by Jody Wallace
“OOOF! FECKING WIZARDS.” She’d landed directly on top of Barnabas’s attacker. With its caster clearly flattened to death, the rope spell vanished. Nadia arched her neck and nosed him. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”
He wrapped an arm around her neck and let her pull him to his feet. In dragon form, her sweet breath was hot and reassuring, but tears glittered in her giant blue eyes. “Shift back to human and let’s leave this place, my dear.” He spotted the water amulet and set about creating more smoke. The red wizards would be back, and they needed camouflage.
“CAN’T. OUT OF MAGIC.” She raised her body a smidge, glanced beneath herself, and shuddered. “THAT IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE KILLED SOMEONE. IT FEELS TERRIBLE.”
How could he protect her dragon form? “Your conscience will be assuaged when we survive this.”
“NO, I MEAN, THE BODY BENEATH ME FEELS TERRIBLE. POKY BONES AND GOOSHY BITS. I MAY THROW UP.”
Indeed, her silver nostrils faded to a greenish shade. “Not here. Can you fit into the guard tower? We need to escape these infernal flames. And also, if you could lower your voice…”
Blood dribbled from her wounds, though most of them were cauterized burns. She took a deep breath and dragon-whispered. “It’s not large enough. We’d bake to death in there.”
“And you cannot fly.” Dragons on foot were, for the most part, not agile. And she wasn’t small, like a crystal dragon, that she could be hidden. Nevertheless, it was ridiculous not to try to escape. “The front gate is likely to be guarded.” And collapsed and flaming. “The servants’ gate is this way.”
They trotted as fast as she could manage through the flames and smoke. She hissed and swore, less able to avoid sparks and embers than he was. None of Victoria’s forces attacked them because Nadia wasn’t a red, and he took great care to hide behind her body. Simply being a male meant he would stand out here and raise suspicions.
“I can still feel her squishing under my bum,” Nadia complained. “Nightmarish.”
But their presence on the ground was soon noted. They had just reached the kitchen gardens when a large white dragon hurtled above them, banked, and swooped back. The dragon’s regalia was the governor’s, and several more white dragons accompanied her.
“There you are, girl,” Victoria exclaimed, her voice amplified by magic. “Shift back to human and come with me. I need to get you out of here.”
Nadia froze in one spot, staring at the sky with anguish on her face. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
“Thrall crystal.”
Hell’s bells, had they gotten it implanted after all? Magic shimmered around her, but she didn’t change. “I don’t have enough magic.” Nadia coughed. “Your Grace. Anyway, I’d rather die!”
Victoria ordered her dragon to land while her guards flanked them in the air, protecting them from the red wizards who screamed and flamed nearby. “You will if you don’t come with me.” She unseated herself and leapt to the ground, agile like only a trained warrior could be. Victoria was not one of those non-participatory despots. She got her hands dirty alongside her forces. “And who are you, man? What are you doing with my silver?”
Barnabas assessed Victoria the Valiant and located his water amulet as subtly as possible in his coat pocket. Water was very effective against the ice magic she’d doubtless been channeling from the white dragon. How much did she have left?
A thrall crystal made a dragon vulnerable to a wizard’s touch, vulnerable to her commands. But Victoria had given no orders, so Nadia responded defensively.
“This is my wizard. Not the other way around. And you should know he has foreseen your defeat.” Nadia swirled her neck around him. Granted, she had no idea what Barnabas had seen, but it wasn’t that.
“Are you two a part of this shite?” Victoria asked, glaring at them. The blood tracker locket pulsed silver, since it had located its prey. Not that she needed it if Nadia had a thrall crystal somewhere inside her.
“Absolutely not,” Barnabas said. Which of Nadia’s wounds was the insertion point? Or had it been healed already? “Shula would be a worse governor even than you.”
“I’m not all that bad,” Victoria responded. Above them, the white wizards fended off a phalanx of reds. Ice and fire spattered to the ground, reminding Barnabas that Victoria was not the only threat. But his sun shield was gone. “Just a bit land-grabby, and I have my reasons. I’ve had my eye on Shula, and if you’d been here, Silver, I could have kept this from happening. People are dying because of you.”
Nadia ducked her head. “No, I—”
“Do you realize how many coups I’ve had to circumvent? It’s not just about conquest, child.” Victoria threw up her hands. As if she’d signaled it, twin firebombs crashed to either side of them, like pyrotechnics. “And look at your wing. What have they done to you?”
Nadia whimpered. Victoria dragged a long, thin stick from a sword scabbard, and Barnabas recognized it at once. It was a thrall crystal wand.
“Do not come any closer with that,” he ordered her.
“A man will not tell me what to do.” Victoria clutched a talisman—apparently she didn’t shun them—and the wand began to heat. “Let’s get some backup crystals implanted before you run away again. I’m thinking teeth. Open wide.”
Nadia’s jaws gaped obediently…but then her head darted forward like a snake. She bit the red-hot thrall wand and Victoria’s arm. Both women screamed, though Nadia did it with her jaws closed on the governor. The iron wand branded her mouth.
“How are you doing this? You can’t hurt me. You’ve got a thrall crystal inside you!” Victoria struggled and Nadia growled.
Barnabas didn’t question how Nadia was able to defy the thrall magic. He darted forward and joined in the struggle, hoping to grab the amulet, the wand, the tracker, anything to stop this. He slapped the ice amulet on the wand and chilled it so quickly that it snapped in half.
“You’ll tear my arm off!” Victoria shouted, horrified. “Stop!”
Nadia closed her eyes. Her jaws eased—but she didn’t open her mouth.
“Give us the tracker and let us go,” Barnabas said. “And you will take orders from this man because I don’t think you’re in complete control of this dragon. I don’t think the thrall spell set, did it?”
Victoria panted, in obvious pain. “She shifted…during the ceremony. Must have interrupted the circuit. Well, it will solidify soon enough. Nadia, I command you to release me.”
Nadia growled deep in her throat while tears streamed down her silver face. Her curved horns gleamed in the firelight like mirrors. It was clear the thrall crystal had some effect on her, and that effect would increase the longer it was inside her body.
“Mmmf mrrrrrrrrrr!” Nadia swore.
“I assume she just called me a very naughty name.” Victoria was sweating, and blood dribbled from the sides of Nadia’s clenched jaw. It wasn’t Nadia’s. “This is not how I envisioned my day going. I thought I’d get my silver back, foresee that damned Shula’s rebellion, and stop it.”
“The way your palace looks, you should probably focus on that instead of on us,” Barnabas reached out and yanked the tracker from her neck. “Do you yield, Governor?”
Nadia growled again. Her lip quivered, and he heard bones crack.
Victoria, undaunted in a way that Barnabas had to respect, growled back. “This…is…gonna…hurt. So much.”
She hurled herself backward, leaving her forearm in Nadia’s mouth. At the same time, one of the white dragons crashed into the nearest tower, half-ablaze and howling. Red dragons thudded to the ground around them, encircling them, and Shula led the charge.
“Now you will all die!” she proclaimed. Every wizard raised her hands, blazing with incendiary fire. His water amulet wasn’t going to be enough. What else was in his bandolier?
“Fecking wizards,” Victoria cursed. Bleeding profusely from her stump, she threw herself into Nadia and Barnabas as if her average-sized body would save th
em from the flames.
Chapter Twelve
The massive crystal spell that Victoria cast nearly wrenched out Nadia’s insides. She’d never been transported in dragon form and she had no idea how Victoria had done it.
They emerged from the magic in a deep, rocky crater, cliffs rising sharply around them. It appeared to be, based on the fact that the rock was wildly colored flowstone, a defunct volcano. Strange firefly creatures blinked all around the moss-covered magma chamber, and the glowing fungus Nadia had noticed in the ancient ruins clung to some of the walls.
Barnabas held a gun pointed at Victoria. “Where are we?”
“Welcome to my thinking place,” Victoria said. Blood seeped from her stump, though she’d wrapped a tourniquet around it. Then she toppled over, unconscious.
“I’m going to be sick now.” Nadia swerved her face away from Barnabas and spit out Victoria’s blood. If she were a human, she’d vomit. Her wing had been mangled by an iron dragon, her body had been jabbed and burned, and every one of her bones felt like rock. “Do you have any mouthwash? Cookies? Beer?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.” Barnabas’s warm hand on her shoulder and the soothing sensation of healing magic eased Nadia’s aches but not her fears. He consumed two amulets before her wing was repaired. She flapped experimentally, confident she could fly them out of this volcano.
Except she wouldn’t be able to desert Victoria. Damn and blast! With the governor unconscious, the thrall crystal in Nadia’s body wasn’t as persuasive, but it still linked them. It would soon take hold and instate the governor’s authority over her.
Unless…
“Let her die,” she told Barnabas, curling her tail around herself like a cat. That was one way to thwart the crystal. At least until some other wizard latched onto it. She wished she could remember where they’d implanted it, but Kinjo had jabbed her with that poker so many times.
“I cannot. She saved your life, and thus I am in her debt.” Barnabas plucked a green jade figurine from his clever bandolier of talismans. He knelt beside Victoria’s prone form and began the healing process.
Soft, green light danced over the other woman’s arm and body until she jerked into a sitting position with a harsh gasp. Dragon magic—there was nothing like it in the universe. As soon as Victoria woke, Barnabas cut off the flow and stepped back.
He pointed the gun at her with one hand and a fire amulet with the other.
“I figured you’d let me die,” she observed, accurately in Nadia’s case.
“And yet you saved us anyway when you might have transported yourself to a healer,” Barnabas observed. His gun, however, didn’t waver, though Victoria didn’t seem concerned about it. “Why?”
“I care for my people. It’s my job to protect them, even when they’re ten ton dragons.” She rose shakily, adjusting her battle armor, and regarded her stump with disgust. “Well, too bad for your soft hearts. Nadia, your man can live, but you’re going to have to come home with me. We have work to do. A traitor to punish. A province to maintain.”
Nadia bowed her head. This was the end. But at least she and Barnabas had survived. “I know.”
“You will not take her.” Barnabas’s deep voice brooked no argument. All this time, he’d managed to keep on his hat. It didn’t even show any of the soot and ash that covered the rest of his clothing. “I will kill you.”
“But you just healed me,” Victoria said, throwing up her good hand. “That’s utter nonsense.”
Barnabas inclined his head in that regal fashion of his. “Not exactly. I need you to tell me where the thrall crystal is so I can remove it.”
“I’m not going to do that.” Victoria offered him the stump. “I’m pretty drained of magic, I can barely stand, and the only amulet I’ve got on me is transportation. I think. Want to torture me?”
He huffed out a sigh. “I do not.”
“I kind of do,” Nadia grumbled. But she recognized, already, that the thrall had injected itself too deeply. She couldn’t hurt Victoria, though she could step aside if Barnabas wanted to hurt her. Probably.
“Of course you do, dear,” Victoria told her. “It’s one of the things I find so charming about you.”
Barnabas angled his wrist and shot the pistol into the ground at Victoria’s feet. Rock splattered everywhere, and she yelped and lurched back. “Where is the thrall crystal?”
“I honestly don’t even know.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you can sense it.”
“Not yet. But if I get close enough to touch her…”
Barnabas cocked the gun again. “If you touch her, you’ll probably have her sit on me.” The control of a wizard over a dragon increased with touch. Victoria couldn’t milk any magic out of Nadia right now, but thrall crystals expanded beyond that.
“I hear it’s effective on green wizards.” Victoria clasped her wounded arm to her chest. “Can we please cease this monkeying about? Either kill me or give me my dragon, sir. I am very tired and I need to find my arm before one of the kitchen dogs runs across it.”
Nadia’s stomach lurched. “Don’t remind me of either of those things. Ever again.”
“Dragon, I’ll remind of you whatever I wish,” Victoria said. “Such as how much you owe me.”
“And you owe me,” Barnabas reminded her. “It would seem that we cancel out, wouldn’t you say?”
He was the valiant one, not Victoria. She wished she could say goodbye to him in her human form, but she hadn’t built up enough power. As soon as she did, no doubt Victoria would slurp it up, predict the easiest way to vanquish her enemies, and give Nadia the ague as punishment. But knowing Barnabas was alive, knowing he loved her so much he’d faced certain death to rescue her, would hopefully comfort her when she was trapped in the Valiant stable.
Nadia heaved a sigh so huge that it tumbled small pebbles across the ground.
“No, it doesn’t cancel out.” Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing, wizard?”
Barnabas placed the fire amulet in its slot in his bandolier and let his fingers trail down the row of enchanted charms. He finally plucked one out, a dried twig. “Do stay put, Your Grace.”
Magic streamed from him and vines erupted from the rocky soil, wrapping themselves around Victoria. She cursed and immediately began struggling. When the vines reached her neck, he tucked the twig into the bandolier.
Next he located a scrappy, shabby thing near the bottom of the strap. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought it was a hairball coughed up by a cat. “Do you remember what I said about that experimental amulet? I never had a chance to recalibrate it to the blood tracker. I, well, this might sting a bit.”
“What?” Nadia asked. “How can that be a talisman?”
Barnabas pulled a string from the wad and laid it across her snout. “Hold…very…still.”
The reason why soon became clear when the magical thread burrowed beneath her skin. The pin-prickling sensation, followed by a squiggle through her lattice, set Nadia’s nerve endings on fire.
How could this be effective magic? It was torture. “This is terrible!”
“Don’t hurt her,” Victoria warned. “I won’t have it.”
“You let Kinjo hurt me,” Nadia spat at her before yelping with pain.
Barnabas placed more threads on her, and they drilled into her body, or their magic did. She was covered by itching, stinging, squiggling, demonic needles that zipped through her like Kinjo’s thrall spell. They converged in a painful lump—at the base of her tail.
She tried to swivel her neck and see what Barnabas was doing, but she was too itchy to focus. She rubbed the spines along her neck against her shoulder, scratching ecstatically. “Make it stop, Barnabas. Hurry.”
“There it is.” Barnabas’s fingers, which felt like icepicks, probed her. “I can feel it.”
“What?” Nadia managed through gritted teeth. The itch just wouldn’t go away. She lifted a paw and went to work on her breast
.
“You can’t possibly have done what I think you just did,” Victoria called out. “That could have killed her. How dare you? She might be the only silver dragon in the world, sirrah, and you—”
Barnabas pointed the twig at Victoria, and the vines whipped around her head until they gagged her. “Shut. Up.”
He returned to the sore spot on Nadia’s hide. “Darling, remember when you removed that thrall crystal from your body? I’m going to remove the new one, and I’ve got just enough juice in this healing crystal to prevent any bleeding.” He glared across at Victoria, who was kicking and wriggling against the vines. “We won’t be leaving any blood behind.”
“I trust you,” Nadia said, pausing her scratches, right before icy misery plunged into her skin. “Eeeeeeee!”
The healing crystal didn’t dissipate the pain, but Barnabas was finished quickly. “Got it.”
The minute he was done, she sensed the absence of itching and the removal of Victoria’s domination. Freedom healed her soul, for the second time in two weeks. She whirled on Victoria.
“I should bite you in half,” she snarled.
“Mmmf mrrrrrrrrrr.” Only the governor’s eyes glistened through the vines. Nadia craned forward, closer, closer, until Victoria’s eyes bulged. Then she delicately bit the vines off Victoria’s face.
Nadia lowered her voice to a dragon whisper, which was still loud for human ears. “You will never rule me again. Oh, and do not go near the Earth portal under pain of death.”
“The Earth portal?” Victoria spat out a leaf. “Why would I care about that?”
“It seemed like a fairly ominous pronouncement. I could still work up the stomach to kill you, you know.” Nadia rose, sitting on her haunches, and inspected the hole in her tail. Barnabas set the thrall crystal on a volcanic rock and smashed it with the butt of the pistol. “But seriously. Don’t go to Earth. It’s a terrible place. Very polluted, and their wizards don’t need dragons to do magic.” She smiled a very toothy dragon smile, and Victoria winced. “They would outclass you instantly.”