by Marc Secchia
The power swelled grotesquely. She was too good at this. Oh no. Oh …
I HATE YOU!
She meant the cavern, and Shinzen’s heartless capture of her Dragonlove. No Dragon deserved to die in captivity. Her hands spread involuntarily. For your sake, Grandion.
The tentacles juddered as they impacted the Dragon-bone wall, making Hualiama’s body jerk about in a surreal parody of dance. They pulled at her in the region of her belly, plumbing her power, sucking her dry. Ruzal poured like fine dust into the gaps between the bones, leaching beneath the binding metal hawsers. The ruzal warped and undermined the beautiful edifices of Dragon magic.
Tears streaked Lia’s cheeks.
Grandion shoved past her, thrusting his talons into the wall. Dully, she heard him roar, heard the crack of bone separating from metal and rock, as the Tourmaline Dragon exerted his exceptional strength to tear a section loose. A thirty-foot segment of the cage framework sagged away, aged bones trapped in metallic netting.
“Again!” growled the Dragon.
“To your right paw,” she ordered.
“Nothing but rock?”
“Aye.”
The Dragon hooked his claws into the mesh and heaved, but nothing happened. Hualiama heard faint shouts in the distance. Grandion called, “Again. Wreck it.”
She was enervated. The strain of struggling non-stop for over thirty hours to trigger the magic had taken its toll, and Lia had little left to give. With a wrenching cry, Lia managed to weaken another ten feet of wall. Grandion ripped it away. She had to skip backward or face being crushed beneath the heavy Dragon bones.
“Again!” thundered the Dragon.
“Grandion … I can’t.” Hands on knees, she gasped for breath. The headache had bloomed to blinding proportions.
“What do you mean, can’t? There’s no such word!”
“I’ve nothing left. No strength. No–”
The Tourmaline’s poisonous expression corked the words in her throat. He growled, “Then find the strength.” When she hesitated, he exploded, “Don’t you understand what it means for a Dragon to be caged for three years? Three summers of no suns upon my back. Three summers–”
A despairing scream echoed mockingly in her ears as Lia failed to elicit so much as a ripple from her dark pond. She glanced at Grandion from beneath her lowered lashes, and winced.
The Dragon blazed, “That was the most miserable excuse for magic I’ve ever seen, you flameless lump of windroc excrement.”
Hualiama stared, before realising that the force of her glare was rather lost on a blind Dragon. “Grandion, insults fire up Dragons, not Humans.”
In a low, penetrating snarl, he continued, “You pathetic, two-legged dancing worm! Miserable cretin! I should have stamped out your woeful little existence the first time.”
“It’s not working. Shut your muzzle before you say something you’ll regret.”
Grandion’s voice deepened. “Your father never loved you. He loathed you with such brutal–”
She screamed, “Grandion!”
“Do you hear Ra’aba sniggering, Hualiama?” His hateful hiss spoke directly to her ruzal, causing it to quiver with unbearable relish. “From the moment you were conceived, he hated you, and he has never stopped hating you. He thinks you’re so pathetic, so loathsome, you’re like a cockroach he’d rather crush beneath his heel–”
The Hualiama of old might have curled up like a leaf tossed on a bonfire at his words. This Lia exploded like a hydrogen balloon sparked by a misfiring Dragonship engine. Fire surged, uncontrollable. The dark pool in her mind detonated, spewing power upward and outward, a great rippling of the fabric of reality grounded in the power of an Ancient Dragon, still alive and vital within her being. Lia saw minutely, the motes of dust springing free as the walls of their cage imploded, the instantaneous severing of metal hawsers thicker in diameter than her wrist, the tourmaline wings of a Dragon snapping shut overhead as Grandion’s Dragon-swift reflexes protected her from a rockfall–bones and rubble, she realised belatedly, the pulverised remains of their cage.
The Tourmaline Dragon heaved upward, scattering boulders and debris, plucking Lia free with his paws. She heard, Swish-thud! Bent over, hacking and coughing dust out of her lungs, Hualiama did not at first register what had happened.
Grandion roared in pain. He whirled, smacking Lia into the air with his tail. She absorbed the worst of the impact with her knee and a jarring blow to her forearm, rising to witness Grandion shouldering his way out of what had to have been the main doorway for the cage, a fifty-by-thirty foot hole leading to a tunnel. His spine-spikes were entangled in the Dragon-bone mesh–what was left of it. Her mouth fished for flies. Great Islands, what had she done? It appeared as if she had macerated the stone surrounding the chamber, collapsing it inward. That was not enough to reveal open sky, as she had seen through the ventilation hole at the top of their cage. A hundred feet of solid rock separated them from freedom.
Now there was a new aeration feature.
Grandion’s roar had an edge of pain, of panic. His tail lashed about, peppering her with stones the size of her head. This was hardly the moment to be stuck behind a feral Dragon!
Only one way out. Pouncing on Grandion’s half-buried upper rear thigh, Lia sprang as high as she could up his back. She caught a spine-spike. Steady! The Tourmaline thrashed about in a welter of fury. She felt heat rolling over her back, sucking her lungs dry. Oh, he had found his fire. Calderas full of fire. His roaring battered her ears and shook Shinzen’s lair at a stunning pitch, a madness rooted in the scent of freedom.
Swish! Hualiama yelped as a crossbow bolt nearly parted her hairline. Six feet long and barbed to ensure a good hold in the flesh of a Dragon or Dragonship, one of those would make short work of any royal ward. She slipped on his damp-slick scales, but the rolling of Grandion’s muscles pitched her upright again. Lia’s line of sight topped his shoulder. Great Islands! Four crossbow teams faced them down the tunnel. The men raced to reload their weapons.
“Stone skin!” she yelled.
Grandion shot a fireball at them, so super-heated his flame spurted out white rather than yellow. It exploded against the first catapult on the tunnel’s left side, destroying it and the four engineers working the mechanism. Hualiama felt the impact beneath her as a quarrel slapped into his hide, a dull, wet sound as the shaft feathered in the enormous bulk of the Dragon’s left shoulder. Jerking about like a trout snaffled in a net, the Tourmaline Dragon hosed the tunnel with fire. What he lacked in accuracy, he made up for with blind fury. Catapults burned. Engineers ran for their lives.
She had no horror to spare for the carnage. Grandion! LISTEN TO ME! The Dragon stiffened beneath her. Suddenly, telepathic Dragon-speech was possible. Save your fires. We’ll need them.
What do you see, Rider?
Tunnel. Leads deeper into Shinzen’s lair, straight ahead. You’ve cleared the immediate danger. Hurt?
Not badly.
No, he only had a couple of quarrels buried in his obstinate hide. Apparently not enough to stop an angry Dragon. Lia eyed the hawsers above her, stretched across his back. Wriggle backward, Grandion.
What? We need to escape.
Shut your flaming gob-hole and listen to me! You’re dragging half a cave-load of Dragon bones after you.
I’ll snap these threads like–
Go stuff your overweening pride in a Cloudlands volcano!
Grandion only chuckled, Told you those insults would work. You’ve Island-shaking power, Lia.
Aye, and his words were quarrels buried in her mind. She would never forget them. Her father had hated her since … forever. She snapped, Back. Now. Her voice shook in reaction. That much ruzal blasting through her being? She must not become a channel for hatred.
As the Dragon retreated, Hualiama advanced up his back. It took all of her strength to shift even one of the braided metal hawsers, until she realised she could direct Grandion to use his paws. Then it was easy�
��as long as long as a ninety-foot, freedom-crazed Dragon followed her directions. Not so straightforward. Lia realised that it was up to her to find a way out of Shinzen’s lair. She had to become Grandion’s eyes. Keeping them alive would require a miracle.
Then, she heard another Dragon’s booming battle-challenge.
“Razzior!”
Chapter 19: Shinzen’s Lair
GRANDION BRIDLED AT the Human’s commands. “Aye, Razzior,” he growled. “We need to move. Sing out the route, Rider.” He promptly chipped a fang on the wall. “Lia!”
“Give me a chance!”
Little Dragoness. She could snarl with the best of them. A shame he could snap her in half with a flick of his smallest talon. Fire bubbled in his arteries. Ah, the long-dormant thrill of magic! Grandion sensed his inner potentials adjusting, the storehouses of Dragon fire and ice and lightning swelling with new life, the feedback from his remaining senses suddenly so sweet and fruitful, he swayed dizzily and thumped his head again.
Tiny feet pattered up his back. Hualiama slipped into her customary position between the spine-spikes above his shoulders. She said, I know thy zeal, thou, the kingly splendour of the twin suns.
Thou, the hallowed essence of my soul-fires, he crooned involuntarily, startled into a response that revealed the secrets of his third heart.
Grandion stumped forward, testing the air with his nose and Dragon-senses. He had burned this place out. Nothing lived. If he were true to his fires, the Tourmaline Dragon would have to admit he was afraid of venturing out into the world, blind. He had enjoyed a protected existence in the Dragon-bone cage–enjoyed? Burn that notion and crush the cinders beneath his paw! He growled unhappily.
A foot tapped his shoulder. Be strong, Dragon. We’ll get you out of here. Three hundred feet, then a turn.
Hualiama’s thoughts increased in pace and quality as she directed him down the long, snaking main tunnel of the lair. Now he could be grateful for the stream of her thoughts, which he had more than once characterised as monkey-chatter. As if the girl had opened a spigot, Grandion began to comprehend her spatial awareness–so different to that of a Dragon–which allowed him to adjust to the tunnel’s twists and even the occasional lowering of the roof. His throat warmed with fire. This could work.
Catapult dead ahead!
The Tourmaline responded, springing sideways. Oof–shards take it! His shoulder took the brunt of an unseen blow. He heard his Rider’s teeth snap together at the impact. But the shot missed.
Fireball–no, ten feet left. Two squads of soldiers incoming.
Ten feet left? Grandion adjusted the stream of fire with his tongue, making it billow wider and flatter as Lia’s instructions flowed unabated. Screams of pain and panic assured him of his success. Ha. See if a blind Dragon couldn’t fight!
Charge! Get moving, you blue lump! Not up–Islands’ sakes, Grandion, there’s a roof … hard left … we’ll bulldoze a catapult emplacement in two … one … jump right! A quarrel glanced off his flank. Darn it I can’t see everything … forward a touch left faster no slower–fireball!
Flame and smoke detonated ahead of him, filling Grandion’s nostrils with the delicious scents of battle. Beautiful! His pulse surged. The Dragonsong of combat swelled his hearts with its treacherously addictive payload. His Rider shouted at him to slow down. Her directions became increasingly desperate as the Dragon, overflowing with exultation, the scent of freedom and three years of cage-aged rage, charged instinctively into the fray. She was a mosquito upon his back. Words beat without meaning inside his ear-canals.
Grandion’s jaw gaped. GGRRRAAARRGGGH!
For the first time in years, his Dragon-roar had a real crack of thunder to it. His stomach contracted with pleasure. Aye. Ice and wind, snow and hail, and storm power. He was Dragonkind!
* * * *
Hualiama gave up trying to bridle Grandion, and settled for funnelling his rage while keeping the stone-headed lizard from braining himself, or her. There was something so visceral about sitting atop a stampeding Dragon–minus any useful weapon whatsoever–that she began to laugh. Lunacy! Spine-tingling madness!
Suddenly, she caught sight of thick stone doors ahead. They inched shut under the efforts of a sweating troop of Shinzen’s soldiers, who viewed the Dragon’s approach with the terror of men trapped in the path of an avalanche. Beyond them, she saw through the narrowing crack, a phalanx of armoured Human giants. Nine, ten feet tall. Four feet wide. Massively armoured, they crouched behind a wall of interlocked shields. The doors were twenty feet apart and closing steadily.
Rouse my powers! Grandion’s voice boomed in her mind. I smell open air!
Rouse his powers? The Tourmaline was asking for help? Astonishing. Perhaps he was a changed Dragon after all. Raising her voice in a turbulent, compelling chant, Lia began to declaim a passage from Saggaz Thunderdoom, a famous Sapphire Dragon who dominated many of the vocal sagas:
Bestriding boiling thunderheads, the Thunderdoom arose,
His roar a trump of thunder,
Like wingéd lightning his mighty paw,
Struck the skies asunder!
Beneath her, the Tourmaline Dragon’s belly boiled–literally, Lia imagined, for the powers churning beneath her thighs sounded like a vast pot left to boil over, bubbling and hissing and steaming as its contents sizzled upon the coals. So much potential! No wonder the Blue colours were regarded as the mightiest of draconic magic-users.
With a thought, Lia pointed Grandion at the doors. Take the shot, my beauty!
The Dragon’s flanks rippled. His throat convulsed and his muzzle shot forward, elongating his throat into the barrel of a weapon. Light streaked her vision, not a fireball as she had expected, but ball-lightning, which roiled through the air with a hungry crackle before detonating against the left door. Cacophony! Destruction! Lia’s head rang. Her own magic resonated in response, as if her body were a gong pealing the knell of Grandion’s assault.
Brace for impact! Lia yelled. A massively muscled Tourmaline shoulder shattered the weakened door. They barrelled through the wreckage, the smoke and the crazily crackling leftover energies, kicking charred bodies left and right as the Dragon thundered into the huge cavern beyond.
Dragons! Grandion roared.
That’s Shinzen! Razzior! And–unh! Lia’s hand flew to her face. Blood spurted between her fingers. Had she broken her nose on Grandion’s spine-spike? Grandion?
Can’t move.
At the same time, Shinzen waved a hand languidly. “Islands’ greetings!” he boomed.
Grandion had stopped as though he had run into a wall–Shinzen’s magic? The air around her was too still. The Fra’aniorian Islander sensed her Dragon fighting back, magic for magic, but three cage-bound years had weakened him severely. Could he even fly? The Warlord had not moved from his relaxed stance on a small dais–as if he needed the additional height–set two hundred feet to the right of the doors. Lia saw at least a dozen Dragons inside the cave; she picked out Razzior by his sheer bulk and the ghastly scar on his face.
Shinzen said, “Razzior, the scrawny beast is all yours. My part of the bargain.”
Razzior’s fangs gleamed in a twisted smile, again, so similar to Ra’aba … “Aye, a good bargain, Shinzen.”
Good bargain? What in a volcanic hell?
Compared to Razzior, Grandion resembled a scrawny adolescent. The Tourmaline had been starved in captivity. Beyond Razzior, her frantically swivelling gaze was drawn to a Dragoness who could only be Cerissae–the distinctive yellow dagger-patterns on her fantastically pointed scales, and the additional rows of spikes on her muzzle, skull, spine, tail and even her wing-struts, matched Grandion’s description exactly. She cast an avaricious glance at Lia’s mount, but the murder which gleamed in her torrid gaze was reserved for the girl upon his back. Grandion quivered as he counteracted Shinzen’s magic. Two huge men standing behind Shinzen began to chant softly, and Hualiama felt the magic intensify, as if the very air had turned into
chains to hold a Dragon fast.
The Orange Dragon’s flaming eye rose to fix upon Hualiama. He grunted in recognition. “Lia. We meet again.”
“You know the wench?” Shinzen asked.
“Nasty piece of windroc bait,” growled Razzior. “That’s Hualiama, Princess of Fra’anior. We’ve run into each other, aye, several times.”
“To your detriment, Razzior,” Lia called. “I defeated–”
“Shut the trap.” Magic seized her jaw. Shinzen’s eyes glittered at the now-silenced Human Princess. “A princess, you say? Have you any use for a Dragon-riding princess?”
The Dragon turned his regard upon Shinzen. An understanding seemed to pass between them. “A deal-sweetener? Use her as you wish, Shinzen,” rasped Razzior. “Abuse her. Only, watch out for her magic.”
Lia fought Shinzen’s power furiously. The touch of it left a rancid taste upon her tongue, a hint of ruzal, but it was subtly different. She was not about to sweeten anything for anybody. Pillows of air gathered beneath her legs. Suddenly, she wafted off Grandion’s back and over the phalanx of giants, flying toward Shinzen. The giant loomed larger and larger–freaking Islands, what a rajal of a man! His magic brought her to a halt at arms-length, holding her aloft with dreadful ease. How could she fight this? The black-in-black eyes bored into Lia’s mind, rummaging, defiling.
“Oh, precious!” Shinzen threw back his head with a roar. “She’s untouched.”
“All the better to enjoy,” Razzior chuckled horribly.
That was it. The backdrop of Dragons and Humans alike chortling at her humiliation, brought a spark of inspiration to Lia’s misery. If she possessed Grandion’s power … impulsively, she reached for the Dragon, and dove into him. He had what she needed. She dove deep.