Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (34 page)

Zip asked, “Is it normal for powers to appear
just like that?”

Ri’arion nodded. “The gifts lie latent within
a Dragon. No-one knows when the power will manifest, but like my testing of Humans, only those gifts given the person will manifest. I never finished testing Aranya–and I don’t think I want to. The Great Dragon cut the testing short. He will have a reason. Instead, I will offer my service and my knowledge.”

Aranya launched herself and her Riders out of the dell with the last light of suns-set. The Cloudlands ahead lay like crinkly auburn hair between the Islands, the wavy crests highlighted by beams of sunlight blazing between several low, thin banks of clouds.

The wind blew against them; a steady, strength-sapping breeze directly from the north. Aranya worked hard to keep her forward momentum. She tried various altitudes, but found nothing to relieve her. They stopped several times at small Islands, but it was mostly tedious labour, on and on, counting the hours away, listening to Ri’arion and Zuziana discussing Dragon powers and life at the monastery and Zip’s memories of growing up in Remoy. They were becoming close, Aranya thought. She might lose her Rider.

Her Riders slept several
hours until dawn. They took turns keeping her company or resting as she winged northward the whole of the following day and well into the night after that. Aranya had far too much time alone with her thoughts. She tried very hard not to let fear rule her hearts–fear for Immadia, terror for the fate of her family and fury and despair whenever she thought of Yolathion’s treachery.

Toward midnight, Dragon-Aranya
twisted her neck until she scowled over her shoulder. “Awake?”

“Aye,” said Ri’arion. “Zip’s awake, too. Tired?”

“Puffed out. I don’t think we’ve made up a single hour on this leg. Yorbik Island is still leagues away. But I smell smoke on this blasted breeze.”

“You smell smoke from the next Island?” asked Zuziana.

“It’s fifty leagues on the map from the last place,” said Aranya. “I’m not convinced it’s just a forest fire–the smell’s not right.”

She heard
a rustle as Ri’arion pulled out the compact map they had borrowed from Nak. He and Zuziana bent over it. “This one,” said the monk, pointing at something Aranya could not see. “Rorbis Island. Tiny place.”

As the night drew on, a column of smoke slowly became apparent, lit from behin
d by an almost-full White moon. A little later, Iridith rose in the southeast. Aranya saw the destruction long before her Human Riders could make out the detail. Ri’arion and Zuziana became subdued as they approached the small town.

“It’s been razed,” said Zip.

“This is Dragonship work,” said Ri’arion. “Look, you can see the scorch marks and a quarrel stuck in that roof over there. Bodies everywhere, not buried. It’s a massacre.”

“Garthion practising with his forces?”

“Or Yolathion,” said Aranya. She swallowed down her fury.

Despair stuck in
her craw like a bone bent on choking her. She wanted to believe Yolathion had been coerced. But she knew that was a false hope. Nelthion had numbered the Jeradian component of the Sylakian forces at over twenty Dragonships–a thousand men. Yolathion could have started his own war, had he wanted to. Instead, he had chosen to accompany Garthion on his mission of vengeance. That was his heart. That was how he chose to serve Sylakia; the ultimate rejection of whatever feelings he might have shown for an Immadian Princess. Aranya had been completely wrong about him. She had to accept that. Beneath the mannerly, sometimes boyish exterior, lay the cold heart of a killer.

“
People, down there,” said Ri’arion.

Aranya peered at the town. “We’ve been spotted. They’re waving us down. Green flags. Look, in the middle of what’s left of the marketplace.”

“Green flags for a Dragon? Stinks like a Sylakian trap,” said Zuziana.

“I don’t sense danger.”

Aranya grinned at Ri’arion as they said exactly the same thing at the same time.

“Fine,” he said. “Land me outside town. I’ll go in. You spot any trouble, you either destroy it, or get me out of there fast. No need for dignity. Trail a rope, or pluck me up like a sheep.”

“I’m going with you,” said Zip.

S
o Aranya was left to drift alone though the smoke billowing above the town as her companions approached the small group, just a dozen or so townspeople, who had survived. Her neck swivelled. The Sylakians were gone. There was no trap here. Their depraved work was complete.

Aranya tuned in her ears.

“–sorry for your loss. What happened here?”

“
You’s them as baited the Sylakians down in Remoy? Can’t be more than one Dragon in the Island-World, right, stranger?”

Ri’arion agreed. “We’re hunting Garthion, the son of the Sylakian Supreme Commander.”

“The Butcher of Jeradia,” said the man. “And now the Butcher of Rorbis. He come wanting some of our young girls, he said. When we refused–we’ve heard them stories ‘bout him–he said we done paid no taxes. He left; his Dragonships came.”

“How far are we behind the Dragonships?” asked Zip.

“You that little missy they’s talking about?” The man sounded astonished. “They done said you destroyed over fifty Dragonships. That right, missy?”

Aranya’s Dragon sight scanned the town, the surrounds, the skies above and the lay of the Cloudlands. All was still. Sapphire played around her nose, making circles so tight that Aranya
started to feel dizzy.

“Right,” said Zip. “I am Zuziana of Remoy, Dragon Rider. That’s my Dragon up there.”

Her Dragon wanted to weep at the note of pride in her voice.

The man made a gesture of honour toward her. “This Island-World needs more of your kind, Dragon Rider. I thought ye some giant, not a titch of a girl. I’s so old I remembers Dragons and their Riders. I seen your kind
, monk; I knows that Fra’aniorian look about yer eyes. Dragon Warrior and enchanter, you are.”

Ri’arion bowed. “The honour is ours.”

The man scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Best as I make it yer some three days behind that son of a ralti sheep dropping.”

Another of the townspeople put in, “Nay, add a half, old man.
They’s left in the morning. Count three nights back, then–aye.”

“Three and a half,” said the old man. “We heard they gone to Yorbik Island, bound for Helyon.”

“Thank you for the information,” said Ri’arion.

If Garthion
had paused to gather his forces at Yorbik Island, Aranya thought, they might just be on schedule. But if he had blazed on through, they could end up being just too late to save Immadia. Could she pray for a handy storm to slow them down? The western horizon looked stormy, a fine bank of deep-bellied clouds gathering out there, a silvery menace in the moonlight.

Please let it strike the Dragonships and not them. Please.

* * * *

As if it were a titanic bully which had no reason to hurry before falling upon its intended victim, the storm approached during the remainder of that night and the following morning. Aranya pushed hard into the freshening gusts, reaching Yorbik Island and crossing the great forests of the interior as the
black-bellied clouds piled up and marched across the skies. She tried not to imagine how the Black Dragon loved to appear out of clouds similar to these.

She was
fatigued, but refused to give in. Just one more Island, she thought. Dragon-Aranya had the strength. She had to push through for Immadia’s sake.

Zip kicked Aranya’s flank with her heel. “Find a cave, Aranya.”

“We could go on to Ferial Island,” she growled back.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Your wing beat has slowed. I’m counting.” Aranya snarled something fireball-
ish beneath her breath. Counting? Her Rider was getting too good at this. Zip said, “You couldn’t fly another half-day in good weather, never mind into the teeth of this storm.”

“But Garthion’s Dragonships–”

“But nothing, you stubborn goat–oh, Aranya. Please, I don’t want to fight you over this.” Zip sounded exhausted, too. “After Ferial Island we take on the Cloudlands. For that, you need to be fresh and rested. I know we don’t know how long the Sylakians tarried in Yorbik. This part will require faith.”

“Or a quick stop to ask questions at Ferial,” said Ri’arion.

“A noted Sylakian ally,” retorted Zip.

“Oh.” The monk nodded. “I concur with Zuziana. Please put down, Aranya.”

“Fine, gang up on me.”

Zip said, “Two Humans gang up on a Dragon? You know how ridiculous you sound, Aranya?”

Zuziana chuckled away as her ride circled, searching for a place to put down. The gentle slopes of Yorbik Island did not lend themselves to what Aranya was beginning to realise were Dragon-friendly cliffs furnished with hidden ledges for landing on, nooks and handy caves for skulking in while breathing out swirls of sulphurous fire and using the cave echoes to sharpen her growling skills. But she eventually found a low cavern tucked away behind a stand of hardwood trees, and that only because her sharp eyes detected a very late bat darting into it to take shelter.

Barely had she landed and squeezed between the trees into the narrow fissure guarding a round, sandy cave beyond, when the heavens opened and ice began to smash to the ground. Aranya had only once in her life seen hail like it–
hailstones the size of pebbles. Some were even large enough to fit in Zip’s palm.

Zip held up such a specimen and raised her eyebrow.

“Fine, you were right. Zip, Ri’arion, I’m just …”

“Stressed? Edgy? Tense? Frantic? Overwrought? Weary?
Anxious?”

“Zip–Zip it.”

Ri’arion pulled the saddle loose and slid down her flank with a boyish whoop, landing neatly on his feet. Aranya nearly choked with laughter at the expression on Zuziana’s face. What on the Islands had bitten the monk? She forgot how young he was, because he acted so stern most of the time.

Zip said, “Aranya, this
storm’s all over the North Isles–well, not that you apparently consider Yorbik anything but a pretender to the throne, but nevertheless. If the Sylakian Dragonships are out in the open–boom, crash, sizzle. If not, they are sitting just as cheerfully as us waiting for the winds to abate, and hopefully looking forward to repairing lots of nasty little holes in their hydrogen sacks.”

There was an idea. She could
punch lots of holes in Yolathion’s head with her claws.

Aranya let the sounds of the storm fill her. She had hoped to be soothed, but the subsonic vibration of the thunder made her scales
itch and the strobe lightning put her on edge. Was this her new powers coming to the fore? No longer would she be content to set a few curtains alight, now she would call down lightning and raise whirlwinds in rooms … as she had done on a small scale already, she remembered.

Sapphire whimpered. Aranya’s emotions were communicating to the dragonet again. She had to calm down. She had to relax, to sleep. She called Sapphire over to her.
It’s just a storm, little one.

The interminable waiting in a gloomy cave for the wind to stop shrieking eventually did bore her to sleep. Aranya’s eyes shuttered, but she kept one ear open. The Dragon in her was learning to sleep like a cat.

Aranya cracked an eye open later to check on her surroundings. The storm howled outside the cave, a hungry Dragon on the hunt. Ri’arion snored gently, his head pillowed on Zip’s arm. Zuziana, who had taken to wearing her curly brown hair unbound after flying–was glowing blue, surrounded by a halo of electrically charged strands of hair to midway down her back. As she watched a spark leaped from her to the Ha’athiorian monk. He mumbled and shifted in his sleep. Zip, judging from the rapid movement of her eyes, must be dreaming. She moaned and twisted, muttering in her sleep.

Suddenly, her
body jerked. “No! Garthion … please don’t … it hurts …”

A killing rage exploded in
Aranya’s throat. For long moments she struggled to swallow it down, to deny the liquid inferno. Thunder crashed outside, so close it shook the cave. Trembling, she raised her forepaw, intending to gently poke Zuziana awake. Lightning flashed inside the cave. She yelped. That was powerful. But the charge on Zip muted–somewhat. She mumbled, seeming to settle for a moment. But the glowing returned, stronger than ever, reminding Aranya painfully of how she had dreamed chaotic and bizarre dreams before her first transformation.

“No, no,” Zuziana whimpered. Her body curled up
. She shuddered as though she was having a fit. “Not the eyes … Dragon fire … no!” Aranya could bear it no longer as she sobbed in her sleep. Her friend had suffered; she did not need to suffer in her dreams as well.

“Zip, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

The Princess sat up abruptly, wild-eyed. “Oh, oh–Aranya. I …”

“Come here, Zip.”

A Dragon’s paw, bigger than her friend’s entire back, could easily force her to comply. But Aranya minded her claws and gently persuaded Zip with a curl of her paw and a gentle word. She resisted at first, but then allowed herself to be drawn into a hug. Zuziana put her arms around Aranya’s neck and held her fiercely.