The New Age

by Chris D'Lacey

  Once again, Pine spoke in perfect dragontongue. “Look, Veng. See. Watch.”

  She wafted her fingers over the egg.

  “It’s coming,” she whispered.

  “What’s coming?” snarled the Veng. Gabrial heard it suck in through its spiracles. It was filling its fire sacs, ready to incinerate her.

  “Your death,” she said.

  And she closed her hand around the egg, and broke it.

  When he would come to think on this later, Gabrial would remember being as mesmerized by Pine as the Veng clearly was. As her fingers ruptured the shell, he expected something marvelous might happen. That rays of light would emerge from the egg, or a perfect flower spring up from its center, or that he might see a featherless bird squirming for breath in her small, pink hand.

  But nothing quite so wonderful happened. The egg cracked. Its gooey innards ran down Pine’s arm. A splash of yolk hit the gap between the Veng’s nostrils.

  Then came an instant of absolute calm.

  No predictor of the carnage about to follow.

  As silent as a winged seed, Gus swept down. Not even a shadow preceded him. Only the seabirds spotted his descent. They scattered from their settles as he tilted into his final glide, thinking, perhaps, that he was coming for them. But Gus had a bigger target: the Veng that was holding Gariffred.

  He closed in on it at incredible speed, moving his huge bulk fully forward to generate the critical momentum he needed. The Veng must have felt the sudden change in pressure, for its auricular flaps sprang tautly open just a heartbeat before the giant dragon struck. By then it was too late. Gus’s brawny talons had slammed into its back, clamping it by the shoulder joints, the place where the thickest frame of the wing joined the spine of that serpentine body. At the same time, Gus adjusted his wings to maintain his forward thrust and plucked the Veng away from Gariffred as easily as he might take a rabbit off a hilltop. A bold maneuver for a dragon of his size. But what came next almost made his spiracles burst. The Veng wasn’t particularly heavy—of all dragon breeds, they were the lightest—but the strain of lifting it into the sky from such a shallow angle required every drop of oxygen-rich blood Gus’s primary heart could pump to his wings. But pump it did. With every beat, he took the Veng higher. Until a crosswind came to assist his endeavor and he was able to bank back seaward with his quarry. It would be there, over the rugged black cliffs, that the grisliest part of his attack would play out.

  The Veng was not slow to respond. Raising its horns to their optimum angle, it bent the yellow tips upward to point roughly at Gus’s throat. Of all the regions on a dragon’s body, the underneck was one of the most vulnerable, for the suppleness required to twist the head meant that the scales there had to be flexible. The Veng were experts in ripping through this layer. In two slick movements, it opened the cone on each of its horns and flicked out a set of poisoned vanes. It then jabbed its head up with such ghastly force that one horn broke against Gus’s jawbone. The other horn missed his head by some way. But the Veng had a marker now. On the next thrust, it crunched through a poorly sealed overlap and lacerated the soft tissue underneath the scales. It could not go deep without breaking its own neck. But it ripped and pierced and ripped again, and even allowed itself a cry of victory as Gus’s blood fell in warm splatters over its back.

  Its tail was hard at work as well. Due to the angle at which the Veng was being carried, the toxic, claw-hammered isoscele was too low to strike at Gus’s belly. But the tail was thrashing the air nonstop—not in desperation or distress (that emotion had been bred out of the Veng centuries ago) but in the hope of intertwining with Gus’s tail. The Veng had some nasty tricks in their armory and knew how to use every part of their bodies to inflict as much damage as possible on an enemy. Experienced fighters could “thin” their tails by freakishly stretching the extensor muscles until the last few segments effectively formed a cable. When used in a whipping motion, the elongated tail was then capable of cutting through a neck or a leg many times its own thickness. It could also be used to strangle tissue, to cut slowly, squeeze painfully, in the Veng’s favorite way. One of their much-feared “reprimands” was to sever an opponent’s tail as near to the isoscele as possible—never cutting right through, but leaving the triangular end piece dangling. The embarrassment of suffering a blow like this was often more agonizing than the pain of the wound or the length of time it took for the injury to heal.

  So when, by a stroke of mischance, Gus felt the Veng’s tail lock around his own, he knew he must act faster than his foe. It was bad enough to have his tail trapped, but that would be a mere inconvenience in comparison to actually losing his isoscele and, with it, his best directional aid.

  So as the Veng’s horns struck his throat, he in turn pulled violently sideways and tore the beast’s wings away from its body, breaking the shoulder joints and ripping through the entire wing canopy, right down to the dorsal bones. The Veng screamed like nothing Gus had ever heard, a sound more chilling than the numbing cold of its cruel poison, which was already spreading through his chest. With the worst of the foul deed done, Gus switched his feet quickly and broke the Veng’s neck in a single twist. The beast went silent and limp, but even then, its tail would not let go. As Gus tried to drop the body into the ocean, its dead weight hung off him, threatening to drag him into the water. With one last surge of power, he swung his tail and hurled the dead creature at the cliff face. It came free of him at last and smacked into the rocks, before tumbling sideways and plunging into a spuming wave that drew back from the shoreline foaming green.

  One threat resolved.

  The rest would be down to Gabrial.

  The moment Gus struck, Gabrial knew he would be forced to attack the Veng in front of him. It was sure to react. And it did. The only advantage it awarded Gabrial was its momentary indecision about where to strike first: the annoying Hom girl or the squealing wearling. It leaned toward Pine, but that was a mistake; it should have been watching the blue.

  Gabrial came for it with teeth, not fire. The Veng already had its eye shields down, and any blast of flame at this short distance was likely to flare and injure them both. The key to winning was to stop the Veng taking flight. A Veng in the sky was twice as hard to kill as one on the ground. They were swift through the air and incredibly agile. A roamer the size of Gus would have had little chance against one in open combat. Even Gabrial, who’d famously taken down a goyle mutant, knew he would need a good deal of luck to survive any form of aerial clash.

  So he rushed for its throat, clamping it between his powerful jaws and sinking his fangs in as far as they would take. In his head, he could hear the snarling words of his tragic patron and mentor, per Grogan. Bite and bite hard. Until you feel your fangs grinding against each other. That’s what the old dragon would have said. Cut right through and be sure of your kill. In training, Gabrial had been given sheep to bite on. Their throats were like wet sand compared to this Veng.

  Only one fang punctured it—and that went in through a breathing hole. The bite caused some serious damage all the same; the Veng’s roar of pain was testament to that. Warm blood flowed between Gabrial’s fangs, thickening to a gush as he bit down harder. All this time, he was pushing forward, flinging his head from side to side with all the force he could muster. From the start, he’d had the Veng badly off-balance, and though it was putting up dogged resistance, it had little chance of landing a blow while Gabrial was driving it back toward the sea. Back away from Gariffred. Back away from Pine. Straight for the cliff edge.

  And over.

  They fell, still clamped together, and only broke apart as they bounced off a rounded saddle of rock. Gabrial got lucky then. He had caused no injury to the Veng’s wings, and as soon as it was free, it tried to open them, to fly. It flicked a wing out and swiftly extended the poisoned barbs that ran the entire length of it, including the hidden spur that lay in the bony joint halfway along the main arm. But the other wing was hampered by rock. The Veng had
fallen into a chasm, not quite big enough to trap it, but awkward enough to prevent a quick escape. It had no choice but to fold its wings down and scull the water at the base of the chasm, while it struggled to get a grip against hunks of stone scoured with layers of sea thorn and slime. In a raging burst, it came up suddenly, rasping a host of murderous noises from the seat of its throat and the ragged, blood-drenched hole in its neck. It clambered upright and looked around, and soon saw Gabrial waiting for it.

  Gabrial lashed his tail across its breast, a swipe so strong that the Veng was batted clear of the shoreline and into the open sea. There it floated in its own blood, steam pouring off its grayish underbelly, claws contracting in no fixed pattern, one leg twitching in spasmodic bursts. Not dead yet, but gravely winded, all bar its head just under the water.

  Gabrial knew he must finish this now. If he let the Veng recover, it would come for him, no matter how bad its injuries might be. Veng battled to the death, and he must do the same. One more hit while it was dazed should end it.

  He flew the short distance to where the Veng floated, flashed his tail, and struck at the head in a hard chopping motion.

  A crown of water splashed into the sky. But something was seriously wrong about that. His isoscele had traveled farther than it should have, as if he’d cut through a drift of snow. He looked down and saw blood still pooling on the water.

  The body had disappeared.

  The Veng had dived.

  In an instant, Gabrial knew he’d been tricked. The Veng had lured him into a trap. Suddenly, the thing leapt out of the water, grasped one foot, and pulled him down. Gabrial beat his wings hard, whipping the sea into a clattering fury. But there was little hope of flight with such a weight against his leg. He crashed below the surface, rigid with fear, bubbles streaming from every spiracle. Water was not a good fighting ground for dragons. But if it favored one class, it favored the Veng. They were excellent swimmers and not called “green fish” for nothing. Water dulled their natural speed of attack, but they could easily outmaneuver most marine creatures. Gabrial was no match for them in these conditions. He was in desperate danger and he knew it.

  The first strike punctured his wing. It was a truly surreal experience to be tumbling through water with a foe so deadly and not be able to roll on command or hit at will. The usual tactics did not apply here. The best immediate defense was avoidance. Through the murk, he saw the Veng’s isoscele coming, squirming toward his head like a dart. Just in time, he turned away and felt a thud as the point arrowed into his wing. A cold pain lit up his shoulder. The isoscele had ripped through one of the sails that made up the canopy of his wing. He saw the wound edges flapping but could only guess at the damage, not truly feel it.

  More strikes followed. But they were all minor. A scrape of claws along the neck. A bite to the foot. He realized the Veng was playing with him, wearing him down, waiting for him to run out of breath before it went in hard with its poisons and spikes and all the rest of its toxic arsenal.

  He had to surface. Had to. But how? Every time he pushed toward the murky light, the Veng circled and took another piece out of him. Like all dragons, Gabrial could hold his breath for long periods. But the effort required to repel the Veng was eating into reserves he didn’t have, whereas the sier pent was sure to have plenty in its air sacs.

  Time was running out.

  Think, Gabrial. Think.

  Then, an idea came to him. Once again, it was the voice of per Grogan he turned to. He remembered a story the old dragon had told about a foolish roamer who had fallen into an ice-cold lake and tried to use its fire to warm the water. The flame had boiled a small part of the surface and created a scalding veil of steam. The steam had spread under the roamer’s scales and burned some parts of its body so badly that it never walked properly again.

  Fire. Every dragon’s sacred gift.

  But would it work underwater?

  For the love of Godith, it was worth a try.

  As the Veng came again, Gabrial opened his fire sacs and blew with all his might. A stranger outcome he had rarely seen. Instead of pouring forth in a golden wave, the fire died at the end of his snout, displacing an ongoing surge of ripples that raced one another to reach the surface. The Veng saw what was happening and must have thought the blue had gone mad. Fire? In water? Its eye ridges flipped to a mocking angle, and it dived straight forward, into the swell. That was the start of its downfall. Gabrial closed his eyes and sealed down his scales as the first throb of heat surrounded him. Despite blowing forward, he felt the burns worst on his undersides and tail, and in every scratch the Veng had landed. At one point, he thought his wings would ignite. He immediately swam for the surface and broke through just before the Veng managed to. The sea was boiling, rushing in circles from the heart of the disturbance, carrying steam flurries all the way to shore.

  Now the Veng was in desperate trouble. It was gasping badly through the hole in its neck. Red welts were showing in places where its bright green scales had lifted. One of its bloated eye shields had popped. Briefly, Gabrial pitied it. But as soon as the Veng laid its good eye on him, it spat out a roar and came for him again. Wild with pain, it launched itself forward, straight into Gabrial’s powerful claws. He seized it by the neck and with one wrench opened up the rings of bone that supported the network of throat muscles, making the bite wound larger again, large enough to flood the Veng’s airways with water. Then he plunged the head below the waves and held it there until the beast stopped thrashing.

  The Veng sank painfully slowly. And with it went Gabrial’s hopes for the future. The last of the Wearle’s security force was dead. And though there had been provocation in plenty, there was nothing to prove it, no clear defense for his actions. When news of the killings reached Prime Grynt, Gabrial, Grendel, Gus, and the wearlings would all be branded traitors. None of them would leave this planet alive. They were outlaws of the Wearle and would be called to justice. There was only one option open to them.

  Flee.

  But a swift escape was not going to be possible. Despite the Veng’s strike, Gabrial’s wing was not badly damaged and he was able to fly to the clifftop again. There he was met by a troubling sight. Gus was stretched out sideways on the ground, his chest rising and falling faster than it ought to. The big green roamer was cradling Gariffred, who looked disoriented and a little cold. Pine was nowhere to be seen and Gabrial could find no hint of her scent. He figured she’d made a run for the mountains. But the girl was the least of his worries now.

  He limped forward, blood dripping from a bite to his foreleg. Shaking a piece of seaweed off his snout, he ran his gaze over Gus’s body. The roamer had suffered no obvious injuries other than a serious wound to the throat. The gash was doing its best to close and bleeding had slowed to a trickle. But a dark gray pus was already congealing around its edges. The scales nearby were also losing color. A sign of deep Veng poisoning.

  Gus opened his arms and encouraged Gariffred to wriggle free. The drake nestled under his guardian’s breast. He had seen enough of the world for one day.

  “You need to go,” said Gus, wincing as he struggled to open his jaw.

  “Gus …” Gabrial wanted to tell him to rest. The effort of speaking had made the wound swell and broken some of the healing webs. But there was no point asking Gus not to talk. By right, he needed to say his piece. No dragon liked to switch to thought exchange when they had little time to live.

  “Go,” Gus croaked. “Take the drake. Leave me. A sweeper could come over at any time. Then they’ll all be here.”

  Gabrial shook his head. “I can’t leave you. Not like this.”

  Gus retracted his claws, grimacing as the poison did its work. “You can. You must. Burn me and fly to Grynt.”

  The blue glanced briefly at the mountaintops. If Gariffred’s i:mage was accurate, Grynt might be overthrown by now—or lying dead in his eyrie, slain by a boy with the power to transform into a black dragon. The thought sent a chill down Gabrial�
�s spine and made him worry for Grendel and Gayl. But surely if the Prime had been attacked, there would be battle cries ringing out from the mountains? Yet the skies were clear and calm. That once again begged the puzzling question: What was Ren doing on the peak of Skytouch?

  “Tell the Elders it was me who attacked the Veng. Tell Grynt you tried to stop it.”

  Gabrial snorted softly, irritating a freezing cut in one nostril. The Veng venom had not gone deep in him, but it would still be a while before his natural defenses brought it under control. “They’d never believe me. Besides, what reason would you have to take both of them on?”

  Gus made a slight movement in his back. “The rumor going around the Wearle ought to do it.”

  Gabrial’s eye ridges stiffened. “What rumor?”

  “You obviously haven’t heard,” Gus said, coughing up a swab of yellow mucus.

  “Heard what?” said Gabrial, distracted by a sudden flare of screeches. He swung his head fast toward the sea. For one panic-stricken moment he thought the Veng had survived and was about to mount a surprise attack. But it was only the seabirds, squabbling for space as they returned to their settles. He panned the sky warily all the same. Gus was right. If they stayed here much longer they would be seen.

  “They think one of us killed Gallen.”

  Gabrial swung his head back, his stigs bristling. That was a name he thought he’d heard the last of. The Veng commander had died in Gabrial’s fire when the blue had mistaken him for an enemy goyle. The memory of it still spiked his sleep.

  “They found his body in the forest,” Gus said, his claws bunching against the pain. It was hurting him now to squeeze the words out. “Burns all over him. Dragon scars. The only ones near him at the time he died were you, me, and Garodor. I’m guessing it was you who took him down, but I’m happy to accept the blame for killing that piece of callous—”