Dragonfriend

by Marc Secchia

  His chuckling eased her irritation at his attitude.

  “Grandion, how high can a Dragon fly?”

  “Best guess? Three or four leagues, Hualiama. In practice no Dragon flies that high because the air becomes bitterly cold, and altitude sickness can result.”

  “Such as how I’m feeling a little breathless right now?”

  “That’s probably awe at my flying prowess,” he claimed. “I’m surprised you aren’t breaking into song or washing my scales with your tears, Hualiama.”

  “You think I’m weak, don’t you?”

  He winged on in silence for many wingbeats, until Lia wondered if he would answer at all.

  What she felt, was little. Everyone knew that the Island-World was vast, stretching measureless leagues from shore to shore. Immadia Island, the most northerly inhabited Island in the world, was said to lie over two thousand leagues from Fra’anior–although nobody knew for certain, because the instruments and techniques to measure such vast distances across the Cloudlands simply did not exist. The sheer scale of the tapestry unfurled below robbed her mind of comparisons, even of the capacity of speech. Grandion flew on, but the Island-World seemed to stand still. Fra’anior was the largest active volcano in the known world, yet even its bulk seemed insignificant, viewed from this height.

  “I was the sole survivor of a clutch of three eggs,” he said, taking an unexpected tangent. “We are not certain if my brother and sister died of disease, or poisoning. After I broke the shell, my shell-mother fell into a deep sadness.”

  The Dragon said, We call it a darkening of the fires, in Dragonish.

  “Depression?” said Lia.

  “That’s the word. For several years–my hatchling years–I saw little of her. But suddenly, one day, my shell-mother seemed happy. As I grew into a fledgling, which is a Dragon between two and five years of age, I learned that she had another hatchling, one upon whom she lavished all the love and affection I felt I lacked. Imagine my shock when I learned that my mother nurtured a Human child!”

  Imagine the shock of the girl seated upon his back!

  “You must never mention this secret to anyone, just as I will never knowingly reveal your grasp of Dragonish. Given your story, I assumed that child might be you, Hualiama, but I was mistaken.”

  Lia, gripped so sharply by trepidation she was on the verge of vomiting, managed to gasp, “Oh?”

  “Aye. That child had blue eyes, the depthless blue hue of a midnight sky. Yours are green–but a strange green, as if occluded by smoke.” Grandion cleared his throat, which in true Dragon style, meant producing a fireball. “That is aside. I was so jealous of that child, I could have killed her. I planned to, but my mother forbade me. Sick with jealousy, I held that tiny mite in my paws, and cooed and growled and played with her, and taught her the worst Dragonish words I knew.”

  “A dark fire burned within my soul. Jealousy, but not of a keen draconic kind. Murder, revenge and hatred of what that girl represented, consumed me. I fell in with bad wing-mates, Dragons led by the Brown, Yulgaz, who is as eloquent the whelp of a snake as has ever cracked the shell. As soon as I could, I turned against my parents, shunning everything that they taught me, and everything they stood for. Soon, I graduated from burning a few scattered houses to fomenting widespread mayhem. But my final test to be fully accepted into their unholy alliance, was to murder a Human child.”

  Lia bit her fist rather than cry out.

  Suddenly, Grandion’s body stiffened. “That’s odd,” he said. “Would you look at those rajals down there? On the southern peninsula of Gi’ishior … rajals don’t usually hunt in groups, do they?”

  “Small family groups, aye. How many do you see?”

  “Seventeen.” Tucking in his wings while simultaneously quadrupling the tempo of his wingbeat, the Dragon accelerated.

  Hualiama yelled over the whistling wind, “Where are you going? Grandion, speak to me!”

  “They’re hunting a green dragonet,” he threw over his shoulder. “I think somebody’s tied his wings together and tossed him to the rajals.”

  Chapter 20: Ambush

  Grandion TOSSED HIS tail upward. The bottom dropped out of Lia’s world. Her stomach crammed into her throat so hard and fast, she could not summon the breath to scream. Grandion’s furled wings buzzed with the awesome force of his descent. An insect pinged off Lia’s cheek so hard it felt as though she had been shot by an arrow. At the instant the Dragon levelled out, her stomach plummeted in the opposite direction.

  Thundering his challenge, the Tourmaline Dragon swept down upon the rajals and struck out with his talons, killing two felines instantly and tossing a third over a hundred feet through the air. Each coal-black adult stood over five feet tall and weighed as much as four men. But Grandion was a young, enraged Dragon. His wings flared, causing them to brake so sharply that Lia cracked her head on the spine spike ahead of her. Roaring rajals! She slewed sideways out of her seat as the Dragon spun on his wingtip. The rajals loped after Flicker, acting as if they had not even noticed the Dragon’s assault.

  Rajals did not behave like this. Hualiama dizzily tried to right herself as Grandion charged the massed cats, spraying fire to all quarters, but her head was bouncing against his shoulder and the vine rope chafed fit to saw her in half.

  Flicker scrambled desperately over rocks, running for his life, his wings twisted together behind him with wire and his left hind paw hanging limp. A cleansing rage swept over Hualiama like a storm from the Cloudlands. She growled exactly like a Dragon. Calmly, she sliced the vine fastening her back to the Dragon’s spine spike; she found a stance upon Grandion’s shoulder as the Dragon crashed into the midst of the rajal pack and as the Isles proverb went, set the dog-pack upon them.

  As Grandion slewed, body-slamming two rajals with his tail, Hualiama employed the force of his turn to slingshot herself clear. Seven of the forms had taught her how to fall, but she flipped over in the air to crash feet-first into a rajal with bone-crushing force. Her blades sang, biting deep.

  Flicker! Lia raced to the stricken dragonet. Beware! A rajal, closing in from her right. The Nuyallith blades lashed out, slicing the paws that cuffed at her. She took a heavy blow on her right wristlet, but rolled smoothly beneath the animal to disembowel it on the way past, even as its claws slashed all around her tumbling body.

  Flicker! Flicker, come to me, darling!

  The dragonet was terrified out of his wits. He snapped at her.

  Lia danced deftly around the dragonet to spear an eager rajal with the blade in her left hand. The rajals’ snarls deafened her. What was that stench on Flicker’s body? Dust kicked up in the air, bushes over her head; Lia cried out at a sudden sharp pain in her shoulder from an unseen blow. She saw Grandion run over the pack with the power of a living avalanche, beating them back with his wing-edges. As Lia ducked beneath the sweep of the Dragon’s wing, her blades slashed in tandem at a tumbling rajal.

  She howled, “Flicker!” They had tortured him!

  Up now, stepping lightly upon the Tourmaline Dragon’s tail, Lia stretched her body into a dive, clashing with a proud male rajal who drove her back, rising on his hind paws to deliver a flurry of blows. She countered with exactly the same Nuyallith technique, called the angry cat, and suffered only a cut on her cheek before Grandion stormed in, bellowing, “Paws off!” He decapitated the rajal with an open-clawed swipe of his talons. A fang-filled grin flashed briefly in Lia’s direction. “Try to keep up, Human girl.”

  He immolated a rajal in Dragon fire.

  Reversing her blades, Lia stabbed backward, piercing a female attacker through the heart. She spun away from the falling beast. “You keep missing them.”

  Grandion pounced on one of the great cats, flattening it beneath his hind paw. “Missed that one, too.”

  “Braggart,” Lia shot back, casting about for the dragonet.

  There was a rajal clinging to his back, Lia saw, and another gnawi
ng at Grandion’s left wing. The black rajals were tenacious and powerful, sleek jungle hunters, but a strange force was at work here. What rajal would willingly take on a Dragon? Had that powerful, fishy smell emanating from Flicker driven them mad? No time to think. Grandion, whirling, slapped Lia with the rajal hanging from his wing. Her sharp blades attempted to fillet the beast, but the right stuck in its spine. The cat’s snarling muzzle was inches from her own as they grappled in the dirt, Lia held the feline off by dint of shoving her armoured wristlet into its gaping jaw, while she scrabbled with the other hand for her forked daggers.

  “Die!” she screamed, striking deep and true.

  The cat squashed Hualiama with its dying spasms. Squirming out from beneath the dead weight, Lia had to roll aside desperately as Grandion’s paws thumped down around her. She found herself the recipient of an unexpected ride on top of his right hind paw and bounced off his belly before throwing herself clear.

  “Watch your clumsy paws!” she shouted, casting about for more attackers.

  Grandion lunged, snapping a rajal in half with a click of his jaws. Lia hurled her blade in a flat, skimming arc to pierce a rajal savaging Flicker. She raced toward it, but a crack of lightning from her left blew a hole the size of her torso in the rajal’s chest. Blue Dragon powers. She grinned. Always handy when you could imitate a storm all on your own.

  Suddenly, there were no more rajals left standing. Black bodies lay where they had fallen or been thrown, one or two rajals still mewling out the last moments of their lives. The awesome power of a Blue Dragon–with a little help from his Human sidekick–had seen to that.

  Reaching Flicker, Lia gathered the stunned dragonet into her arms. “Flicker, darling.” She stroked him gently. “You’re safe now. What happened?”

  “Lia?”

  He was too weak to speak more than her name. A tiny purr cut off as the dragonet slumped across her forearm. Lia checked him over rapidly; apart from a clearly broken ankle, and the cuts sustained as he had struggled to escape the tightly twisted wire, Flicker appeared unhurt. Horror choked her. What sadist would deliberately disable a dragonet this way, twisting the wire with pliers to prevent a dragonet’s cunning claws from untangling himself?

  Grandion nosed her shoulder. “Give the dragonet a drink. Can you remove that wire? It’s restricting his breathing.”

  Lia selected a metal saw from her wristlet and set to work. The Tourmaline Dragon moved off for a moment, examining the battleground and finishing off a couple of the cats.

  “Stinks of evil magic,” he commented. “Here’s your sword, girl.”

  She sheathed the blade efficiently and uncorked a water gourd. “Flicker, drink.” He had strength enough to swallow greedily.

  Cool wind ruffled her platinum locks. Scenting a moist, metallic tang, Hualiama’s eyes flicked up to assess the incoming storm. Great, leaden thunderheads reared their heads into the sky, grey in the underbelly and deceptively white above. A decent blow was in the offing, she judged–but suddenly, a different intuition struck like a barbed fishing spear into Lia’s belly. She knew, and the tenor of her response somehow alerted Grandion, too, because his muzzle rose as he tested the air with more than just his sense of smell. This was a trap.

  For an endless moment, the world hushed in anticipation.

  Three juvenile Red Dragons soared up from beneath the cliff edge, snarling at them with almost identical expressions. A clutch of brothers, Lia thought, not one of them smaller than her Grandion. The Tourmaline Dragon immediately leaped into the air, but he hovered protectively over Hualiama, clearly unwilling to abandon her. Noble Grandion. She knew his posture would place him at a significant disadvantage during aerial combat.

  The foremost thundered, So, you dare to return to Gi’ishior, Grandion?

  Shut your fangs, you puny toady to a traitor! Grandion roared back. Lia shook her head. Clearly her draconic companion’s skills in diplomacy could stand a little polishing.

  Fawning bootlicker of a Human witch! another of the Reds ground out. Does she force you to crawl on your belly like a worm?

  Hualiama sensed a new power building in that body above her, a power born in the insults being traded by the incensed Dragons. There would be no negotiating with these. Raising her Nuyallith blades, she settled into the ready position. Breathe out. Focus …

  Grandion’s already impressive chest swelled as he declared, This is my Dragon Rider, Hualiama of Fra’anior. Address her with respect, or perish like the snivelling cowards you are.

  Hualiama gaped at her concentration-wrecking draconic companion. Grandion? Was this the Dragon she knew, melting her emotions into a puddle of amazement?

  At once, two Red Dragons charged Grandion with mighty, ringing challenges, firing fireballs from their glowing maws as they came. The Tourmaline countered with a lightning strike which knocked the foremost Red spinning. Just a hundred feet overhead, the second Red, brawnier than his brother, smacked into Grandion’s shoulder with a thud that the Human girl felt in her bones. She whirled, following the third assailant with her eyes. How could she help Grandion? It was three against one. Lia was ground-bound, useless in a fight between Dragons. Just overhead, Grandion tore into his opponent, snarling in a maddened rage as the Dragons traded pugnacious blows of their talons and smashed their muzzles together, scrapping for a disabling bite.

  Down! Hualiama dived at the last instant, sensing movement behind her. The attacking Red Dragon missed his target by a whisker, ending his dive with a desperate slew as he realised he was beneath Grandion–an unhappy mistake for him. The Tourmaline kicked out viciously with his hind paws, opening huge gashes in the Red Dragon’s wings and flank.

  “Ha,” Lia snorted. “Serves you–”

  A massive weight slammed into her back, propelling her helplessly into the air. “Catch!” roared a Dragon.

  Mercy! A Red swept toward her flying body, smirking with the air of a gleeful cat eyeing up a wounded rat. Play time for Dragons, Lia sensed. She was the plaything.

  Just then, a Dragon’s wing slapped her backside from beneath. A glint of blue assured her that this was Grandion. Lightning seared her vision, spearing perfectly into one of the Red Dragons, seizing up all of his muscles for a vital moment as he crashed into Grandion’s hindquarters. The impact toppled Lia off the Tourmaline Dragon’s wing-surface, even as Grandion savaged the Red with a terrible bite to the base of his neck.

  Hualiama could not tell the Reds apart in the thundering melee. She did not know which direction to look as she tumbled through the air. A Red Dragon’s muzzle thrust toward her, mouth agape as the Dragon tried to snap her in half. The picture in her mind was perfect, a dainty dance-step upon his lower lip, which would propel her out of the way … “Oof!” Lia smacked into the Dragon’s nose, right between his flaring nostrils. Somehow, she still gripped her blades. Thrusting instinctively from the hip, Hualiama ran her right arm right up to the elbow into the Red’s left nostril before she struck something soft and evidently sensitive. His head snapped about, rattling Lia like a monkey testing a nut for ripeness, before her arm suddenly worked loose in a spray of hot, golden Dragon blood.

  With a warbling scream, the powerful Red flicked her high into the air.

  Up she flew. Jaws, yawning open from beneath! Instinct saved her. Hualiama stretched out her legs in a dancer’s splits, bridging the Dragon’s gaping fangs from nostrils to lower lip as he pursued her skyward.

  “Huh?” grunted the Red Dragon, evidently confused that his snack was misbehaving itself.

  Lia had an insane split second to appreciate what damage a fireball might do to her delicate underparts, before Grandion came raging in to slap the Red open-clawed in the stomach. He ripped out a length of bluish entrails. “Lia!” Grandion roared.

  The impact of the Tourmaline Dragon’s attack jolted her off the Dragon’s lips. Dropping on all fours upon the Red’s rotating shoulder, Lia crouched, coiled and ready, for less than a second
before her second move was forced upon her by the Red chasing her off with a vicious nip. An agile leap took her onto the upper surface of the Red Dragon’s wing. She darted along the pliant membrane, trailing her blades behind her to open a long slice through the flight struts and wing surface, until she struck the secondary wing-joint bone. Ignoring the pain in her wrists, Lia stabbed deep, finding the major arteries feeding the Dragon’s wing. Her Nuyallith blade severed the controlling nerve-bundle. The Dragon slumped toward its maimed wing, flinging her aside …

  Smack! A Dragon’s paw. “Grandion!” she gasped, never happier to find huge blue talons clamped around her neck and upper chest.

  “Not content to stay where I left you?” he snarled, giving Hualiama a hair-singing blast of the scorching inferno roiling in his throat.

  “Not when my Dragon’s in danger,” she hissed back, twisting to scan the air around them. Count the Reds. One spiralled helplessly into the Cloudlands, his tattered wing no longer serving to keep him aloft. Just fifty feet less would have dropped him safely upon the peninsula. A second Red was grounded, the wounds in his neck and chest spurting golden Dragon blood with ghastly force. Grandion’s bite must have penetrated the ventricles of the Dragon’s second heart. Where was the third Red?

  He growled, “My Dragon?”

  “My Dragon Rider? Grandion, watch out–”

  He reacted with a Dragon’s incredible swiftness. Somehow rolling to dodge the incoming fireball, Grandion lunged out with jaws agape to sink his fangs into the upper portion of the Red Dragon’s muzzle, up near the eyes and ear canals. A ghastly crackling sound ensued. Flesh sizzled. Sweetly acrid smoke poured out of his mouth for heartbeat after heartbeat, unending; Hualiama realised that Grandion had launched his most powerful Blue Dragon attack, lightning, right into the bite wound, cooking the other Dragon’s brain in the process. Mercy.