by Lucinda Hare
Root groaned. He knew what she said was true. He had already tried once before, counting one thousand, three hundred and two before his legs had given out on him, and as a result they had both missed a patrol briefing. Still … He glared, whether at Quenelda or at the porting disc he wasn’t quite sure, and then gave in gracelessly. ‘Oh, very well,’ he grumbled.
This was the last day of their visit before returning to Dragonsdome in time for the Yule festivities at the Royal Court. In three hectic days they had accompanied the SDS Commander as he toured the barracks, the forges, the armour pits and the roosts, talking to his men and watching them train for the approaching late winter campaign. The two of them had also been fleetingly shown around the cavernous flight hangars and dragonpads, and the harbour caverns crammed with battlegalleons. But these covered only a tiny fraction of this vast island fortress, and to Quenelda’s deep disappointment the Earl had no plans on this brief trip to visit the castle where the men of the SDS learned the art and strategy of warfare.
For as long as she could remember, Quenelda had wanted to enrol at the Battle Academy and become a Dragon Lord – those elite few Battle Mages who flew Imperial Blacks. Since the century of its founding, the seven peoples of the Sea Kingdoms had sent the best of their young to learn to fight their common foe, the hobgoblins, at this academy. But young ladies, tradition held, simply couldn’t fly dragons, let alone fiery-tempered, unpredictable battledragons. And they weren’t capable of Battle Magic. They should pursue more … feminine pursuits, Quenelda thought with a sneer. Like … like sewing tapestries and dancing. Well, she was a young lady and she could fly as if born to it. And one day soon, Quenelda swore, she too would be a Dragon Lord like her father, and this was her first chance to see what that would entail.
Unfortunately for Root, the denizens of the vast fortress moved about by using porting stones – discs carved with runes and imbued with sorcery that could whisk you from one point to another. Root hated the porting stones: they made him sick, just as flying used to, but Quenelda would never forgive him if they missed a tour of the Command in Control, the CIC – the operational heart of Dragon Isle. Training exercises were already underway: they had seen hundreds of dragons flying over the loch. Back on active duty, Tangnost too was out there somewhere, training rookie Bonecrackers and troll Marines from the Sea Reaver regiment. There had been neither sight nor sound of him since before the jousts, when he and his raw recruits were transferred to Dragon Isle for full-scale exercises with a hundred thousand veterans. Both Quenelda and Root missed him dearly and hoped to see him before they left.
‘CIC,’ Quenelda said clearly.
There was a sensation of tingling warmth. Root felt his knees buckle, and groaned. The rock about them blurred, then streaked, and the world turned bright white. Root’s stomach followed as an afterthought.
‘Ugghhhh …’ His protesting wail died away.
Suddenly they stopped, and Root’s knees gave way again. He felt sick, putting out a hand to steady himself as the world shuddered into focus about them – to reveal a large circular chamber shrouded in semi-darkness. Feeling wobbly, smothering a protesting belch from his stomach, Root followed Quenelda off the porting stone and into the operational centre of the SDS.
A quiet murmur rose up around them in the softly lit tower as they stood there, open-mouthed. Revolving spheres and three-dimensional displays hung and moved and spun about them while sorcerers at their centre stood or sat, touching or dragging or rotating the flowing, merging magical light … The massive stone walls of the tower were inset with ancient runes and Quenelda could feel the protective power of Battle Magic close about them. She and Root both jumped as the voices of pilots and navigators out on exercises filled the tower.
‘Red Leader, Red Leader, this is red two …’
‘On approach, vector three niner one …’
‘Come …’ The Earl beckoned the pair over to the centre of the room, where a group of armoured Dragon Lords were studying a three-dimensional display of the Sorcerers Glen. Above it, suspended in the air, were layered transparent grids overlaid with neon-blue runes.
‘Each battledragon has a unique signature.’ The Earl pointed towards the glyphs that moved across the huge tactical display above. The slightest movement of his hand revealed another beneath. ‘As does each Battle Mage.’ He beckoned a finger and the outline of a flying Imperial appeared between them, Bonecrackers storming up a wing from a battlegalleon. ‘Thus we know exactly where each and every dragon is within twenty leagues of the Sorcerers Glen, even when visibility is zero.’
‘Is Tempest Talonstrike ready for takeoff?’ The Earl turned to his second-in-command, the Strike Commander of Dragon Isle, a man he introduced as Jakart DeBessert. Quenelda looked at the tall blond officer with his warrior’s braid, wondering how he had taken the news that his only son, Guy, had lost a hand because of her brother Darcy’s bungled attempt to fly a battlegriff.
‘Fully prepped, Commander,’ DeBessert acknowledged. ‘Recruits are boarding now.’
The Earl looked at his daughter gravely. ‘Time, Goose, to return to Court and thereafter to your studies.’
Quenelda’s face fell. The Court! Her studies! She didn’t know which was worse. She sighed theatrically.
‘You know that the Queen has specifically requested that you attend this year’s Yule festivities,’ the Earl chided her gently. ‘You are to sit at the high table – a rare honour.’
Quenelda pouted to show what she thought of the honour. She had conveniently forgotten the Queen’s final command on the day of the joust; had put the ghastly idea out of her mind. She would have to wear a dress again. How she hated dresses! And the other young ladies would all mock her and laugh at her rough manners and poor etiquette, as they always had. She hated going to Court! Root saw the light go out of her eyes, the resigned droop of her shoulders. So did the Earl. Unexpectedly, he smiled.
‘An Imperial will be taking off for Dragonsdome in half a bell. I expect the pair of you to be on it.’
‘What?’ Quenelda’s protest faltered. ‘W-what about Two Gulps? Why?’
‘Two Gulps will return later with me. The Imperial will be taking recruits on their first High Sky operation. I thought you might like to go with them …?’
Quenelda frowned, still reluctant to leave her beloved battledragon. ‘But why …? What?’ Her father’s words caught up with her. ‘Papa!’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Truly?’
Root couldn’t understand her joy. ‘You’ve flown lots of times with your father on Stormcracker, haven’t you?’
Quenelda nodded. ‘Yes. But only flying at Two Gulps’ pace, which is really slow. Never in full flight; it’s not normally allowed in the Glen because it creates such a huge backwash from their wings – it blows over boats and breaks windows. And never on an operational fully armoured Imperial with battlecrew!’ She was grinning from ear to ear, before another flash of realization hit her. ‘But … you’re not coming with us, Papa?
‘No. But you won’t be returning alone. I leave you in the very best of hands.’
‘Tangnost?’ Quenelda’s eyes lit up. ‘He’s returning with us?’
Her words were barely out of her mouth when, across the floor, the porting stone rippled. The blossoming light faded to reveal a familiar broad-shouldered outline.
‘Tangnost!’ Root and Quenelda turned to greet the Earl’s dragonmaster.
‘Yes,’ her father said warmly. ‘Tangnost is going to accompany you. I’m afraid I must stay here but’ – he raised a finger to forestall her appeal – ‘I promise, Goose, I promise I shall be back at Court in time for the Yule festivities in five days.’
Quenelda sighed. As long as he returned before she had to go to the Court.
‘But I still don’t understand,’ Root whispered to Quenelda. ‘Not on an operation? What difference does High Sky make?’
The Earl grinned wolfishly at his daughter’s esquire. ‘Wait and see, lad. Wait
and see.’ He looked at Tangnost. ‘Take care of them, Bearhugger,’ he said, before turning back to his officers.
CHAPTER THREE
May You Ride the Stars For Ever
The hangar deck rose slowly up to lock into the landing pad with a metallic boom. The Imperial dragon resting there was already armed and carrying a full complement of armoured Bonecrackers. Head craned upwards, Root thought he had never seen anything quite so huge in his life. How had he ever thought Chasing the Stars was scary? She was the size of a midge compared to this giant battledragon. Quenelda stepped forward confidently, heading for the Imperial’s head, but Root hesitated on the gantry, trying to still the frantic beating of his heart. He reached out tentatively to touch the tip of a huge tailspike, then suddenly remembered that these mighty dragons had magic of their own and stepped hastily backwards into Tangnost.
‘Root …’ the dwarf said softly. ‘No need to worry, lad. I’ll take care of you. Follow me.’
The young gnome swallowed, trying to keep his breathing normal and slow as Tangnost led him to the base of the tail and up the half-dozen rungs driven into the dragon’s armoured hide.
‘Up you go, lad. I’m right behind you.’
It was Root’s first ride on one of the great battledragons. As he climbed up and up the Imperial’s tail, he felt his knees start to wobble, the fear of flying and heights creeping up to ambush him just when he thought he had conquered it. It was like climbing a mountain, a rocky boulder-strewn mountain. The Imperial’s pebbled armour plates were utterly different to the smooth hide of Chasing the Stars, or the scales of Two Gulps.
Three hundred nervous recruits were buckling up onto the twin spinal plates as Tangnost led Root the entire length of the dragon’s spine.
‘Right, lad,’ the dragonmaster said, strapping the gnome securely into his seat. ‘I’m going to be right there beside you.’ He pointed towards the seat behind the navigator’s chair, before going to inspect the last of the men climbing up the dragon’s wings, roaring, ‘This is your first experience of the Drop Dead Manoeuvre. If you survive this final test, you get your SDS wings and are ready for active service! Make sure all your equipment is tightly stowed. This ride is going to rattle every bone in your body.’
‘D-D-Drop Dead?’ Root squeaked, but Tangnost had moved out of earshot.
Meanwhile Quenelda was greeting the dragon: May the wind always sail under your wings, Tempest Talonstrike …
May you ride the stars for ever …
Tempest Talonstrike’s reply was courteous, but then the dragon turned her mind back to her tasks and the commands of the Dragon Lord to whom she was bonded. High overhead, without being aware of this conversation, the pilot and navigator went through their pre-flight preparation.
‘Warming up …’
‘Navigation … Wind speed … Cloud density at three thousand strides …’
‘Black One, Black One, this is Seadragon Tower. You are cleared for immediate takeoff. Flight path one six niner …’
Talonstrike stretched out her wings, ready to warm up. Quenelda quickly climbed the rising wing to sit down beside her pale-faced esquire, who was fumbling with the helmet he had been given.
‘What is the D-Drop Dead Manoeuvre?’ he asked nervously, knowing that whatever the answer was, he was not going to like it.
‘Ummm … it’s like what we did when we flew here. When the dragons lose height rapidly, only instead of gliding down, we drop.’
‘Drop?’
‘Mmn,’ Quenelda nodded. ‘Straight as a stone down a well. It’s’ – Quenelda chose her words carefully to reassure her friend – ‘it’s not as scary, because on the Imperials it’s as if the landscape moves and not you. The dragon’s so big you can’t see yourself dropping. The Imperial’s own magic will keep you safe.’
As Tangnost strode up to take his seat, it took a few heartbeats for Root to realize that Talonstrike had already taken off. Then they fell away from the pads with mind-numbing speed, but it was so smooth that he wasn’t feeling at all airsick. This isn’t so bad, he thought.
Then the pilot gave the Imperial her head. With a sound like a thunderclap, the dragon’s great wings rose and fell. The speed was breathtaking. Familiar landmarks streaked past in a blur. Quenelda, so familiar with flying on Stormcracker, had never flown at speeds like this: the mountain peaks sped by and the battledragon ate up the leagues.
‘The Corkscrewwww!’ Quenelda helpfully informed Root as the world about them tipped and spun three times.
‘Aaaarrrgh!’ Root’s petrified shriek was lost among the cries of three hundred recruits, and then they were climbing vertically at a ferocious speed, held in place only by their strong harnesses. Someone’s shield was swept away, ricocheting off a spinal plate before disappearing into the blue void.
Up …
And up …
And up …
Talonstrike took Quenelda and Root higher than they had ever flown before, up to where they could see the horizon of the One Earth curving away below. The air was freezing, and the snow-covered highlands, lochs and islands below looked like an exquisitely rendered map in white, russet and heather-purple. As they climbed ever higher, the vivid icy blue about them slowly grew darker. Soon stars appeared, and the heavens spun with them. The battledragon glided soundlessly. Frost cracked on her wings.
‘Right lads,’ Tangnost bellowed into the thin silence. ‘Drop Dead!’ And then the dragon raised and folded her outstretched wings to her sides and they plummeted down.
Down …
And down …
And down …
And as the dragon’s wings levelled out, to her deep embarrassment, Quenelda was heartily sick.
‘Dragonsdome to Tempest Talonstrike. You are cleared to land on pad one. Wind light and easterly. Approach vector clear …’
‘Locked on and closing,’ the navigator responded.
As the battledragon swung around the Black Isle and slowed on her final approach to Dragonsdome, Tangnost came for them both where they sat frozen and shaking, blood drumming through their heads, fingers numb, teeth chattering. He helped them with their buckles.
‘Come on.’ He grinned as they both stood on wobbly legs and followed him slowly up to the withers of the great beast.
‘My lady,’ the pilot said, unbuckling his harness and then standing to one side, ‘would you care to pilot us in?’ He gestured to the elaborately sculpted pilot’s chair, the arms inset with a sophisticated array of battle runes and marks.
Quenelda stared. ‘Me? Truly?’ And then she realized that this was Tangnost’s idea, a Yule gift from the heart. She turned and flung her arms about him.
The corners of his mouth kicked up in acknowledgement. ‘You earned it for what you did in the Cauldron. Most final year cadets on Dragon Isle couldn’t have done as well.’
As Quenelda lowered herself into the chair, the navigator stood up, lifting the fearsome visor of his dragon helmet. ‘Root Barkley,’ he said solemnly, ‘would you like to navigate?’
‘Me?’ Root’s head spun. First he was given a dragon of his own and now this. He stepped into the huge navigator’s chair with its baffling set of instruments. The world changed as the Dragon Lord placed his helmet on the gnome boy’s head. The helmet was heavy, and then the visor’s display filled his vision with scrolling graphs and grids and bright runes that flickered swiftly and then were gone.
Heart thumping, the cold forgotten, Quenelda held the reins lightly. She knew that this great battledragon could land without her help, but she was the one in the pilot’s seat! She was the one flying a fully operational and crewed Imperial Black towards Dragonsdome’s great keep.
‘You are cleared for landing …’ The voice rang in Root’s ears. ‘Vector approach two zero five …’
The Earl’s dragonpad was anchored halfway up the keep. Red landing lights flickered on and off. The blast of a horn reverberated across the dragonpads and gantries as the deck crew stood by. Tempest Talonstr
ike’s rear claws were splayed, seeking contact with the decking as the mare raised her wings and dropped the final twenty strides. And then they were home – to a collective sigh of relief!
CHAPTER FOUR
The Razorback Brood
The knifing wind blowing in from the sea was sharp with salt and the promise of yet more snow. Wrapped in a heavy cloak and warmed by the Dark Magic that coursed through his veins, the Grand Master, the Lord Hugo Mandrake, stood on the clifftops of Roarkinch and watched the sea break on the rocks below. Here, on this desolate storm-lashed island north of the mainland, lay the true centre of his power. Following his failed attempt to kill the Earl Rufus, the Grand Master was here in the north, supposedly raising two regiments of Bonecrackers for the planned attack on the Westering Isles. Instead, he was making sure that the SDS would never return home from the forthcoming battle with the hobgoblins. Turning abruptly, he crossed his castle’s inner bailey and descended the rough-hewn rock steps that led down into the ancient dragoncombs.
It was here that he had first tapped into the Maelstrom; here too that he had conjured an elixir that allowed him to wield the immense corrosive power of dark destruction that would otherwise have long since killed him. Instead, immortality and a new Dark Age beckoned. But first the kingdom’s ancient guardians must fall. The supposedly invincible SDS must be destroyed, their reputation and power broken. To whom, then, apart from himself would the Queen turn to guard her northern shores against the hobgoblin swarms? He would first claim her hand in marriage, and then usurp her crown.
To this end, using the Maelstrom, he had been crossbreeding stolen pedigree battledragons and hobgoblins. He gave these evil creatures shape and form and a name: Razorbacks. A dragon conjured to carry its most hated enemy, the hobgoblins. The Grand Master paused to consider a young Razorback brood that slithered and coiled unceasingly below him, the rasp of their sharp spines rattling like shale on the shore. Feeding on a diluted Maelstrom brew, already they were large, each the size of a full-grown bull, growing daily. Soon they would exceed the size of a Sabretooth; but unlike Midnight Madness, the unstable rogue dragon he had unleashed at the Winter Jousts, whose dark side was hidden, these foul creatures were evidently as much hobgoblin as dragon: amphibious, carnivorous, voracious pack hunters who were bound to serve him. And they spewed Dark Magic the like of which the SDS had not seen since the Mage Wars; forbidden Dark Magic. And none would know how to fight it. The Seven Sea Kingdoms would fall and ultimate power would be his!