by Marc Secchia
Arborites and their obsession with axes!
However, when she saw the welcome the Arborites gave the first Gold-Red Dragon, a forty-foot veteran missing one forepaw, she heartily approved with a victorious dance. An axe hurled into the fangs certainly made for a decent conversation-starter. The Dragon banked, howling in rage and pain as golden Dragon blood exploded out of his mouth.
“Down!” roared Chief Horine. The defenders ducked smartly.
GRRROOOAARGGH!!
Fire hosed over the defences as a flight of Gold-Reds shot by, their throats glowing all the way down to their thickset bellies as they expectorated great sweeps of fire. The men and women crouched beneath the flames, fingering their axes eagerly.
To Whisper’s shock, the Chief groaned, “Oh, those twisted, gutless slobs! They fired my wife’s vegetable patch! I’m so going to get it in the neck today.” Then, he bounded to his feet. “Don’t touch –”
“Ouch!” Whisper snatched her paws back.
“The stone’s hot. Fire, you idiots! FIRE! Show no mercy, ’cause they sure won’t give us any!”
“Thanks,” said Whisper. “What can I do, Chief?”
“Did you mention some Arboreals? How much trouble are we in, here?”
Whisper blenched as a headless Gold-Red Dragon spun away, crash-landing on the open ground just openside of the village. “The Arboreals are friendly. They just don’t appreciate an invasion by other Dragons.”
“Territorial sons o’ sunstrike, they are,” growled the Chief. “Runners, message the others. Any Arboreals are on our side. Don’t make any mistakes – down!”
GGNNARRGH!!!
A second wave of Dragons burst past the forests on the strongside flank, their fire licking powerfully over the stone defences. Men broke away or rolled over and over to snuff out the flames, screaming as a Dragon found a deadly angle. The Chief swore furiously, but it was already too late. The Dragon flared his wings, coming in for a landing to finish his dastardly work, when the men behind Whisper swivelled their catapult and essayed a fast shot. The Dragon howled in pain as the spinning, double-headed axe sheared off the outer two-thirds of his left wing. He crashed heavily. Now, he was a sitting target.
Massive bellows resounded around the hamlet as the other Dragons circled, trying other avenues of attack, while the defenders hit back robustly. The downed Gold-Red roared again, spraying fire about in a blind welter of rage, but a second catapult further around the hamlet fired, striking him a heavy blow in the flank. The Dragon toppled onto his side, twitching horribly.
“DOWN THE DRAGON!” roared the Chief.
Suddenly, Whisper’s head whipped around. Ignothax! No, it was not him, but a smaller beast that looked so akin to that brute, she knew they had to be related. Suddenly she was up, running beneath the buttress toward the forest, shouting for the Arboreals. Where were they? She couldn’t have been that much faster than Dragonkind over a relatively short distance, could she?
There! The trees stirred. A strange Dragon-thing lunged out of the forest, snapping up one of the circling Gold-Reds in its jaws and retreating with the speed of a striking snake. Whisper’s steps faltered as her brain tried to process what she had just seen. How … was that a group of Arboreals … linked together somehow? Whatever it was, the head disappeared back into the trees with a roaring, forty-foot Higher Dragon trapped crosswise in its bark-like beak. Fire rocketed out of the deep, purple-red treetops. The leaves and branches shook violently, and then appeared to dip inward, as if acting as a group to club something to death. Vegetation exploded upward as an unseen battle shook the forest. When the trees stilled, the Gold-Red was gone.
What the …
Well, she could try calling the Arboreals, but they appeared to have their own ideas. Whisper decided they could very well take care of themselves – and, wild Dragons could not drag her into that forest!
Change tack.
She charged instead for one of the catapults, under attack by two Gold-Reds. They had slipped beneath the buttress; now one stood atop a roof, casually tearing it apart with his talons while the other lined up the catapult engineers with a salutary fireball. Blam! An axe chipped off the stone wall beside the nearest Dragon and whipped past Whisper, making a whap-whap-whap sound as it hurtled by two feet overhead.
She was racing for the house when her sharp ears caught a strange hissing noise. Whisper threw herself flat instinctively. BLAM! The roof exploded outward with a thunderous concussion, driving hundreds of shards of rock into the Dragon’s belly! Unperturbed, the second Dragon dived upon the catapult and savaged the men there, biting and rending with a fury frightening to behold. He glanced up as Whisper leaped to her paws and charged in, perhaps startled to see a creature that stood the height of his ankles actually attacking him. As the burning fire-eye bent upon her, silhouetted against the darkening evening behind, Whisper’s paw whipped forward with the speed of a striking dracosnake. Score! Dagger in the eye! The Dragon convulsed, spewing fire in all directions as his head whipped about madly.
Whisper could only dive and roll for her life. Boulder! No, not safe! She darted away on the wings of a roiling wall of fire and hid for a second behind someone’s water bucket before that too exploded into flame and she had to run again.
Fur and fireballs did not mix!
Momentarily safe, she peered around the corner of a house. Four Dragons were setting the forest ablaze with powerful gouts of Dragon fire, and the trees hung back, quivering – only to whip outward! Branches and shards of wood smashed into the flying Gold-Reds with an impact that Whisper felt across the hundreds of feet that separated the village from the forest. As the Dragons reeled, their scales burnished crimson by the reflected fire and the colours of sunset, the trees parted before the massive, burning shoulders of the Arboreal Dragon. It stamped deliberately on one of the downed Dragons, before chasing off the other three with a full-throated, reverberating roar. The threesome limped away, flying badly.
The Arboreal pounced on the hindmost and proceeded to rend it limb from limb, slowly, with great malice. The Dragon’s dying screams made every hair of her pelt crawl.
Closer to Sunidar, several dozen axmen rushed toward two fallen Dragons, protecting themselves behind a phalanx of overlapping shields as the dying Dragonkind put up their last fights. Heads popped up here and there behind the low stone battlements, or from behind houses, checking the skies.
The Dragons were gone.
Chief Horine walked over to Whisper, settling his axe at his belt. “Well, that could have gone better if we’d listened to your warning. Tahu, alright there? Aye? Hmm. Seems we’re going to need to award you your first axe, Whisper.”
Over near the forest, the Arboreal Dragons had been putting up a raucous celebration, when suddenly, a warbling call came from farther away. The pack broke apart, leaving the fallen where they lay as they raced for the treeline on the trail toward Arbor. More Dragons? Clearing the way for the soldiers? Either way, the damage was not too serious, she hoped. A few vegetables were still burning; the Chief eyed that patch with undisguised disappointment.
“Why?” she asked.
“Well, you killed your first Dragon. I saw how your dagger struck the optic nerve. Sometimes, if you catch them just right, the nerve-shock explodes the nerves all the way back into the brain – I’ve seen that once, when I was knee-high to a dragonet.”
Whisper said, “Oh, er …”
“Earns you an axe,” he added cheerfully.
“Do you make axes in my size?”
“Sure, for toddlers,” he returned. “Er … small toddlers. So, what brings a Whisper back to these parts?”
“Well, the Azarinthe army is just down the gorge –”
“What? An invasion?”
“No, I invited them – I mean, Princess Rhyme invited them,” she said, with some consternation. These Humans! She had to explain everything ten times. “Warlock Sanfuri is about to attack Arbor. I ran to Azarinthe and brought their army bac
k to help you Blue Humans. Simple as that.”
Ah. She had the deep, deep satisfaction of seeing the Chief’s rotund jaw drop to his chest. He spluttered, “You … you did what?”
Perhaps the poor man needed a more straightforward explanation.
Whisper shrugged. “I caused trouble?”
Chapter 16: Whisper to War
BY THE TIME the Azar army arrived at Sunidar hamlet in the early hours of the following morning, Whisper had already returned to the bridge, twice. The first time, she had seen the Gold-Red Dragons attacking the metal and stone bridge in an attempt to burn it. Idiots. Rocks for brains. Fungus for wings. The one which looked like Ignothax, however, had disappeared. Probably creating more havoc closer to Arbor, or taking a message of defeat to Sanfuri, may his bowels be riddled with a dracolithe infestation.
Then, the Arboreals boiled out of the bushes near the bridge, formed up into something that slithered along and had tentacles, and started tearing boulders and crystal shards from the rock face above the bridge and slinging them at the hovering quartet of Gold-Reds. A short, sharp battle ensued, with both sides taking casualties before the Gold-Reds were forced to retreat once more, nursing a plethora of injuries. The Arboreals broke down their formation, raced across fire-blackened span, and chased the fliers off into the forest beyond the bridge. Whisper stared. That could not possibly end well for Sanfuri’s Dragons.
Shame.
She checked the bridge again several hours later. All seemed quiet.
Quiet and Sanfuri were not a reassuring combination. Whisper trotted back pensively, to find Chief Horine squaring off with Xan and Xola. The Chief was easily as wide as the pair of them put together, and about as yielding as the stones of his homeland.
“As I was telling you about the Whisper,” he said, raising his voice as he evidently spied her approaching from behind the royals’ shoulders, “she killed a Gold-Red Dragon. That one over there, soon to be pushing up mistaflowers and fertilising my wife’s vegetable garden. Do I not speak plainly enough for you? We share a common tongue!”
“She killed a Dragon?” asked Xan, so politely that Whisper knew he did not believe the first word of Horine’s claim. Or the last.
“A Dragon?” The Queen’s tone was as belligerent as an incipient fireball. “A two-foot-something Whisper brought down –”
“Good morning, Azar royals!” Whisper called. “Pleasant march last night?”
Xola turned purple-grey. Fascinating how she could do that at the drop of an axe, or an Azar spear. That really was an impressive colour, complete with a vein pulsing dangerously in the centre of her forehead.
Xan just folded his arms and growled, “You! Finished chasing off an entire flight of Gold-Red Dragons, I am led to believe?”
Perhaps, the truth? Whisper replied, “Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I merely recruited a few family groups of Arboreals to help out. Have you ever seen Arboreal Dragons in action, my King? Between them and these brave Arborites, they dealt with nine of Sanfuri’s Dragons. And aye, one kill belongs to me. That Dragon, slain by my own paw,” she pointed unnecessarily, “and served up with fresh greens.”
Xola pulled a face as if she had swallowed a dracowasp.
Whisper said, “Don’t worry, my friends. I’m quite certain that the Warlock has plenty more surprises planned for us. Shall I book the next Dragon into your schedule, my King? My Queen, one for you, with extra garnish? Or, we could march on, if you’re ready?”
Xan smiled a thoroughly discomfiting grimace that made him resemble a dragonet chewing on a tough bit of gristle. “We need to rest. The men are finished. One canodraconid dropped dead of exhaustion on the last part of the trail. We … we just can’t keep your pace, Whisper.”
His sister opted for a moody glare aimed at nothing in particular.
Her paws decided to essay an eager little dance, designed to irritate. “Can I scout ahead, o King? Please? I’m still fresh and full of vim after this little skirmish.”
“How’s about I make you lug around fifty pounds of armour?” grated Xan, but his eyes had returned to their habitual twinkle. Perhaps that was a hope-to-see-Rhyme-soon sort of glint, the kind that Yatux seemed to have acquired recently.
The Queen suggested, “How’s about I dispatch you with a message for Hoalith? Do you think you could manage to fly to the moon, Whisper?”
She shrugged. “I won’t know until we try, will I?” Was that threat even viable? Could the magic distinguish? “I’ll make the run for Arbor, now. I’ll drop messages as agreed if Sanfuri’s army has encircled the city, as we expect. Will you join forces with these stalwart Arborites? They may be few in number, but they know which end of an axe to employ on a Dragon’s skull –”
“Or a Warlock’s,” the Chief put in, sounding indecently eager. Bobbing his knees with a small genuflection of respect, he added, “We remember Sanfuri’s depredations all too well in these parts, o King. My Queen.”
“As you’re almost definitely cut off, will you be willing to serve under their command?” asked Whisper. “Temporarily?”
“We’d be honoured,” said the Chief.
Xan began, “And we’d be –”
“And any other villagers their runners will recruit on the way,” Whisper interrupted. “There’s another twelve similarly-sized hamlets this side of Arbor that can be reached quickly, and a larger city several days away. Those trails are all well patrolled and free of trouble, so far. Are we all agreed?”
“Diplomacy at Whisper-speed,” Xan said wryly.
After the briefest pause, he and the Chief stepped toward each other and clasped each other’s right forearms, and reached out to place their left hands on their respective right shoulders. They smiled warmly at one another.
Xan said, “I’ve longed for this day, my new friend. I bind peace between us.”
“As do I,” said Horine. “I bind peace between Arborite and Azar.” He repeated the gesture with Queen Xola. “I bind peace between Blue and Grey. Long may the trail remain open!”
The Queen winked at Whisper. “What he means is, hurry to Arbor and liberate the city so that he can be rid of the yoke of Grey as quickly as possible.”
The Chief’s chuckles turned his ample belly into an earthquake’s playground. “Would I dare, o Queen? Would I?”
* * * *
King Xan, having drawn Whisper aside for a private briefing, folded his arms as he perched on a low boulder, and frowned darkly at her. “Do you have to keep baiting my sister? She’s insufferable at the best of times.”
“Why is she like that?” Whisper asked. “Is it Sanfuri?”
The King’s gaze seemed hooded. “Stop probing into matters that don’t concern you. Focus on the task. Arbor. I need to brief you on my requirements. Now, I know with an extremely high degree of probability who the traitor is. Judging by the symptoms you’ve presented to me from your excellent memory, an unknown agent is keeping King Rhuzime in his current state. That implies a trusted servant, but my reasoning has not yet locked onto that particular target. Therefore, there is still danger. I need you to do some sniffing about, a talent with which you seem inordinately blessed.”
Whisper stared at him, reading the nuances in his speech. “You want me to find the traitor?”
“No, the agent. Whoever is poisoning the King.”
“You think the King’s the traitor!”
To his credit, Xan did not flinch, but her quick ears detected a hitch in his breathing, and her nostrils caught a change in scent that she had come to identify as sweat glands opening to exude unwanted waste products, also a Human reaction to surprise or fear.
He growled, “I didn’t say that.”
“You did. I can reason as well as – well, I can’t, clearly. But I do have a brain, which you seem to forget whenever it’s convenient.”
Xan abruptly leaned toward her, and hissed, “I can’t tell you how dangerous an accusation that would be, Whisper. Learn to hold your tongue!”
Confirmation. She knew. He knew she knew. Her fur crawled with a peril-sense. Suddenly, trotting glibly into Arbor with the good news of the Azarinthe advance seemed an endeavour fraught with shadows and danger.
She folded her arms defiantly. “I am not an animal. I have feelings, and I understand the danger you’re alluding to. Princess Rhyme – all the royals – but most especially her, would be … I owe her, King Xan. We’re friends and I’d die rather than see anything bad happen to her.” In the face of his inscrutable, blank-faced look, her anger deepened and her voice rose, “And I do care about the fate of Arbor, and yours in the forthcoming battle, more’s the wonder. Even spike-monster Xola gets my vote for being one of those people I’d like to have around to talk to afterward!”
Reaching out, Xan took her paw and shook it solemnly. “Whisper, I apologise.”
Oh. Misread? Or the Grey love of subterfuge …
She said, “And … me, too. I know I’m a pest and far too curious. I can keep my mouth shut.” She stifled a laugh, knowing the moment was solemn. “I will learn to keep my mouth shut, o King. I guess that’s sort of an essential skill for a messenger who might carry important secrets?”
“Or heart-secrets,” said Xan.
Whisper’s mouth curved up at the corners. “Oh? Would you like send a polite note to the Princess Blue, then?”
He laughed quietly. “Indeed, I would. Very much. She’s a young woman now, isn’t she, Whisper? A lady. What’s she like? Does she … it was quite a … formal communication?”
To his rising laughter, she mimed being unable to speak.
“Oh, I don’t need magical reasoning to penetrate the glimmer of mischief in your eyes, Whisper!” he crowed, a young man whose heart had just wriggled like a happy dragonet in his chest. “Very well, I accept your proposal. A message. Then, I must entirely change what I was about to tell you. Aye. The King is the traitor, and I don’t understand why – but it is possible to be a traitor to the kingdom or the people in any number of ways, I’ll admit. There are pieces missing where the interlocking doesn’t work, and I need you to find those pieces before someone I very much … before someone gets killed. Listen closely.”