Shadow Dragon (8 page)

“Sorry,” wailed Zip.

“Forget it,” snarled Ri’arion, striking the hydrogen sack with his sword. “Quick. That catapult.”

Zip flipped over, diving upside-down at the catapult opposite. The men aiming it at her saw the better side of wisdom and leaped for their lives. The Azure Dragoness crashed into the gantry, splintering the wooden safety railings. She smacked the catapult with her tail. The catapult fired, blasting a hole in the cabin wall of a nearby Dragonship. She saw right through into the furnace room. Fire spilled out of the broken meriatite furnace.

“Ri’arion!” she howled, kicking away desperately. No, he was on a different Dragonship–flying! Briefly, the monk steadied himself with his magic to complete an impossible hundred-foot bound to another Dragonship. He caught the netting expertly. Tail pointed at the explosion, Zuziana felt a wave of heat roll over her body. She scudded forward, sweeping toward the monk–but he was agile enough to dodge her flailing paws and grab hold of her tail one-handed.

“Don’t panic, rajal,” he grinned. “Next?”

She dropped the monk onto the last Dragonship in the group near the fortress. His great sword slashed the sack repeatedly. In the distance, Darron’s Dragonships had reoriented on the intended ambush and the battle was already joined. She saw quarrels buzzing angrily back and forth. A Dragonship flying the Immadian royal purple drifted toward the ground, its cabin dangling by a single hawser.

Two warriors had clambered up the netting to engage Ri’arion. Zuziana threw herself back toward the Dragonship, menacing them as they closed with her Rider. A swipe of her paw sent them spinning to the ground, far below.

Ri’arion wiped his forehead. “I could’ve dealt with them.”

“Just tidying up. How’s the shoulder?”

“A scratch,” he said, climbing back into the saddle as the Dragonship tilted alarmingly. That so-called scratch was leaking bright, fresh blood. Zuziana felt terrible. But her proud monk, judging by his expression, would not welcome any sympathy.

The Dragoness pointed with her chin. “Shall we go even the odds?”

“Aye. I’m in.”

She launched off the flaccid hydrogen sack. Bright flares lit the southern hills as three Dragonships exploded within seconds of each other. Zip’s secondary optical membranes adjusted automatically, cycling through a near-opaque state to clear again. The conflict was thick and brutal. Dragonships tangled together in the sky. Troops hacked at each other from twisted gantries and leaped from netting to netting, trying to down or gain entry to enemy vessels. Catapults and war crossbows fired point-blank at each other. She saw knots of Immadian troops falling from a stricken Dragonship. Rage rose in her throat. This was wrong. As a Dragon, she was supposed to be protecting these people.

The Azure Dragon accelerated sharply, catching Ri’arion by surprise.

He called, “Zuziana …”

But she no longer heard him. Held hostage by her rage, Zuziana shot across Gemalka Island’s rugged terrain, aiming for the centre of that conflict. Three Sylakian Dragonships, flying crimson flags and the screaming windroc, the symbol of Sylakia, clustered together there, pounding an Immadian vessel. Her neck prickled. Her vision narrowed, darkness closing in as power coalesced in her belly. The Azure Dragon revelled in its seductive song. She fed it without stinting. She lost herself in a blue ocean, electrified by the charge building inside her body.

Rise!
she sang to herself.
Rise and strike the enemy.

Her throat opened. The lightning within her leaped for freedom, branching to strike the three Sylakian Dragonships with a
crack!
that echoed off the hills. The detonations were instantaneous. Bits of gantries and turbines and war catapults rained from the sky.

Only a black, empty hollow was left inside her. Too much … she had nothing left. Nothing.

Her azure wings crumpled softly.

She heard a voice in the distance calling, “Zip! Zip!” But the gathering darkness was irresistible.

* * * *

When her eyes opened, Zuziana saw Commander Darron’s boots just a foot from her nose. He was arguing vociferously with two of his officers about what to do with the captured Dragonships. She shifted her throbbing head. Ri’arion … three men knelt around the prone body of her Rider!

The Dragoness surged to her paws.

“Zip!” said the Commander. “He’s alright. They’re just dressing his wounds.”

“I’m fine,” Ri’arion called.

He sounded so enfeebled! Zuziana pressed her muzzle between two of the medics. “Ri’arion?”

“Are you ralti-stupid? Lie down.”

“Nice to see you alive, too.” Zip bared her fangs. But she sank to her belly, deflated. “Ouch. I hurt everywhere. You rescued us–how?”

“Well, it was tough, but I can levitate, as you know.” The monk grinned at the ferocious growl her fire-stomach voiced at this comment. “So I tried to levitate both of us–only, you’re slightly bigger than a Human.”

“But we’re alive.”

“Aye. It’s my favourite way to be. What of the battle, Commander?”

He grunted, “Glad to see you two made it. Dragon lady, you hit them with a triple lightning strike. Their courage jumped off the Island at that. We lost five Dragonships. Two more are too damaged to repair, but we gained thirteen, making a net gain of six. Forty-three warriors died or are too injured to continue. The Gemalkans want to be our allies.”

Ri’arion laughed, but clutched his shoulder. All three medics hissed at him at once. “That’s enough for me,” he said. “See to the Princess.” Blank looks passed between the medics. “The Dragoness. Perhaps you should transform, Zuziana.”

“But I’m wounded. Aranya said that transforming with large wounds–”

“Only bruised, according to the medics,” he corrected her. “And, you’ll use up far less supplies in your Human form.”

Deciding that his comment was worth neither a growl nor a smart reply, Zip transformed and accepted a thin ralti-wool blanket one of the medics passed to her. Her chest and sternum ached as though she had been butted by a male ralti sheep. Her landing must have been rough. Various flesh-wounds adorned her body, but none appeared serious. Nevertheless, the medics cleaned and dusted the wounds with healing herbs and bandaged her until adding clothing seemed superfluous.

Darron rattled off orders with the ease and thoroughness of a veteran officer. At length, he turned to Zip. “Anything else you need, Princess?”

Zuziana licked her lips. “I’ll eat about fifty of those rainbow trout, Commander.”

The tall monk, the grizzled Immadian Commander and the three medics all gaped at the diminutive Remoyan. Then Ri’arion burst out laughing. Tucking her slight form beneath his chin, he said, “The Princess will eat a dainty portion. Her Dragon will guzzle the rest.”

The trout were fabulous. Dragon-Zip packed away fifty-seven sleek, gleaming trout, after which Ri’arion accused her of waddling about like an overloaded Dragonship. Zip just smacked her lips extravagantly and burped a decidedly fishy gust of air into the monk’s face.

They learned that bandages did not survive a transformation. The medics had to patch her up a second time. Ri’arion’s glowering over their shoulders put paid to any complaints they might have dared to voice.

At noon, Commander Darron rounded up his Dragonship fleet for the next leg to Helyon Island, having secured their supply route and despatched a flurry of message hawks back to Immadia.

The monk nodded approvingly. “Knows what he’s doing,” he said, unnecessarily. Then he took Zip, returned to her Human form once more, by the elbow. “To bed with you. No arguments.”

She yawned, “Ooh, are you tucking me in?”

“I kept you alive for a reason,” said the monk, with a piratical leer. “Off to the Dragonship, sweet maiden, where I shall demand from thee a chaste bedtime kiss.”

“Not unless thou shavest mightily, o my thorn-bearded abductor,” giggled Zip. But she could not climb aboard the Dragonship without help.

Ri’arion boosted Zip into her bunk before slumping into the bed opposite. “I wonder how often you should transform,” he said. “It demands a great deal of magic.”

Zip stared at him, eyebrows arched.

He pressed, “You confess?”

“It’s been harder the last couple of times.” She pouted, which did not have the desired effect on him–the set of his lips hardened, while magical power surged behind his eyes. “Markedly harder. I need to think about how often Aranya used to transform.”

“We’ll monitor this issue,” said Ri’arion, cool and analytical. Zuziana was just forming a critical opinion when their eyes met across the cabin, a wordless meeting of souls, minds and hearts. That lovely squeezing sensation returned to her chest as his eyes crinkled at the edges. But even he was unable to keep his eyes open for long. Slowly, the powerful Nameless Man’s gaze lidded.

“Thank you for rescuing us,” Zip whispered.

A smile touched his lips.

When she awoke, the muffled thrum of the meriatite-fuelled turbines informed her that their Dragonship was underway to Helyon, a three-day flight. Zip readied herself for a delicious stretch and a yawn before deciding her chest was too sore. Never mind being butted by a sheep, this morning she felt as though a Dragon had punched her squarely in the chest.

Ri’arion sat in the middle of the cabin, his legs folded into an improbable position, meditating. She sensed his presence filling the room. No wonder she had dreamed of him.

“Islands’ greetings, o jewel of Remoy,” he murmured. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Do you ever stop thinking, monk-love?”

His eyes unshuttered. A gaze of the deepest blue, like the bottom of a still terrace lake, fixed upon her. Zuziana shivered. Such intensity! Even Dragon-Zip tingled at the power radiating from his eyes.

He said, “I was considering how we might work better together by enhancing the mental bond between Dragon and Rider. However, I have a confession to make. As the Nameless Man, I dominated the minds of my candidates, forcing them to reveal their powers and secrets to me. But on the day Aranya resisted–” he laughed hollowly “–even now, I struggle for an honest word. Aranya
vanquished
me. Humiliated, I tried to kill her. But the Word of the Great Dragon lives in her. On that day, I saw my existence for the travesty it had been. I abused my gifts, debasing others, revelling in the conquest, in the sweet taste of secrets wrested from innocent souls. Power is a subtle, seductive mistress, Zuziana. I’ve been in her thrall.”

He bowed his head, displaying the blue swirls tattooed upon his bald pate. After a long silence, he added, “I respect Aranya for her courage and will to use her powers well. Make no mistake, even I don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“I respect your integrity, Ri’arion,” said Zip.

“Aye? I’ll work on finding that Island.” Now, his gaze became searching. “Princess, if we could find a way of linking ourselves in battle–not so that one controls the other, but to share thoughts, impressions, ideas and actions–we could become a formidable team. Imagine battle at the speed of thought? You’d know if I wanted to jump on a Dragonship or when to pick me up; I’d know how you were about to turn, and take advantage of those incredible Dragon reactions.”

Zuziana could imagine that. But she wondered if she could ever stand up to him the way Aranya had. She replied, “It would require trust.”

“Trust is not manufactured,” he said. “Mostly, trust requires time.”

“Ah, the sweet luxury of time.”

Ri’arion laughed, unfolded his legs and perched himself on her bedside. Clasping her hands in both of his, he said, “This Rider seeks to serve his Dragon. I sense the battles ahead will be hard. Trust will be the least of our worries. Islands’ sakes, when I first heard my name and the command to follow, I thought it was to spill out my life in the Great Dragon’s cause. Now, I discover I am sinfully fond of the life I envisage with a magical Remoyan. We Ha’athiorian monks say there are many paths to serve the Great Dragon, but only one right path. I have walked a wrong path.”

Zip reached up to tweak the point of his left ear. “I’ve made the decision to trust you, Ri’arion.”

“I will strive to hold that trust in the highest honour.”

His words rippled through her and into her. Thinking back to the day she had first seen him in the monastery just off Ha’athior Island, Zuziana wondered at the depth of vulnerability he had shown. Had he truly changed so much in such a short space of time? Was he being honest? When she said that she trusted him, was
she
being honest? Now there was a question. What might happen if she subjected the powers of an Azure Dragon to this man?

Zip said, “Ri’arion, does your monastery have records of magicians like yourself trying to control Dragons? What happened?”

“Ill,” he said, growing pale. “All was ill. I will tell you what I remember, if you wish.”

Her stomach gurgled loudly. “Over dinner,” she chuckled. “Was there any of the trout left? I’m famished.”

T
he type of
work Ardan did not enjoy was digging out latrines. But that was his next assignment as Kylara’s battered, depleted force rested at another small village late that afternoon. Probably, he snarled inwardly, they wanted him well out of the way while they discussed the conundrum a slave had created for them by rescuing a number of pert and decidedly attractive warrior behinds from a kicking by the Sylakian boot. That, or they debated the mystery of how he had slipped free of his chains and manacles.

Ardan scratched his stubbly chin. Ha! Not only was he splattered in Sylakian brains and gore, but now he could add faeces to the collection of filth he wore on his skin. Was he a prophet? How else could he have known he’d be digging through a pile of congealed sewage?

This was not the life for a warrior. Except that it kept him near Kylara. Why he could not keep his eyes off the Warlord, she who had tried to halve his skull like a prekki fruit on the chopping block? There was the physical tension between them, which he would like to imagine flowed both ways. If only she would stop calling him ‘boy’ and ‘slave’ with that sneer curling her lip, he might even believe it. But Ardan could not escape the feeling that he was somehow
meant
to have run into the Warlord of Yanga Island–fated, destined, or whatever prekki-fruit mush his brain was serving up in the guise of intelligent thought, lately.

Ardan heaped his wheelbarrow load of ready-made fertiliser onto the village’s vegetable field and began to mulch it in with a wooden spade. The physical labour helped, or he would only brood over his growing mountain of unanswered questions.

The vegetable field stood on the edge of the inlet they had marched around–was it only yesterday? A stone’s throw from where he worked, the ground sheared away over a thousand feet into a ravine which rapidly descended in a westerly direction toward the Cloudlands. It cut over a league inland into the heart of this large Island, and was the outflow of a river he would dearly have loved to bathe in. He wondered why the river had never been terraced, unlike his Island. It was such an obvious location.

There, another detail of his past. He held the beads of sense, he just could not string them together into a coherent piece of jewellery.

Judging by the gesticulating marking that conference down in the village, he was about to start fielding some hard questions about his unquestionably hard skull. Ardan tapped his forehead experimentally. It didn’t feel like a skull that acted more like a stone, repelling scimitar blades and Sylakian hammers.

At least he no longer wore manacles. What was the point, if he could slip out of them at will?

Troubled in spirit, Ardan trudged back to the blocked-up latrine. He was still alive. The stench that threatened to cauterise his nostrils as he dug further beneath the latrine, confirmed he was alive. Soon, he would open the little sluice gate and let the diverted river water wash it clear. Except that there was no water in the trench. Oh, toss it into a Cloudlands volcano! There must be a blockage elsewhere. His muscles bunched as Ardan heaved the slop-laden wheelbarrow along a narrow, hard-packed footpath to the field. Here came Kylara. She marched up to him, taking care to stand upwind, he noticed. Her brow drew down into her habitual scowl.

“You’re a pain in the backside, slave,” she ground out. “Had you not saved us back in the village, you’d already be swimming in the Cloudlands. My troops don’t like you.”

Ardan decided to continue with his adopted persona. “That’s not what their eyes say,” he claimed, hitching his thumbs into his loincloth. “Maybe you ought to find me some trousers, Chief.”

Putting her hand to her scimitar, Kylara snarled, “Maybe I should finish the job I started on your head, you arrogant, insufferable piece of goat turd! How do you take a hammer to the skull and live? Or a scimitar blade? Oh, keep shovelling the dung, boy. That’s what you’re good at.”

“I’m not a boy, I’m a man–”

Ardan was not enjoying being obnoxious, but it definitely lit the fires beneath the already fiery Warlord. Kylara, with a pointed glare, said, “Trust me, keep mouthing off and you won’t be for long.”

Although, he preferred to keep all of his body parts intact. “Chief,” he said, in a more conciliatory tone, “I wish I could answer your questions. Maybe my memory will heal, given time.”

“I had my physician drill into your skull. It’s ordinary bone.”

Ardan’s hands leaped up to check the dressing on his head. “You did what?”

A hungry leopard’s grin flashed at him. “My blade split your skin like a rotten prekki fruit, slave, but didn’t so much as chip the bone beneath. It’s not metal or stone on your shoulders. You arrive beneath a tree on my Island, a man without a past. You’re a warrior. Had you not been wounded, you might even have made me work for my victory.”

“I could’ve spanked you with one hand tied behind my–”

“Then you slip out of locked manacles,” she continued, giving his boasting short shrift. “You singlehandedly carve up half a Hammer of Sylakia’s elite warriors, throw crossbow quarrels to an impossible height, destroy a couple of Dragonships, defend those who enslaved you, and then put yourself to work afterward without a word of complaint.”

Ardan grinned. “You want complaints? I don’t like shovelling faeces.”

“You hate Sylakians like I’ve never seen anyone hate before. I saw it writ on your face.”

“Aye,” he breathed, reliving that fragment of memory. “I remembered something–a woman, maybe my wife. Kylara, was there anything left of Naphtha Cluster?”

He swore at her headshake.

“You know how Sylakia operates, slave,” she said. “Burn it all. Naphtha was strong enough to hold out for two months. The Sylakians left nothing but charred stone on those Islands.”

To his dismay, Ardan felt tears splash on his cheeks. He turned away, shaking with anger, humiliated at showing any weakness in front of the warrior Chief. He was no warrior. He was already a slave in his heart, behaving like this.

“Burn them in a Cloudlands volcano!” he screamed at the heavens.

“Aye,” said Kylara, apparently unmoved by his vein-popping, fist-shaking explosion. “Finish your work, boy. Tonight you’ll march to our hideout. Behave yourself and my women might not toss you to the windrocs.”

He pointed with the spade. “Tell your warrior hiding beneath the white-currant bush to stop fidgeting. She has terrible woodcraft.”

Kylara muttered a curt, rude word and marched off.

Great Islands, he thought, he had better think twice about any attraction he imagined between himself and the Warlord. As warriors of Naphtha Cluster liked to say, she had the character of a leopard–as graceful as the dawn, and an expert at unexpected ambushes.

There, something remembered at last. Let the man called Ardan be warned.

* * * *

In the glow of twilight’s dying embers, Ardan finished digging out the collapsed culvert which had robbed the village of its water. He stretched his back and regarded the flow of water with a firm nod. Life. Life flowing into the village, bringing wholeness and sweeping away the filth. The chuckling of water had never sounded so agreeable. Setting the shovel to one side, he bent his head beneath the water and let the coolness bathe his aching head. That was good.

As Kylara and her comrades rode uphill to their position near the spring above the village, Ardan pointed with his chin and said to Mardia, his guard, “What’s bitten them? Hornets?”

“Shut up and wash, slave. You reek.” But Mardia was as curious as he was.

Rocia smacked her breastplate to emphasize a point as they moved into hearing range. “One conqueror’s the same as another, Kylara.”

“If those Immadians come here, we’ll show them our scimitars just the same as we showed the Sylakians,” growled the Warlord.

“What’s that, slave?” asked Mardia. “What’re they saying?”

“An Immadian invasion,” Ardan puzzled. “We called him the Immadian Fox–now, what was his name–aye, Beran of Immadia. His was the last Island conquered north of the Rift. What’s he doing in the Western Isles?”

That was exactly the question making Kylara scratch her head. “Sounds nothing like Immadia to me, Rocia,” she said. “Twelve summers they defied Sylakia. I heard his little Princess got locked in the Tower of Sylakia. Now he’s attacking our Western Isles? For what? Besides, the Warlords would never have it. Who wants another Supreme Commander?”

“We’ll ask him together,” grunted Rocia. “Ya girls hold ‘im, I’ll tickle his tummy until he begs to tell us everything.”

Ardan’s grin faded. That was nasty euphemism for torture by pulling out the intestines and burning them on a fire while the victim watched.

Rocia added, “An’ his little Princess, bet the Sylakians made her grow up fast. Freakin’ Tower. Just a playpen for them War-Hammers. She come here, she’d be scrubbing pots. Smutty white-skinned Northern scum.”

A clamour of coarse laughter rose from the warriors.

“Take water,” said Kylara. “Quick. We’ve a long march ahead. Slave–quit dirtying the stream and hold our ponies while we drink.”

Ardan turned to Kylara, who regarded him with her usual acid-bitten sneer. He said, “We heard the Princess of Immadia was executed for treason, Kylara. What’s this rumour blowing on the wind?”

The dark eyes narrowed. “You remember something, boy? Who’s ‘we’?”

“I don’t remember.”

Kylara’s knuckles turned white on the hilt of her dagger. But she replied evenly, “Last we heard, Sylakia’s Northern Dragonship fleet was bound for Immadia Island to burn it to cinders, like they did Naphtha Cluster. Now King Beran’s in the Western Isles. Either he’s running like a cur kicked in the teeth, or he defeated Sylakia. Which do you believe?”

She was asking him a military opinion? Ardan was so surprised that his mouth fished for flies. Kylara’s handsome face hardened as she waited on a reply.

“Dragons.” The word popped out of his mouth.

“Dragons? What a load of fresh pony-manure,” said Rocia.

Ardan cudgelled his memory. “Some rumour I heard. A Dragon down in Remoy–a new Dragon, not the old rumour.”

Kylara knelt beside the flow of water and drank deeply, before splashing water liberally over her upper body. She rose with a graceful flexion of her thighs, her cheeks gleaming like warm coals in the suns-set’s radiant beams. He wished she would drop the iron-hard exterior to give him a glimpse of the woman within. Was all this tough-talk posturing truly her? She certainly cared for the villagers her troops protected. And she had not killed him or hunted him down like an animal, threats to the contrary.

He should be plotting out her weaknesses so that he could escape, but apparently, his motives were as clear as a mud-pool, even to him.

“Dragons?” she sneered, interrupting his thoughts. Ardan clenched his fists. “You shrivelling little fool. Every one of my warriors is braver than you. You spread any more lies with that snake’s tongue of yours, I’ll have it cut out just to save our ears the trouble of listening to your pitiful whining. Move out!”

* * * *

Ardan peered over the edge of the sinkhole. “We’re going down there?”

Kylara’s forbidding stare scorned the tremor in his voice. “Aye, slave. Scared?”

“That’s Cloudlands–”

“Seen through the bottom of the Island, aye,” said Rocia. “Half of this peninsula hangs over the Cloudlands, boy. Hold on tight.”

Kylara and her troops broke out compact gliders from their travel packs. Ardan measured the cavity yawning before them with his eyes, desperately unhappy. Two thousand feet across and many thousands deep, the bottomless pit made him imagine that a monstrous Dragon had chewed right through the underside of the Island. The hole was so immense that the couple of windrocs circling down below were specks against the turquoise Cloudlands. Ferns and whole trees grew from the sides, compounding his sense of insignificance.

“You’re planning to fly …”

Rocia and a number of the warriors chuckled cruelly. Rocia made a show of pinching her nose. “Dirtied our loincloth at the thought, boy?”

“Only a fool wouldn’t fear this,” said Ardan.

A dozen warriors led the ponies away. They must hide the animals nearby, he realised. Perhaps they also had a secret back entrance to their hideout.

Hanging a rope over the edge would do no good–it would simply dangle in space, because the hole grew conversely wider as it burrowed through the Island’s substrata. What rope could be that long, anyway? Ardan watched silently as Rocia and several of her warriors assembled a larger glider with a wingspan of around twelve feet. The simple wing had a frame attached to it for a person’s body. It was far too flimsy for his liking.

A cloudy dawn crept over the eastern hills as the warriors completed their preparations. The suns tried to pierce the heavy cloudbanks, but failed. The air smelled moist; rain before the morning was out, he predicted. A decent storm.

“We use these to travel between the smaller Island clusters,” said Kylara, breaking his train of thought.

Ardan asked, “Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Not that dangerous if you can find a high enough launching place. Less dangerous than keeping Dragonships.”