FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Blood trickling down his chin, King Nir-Ur pointed at his son, and his eyes hardened with cold rage. “Then, my son, you are no longer my heir. Raem, I disavow you. I—“

  Raem’s bronze sword sliced into his father’s chest, passing between ribs.

  “And I will eradicate any who stand in my way,” said Raem, tugging the blade back with a red curtain.

  His father stared at him, eyes wide. Blood dripped from his mouth and down his chest. He tried to speak but only hoarse gasps left his mouth. The old king—frail, weak, his time done—fell.

  “Raem,” the old man managed to whisper, clutching his wound. “Your own son . . . your heir . . . Prince Sena has the gift.”

  Raem stared down at the dying man, and rage exploded through him. “Even with your last breath, you lie.”

  His father reached out and touched Raem’s leg. Tears streamed down his creased cheeks. “Accept your son. You already lost a daughter. When you learn what Sena is . . . accept him. For our family. For—“

  Raem swung his sword again.

  The blade sank into the king’s neck, and the old man spoke no more. Nir-Ur collapsed onto his back, fingers curled like talons, dead eyes gazing upon the birds he had loved.

  “You were a traitor,” Raem whispered, and suddenly a tremble seized him. “You were a lover of weredragons. You spoke heresy.”

  He looked down at his slain father. Raem had faced barbarian hordes in battle. He had slain dozens of men, maybe hundreds, and the scars of wars covered his body. He had never flinched from bloodshed before, but now he shook, and now his eyes burned, and now he felt very young—a humble boy in the courts of a rising kingdom, so afraid, so alone in a palace of shadows and echoes. A boy with a secret. A boy with a shame.

  He turned away.

  He all but fled the rooftop gardens.

  He raced through his palace, bloody sword in hand, ignoring the startled looks of scribes, slaves, and guards.

  I exiled my wife and firstborn child. I killed my father. I must see my two remaining children, the noble Sena, the beautiful Issari. His breath shook in his lungs. I must see the purity that remains.

  When he found Sena, he would pull the boy into an embrace. He would tell his son: You are noble, you are strong and pure, and I will never be a weak father to you, for you make me proud.

  Down several staircases and halls, he reached the tall bronze doors of his children’s chamber. Without knocking, desperate to see his son and daughter, Raem barged into the room.

  He froze.

  His heart seemed to fall still.

  His breath died.

  The chamber was large, nearly as large as a throne room. A mosaic featuring birds, beasts, and fish covered the floor, and blue columns topped with golden capitals supported a ceiling painted with suns and stars. Stone figurines—carved as hunters, cattle, boats, and chariots—stood in alcoves. The chamber’s giltwood beds, tables, and divans had been pushed against the walls. In the center of the chamber, nearly filling even this vast room, stood a dragon.

  The dragon sported blue scales—blue as the sea outside, blue as the columns, blue as the god Taal’s banners. The beast’s horns were long and white, and its eyes seemed young, afraid.

  Raem’s youngest child, the beautiful Princess Issari, stood before the dragon. Her raven braid hung across her shoulder, and a headdress of topaz gemstones and golden olive leaves crowned her head. Clad in a slim, white gown hemmed with golden tassels, she had her hand upon the dragon’s snout.

  “Father,” the princess whispered. She withdrew her hand and stepped backward.

  “Father,” said the dragon, speaking with the same fear . . . and changed.

  The beast’s wings pulled into its back. Its scales, horns, and claws vanished. It stood on its rear legs and shrank, becoming a young man clad in white.

  “Sena,” Raem whispered. His eyes watered. “My son . . . you are . . .”

  Raem trembled. He could barely see; the world turned red with his rage. He raised his sword, and he shouted, and his children fled from him, and all the palace, and all the city, and all the kingdom seemed to collapse around him.

  LAIRA

  ON HER TWENTIETH AUTUMN, LAIRA knelt in the mud, scrubbing her chieftain’s feet.

  “Clean them good, you maggot,” Zerra said and spat upon her. “I think I stepped on some boar dung. Fitting for a piece of shite like you.”

  The chieftain—clad in furs, his face leathery, his shaggy hair wild—sat upon a fallen log peppered with holes. Mud squelched below them, and patches of yellow grass covered the surrounding hills like thinning hair on old scalps. Few trees grew here, only a few scattered oaks and elms crowned with red leaves. Mossy boulders lay strewn like the scattered teeth of a giant. It was a place of mist, of wind, of mud and rock.

  The Goldtusk tribe had been traveling south for two moons now, seeking the warm coast for the coming winter. There would be fish there, herds of bison, and geese to hunt, a place of plenty for the cold moons. Zerra boasted that the weak villagers, those who built walls and plowed fields, suffered in the snow, while he—leading a proud tribe that followed ancient ways—would give his people warm air and full bellies even in the winter.

  Yet Laira knew the southern coast would offer her no relief. There too Zerra would all but starve her, feeding her only scraps—fish bones, rubbery skin, sometimes the juice of berries to lick from clay bowls. No plenty for her, Laira, the daughter of a dragon. In the south too, he would allow her no tent; she would sleep outside as always in the mud, tethered and penned with the dogs, nothing but her cloak of rodent furs to shield her from the wind and rain.

  So many times she had dreamed of escape! So many times she had clawed at her bonds, trying to sneak out in the night! Yet she had always stayed, fearing the wilderness—the hunger and thirst of open land, the roaming tribes that fed on human flesh, and the wild rocs and saber-toothed cats who patrolled sky and land. And so she remained, year after year, a broken thing.

  She looked up at her chieftain now, and perhaps it was the filth on his feet, and perhaps the thought of southern suffering, and perhaps it was that today she was twenty—whatever the reason, today she stared into his eyes, a feat she rarely dared, and she spoke in a strained voice.

  “If I’m shite, wouldn’t I just make your feet dirtier?”

  For a long moment, Zerra stared down at her, silent. Ten years ago, Laira had watched her mother—a beautiful white dragon—burn the chieftain. Zerra’s wounds had never healed. Half his face still looked like melted tallow, a field of grooves and wrinkles, the ear gone, the eye drooping. The scars stretched down his neck and along his arm. He was missing two fingers on his left hand, gone to the dragonfire.

  But his scars were not what frightened Laira. After all, her own face was ravaged now too. Zerra—still seeking vengeance—had seen to that. She had seen her reflection many times; Zerra insisted she stare into whatever clear pool they passed, forcing her to see her wretchedness.

  A few years ago, he had beaten Laira so badly he had shattered her jaw. Today her chin and mouth were crooked, pushed to the side, and her teeth no longer aligned. It not only marred her appearance but left her voice slurred; she always sounded like she were chewing on cotton, and her breath often wheezed. One time she had tried to pull her jaw back into place, only for the pain to nearly knock her unconscious. And she so remained—crooked, mumbling, a pathetic little wretch Zerra kept alive for his amusement.

  “You look like a mole rat,” he would tell her, scoffing whenever she walked by. Often he would shove her in the mud, toss game entrails onto her, or spit in her face, then mock her ugliness. “You are a small, weak maggot.”

  Small and weak she was. Years of hunger had damaged her as much as his fists. The chieftain only allowed her to eat whatever bits of skin and fat remained after the hunt, and whenever anyone had tried to give her more, he had beaten them with stick and stone. The long hunger left Laira fragile, as weak as a sapling in frost. She h
adn’t grown much since that day ten years ago, that day her mother had died. Though a woman now, she stood barely larger than a child, her growth stunted, her frame frail. Her head often spun when she walked too much, and her arms were thin as twigs. Zerra enjoyed mocking her weakness, shoving her down and laughing when she could not rise. He claimed she was weak because of her curse, the disease he was determined—but could not prove—she carried.

  To complete her misery, the chieftain sheared her hair every moon, leaving her with ragged black strands and a nicked scalp. He clad her not in warm buffalo or bear fur like the rest of the tribe, but in a ragged patchwork of rat pelts. He had pissed on that garment once and refused to let her wash it. “That is how I mark what is mine,” he had said. “And you are mine to torment.” The tattered cloak still stank of him.

  Her only redeeming feature, Laira thought, was her eyes. On their own, they were perhaps ordinary. But in her gaunt face, they seemed unusually large, a deep green tinged with blue. Whenever Zerra forced her to stare at her reflection—to see her slanted chin, her crooked mouth, her sheared hair like ragged porcupine quills—Laira would focus on those large green eyes. They are my mother’s eyes, she thought. And they are beautiful.

  And so no—it was not Zerra’s scars that frightened Laira today, for she was no prettier. It was the rage in his eyes—the rage that promised another beating, that promised days of hunger, that promised he would hurt her, break her, make her regret every word and beg for mercy.

  I need not fear him, Laira thought, staring up into his eyes. My father is a great prince in a distant kingdom. My mother told me. I am descended of greatness. I—

  She was so weary with hunger—she had not eaten in a day—that she didn’t even see his fist moving. It slammed into her head, knocking her into the mud.

  She lay for a moment, dazed. Her head spun. She wanted to get up. She wanted to fight him.

  I can turn into a dragon, she thought. I did it once. I can do it again. I can burn him. I—

  The vision of her mother reappeared in her mind, interrupting her thoughts—a memory of the woman burning at the stake, screaming.

  I promised. I promised I would never shift again.

  A weight pressed down on her wrist and Laira whimpered. Through narrow eyes, she saw Zerra stepping on her, smirking, and she thought he would snap her bone, tear off her hand. He wiped his other foot upon her face, smearing her with its filth.

  “You’re right,” he said. “You are worse than shite. Your mother was no better.” He snorted. “I know what she told you. She claimed she had bedded some southern prince, that she spawned a princess. But you are filth. You are only a princess of worms. You will never leave this place. And someday . . . someday I will uncover the reptilian curse in you too, and you will burn like she did.”

  He kicked her stomach and Laira doubled over. Through floating stars of pain, she saw him walk downhill toward their camp.

  She lay wheezing and trembling. With her crooked jaw, she couldn’t even cough properly. She should be thankful, she knew. He had not broken her bones this time. He had not cut off her ears, which he had often vowed to do, or burned her body, another common threat. He had shown her mercy today.

  “I must be strong,” she whispered. “I am the daughter of a prince.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember that distant kingdom across the sea. Laira had been only three years old when Mother had fled with her, coming to this northern land, for the cursed ones—those who could become dragons—were hunted in Eteer too. In a haze, Laira saw faded images, perhaps memories, perhaps the stories Mother had told. Towers in sunlight. A great port that thrust into a city of countless homes. Walls topped with soldiers and lush gardens that grew atop the palace roof. Laira had seen villages here in the north; Zerra sometimes stopped at these small settlements, trading meat and fur for bronze and ale. But their old city across the sea . . . that was a place a thousand times the size, its houses not built of mud and straw but of actual stone.

  “I want to go back home,” Laira had once begged her mother. “Please. I hate the cold north. I hate this tribe. I want to go home.”

  Mother had only hushed her, kissed her brow, and smoothed her hair. “We cannot. We bear a secret, a magic of dragons. We had to flee Eteer, and Zerra is kind to us. Zerra gave us a new home. Hush now, Laira, my sweetness.”

  Laira had blinked away tears and clung to Mother. “Is my father still there?”

  Mother had rocked her. “Yes, my child. Your father is still there, a great warrior prince.” She showed Laira her amulet, the silver sigil of Taal, the god of the south. “This is the amulet he gave me, an amulet to protect us. You are descended of royalty. Never forget that, even here, even in our exile.”

  Yet what was royalty worth, Laira thought, if she could not return? Cursed with reptilian blood, they had fled the distant land of Eteer. Yet how was Goldtusk any safer? Mother had died here. Laira suffered here.

  “Should I flee this tribe as Mother fled her old kingdom?” Her eyes stung. “Dare I fly to that fabled, secret place . . . the escarpment? The hidden land where they say other dragons live?”

  Tears streamed down Laira’s bruised face, mingling with the mud. Others like her . . . humans able to become dragons . . . cursed, outcast, afraid. Men whispered of them. They said that Zerra himself had a twin brother, a weredragon, a leader of weredragons. Could it be true? Or was the escarpment just a myth as Mother had claimed?

  Laira sighed. If she fled this tribe to seek a legend, she was likely to die. The escarpment lay many marks away; a single mark was a distance too far for her to cross alone, let alone many. In this world of harsh winters and roaming beasts, even a dragon could not survive alone. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind from beyond the years.

  There are no others, Laira. Only us. We are alone. And Goldtusk is our home.

  “Goldtusk is my home,” Laira whispered.

  She pushed herself up onto wobbling arms. Bedraggled and covered in mud, she stared downhill toward their camp. The tribe’s tents rose across the misty valley, made of animal hides stretched over branches. Their totem pole rose among them, carved with animal spirits, topped with the gilded mammoth tusk they worshiped, the god Ka’altei. Deer, hares, and fowl roasted upon campfires, and the tribesmen, clad in fur and leather, tended to the meat.

  The tribe’s source of power, a flock of rocs, stood tethered outside the camp. Great vultures the size of dragons, they gathered around a mammoth carcass, tearing into the meat with sharp beaks. Those beaks were large enough to swallow Laira whole. As she watched, the tribe hunters—tall, strong, and sporting jewelry of clay, bronze, and even gold—walked toward the beasts. One by one, they mounted the rocs and took flight, brandishing bows and roaring hunting cries.

  “The hunters are strong and proud,” Laira said to herself, watching as they soared. “They are the nobility of Goldtusk. They are never beaten, never spat upon, never afraid.”

  She rose to her feet, hugged herself, and stared at the hunters flying into the distance, their rocs shrieking.

  “My old kingdom is forbidden to me,” Laira whispered. “The escarpment is but a myth. But I am the child of a warrior prince. I am noble and I am strong.” She clenched her small fists. She would become what she had vowed the day her mother had died. “I will be a huntress.”

  That evening, the hunters returned upon their rocs, singing the songs of their totems. The great birds shrieked, beating their rotted wings, holding game in their talons: deer, boar, and buffalo. With splatters of blood, they tossed the carcasses down between the tents. Soon great campfires burned, and the game roasted upon spits, filling the camp with delicious aromas.

  The women returned too, placing down baskets of berries, nuts, and mushrooms collected from a nearby grove. Though not as honored as the hunters, the gatherers too were praised; tribesmen blessed their names and reached into their baskets, feasting upon their finds.

  Songs rose and ale, traded in w
hat villages they passed, flowed down throats. One tribeswoman played a lyre, and people clapped and danced. Teeth bit into the roast meat and grease dripped down chins.

  Laira spent the feast serving the others. She sliced off slabs of meat and rushed to and fro with clay bowls. She collected what bones the diners tossed into the dirt, bringing them to the camp dogs in their pen. She kept scurrying to the nearby stream, returning with buckets of water, then filling cups and serving the thirsty.

  Never did she eat herself. When once she only sniffed at a bone, Zerra made sure to march over, slap her cheek, and tell her that bones were for the dogs, that she was merely a maggot. She kept working, belly growling and mouth watering.

  When the feast ended, she could rummage through the mud. She would always find a few discarded nuts, bones, and sometimes even animal skin. As Laira worked, slicing and serving and rushing about, she made sure to drop little morsels—when nobody was looking—into the mud. She would dig them up later, and she would give her belly some respite.

  As the sun set and the stars emerged, Laira drew comfort from the sight of the new stars, the ones shaped like a dragon—the Draco constellation. Mother would tell her that these stars blessed them, gave them a magic others thought was a curse. Laira glanced up and prayed silently.

  Please, stars of the dragon, look after me. Give me strength to hide your magic. Give me strength to fly.

  The feast died down. Men lay patting their full bellies, women nursed their babes, the rocs fed upon carcasses, and the dogs fought over scraps. Laira still had much work to do. She would be up half the night, collecting pottery and washing it in the river. But for now, she had a more important task.