“Another moment, mare, and your flesh becomes my feast,” he crowed.
Ses saw blood trickle from Tek’s nostril and stain her beard. Head slightly lowered, she gazed up at Lynex. She stood three-legged, favoring the forelimb she had used to pinion his second-eldest head. Ses saw her snort blood in a fine scarlet spray. Her limbs tensed, braced, almost crouching. Her mouth moved. The pale mare was never sure after if she had heard the words, or only understood them from the framing of Tek’s lips and teeth and tongue.
“Well enough, wyrm,” the pied mare snarled at him, green eyes leveled in a gaze of pure hatred, without a hint of resignation or surrender. “Try to take it, if you dare.”
The wyrmking lunged. The black-and-rose mare reared to meet him. The sun set. Evening sky was the color of fading roses. A shrill cry halted everything. Or rather, nothing halted. It only seemed to halt. Ses felt herself frozen in time, still struggling forward like all her companions, the wyvern bodyguards falling around her, swarmed on and skewered by the Scouts of Halla. The high sound that had cut—was still cutting—the air was not a scream, the pale mare realized, but a whistle, a wild piercing battlecry shrilled by one younger and smaller than any other warrior on the field.
Turning—so slowly, it seemed as in a dream—Ses caught sight of her long-leggèd amber filly with the mane pale as milk galloping full-tilt down the cliff side above with a burning brand clutched in her teeth. The white limestone cliff rose nearly vertical. Showers of scree cascaded from Lell’s hooves. The brand in her teeth flashed and crackled, its flame orange, its buds so newly lit that Ses could still discern their shapes: hearts and rounds and crescents for the leaves, five-petaled roses for the flowers. The milkwood’s resinous sap popped, fizzing as it flamed, the smoky mingles of white and grey, smelling at once milk-sweet and tart as pitch.
Halfway down the precipitous slope, Lell sprang. The milkwood blazed as she hurtled, seemed almost to fly, sailing down toward Tek and the wyvern king. She came to earth far short, but she had gauged her leap to land her not on hard limestone but atop a heap of slain wyverns. The next instant, she sprang again, for the packed crush of living unicorns this time. Still piping her warcry, the amber filly dashed across their jostling backs, pounding hard for Lynex, milkwood brand flaming in her teeth.
Surprised, momentarily distracted, the wyrmking hesitated, turning his central head’s gaze from Tek toward Lell. To one side of him, Dagg and the leader of the Scouts dragged down the last defender blocking their path. Ryhenna thundered after them. To the wyrmking’s other side, Jah-lila broke through the wall of fallen bodyguards, her black horn slicked with wyverns’ blood. Teki vaulted in her wake. Just ahead of Ses, Calydor struggled over the motionless form of another fallen guard. It lay within their power to reach Tek now, the pale mare realized.
The king of the wyverns seemed to reach the same surmise. He turned back toward the wounded mare. She ramped and feinted before him. Heaped bodies ringed them like a barricade. Ses saw that with her injured foreleg, Tek could not flee, could not hope to climb that mound of dead unaided. She could only stand defiant, pawing the air. With a howl, the huge white wyrm lunged. Ahead, as she scrambled upward in Calydor’s wake, Ses saw Lell spring over the barricade of the slain, past Tek, swift as wind, light as wings, the firebrand blazing above her head. Full gallop, she scaled the belly and scarred breast of the king of wyrms and flung the firebrand in his face.
The wyvern leader roared, arching, knifelike nails clawing at his main head’s eyes. The other three remaining heads screamed and strained as if hoping to tear free of the wyrmking’s massive body, which tumbled backward, writhing. Lell plummeted to the ground as the scaly slope on which she had stood abruptly snatched itself away. Gaining the crest, Ses observed Jah-lila below seize the nape of her daughter’s neck in teeth and haul her bodily away from thrashing Lynex as though Tek were a weanling filly. Teki shouldered from the other side, helping the red mare drag her daughter up over the fallen bodyguards. Dagg and the leader of the Scouts sprinted across to lend their strength. Among the four of them, they managed to half-lift, half-herd the injured mare to safety.
Lell, sprawled on the limestone near Lynex, was already scrambling to her feet. Ryhenna tried to go to her, but the furious thrashing of the wyvern’s tail between them drove her back. The wyrmking keened and rolled, scattering the resinous firebrand into a thousand flaming shards. These were strewn by wind and the wyvern’s looping, sweeping tail into a broad arc.
“My eye! My eye, you little, cursèd wretch,” the king of the wyverns howled.
Sparks flew within the open space where he and Tek had lately dueled. Flames caught the wisps of summer-dry grass that sprouted in the crevices of the wyvern shelves. A semicircle of fire sprang up along the periphery of the open space. It stretched from far to Ses’s left all the way to where Tek and the others had disappeared over the mound of the fallen. Spreading fast, the two ends ran around behind the wyrm as though seeking to join. Barely in time, Ryhenna sprang out of its path.
On the far side of the open space from Ses, beyond Lynex and Lell, the two running trails of fire met, completing a ring. The dance of fire, low enough in its initial seconds for a unicorn to have sprung over, rose almost instantly to above head height. Within its circle, the wyrmking flailed, his cries subsiding. Panting, he rose, collecting himself, tail coiling, one eye of his great head wizened shut. The other heads whimpered. He turned his one-eyed gaze toward Lell. With a cry, Ses plunged toward her filly. A curtain of flame roared before her, blocking her path. The pale mare pitched to a halt, ramped helpless on the mass of wyvern dead, gazing into a ring of fire in which Lynex and her daughter now both lay trapped.
“I’ll see you rue saving your queen,” the white wyrm snarled.
Lell backed away. “Not till you wyrms rue that ever you stole our lands from us.”
The amber filly’s voice was steady, her expression wary, but unafraid. Ses tried to call to her, bid her flee, but the crackling flames drowned out her voice. Lynex lunged at Lell. She dodged, sought to skirt him. Behind him the ring, newly joined, had not yet flared unleapable. The wyvern’s tail swung, lashing, driving her back. The amber filly struck at the stings, but they were far too swift and powerful. She had to spring away to keep from being bowled over. Lynex swept his tail in a leisurely arc, herding her. One badger paw extended to intercept her as she rounded the fire ring’s inner curve.
Instead of dodging, Lell ran straight for the paw, then veered suddenly inward. Ses saw Lynex, lunging, lose his balance as he missed. His broad paw dipped into the fire. Howling, he snatched it out. Again Lell scaled the scarred slope of his breast. All four of his remaining heads bent to gape at her, but instead of fencing with her horn, she wheeled and kicked like a mountain calf, striking one of the smaller skulls smartly in the jaw. Shards of teeth fine as fishbones flew, glinting by firelight.
Sky above was the dark of flushed, sweet grapes. The burning ring lit the wyvern shelves in a yellow blaze. To one side, Ses saw Tek shouting, fighting to break past Jah-lila and Teki, Dagg and the leader of the Scouts, all of whom held her back from going to Lell. Within, the wyvern’s newly wounded head slapped and flailed, preventing his other maws from striking. Lell flew like a woodshare away from Lynex. A woodshare with nowhere to go. All around burned the impassable wall of fire.
With a savage bellow, Lynex crushed his own wounded pate in the jaws of his largest visage. The little head ceased writhing. The great one opened its jaws. The smaller fell nerveless from its grasp. With a howl, the wyvern sprang, both paws extended. Lell ran for the wall of fire, as though she meant to dash headlong through it. The wyvern’s tail swung round to prevent her. The amber filly skidded, avoided it, and leapt. But as she entered the wall of fire, the seven flails of wyrmking’s tail coiled about her, plucking her back.
“Lell! My child!” Ses screamed as she saw her filly’s coat catch fire. The pale mare sprang toward the flames. Calydor vaulted to block her path.
/>
“Nay, my love! Don’t sacrifice yourself. To save her would take wings!”
He would not let her by. Ses fought him, bit, pummeled wildly with her hooves. To no avail. He held his ground. She could not get past. Ryhenna had joined him. They were holding her back. Above the din, she heard Tek’s desperate cries. Beyond Ryhenna and Calydor, beyond the curtain of fire, Ses saw her filly struggling to free her legs from the wyrm’s long, twining tail, which only tightened, dragging her closer to Lynex’s daggerclaws and gaping jaws. How much time had elapsed, the pale mare wondered—a heartbeat? Two? Was it possible Lell did not yet feel the fire? Her mane and coat blazed. The amber filly arched suddenly, a cry breaking from her. Ses cried out as well, as though she herself burned.
A sound that was like none she had ever heard before, half pard’s roar, half eagle’s scream, cut the night. From the darkness of fading sky above, a figure dropped, lit up by firelight, its great wings green as new-sprung grass. They beat about the wyrmking’s heads, boxing, buffeting them. Ses saw the tercel’s golden-furred paws slash into the wyvern’s shoulder and breast. His eagle’s claws closed about the throats of the two still-living smaller heads.
One of the wyvern’s huge forepaws struck at Illishar. Powerfully thrashing wings kept it at bay. With a yell, the gryphon struck at the wyrmking’s one remaining eye. The wyvern shrieked, contorted. Illishar leapt free of him and snatched Lell from his thrashing tail. She shouted, writhed, flame spreading from her to his feathers and pelt. His talons bit into her shoulderblades. Ses saw his pard’s claws dig into her flank. She was nearly half-grown, at the very edge of his ability to carry.
Illishar, too, was screaming now, his burning wings battering the air, straining against a weight that nearly dragged him down. With furious strokes, he bore her up. Ses felt the wind of his wings, heated by flame, fanning the ring of fire. Wailing and squirming, the blinded wyvern tossed below. The burning filly writhed in the tercel’s grip. He dragged her through the air, barely clearing the curtain of fire. Shrilling, keening, he fought his way upward, higher into the darkening sky. Flames licked across his belly and green-fletched throat.
The white wall of the limestone cliff loomed. He strove for altitude. Lell’s screeches tore the night. She seemed to gallop through sunless sky. Fire ran all along their limbs. Illishar cleared the cliff, cleared the trees. He staggered low across the canopy of the milkwood grove, an erratic series of plummets and heaves. Far below, Ses lost sight of them. The light of their burning flickered, played eerily through the trees, lighting the air above. All at once, it vanished utterly, plunging the grove into darkness again as though the pair of them had, surrendering at last, fallen from the sky.
24.
Endingfire
The darkness out of the Smoking Hills swallowed the last hint of dusk. Sudden night, devoid of stars, fell. The ring of fire encompassing Lynex lit the battlefield, upon which every creature now stood arrested save for the wyrmking, who floundered mewling. No sound save that thin, oddly vigorless wail and the crackle of flame. Tek leaned against her dam and foster sire, her off forelimb swollen, badly strained. That pang, and the ache of her bruised ribs and slashed shoulders was as nothing to the pain she felt for Lell and Illishar, who only scant moments before had disappeared beyond the clifftop, their terrible light abruptly doused. Grief crushed the pied mare’s breast.
From the blackness above came a mighty rushing, as of wind. Tek felt a stirring reft of coolness, a waft as hot as sun-burned rock. Another noise now, louder than the ceaseless rush. This second sound belled like a mighty trump, calling, calling in long, clear notes that shook the earth. The notes drew nearer, nearer at incredible speed, as did the rush. The hot wind increased. All came from above, from the strange black cloud that had swept all day from the Smoking Hills and at last devoured the sky.
A blast of fire shot through the darkness overhead. The immense tongue of flame flared, subsided, was replaced by another, and another yet, each gout nearer. The unicorns, still motionless upon the battlefield, gaped. Their enemies, who also poised, craned upward. The darkness parted, and out of it, a dragon swooped. She was vast, vaster than any creature Tek had ever beheld, red in color, and embedded with thousands of flashing jewels which scintillated in the light of her fiery breath.
The dragon descended, impossibly huge, the size of a mountain. Each note she trumped was followed by a roaring spurt of flame. Without being aware, Tek found that she had recoiled, fallen back, as had every living creature around her, whether unicorn or Wyvern. Only the wyrmking remained where he lay, rolling and moaning insensibly within the ring of fire. The rush of the dragon’s wings as she approached scoured everything in her path. Tek slitted her eyes, tightened her nostrils, folded her ears against the hard, gritty gusts.
The mighty firedrake came to rest with a concussion that shook the hills. The heat of her drove both unicorns and wyverns back. Her jewels flashed and winked like innumerable stars or eyes. Her scales seemed to glow of their own accord. Her huge, membranous wings remained raised above her back, only half folded. One great foreclaw tightened upon the earth, tearing great troughs in the soft limestone. The other remained clutched loosely, cradling to her breast something Tek could not quite see.
Most of her immense form was lost from Tek’s view by darkness and the rolling slope of the land. Forelimbs on the wyvern shelves, tail resting upon the Plain, she settled before the burning ring encircling Lynex. The dragon peered at the wounded wyrmking. Her magnificently finned and whiskered head was larger than his entire body.
“Lynex,” she sighed, expelling a billow of burning breath. “Lynex, do you know me?”
Her finished air swirled whiter than cloud, her words surprisingly melodious, despite the harsh susurration. Slowly, painfully, the wyrmking recoiled. Of his seven heads, only the central, largest pate still moved, eyes sightless and shattered. The other six dandled.
“Mélintélinas,” he croaked. “Red dragon queen! I feel your heat.”
The dragon shook her head. “Mélintélinas is dead,” she whispered. “She did not live to see your end. It is I, her daughter, Wyzásukitán. Your queen.”
“Wyzásukitán,” hissed Lynex, dragging himself upright, sightless eyes questing fruitlessly to perceive her.
The great dragon’s head nodded. “Aye. I am she who, four hundred winters gone, nearly fell victim to your jaws when, steeped in treachery, you decided dragon pups were fit food for your kind, that eating a living dragon’s flesh could make you, like us, mistresses of fire.”
She shifted, moving closer.
“Full-grown firedrakes, of course, you feared to molest. But new-hatched pups, these you stole and devoured while their nurses dreamed. Not even the royal nest was safe from your predations, for only the flesh of a queen’s heir, so you determined, suited your own nobility.”
The dragon’s voice was hypnotic, her face impassive.
“So you sought to roll from the nursery that egg which housed my mother’s heir. But the queen’s sleep was not so deep as other dragons’. She woke. I hatched to find not nurturing attendants but a predator. I struck, defending my own life until my dam could save me. It was my tiny eggteeth and infant claws which scarred your icy breast.”
The red dragon’s enormous talons upon the ground tightened, crushing the powdery stone.
“You slipped my mother’s traps and escaped the Smoking Hills. She ordered all your kind driven forth, expecting the lot of you to perish in the arid cold aboveground. But you had stolen fire and borne it with you. Thus were your kind able to survive and flee the Smoking Hills.”
She turned. Ruby eyes studied him.
“Thus were you able to make your way across the Salt Waste and the Plain. You came here to trouble these unicorns, to steal their lands from them.”
The firedrake’s jeweled wings tensed, spread, stretching to their full extent.
“My mother, having flown her nuptial flight, had lost her wings and could not follow you.
Nor could her earthbound sisters, since among my kind only unwed queens and their mates have wings.”
Wyzásukitán hissed, her breath steaming.
“But I have always known what task I must perform before relinquishing my maidenhead. I have been a long, long time growing my wings, Lynex. Four hundred years have I contemplated this tryst.”
The white wyrm rolled, sprawling, seeking to crawl away from her, toward the far edge of the burning ring.
“No,” he groaned, then half shrieked. “Mercy!…”
“What mercy had you for a new-hatched dragon pup?” the queen of the red dragons inquired, her enormous presence glittering above him in the hot light of the fire. “What mercy did you show these unicorns, and their ancestors? What mercy did you grant any of your own kind who spoke out against your ruthless ways?”
She reached for him.
“Ah!” cried Lynex, shrinking and writhing as her great forepaw entered the ring of fire. “Let me go! Let me go!”
The queen of the red dragons shook her vast head. “Never,” she answered. “My mother made that mistake. I shall not repeat it.”
“What do you intend to do with me?” the white wyrmking shrieked, struggling uselessly against the dragon’s grasp.
Wyzásukitán eyed him, and with a snuff of her strange white breath, doused the fire surrounding him. Flame jetted from her nostrils then, in steady, controlled spurts, illuminating the night.
“My mate-to-be is young yet,” replied the dragon queen. “It will be hundreds of years before he is ready to fly. Till then, he needs a plaything. Something long-lived to amuse him as he grows.” Lifting her head, she shot a great gout of fire across the sky, then bent to examine her prize. “Lynex,” she inquired, “can you sing?”
“No!’ the wyvern screamed. “No! No!”
His howls grew softer as she lifted him high into the air and, turned her attention from him to her other forepaw, the one she cradled to her breast. Carefully, she lowered it to the ground. The enormous talons opened. A unicorn stepped free. Tek felt her own heart kick against her side. Jan! Her mate stood upon the limestone shelves, whole and unscathed. Scanning the battlefield, his eyes found her. Their gazes locked. Bending before him, the dragon laid her head upon the stone.
The Son of Summer Stars ft-3 Page 23