Flight to Dragon Isle (17 page)

Tangnost hesitated, then blew out a cloud of smoke from his pipe as if to mask his words. ‘No. The fortress was retaken by the Lord Protector and the Army of the North,’ he reluctantly conceded.

‘The Lord Protector?’ Quenelda looked baffled and glanced at Root, who was fiddling with his boot laces. He hadn’t mentioned any Lord Protector. ‘Who’s that? What Army of the North?’

‘The Guild feared that the SDS could no longer protect them. They petitioned the Crown to let the Grand Master raise an army in his lands. He took personal command and led an army of raw recruits to retake the fortress. Of course, no one save us knows how he truly did it; that the hobgoblins are his to command. Following that great feat of arms,’ Tangnost growled, ‘the Lord Hugo was made Lord Protector of the realm and is hailed as the new Champion of the people. He is now the most powerful man in the Seven Sea Kingdoms, and the SDS have been all but forgotten. Most available dragons, troops and gold from the Royal Treasury are diverted north to his lands beyond the Old Wall.’

Quenelda leaped to her feet as Root bit his lip unhappily. ‘But he’s a traitor!’ Her voice rose shrill with denial. ‘He betrayed the SDS and the Queen.’

‘He has proved himself cunning beyond imagination. Who will believe him a traitor now that he has retaken the Howling Glen and returned it to the SDS? Who would believe us?’

A knock on the door forestalled Quenelda’s protest. A young SDS knight entered and bowed respectfully to her. It was Guy DeBessert.

‘My father sends his greetings, Lady Quenelda.’ Having witnessed the scene at the Heartrock, Guy was still wide-eyed with awe. ‘All are glad you are recovered. They tell me that you flew’ – he hesitated, knowing mention of her dragon would be painful – ‘Two Gulps to rescue Darcy after the battlegriff bolted, and that you executed a perfect Stoner Manoeuvre. I wish I had seen it!’ he added wistfully, unconsciously rubbing the stump of his right hand – the legacy of Darcy’s foolhardiness. ‘I am heartily sorry Darcy had your dragon killed.’ Guy shook his head. ‘How could he do such a thing to such a magnificent creature?’ Seeing tears in Quenelda’s eyes, his words tapered away to silence. Tangnost raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

‘Dragonmaster.’ Finally remembering his errand, Guy stood to attention. ‘My lord father asks if you would attend him in his quarters?’

‘Perhaps,’ Root suggested, ‘you’d like to explore the fortress? If you are feeling strong enough?’

Tangnost nodded. ‘I will join you both later. Don’t tire her,’ he warned Root. ‘Much has changed,’ he cautioned Quenelda gently before he left, ‘since you were last here …’

Quenelda nodded.

Despite Tangnost’s warning, Quenelda was still shocked by the air of despondency that hung over the island like a dark cloud. Always to the fore of the fighting, and stretched to breaking point by recent heavy losses, the elite SDS had paid a terrible price during the Battle of the Westering Isles and its dreadful aftermath. It was now a shadow of its former glory.

As Quenelda and Root took porting discs down into the rock combs, they passed through empty guard rooms, dark foundries, armouries and half-empty barracks. Only the hospital wing was still crowded, overflowing into a barracks room.

The unseen sun was high overhead as Quenelda and Root, now joined by Tangnost, were welcomed to the battleroosts by one of the SDS Dragonmasters – a grizzled and badly scarred veteran called Loki Strongarm, also of the Bear clan and one of Tangnost’s second cousins, who limped heavily on crutches. He saw Root’s horrified gaze resting on the scar that slashed across his face.

‘Took an injury in the Howling Glen,’ the barrel-chested dwarf explained, ‘when they attacked the fortress last year – a hobgoblin cleaver. That’s how I came to be sent here to Dragon Isle. It was quite a battle.’ He nodded to Tangnost, one veteran to another. ‘Two hobgoblin banners right under our noses! Nearly caught us by surprise, but the Earl’s scout gave us warning.’

At the mention of the Howling Glen, Root bit his lip and turned pale. Tangnost reached out a hand to squeeze the boy’s shoulder in sympathy.

‘That was my father,’ Root said quietly, head held high.

‘This is Oakley’s son, Root,’ Tangnost added. ‘Now the Lady Quenelda’s esquire.’

The dwarf’s eyes widened. Grinning, he reached out a hand and clasped Root’s wrist in a bone-crunching soldier’s grip. ‘Your father saved us, son. He was a good man.’

Root smiled weakly, trying not to wince.

As they toured the dragoncombs, Quenelda discovered roost after roost standing empty, the names carved on the archways a mute reminder of how many had died at the Westering Isles and subsequent battles. And there were few to take their place; the maternity roosts could not keep up with demand.

‘Just like Dragonsdome.’ Quenelda was aghast.
Where had they gone?

‘Just like Dragonsdome,’ Tangnost agreed. ‘And most juveniles from the Royal studs now go to the Army of the North.’

The Army of the North!
Quenelda already hated that name.
Lord Protector, indeed! How could the Queen have done it? No one could replace her father! She knew that those Razorbacks were of Mandrake’s creation. He was the traitor. Why couldn’t anyone else see it?

And the roosts that weren’t empty were occupied by exhausted battledragons: Imperials, Vipers, Adders and Magmas, Frosts, Vampires, and the Lesser Chameleons and Thistles used by scouts and couriers; most of them injured in one way or another, their scales and eyes dulled by fatigue. Their anguished whispers filled Quenelda’s head. And worse, they were painfully thin, skin stretched over jutting ribs and parchment-thin wings. They looked half starved.

Quenelda turned to Loki. ‘But why are they all so thin? So sickly?’

‘Brimstone.’ The dwarf shook his weary head. ‘Shipments aren’t getting through, and those that reach us bear low-grade ore – ore that would once have been rejected. The best is requisitioned by the Lord Protector in the name of the Crown. We send couriers, but all the Royal and DeWinter mines are now guarded by the Lord Protector’s men, and they insist the shipments are being sent. Guild galleons are raided by pirates.’

Loki sighed with frustration. ‘Even our own battlegalleons are being attacked by Razorbacks. We have lost dozens on escort duty. They simply vanish during the night.’

‘Indeed,’ Tangnost agreed dryly. ‘Since the SDS are so sorely pressed, the Lord Protector has taken it upon himself to provide escort duty with Crown troops, to prevent any further hobgoblin incursions … but they too disappear …

Next they visited the upper flight hangar cavern at the top of the cliffs, built about and beneath the Seadragon Keep. The once glorious pedigree dragons of the Rapid Reaction Force were exhausted; they had flown too many sorties. Racked by coughs and minor injuries, worn out Harriers and Imperials slept fitfully in the flightroosts, ready for immediate takeoff; their sleep disturbed all too often as they were scrambled to repel a hobgoblin incursion. One patrol was sweeping in as another was taking off.

All at once the dragonhorn sounded, its deep sonorous
boom
making the air in the combs vibrate about them.

‘Scramble! Scramble! Scramble!’

The flight hangar exploded into action. Already armoured and saddled, ten dragons were roused and led outside onto the cliffside combat pads by ground crew. Girths were tightened, straps adjusted, feedbags removed. Fully armoured pilots and navigators stumbled out of their hammocks and raced towards their dragons, swiftly climbing the rungs set into the dragon saddles and girths. Settling into their high-backed combat seats, they buckled on helmets, clipped dragoncloaks to flying harness, slung black swords about their hips, their battle staffs already holstered at their knees

Dwarfs pounded out of the northern barracks, collecting shields and axes and war mallets from the racks as they ran, without missing a step.

‘Go! Go! Go!’

Behind the two SDS Dragon Lords, two-score commandos mounted two at a time, storming up the dragons’ great tail plates. One tripped and fell, sending another half-dozen sprawling down the wing in a tangle of weaponry.

Quenelda could feel Tangnost’s concern, though the dragonmaster said nothing. There was nothing to be done about it: after all, there were too many half-trained recruits, too many veterans, too few overall to fully man each dragon.

Ground crew cleared the pads. The dragons powered up, great wings sweeping up and down, warming aching muscles, stretching tendons. Landing lights winked from amber to green.

‘Wingwraith, Wingwraith, you are cleared for immediate takeoff. Wind westerly, twelve knots and rising. ETA on the Isle of Storms, sixteen bells and counting.’

‘We are good to go.’

‘Good hunting, Wingwraith. Seadragon Keep, over and out.’

Within moments, Imperials and swifter Harriers of the SDS were swooping down, gathering speed before arcing up into the air and heading for the Westering Ocean.

The hospital wing was worse – a nightmare of suppurating burns, torn limbs and broken bodies. The dragonsmiths, surgeons and their esquires were on the point of collapse. Young cadets from the Battle Academy above had been summoned away from their studies and textbooks to assist; but the hollow-eyed youths were stumbling with weariness.

As they moved amongst the roosts, the stink of burned flesh made Root gag, but Quenelda cried out in horror. Hands held against her ears, she reeled under the waves of pain and anguish from the injured dragons that washed through her.

She turned to the nearest dragon. Swiftly she then moved from roost to roost, till her head ached.

‘I would like to help nurse the injured,’ she said to Loki. There is still a deep infection beneath these wounds.’ She gestured to Storm from the North’s chest. ‘The poison is gone, but it will need your care and knowledge to heal her. Warrior Windsong has a hairline fracture to her third torlock bone. Crunch Beneath my Talon has an arrowhead lodged beneath his quipsom, which is why he’s so agitated … and the stitches around Pounce in the Night’s amputated hind leg need to be redone. They’re too tight, perhaps an apprentice stitched them – and they give him a lot of pain. And …’

‘Well, I’ll be blowed, Cousin Tangnost,’ the watching Dragonmaster said, dealing his cousin a thumping blow between the shoulders that made Root’s knees feel like buckling in sympathy. ‘I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it.’

The grizzled dwarf held out a hand to clasp one of Quenelda’s in a rock-hard grip. ‘You’re welcome here, Lady Quenelda, most welcome. We are short-handed as you can see; lost four score surgeons and hundreds of dragonsmiths on the Westering Isles. We need all the help we can get!

‘But how?’ He turned to Tangnost as Quenelda moved off. ‘How can a child know these things?’

‘No!’

They both turned at the sudden loud command.

Shouts and the sound of thrashing wings and talons scraping on rock had drawn Quenelda to a roost deeper in the cavern, where a surgeon and two esquires were trying to treat a badly injured young battledragon.

‘No, no further,’ the surgeon repeated as Tangnost arrived, Loki trying to keep up on his crutches. ‘This is no place for you to be – it is too dangerous’

Held by restraining ropes, the highly agitated Frost colt, Winter Wingwraith, was struggling so violently the cradle he rested in was on the verge of cracking. He had livid black burns across one wing and neck, deep, angry bubbling wounds that seeped and stank, foul against the pure white of his scales.

‘Can you save him?’ Tangnost held Quenelda back in an iron grip.

The grizzled battle surgeon wearily shook his head. ‘No. We have lost three from this patrol alone, he is the last.’ He coughed harshly. ‘I’ve never seen such virulent sorcery. We don’t even how they have become infected. They are scouts; they’ve not fought in any engagements. I’ve tried everything I know, Bearhugger.’

‘Whoa there, boy!’

The colt reared up, knocking an apothecary to the ground. Eyes rolling in their sockets, the colt was frothing at the mouth, hearts racing so fast Quenelda could hear them from where she stood. Soon, like the others, she knew his twin hearts would burst.

Hush
… Quenelda focused solely on the struggling colt, trying to shut out the background cries and whispers. She felt something new stir deep within her in warning; knowledge that wasn’t quite memory, a thought that was not quite hers. Darkness snapped in her mind as she jerked her hand back. Maelstrom, the corrupt taint of the Maelstrom!

How do I know? Where have these memories come from? They are not just dreams are they? But I do … somehow I recognise it now … ancient darkness … it has come again … the Abyss opens … the Dark is rising
… She shivered with foreboding.
What is happening to me? What am I? These are not my memories
…

She moved forwards, pulling against the anchor of the dwarf’s arm ‘Let me go to him.’

‘No. This is beyond you.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Root was puzzled. ‘Why don’t you let her go? She can help.’

‘They’re dying,’ Tangnost answered grimly, his eye on the surgeon.

‘I know,’ Quenelda argued. ‘That’s why—’

‘
Not
just the dragons, Quenelda; everyone who comes into contact with them dies.’

‘Dying?’ Root was horrified. ‘I don’t understand …’

‘None do, lad,’ the surgeon said wearily, running a hand through thinning hair. A hank came off in his hand. He barely noticed.

Aghast, Root and Quenelda studied him and his young esquires in the dim light. They all looked like living ghosts with dark sunken eyes and green tinged skin hanging in waxy folds. They were racked with coughs, their movements jerky as puppets with broken strings.

‘Once they go blind we give them a soldiers’ death, Loki said softly. ‘A swift death.’

Root gulped, feeling sick.

Tangnost nodded. ‘Believe me, it’s a kindness.’

‘But I can help him. He’s only slightly infected. I can—’

The dwarf shook his head. ‘Quenelda, no,’ he began. ‘You have little knowledge of healing, no experience of chaotic Battle Magic. You do not know the danger that—’