by Marc Secchia
Right. Time to shift that beast just a little further.
With a few macho growls and yells, and at risk of bending the haft of his battle-axe, Asturbar finally succeeded in levering the column upward and sideways until it rotated a third of its diameter. Impressive! He hunkered down to check the hole. Absolutely nothing, just more blue rock. What now, Huffy and Puffy?
Chirr! Squee! A-whee!
Clearly, time to get digging – if he could.
To his surprise, after he cracked through a crusty, inch-thick layer at the base of the hole, the shovel found space beneath – and a very good thing he did not poke his hand in to investigate, because Huffy wriggled into the hole Asturbar had created and returned with a snake. A white-yellow, metallic, clearly draconic snake some four feet in length, fronted by a strangely puckered-up mouth that looked exactly as if it had swallowed something nasty. Judging by the way Huffy was handling the unfortunate evacuee, however, Asturbar assumed it was toxic. And very heavy.
Slipping off his shirt, he said, Here. Let me bundle it up for you.
Puffy pointed to an area beneath the tail. Chrr-urk-wah!
Stinger? No problem. Shirt and belt, then. He didn’t want to touch this find with his hands, if he could help it.
Maybe coming in half undressed would encourage Nyahi’s recovery?
Upon his return, the process that followed was as confusing as it was troubling. Eventually he and Flower managed to understand each other. Asturbar used a bit of cloth stretched over a cup to milk the squirming creature of a few drops of smoking, virulent venom that he had to immediately toss onto the fire. Then it was abandon Dragonship. Slam the door behind him. Wait for what had to be the longest hour of his life, leap to his feet as the girl began coughing as if she intended to hack out her lungs, only to have his way barred again by the dragonets.
No, said Flower.
She’s dying in there! Can’t you … can’t you understand?
Backup Scamp landed on his shoulder and rubbed her muzzle against his cheek. Nice soldier. Soorrriii?
Now they were all speaking! Rascals.
Look, I can’t just stand here while she suffers. Can’t I do anything?
Flower indicated the snake thing. Put back. Iridi – now see? Like Iri guurrrlll.
Irid … it’s an iridium snake? His jaw almost unhinged itself. That was what the dragonets had discovered, or known all along? What will the venom do? Heal her? Perhaps iridium was key to her healing, or more accurately, to the foundations of her magic?
Backup Scamp drew himself up with a regal air. Terwuffily!
Truly, scolded Prime.
Asturbar returned the creature to its hideout as quickly as he could – it looked even less impressed than before at this treatment, spitting spitefully at him and writhing in an attempt to find a nice chunky Azingloriax thigh to penetrate with its stinger – before rushing back to the hut. He paced in tight, agitated circles whilst inside, his patient coughed and hacked and choked. He remonstrated with Flower at least a dozen times. No go, insisted the dragonet. Bootie liffen.
“Pox-sucking bantalizards!” he roared at last. “What does it take?”
“Boots? Is … that …”
He was inside before Flower had finished miming for him to hold his breath. He could do that. The fumes inside were thick and acrid, irritating his eyes, nose and throat, so he stumbled through to the bedroom to throw open the shutters and clear the foul air.
All he knew was the slits of oh-so-blue eyes watching him from the bed, and her soft exhalation, “Oh, Boots … I missed you. I’m starving. What’s cooking?”
Chapter 14: Trouble in Paradise
ONCE IRIDIANA WAS able to sit up, sip water and nibble at a few Isles delicacies that Asturbar pored over in her kitchen area, Iridiana began to recover her appetite and it seemed to Asturbar that the girl swelled before his very eyes. Within a day or two she was packing away her meals with the zest of a starving Dragoness. Seven dragonets? The scamps were kept constantly on the wing by Iridiana’s ‘snack’ requests and the soldier began to feel as if he had been tied to the kitchen table, so many hours did he spend preparing edibles for them all. Yet, what a joy! Her skin recovered its silvery-blue lustre, her smile even more lustre, and he might even have admitted to a spot of lust-over-her himself.
He was very well behaved, however. Very restrained – which meant, his training boulders received a great deal of use and abuse. He might have exercised a little obsessively, say. Purely in celebration.
Eventually, Nyahi rose from her bed and seized him by the collar of his shirt. “Whilst I appreciate your treating me like a fragile vase, Big Boots, I am not as frail as you seem to think. Now get into bed with me, or else!”
“Or else … what?” he grinned.
“I’ll show you what else!”
Apparently ‘what else’ was a far-reaching and surprisingly detailed topic.
The oasis had been ravaged by the storm, but again, with that singular resilience shown after the sunlocust plague, signs of recovery were evident from very early on. Asturbar noticed a few new nodes growing along the Island-binders, fresh, lime-green and turquoise growth bursting out everywhere, and the waterfalls had once more reconfigured themselves into new and enticing patterns. Now there was a three-joins-one waterfall to the Northern aspect of the Island, and a spectacular nineteen-drop waterfall to its Eastern quarter.
Asturbar clomped his boots on the ground. “Hear this? You’re doing well – keep it up, Island!”
Nyahi laughed brightly at him. “Oh, Boots, you are a hoot!”
Linking his left elbow into hers, he whirled her into a capering dance. “We are sailing forth into the unknown, my dear little anemone-Dragoness, and every day our destiny grows – curse it! Get under cover!”
“What? What is it, Boots?”
He glanced over his shoulder for confirmation. “Run. Take shelter in the hut, Nyahi.”
“Asturbar! I can’t see …”
He growled, “Sorry. I’m being Mister Stupid – there’s a Dragonship out there. Just the other side of those Islands, behind that screen of foliage … who the hells knows how long they’ve been scouting us? We might already have been spotted. And, it’s Chanbar. They’re flying Mistral colours.”
A dry Doldrums afternoon had never seemed so chill.
She ran with him, half-crouched; he rued the bright colours of her pretty sky-blue dress. Nyahi gasped, “What would bring them back? Why have they come, Boots?”
He pressed her toward the rope. “Climb down. One thing’s for sure, Marshal Chanbar doesn’t change his mind easily. Either they’ve discovered my theft and their mistake in dumping me out here, or something else has changed – either way, I doubt your health or mine is the issue at stake.” With the ease of long practice, he rappelled down after her. “I strongly suspect it’ll be shoot first and ask questions of the corpses afterward.”
“Azhukazi?”
“Maybe. He could be hiding behind a glamour shield.”
The girl was nimbler than he, and pleasingly quick to complete the descent. Once she had cleared the way, Asturbar slid the last twenty feet, landing with flexed knees. “As a first priority, let’s get you safe.”
Phew. That earned him a glare bathed in living fire. A, ‘who’s the Dragoness in this relationship?’ sort of glare. Perfectly valid point.
“Why don’t we, uh …” he spluttered. “Let’s –”
“Let’s plan to steal that Dragonship,” she stated calmly.
Asturbar stared at his young, gorgeous, unworldly girlfriend. She stared at a crusty, bewildered, beaming mercenary. They both burst out laughing at the same time.
Grabbing his girl with what might, in genteel circles, have been regarded as a despicably piratical air, Asturbar set about kissing her breathless. Eventually, he gasped, “You know, Nyahi, you’re seventeen million shades of amazing. What would we do with a Dragonship?”
“Silly question. We fly away from here, o
f course,” she chuckled breathily. “Together. Boots, this doesn’t exactly pass for hiding – whoops! You rotten, decrepit excuse for a soldier’s boot … put me down.”
“No.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Not yet, you don’t. Allow me to explain. My dear Nyahi, you are about to become soldier bait.” She vented a screech of discontent at the vulgar term. “I meant, only insofar as you and your taste in spectacularly short skirts –”
“Now you tell me!”
“– which do happen to showcase the most incredible legs South of the Rift, might I hasten to add –”
“Keep digging yourself into that hole, soldier.”
“Very well. Are you suggesting I would constitute suitable bait?”
“Not even in your underwear.”
“Ah … and not with female soldiers? Please. A smidgen of credit, I beg of you.”
He snickered as a vicious growl erupted from her throat. With a low, throaty laugh, she opined, “Oh, I do believe my Dragoness wishes to advance a contrary opinion regarding your physical attractiveness, my lovely man mountain, clad in your scanty best! Very well, consider me bait this day, for which service you will most certainly pay dearly – later. My seduction services do not come cheap.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I assume you’re wanting to set them up for a nasty little accident?”
“Exactly. An ambush.” Sweeping her up into his arms, he strode along the path toward their hut, already surveying the terrain and making his calculations. “There are standard operations plans for situations like this. If I know Commander Bantukor in any measure – that’s my ex-friend, the one I told you about – he will not deviate from protocol. That means a minimum of eight Heavies on the ground backed up by four Lights carrying ranged weapons. So, let me tell you how this will go … honestly, you’re a terrible distraction!”
“Just practicing my technique, Commander Asturbar,” she murmured into his ear.
“Poor dupes don’t stand a chance.”
* * * *
Two hours later, Asturbar was puzzled, annoyed and very, very steamed indeed. The idea that soldiers of Bantukor’s ilk might shortly be ogling his girl made his blood boil, despite his having suggested the ploy. He was annoyed that they seemed to know exactly where the hut was located. How, was a pertinent question. A perceptive question. Either they had spied out the Island for days, or someone from Iridiana’s old home – someone very close indeed to her father, the Uxâtate or absolute ruler of Yazê-a-Kûz – had been blabbing. Chanbar must have an informant. The soldiers’ approach was too precise to be mistaken.
A long-range Dragonship such as was required to penetrate the Doldrums would not be carrying a full complement of soldiers. A dozen for a ground assault; two to four to remain behind on the Dragonship in case of exactly the surprise they were planning. A Steersman. Nothing more than that, because the weight of armour and soldiery was otherwise prohibitive – and Chanbar’s frugal ways would see it no differently. Eight Heavies should be more than enough to take Asturbar down, but not if he hit them first, and harder than they imagined. He hoped. There had not been a great deal of time to ready their defences, and the bigger issue would be those Lights. They could pin an unarmoured soldier with a paralytic poison dart before he came closer than fifty feet. Nyahi would have to deal with them. Could she keep her head in the heat of battle? They would find out.
He was puzzled the assault had taken so long to develop. What were they doing up there, smoking their pipes? The wind-still afternoon was wearing toward evening. Surely not a dawn assault, when all they thought they faced was one marooned soldier?
A slight hissing of cord against foliage alerted him. Finally!
He crouched lower behind the bushes sixty feet from the hut. His weapon of choice, a section of tree trunk, lay some thirty feet closer, where the cover was thinner. They were in for a few more surprises, if the Scamps could play their part.
In three groups of four, the team landed in synchronised waves, spreading out exactly as they had been trained. The soldiers would see a quiet hut, its chimney smoking gently. A pristine location. Smell the damp foliage and the tart notes of purple magisberries growing close by. Two Lights kept guard to the rear, while their two fellows took flanking positions that offered a clear line of fire. The Heavies moved in as two quartets. Textbook. Checking the approaches, the path to the rear of the hut, the ground for trail-sign. Sign there was, in the form of two half-imprints of Asturbar’s boots in the dust outside the hut – assuming it was him they were after, of course. That was a risk.
Eventually, they closed in. One team took the fore, while the other hung back, scanning the surrounds carefully. He did not recognise any of the soldiers. Good. Less regrets.
The leader took a legs akimbo stance opposite the front door, drew breath, and bellowed, “Commander Asturbar!”
A startled gasp inside. Simulated. That she did not otherwise blow the roof off the place in some pyretic transformation showed how far Iridiana had advanced in her control of the Chaos Magic – an oxymoron if ever he had heard one.
“Commander, you will come out slowly, with your hands where we can see them.”
They wore half-armour, or armour that was half the thickness and weight of full silver plate battle armour. Chanbar’s savings, again. The second team held a net at the ready, while the closer first team held their battle-axes limber, in hand. No chances for these men – yes, all men. His breath whispered over his lips. Excellent. This had all the hallmarks of a dead-or-alive operation. Either option was acceptable. No question which he preferred!
“Asturbar!”
The door creaked open and Nyahi sidled out. She did a beautiful job of making her entrance, from the shyly inward-turned foot to the nibbling of a strand of hair; now perfect startlement as she took in the sight of this armoured posse, but Asturbar tweaked a muscle in his neck as he glanced down the cleft to wonder. Once more, how was it possible that the very instant she emerged from that door, the rich golden suns-shine bent itself literally around a corner to gild her person to perfection? It was unnatural and definitely a misbehaviour of physics – perhaps, an effect that only a Chaos Shifter could perpetrate? Chaos magic. Maybe storms were more chaotic around her magic, too? He had not noticed nature otherwise behaving in unruly ways around her. Maybe he should pay more attention.
Mantled in the stunning glow of a fiery evening’s suns-shine, the girl smiled at the soldiers. “Ooh,” she murmured. “So many visitors. To what do I owe the honour?”
Asturbar could have sold their reaction for a shipload of platinum marks. The involuntary gawking. A couple of scattered gasps. Then, a ripple of nervous laughter. Hands relaxed upon weapons as the soldiers took in a sight which had Asturbar in the grips of the most virulent case of jealousy he had ever experienced. Ironically, it was not their ogling of her person or her long, gleaming legs that caused him to foment murder – many, many splendid and devious forms of murder – in his heart, but the fact that she had brushed her hair out to its full sable glory for the occasion.
By all that was holy, he would kill them!
Asturbar saw a world washed bloody with the colour of his fury.
He blinked. The infantry leader was speaking to her, asking her where he might be. Nyahi responded coyly, not quite playing up to him, but the man had already removed his helmet. Sub-Commander Samkutor. He knew the man only by the briefest acquaintance. He was often assigned to long-range missions because he did not have a family; injuries previously received precluded him from having children.
He tuned in his ears, utterly focussed now. Any moment, he must start moving. Closing in.
“Commander Asturbar?” she cooed, drawing out his name as an evidently gratifying memory played through her mind. “He’s such a man. Are you looking for him?”
Asturbar was far from the only man present who had a slew of immoral fancies about what she had just implied. He shifted forward stealthily. Several of the soldiers made
angry noises; the Sub-Commander developed a healthy glow in his cheeks as he growled, “Yes, ma’am, that Asturbar!”
Iridiana was not done with them yet. Her smile broadened, out-dazzling the suns. “Ooh, are you the ones who sent Commander Asturbar here, to me? The famous Mistral Fires?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Jumping up and down on her toes. Their poor eyes nearly burst all their blood vessels at once for all that bodacious jiggling on display. “You’re such nice soldiers, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am!” coughed the Sub-Commander, who had turned a perfectly fantastic shade of pink.
“Oh, silly me, being so unwelcoming, leaving you standing here on my front porch.” Asturbar scuttled closer, absolutely silent as he stalked his weapon. His blood was more than broiling now. What had he ever thought, making her the bait? “Would you like to come inside for a drink? Maybe a nibble of something or other? I’ve been soooooo lonely out here.”
The men clustered together unconsciously, completely taken under her spell. Asturbar palmed his weapon. Just one more second … he settled his grip on the handholds that he had so hastily chiselled out beforehand, with white-knuckled strength.
“Where is Commander Asturbar?” Samkutor spluttered at last.
Nyahi gestured to her left, in the opposite direction from his intended approach. “Oh, I think he just went to tinkle on a bush.”
As one man they glanced in the direction she indicated. In that fraction of a second, Asturbar exploded into motion. Pumping the thighs. Angling the body. Utterly fixed on the goal. Not considering the possibility of a poisoned dart finding his neck. Smoothly, beautifully into the acceleration phase, every pebble of his already massive weight aligned behind the thick log, two feet in diameter and ten feet long. Not even feeling his boots touching the path. Almost … flying.