looking. He said, “In a bonfire, the amber heart is always the hottest part of the blaze. Emblazon always reminds me of that yellow–ouch! Oyda, call your Dragon off.”
Emblazon cracked his eye open lazily. “He who would woo my Rider, must pay the price.”
Pip saw that the Amber Dragon had trapped Nak’s boots between the long toes of his hind foot. Oyda shrugged and indicated, playfully, that she was helpless to intervene.
Nak said, “Bah. Very well. Emblazon.” He knelt down, putting his hands on the Amber Dragon’s toes. “Ah, these mighty pillars bestriding the earth, hid within, steely, flashing talons which deal swift death to thy foes …”
To everyone’s delight, Emblazon made a sound like a feline purr, only it shook them all with its low, throbbing roar, and flame flared thirty feet out of his nostrils, momentarily lighting the entire dell.
The mighty Amber Dragon guffawed, “Ay, you win, Rider. You may court my Oyda.”
Nak did some kind of silly, stamping war-dance around the fire, capering with such ridiculous joy and raising such a hullabaloo that Dragon, Human and Shapeshifter alike roared with mirth.
Pip fell asleep musing upon the bond between Dragon and Rider.
Pip.
The mental whisper woke her.
In the deepest dark of the Island-World’s night, which was almost never truly dark because of the moons in the sky, Maylin stood beside her neck.
“May I?”
“Um …” Pip mumbled, trying to wake up. Toting her blanket, Maylin wriggled between her neck and forepaws. Across the fire, Emmaraz’s eye glinted, open the merest slit. He inclined his head.
“It’s weird, Pip. I know you miss having a Dragon like the rest of us,” Maylin whispered. “I’m sorry I made things worse for you. Emmaraz does feel like a boyfriend, bizarrely. A seventy-foot, fire-breathing boyfriend.”
“That’s right, Maylin.”
“I have all these strange feelings and I don’t know what to do with them.”
Strange feelings? She could clasp a friend between her paws. Dragon-Pip flexed her talons slightly, struck by the incongruity between her Human feelings, hid somewhere within her, and the alien, unaccustomed Dragon feelings stirred in her breast. She was a Pygmy girl. Before, she had always been the tiny one. People looked upon her as cute and even childish–a perception she constantly fought against. Now Maylin seemed tiny to her, curled in her paws. The scent of her friend, the softness of Maylin’s cheek as she rested her head in the cup of Pip’s paw … she felt a surge of protectiveness, a sweet ache of motherly jealousy, at the fragile yet beautiful life she embraced.
She had to give up her dream of being Human. Just look at her.
All she could say was, “It’s alright.”
“I shouldn’t have been horrid about the zoo. Pip, I’m an idiot sometimes.”
“I was bent on making you mad,” Pip admitted. “I don’t know what to make of being a Dragon, Maylin. I’ve wings and fire inside, and … he looks at me and it does things … you know, makes me feel–”
“Like a woman–a female Dragon?”
Pip sighed gustily. “Like I’m worth knowing. A teensy bit of attention and I’m melting like hot glue inside. I’m sorry, Maylin. I wish I had your confidence. It’s always that I’m always the smallest and the least and I want to be more.”
Maylin turned over, lying on her back so that she gazed up at Pip. “You have power.”
“I never wanted it.”
“I’d not want anyone else in this Island-World to possess that power, Pip.”
She gulped hard, too stunned to speak, too full of doubt and sneaking fears, mingled with an inkling of hope. Was Maylin right? Could she manage her power? And develop the wisdom to use it well, as the Land Dragon had so sagely suggested?
Maylin added, “Living in the zoo–and I hate the idea as much as you–made you understand the true value of freedom, Pip. I don’t see you as a ‘little person’. You are not stunted. You’re strong. The very fact that you fear and weigh the consequences, fills me with hope.”
“Then why do I harbour these wretched feelings for that Silver Dragon?”
Her friend chuckled, “Expound the mysteries of a Shapeshifter’s heart to me, Pip. I’m listening.”
* * * *
Master Ga’am called it ‘cage thinking’. Pip had been unable to shake the words as they completed the last leg of their return journey to Jeradia Island. Her captivity, and the trauma before and during it, had branded her psyche indelibly. He counselled that what mattered, was what she did with and learned from her experiences. Easily said. Even just hearing the word ‘little’ in a conversation made her bristle.
Deep within, she understood now that she needed to return to her village. She needed to reconnect with her people and her parents. That was part of understanding the puzzle of a Pygmy girl–a Pygmy Dragon.
Pip sighed, raising her eyes to the Island massif on the horizon. Dark storm clouds hung over Jeradia. Portentous, spine-tingling clouds. Her Dragon senses had been bothering her so much that she spoke to Kassik, who had agreed to increase their speed. Most of the Dragonwing pushed ahead rapidly, while Emblazon and three other Dragons hung back to shepherd the injured Jyoss, now a just a speck
on the northern horizon.
She had to admit, seventeen Dragons speeding along in synchronised flight was an awesome sight. They speared across the face of the Yellow moon, half-hidden by the storm clouds ahead, making over twenty-five leagues per hour. The wind hissed across her scales. Already, her phenomenal Dragon sight detected the patrols guarding their volcano. A small Dragonwing of three Reds approached from the south at a great height.
Nothing amiss, apparently, Kassik said, looking to Pip, who was trailing his left flank in the slipstream position she had made her own.
Sorry, mighty Kassik.
Don’t be. We must be vigilant. The next attack, when it comes, will be made with greater cunning.
Pip asked, Do you mean the Silver Dragon?
Even injured as he was, he’ll recover. Their healers will see to it. My senses tell me we’ll see the Silver Dragon sooner rather than later. A week to heal, Pip. That’s the most time we’ll have.
Only a week. Well, Pip had seen what Rajion could achieve with her injuries. But she had shattered Silver’s ribs. Even the memory of that strike made her cringe. Had the impact broken her shoulder, or was that later when she landed in Leandrial’s paw? Whatever the case, she was healed now. Her shoulders ached only because of the amount of flying she had been doing.
Working her flight muscles to keep up with the powerful wingbeat of her much larger companions, Pip pensively watched the great, dark-walled volcano materialising within the storm’s gloomy underbelly. It was right over her home.
Home? It must be the first time she had thought of the Academy as home.
But Pip could not shake the chill in her bones. The sooner they arrived and confirmed that all was well, the better.
* * * *
“Yah moving out all mah favourite students?” Mistress Mya’adara bawled at Master Kassik.
“We can’t very well move their Dragons in, can we?” he replied. “Dragons in Human-sized dormitories? Ridiculous.”
Quite reasonable, thought Pip, glancing around at her friends as they dismounted on the main field outside the dining hall–the place where she had so infamously assaulted Shimmerith. Mya’adara was not in the least bit cowed. In fact, she was in a positively Dragonish mood. The Western Isles warrior’s eyes lit on Durithion and Kaiatha.
“Yah not roosting together, not in mah school.”
“Now, calm down, lady,” began Tazzaral, in his ringing tones.
Mya’adara steamed right up to him. “Ah’ll calm down when Ah’m well and ready to calm down, young Dragon!”
He was tons of Dragon, but her wrath made Tazzaral take a backward step.
“Duri and Kaiatha will not be sharing a roost,” Kassik put in. He curled his paw around Casitha’s shoulders with a mischievous grin. “But Casitha will be moving into my quarters.”
“Well, Ah–” the Mistress’ eyes bulged. “Yah what? Casitha, yah …”
“And we’ll need double quarters,” Oyda interrupted. “Nak and I.”
“That Ah saw coming from ten Islands away. But yah!” She pinned the Brown Dragon with a glare that could have melted stone. “Ah’ve heard it all, now. What kind of example yah setting these young ones? Eh? Casitha, what did this old rock-chewer say to yah, eh?”
Casitha nuzzled against Kassik’s paw. “That he loves me.”
Pip wanted to cheer for her.
“Well.” Mya’adara put her hands on her hips. “Ah see how it is. This is mutiny, this is. Sheer mutiny. Yah all gone ralti-stupid. Fra’anior do this to yah? Kaiatha? What’s in the air around yah Island? Bah, don’t answer that.” She dismissed Kaiatha with a wave of her hand. “Yah jumped off the Island long ago. Pipsqueak. Yah found a boyfriend, too?”
“No, Mistress Mya’adara,” Pip replied.
Maylin kept a very straight face. Pip knew she had to be dying to make a wisecrack.
Yaethi said, “No, but our Pip did tangle with a Silver Dragon Shapeshifter–who was about the nastiest piece of windroc vomit imaginable. And she talked to a Land Dragon.”
“Yah only talked with a legendary beast?” Mya’adara rounded on Yaethi. “Yah taken to yanking mah hawser, girl? Ah had yah being the sensible one in this lot.” She glared around the circle of startled faces, Dragon and Human alike. Her ire rose like the crack of a whip. “Yah Dragons. Yah better be on yah best behaviour with mah students, do yah understand? Ah love these girls–and that boy–like mah own little ones. Ah’ll have yah scaly hides if anything happens to them. Clear?”
Like a group of naughty children, the graduate fledglings bobbed their heads and chorused, “Yes, Mistress Mya’adara.”
Pip turned a bubble of laughter in her belly into a suspicious-sounding cough. Only Mya’adara could tell off a group of Dragons like that.
“Don’t know where we’ll put yah all, mind. Take a few days to arrange. Dragons coming out of mah ears.” Mya’adara scratched her head. “Well, yah lot–don’t just stand there. There’s a storm brewing and yah got Dragons to unload. Snip snap, Maylin and Kaiatha. Duri–look alive, boy.”
Kassik called out, “What she means, Dragons, is to welcome you one and all to Dragon Rider Academy.”
Nobody dared to laugh.
Mistress Mya’adara snapped her fingers rudely at him, before snaffling Casitha and tucking her under her arm with a proprietary air. “Yah bachelor quarters are a disgrace. And yah plan on moving this precious petal in there, yah wicked old fire-breather?”
“Don’t you think you’ve breathed enough fire?” said Kassik, falling into step with Mya’adara. “I see many new Dragons.”
“Refugees,” she said darkly, looking to the sky.
Pip stared at the two of them, and then at the curtain of iron-grey rain slanting diagonally toward the school. An unseasonably chill breeze made her shudder.
Kassik rumbled, “It’s just the beginning. Let’s get these students indoors.”
Chapter 29: Blood in the Halls
Kaiatha brought her father’s diary to Pip that evening. She tracked Pip down in Master Adak’s indoor training cave just in time to see her storming through a sequence with the Weapons Master. Maylin and Yaethi looked on, chatting.
Pip was dimly aware of her wet friend–she could smell the damp steaming from her clothes–huddling in discussion with the other two, but fighting Master Adak was done with one’s fullest concentration or not at all. Like now. With a cunning twist of his wrist, he disarmed her. Pip danced away, slipping the ribbon daggers out of her hair. She hurdled a low blow, lashing out in riposte. Adak caught the snapping ribbons on his shield.
“Good. Tighter arcs, Pip. Keep the control close to the body.”
His blunted training sword flicked out. Blunted or not, it still hurt like the blazes if he struck her, because the Master was beyond pulling his blows in her training. She trapped his sword with a ribbon, leaning away from the path of the blade as it sliced down into the sandy cavern floor. She stepped on the blade with her boot. Adak, hissing, lashed out with the rim of his metal training shield. Pip yelped and fell, clutching her knee.
He bowed. Speaking Pygmy, he said, “Good-good fight, student. Tired?”
“Exhausted.”
“Bruises keep you alive when it matters,” he jibed.
“Then, I thank you for every bruise, Master.” He laughed dryly, towelling off his scarred upper body. Pip flushed. “I meant it much-much.”
“I know, Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha.”
She loved hearing her tongue, Pygmy, spoken. The Master had once confessed that he loved hearing it, too; that he longed to return to the jungle. But now, they both startled at Yaethi’s rising exclamation.
“Say that again,” she repeated. “Pip–whatever he just said. The Master, sorry. What was that word?” Yaethi was so excited, she was hopping up and down. Pip had rarely seen her friend so animated. “You’re speaking Pygmy, right? The last word.”
“My name? Say, ‘Pip’úrth’l-iòlall-Yò’oótha,’ Yaethi, I dare you.”
Yaethi’s eyes danced brightly beneath her headscarf. “That’s your name? Look. Look at what’s written here.” She waved the diary beneath Pip’s nose. “Kaiatha thought it was just decoration at first, this rune … here … and here … but this one I can read. I did a little study of Ancient Southern–”
“Yaethi, slow down. You’re making no sense.”
Pip examined the diary. It was full of drawings and diagrams and inexplicable markings worked into the neat but old-fashioned handwritten script. But there, marked alongside the year entries, was an unmistakable Ancient Southern rune, just like the ones tattooed on her leg. “That’s ‘iòl’,” she said, pointing. “This one is ‘trríaoií’.” She made a bird-call. “It means high respect, or honour.”
“The runes spell words, Pip,” said Kaiatha. “I began to suspect my Dad was up to something as I read through his diary. But his mind! Pip, he’s–he was–”
“A genius,” Yaethi interrupted. “Fascinated by mysteries and arcane knowledge. My guess is that he must have been a member of the Order of Onyx. Pip, read these for us. This year. What’s this?”
She frowned over the faded rune. The paper was so delicate. But the contents of the chest they had dug up in the front garden of Kaiatha’s cottage had been properly packaged and sealed against damp. Her father had meant for his diary to be found.
Pip shook her head. “I don’t know that rune. Master Adak?”
“Can’t read at all,” he said, cheerfully.
Kaiatha groaned. “There’s something here, Pip. I can practically smell it. Why hide the diary? Why bury it? Why fill it with hints and misdirection and references to stories he told us as children?”
Maylin soothed, “Now, Kaia, you don’t know that for certain.”
“I do!”
Maylin sucked in her lip. “Sorry, Kaia.”
“What we need is an expert in Ancient Southern,” said Pip, scratching her tumbling ringlets before making a vague attempt at putting her ribbon daggers back in place. She needed to oil her hair again. It was becoming horribly tangled. “We need my old mentor, Master Balthion.”