Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons)

by Secchia, Marc

  Her head whipped forward. A volley of minute fireballs blazed out of her throat, far too fast for the Human eye to follow, but a Dragon’s senses tracked them each one to their target. The Sylakian advance disintegrated as sheets of flame blasted five hundred feet into the sky. Aranya thundered her triumph to the skies, momentarily drowning out the roar of battle.

  “Leave a couple for me,” Zip grumbled, shielding her eyes with her arm.

  “Volcanic,” shouted Ri’arion.

  Cheers rose from the ground. Aranya banked past the smoke, bringing Zuziana into a shooting position. The bowstring sang its song of destruction twice, three times.

  “Down while we have a chance,” said Ri’arion. “Next to that catapult. Then, can you two kindly arrange to have Garthion fly by?”

  “For you, I’ll move this Island,” said Zip.

  Aranya furled her wings, dropping onto the battlements. Ri’arion slid down her flank and ran off lightly. She winged away at once, sensing the battle closing in around them once more. Signals flashed from the Sylakian flagship. Her eyes followed them but she did not understand. Code, of course. Where were those other Dragonships of Garthion’s? She did not understand. The white specks were gaining on the hindmost vessel of Garthion’s command–dragonets! Her mouth dropped open. White dragonets! A thrill coursed her spine. Sapphire had found dragonets in the Immadian mountains?

  But she did not have time to think, or celebrate, or even to tell her Rider. Swirling around the hydrogen sack of a converted trader Dragonship, Aranya ran into heavy catapult fire from both sides. She hissed in pain as a handful of holes ripped in her right wing from catapult shrapnel. Zuziana downed two further Dragonships as they climbed rapidly out of range.

  “Dragonets,” Aranya panted. “White … dragonets.”

  “Sapphire? I knew it.”

  Aranya’s snort of protest was cut short by her Rider tossing a chunk of meriatite at her. “Catch. What say you we go help your fellow-beasts?”

  “You’re one, too.”

  “I forget so easily,” said Zip, putting on her most annoying smirk.

  To her exasperation, Aranya felt her Dragon-fires rise in response to her friend’s baiting. She growled, “We’ll just tidy up a few Dragonships here, first. See if you can keep up, Rider.”

  * * * *

  Blackened with soot and battle-weary, Aranya wheeled away from the still-crowded skies over the castle. The ground defences were just about holding their own. Yolathion, once more in command of a group of nine Dragonships, was using the long-range war crossbows to devastating effect, but the Sylakians crawled all over the city now, raining fire down with impunity. Aranya saw barrels of oil being tossed overboard to ignite the buildings below. Bless King Beran’s foresight in hiding the population in the no-longer-secret caverns, she thought, rather than within the city. Some people had remained to defend their homes, however. She spat a fireball at a Dragonship just about to dump oil on a group of five torn, bloodied Immadian woman.

  Aranya grinned as the oil barrel exploded, followed by the entire Dragonship.

  Sylakian ground troops had finally breached the gates, she saw. The city was on its knees. So was the Dragon. Every fireball cost her, now. She hardly had the strength to lift her wings. Judging from the suns’ position, they had been fighting for most of the morning. Still King Beran stalked his castle with a rajal’s purpose, rallying his troops and orchestrating the signals to the Dragonships. Sylakian Hammers lay thick in his courtyard, hundreds of them. Her Dad was some warrior, she thought, proudly.

  Zuziana loaded up the oil canister one more time. “Half a quiver left,” she said. “Let’s make them count.”

  When Garthion’s twenty-plus Dragonships arrived, that would change the balance. The flagship alone had to have thirty war crossbows on it, covering all angles. She narrowed her eyes to slits. Multiple-loading crossbows as well? Three quarrels per crossbow. That was a deeply unwelcome innovation. She pointed them out to Zip.

  “Burn him beneath the Cloudlands,” she snarled, sounding so Dragon-like and crackling energies off her fingertips that the Rider raised her eyebrows and the Dragon her brow-ridges in simultaneous surprise. “Take it easy around the flagship until we see what she can do,” added Zip.

  Aranya nodded sharply. “Then let’s concentrate on removing his friends, while we spy out Garthion’s weaknesses.”

  “Agreed.”

  The tiny Princess of Remoy could be rajal-fierce when she set her mind to it, Aranya thought, remembering how they had fought in the Tower of Sylakia. She was a rare one.

  Dragon-Aranya felt the strain in her flight muscles as she powered upward. Now they had the most dangerous Sylakian of all to deal with.

  Chapter 31: Shapeshifter

  The noon sky had cleared of all but a smattering of clouds, allowing little concealment of their approach to Garthion’s Dragonship group. Catapults rose and crossbows creaked to shadow the Dragon’s flight overhead.

  “All armoured,” Zip said.

  “Mostly Crimson Hammers,” Aranya added glumly. “The best and most disciplined. Oh–here comes Sapphire.”

  Sapphire! Zuziana cried in delight. You beautiful creature, you found your friends?

  The dragonet twirled happily in the air as she approached them. In seconds, a whole flock of dragonets rose from the armoured Dragonship they had been attacking–not very effectively, but tenaciously. Evidently, greetings were more important than war. Mentally rolling her eyes, Aranya made a huge fuss of the dragonets.

  They were all white, the pure white of Immadia’s snows, with pale pink eyes and tiny, pink forked tongues. No wonder they had never been found. They would be perfectly hidden in the snows. Albino dragonets? Or just their natural colouring? Aranya gazed at them as curiously as they did at her. She projected feelings of welcome, happiness and gratitude. They seemed a little shy and overawed, but as ever, not lost for an opportunity to impress potential admirers.

  Suddenly, from the throng gathering around her and skittering off her scales, prodding her spine-spikes and peering at her fangs, a larger dragonet approached. She was three times larger than Sapphire. Aranya had an impression of great age; the dragonet’s movements were slow and stiff.

  The dragonet asked, Do you speak?

  I speak, and thank you for your valuable aid, Aranya replied, surprised by the dragonet’s erudite manner.

  It is little. These sky-creatures are too tough for our claws. The pale eyes examined Aranya. Your kind have lived long in these lands, Dragon. We are few and dying in the snows. Will you help us?

  I … don’t understand, said Aranya. What help could I offer?

  We are too few and our eggs do not hatch well. We need fresh blood, like this youngling here. Where did you find her?

  On Fra’anior. At the dragonet’s blank-faced response, she explained, Another Island, like this one, many days flying from here.

  We ice-dragonets could not make such a journey.

  “Aranya, they’re approaching your father’s position,” Zip warned.

  I, Dragon-Aranya, Shapeshifter and Princess of Immadia, offer to take you on such a journey in exchange for what you have already done.

  The pale eyes whirled with interest. We thank the great Amethyst Dragon. But first, we will fight as long as you fight.

  I sense many have already fallen. Aranya bowed her head in respect. Only pick the soft Dragonships flying the symbol of the windroc, friend dragonet. Leave these hard-shelled ones for us.

  I am Ishior, said the dragonet, executing a fancy manoeuver that Aranya took for the dragonet equivalent of a bow. We are agreed. Beware the largest Dragonship. It is evil.

  We thank you for your wise words, Ishior, she replied.

  Chirping to her friends, the old dragonet sped away over the castle. At once, the whole white flock followed, several hundred strong.

  “So that’s what became of Garthion’s force,” Aranya said to Zip, her voice steeped in wonder. “Dragonets pull
ing them down like wasps downing a giant ralti sheep. Ready?”

  Zuziana raised her bow.

  With a twirl of her wings worthy of any dragonet, Aranya spun into a vertical dive. In several heartbeats wind keened over her wings; the acceleration jammed Zuziana back in her seat, but the Princess of Remoy made no complaint. Instead, she warmed up an arrow in their oil pot. Ominously. She did not stir as Aranya dodged a rising spray of crossbow quarrels. The Dragon eyeballed the Dragonships very carefully. Those triple catapults had not fired yet. The Sylakian Crimson Hammers were too disciplined to take the bait. Her hearts walloped the inside of her chest. This was the real battle. And she was already worn out.

  At the last moment she jinked to her port side and swooped on a Dragonship which had drifted apart from the others. She did not need to prime Zip. As she rolled into position, her Rider drew and fired. A Dragon fireball and a burning arrow slammed together into the chosen Dragonship. It flew on.

  “Spied any weaknesses, Dragon?”

  Aranya almost stood on her tail mid-air as she changed direction. “Isn’t this where I–what was it–grab my fate and wrestle it down screaming?”

  “Close,” said Zip. “That arrow didn’t penetrate, Aranya.”

  “Try again.”

  They shot over for a second pass, coming under a withering hail of fire from the well-equipped Dragonships. Aranya was on the point of breaking off when one of her fireballs finally sparked an explosion. She blew through the smoke and changed direction to put the archers off their aim. Behind her, Zip was muttering in Ancient Southern–whatever it was, Aranya knew it had to do with six shots she had taken, none of which had downed a Dragonship.

  “Zip, you’re–”

  “Useless!” shouted her Rider. Aranya jumped at her unforeseen cry of frustration. “I can’t draw this bow. A Pygmy can draw it fully, Aranya. I’m not strong enough. I can’t puncture that armour. I can’t.”

  There was more beneath her words than just arrows, Aranya recognised. Garthion had injured her spirit.

  “You can.”

  “How, Aranya? How? Answer me, if you can.”

  “I’ll blow the arrows along like I did before.” Aranya winced as the words came out. Dragon-Aranya would do it all again, on her own?

  Zip hissed, “And the storm power will suck you dry. Then we fall.”

  Aranya writhed in the air for a moment before a thought suddenly crystallised in her mind. She blurted out, “You’re a Dragon. You have the strength, Zip. It’s inside you. It always has been. Even if you weren’t … there’s only one reason we’re here today, because someone I know had the nerve, the sheer madness, to taunt the Sylakian windroc. You almost died. Yet here you are, bringing the might of Sylakia to its ruin.”

  “I think you’re seeing a different battle to everyone else, petal.” But Zip straightened up in her seat. “You really think–”

  “I know. I’ll believe for you. But you have to fire the arrows. My fireballs aren’t getting through. I’ll burn a few catapults and crossbows, though.”

  For a few breaths they drifted along in silence, as though they flew in their own bubble, separated from the Sylakians by three hundred feet of clear air. From the corner of her eye, Aranya saw the Crimson Hammers begin to be distracted by events on the ground, where King Beran led his forces against a swarm of red-plumed Sylakians who had gathered to storm the castle. Yolathion’s Dragonships pounded their counterparts, but the noose had closed, driving them back toward the castle with the inexorable power of a force that still outnumbered them four to one. Whatever the Rider and her Dragon had done, it was not enough. Not yet. But the dragonets were down there in force, mobbing the Sylakian forces, tearing at the heads of archers and puncturing hydrogen sacks with their claws. The Immadian Islanders defended their home like madmen.

  Slowly, Zuziana’s chin rose. Her fingers flexed on the grip of her bow. Her right hand plucked an arrow from the quiver strapped to her wounded thigh. Her eyes blazed with blue fire. “Let’s go burn the heavens, friend.”

  The first twitch of her wings did not wake the Sylakians on the Dragonships from their slumber, but her challenge certainly did. Thunder rolled over the city.

  “Phew, burst a lung there? Some roar–”

  The wind snatched the words out of her mouth as Aranya plunged forty feet to duck a hail of catapult shot. Instead of rising again, she darted beneath the looming Dragonships, so close to the castle that her belly trimmed the moss of the battlement stones. Moving too quickly for the soldiers to re-orient their weapons, she blazed beneath Garthion’s flagship, hiding in the centre of his fleet–resisting the urge to check for him in the forward navigation cabin–and suddenly, twisted up between two Dragonships. She did peek over her shoulder. Zuziana had the bowstring at her ear. Incredible!

  Sss! Zip’s arrows were deceptively quiet, even to a Dragon’s hearing, but she easily picked out their unique sound amongst all of the other noises of battle. The resulting sound was a thunderous concussion against her ears.

  KAARAABOOM!

  A gust of overheated air smashed her against the side of the Dragonship opposite. Aranya tucked her wings instinctively, but still received a fierce blow to her midsection from a supporting brace to the armour. Ignoring the pain lancing into her side and the Sylakian warriors above shouting about a Dragon climbing their ship, Aranya dug in every one of her hind claws and, with a great groan of supreme effort, peeled the armour apart.

  Then she did run up the side of the Dragonship. She blasted a lungful of meriatite-fuelled fire around her before springing into the air, setting a number of crossbow emplacements alight.

  Zuziana sighted back over her wing. “Roll.”

  An arrow slipped sweetly into the hole the Dragon had created. A Dragonship was no more.

  Rising above the fireball, Aranya scanned the battlefield. There was a strange sight–a man sitting in a catapult. Ri’arion! She had forgotten … and an Immadian warrior put his hands to the release lever while his fellows made final adjustments to their aim. He would be spitted like a sheep above a fire, she thought. The crossbow-men would shoot him at point-blank range.

  The lever moved. Aranya flung herself toward the monk’s arc of flight.

  “Hit the windows,” shouted Zip.

  Looping over the top of a Dragonship, Aranya’s neck snaked from side to side as she blasted fireballs in quick succession at the foremost three vessels in the fleet, those almost directly above her father’s position. Crysglass imploded. Cabins caught on fire. There, that would distract them.

  The monk shot into the air. Aranya’s ears caught the sounds of war crossbows firing, spraying the space forward of the fleet with multiple six-foot quarrels. Diving so hard it strained every sinew of her body, Aranya passed between the crossbows and the flying monk, knocking down two quarrels with her forepaws and taking a third low in her belly. Ri’arion whistled through the gap the Dragon had created. He smacked feet-first into a catapult emplacement on Garthion’s flagship, cracking it off of its base. Briefly, Aranya glimpsed Garthion’s face in the forward crysglass window. The Sylakian vanished into the interior of his vessel.

  Another Dragonship exploded.

  Suddenly the battle was all heat and smoke and crazy flying. Zuziana shot and shot, penetrating Dragonship armour with almost every shot now, her face set in a manic grin as she drew that powerful Pygmy bow to its limit. Aranya remembered flinging a fireball into the knot of Sylakians pouring in through the castle gates; seeing Yolathion wading hip-deep through Sylakian warriors in a battle-rage all of his own, wielding a hammer in either hand, his helm long since lost and his breastplate flapping wildly off one strap. She shot three spaced-out fireballs into the heart of a Dragonship, setting the furnace room alight. An explosion was not long in following.

  But always Garthion’s flagship mocked them, coasting forward, its catapults and war crossbows working at full capacity, dealing out death on every side. She was dimly aware of Ri’arion’s prese
nce inside its four-hundred foot length, fighting his way toward Garthion himself. The flagship crested the castle now, shadowing the courtyard with its forbidding bulk. The group slowed; the turbines whined in reverse. Garthion clearly intended to destroy the heavy catapult emplacements located around the battlements before taking on King Beran himself. In a moment, Aranya realised, burning oil would rain down. The courtyard would become a charnel-house.

  Magic shocked her.

  It struck her senses an almighty blow; an alertness to great magic somewhere within Garthion’s flagship. Aranya reeled in her flight. What, by the Islands … Ri’arion? What had he done, this time?

  A roar trembled the Dragonship from bow to stern, shaking many of the Sylakian warriors off their perches. She saw the monk shouldering his way through a starboard-side door, kicking a warrior out of his way, diving desperately to one side as a massive, five-clawed foot smashed through the armoured side of the cabin right next to him. Ri’arion hacked away frantically, but one huge toe curled around his waist and held the monk fast.

  Aranya froze. Dragon!

  “Dragon,” Zuziana whimpered. “Him …”

  I am Garthion!

  Three more limbs, as thick as tree-trunks, tore through the Dragonship’s sides and base. The entire cabin seemed to swell with an inner pressure. Portholes cracked with sharp reports and splintered outward. The side gantries groaned and bent like wet reeds.

  Aranya’s hearts galloped in her chest. She could not believe it. Garthion was a Shapeshifter!

  “Ri’arion!” screamed her Rider.

  The monk wiped the blood streaming into his eyes from a cut in his forehead. He seemed to be shouting at them to attack. Instinctively, Aranya lined them up with the flagship. “Don’t let Garthion escape! No … don’t shoot!”

  Catapult-shot pounded her side, but Aranya held firm. Ri’arion fought the Dragon with his magic, somehow preventing its opposing thumbs from grasping him–otherwise he would have been crushed instantly. Dropping his great sword, he sawed at the toe with his dagger. But the bone was thicker than his thigh. Aranya willed him to escape. But the monk was wounded, too. His right leg was a mass of blood, and he was moving as though to favour his ribs. The Dragon held him immovably against the cabin’s metal wall. How, by the mountains of Immadia, would Zip ever pierce the heavy armour of that Dragonship? Even as she watched, two crossbow quarrels shot from below simply stuck in the armour, not penetrating more than a couple of inches.