Scrambling to his paws, Grandion asked, “Aye, he has sensed us. But how?”
“A Dragon’s eye.” Hualiama threw sand onto the embers of their fire. “I think he might have one of my Nuyallith blades. I didn’t tell you the rest of my tale after I crash-landed right into the tents of Saori’s people, did I?”
Nor had she pondered the Copper Dragoness’ disturbing regard for her brother. Lia frowned. What was the Island-World coming to, when Dragonesses flirted with Human men? A score on which she was hardly blameless, mind–no better than the twin suns arguing with each other which was the brightest! This could not be the change which the prophecy implied, could it? Improved relations between Humans and Dragons could not cause stars to fling themselves out of the skies, nor account for Ra’aba’s terror at the prophecy’s implications.
Grandion deposited Hualiama upon his shoulder. “Quick, take your seat.”
“You possess concealing magic?”
“Aye,” he growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you just steal it from me when you had the chance?” she shot back, and bit her tongue. “Go on, Grandion.”
With a thrust of his massive thighs that articulated his rage, the Tourmaline Dragon launched himself skyward, beating his wings hard to rise above the treeline. He levelled off and pointed his muzzle to the northern sky. Seated between his spine-spikes, Hualiama twisted about to scan the horizon. “Dragons,” she said. “Twenty, maybe thirty …”
“Try this, Rider. Hold what you see steady in your mind, as though you frame a picture. Aye, good. I can touch it already. Now, imagine bringing it closer. Will the picture toward you.”
Lia gasped as the image leaped, magnified. “Drat, it’s gone out of focus.”
“Try again.”
The Yellow Moon waxed lambent, illuminating every Island for leagues around, but Lia had eyes only for the Dragonwing scudding in low from the south–hunting them, she realised. There was something strange about those Dragons. They flew poorly, as though heavily laden, but there was no mistaking the way that they headed directly for the Island which Hualiama and Grandion had just departed. The Tourmaline flexed his wings powerfully, driving them onward into the wind-still night, and although she knew that his magic concealed their presence from the naked eye, she also respected a Dragon power which could track them when unseen. Had Razzior sent those dreams into her mind? She shuddered, realising that if he could wield her deepest doubts and terrors against her, the Orange Dragon boasted at least Grandion’s power–and he had his
ruzal
to accomplish the rest.
The Tourmaline Dragon’s features blurred in the window of her soul. Transforming. Hualiama blinked. Gazing back at her, smiling, was the young man of the brilliant blue eyes. Not Ja’al, as she had sometimes suspected. No, he was different. He never spoke. Turning, he walked with the ease of a spirit-creature through the window, which seemed to be a portal to the understanding of mysteries which had plagued her since before her birth. Yet Lia could not follow. He beckoned; she glanced over her shoulder, seeking the Tourmaline Dragon in the dreamscape of her thoughts, but he was gone. Only the young man remained. A gesture of his hands brought her perception into focus. ‘Like this,’ he seemed to say, and her white-fires responded to his direction, the most delicate filaments springing like a perfect spiderweb toward his fingers, a web of gossamer delicacy and astonishing tensile strength.
Tracing that pearlescent web with her mind, the Fra’aniorian Princess began to grasp what Grandion had shown her before. The picture distorted strangely before steadying, many times magnified.
“Ah,” said Grandion. “The Dragons carry Shinzen’s forces.”
Each Dragon carried a forty-foot bamboo pole clutched in his forepaws, and hanging from the pole were–she counted swiftly–fifteen armoured giants per Dragon. Surely these Dragons could not bear such a load far? The picture was faraway, but clear.
Beneath her, the Tourmaline’s belly-fires spoke urgently. “Aye. They cannot move fast, but there’s no need. That force will crush any Human settlement in these Isles. We must warn your friends from Eali Island.”
“How fare your wounds, Dragon?”
“I’m alive. I’ll be wishing I wasn’t after this day’s flying, however. You?”
“Alive. Aye. Glad to see my fires. Razzior only stole my words … I don’t understand, Grandion. How could he do that?”
“Steal an individual Dragon power?” Grandion shook his muzzle. “I wish I knew. Now, I need to know about this Dragon’s eye. We must subvert Razzior’s chase.”
During the course of that perfect, sunny day over the Eastern Isles, Grandion and his Rider put the dust of the long leagues between themselves and Razzior’s Dragonwing. Islet after dazzling green Islet passed beneath them, until in the dying suns-shine of evening, Hualiama began to recognise the shapes of the Islands from a map Naoko had ordered her to memorise–a woman as inflexible as her daughter, Lia observed sourly. They had flown in nineteen hours, the same distance a Dragonship might cover in four days and nights. Grandion had overworked himself. She, as his Rider, ought to have been taking better care of him than this!
“Brezzi-yun-Dazi lies yonder,” said Lia.
Grandion, who had fallen silent in the late afternoon, heaved a sigh that bobbed them about in the air. “Aye? Excellent.”
On an impulse, she leaned over to pat the iron muscles of his shoulder. “You’ve winged a mighty distance this day, o son of the dawn fires. This Rider thanks her Dragon for his unstinting–” a low growl of approval thundered in his belly “–or should I say, headstrong, efforts, and she would say–”
“Oh, she would?” Grandion surged through the air.
“Aye!” Lia’s voice rose over his growls. “I want you to know, I’m grateful.”
“I am … remorseful.” Gruff, he was, and as uncomfortable as a cat doused in water. Lia wanted to laugh as he almost barked, “Contrite, even. I only wanted to prove …”
Great Islands, she understood at last! “Your worth? Your Dragon-ness? Oh, Grandion.” But she could not speak further of her feelings. Not yet. Not ever. For her heart was untrustworthy and fey, and Hualiama saw a speck in the distance, and knew that another draconic visitor angled for the Isle that was their destination. Destiny? With forced lightness, she said, “A Dragoness approaches. I rather suspect that you’ll want to beat her to the Island.”
Hualiama dampened the spark of forgiveness gleaming amidst the desolation she felt. She must be, rather than think about being. Thinking was a luxury for persons who entertained hope.
The Tourmaline Dragon’s challenge split the purpling twilight.
GRRRRAAAAARRRGGGH!
Lia whooped softly as Grandion took a comet between his fangs, as the draconic saying went, and blazed a trail across the sky.
* * * *
Landing Dragonback in Naoko’s campsite was a rather more elegant affair than her previous arrival, and considerably more impressive. There was something about a ninety-foot Dragon, even one in as sorry a state as Grandion’s battered and travel-worn lack of lustre, landing beside a Human tent-encampment, that put the word ‘dwarfed’ into context for everyone concerned.
Lia swaggered down Grandion’s back, knowing from the tenor of his fires that he understood exactly what she was doing, and why.
Come, Dragon,
she urged him.
You know you want to impress–
Then she squawked, “Elki!”
“Hey, short shrift,” her brother called–from a safe distance. “Nice Dragon. Is he safe?”
Hualiama sprinted over and hurled herself into his arms, making him stagger. “You made it, my darling–oh, did I just call you darling? Stupid, blockheaded brother! Where’ve you been? What’re you doing asking ralti-brained questions like that? Of course he’s not safe! He’s about as safe as a very grumpy volcano. Sorry, Grandion.”
“No offence,” rumbled the Dragon. “This is your brother?”
“Aye, Elki–this is my … er, Grandion. Sapphurion’s shell-son. Grandion, meet Elka’anor, Prince of Fra’anior. Stowaway, rogue and adventurer–just as rebellious a character as a certain Tourmaline Dragon I know.”
Elki almost purred. Almost. But then his eyes lifted, and Hualiama startled at a punch on her shoulder. “Well, Lia. You’ve been busy since you abandoned us off Merx.”
“Saori! You’re here, too!”
“Where else would I be?” Saori sounded amazed. “It’s my home.”
A massive shadow loomed over Hualiama’s shoulder, making the Eastern Isles warrior baulk. Grandion rumbled, “This is the one who broke your finger, Lia?”
“Aye … Grandion! No!” Trying to fend off an irritable Dragon, never mind a creature of Grandion’s prodigious strength, was about as effective as spitting into a howling storm. Hualiama found herself flattened beneath the Tourmaline’s paw, along with Saori. “Grandion, confound it! Let her go, you ill-tempered fiend. We’re friends now. Friends, I tell you!”
By way of answer, the Dragon flexed all of his talons, giving the terrified Saori an eyeful of an array of metallic weaponry. A fiery snort of contempt accompanied his open threat. “You hurt my Rider, little Human.”
Saori squeaked in terror.
A horrible snarl puckered his lips. “Do you know what I do with people that hurt my Rider?”
“You let them go because I tell you to,” Lia exclaimed.
Grandion, this is not helping. Stomping about, being the big macho Dragon …
“You. Tell. Me?” Grandion rolled Lia out from beneath his paw, rather deftly considering his lack of sight. “Run along now, little Rider. Hug your brother. Bring me that tasty buck you promised me. This girl won’t mind. She’ll be too busy turning purple while I crush her chest. Maybe … I know. I think I’ll use this talon–” of course, he would not be Grandion without flourishing the said talon dangerously around Saori’s head “–to carve the longest word I know in Dragonish on her hide.”
Saori had turned green rather than purple, which Lia might have enjoyed were she not convinced that Grandion intended to do the Eastern Isles warrior real harm.
“Or shall I start chopping randomly until I actually find her fingers?”
You block-headed chunk of … whatever you are! Now’s the time you choose to develop a sense of humour?
His fangs gleamed.
Insults only fire up Dragons.
“Stop!” Lia bounced off as the Dragon somehow heard her coming and thrust twelve feet of paw into her face. “Stop it, you ridiculously oversized, flying cart-wreck. So help me, Grandion–” she dodged another swipe “–you will treat my friends with respect …”
Lia groaned as she saw Naoko and Akemi sprinting toward the fracas.
“Enough! Grandion, listen!” As she yelled at him, lighting crackled off her hair and fingers, and the fires of her vision imbued the world with magic.
Then, a familiar rising whistle registered on Lia’s hearing.
Mizuki! No!
A thunderclap lifted her body off the earth. White seared her vision.
The Copper Dragoness missed her deadly strike on Grandion, and plowed a huge furrow into a stand of bamboo just behind him. The last thing Hualiama saw was a forty-foot wall of bamboo exploding as Mizuki flung herself back into the fray.
L
Ia SWAM BACK
to consciousness with a feeling that the darkness gave her up begrudgingly. At once, her low groan was truncated by what sounded like nearby thunder. What? Trees being flattened? Clumps of bamboo tossed into the air? Now a Dragon’s battle-cry–no! Grandion!
Her brain leaped to its feet and charged toward the battle. The rest of her body did not quite follow suit. She crumpled over her brother’s outflung arm.
“Lia!” Elki staggered.
“Roaring rajals, Elki, I have to–”
Both Humans whirled as the pair of Dragons tumbled out of the bamboo, fighting tooth and fang, roaring and biting each other in an animalistic frenzy. Feral? Grandion’s Storm power shook the encampment, flattening five of the tents and two trees to boot. Simultaneously, Mizuki’s prodigious fireball roared off in the opposite direction, setting seventy feet of bamboo forest alight. Grandion punched Mizuki with a blow that could have felled half of the Palace back at Fra’anior. The Dragoness sank her fangs into his tail, only to receive a five-clawed cuff in the head for her trouble.
The ferocity of their combat left Lia speechless. That many tonnes of Dragon-flesh brawling like immature fledglings shook the very ground. Then, her knees locked. Ready.
Having no real idea what to do, Lia ran straight at them, yelling,
Grandion! Mizuki! Stop it, you pair of ralti-brained idiots! Stop!
Useless. Worse than useless. Lia flung herself aside as Grandion’s tail pulverised a boulder right next to her leg.
Grandion …
suddenly, her eyesight seemed unexpectedly sharpened. She needed the fire. She needed what had transpired when she danced for the Dragon Elders, not to fashion a fortress of her inner being because of her hurts, but to forge an openness to the fires which had not only been given to her, but
were
her. They were Lia. She saw that now, and accepted it.
Lia flung out her hands toward the two Dragons, summoning her magic. She expected lightning, a concussion, a spectacular demonstration of power. Instead, white-fire fell like a shower of blossoms, as softly as rain wafted upon a spring breeze, imbued with such purity that it mesmerised the souls of her Dragon-friends. Her touch quietened their fires–not causing them to gutter, but rather to burn more steadily, brighter, unadulterated by anger or battle-lust. Her feet itched. A dragonet’s unruly laughter burbled in her veins. Volcanic Island girl? Aye. She succumbed to a madcap urge to dance, twirling fluidly into action, arching her body like the twin suns bowing to the horizon. With a giggle as joyous as the inexplicable fire she had released, Hualiama danced up to the two stupefied Dragons, spinning between their flanks, circling their paws, spreading the infectious fire wherever she moved.
Grandion, Mizuki, follow me.
Spellbound, the two Dragons dogged her footsteps as Hualiama returned to where Elki stood, holding Saori in his arms, staring at his sister with an expression she did not entirely enjoy. Lia stopped dancing between flutter-steps. She straightened her back, and tried to walk as regally as a queen.
She collapsed.
“Lia?” A Dragon’s muzzle pressed into her back.
“What’s with this stupid fainting?” Lia complained, trying to sit up.
“Lie down!” Four people and two Dragons yelling at her at once? Headache!
Lia rubbed her temples. “No need to shout. I’m alive–no thanks to that pair of squabbling hatchlings.” Grandion and Mizuki snorted unhappily in tandem. Lia could not repress a bright smile. “Listen, I know it’s because you love me so much, but if you could love me a little less violently, that would be truly excellent.”
She could have knocked Mizuki over with a puff of air.
“Now,” she waved a hand, “you should twine necks like … uh, maybe that’s inappropriate. Introductions. Grandion, this is Mizuki the Copper Dragoness. Mizuki, Grandion the Tourmaline, shell-son of Sapphurion. You know Saori and Elki, don’t you?”
“Aye,” said Mizuki, her eye-fires brightening appreciably as she regarded the Prince.
Saori frowned in puzzlement, but she was not half as puzzled as Lia, who had what she could only describe as a magical itch. If she had not been so enervated, she might have known what it meant. She glared at the Copper Dragoness. What was she doing? The magic originated with her–or did it?
Grandion just ogled Mizuki, saying nothing. His fires … crooned. Had she been a Dragoness, Hualiama would have thumped the living pith out of him just then.
“What just happened?” she asked.
Elki said, “First, you knocked Mizuki out of the sky with a bolt of lightning–”
“I did?”
“Aye!” growled her audience, at various tonal levels of Dragon and Human speech.
Her brother added, “And the magical snow shower? What was that?”
“I’ve never seen snow,” Lia said, inanely. Quick, corral those errant thoughts! Would her Dragon stop sniffing around that female and pay attention? “Naoko, could we prevail upon your hospitality again? We’ve two hungry Dragons to feed and a great deal of strategy to plot. Grandion needs healing for his eyes. Shinzen is on his way north with Razzior and an army of Dragons and giants–spawn of Dramagon’s evil experiments. No doubt Mizuki’s going to tell us that the Dragons of Fra’anior are also on the move?”
“Aye. Probably passing Merx as we speak,” Mizuki said softly. “And, we Eastern Dragons want to stand against Shinzen. With you Humans, if you’ll have us.”
Naoko and Akemi gasped in amazement.
“Why?” Saori blurted out.
Lia took the opportunity to plant the sharp end of her elbow into Saori’s ribs. In a stage-whisper, she said, “Take the offer, sheep-brain. That’s an order fresh from Royal Fra’anior.”
Grandion made sure he flexed his talons in Saori’s line of sight.
Her friend cried, “Aye! Anything–Princess, keep that beast away from me.”
Lia could not resist. “Grandion’s partial to a bit of haunch, aren’t you, my Tourmaline beauty?”
Her Dragon was, but the picture in his mind was not Saori’s haunches. Ugh, windroc droppings. There was one image which would linger. Hmm. Maybe this could work to her advantage. Mizuki was a fine specimen of a Dragoness …
Mizuki said, “I don’t understand these giants she speaks of, but if Shinzen has a force of Dragons at his disposal, we Eastern Dragons know what that means for our kind as much as for you Humans.”
Naoko said heavily, “It means hiding, evacuation, and warning every Human and Dragon up to Kaolili. Unless they turn for Merx and Franxx?”
“No,” said Lia. “They’ll be bound for the Lost Islands, and the Scroll of Binding. We can hope that Sapphurion will slow them down, but I suspect that he’s going to come into the Eastern Archipelago behind Razzior’s tail, if he hasn’t already run into trouble and delays. Razzior is well prepared for this campaign. Akemi or Mizuki, do you know anything about Dragons’ eyes? My Grandion is blind, but I hope it’s only a temporary affliction. If we are to arrive ahead of Razzior, then Grandion desperately needs his eyesight. My eyes aren’t good enough.”
Mizuki and Akemi chorused, “He uses your eyes?”
Elki protested, “She didn’t say that. You didn’t, did you, Lia?”
“Brother dearest, there are Dragon powers none of us understand,” Lia said, rather unwillingly. “Grandion can borrow my eyesight. He reads pictures from my mind.” The expressions around her registered astonishment. Why not, she wanted to protest? Was this not normal? Lia pressed on, “And then there is
ruzal
–a twisted magic which allows a Dragon or a Human to control the Dragonkind by commands. It seems Razzior is adept at
ruzal,
as am I.”
Mizuki snarled, “Is what you just did–”
“No. That was white-fires. I don’t know what else to call it.”
Grandion rumbled, “Aye, it was not
ruzal
. I know the stench of that magic. This was pure and captivating, a different Dragonsong altogether.”
Hualiama had the uncomfortable impression that had his eyes been whole, his eye-fires would have registered that burning Dragon-lust for that which moved a Dragon’s soul–greed, yearning for beauty, or the possession of whatever they desired most. Mercy.
She stiffened, turning half-away from him.
Keep your distance, Dragon.
Only the quirk of Mizuki’s brow-ridge betrayed her surprise at this exchange.
Akemi said, “Come. The shadows of our Isles lengthen. We should examine Grandion’s eyes before nightfall. Mizuki, may I suggest that you devise ways of rousing our Eastern Isles Dragons? We may need them to transport a Human cargo to safety. Our basic strategy will probably be to clear our non-warriors out of Shinzen’s way, and to attack his forces as and when we can. Even these giants must burn.”
“They do,” Grandion growled, “but will an Eastern Dragoness stoop to these tasks?”
Mizuki bristled, “We are not above getting our paws dirty, unlike our noble shell-cousins from the West.”
“Some of us have carried Human Riders–”
“And some of us have snappish appetites which need food,” Hualiama put in.
You actually call the Human your Rider?
Mizuki asked the Tourmaline.
Proudly.
Even his tone swaggered, now. Hualiama rolled her eyes.
I noticed. Extraordinary.
It makes sense when one is blind.
The Copper Dragoness purred,
Aye. But you befriended the Dragonfriend long before you were blind, Grandion. Perhaps it is only the rest of us Dragonkind who are blind.
And her gaze lingered on the Prince of Fra’anior.
Jutting out her jaw, Saori wrapped her fingers deliberately around Elki’s bicep. Lia bit back a groan. She smelled trouble. Cartloads of trouble.
* * * *
Hualiama awoke an hour before dawn, unable to sleep. Knowing that at least six armies–or Dragonwings–were closing in on their position, or soon would be, was no recipe for peaceful dreams. Shinzen, Razzior and the giants approached from the south. Sapphurion and his kin flew in from the west, possibly already skirmishing with Razzior’s Dragonwings, who were also angling for the Eastern Archipelago. The Lost Islands Humans and Dragons waited in the north, bitter enemies to each other, and not exactly welcoming to strangers. She and Grandion planned to fly right into the heart of that pile of old mouldy boots. Then there were the Eastern Dragons, Mizuki’s kin, an unknown quantity. Would they fight alongside the Humans, as Mizuki suggested?
Rising from Grandion’s paw, she glanced across at the Copper Dragoness, sleeping in the Dragon way, pressed up against Grandion’s flank. At least one minor riff to her strategy appeared to be proceeding to plan. Mizuki was noticeably smaller-boned and sleeker than Grandion. When she had not been making fire-eyes at Elki, she had been sizing up the Tourmaline Dragon with thinly-veiled interest.
No examination of Grandion’s eyes, however, had yielded any clues.
Lia breathed out slowly, quelling her frustration. A flash of white caught her eye. Oh. Elki was also awake, emerging from the tent he shared with Saori. Of course the young Prince had let no blade of grass grow beneath his feet when it came to making himself comfortable, nor with ingratiating himself with Naoko, who appeared to have fallen for his dubious charms and dull-as-dust witticisms. Lia, naturally, still appeared to leave a bad taste in Naoko’s mouth, but not Elki. Oh no. Were he a sweetbread sopped in gravy and dropped by accident, he would always land dry side down.
Nonetheless, she padded over to her brother. “Couldn’t sleep, Elki?”
“Not a wink, mighty Dragon Rider. You?”
“Whole Islands on my mind.”
“Me too,” sighed Elki.
“Let me guess–the lovely Saori, or the equally lovely Mizuki?”
“Aye,” he agreed glumly.
He had no right! He had two girls practically fighting over him, while Lia enjoyed no such attention. She had a big fire-breathing boulder whom she was trying to push in Mizuki’s direction as hard as she dared, hoping it would solve an insoluble problem. The problem beating inside her chest.
Hualiama said, “So, I’m off to see the Dragoness Yukari in the morning.”
Her brother sniffed, “You’re lucky. I get to sulk in camp while Copper-lady goes recruiting around the Isles.”
“Sulk? You have Miss Silken Bowstrings in there–”
“Elki? Are you coming back to bed?” The voice issuing from within the tent cut short her spiteful comment. In a moment, the flap twitched. Saori emerged, not even slightly tousled. “Elki, you left me so cold–oh, sorry, Lia. I didn’t see you there.”
Hualiama scowled daggers at a blameless blue star twinkling on the horizon. “No. People rarely do.”
Now Saori was giving her the magical itches! No disrespect to her personality, of course. Oh–did they have to? Lia pretended to examine the stars around the crescent Jade Moon, and White blazing pinpoint-sharp nearby, while princess-perfect Saori and her brother made noises like dragonets feeding. Shameless hussy. Meantime, Lia examined the odd sensation inwardly. Mercy, why was she in such a porcupine mood? Should she scratch where it itched?