by Laurence Yep
We’re not dead yet, but if that happens, you won’t die alone, Leech said.
Yes, the Voice said.
54
Bayang
Bayang called to the Wolf Guards below. “The vizier is dead. The emperor knows about the whole plot and troops will be here soon. If you help Roland now, you’ll be branded as traitors.”
As the men hesitated, a giant silhouette rose up. “What are you doing here?” Badik asked.
The sight of her ancient enemy washed away all of Bayang’s soreness and fatigue.
“The vizier came to kill me, but we took care of him instead,” Bayang said. “What more proof do you need that I’m telling the truth?”
When the guardsmen remained where they were, Badik roared angrily. “The vizier’s still alive at the citadel, you idiots. I’ll kill anyone who listens to her lies. Now advance!”
After hesitating a moment, the guardsmen came on again.
Bayang had always known their adventure might end badly, which was why she had tried so often to get the hatchlings to quit. When the goddess had shown that Scirye was her favorite, though, the dragon had begun to hope for success. But where was the goddess now when they needed her the most?
Bayang could have pounded her paws in frustration, not because they would fail in their quest, nor even because her personal enemy, Badik, would triumph. It was the hatchlings for whom she was afraid. They were too clever, too brave to die like this.
Twisting her head, Bayang looked affectionately at her companions. From their positions at the four walls of their improvised fort, Scirye’s parents and the Pippalanta had risen to a crouch and begun firing. Māka had her dagger in one hand while her other leafed through her pamphlet as she hunted for some spell that might work. Tute was growling and Kles’s fur and feathers began to puff out, preparing to fight. Scirye had her eyes closed as if she were begging the goddess for help. Even the usually cowardly badger was holding a lyak axe in both paws, ready to defend her.
Last, her eyes fell on a frightened but purposeful Leech mounted atop one of his discs and doing knee bends to loosen up, which made the discs bounce up and down as if he were a basketball.
It was time to live up to her bold words to Leech … and Lee No Cha. Bayang couldn’t make up for all the wrongs she had done, but at least she might increase their chances of survival a little bit by taking out the biggest threat.
“Leech,” Bayang called to the hatchling and then looked about, “and everyone. I love you.” Then, turning her back on them, she balled a forepaw and raised it defiantly toward the giant silhouette. “Badik of the Fire Rings, fight me if you dare. Or will you keep hiding behind Roland like his pet dog? Coward, slimeworm.”
And then English was no longer adequate so she switched to the dragon tongue. For there are no insults like a dragon’s because dragons live a long time and so their hatred ferments for centuries until it becomes a brew so potent that it burns the mind like acid eating through steel.
The venomous words almost burned her throat as she flung them at her ancient enemy, the first ones making Badik so furious that he could not even speak, only hiss.
“Badik, stay where you are,” Roland commanded angrily.
But Bayang’s insults had made Badik go berserk. As he began to charge up the slope, Bayang shouted, “Yashe!” and vaulted over the crude wall.
She worked the growth spell as she galloped downward and immediately the world began to shimmer around her as she swelled in size. As she did the snowflakes seemed to shrink to the size of pinheads.
“Light the lanterns,” Roland yelled, “and kill her.”
Light suddenly flared in dozens of lanterns as shutters were opened to reveal the fire imps inside burning intensely.
She lowered her eyelids slightly and tried not to look directly at any one lantern so it would not blind her. Lyak spears and axes bounced off her scales. Bullets pinged against her sides. But she paid them no heed. Revenge was her one desire.
Badik was dashing toward her, eyes wide, strings of saliva dripping from his mouth, paws skidding recklessly in the snow.
Twenty yards on, he met her. He was wearing iron plates across his chest as armor.
With a little hop, she sprang at him with all four paws, and with a jump of his own, his paws met hers. Instantly, Bayang thrust her head forward and Badik barely pulled his throat away from her snapping jaws—only to be stunned by a blow from her flapping wings. She ignored the pain from the wound on one wing and swept her tail, knocking Badik on his back.
The sheer ferocity of Bayang’s attack overwhelmed Badik at first, but he still managed to trip her with his tail so that she fell over on him.
The two dragons wrestled in the snow, grasping paws as they tried to avoid each other’s fangs and clouts from their wings.
Then Badik’s head shot up like a battering ram, his hard skull thudding against the base of Bayang’s throat and her windpipe. Choking and wheezing, Bayang fell onto her side. Immediately, Badik’s head shot out like a cobra’s, but Bayang rolled, and though fiery pain raced along her back, she spread her injured wing clouting Badik on his head.
Her chest heaved as she tried to draw air through her bruised windpipe, and the dazed Badik struggled up on all fours, his drooling jaws and a forepaw slashing viciously at her. All she could do was try to shield herself with her wings, but as he shredded them, she wondered if she would ever be able to fly again—but then, given the odds against her, she would never live long enough for them to heal.
She thought of her old instructor, Sergeant Pandai. Bayang thought she’d almost had the wily veteran pinned when she suddenly found herself flat on her back. As the sergeant had helped her up, she’d said, “Remember, you can use your enemies’ own eagerness as a weapon against them.”
She lowered her wings as if she were helpless to control them, no longer trying to hide the agony the motion caused her.
As Badik’s jaws lunged at her with a triumphant hiss, she raked a paw across his cheek.
Blinded in one eye, he tilted back his head and roared in agony. Immediately, she stretched out her hind paws and caught one of his hind legs. He tried to stagger away, but she yanked hard and he spilled onto his back in the snow.
Her head shot forward on her long neck and the moment her jaws clamped on his throat, she bit down hard, felt her fangs crunch satisfyingly through his armored scales, tasted his blood, felt his breath trying to pass in vain along his throat.
She used her tail to fend off his twitching body and the paws that, even in his death throes, were trying to rip her open. And then Badik, the greatest enemy the Clan of the Moonglow had ever known, lay still.
55
Scirye
There was nothing as majestic or as terrifying as dragons in their full wrath, and for long moments it was silent on the battlefield, except for the wailing of the winds. Scirye was just about to give a cheer when Roland shouted, “Kill that dragon! Kill her!”
Finally, a guardsman recovered his wits and fired. Soon all the guns were blazing away at Bayang as she struggled to rise.
“Cover her,” Kat said, and the Pippalanta began to fire in the quick but deliberate rate they had used before.
Some scales must have been torn off in the fight with Badik, for Bayang quivered every now and then when a bullet found an exposed spot where a scale had been turn off. But she kept limping back to her friends.
“Hurry, please hurry,” Scirye murmured. Blood dripped from several wounds and down her beautiful scales.
Leech cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. “Shrink. So you won’t be such a big target.”
Scirye added her voice to his. “Shrink.”
The others joined them and somehow Bayang heard them through the roar of the guns. Her outline shimmered and dwindled until she was only as tall as a human.
Still, some bullets hit her. Ten yards from the fort, she staggered and fell to her knees. Even so, she kept crawling forward.
/> Five yards. Then three.
She reached out a paw as if to touch the fort but with a last shudder pitched forward.
56
Leech
“Bayang,” Leech sobbed.
Is she dead? the Voice asked sadly.
Leech felt an ache inside as terrible as when his friend Primo had died. Yes.
She really meant it when she said she loved you, the Voice said in amazement.
She said it to us. She had stopped thinking you were a monster, Leech pointed out.
It’s too bad, the Voice said regretfully. Maybe we could have changed things between us if she could have lived.
“Charge, charge!” Roland shouted, and the Wolf Guards and thugs cheered as they began to move forward. Perhaps Roland had forgotten about the lanterns in the excitement, or was so confident in the success of their numbers that he didn’t care about casualties, but he didn’t order the lanterns to be shuttered again. His men began falling to the defenders’ bullets.
When the lyaks heard them and saw what was happening, they began to howl as they surged toward the fort as well.
As the others hurried to their posts, Leech got on his flying discs but took one last glance at Bayang.
And that was when he thought he saw the dragon wink.
57
Scirye
Leech hovered a few inches in the air, clutching at the east wall. “Bayang?” he called.
“Come on, buddy,” Koko said, taking his arm. “We got to get ready.”
“But I saw her wink,” Leech said.
Wishing desperately that was true, Scirye looked over the stones at the dragon, but her eyes were shut, her body lifeless. “It must have been some trick of the light,” Scirye said. The lanterns gave off a flickering light as their bearers moved, casting shadows that danced about the slope.
“I guess so,” Leech sighed and reluctantly pivoted and moved with his friends to the center of their little fort.
Kat and her griffin had taken the south wall, which faced what remained of the temple platform, and the excavation just in front of it actually made it even more difficult for attackers. Wali was defending the west wall with Tute and Māka, who had armed herself with a lyak spear. Oko and her griffin would guard the north wall with the columns standing behind it. The big Pippal had also stuck the imperial battle axes into her belt for close combat. As big and heavy as they were, she could swing each in a hand. Scirye’s parents and Árkwi had remained at the east wall to face the guardsmen.
Scirye, Kles, Leech, Koko, Kwele, and Wali’s griffins were the reserve, ready to react to any attacker who got over the walls. And considering how few defenders were on the wall, that would probably happen very quickly. Leech on his flying discs and Kles would be the strongest part of the team as the two invalid griffins, though determined to fight, could barely move.
The Pippalanta and Scirye’s parents were firing steadily now, empty cartridges clinking on the stone as they fell and the cold air was thick with the smell of gunpowder.
Kles curled himself from her left shoulder, around her neck, to her right shoulder so that he could squeeze her with all the strength and fierce love in his small body. And then he dropped away, fluttering his wings so that he rose upward until he was overhead.
Even through the stones of the platform, she felt the pounding of many feet—as if the mountainside had turned into a giant drum. And the howls and shouts merged into one loud, thunderous roar, as if tidal waves were crashing down upon them.
With no time to re-load their carbines, the Pippalanta had picked up their lances, which they were using to deadly effect. On the west and south walls, the two griffins were screaming their battle cries as they raked attackers off the walls. On the east wall, her parents had abandoned their carbines for their lances as well, and Árkwi was battling a griffin who had fluttered up on the parapet. A sudden sweep of her mother’s lance caught the attacker in the side and he toppled backward.
Suddenly she heard a dragon shout, “Yashe!”
And Bayang rose in all her glory—and rose and rose as she swelled in size. She had too many wounds to move with her usual grace and speed, but she could still use her tail, claws, and fangs to deadly effect.
Leech’s elbow nudged her. “I told you she was alive.”
“I’ve never been so glad to be wrong,” Scirye said.
On the north wall, Oko was swinging the great battle-axes as easily as if they were small hatchets, and on the west Tute was snarling and spitting from the top of the wall as his claws struck at the lyaks. Māka held her spear in her left hand while darts of fire flashed from her right as she shouted spells with a strong, confident voice. Her magic couldn’t have improved at a better time.
“It’s our turn first,” Leech said. There was a wild look to his eyes as he sped forward, raising his weapon ring.
Koko, with a lyak axe, ran after him.
Scirye’s heart swelled with pride at her companions’ bravery, but she reminded herself that her job was to help the others, so she forced herself to look for another trouble spot. To the east she saw two Wolf Guards rise into the air on griffins, but the winds were blowing harder than before and a sudden gust slammed them together in midair and they fell out of sight.
The columns partly screened off Oko and the attackers at the north wall. But as the big Pippal fought two lyaks at once, a third climbed up and began reaching for a throwing axe in his belt.
Scirye took a breath. It was up to her now.
“Let’s go,” she said to Kles as she charged forward.
“Tarkär, Tarkär!” The little griffin was in his full battle fury, fur and feathers puffed out, eyes wild, as he shot forward like a tawny missile.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two invalid war griffins try to follow, but the best they could do was a stumble.
“We’ll take this,” she said to them as she ran forward. “You wait for the next problem.” The dagger felt slippery in her sweaty palm and she scolded herself for not wiping it on her clothes first.
As the lyak got ready to throw the axe at the unsuspecting Oko, Kles struck him full in the face. He pitched forward with the small, berserk griffin clinging to him. The fall stunned Kles and the lyak snatched the griffin away from his head as he sat up.
Scirye was so afraid for her friend that she did not stop to think about what she was doing. She simply lunged forward with all the force she could muster in her dagger arm.
The next thing she knew, the lyak was at her feet and she was cradling Kles in one arm and a bloody dagger in the other.
“Lady!” Oko yelled.
Looking up, she saw that another lyak had mounted the wall and was about to thrust at her with his spear.
As the triangular spearhead shot toward her, she instinctively jerked her dagger up. Metal rang on metal as the blades met, her arm tingling at the contact. Then the dagger flew from her fingers when the lyak twirled his spear.
With a howl of triumph, the lyak leaped down from the wall and lunged at her with a spear.
Scirye glimpsed a sacred axe whistle through the air and into her attacker as she dodged backward. When she bumped into something hard, she realized she’d forgotten about the broken temple columns
Despite the leather covering her palm, she felt the marble go instantly from icy cold to warm against her palm, and her gloved hand began to burn like a lantern. The column began to vibrate beneath her touch and she was blinded by a flash of scarlet light.
The next moment, she was holding a slim, long cylinder.
Puzzled she brought her hand back in front of her and saw the arrow. It was almost a yard long and fletched with white feathers at the end. At the front was a wicked arrowhead with four barbed prongs. But this was no fragile antique. The wood of the shaft wasn’t brittle but as strong and supple as the day it had been carved, and the bronze arrowhead gleamed brightly without a hint of the green patina that came with age.
Still holding the arrow, Scir
ye used her teeth to pull the glove from her right hand. The mark of the goddess was glowing on her palm. The “3” had been a clue all along, but the arrows had not been inside the temple, they were the temple, disguised as marble pillars. She’d mistaken the feathers for the palm leaves of a capital.
“Get back!” Oko shouted as she shoved Scirye away. When the column had transformed, it had left a gap in the wall and a lyak had already jumped into the breach. Even as the giant Pippal swung her axes, the ground began to shake.
Not only did the hastily constructed walls of their fort begin to tumble down, but the temple platform as well.
58
Bayang
Bayang had managed to keep her balance during the earthquake. She already knew what she would see when she twisted her head around. Her friends now stood exposed with their former walls scattered about their feet and paws.
She wheeled around, swinging her tail at about a yard above the ground. It was like sweeping an area with a telephone pole and guardsmen and thugs went flying.
Her great size would be as dangerous to her friends as to her enemies, so even as she climbed onto the temple platform, she began to shrink.
Some guardsmen and thugs had snuck around her on the north and south and were joining the lyaks surging onto the platform. Her friends’ griffins had disappeared under swarms of lyaks. Kat and Oko were standing back to back, surrounded by a circle of foes. Wali was backing toward them as she battled two thugs with curved knives.
Lord Tsirauñe spun around with a cry as a bullet hit his shoulder. Lady Sudarshane fell clutching her right side. A bleeding Árkwi stood over them protectively, screaming his defiance.
There was no sign of Scirye, Kles, Koko, Māka, or Tute. Where was Leech?
She tossed a guardsman to the side then a thug. She did not bother to grab a lyak who tried to bar her way but simply ran over him. Then she saw Leech spinning in the air as a lyak grasped either ankle.
“No!” she shouted as a guardsman thrust his rifle’s bayonet up at the hatchling. He spun just in time, deflecting the blade with his weapon ring and then knocking his attacker to the side on the backswing.