by Marc Secchia
Ahead, she saw half a dozen giants swarming over a Green Dragoness, clubbing and stabbing her with terrible ferocity.
“Up, Grandion!” she shouted. “To the fortress!”
“Stop twizzling your head around and focus me on a target,” he panted.
“But we’ll get hit.”
“I’m shielding, Rider.” Oh. When would she learn? Grandion only laughed, “Battle is a song, Hualiama. It’s a dance. Feel the rhythm; let it fire your blood. Here, I’ll show you.”
Bloodthirsty laughter belled out of her throat as the tide of Grandion’s emotions caught her up–not crushing, as before, but savage and uplifting, focussed through the incredible power of Dragon reactions and senses. Merging momentarily with the Dragon’s mind, Lia marvelled at what she experienced. She was sight. He was stone skin. She knew the rush of air over sensitive wings and noted how he made minute muscular adjustments to account for the debris filling the air. He directed her arrows, touching several with his magic to bring them on target. Lia instantly sought new targets.
In battle-song they became one. Organic. Brutal. Triumphant.
Ice shards sprayed from Grandion’s mouth, scything through the band of giants attacking the fortress, perfectly avoiding Naoko who stood immovable in the entryway, and rose to blind a Brown Dragon intent on ambushing the Human leader from behind the northern battlements. Grandion smashed his shoulder into the Brown’s muzzle and whirled, intending to finish him off, but Yukari was already there, jabbing the three forward-facing talons of her right forepaw into the Dragon’s belly as he wobbled in the air. She ripped out a pawful of intestines.
With a departing aerial obeisance, Grandion angled for three huge Reds mobbing Mizuki. Her power of Shivers shrieked through the register of Human hearing. The Reds scattered, but not quickly enough. One of the Reds, a Dragoness, lost her right foreleg and half of her right wing in the resulting explosion.
DIE, YOU WINGLESS COCKROACHES! Grandion roared, smashing into another of the Reds. He missed his neck-bite, but caught the Red’s right wing midway, near the second wing-joint, and savaged bone, wing-struts and wing surface with his fangs, inflicting a terrible injury.
Then, the Tourmaline Dragon shuddered beneath the blows of the third Red, who turned literally on a wingtip to tear into Grandion with all twenty talons bared. Suddenly Mizuki was there, biting the Red’s muzzle, and Lia caught a flash of steely talon from the corner of her eye. She blocked instinctively. Pain spread up her forearm. Flung free! Severed from her perch, Lia tumbled off Grandion’s left wings onto Mizuki’s tail. She clutched a spine-spike for a moment, but the Copper Dragoness was the lowest member of the maul just then. Lia found herself scraped off unceremoniously and dumped atop a large, flat boulder.
A giant leaped at her. Lia somersaulted backward, evading the arc of his sword but not the clutches of a thorn bush. Pain lanced into her thigh and side. Draw the sword! Nuyallith blade in hand, she tore free of the bushes and smartly ducked a second blade aiming to trim more than just her hair. The giants slammed together mid-air, only to bounce apart and turn upon her with disconcertingly identical smiles. Twins? Or did all the giants look the same?
Hualiama backed up slowly, wishing she had her second blade. She palmed an Immadian forked dagger in her less-preferred right hand.
“I’ve a taste for girl-meat,” growled one of the giants. He had to be nine feet tall and nearly as wide, while his sword looked suited to chopping down trees. Despite their bulk, the giants moved with uncanny agility over the rough terrain.
“There’s a Dragon behind you!” Lia shouted.
The giants hooted.
“No, really!” She dived back beneath the thorn bushes as Green Dragon spit splashed over the two men. Blinded, with flesh bubbling off their arms and shoulders, the giants nevertheless attacked in the direction she had taken. Lia danced lightly aside, and then gasped as Grandion’s tonnage hurtled down from above in a deliberately hard landing, flattening most of one giant and the upper half of the other. The Tourmaline Dragon finished the survivor with a casual thrust and twist of a talon.
“Done with fooling about on foot?” he asked.
“Just keeping my skills honed, Dragon,” Lia retorted.
Dropping to her left, Lia lashed out with the Nuyallith blade, severing an incoming giant’s right leg beneath the knee. Grandion smashed him aside with an irritated backhand slap.
“I’ll swat the mosquitoes, if you look out for Shinzen’s cockroaches,” he growled.
“What did we miss?” Lia asked, looking around the dark, mostly quiet battlefield. In several places, Dragons flapped weakly or staggered along, gravely injured. “How did they sneak up on us?”
Grandion shook his head. “A power of concealment akin to ruzal–a novel technique. We must not underestimate Razzior or Shinzen again. And, your hand’s glowing, Hualiama.”
She had been gazing at the soft blue flame sheathing her left hand and the Nuyallith blade without truly seeing it. The flame faded.
“Where’s Razzior?” she asked.
“Not with this group, clearly,” said the Dragon. “But he’ll be coming. You can stake your life on that.”
Chapter 25: The Kingdom of Kaolili
GRANDION SHOOK HIS muzzle and said bluntly, “For the fourteenth time, my Rider, their deaths were not your fault, nor are we cravenly fleeing the battle.”
“Five Dragons killed, Grandion. Two will never fly again. Six Riders killed–”
“Ours is a greater calling.”
“Greater?” How sanctimonious. “I think not. But it is our calling, as you put it. A cunning enemy fell upon us when we were ill-prepared. I only hope Kaolili’s preparations progress apace. Half of the Dragons in the Island-World are either on their way, or are here already. War will consume these Islands, Grandion.”
“Aye,” he rumbled. No Dragonsong, just a flat acknowledgement of reality.
Two days later and five hundred leagues of fast flying from Eali Island, Grandion and Hualiama had passed over Jaoli into the sparse, widely-separated Islands that marked the southern fringes of Kaolili, by geographical extent, the greatest kingdom in the Island-World. The land was green and pleasant, the Islands scattered in the Cloudlands like jewelled raindrops of a vibrant lime-green, the colour of the verdant mohili wheat plantations. Did they grow nothing but wheat here? Everything about these Islands was neat. Neat edges. Neat plantations, squared off with lines of wind-breaking trees and drainage ditches. Plentiful terrace lakes including inland lakes on the larger Islands. Neat rows of wood-framed, paper-walled houses. Paper? She longed to go down there and touch the fabled substance. Give her scrolleaf any day. It was far more durable. Grandion said that if a storm flattened a house, it could be rebuilt in a day. Why not build houses to be durable in the first instance?
She had seen no Dragonships or army movement, however. Could Naoko’s message already have reached the King of Kaolili? Perhaps the distances were too great. It was said to be another thousand leagues to Kerdani Town, and from there to the Lost Islands, a further fourteen hundred leagues’ flying. Such was the mindboggling extent of Kaolili.
“I made up a song,” said Grandion. “It’s about this Human girl I know.”
Hualiama smiled wryly. Did she know this Dragon? Where was the stiff, formal beast who had transported her to the Spits and back six years before? “Trying to cheer me up?”
“Using your favourite language, song,” he agreed.
“I’m listening.”
With a full flourish of his Dragon throat’s gorgeous harmonies, the Tourmaline Dragon sang:
How do you love a rainstorm?
One drop at a time.
What was this? Cautiously, heart fluttering in her throat, she echoed back:
Am I a rainstorm? I thought you’d simply jump in and get wet.
The Dragon laughed, “There’s more.” And he sang:
How do you love a suns-beam?
An imperious waggle of his lef
t wingtip demanded a reply. Lia vocalised:
You cannot catch it in your jaw, or roll it in your paw,
Do I want to be a suns-beam?
Swelling in volume upon the breeze, the Dragon’s voice rang forth:
You herald its appearance, to pink the eastern sky,
You yearn for its light, to gladden every eye,
Swift to the clouds you soar and cry, ‘Allow her suns-beam to pierce your heart,
Usher her radiance to the Island-World’s every corner.’
Aye, you are a suns-beam.
Hualiama did not want to spoil his good mood with a crass word. Clearly, the Dragon had no interest in Mizuki. That ploy had failed. But how could he so blatantly profess a romantic interest in his Human Rider? Madness. A Dragonsong of doom, should anyone ever dare to sing such a song. The stars should fall from the sky, the prophecy said. A clear vision rose before her eyes. War would roll over these fertile lands like Land Dragons rising from the deeps to stampede across the Islands, casting them down into ruin. The people down there had no idea.
Lia rubbed her arms and extinguished the flame which had briefly haloed around her hands. Heavens above and Islands below, where had that vision sprung from? She and Grandion raced to warn the risible Qilong’s father. She prayed the monarch cared much for his people, enough at least to heed the booming drums of war.
Her thoughts returned to her broad-winged companion, he of a bristling array of skull- and spine-spikes and a tail which lashed over sixty feet behind her seat. With only the sky’s endless vault to witness their interactions, who would know? Yet, she must deflect his attentions. Pensively, Lia sang:
How do you love a fire?
Will you not simply … burn?
Be warmed, but don’t come too close …
Mercy. Fool that she was, speaking before sense gripped her tongue and stopped its hurtful wagging. Hualiama bit her lip, quelling an apology which would only have compounded his wrath, which burned audibly against her. This was how she repaid his sweetness? A thousand Islands screamed, ‘Fool!’
After a time, Grandion sang so wistfully that tears sprang to Lia’s eyes:
You become the fire.
And the long leagues lay heavy upon their souls after that.
* * * *
Five and a half days they spent aloft, snatching two full nights of sleep in that time, before Dragon and Rider sighted Kerdani Town, Kaolili’s sprawling capital city, upon the horizon. Surely a record time for such a journey, Grandion remarked.
She leaned closer to him, a slight shift of her insignificant weight, in that way that she had when she wished to convey an intimacy. Grandion’s scales prickled as she said, “Surely, this great-hearted Dragon hath burned the heavens with the swiftness of his flight.”
His entire body shivered with delight. He growled, basso profundo, “We merit a reception committee.”
“Aye. I was beginning to wonder where all their Dragonships were.”
All they had seen for days were merchant vessels bearing cargo hither and thither. Now, a dozen large Dragonships rose to bracket their flight path. On the horizon, Hualiama’s alert gaze informed Grandion of the mounded tops of dozens more Dragonships, lined up like sleek giant carp catching suns-shine in the shallows of a terrace lake. The army was assembled, the Dragon deduced. Good news.
Lia groaned. “Oh, ralti droppings! We forgot the white flag of an envoy. I’m not about to wave this green tunic top in surrender.”
“Isn’t your under-tunic white, Rider?”
“Waving my underwear at soldiers might attract the wrong sort of attention.”
The Dragon knew she meant for him to deny the fact, or to assert his ability to protect her. Human females. They were just like Dragonesses, preening to invite a compliment. A goading was in order. “Perhaps the garment is too travel-stained?”
He practically heard a snap of fangs. “I can be snarky too, mister fungus-scales needs a lava bath.”
Grandion only chuckled indulgently. In a few moments, he felt her wriggling about as she removed her Human clothing and then reassembled her outfit minus the under-tunic. With the breeze blowing from astern he scented her clearly, from the hint of fresh dorlis-flower perfume that still somehow lingered upon her skin since she had bathed at Yukari’s Island, to the piquant, peppery magic of her Nuyallith blade, and aye, a touch of the Islands about her, as the Dragons put it delicately. Properly civilised Dragons would bathe every day, sometimes several times a day. No wonder he had the purple cloud-fungus. And even Lia might wrinkle her nose at his Dragonish odour.
“I’ve never seen Humans in such numbers,” the girl said, a trifle breathlessly.
Humans were fleas in the armpit of the world, Grandion had once growled at her. Even a reformed Dragon felt edgy in the face of a multitude. She should wait until she saw the city proper beyond the hills.
The Dragonships rose purposefully on an intercept course, but after Hualiama waved her improvised flag, an answering white flag fluttered from the starboard gantry of the foremost Dragonship. A brief parley followed, in which the soldiers tried to disguise their disbelief at finding a Human riding Dragonback, and Lia requested an audience with the King of Kaolili.
“Never heard of Fra’anior?” Lia snorted, after the young officer vanished briefly to consult his superior officer. “He couldn’t find his own nose in the dark.”
Grumbling, the Princess set about fixing a headscarf from what she had in her pockets, and rigging a face veil from a scrap of cloth Grandion had heard Akemi insist upon. Ridiculous Human customs. He preferred the carefree Hualiama, not the one who seemed to avoid offence. She was more true to herself when dealing with Dragons. The Tourmaline Dragon let fire bubble between his fangs to seal the accuracy of his insight. Grandion had spent many hours in Kaolili as his alter ego, the young Human man, seeking knowledge of the Scroll of Binding. But the need to hide his Dragon form while a projection snooped about had been tricky in a city of this size. Twice he had come perilously close to being discovered, and once, an otherwise demure Eastern girl had tried to kiss him. That had inspired him to work on his feedback loops, part of his fiendishly complex magical construction. Projection? The Aquamarine Dragoness did not know the half of it. His projection could smell, taste and see more than adequately. It could draw a bow in protection of a Human girl.
The young officer returned, and curtly ordered them to follow.
Grandion winged to a landing field close to the palatial living quarters of the King of Kaolili, which rivalled Gi’ishior’s Dragon accommodation for extravagance, he begrudgingly admitted. Hualiama sat perfectly silent upon his back, but he could sense her goggling at her surroundings, which were indeed to be marvelled at. A Human city of some quarter of a million inhabitants, it housed five times the number of the entire Human population of Fra’anior. Furthermore, the city was immaculate. Not a stone protruded out of place. No stray leaves blew about the streets. The buildings of the central part of town were works of art created in dozens of shades of stone, each shaped to represent an animal of importance to the Kingdom. Water buffalo. Antelope–his mouth watered. White heron. Even the crocodile was represented, which interested him. Had Dramagon’s creations made it this far north?
After a considerable delay at the landing field, a court functionary dragging a robe so long it trailed fifteen feet behind him and had to be carried by six attendants, met the official delegation from Fra’anior Cluster. If he was surprised at the appearance of a Dragon and a Human together, he did not admit it.
An unctuous wave of his hand followed the formalities. He pronounced, “If her Royal Highness of Fra’anior would accompany me?”
“And my Dragon?” asked Lia.
“Your Dragon?” A perfectly manicured eyebrow met his elaborate golden headgear. “The beast is with you?”
“I fear to affront Grandion, noble shell-son of Sapphurion, leader of the Island-World’s Dragons,” said Hualiama, with a courtly bow that reminded
Grandion of Dragonish courtship rituals. Curious.
“Her Highness does not wish to freshen up before meeting the king?”
“Her Highness does so wish,” said Lia. Grandion flexed his claws as he detected her irritation at the functionary’s insinuation. “Her Highness will do so in the company of the mighty Tourmaline Dragon.”
Well, she could certainly affect an air of snootiness when she wanted to, the Dragon observed, following this exchange with interest. Would she get her way?
The man bowed. “Number one. Fetch the Mistress of Baths. Number two, go clear the bathhouse on the corner of first and third street. Number three, see to the Princess’ comfort. Four and five, fetch a detachment of the Royal Guard and deploy them at the baths. See that nothing disturbs our visitors. Number six? My robes. We must inform the King of the Princess’ arrival.”
The servants rushed off like ants disturbed from their nest, while the sixth servant patiently gathered up the folds of the great trailing robe, until he could barely see where he was going. With that, the functionary withdrew.
“Number three?” said Lia.
“Your Highness?” said the man, a younger version of the functionary.
“Shall we proceed?”
A hint of confusion crossed his otherwise impassive features. “Where shall I order your belongings to be sent, Your Highness?”
Hualiama smiled without condescension. “All of my belongings are upon my person. Oh, and the Dragon. He will bring himself.”
Grandion bared his fangs at the servant, who lost his nerve in the midst of expressing how very good all the Princess’ wishes were, and rushed ahead with rather more haste than was apparently permitted in the Kingdom of Kaolili. Their short walk to the bathhouse made every citizen in sight stop and stare, or scream.
“You scared him,” Lia remarked dryly.
The Dragon opined, “Every Human needs to experience mortal terror from time to time. It’s beneficial for their physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.”
Lia’s gaze measured him up and down. “Tyrant,” she teased.