by Marc Secchia
Cerissae reached out, but her grasp was two feet short of the mark. She had Swarm hanging off her lips and nostrils. Grandion landed heavily, probably puncturing the Dragoness’ belly with his spine-spikes upon landing, but she seemed undaunted. One hot breath, and Lia would be roasted. Slashing at her belts, the Human girl leaped to her feet, lithely poised upon her Dragon’s back. She raised her blue blade.
Barbecued Princess is not on the menu today!
Her shout made Grandion chuckle and Lia groan inwardly. Mercy. Was that her best, scariest challenge? She sounded like Grandion in his hatchling years. No time. Dancing aside from Cerissae’s lunge, Lia drank deep of the awesome presence of a Dragon in her mind, of her years of warrior-monk training and the knowledge Ja’al, bless his tattooed blue head, had poured into an undeserving vessel. The blade ignited. Blue flame wreathed her sword arm from her elbow to her hand, extending along the blade and beyond. Suddenly, she wielded an eight-foot Dragon-slayer of a weapon. The Amber-Red Dragoness’ jaw cracked open in shock as Lia swung backhanded, a vicious arc from above her right shoulder toward her left leg, braced as if to anchor her power in the storehouses of the Tourmaline Dragon beneath her feet.
The fire carved a trench through Cerissae’s muzzle, cuffing her head sideways in a spray of golden Dragon blood. Lia danced forward with a triple-step, and thrust the fiery blade deep into the Dragoness’ chest, spearing her first heart. The sword’s metal did not even touch her hide. There was no need. Lia’s white-fire shone with the refining heat of a furnace, cremating the flesh and bone it passed through.
Her third raking stroke, made as she darted beneath Cerissae’s swinging neck, sliced five feet deep into the area below the Dragoness’ ear canals, right across the major jugulars feeding her brain. Draconic scale-armour parted with a sizzle.
The last sound the Dragoness made was a wet rattle of surprise.
* * * *
Being grounded during a Dragon-battle, while his viewpoint danced up and down his back like a demented dragonet, was a new and largely unwelcome experience for Grandion. How was he meant to protect her, or himself, against a roiling melee of Dragons bent on capture at any cost? Buffeted, braced and brazen, he and Lia defied their foes. His magical shield was their fortress. Lia’s blade sang on the offence. She danced upon his shoulders as he spun, lashing his tail. She flexed with him as he cuffed a Red Dragon aside, and ducked as smartly as he to avoid a Grunt which tore an indiscriminate swathe of destruction through the confusion, crushing a dozen Swarm Dragons and breaking the wings of two of Razzior’s force in a single attack.
Everywhere Hualiama looked, Dragons writhed in battle, the two forces struggling as much to keep each other from Grandion and his Rider, as to attack them. So much Dragon blood had already been shed, a golden mist drifted over the battlefield. Maddened Dragons tore chunks out of each other. The sweet redolence of blood stoked their battle-lust. Razzior’s lava attack splashed his shield. Grandion felt the severe drain on his power even as Lia rolled away from the blistering heat.
Why attack us directly? Her thoughts had a disorganised, rattled edge.
To weaken me. I can’t keep shielding us forever.
Lia growled at the image in his mind, You want me beneath your belly? I can’t protect you from there.
Who’s protecting whom here?
They chuckled softly, simultaneously. Grandion shuddered at the impact of a Green Dragon acid attack, but the hissing spit slid off an invisible shield just above his spine-spikes.
Please don’t sacrifice your flesh for me.
Wretchedly perceptive Dragonfriend! Grandion whirled, arching his back to deflect a Red Dragon’s attack. The huge, hoary Red slewed off to the south, coming under heavy Swarm attack. Ianthine speared down, leading her Dragonwings in a sustained assault. Thunder! Growls and clashing paws! Dozens of Dragons hurled themselves at the mountaintop, seeking Hualiama’s hide. Grandion cast aside Dragon fire and flying rocks and even a Glue-power attack. Successive concussions rattled them, but Lia far more so than the Dragon, for her ear canals could not close or mute sound as his did instinctively.
She gasped, Keep me from the ruzal, Grandion. Razzior wants–
Aye. It’s my fault he stole your power.
Water off the Island. Hualiama darted around his paws, hacking briefly at a marauding Swarm Dragon. She rolled smoothly away as he whirled to face an incoming enemy Green, muzzle agape as a fireball formed in his throat. No. He’s in my mind … quarrying … help me, Grandion. Razzior’s burning …
The Tourmaline Dragon raged against their foes. Her sanity would crack beneath this assault. Forces as fearsome as the powers contained in the First Eggs of the Dragons, those same virtuosic powers which had raised life out of the noxious Cloudlands, had always made Hualiama’s being their personal battleground. Razzior’s attack was a vortex of dark pain, summoning that taint within Lia, stoking the ruzal into ugly exuberance. Her white-fires dwindled in response.
Straining inwardly, the Dragon bolstered her strength. Resist.
Grandion’s sixth sense saw a wedge of maroon-coloured power slam into Razzior, ending his attack. But that was also a signal for Ianthine’s forces to assault the mountain. The Dragon staggered as a posse of Browns tore into the living rock with their Stone powers. Splinters jagged into his belly and chest, but the Dragon danced the movements of his battle-song and the girl danced with him. Grandion clashed with a charging Yellow Dragoness, shoulder to shoulder, laughing horribly as he rebuffed her attack. He raked his talons across the Yellow’s eyes. Blindness? What blindness? He would shield Hualiama from these burned-out worms. Then he would … deliver her intact to the Dragon Elders?
He must complete his sworn duty. Dark-fires seared the pathways of his magic as though he had swallowed a bellyful of Green Dragon acid spit. Must the price of his life be hers? His fiery bravado expired in a weak puff of smoke. She was the Scroll of Binding. He had made an oath to seek out the Scroll and bring it before the Dragon Elders. Should he fail, or the Scroll fall into the paws of Razzior or worse, the Dragon-Haters of these Isles–all Dragonkind would suffer. Could he be foresworn, and live with the dishonour? Not this Dragon. Never again.
In his mind’s eye, Hualiama danced into his grasp. My Dragon, she laughed. My Dragonlove.
The lurking Orange Dragon roared at an entirely new pitch of fury. His thundering shook the morning as Grandion belatedly realised what he had revealed; what Razzior’s ruzal had stolen from his awareness.
Blistering lava splashed over Dragon and Rider. Five Grunts struck the mountain in a perfectly-timed array. KERRRUUUMP! The sound rolled away with a vast echo, the Bell vibrating in sympathy.
The Tourmaline howled as an avalanche swept them away.
* * * *
Lia suddenly found herself swimming neck-deep in rubble. Brown Burrower Dragons rippled around her, shepherding the flow, laughing like monstrously overgrown trout frolicking in a waterfall. The avalanche yanked her and the Tourmaline apart. Grandion! She hacked ineffectually at a passing Brown. Lia groaned at the pressure of boulders grinding against her chest, before the spatulate paw of a Burrower scooped her loose and flicked her away from the torrent. She sailed free, only to scream as a monstrous power seized her body and dragged her skyward, arrow-swift toward Ianthine’s waiting paw.
Ghastly, gap-toothed, the Maroon Dragoness’ smile mocked the Human girl. Come suffer at my paw, she smirked. Give me the power of ruzal …
But the moment Hualiama thought of ruzal, the untameable dark power slipped free.
Razzior boomed, Now, you’re mine!
If darkness could radiate like suns-beams from behind a cloud, that was how Hualiama perceived the Orange Dragon’s attack. The instant Razzior’s magic bathed her face, the thought pierced her mind that every light had its darkness, and every ordinary shadow could be banished by light–but this was a darkness that pulsed as with a diabolical heartbeat, which assumed the form of the mind directing it, a sentient enti
ty in its own right. Strength evaporated from her body as Razzior guzzled at the font of her powers. Shuddering, Lia shut off the spigots.
Parasite! Magic-stealer! Hualiama felt her trajectory shift in the air, slinging her in a new arc that terminated in Razzior’s right paw, but without wings of her own, she was powerless to resist. Lia built her layers. She buried her abilities, and drew a cocoon of light about the core of her person.
Blind to the Island-World, she felt Razzior’s paw clasp her chest.
Ah, Dragonfriend, he hissed, slithering into her mind.
Hualiama! Resist! Grandion called from nearby. By the tenor of his voice, Lia knew he was under heavy attack. At least he had escaped the avalanche.
A being of draconic dark-fire entered the portals of her mental space, as dark and fearsome as Grandion’s manifestation had always been a dazzle of light. Razzior. He and her father had shaped each other. They had been drawn as much to evil as to each other, and combined their Human and Dragon talents in unprecedented ways, feeding off each other in a ghastly parasitic orgy.
The creature faced her, unblinking. Aye, I learned much from your father.
He may be my blood-father, but I am the child of the Dragon, Hualiama countered.
A spirit-child? What a quaint, useless affectation. Did Amaryllion pretend regard for an unlovely, unloved and unlovable Human waif? Lia writhed as his words lashed her with the dark-fires of her own soul. You pride yourself on this power of love, Dragonfriend, but your every flight generates hatred. Are these Dragonkind not gathered to war over your pathetic person? Dying for the Dragonfriend? They war to gain your magic–your foul, perverted powers, from your command of ruzal to your claims upon the Dragon who betrayed you from the first.
Grandion did not–
Grandion, your Dragonlove? Razzior spat. You make me sick! How you corrupt and blacken the peerless Dragon fires of our kind! Accept your weapon. I’ve no more need to turn a Dragon’s Eye upon your transgressions. I’ll rid this Island-World of your filthy presence after you accord me my desires.
To her surprise, Razzior’s claws unclenched. The Dragon dropped Lia onto the curve of his left paw, which held like a pin upon a Human’s palm, the matching blade of her Nuyallith set. She glanced up at the Orange Dragon, guessing that he wanted her to seize the blade and ignite it. His fiery gaze dared her. In the curve of his neck and the clenched, scar-twisted muzzle, Lia read the pride and arrogance of the Dragonkind which drove him to demonstrate his dominance over her, his enemy, by granting her access to her most powerful weapons. The stronger the enemy, the greater the glory to be sung in Dragonsong. Razzior ached for glory, for recognition and status among his kind. For her, he knew only hatred. She was less than the dirt beneath his paws.
The Orange Dragon powered aloft, sliding between the serried ranks of Dragonkind with a flair which Hualiama realised had to be magical. She knelt to grasp the blade, and could not rise. Her heart laboured to shift molten-lead blood, thick with anguish. Hopeless. Beleaguered on every side. The Tourmaline roared but receded. Razzior needed no might of claw to shred her soul.
Hualiama curled inward. Where was her strength now?
Ianthine bugled, Stay, Razzior! The Dragonfriend is mine!
Stay? You decrepit, moth-eaten old windroc! The Orange’s claws curled about his prize as the Dragoness rose to intercept them. Fire billowed from his mouth, choking Hualiama with sulphurous smoke. Desist, or watch me destroy this puny Human.
The Maroon Dragoness sneered, Go roost-love a ralti sheep, hatchling. You haven’t captured the Dragonfriend.
Hualiama groaned as Razzior’s claws clasped about her chest like bands of iron. He shook the fist containing his captive at Ianthine. Haven’t I? What is this?
A bar of soap, said the Dragoness.
Bah. You–what?
Suddenly, air-pressure popped and creaked in Hualiama’s ears as if she were underwater. The sounds of battle became muffled. She knew Ianthine and Razzior exchanged insults, but she could no longer hear their telepathic Dragonish. As Razzior’s paw clenched, the compression seemed to shift along her body, behaving exactly like a hand grasping a wet bar of soap. She slid between his talons. He shifted his grip, voicing a disgruntled roar, only to see her slip in another direction in an invisible cocoon.
Delighted laughter burbled from Lia’s lips as the Orange Dragon sweated over his prize.
“Whoops,” she laughed. “Careful, Razzior.”
“You … impossible …” The Orange made a convulsive swipe at her escaping body, but it seemed as slick as a Dragon hatchling breaking the eggshell. “Come here!”
His grasp only multiplied Ianthine’s magic. Lia squirted out of his grasp like a boulder shot by a Brown Dragon, soaring across the void above Dragon’s Bell Island.
A swift, cunning Red Dragon’s paw snagged her belt midway. Talons sliced into Lia’s lower back.
Two wingbeats later, the Red imploded in a cloud of golden blood.
“Morning!” bugled Mizuki.
“Hey, short shrift!” Elki screamed happily. “Keep flapping those arms, you might even fly!”
“You’re mine, girl,” growled Ianthine. Lia’s body snapped sideways, punched by an unseen force. The tremendous acceleration caused white to crowd in around her vision, a tunnel leading only to Ianthine. Maroon talons snaked around her body, establishing the Dragoness’ custody of the treasure all Dragons desired. “I’ve not suffered all these seasons–”
A familiar voice crashed over all the Islands of her world. “DRAGONS, OBEY!”
Chapter 35: Medley of Dragons
Too MUCH! LIa’s mind reeled. The Copper Dragoness had appeared from nowhere with Saori and Elki aboard. Likewise, almost in the same breath, her mother made her grand entrance on the field of battle. Dragons swung toward Azziala with ugly snarls, both the Lost Islands Dragons and Razzior’s Dragonwing, while yet another Dragon army rushed up from the southwest led by none other than Sapphurion. They would arrive within minutes.
Her mother stood with haughty ease atop the head of a docile eighty-foot Blue Overmind. How? Surely crossing the Lost Islands at such a speed was impossible, unless–Aye, daughter, Azziala’s voice trickled into her mind. Teleportation is another of our powers. Enough minds, enough power … it’s possible.
Her mother boomed, “Dragoness. Bring me my renegade daughter.”
Unbelievable cunning. Azziala must have been lying in wait while the Dragons destroyed each other. Perhaps Razzior’s threat had tipped her hand. Everyone wanted Lia. Nobody wanted her dead, not yet. Not until she gave up the ruzal. Then she would become instantly expendable–she should not cling to any illusions in that regard. Azziala had made her intentions plain; so too Razzior.
Ianthine flapped ahead slowly, clearly fighting the Enchantress’ mind-bending power. Azziala’s force drifted on the wind several thousand feet above the main battle, perhaps twenty enthralled Dragons bearing dozens of her Dragon Enchanters. Feyzuria and Shazziya flanked the Empress on her Dragon. Most of Razzior’s force already displayed the slack-jawed contentment Lia had come to recognise as capitulation, but the Overminds or Dramubam resisted, especially Affurion. He rallied his Dragonwings while the Dragon-Haters worked economically, attacking the resilient Overminds in teams of up to a dozen minds and transferring control of subjugated Dragons to lesser Enchanters.
Sapphurion was about to speed into the jaws of Azziala’s trap.
Hualiama reached for Grandion, but could not identify him amongst a host of stupefied minds. Thunder! Four Grunts rattled Azziala’s psychic shield, the hindmost breaking through to crush one of her Dragons, instantly killing all the Dragon Enchanters aboard.
Quick. Ianthine. She had to trust the Dragoness now, for she was the only one Lia could touch. Ignore the pain. Forge past the soft-as-quicksand sensation of Azziala’s command-power draining her will to oppose, Lia opened herself to the unstable Dragoness.
“Dragon, obey. You are my slave.”
N
ever! A storm-howl protested Lia’s takeover of Ianthine’s mind.
Imagining herself an Island struck by a Cloudlands storm, Lia allowed the Maroon Dragoness’ rage to sluice over her. In its wake, she soothed, “Ianthine. Work with me. Wake your second self.”
She saw the Dragoness. Hers was a realm of strange voices and conflicted emotions, and a mind scarred in ways Hualiama could hardly begin to imagine. A new tone entered Ianthine’s voice, with wild notes that reminded Lia of lava leaping and spitting in Fra’anior’s caldera. “Traitor! Release this Command-hold.”
“No. Shut your fires and listen.” A talon sprang from its retractable sheath toward Lia’s neck. She gasped, “Ianthine! I’m trying to help, trust me.”
Only she had the power to break Azziala’s hold. If she could not do it, these Dragons would fall and Sapphurion shortly thereafter.
“Trust? First, it gives me power.”
“You still lust for ruzal after all you’ve suffered? Ianthine–” Lia listened to the Dragoness’ stillness, which belied the internal war raging between her different personalities “–Dragoness, you must choose the right. Hatred will not win this day.”
After what seemed an eternal silence, Ianthine said, “It trusts like a babe. Undraconic in innocence, my dark-fires it incites. What does it intend, o treacherous beauty, this beggar of sweetly insane oaths?” Lia shivered as the mad voice gathered strength. She knew this Ianthine, for the Dragoness had taunted her before with the knowledge of Ra’aba’s identity. “Is it secretly a Hater? Seeded to doom all Dragons?”
“No. I promise–” The word throttled Hualiama momentarily. Promise a Dragoness? Had she not learned? “I promise to release you. As for my plan? What could be more draconic than to attack?”