Art of Hunting

by Alan Campbell

  It was a red male. As it grew nearer, its great shadow engulfed the ship. All these dark and cruciform shapes that flitted across the storm-blown heavens were truly monsters.

  The dragon descended quickly and then braked hard, thumping the air with wings as vast as warship sails. Its hind claws raked the foredeck and then one of them seized the forecastle rail and crushed it. With a great awkward clatter and stink it thrashed one wing again, inadvertently taking out a line of rigging and a cleat, and then it settled on the bow of the ship. Ianthe felt the vessel tilt forward heavily. The timbers gave an ominous groan. And then the serpent swung its long neck down, under the foreyard, where it huffed and glared at the party with eyes like embers.

  Paulus stepped forward. ‘You have a message for me?’

  The dragon brought its head forward until its huge maw was mere inches from the Unmer prince. Rain and brine streamed from its scales and sluiced down in rivulets across its teeth. Ianthe flinched, but Paulus did not. Her sudden movement drew the serpent’s attention for a moment. It huffed oily fumes and then grinned.

  ‘Conquillas agrees to enter your tournament,’ it said. It turned back to Paulus with a sardonic expression. ‘He looks forward to meeting you and your uncle in combat.’ Its breath stirred Paulus’s hair. ‘Provided you can take the capital.’

  Paulus wrinkled his nose. ‘You smell like a hag’s cauldron,’ he said. ‘Move your stinking face away from mine, serpent, or die here.’

  The dragon’s eyes narrowed and it bared its fangs. ‘This is Doma,’ it growled. ‘Only a fool would threaten us here. Only a fool would bring a dragon-skinned boat to this sacred place. To our children’s nursery.’ Saliva dripped from its maw. ‘Is that what you are, boy? A fool?’

  Paulus stepped forward suddenly, thrusting his left arm out.

  Cyr cried a warning.

  But he was too late. The young Unmer prince struck the dragon a blow across its muzzle and then lunged forward. There was a great crackling, snapping sound as Paulus pushed his arm through the creature’s maw and up into its brain. Blood sluiced across the wet deck, spattered the prince’s face. He wheeled savagely, teeth bared, and pulled his fist out of the side of the dragon’s skull, leaving in its wake a gaping wound through which its lifeblood pumped. In the blink of an eye he had turned the dragon’s head into an unrecognizable mess of glistening bone and flesh.

  Ianthe cried out.

  The great serpent slumped forward upon the warship deck, dark blood flooding from its ravaged tissue.

  Howlish and his men looked aghast.

  Paulus stood amidst the blood, his chest heaving. He gazed down at his hands. On his face was a grin of such fierce savagery that it sent a shiver of despair into Ianthe’s heart. And then he turned to her, his eyes aflame with battle lust. ‘They are treasonous beasts,’ he said.

  ‘The others will retaliate,’ Cyr warned. ‘Captain Howlish, have your men prepare themselves.’

  ‘Prepare themselves?’ Howlish said. ‘Against a dragon attack?’ He looked incredulous. ‘In this storm?’

  ‘Your Highness,’ Cyr said.

  The prince appeared not to hear him. He was listening to something in the skies above. To Ianthe it sounded like a chorus of mournful cries and howls of terrible rage. The dragons. They were calling to each other.

  ‘Marquetta!’

  Paulus turned.

  ‘The amplifiers,’ Cyr said.

  Paulus nodded, finally shaking himself free of his madness. ‘Of course,’ he said. And then he turned to Ianthe. ‘Go back to your cabin; it’s too dangerous here.’Without a further glance in her direction, he hurried away with his uncle, heading below deck.

  Captain Howlish gathered a dozen crewmen beside the slain dragon, and between them they started to heave the huge beast over the side of the ship. Ianthe left them. She would watch the battle through the eyes of others.

  Back in her cabin she threw herself upon her bed and with a stammering heart she cast her consciousness out into the world around her. For a moment she hovered in the mysterious sea that lay beyond the reach of all perception but her own – its endless darkness dappled here and there by the vision of others. She could see the man-o’-war as a conglomeration of moving images, the external drawn from the crew hurrying about the deck and the internal drawn from those within its hull. Painted like this, the ship seemed vague and ghostly. Ianthe chose a mind at random and hurled herself into it.

  She found herself standing at the port deck rail, one sailor among many watching as the corpse of the great red serpent crashed into the sea with an almighty splash and turmoil of foam. And then its huge carcass slipped under the inky brine. Ianthe’s host glanced forward to where Howlish stood gazing up at the sky. She leaped into his mind.

  And saw two dragons turning inwards, their wings dark silhouettes against an angry storm, lining up for a pass across the length of the ship, where her cannons would be ineffective. A third beast dropped down to join them from high towers of cloud as black as coal smoke. The wind whipped Howlish’s hair across his goggles. He pulled his whaleskin cloak more tightly around his shoulders, then ran for the wheelhouse, waving his arm and crying, ‘Bring us round, close reach.’

  Howlish ran past Paulus and Cyr, who had at that moment emerged from the midship hatch. The prince and his uncle carried between them a narrow crate with leather handles. They set this in the middle of the deck and tore off its lid. It seemed to be full of ash, but then Cyr rummaged about inside and brought something out. He shook it free of dust.

  Ianthe found herself flitting between minds to get a better look. Before she realized it, she was inhabiting Cyr himself.

  He clutched in his black-gloved fist a heavy iron ring. Parts of the metal had been wound with rotten old wire. Cyr pulled out another one and handed them both to Paulus. Then he took out two more for himself.

  He set these down nearby and then reached back into one end of the crate and pulled out a longer object. It was a silver tube, like a flute covered in fine arabesques. The device was divided into several sections that rotated individually, making different geometric connections between separate patterns. Cyr knocked out the ash from inside the device and blew it clean. Then he twisted several of the sections, and peered down the tube. It seemed to be empty.

  ‘Are we good?’ Paulus cried against the howl of the wind.

  Cyr nodded. ‘We’re good, Highness.’

  ‘Did you bring Fiorel’s gift?’

  ‘The first of them.’

  ‘We might not need it.’

  Duke Cyr tucked the metal tube into his belt and reclaimed the two rings from the deck. ‘Don’t count on it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about you, but I haven’t used an amplifier in a hundred years.’

  ‘I have a feeling it will come back to us,’ Paulus replied.

  The two Unmer lords now turned to face the approaching dragons. Each held one ring against their side and raised the other aloft.

  The three serpents came low under the storm clouds, flying in a V formation, the tips of their vast wings almost reaching the tops of the monstrous black waves. Lightning ripped across the sky behind them. Gales tore spume from the raging seas and hurled it like confetti. The serpents drew nearer: four hundred yards, three hundred, their powerful muscles gleaming in the pre-dark. The dragon on the left was jade green, the one on the right a shade of lamp-oil brown while the centre beast was the largest of the three – huge and black and battle-scarred. At a hundred yards Ianthe could see its dark eyes shining, white teeth flashing. Its neck reared up. It opened its maw.

  Cyr brought both amplifiers up over his head and struck them together. The air crackled. Immediately, a translucent green sphere flickered into existence around him; it was about ten feet across, awash with nebular energies. It warped and blackened the boards where it touched the deck. And now Paulus did likewise, and a second sphere appeared around the young prince. An angry buzzing noise surrounded both men. The sailors nearby looked suddenly qu
easy and afraid. Several of them dropped to their knees, their stomachs bucking.

  As the dragons soared over the ship, they expelled from their throats a great deluge of liquid fire.

  Paulus and Cyr thrust the amplifiers out and the sorcerous spheres of light around them grew suddenly huge, merging together, enveloping the entire vessel – yards, masts, sails and all – in a shimmering bubble of green plasma. Ianthe’s consciousness flitted between the crewmen on the deck, and yet her body remained in her cabin below. She felt the energy pass through her host and then – an instant later – her own body. Her ears popped. Her skin prickled. A sensation of profound nausea crawled through her guts.

  Dragon fire exploded across this luminous shield, drenching the skies in flame. But the wooden ship remained untouched. An instant later, the sky raged with a second blast of fire as both remaining serpents unleashed their breaths against the Irillian Herald, and again the ship was protected.

  The Herald’s shrouds and sails shuddered as the three dragons tore overhead. They split formation, the outermost two peeling away to port and starboard. Howlish had been turning his ship to bring their cannons to bear on the serpents, but Ianthe could see that it was a fruitless endeavour. The Herald could not hope to match her attackers’ speed.

  Now both men lowered their amplifiers and the green sphere surrounding the ship suddenly flickered and diminished. Ianthe felt that Unmer energy pass through her once more and her stomach heaved. The air around her was electric. He own skin seemed to sparkle and itch with the aftermath of that weird energy, but the sensations came from a distant corner of her mind. Through Duke Cyr’s perceptions she spied sailors writhing on the deck, their arms clenching their stomachs, their red-veined eyes bulging. Only Paulus and Cyr appeared indifferent to this sorcery.

  The duke dropped his amplifiers and then took the silver tube from his belt. He pointed this device up at one of the dragons – the brown-scaled beast now banking high to port, thrashing its wings to gain height. Cyr whispered a word under his breath and the Unmer device in his hand activated with a ferocious burst of red light. Then he put it to his lips and blew through it.

  It was a flute, Ianthe realized.

  A great and terrible note resounded across the heavens – so deep and loud it shook every timber within the Haurstaf warship. Ribbons of black and red energy erupted from the Unmer flute and traced a score of arcs across the face of the storm. The serpent veered suddenly and the coruscating energy missed it entirely, tearing onwards through the thunderclouds, punching holes through the sky itself.

  ‘To stern!’

  Howlish had come running out of the wheelhouse, shouting and jabbing his arm wildly towards the stern, where the black dragon was once more swooping down on them. ‘Your shield, Highness,’ he called out. ‘The beast is coming.’

  ‘Hold firm, Howlish,’ the young prince yelled. ‘That serpent’s still dry.’

  The captain glanced up in dread and disbelief. ‘It’s not just the fire I’m worried about.’

  But Paulus ignored him. He kept his eyes fixed on Cyr, who raised the silver flute to his lips a second time and blew. Cords of fire and shadow poured from the device, sweeping across the sky like the tails of burning comets. Behind them the storm clouds began to change shape, pulled asunder by these weird vortexes of flame. And still cascades of natural lightning tore across the heavens. Thunder pounded the sky, the sea, again and again. Gales screamed. It seemed to Ianthe that nature itself was being twisted, forced to the point of breaking by some ghastly process. Above their heads the sorcerous inferno dissipated.

  ‘Damn this thing,’ Cyr shouted. ‘I’ll need more luck than skill. These serpents are too quick.’

  Howlish stood upon the quarterdeck, his cape flickering in the wind as he shouted orders to the second officer in the wheelhouse. ‘Fire chasers!’ he cried. ‘All stations.’

  For the dragon was almost upon them and its dark eyes gleamed like hot coals in the light of Cyr’s sorcerous fire. It held murderous claws outstretched as if it meant to rip the wheelhouse from the deck.

  Flashes of light lit the stern, accompanied by a series of concussions as the Irillian Herald’s rear cannons fired.

  The dragon swerved. Its fore-claw snagged one of the aft mast shrouds and tore cleats and rigging free. Its vast wings beat spirals in the rising cannon smoke. A sail unravelled from the mizzenmast, snapped full in the gale, and then tore loose and shot out across the seething waters. The chasers had missed, but had at least succeeded in confusing and disorienting the beast. As it thrashed skywards once more, its tail smashed through the upper yards, sending parts of Howlish’s ship raining down around panicked sailors.

  ‘Fiorel’s gift!’ Paulus cried to Cyr. ‘Use the first bottle.’

  Cyr grinned at him. ‘You think this counts as a crisis?’

  ‘A small one, perhaps.’

  Cyr reached into the pocket of his tunic and took out the first of the ichusae Ianthe and Paulus had been given as a wedding present. Ianthe could see a tiny storm raging within, a miniature version of the one around them now. Cyr held the tiny bottle aloft and pulled out the stopper.

  For a moment nothing happened.

  And then from the bottle there came a massive outpouring of energy, bolts of blue-tinged lightning, flaming cords as white as magnesium flares, all crackling, snapping furiously as they tore through the air. For an instant it seemed as if the duke was wielding a storm far larger than the natural one that enveloped then. Overhead, the energy coalesced in a single point – a sorcerous star that drew the ocean up towards it in a great swell. It flared once . . .

  . . . then vanished.

  As quickly as it had appeared, the lightning had gone – snuffed out like a candle flame. As Ianthe watched, the bulge of ocean collapsed, the waters rushed outwards in a twenty-foot wall of brine that lifted the Herald high and then brought her bow rushing back down again.

  Cyr bared his teeth. ‘What is this? Has Fiorel failed us?’

  The prince’s violet eyes flashed. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘Can’t you feel it? A rift is opening here!’ He raised his hand to where the star had been. And now Ianthe could see a knot of some dark material forming there – it appeared to be composed of shifting smoke-like tendrils. She watched it with growing fascination, unconsciously shifting her perceptions from mind to mind to find the best viewpoint. It reminded her of something, although she could not say what. It seemed strangely familiar.

  Suddenly from the knot there came a great cataclysm of electrical bolts: blazing forks of light in all directions, illuminating the ocean for miles around. For an instant this alien brilliance bleached the gaping façades of Carhen Doma.

  Paulus shouted, ‘It is Otiansel Mestra!’

  Duke Cyr gazed at the scene with awe. ‘Fiorel has opened his first domain?’

  As the lightning continued to spread across the skies, Ianthe began to perceive shapes within it. Winged creatures? Initially she thought she was looking at dragons, but as the things detached themselves from that crackling mass of light she was able to perceive them more clearly.

  They were similar to dragons, but smaller. Each of them possessed two sets of wings – wings that, like their lithe bodies, necks and tails, appeared to be entirely composed of energy. Pale fire rippled across their spines and streamed behind them; white flames jumped and flickered with each beat of their wings. They were ethereal, beautiful, terrible. Their heads were smaller in proportion to their bodies than those of dragons, their muzzles more akin to beaks and yet filled with needlelike teeth. They had no discernible eyes.

  This did not appear to hinder them.

  The black dragon had climbed high above their ship and now banked to face this strange new aerial threat. A cluster of three electric beasts hovered momentarily, as though assessing this flesh-and-blood foe. And then they swooped on the serpent with terrifying speed.

  But the dragon had by now produced in its glands sufficient venom to create more flames. An
d, as its foes drew near, it disgorged a torrent of liquid fire against them.

  The electric creatures passed through this inferno as though it did not exist. They attacked the dragon from three sides, their wings flaming like wraiths against the dark of the storm. In moments they had ripped the serpent apart.

  It fell in pieces into the boiling brine.

  Its companions fared no better. The brown dragon burst from the base of a thunderhead, diving hard with its ragged wings outstretched, and fell upon a solitary wraith creature. Teeth and claws met pure energy. The creature emitted a furious burst of lightning, and the dragon’s scorched carcass crashed into the Mare Verdant.

  A few wraiths had by now reached the roofless spaces and temples of Doma and they swept inside, destroying nesting mothers and their young, while others of their kind converged on the site. Ghostlights flickered far across the dark ocean as lightning coursed the heavens and thunder boomed. And scores of dragons rose from those mouldering halls to meet the threat. They must have known they were going to their deaths and yet they did so without hesitation. They clashed with the electric foes and were slaughtered.

  Ianthe spotted the blue, flying high to starboard. Six of the wraith creatures were converging on it, mere wisps of light in the ever-deepening gloom. The dragon hesitated for a moment, thumping its great wings as it hovered. And then it turned away from its enemies and folded back its wings and dived, fixing its murderous eyes upon the Haurstaf warship.

  ‘Cyr!’ Paulus yelled.

  ‘I see it.’

  The duke snatched up the heavy iron rings from the deck and then struck them together above his head. Around him bloomed a plasma sphere, scorching the deck. His brow furrowed with concentration and the sphere grew suddenly large once more, enveloping the whole ship.

  Again Ianthe felt a wave of hideous energy flow through her host body and then through her own body in the cabin down below. She no longer knew or cared whose mind she inhabited. But she looked up in time to see that blue serpent bearing down on them in a reckless, suicidal dive. It meant to use its own massive weight as a missile against the ship.