The Summer Dragon

  Gods, Darian! Run!

  The burning nest erupted into a raging fireball, igniting other nests nearby. Smoke billowed up to the roof of the cave. Desperately, I looked outside, in vain hope of seeing Father and Shuja in the sky. It wasn’t enough. I lit another nest as I sidled past it up the incline.

  A Harodhi warrior stepped out from cover, his crossbow leveled, looking for me. I loosed and hit him mid-torso, then ducked behind a huge nest on the edge of the rock shelf. It was the last cover remaining to me on this upward climbing ledge. As tall as it was wide, the branches and bones that made up its most ancient base were rotted and crumbling. Dragons had reinforced its decaying structure so many times that it overhung the cave floor below.

  I jammed my torch into the base of it close to the lip of the slab, hoping to make more smoke without exposing myself to an inferno.

  Malik roared and thudded into the side of the ledge below and to my left. Though he had the Horror’s neck in his maw, he couldn’t crush the armor. The beast continued to rake Malik’s legs and neck. And now the Harodhi leader on his dragon had made his way through the rubble to emerge from the smoke behind Malik.

  I spanned my bow and pulled an arrow out of my quiver—my last. Now I had one shot, and then I was helpless. I discarded my empty bow.

  Three Harodhi stepped out of cover and crept up the incline toward me. Another appeared further back. They had their wicked curved swords in hand. They were out of arrows too. But then the smaller nest down the slope burst into flame. I lost sight of the soldiers in the plume of fire and sparks. Their shouts told me they had retreated from the searing heat.

  The Harodhi leader drove his dappled brown into the fray. It pounced on Malik’s right haunch, raking and biting. As Malik roared in fury and pain, the nest erupted into towering flame. A pall of dirty smoke stung my eyes and lungs as the base of the nest settled.

  The Harodhi leader was directly beneath it.

  I saw a chance. With my arm, I shielded my face from the heat and sat down as near to the nest as I dared. I kicked at the base with my heel, Keirr screaming on my back. Hot cinders shot out of the gaps and sizzled on my skin. The Harodhi leader shouted, looking up at me as I knocked a flaming timber loose from the pile. The nest settled once more with a growl, then collapsed all at once. I scrambled back as the blazing woodpile spilled over the ledge and buried the Harodhi leader in flaming cinders. The Horror pulled back from Malik as the leader’s dragon screamed in terror.

  Three soldiers charged up the incline of my ledge, through the smoke and flame of the other burning nest. I raised my bow and backed up to the furthest end of the ledge.

  There was nothing beyond. The cave opened onto a steep slope that fell away into a stony canyon. I saw Darian outside, lying on a ledge below the porch of the cave floor.

  I couldn’t jump—the fall would kill me. But Malik was next to the ledge, almost directly below me. With barely a thought, I leapt, mimicking Keirr’s POPPA honk at the top of my lungs. Little Keirr squealed in fright.

  Malik started at the impact when we landed with a grunt on his back. But his good eye fixed on me as I stretched out along his spine.

  The dragon Horror lunged at me, its breath stinking of burnt flesh. I fired my last bolt into its glowing maw. It recoiled with a hoarse, gravelly shriek. I dropped the crossbow and threw my arms around Malik’s neck. Little Keirr gripped my shoulders with desperate fear. “Go!” I shouted, but Malik was already under way.

  He sprinted to the lip of the opening and launched into the air with a cry of pain. Vertigo threatened to drag me from my perch as the ground fell away from us all at once. The Horror screeched and leapt after us. I heard the dry crack of its leathery wings. Malik flapped weakly against the arrows in his alar pectorals, keening in pain with each stroke. The world careened madly as he slid sideways, unable to get power from his left wing. I squeezed his neck to keep from sliding forward off his back, and hazarded a look to the rear.

  The Horrors were barely a dragon’s length beyond the end of Malik’s tail, and gaining. The beast gauged Malik’s trajectory, climbing to drop on us from above.

  “Malik! Fly!”

  The Horror sculled above us, rear talons reaching for me as Malik slipped sideways suddenly, screeching in agony. The monster missed and flapped upward, positioning for another strike.

  Malik’s maneuver had gained us a few seconds, but he lurched and cried out again, unable to flap any longer. The best he could manage was a downward glide.

  The earth rushed up at us crazily. Malik spread his wings for a landing but hit the ground hard. I lost my grip, slid down his right wing and off. I stumbled several feet before momentum threw me face-first onto moss and stones. Malik slid forward, tumbled once, and finished on his side, unmoving.

  I pushed to my knees in a spinning universe, tried to stand, but collapsed. I was on the side of a mountain, across a valley from the cavern, which spewed a column of dirty brown smoke into the sky.

  Good Avar, let Father be nearby, I whispered.

  Keirr struggled in the pack behind me—she at least was alive. I started to crawl toward Malik, but the Horror sculled to a landing between us. It too hit the ground hard, its wings in tatters from the fight with Malik. As it straightened and turned toward me, chunks of black flesh crumbled from its legs and neck where Malik had mauled it. Blackened bone and ligaments showed in the holes, green embers fading in the margins. It limped badly, one foot mangled. The rider on its back unlimbered his crossbow and fixed his sickly gaze on me. One arm hung limp at his side, shredded by Malik into a string of bone and dimly glowing ligament. His right leg was in tatters. Darian’s bolt still protruded from his chest.

  I stood unsurely, trying to find my balance. Keirr squawked and thrashed, threatening to pull me over. I stumbled backward as the Horror raised his bow and loosed. Nothing happened. He looked at his weapon with the slow deliberation of an imbecile. The bolt had evidently been lost at some point in the battle. Without another arm to aid in loading the crossbow, it had become a useless weapon. He tossed it aside. The impossible beast that was his mount advanced, and I staggered back, fumbling beneath my knapsack for the knife in my belt.

  The beast lurched forward, but then stumbled. Its right foreleg came apart all at once. Chunks of burnt meat fell away from charred bones, and the elbow joint separated. The monster crashed onto its chest and squirmed in the bracken and grass, struggling to regain its feet. It screeched, and I caught sight of my arrow, still imbedded in the back of its throat, before a spray of ash erupted from its maw. Green sparks spewed from the numerous rents in its neck. The foliage beneath it curled and blackened, and then the beast collapsed. It stopped moving. The dim green glow in its many open wounds began to fade.

  The thing was dead. Finally dead. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I gasped in desperate relief, but then the rider reached down and unbuckled his harness, slid off of his dead mount, fumbled the black sword from his back with his one good arm. He limped toward me, his mangled right leg dropping cinders.

  I panted as he stalked toward me steadily, but I stole looks at his mount. They were not invulnerable after all.

  I shrugged out of my knapsack, lowering it carefully to the ground. Released the drawstrings so Keirr could scramble out. She staggered at first but then hid behind my legs, keening. I pulled my knife, gripped it in my teeth. A rock the size of my head sat at my feet. I lifted it and pressed it to shoulder height.

  The Horror approached with stubborn, mechanical will. I advanced on him, gaining speed. He limped forward with cinders falling out of his torn robes. As he raised his sword, I lifted the stone over my head, darted inside the radius of his swing, and crushed his helmet. Glowing dust splashed out from under it. He glared at me with one non-eye from beneath the ruined helmet and opened his mouth in a rasping hiss.

  With a wail of fear, I grabbed at the arr
ow still protruding from his chest with one hand and wrenched it sideways. With the other hand I took the knife from my teeth and slashed at him. I was now too close for him to use his sword. He dropped it and clutched my arm. His grip burned with unnatural cold. I screamed, but stabbed and slashed frantically. More glowing dust fell from his throat, from his arm, from his cheek.

  His robes had fallen away to show leather and steel armor, rent where Malik had ripped him but with no sign of blood. I couldn’t tell where armor ended and flesh began. His helmet was riveted to the skull. Serrated cheek guards merged with the flesh. Deep, ragged holes riddled his charred skin. Instead of lips he had only scars, revealing brown and crooked teeth filed to points. He tried to draw me close to them, but I stabbed at his face and neck.

  “Why won’t you die?” I screamed, stabbing in desperation. Keirr screeched somewhere behind me.

  Finally the monster fell to the ground. I fell with him, but I didn’t—couldn’t—stop stabbing and slashing. Not until arms wrapped around me from behind.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “MAIA! MAIA! STOP! It’s all right. Stop!” Father’s voice.

  I pulled free and tried to stand, but my legs gave way, and Father caught me. A shadow enveloped me, and I twisted to see Shuja’s silhouette limned by the sun. Father wrapped me in his arms again and knelt beside me. I looked to the sky. I didn’t see the Harodhi leader on his dappled brown dragon, but other dragons circled down toward us: Rov on his massive Cheien, Jhem on Audax. Bellua, too. I didn’t even know his dragon’s name.

  Father held me tightly, rocking, his fingers in my hair. His cheek was moist.

  “Darian,” I said. My throat was raw from shouting, from inhaling smoke and ash.

  “Where is he?”

  “Where is Darian?” I echoed, dumbly.

  “Maia—where is he?”

  “He’s outside of the cave. He’s hurt.” I put a hand to my head, where a painful throbbing threatened to burst out through my eyes. Now that fear had left me, all strength seemed to have fallen out of my body, all sense out of my mind, though a tiny voice, keening, sliced into my awareness like a blade.

  “Keirr . . .” I looked around for her. She was across the field with her poppa, beyond the dead dragon Horror, licking his face, crying.

  Father held me tighter, but he shouted to someone I couldn’t see. “Check outside the cave for Darian!”

  “Tauman has him,” said Jhem. “I’ve got her, Magha. Go to your sons.”

  My ears were filled with shouts and snapping dragons’ wings, then a big shadow wafted down to join us. Father kissed my forehead, then was gone, and Jhem cradled me in her lap. She brushed hair out of my face and looked me over carefully. “That will be a nasty bruise. Avar, girl, but you are a mess.”

  “Bellua!” yelled Tauman.

  “Maia, what have you done?” Jhem’s tone was filled with amazement.

  “Darian! Darian! Wake up, son!” Father’s voice, panicked.

  “He’s alive,” said Tauman. “But he needs help.”

  “I found my baby,” I said to Jhem, matter-of-factly.

  “What?” She turned toward Malik, took in the rest of the scene, and her jaw dropped. “By all the High Ones . . .” A whisper.

  “Maia,” Darian moaned. “Where’s Maia?”

  “She’s safe,” said Father.

  “Blessed Avar,” said Darian, a soft exhalation.

  “Don’t let him lose consciousness.” Father’s voice again. Concerned, I turned my head to see Father next to Tauman, who cradled Darian in his arms.

  “What happened there, Darian?” asked Tauman. “Darian! Stay with me! What happened in the cave?”

  Darian winced against the light. “That was Maia.”

  Father and Tauman looked at each other in surprise.

  “Maia?” said Father.

  “And the dragon sire.”

  They looked at me, puzzled.

  Darian put an arm across his eyes. “How did you find us?”

  “We followed your signal fire,” said Tauman.

  Father nodded. “That was good work, son.”

  “That was Maia too,” said Darian.

  They looked at me again, and Father muttered, “Dear, sweet Avar . . .”

  But then Bellua’s voice interrupted. “I’m here. Put the boy down.” Father and Tauman laid Darian down on soft turf.

  “How bad is it?” Father looked scared.

  Bellua studied Darian’s eyes, felt his neck for the pulse, and probed his body gently. “Bad. He’s lost a lot of blood. His boot is full of it. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  “They both are.”

  “Water,” said Darian.

  I groaned and pushed up to my knees again, but my head swam. Jhem pulled me closer. She poured some water onto a kerchief and tried to swab my forehead. I pushed her hand away.

  “Keirr.” I couldn’t stand, so I crawled toward Keirr and Malik. They were beyond the dead dragon Horror, which seemed to be crumbling slowly, like a sand sculpture in rain.

  Jhem grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “What are you doing?” She sounded terrified.

  Malik struggled with long, shallow, rattling breaths, while his baby keened. He was still alive. Was I the only one who could hear them?

  Another rush of air announced the arrival of Rov’s huge white Cheien. The Dragonry officer dismounted easily. “There’s a dead dragon in the cave. One of the Harodhi forest breed, by the look of it. And I think the rider is still in the harness, under a burning pyre.”

  “You need to see that.” Father pointed at the Harodhi Horrors on the ground beyond me. But he remained with Darian, folding his jacket under his son’s head as Bellua examined the arrow in his leg.

  Rov came over to Jhem and me. The dead man-thing lay a few feet away, the dragon Horror a few yards beyond that. Rov stumbled to a halt when he saw the thing at his feet but made no comment.

  The sickly green fires had gone out, leaving the blackened husk of what once had been a man. As we watched, it settled, the charred flesh inside the armor crumbling little by little.

  When Tauman saw it, he reeled in revulsion. “What in the name of all Holiness is that?” He left Darian’s side for a closer look.

  “That,” said Rov, “is a Horror. Perhaps now you understand my urgency.”

  Father shook his head. “When I was in the Dragonry, we fought men and animals, not these abominations.”

  “How is such a creature possible?” Tauman said with disgust.

  “The forces that conspire against all of creation never rest.” Bellua bent over Darian, applying a tourniquet to his leg just below the knee. “I share Captain Rov’s sense of urgency, all the more now that the meaning of recent signs has been made so clear.”

  When the merihem spoke, my skin prickled and shrank. I tried to block his words from my mind. The grisly corpse and the conversation surrounding it had distracted everyone, so I pushed to my feet slowly, testing my legs. I felt better. My head still hurt, but my balance had returned. I started toward Malik and his qit.

  “See how death and disaster follow this girl,” Bellua said. “Everything she touches is cursed.” I didn’t have time for him.

  “Enough,” said Father.

  “Every omen said . . .”

  “Enough!”

  Keirr ran to me, keening, then led me past the dragon Horror, back to her poppa. Life still trembled in his great body.

  He lay very still, laboring to breathe. His left wing was crumpled horribly beneath his body. His chin rested on bloodied earth. Crimson trickled from his nose. His good eye hung half open, already glazed over. His body shivered with every inhalation.

  Bellua kept talking as he tightened the tourniquet. “I tried to warn you, Broodmaster, but you chose to dismiss my words. Now calamity has visited your aerie.
”

  Keirr keened plaintively. When I knelt next to Malik’s head, she climbed into my lap, put her front feet on my shoulders, and looked at me.

  “Oh, my poor baby,” I whispered.

  Bellua’s voice was an irritating noise that wouldn’t stop. “. . . calamity in the form of this stubborn and disobedient . . .”

  Malik’s eye opened, the vertical slit of iris struggling to focus. I reached for him.

  “Maia!” Father rushed toward me, pulling his bow off his shoulder and nocking an arrow. “What in the name of the Highest are you doing? Get away from there!”

  Keirr scooted behind me as I jumped up between Father and Malik with my palms raised. “No!”

  Father looked back and forth between Malik and me. “No.” I kneeled down again beside Malik.

  “Wait, Magha.” Jhem placed a hand on Father’s arm.

  “That’s a dangerous, wounded wilding.” Father was almost pleading.

  “No, he’s not.” My voice cracked. I reached out again and touched Malik’s cheek with my fingers. He didn’t flinch or make a sound. Keirr began to lick his nose again. He keened very quietly, deep in his throat. It was long and mournful, and ended with a rattling chuff.

  When Father saw Keirr, his face turned white, and he lowered his bow.

  “He saved us,” I said.

  Rov and Tauman joined Father and Jhem, as I stroked Malik’s jaw and ear frill. “It’s okay, poppa,” I whispered. “I will take care of your little Keirr. I promise.”

  As if in answer, Keirr curled up in my lap, keening, and reached out with a paw to touch her poppa’s lip.

  Everyone—even Bellua—fell silent, watching.

  Malik’s eye closed. The solemn hush of the hillside was broken only by the rustling of leaves in a light wind, the creak of leather and scuff of paws on turf, Keirr’s quiet distress, and Malik’s rattling chuffs. Every breath seemed more difficult than the one before it. His last exhalation was a long, slow keen that ended as a whisper, and then his body relaxed at last, settling with a few quiet, leathery creaks and rustles. I pressed my cheek to his and wept.