by Marc Secchia
Ianthine gurgled with pleasure as Hualiama sketched a plan in her mind. “Agreed, Dragonfriend.”
Slow wingbeats brought the Maroon Dragoness up to the Empress’ position above the battlefield. Ianthine kept her expression carefully blank, yet her belly-fires seethed as though a thousand hornets were trapped beneath her hide, matching Lia’s trepidation. If the Dragoness could use her unique powers coupled with the word of ruzal Hualiama had taught her …
The raddled Dragoness appeared to swell. Hualiama’s heart turned over as a new magic filtered through her broken scales, transforming the Ianthine into a radiant jewel. Enchained as they were by the Dragon Enchanters, Azziala’s flotilla, to a beast, sighed and made moon-eyes at the Dragoness. The Empress frowned, clearly confused as a hum of approving Dragonsong rose about her. Lia ironed a grin off her lips. Ianthine would never openly admit to possessing the draconic power of seduction, would she?
Fifty feet from Azziala’s commanding position, Ianthine broke into an eye-catching display of streamers of dazzling, coruscating magic. Behind Azziala, her Enchanters gasped as their Dragons bumped into each other and lost position in the formation, trying to keep a burning eye upon the object of their collective desire.
In that instant, the Dragoness hurled Lia at Azziala.
Mid-air, the Princess of Fra’anior unsheathed her Nuyallith blades, crossing the gap in an eye blink. A flash of Ianthine’s ruzal sliced through the Dragon Enchanters’ shield. Adjust. Slash! Azziala’s eyes widened as she dived aside, flinging up her hands in reaction. Lia’s left-hand blade sliced cleanly through the outer edge of her mother’s hand, while the right gashed Azziala’s ribs shallowly, deflecting off her body armour and piercing Shazziya’s right thigh, a clean thrust. Hualiama cannoned off the tall Enchantress’ hip, losing her grip on the blade jutting out of her thigh. She landed deftly, whirled on her heel and slammed her second blade down upon her mother’s back. Shazziya’s arm barred hers like a metal stanchion. Crack! Pain speared up into her elbow. The blade gashed Azziala’s exposed shoulder, but caused no further damage. Lia’s right forearm hung at an odd angle.
Shazziya barely blinked. “Hands off my Empress, wretch.”
She had barely begun to blanch when the Enchantress blasted her off the Dragon’s back.
* * * *
Grandion saw Hualiama’s flight as a comet-like trail across his magical vision. He had finally worked out how to implement her ideas. High-speed pulses tracked her location amidst the chaos, sound bolstered with a touch of magic that sought out her song, the unique combination of scents, potentials, heartbeat and white-fires which had come to symbolise Hualiama to a blind Dragon.
It seemed she fell slowly. Shadows surrounded her, Dragons in a battle-frenzy, clashing with each other while she fell, buffeted but essentially unmolested, through a sky rife with slashing talons and blooms of Dragon fire. Having thrown up an optical shield the instant he heard Azziala’s commands, Grandion had avoided capture. Now, he knew that the Maroon Dragoness laboured to free her fellows while Lia tumbled through the sky. The Tourmaline flexed his huge flight muscles, powering upward so strongly that his spine creaked with the effort.
A Grunt! The pressure-wave alerted him. Grandion spun mid-air, stalling with his left wing while pumping the right. The speeding Dragon clipped his tail on the way past. He lunged, talons outstretched.
“Got you!” Relief made his voice especially basso, a booming from the depths of his chest as he clutched Lia to his chest.
“Grandion. Thank the heavens.”
“You attacked your mother? That was brave.”
“I failed. Grandion, you heard Mizuki. Your shell-father’s coming–”
He growled, “Where are you injured?”
“Split lip. Talon in my back. Broken arm. Nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious?” The Tourmaline’s displeasure stunned his Rider.
“Islands’ sakes, next time I won’t hitch a ride on a passing avalanche! Grandion, Sapphurion’s coming. We need to rally the Dragons and drive off Azziala.” She drew him into her mind. Now fly, o prince of the dawn fires!
Her shout galvanised his waning powers. There was a strength of draconic Storm that caused his words to reverberate like a thunderclap among the Dragonkind–audible and magical, he caused every muzzle to turn in his direction. DRAGONS TOGETHER! RISE AGAINST THESE HATERS!
Bellowing this cry many times, Grandion rallied the disparate Dragons. Lia was right. They could easily be turned against Azziala, for Humans were lower on the food chain.
“Lower on the food chain?” Lia kicked his paw. “Charming beast.”
“Sit, Rider!”
The Tourmaline did not do contrition–not in the midst of a battle. But Lia only laughed at his smoke and thunder. “More war poetry, Dragon, or can I trust you to do the job properly this time?”
Hurricane-force winds preceded the Tourmaline Dragon’s solo assault on Azziala’s forces. Lightning jagged from his throat. Multiple branches struck the Dragon-Haters’ shield, followed by a brief salvo of Grunts–those left alive. Then, Razzior rose at his left flank and Ianthine and Affurion to his right. The Dragons pummelled the Lost Island Humans with fire and ice, lava and acid, and a stream of superheated glue from the single Grey amongst Razzior’s Dragonwing.
Azziala’s force vanished for long seconds behind curtains of flame, but somehow they weathered that first assault at the cost of several Dragons’ collapse.
“DRAGONS, OBEY!” screamed the Enchantress, every vein in her neck and forehead etched in gold. But many of the Dragonkind were beyond reason or restraint, including Grandion. These lowborn scum had turned proud Dragons into slaves. Dragon-thunder shook the morning, and with it, came Sapphurion and his Dragonwing of Gi’ishior, including the egg-siblings Zulior and Qualiana, both massive Reds, and Andarraz the Green, Brown Tarbazzan and Haaja the Yellow Dragoness.
Through the cacophony, Lia’s soft inner cry reminded Grandion of the cost of what these Dragons wrought. Having just lost her father, her mother now stood on the brink of annihilation. She would lose everything.
I AM SAPPHURION! The mighty Blue leader’s breath frosted the morning air, an ultra-cold blast that froze the Dragon-Haters’ shield in solid sheets which gleamed like crysglass in the suns-light.
Stretching her neck like a cannon, his mate Qualiana fired a series of white-hot fireballs against the shield, so rapidly that they became a single smear of colour across Hualiama’s vision. The Dragon-Haters’ magic shattered. Hundreds of Dragons snarled their praise. Heat seared Grandion’s throat as he joined his Dragon-kin, fire mingling with fire, and a fierce Dragonsong of joy buoyed his wings as a firestorm swept over the enemy Dragons and their detestable cargo. Beautiful fire! The stench of sulphur and charcoal upon the air … oh, blackened bodies tumbling from the sky, a rain of judgement!
Mother, Lia breathed.
* * * *
In the wake of that stunning obliteration, the Dragons drifted on the breeze, arching their necks proudly or flicking their wings to loosen the soot and grit. Many watched the corpses falling until they were lost in the Cloudlands a league below.
Sapphurion was the first to move, winging over to greet his shell-son with a wingtip touch. Fiery and sulphurous greetings, my shell-son. The Maroon Dragoness tells me you’ve found the Scroll? My happiness is unbounded. His eyes measured Hualiama. Well met, Dragonfriend.
She inclined her head respectfully. The most sulphurous greetings of Great Fra’anior to you, noble Sapphurion.
Incongruous. Such formality–a warning?
As if drawn to a lodestone, Dragons gathered around Hualiama and Grandion in the air, and the animus in many of their fiery gazes made her shiver. Cradling her injured arm, Lia watched Ianthine and Affurion drawing together with their remaining half-dozen Overminds, while Razzior summoned his Dragonwing with an imperious flick of his tail. Sapphurion’s group matched the combined strength of Razzior’s kin and the Lost Islands Dragon
s. Balance? Could she hope? Her very presence upon Grandion’s back must enrage them.
Mizuki, bearing Saori and Elki upon her back, descended to align herself with Grandion. Small mercies. Her brother nodded at her, by his bearing, acutely aware of the escalating danger.
Lightly, the wind wuthered atop the Dragon’s Bell.
“My Dragon-kin, there is much work yet to be done,” Sapphurion began.
“There is the matter of the Scroll of Binding,” Razzior inserted smoothly. “And these young Dragons who openly flout the law. What say you to this, Sapphurion? Shall justice not prevail amongst the Dragonkind this day?”
Here it came. Lia’s stomach churned as the great Dragon Elder regarded them, his manner, ineffable, the fire of his eyes bright and proud, as though he harboured not a qualm in the world. She expected him to advance a cunning reply, a draconic subterfuge.
Instead, the Dragon Elder said, “With all my hearts, I approve.”
Silence rippled from his words. The very air seemed to freeze. Such was the nobility and truth of his demeanour, Sapphurion seemed unassailable. Was this payment for his betrayal of his son? Hualiama sucked in her lip.
“A new magic lives in our Island-World, my Dragon-kin,” Sapphurion added softly. “This is the magic bequeathed us by Amaryllion Fireborn, last of the Ancient Dragons, and I say that this magic is the white-fires which live in Hualiama Dragonfriend–aye, fires clothed in Human flesh.”
Even Ianthine flinched.
“Magic?” Razzior growled. “What is this magic but the taint of the ruzal corrupting her flesh, and the miasma of a Human who claims to love a Dragon?” He projected an image as he spoke–Hualiama, spinning into Grandion’s paws, crying, ‘My Dragonlove!’ Every Dragon perceived, from her perspective, how she looked at the Tourmaline Dragon in that split second. “Do you condone this perversion too, Sapphurion?”
The Blue Dragon hesitated. Fatally.
The wily Orange Dragon crooked his claw. TRAITOR! thundered over the draconic congregation. Hualiama did not at first perceive what had happened. Andarraz the Green Elder had a hundred-fang grip upon Sapphurion’s neck. Ambush! Khaki, boiling acid spurted out of his jaw as the glistening Green added to that appalling bite, the highly corrosive acid and poison that the most powerful Greens were noted for. Sapphurion’s mouth gaped in agony. Tarbazzan and Haaja flung themselves at Sapphurion, now a knot of other Dragons roared in, some to support him and others to attack the enormous Dragon Elder.
As Grandion launched himself into the fray with a panicked bugle, Lia’s gaze flicked to Razzior, taking in the sardonic curve of his lip. Almost lazily, the Orange Dragon accelerated to close with Qualiana, who fought in a thundering frenzy to reach her besieged mate.
Perfidy! She should have guessed. Razzior had turned some of the Dragon Elders against Sapphurion. Perhaps it had not been difficult. Dragon egos were as oversized as their mighty frames.
Swooping at his maximum acceleration, Grandion fired shot after shot of jagged ice spears at Andarraz, peppering his flank as though dozens of crossbow bolts had struck him at once. Gobs of boiling flesh and smoke continued to pour out of Sapphurion’s neck as the feral Green refused to relinquish his bite, despite Qualiana snapping around his ear-canals, her talons apparently buried halfway down his throat. Grandion’s focussed thunderbolt knocked Tarbazzan out of the reckoning. The Brown fell limply toward the ledge beside the Dragons’ Bell. Meantime, the Tourmaline clamped down on Andarraz’s back.
Sapphurion’s plight moved Hualiama’s hearts to grief. Her grief spoke in fury and fire. Nothing in the Island-World could restrain her magic now. Igniting her left hand in lieu of her Nuyallith blade, Lia waded in with a vengeance. She hacked at the Green’s head, severing skull-spikes and carving steaming ruts around his upper skull and muzzle. Suddenly, Razzior pounded Sapphurion with a glob of molten rock at least twenty feet across, careless of friend or foe, jarring both Grandion and Andarraz loose. Lia had a glimpse of holes in Sapphurion’s neck she could have climbed inside with ease, before the Tourmaline spun on a brass dral to assault Razzior. A flurry of gigantic blows staggered even the tough-as-diamonds Orange, before Hualiama added a parting swipe that sheared the final fifth of his left wing clean off.
Razzior screeched, You’ll pay for that–Lia did not even know the word he used in Dragonish, but it was clearly a curse.
She whirled her flaming sword about her head, yelling, Come here and I’ll trim the other wing to match!
More Dragons peeled off the Gi’ishior Dragons’ original Dragonwing, mobbing Sapphurion and Qualiana with champing jaws and flashing fangs. Golden blood spurted from dozens of wounds. The mated pair fought with the fierceness of ten, but the tide was against them until Ianthine threw her might into the fray. Mizuki screamed past Grandion, lining up Haaja with her fearful power of Shivers, that ultra-rare draconic power which vaporised flesh or rock. The front half of the Yellow Dragoness shattered in a spray of blood.
Dragons and Dragonesses knotted together above the Dragon’s Bell, slowly losing height as the tremendous expenditure of magic and Dragon fire took its inevitable toll. Sapphurion was the first to fall, crash-landing near the base of the Bell, and Qualiana, lifeless, crumpled upon the rock beside her mate. Mizuki became marooned amongst a group of Lost Islands Dragons who were steadily driven off to the west, while Razzior and his expanded force closed in on Grandion and Ianthine.
The Maroon Dragoness looked worse than ever. Razzior in particular had chewed her over, but she flung herself tirelessly against the Orange Dragon, thwarting his repeated attacks on Lia and Grandion. They clashed with their ruzal wiles, tearing strips of hide off each other and battling as much mind-to-mind as in the physical realm. Grandion swept a clutch Dragons off the battlefield with his Storm winds, but Andarraz rose again into the scrimmage, unleashing a spray of sticky, rope-like fluid that snarled Grandion’s wings enough to stall the Tourmaline. Razzior roared over her Dragon’s arched back.
Hualiama never saw the blow that knocked her loose.
Her ribs felt as though she had been struck amidships by a runaway Dragonship. Ianthine plucked up the gasping, wheezing Princess, whereupon Razzior pounced on the Maroon Dragoness, clamping his forepaws around her neck as he sought to knock Hualiama out of her paw. Lia responded with a bolt of lightning which burned a small black hole in his snout. Shouting, she repeated the attack, with even less effect.
Razzior laughed, “Having trouble, Dragonfriend?”
“What have you done?”
“Give me the Scroll of Binding, child. This battle is between Dragons.”
“Dragon, obey,” she spluttered.
Razzior only chortled, champing closer beneath Ianthine’s neck. Without warning, he whirled in the air, crushing the Dragoness against the Bell’s metal surface. Another great peal rang out. The impact jarred Lia loose. She tumbled down the near-vertical surface, faster and faster, pursued by both Ianthine and Razzior. The ground rushed upward. She flailed, but found no more fire within herself. She had burned out.
Ianthine’s right wing flapped loosely, obviously snapped. But with a supreme effort, the Maroon Dragoness outpaced the younger Dragon, rescuing Hualiama from a fatal fall a split-second before they struck the ground. Lia landed beside the Dragoness’ nose, feather-soft on a burst of Maroon power. Razzior thundered down, breaking Ianthine’s lower spine with a monstrous kick of his hind feet.
For a second, Ianthine’s fires blazed with a twin-suns fury. Then they become occluded by pain.
She gasped, Keep the ruzal from him, Hualiama.
I will, she promised.
The eye-fires guttered with appalling slowness, allowing Lia to take in both the expiration of a Dragon’s fire-soul, and the triumphant pose the Orange Dragon struck atop her body.
Ianthine spluttered, I saved you, didn’t I? Didn’t I, Dragon … friend?
You burned with true-fires, Ianthine, Hualiama choked out. May your soul fly to the eternal fires.
/> The Dragoness was gone. Lia bowed her head.
Razzior stalked her, snarling, “Yield, girl, or I’ll order them to execute your precious Tourmaline.”
* * * *
The image of his girl, so tiny before Razzior’s swirling dark power, shimmered before Grandion as he expended the last of his lightning power on the Dragons surrounding him.
Andarraz’s acid burned his back. Down, hatchling!
They wanted to capture him? Grandion fought with all of his strength and cunning, but ten Dragons crowded his airspace, forcing him downward with merciless bites at his wings, while Andarraz and four other Dragons piled upon him from above. He was ninety feet long and stronger than any one of their number, but their combined efforts forced him to a bone-crushing landing a hundred feet from Lia’s position. Grandion’s left hind leg buckled upon impact. He had no chance to reflect upon the pain as the Dragons subdued him with the tonnage of their bodies, pinning his wings, tail and upper body beneath a huge pile of Dragonflesh.
Dragons landed all around them. Tens of Dragons. More than he could have imagined. How many had Razzior turned? No, some of these were Dragons who had not joined the battle, waiting to align themselves with the victorious side. Or these Dragons stood against a Dragon and his Human Rider, waiting to see how Razzior dealt with her before making the angle of their flight clear. Grandion knew he had doomed his Rider.
“Yield,” snarled Razzior.
Hualiama turned. He sensed the weight of her regard.
Grandion wondered if her eye-fires still held that softness he had once observed, an expression reserved for her Dragon. Exhaustion spread through his body, but he would not give up. No, this Dragon would fight until he spilled the last drop of his fire-soul …
“I yield for his sake,” she said. His muzzle slumped against the ground. “But I will die rather than give you what you want, Razzior.”
The Orange was all arrogance now. “What do I want? Justice. You are the Scroll of Binding. You and your knowledge are the greatest danger ever to threaten the Dragonkind. Sapphurion was a blind fool. I will restore the rule of draconic law and the strong paw of justice. No Dragon will ever submit to a Human again!”