“What about the northern group?” asked Darron. “Our lookouts say they saw what they took for lightning out there, o King. Could we just send–”
“A Dragon scout?” said Aranya. “Ri’arion? Zip?”
Ri’arion said, “Take Zip. I’ll stay here in case a ground assault starts.”
“Don’t engage them, yet,” warned the King. “We need information down here to keep people alive.”
“Agreed,” said Zip, mounting up.
“No armour, Dragon Rider?” asked Commander Darron.
“No time.”
When Princess Zuziana was seated, Aranya launched herself over the side of the battlement and raced away into the moonlit night. Zip muttered to herself as she secured the thigh and waist straps. Three moons were high: White, Jade and Blue, giving the night a gentle sparkle that Aranya feared would reveal their presence to anyone who might not be battle-watching, but watching the skies with a telescope. She wished she could be a Black Dragon, like Fra’anior.
A ripple passed through her body.
“What was that?” asked Zip. “Aranya, you’ve changed colour.”
Aranya looked at herself in surprise. She had shifted to a smoky purple-black colour, a much better companion to the night.
“Neat trick,” said Aranya, casually.
Zip chuckled. “You don’t fool me. You’re more surprised than I am.”
Dragon-Aranya thought about this as she flapped steadily to gain height. The battle out there over the eastern Cloudlands was fierce. Another Dragonship flared into ashes; two were limping toward Immadia, losing altitude rapidly. It might have been a good opportunity to strike–but what was going on? A strange diversion to hide a sneak attack from the north? The battle seemed too realistic. Even Garthion must surely balk at blowing up his own Dragonships.
She could change colour like the chameleons they had found along the Crescent Islands? Badly, she told herself. She had been thinking about the Black Dragon. She had arrived at a strange midway point, a colour that was neither of them. Would Ri’arion know about colour-changing Dragons? Everything Nak and Oyda had taught her suggested that Dragon colours were fixed from birth.
A great orange flash lit the clouds hanging over the mountain peaks.
A dozen more wing beats brought Aranya to a height where she could see between the peaks. The northern part of the Sylakian fleet had anchored just the other side of a sharp line of peaks. The battle here was fierce, too, a group of Dragonships coming under heavy fire from a second group which sported the symbol of the windroc. A mutiny in Garthion’s forces, she wondered? Her flames churned steadily in her stomach. Had she not promised her father, she could have gone out there and downed a few Dragonships before they knew what had hit them.
Her eyes focussed. There was Garthion’s heavily armoured flagship; the man himself standing behind his forward crysglass window, watching the battle. He could see? The Supreme Commander had said the son of Sylakia was blind. She wondered how much he saw, now. Magnified by her sight, his face looked bizarre–scars, she realised, a horrific melting of flesh right up into the hairline …
“Garthion!” screamed Zip, seeing through Aranya’s eyes. “Oh, uuunh!”
Lightning flashed behind her. Suddenly a weight drove Aranya downward; daggers of pain plunged into her back. She howled and thrashed instinctively, throwing off her attacker. She saw wings spinning past her, the snapping jaws of a Dragon, blue-in-blue eyes blazing with magic, a tail that smashed her in the jaw as the Dragon roared past her and charged away into the night, westward.
Aranya reeled. Another Dragon!
Then she had a second shock. Zip was gone … Zip was the Dragon. Aranya gave chase at once, hurtling away from the battle at her utmost speed. It was Zip. No-one else could have that colour, the azure of her eyes. Her Dragon senses reached out to her friend. Zip! Zip!
An incoherent scream tore into her mind.
She was feral. Frightened out of her wits, the Dragon sped westward over the mountains, flying erratically. Aranya was surprised she could fly at all. Perhaps it was all Dragon instinct, the shock of the change having driven her mad. Her mind raced. Aranya could transform and land on her friend and try to calm her down, but then they’d lose their only Dragon saddle–which was probably damaged, anyway. And if she missed? A maddened Dragon might just rip her apart. She should know how fast Dragon reactions were.
Aranya made a snap decision. Abandoning the chase, she stretched out her neck and powered down the mountainside to the castle, gaining tremendous velocity as she swooped, her wings tucked and trimmed to provide the least possible air friction. She checked the sky. If she was quick, Zuziana would not get too far. She back-winged into the tower, making everyone duck as she landed on the edge of the battlement.
“Ri’arion,” she snarled. “I need you aboard, now.”
“Where’s–we saw another–”
“It’s Zip. She transformed when we saw Garthion.” Aranya sought out her father as the monk scrambled into her saddle.
“You’re wounded,” said Ri’arion.
Ignoring him, Aranya reported rapidly, “It looks like a mutiny. Maybe a smallish number of Dragonships in both fleets, Dad. I don’t know what it means. Who would dare mutiny against Sylakia? I’d watch out for tricks. Garthion is mad enough to try anything. He is definitely out there in the northern group, chasing seven rogue Dragonships. In the bigger group, I counted one hundred and eighty Dragonships–”
Beran nodded. “Got all that. And you’re going to–”
“Chase my Rider–the other Dragon, Dad.”
“Now there’s another Dragon?”
Her father’s eyes narrowed in calculation. Aranya wanted to snarl at him, ‘That’s my friend, not a pawn in our battle!’ But as Ri’arion scrambled into the saddle, she said, biting back her anger, “It’s Zip, as I feared. The transformation has made her mad. How will you signal me? Could you?”
The King said, “Keep a Dragon’s eye back here. We’ll raise an orange flag on Izariela’s Tower if there’s trouble, alright? White for safety, orange for danger. Hurry back, Aranya.”
Ri’arion said, “Let’s go burn the heavens, Dragon.”
Aranya hurled herself off the round battlements with a low cry–a Dragon’s sob, she realised. She accelerated powerfully, pressing Ri’arion back against her spine-spike. The night was growing old. Three or four hours until dawn, she made it. What would the coming day bring? King Beran would have to scrap all of his plans and start over.
“Easy there, rajal,” said Ri’arion. “No straps left on this saddle. I need to rig something with my belt.”
“I’ll fly level. Ri’arion, where’s Sapphire?”
“Don’t rightly know. Zuziana sent her off somewhere late yesterday evening. She said she had an idea about the mountains; that there was magic up there. Aranya …”
She recognised the plea in Ri’arion’s voice. Aranya said, “She transformed, Ri’arion. She transformed into a Dragon as blue as the noonday sky.”
“An Azure Dragon?” said the monk. “Almost definitely the gift of lightning. Also rare, Aranya, but not as rare as you. You said she went feral? You want me to help coax her back?”
“Yes.”
“This sounds like aerial acrobatics to me. Aranya, you know what a bad flyer I am.”
“Time to improve, Ri’arion.”
Aranya scanned the western skies for any sign of Zuziana. Where had she gone? It could not have been far. There, her friend slipped out momentarily from behind a cloud before ducking into another. She was still fleeing westward. Her flight had smoothed out. Was that a good sign? Or was she escaping even faster? Aranya flexed and contracted her muscles in a flowing beat of her own, pressing upward to gain a height advantage over her friend. Poor, poor Zip. Aranya’s Dragon tears had done their terrible work after all. Zip had never wanted to be a Dragon, but her friend had chosen for her. The memory of Zip’s cold, still face hovered in her mind’s eye. What
choice could she have made, other than to let her die?
Zip raced on and on, her sleek blue scales glinting in the moonlight, but the difference in their experience soon became apparent. Aranya was faster and more efficient in the air. It took time, because she had started so far behind, but she was catching her friend now. For the first time, Aranya could appreciate another Dragon in flight. Zuziana was slender, smaller than her by about ten feet in length and more delicately built overall, but she was still sleek and sliced across the stars with the deadly intent of an Immadian forked dagger. Her outspread wings reflected the starlight. The large flight surfaces flexed and adjusted minutely to the changes in air pressure and conditions, while her tail acted as a rudder. Her paws were tucked beneath her body for streamlining in flight.
Zip? Zuziana of Remoy? Aranya called.
The Dragon looked over her shoulder, the catlike pupils of her eyes dilated with terror. She stalled in the air.
Aranya lunged, but her friend recovered somehow and darted beneath her in the opposite direction. Aranya wheeled so hard that Ri’arion grunted, but then he also raised his voice.
“Zip,” cried the monk. “Zuziana of Remoy! Remember who you are. We are friends, your friends, Zuziana; we’ve come to take care of you. You’re Human, Zip. You’ve no need to fear.”
With a low whimper, the Azure Dragon jinked to the south.
Ri’arion unbuckled his belt. “Let’s see if we can get me onto her back.”
“Mind the spine-spikes.”
Aranya closed with the Azure Dragon. She kept speaking gently to her as Ri’arion climbed down to her forepaw and then swung beneath it. Two more abrupt changes of direction, and suddenly the monk’s weight lifted. Aranya bounced in the air.
Ri’arion landed, not very comfortably and within an inch of losing his manhood, on the base of Zuziana’s neck. The Azure Dragon howled and tumbled through the air, but Ri’arion locked his legs around her neck and clung white-knuckled to her spines, soothing her as one would soothe a frightened pony or kitten, even as they fell through the air. Suddenly, Aranya saw Zip’s eyes contract.
“Ri’arion?” she said. “What’re you doing … what am I … I’m flying!”
With that, she dropped like a stone.
Aranya remembered the interplay of her Human and Dragon minds all too well. She still did it from time to time, letting her Human brain try to direct her flight or landing with unpredictable and inelegant results. Dragon-Aranya furled her wings and plummeted after her friend, bringing herself beneath the fall. A mighty weight crashed against her back and shoulders.
“Transform, Zip,” she heard Ri’arion order.
Abruptly, the weight vanished. Ri’arion stood on the inner edge of her left wing, his weight making her innermost strut bend like a green stick, as he helped Zip into the saddle. She was naked–oh, Aranya remembered that–and shivering with shock. Ri’arion tore off his shirt and helped Zuziana draw it over her head. He swung up into the next space behind her and put his arms around her waist.
“Beloved,” he whispered. “You’re safe. Everything will be fine.”
“I’m a Dragon.”
“A very attractive Azure Dragon,” said Ri’arion. “I think I could fall in love with your Dragon-form all over again, Zuziana.”
In a tiny voice, Zip said, “You could?”
“Aye. True as Fra’anior smokes every day; true as the suns rise at dawn.”
Aranya wanted to close her ears, but her sensitive hearing caught their soft conversation perfectly. She wanted to scream. Why could it not have been like this between her and Yolathion?
She turned to the east, startled to see that the suns were just about to make their appearance over the horizon. The chase had taken longer than she thought. The Sylakians were coming. Her eyes homed in on the city. Dragonships? More Dragonships than she expected … an orange flag. Orange! Adrenalin surged into her veins; Aranya cried out in dismay and hurled herself through the air as she raced back toward the beleaguered Island of Immadia.
At Ri’arion’s worried query, she replied, “Orange flag–danger. We arranged the signal.”
Ri’arion and Zuziana stared ahead. “Dragonships? Those are ours, surely?”
“No, they fly the rajal. Whose symbol is that?”
“Jeradia,” said the Princess of Remoy. “It must be Jeradia–Yolathion. What’s he doing? Why’s he over the city? How did King Beran allow him to approach so easily? Aranya, Yolathion commands the Jeradian troops in Garthion’s army. I learned that just after he captured us. I don’t remember much, but I do remember him talking about ‘the Jeradian Dragonships’.”
Aranya cried, “It’s a trick. A trap. I knew it!”
Chapter 29: Hunting the Hunters
She could not fly back to Immadia Island fast enough. Aranya wanted to wail and rail at Zip for luring her away at the crucial moment, but that was unfair. Aranya knew she had done right. King Beran must have his reasons for letting those Jeradian Dragonships approach his city. Ri’arion and Zip both tried to reason with her, but Aranya could not exorcise the leaden dread from her soul. All she could envision was fiery bolts raining down upon her people, and red-cloaked soldiers marching through the streets.
The orange flag waved jauntily above Izariela’s Tower. Stuck to a twenty-foot flagpole, it screamed ‘warning!’
Aranya arrowed across the flanks of the western mountains. Her wings beat furiously, driving her onward at a speed that whipped the words out of her Riders’ mouths. The world became a tunnel, the castle rimmed in darkness closing in around her vision. Pressure built in her breast. There was a tautness within her that was not muscular. It wasn’t her fire; this was different. Aranya struggled to breathe. Her magic gathered in ways she had never experienced before. Her eyes fixed on the huge courtyard that lay before the gates of the inner keep. Three Jeradian Dragonships were moored there. Her eyes followed the hawsers downward. The men had to be hidden behind the buildings. She could not see; her father was in grave peril and she could not see to help him, she was too far …
Atop her back, Zuziana shouted at her. The words reverberated off of Aranya’s ears without understanding. Green flags? What was green to a Dragon? A piercing whistling came to her attention, a sound that climbed the registers to a painful shrill, presaging a great wind that lashed in from her tail, scudding the Dragon along on an irresistible torrent of air. She blurred in over the city, moving fast, much too fast. Roof tiles and straw blasted off roofs in the storm-wash of her passing. Aranya could not help herself. Power choked her throat and blinded her eyes. All she saw was crimson fury. As the courtyard came into her line of sight, Aranya spied Yolathion, Third War-Hammer of the Sylakian fleet, facing her father over a short space, his hammer upraised in the act of striking him.
Dad! Terror stopped her hearts.
Aranya’s throat worked. Her stomach clenched so hard she thought she had broken something. At once, a roar like a peal of thunder blasted out of her, a sound so loud it arrested her flight mid-air as though she had slammed into a wall. The detonation picked men up like windswept leaves and scattered them across the square. Several warriors smashed into the sides of buildings. Dust screamed across the paving stones. Windows blasted off their hinges. One of the moored Dragonships crumpled inward, while all three were swept away above the city.
Dragon-Aranya landed in the square. Her Dragon sight surveyed the wreckage. A low rumble of satisfaction throbbed deep in her chest.
“Aranya, Aranya!” she heard, vaguely, a faraway cry.
Her eyes fixed on a tall man lying across the square from her. Yolathion! He struggled to his feet, holding his head.
Aranya leaped a hundred feet in a single bound. Yolathion half-turned to flee, but the Dragon’s paw caught his shoulder and smashed him to the ground. In a trice Aranya stood over him, snarling, “Traitor. I’m going to rip you in half!”
Yolathion writhed beneath her paw. He coughed weakly, trying to draw breath, but the weigh
t of a Dragon held him down. His eyes registered horror.
“Aranya!” screamed Zip, leaping to the ground.
“Back. I’ll deal with this filth, Rider.”
“Aranya, stop it,” cried Zuziana, trying to dodge her paw as Aranya batted her away. “Green flags, Aranya. They’re flying green flags.” Zip ducked, rolling beneath Aranya’s belly. “No!”
Aranya caught the Princess with her free forepaw, panting hard as her rage began to abate, as sense reasserted itself in her mind. “Zip, it’s a trick,” she argued. “I saw the War-Hammer about to slay the King. Look to the tower, at the orange flag flying. That’s the danger flag–well, I’ve scattered these weak Humans like terrified, bleating sheep with the power of my roar, and saved all Immadia from this double-crossing Jeradian’s plot.”
Zip pushed ineffectually at Aranya’s claws, trying to loosen the iron grip on her ribcage. “Aranya, listen to yourself. You’re talking like a crazy Dragon. Let up, Aranya. You’re hurting me.”
But as Zip spoke, Aranya’s eyes moved to her father, who gazed up at the battlement in genuine perplexity. “What fool mixed up the flags?” he cried. He rushed across the square, his gaze softening as he approached her. When he stood right alongside Zuziana, King Beran said, “Dragon, you’ve proven your power upon us all. But now, can I speak to my daughter? Sparky? Are you in there?”
“Dad?”
“I’m sorry about the mix-up with the flags. It’s meant to be white.” Her father peered up at her, clearly trying to find a spark of compassion in the Dragon eyes above him. “I need you to know, Sparky, that Jeradia has offered Immadia an alliance, having recently mutinied against Sylakia. What say you? Shall we accept their offer? Or would you prefer to crush their commanding officer beneath your paw?”
Her rage vanished. Oh, Islands above and volcanoes below. She had made a mistake. A terrible, damaging mistake. Aranya uncurled her paw sheepishly and patted Zip on the back. “Sorry, Zip, I’m an idiot. I should’ve listened. But when I saw Yolathion–”
The Princess of Remoy smiled. “I’m an idiot, too. Say, how’s about letting the big Jeradian actually breathe?”
Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) Page 39