by Marc Secchia
Never had he imagined such forces as shaped the world beneath the clouds.
The pneumatic shielding allowed Asturbar and Iridiana to peer out of the crack of Leandrial’s jaw as she regularly snaffled up wayside snacks in the way of Dragonship-sized berries or luminous orange seed pods that dwarfed her tiny passengers. They learned to dodge smartly or, in Asturbar’s inattentive case, face the embarrassing consequences as Nyahi in the form of a peculiarly serpentine Dragoness wriggle-flapped down Leandrial’s gullet to fetch him.
They trained assiduously all the day long, working on combat techniques, armed and unarmed combat, and the perennial issue of trying to control Nyahi’s unpredictable transformations. This was a bad day. She scored zero out of eighteen.
After eight hours in transit, they rested that evening in a sheltered hollow beside a quartz mountain and Leandrial worked on her magical ‘fooling Aranya and Yiisuriel’ constructs before contacting home base. He dealt with a mere six hundred and one requests this time. They learned that the Air Breathers would reverse course for one hundred and forty-two leagues before making a long northerly journey along the mountains and cutting back to the northwest fifty leagues inside of Yazê-a-Kûz territory. Iridiana felt her father might take a dim view of a massive Dragon army walking through his realm. Asturbar suggested Leandrial might knock a little sense into his royal head – or the Thoralians might just do that for him. The latest intelligence, however, suggested that the First Egg would pass well to the West of Yazê-a-Kûz, missing that territory by as much as five hundred leagues.
“Yazê-a-Kûz is tucked right up against the mountains,” Iridiana reminded Asturbar. “You’ve never been to the capital, Sanzukê, have you?”
“The Ruby City? No. I wouldn’t trust any mercenary army around that much wealth, either.” She waggled an eyebrow. “Uh, is it truly as affluent as they say? Has the most fabulous girls, I have it on good authority. Legs to raze realms for.” Her eyebrow peaked higher. “I mean, when I look at you, I imagine that Fra’anior mysteriously breathed fire-life into the most enchanted jewels of the Uxâtate’s treasury, and set them walking about the Isles.”
Nyahi said, “You’re a terrible sap, Boots.” Her eyes sparkled with moisture.
Hugely tender, Leandrial purred, “I find Human-Shapeshifter relationships so beautiful. So, little one, tell me more about this region of Wyldaroon. How will I be able to reach the capital?”
“Physically?” She scratched her head. “I suppose you’d walk. The northerly reaches of Yazê-a-Kûz are among the few regions in all of Wyldaroon that boast rooted Islands. The Ruby City lies in a bowl surrounded on three sides by sheer cliffs and mountain peaks twelve miles tall, which are snow-capped all year round. The Islands that lead into the bay and indeed the floating Islands tethered above and ahead of the capital city, are heavily fortified – although honestly, Leandrial, considering the thickness of your scale armour I think you’d just brush past anything they could possibly hurl at you. You’d have to be careful not to destroy too much infrastructure on the way past. I’d imagine also, given the fact that the Islands are rooted, that the Cloudlands cannot be deep enough to hide a Dragoness of your dimensions, so my father may well have ample warning of our arrival.”
How curious their Northern friends had found the idea of ‘rooted’ Islands. To them, every Island was a mountain rising from the bottom of the Cloudlands, but in the vast expanses of Herimor and Wyldaroon the prevailing situation was quite the opposite. The odd-Island-out was one that never moved. Asturbar found the very idea absurd. Stationary Islands? A bay framed by actual mountains that rose from the bottom of the Cloudlands? Exotic!
And so they swam and travelled for three further days, constantly on the move. Aranya picked up on their trickery late that fourth evening and delivered a blasting directive amplified via Yiisuriel’s immense mind: ‘return forthwith!’ Before they could discuss the matter, Leandrial replied with an ill-mannered psychic riposte and said, “I’ll cut off communications, then! We shall be as spies entering the realm.”
On the evening of the eighth day since departing Yiisuriel’s slopes, having picked up a helpful under-Cloudlands current that accelerated Leandrial’s travelling pace to a staggering twenty-eight leagues an hour, they entered the outskirts of Yazê-a-Kûz, having traversed over 1,470 leagues from the prior home of the Mistral Fires. The great Dragoness sniffed out a mound from which she could make a breaching leap, and so they sneaked a rapid look at Nyahi’s famously rich, forested homeland and the incredible mountains which seemed to have leaped into the sky overnight. So tall! Her people called this range which separated Wyldaroon from Herimor, ‘The Roofbeams of the World,’ and so it seemed, for the peaks jutted like mauve roofing struts into a flaming early evening sky, ranging from three to five leagues in height, and the mountain range sprawled a mindboggling, unbroken five thousand leagues from the Straits of Hordazar all the way to the Rift Storm in the North.
Snow. Wow. Asturbar breathed deep of air that had never seemed cooler or clearer, and gazed in wonder at the beauty around him. Rather nicer than the western periphery of Yazê-a-Kûz where he had been embroiled in a bitter campaign before.
A thousand serrated peaks cut searing lines against the everlasting expanse of roiling orange skies overhead. Tall coniferous forests transformed Islands into spike-haired soldier’s helmets poking out of the clouds, he imagined. Turquoise Cloudlands – magnificent! Above a flotilla of Islands a mile to their starboard flank, a vast flock of golden shimmerbirds swirled up into the evening suns-rays, feasting upon the airborne insects. That was what he had time to imbibe before the grey rose to veil an incomparable realm.
Lucky girl, to grow up here.
“I need to hunt,” Iridiana said quietly. “My Dragoness is hungry just as Yuaki predicted, but the Snow Dragons in these parts are a wild and fierce clan. Will you accompany me, Boots?”
He winked suggestively at her. “For a share of the spoils? Of course.”
She tried to act nonchalant, but her fires were blushing and she immediately tripped over her own paws. Grrr!
They hunted together for the first time as Man and Dragoness, scaring up a very fine Lakutar Treble-Horned Buck which Iridiana fastidiously cooked with her heated Dragon breath, before a sharp noise startled her and she released an iridium flare in panicked response.
One vaporised meal later … she grinned ruefully at him. “Another buck?”
“Charcoal’s a bit crunchy,” said he.
Having hunted a second time, they shared a most enjoyable repast before a bristling Dragonflight of Snow Dragons tried to ambush them. They were cousins to Drakes, Asturbar gasped as they fled – retreat being the better part of valour when faced with a warband some fifty enemies strong – not being true Lesser Dragons with separate front limbs and wings, but having forward limbs that doubled as forepaws and wings. The forepaws were located on the second wing joint, giving them noticeably different flying characteristics and a low, stooped stance when they landed.
“Old ladies with hands on hips,” he sniffed disparagingly.
“Wyverns,” said Nyahi, making herself scarce as the attackers gave chase with angry, futile screeches. She did not stint from giving them a cheeky waggle of her departing hindquarters. “Lower intelligence and slow fliers, but still nasty customers – and badly misidentified as Snow Dragons by the scientists, except that they do nest amidst the snow drifts. They hunt all along the mountains, up to about ten leagues or so from the heights. Wyverns generally dislike the colder climate farther North, and we tend to give them a steely reception if they venture into Human-inhabited lands. Only took them a few centuries to learn, anyways, and they forget regularly. They’re especially fond of Human meat.”
She curved her neck down to eye him speculatively.
“No you don’t! No Wyvern forms, thank you.”
The Dragoness cracked open a hundred-fang grin. “What do you think I’m fattening you up for – fun?”
&
nbsp; “That’s not what I pay you for, you infernal Iridium … ah …”
“Can’t afford a girl of my expensive tastes anyways, Marshal Asturbar,” she said. “So, back to skulking?”
“Massively impressive skulking?”
“Good one!” She laughed so hard, she shook herself into the form of a twelve-inch dragonet with cerise and indigo stippled wings. “Boots!”
Pretending unconcern, he laced his fingers behind his head and yawned. “What? We’re only plummeting headlong in the Cloudlands. What’s to worry about?”
Poof! Flowers.
“Not that one, darling,” he said.
Kerblam! A tree festooned in gorgeous blue blossoms with deep cream hearts.
“Pretty, but could be more functional,” he noted.
Hiss! Skizz! Fweee-whap!
“No, no, and I don’t believe I’ve seen that one before.”
Wispy, said Nyahi, evidently trying to make sense of this new form. Rather ethereal, actually.
It’s beautiful, like a lavender draconic cloud, he said. Try to spread yourself – glub!
Ha ha ha, sorry. Unwinding her insubstantial self from about his neck, Nyahi dropped feathery kisses upon a dozen locations around his head at once. Wonder of wonders, you do taste rather yummy in this form, if this sense is actually called taste. I wonder what wisp cloud things eat?
In a moment, she flattened out abruptly beneath him. Perfect. Now she wafted like a leaf upon the breeze.
Ha, featherbed, said Asturbar.
Insults!
Quiet, you’ll disturb this glorious mid-air snooze I’m about to indulge in.
Who does all the work around here, I ask you? sniffed the cloud Dragoness.
Me. Just not right now, clearly. After a long and increasingly torpid pause, the hardworking Marshal bestirred himself to inquire, Who are you talking to, my flame-heart?
There are Dragons somewhere up there in the skies that call themselves Wisps, she said dreamily. Apparently, they know Aranya.
What?
Yes, I thought the same – whoops!
His featherbed jilted him at the speed of a Chaotic transformation.
* * * *
Having returned safely to Leandrial’s mouth courtesy of a fine magical catch by the Land Dragoness, they forged steadily northward beneath the hinterlands of Yazê-a-Kûz, entering the cool microclimate fostered by the protective mountain barrier to the East – the same barrier that protected the realm for most of the year, also kept the temperatures temperate through the warm season but gave rise to the violent winter storms that would arrive within three months. For the first time, Asturbar saw the leaves of certain tree species shucking their greens for the merest gleaming hint of what Iridiana promised him would be the most glorious golden raiment, come autumn. She animatedly described the different sights she could see with her newly healed vision, revelling so deeply in every small detail that a crusty soldier could not help but be entranced.
It was as if here, back in her homeland, he could see her blossoming before his eyes, but he wondered how much she feared meeting her father again.
The bottom grew steadily shallower, as if Leandrial walked upon a great shelf extending out from the mountains, until they walked solely through blue-tinged cloud. The terrain kept changing as she negotiated the serrulated roots of the mountains; often, the Dragoness was forced to leap or bridge canyons of unknown depth, or scrape her way around or over sharp-edged black basaltic formations.
“Maybe a route farther East would have been easier,” Leandrial said.
“Would it help if Asturbar and I scouted aloft?” Iridiana offered. “I’ll try not to assume a Snow Dragoness form, unlike yesterday.”
“Little one, we can but try.”
Over the course of the following two days, the Dragoness and her Rider scouted many times, working out ways to help Leandrial reach their eventual goal, which was also the farthest, most protected and most populous corner of Iridiana’s old homeland. The leviathan walked, and then slithered farther, and eventually said, “I can’t hide any longer.”
“Then we walk in proudly, as we decided,” Asturbar said firmly.
Iridiana had grown very quiet.
Therefore, late one flawless summer’s afternoon, a Land Dragoness heaved her staggering bulk out of a ‘mere’ six hundred feet depth and forged forward past a sparkling sea of rooted Islands. Asturbar and Iridiana stood upon her head, above and out of range of her eye cannon, to observe. The houses they passed upon the low, gently mounded Islands had steep grey shale roofs to shed the winter snows, and the walls were constructed from pale green vandanite, a mineral common to these parts. The windows and doors were all oval rather than square, and tightly sealed against the cold, Iridiana told him, while the broad panes of glass were a special type of double-layer crysglass that again retained heat well. In this warmer season the men wore flared white trousers and colourful off-the-shoulder shirts that plunged open at the front to the waist – Asturbar cringed at the sight – and the hairstyles were bouffant and colourful, great curly globes and domes or fanciful bushy artworks … well, he was lost for words at some of the creations, but they reached heights of one and a half to two feet above the scalp. The women wore their hair long and garlanded with flowers, usually picked to match the patterned regional variations on the type of dress Iridiana favoured, pinched at the upper waist, ruched in the bosom and breathtakingly brief in the skirts.
Asturbar had never seen so much of so many female legs in his life.
When he realised he was goggling, he guiltily told Nyahi she had the finest legs in two hundred square leagues. She clouted him for the compliment. “Done drooling yet?”
“You’re my favourite Dragoness,” he protested.
She whacked his shoulder again. “I’d better be your only Dragoness! You’re a bad, bad man.”
“I’m having culture confusion.”
“Well, stop looking like you enjoy culture confusion quite so much!” Nyahi flounced off over Leandrial’s head. “MEN!”
Her legs were truly wonderful viewed from behind, too.
He was certain he heard Leandrial chortling away somewhere deep in her belly. How did she know? Dragon senses were far too sophisticated for his liking. Iridiana could probably feel him looking at her!
Asturbar settled down on his perch to enjoy the ride.
There was an unambiguously majestic quality to the way that Leandrial walked past Islands and towered over these neat, increasingly fancy homes as she wended her way toward a gap he noticed ahead in the mountains. Cliffs? Clearly, he had no idea what a cliff was until he took in the spectacular plunge of those world-stopping, white-capped walls. The Islands below were rooted as well as there being many of the floating type, but the floaters had been tethered with yethiragions according to clearly artificial patterns, providing additional space for habitation and farming. The Islands were spaced widely enough in places that Leandrial could walk by if she placed her paws with care, and since her every step was at least half of one of these Islands, which were on the small side at a quarter to a half-mile in diameter, she forged by with huge strides that ate up the miles.
He waved to some children on a floating Island as Leandrial’s head passed by. “Greetings!”
They scattered with wild screams.
Hmm. So, where were the army and the famous linked flotillas of airships? He squinted into the deepening evening. There. Up in the gap. Approximately sixty chain-linked, heavily armoured Dragonships were quickly deploying between several Islands which had been tethered between the looming cliffs at heights of one, two and four miles. There were many additional fortifications there and upon the mountainsides to provide coverage for the gap, which had to be a league wide, but his eye was drawn from a professional examination to a surprised appraisal of the interior of that bay as they drew steadily closer and the hidden Ruby City reluctantly yielded its secrets to view.
“Nyahi, what’s making that glow?” he
asked.
“The vandanite absorbs the suns-shine during the days and radiates light at night,” she explained. “You’re wondering why it’s called the Ruby City when it glows white, right?”
“No, really?”
She stood behind him, resting her hands fondly upon his heavily muscled shoulders, and murmured in his ear, “You sarcastic, crusty old helmet-head, ruby is used as a primary decorative material throughout the city, but you’ll see that my father’s citadel is a little different.”
He said, “Are you being mysterious, Miss Silver-Blue?”
“Always.”
“Should we fly ahead to speak to those soldiers and arrange passage?”
“They will not yield passage to Leandrial,” Iridiana said.
“They think those little fibres and bands of metal will hold me?” Leandrial snorted, surging forward indignantly. “I’ll show them!”
“Steady, Leandrial!” Asturbar gasped.
Well, her presence had already probably set off a major diplomatic incident. He imagined those Commanders up there screaming, ‘National disaster!’ and running about like dragonets playing one of their silly games.