W
ith his Rider
safely seated, Grandion sprang into a vertical take-off, wheeling as he flapped hard to gain strategic height. He knew it was useless to try to outfly Razzior. Four dozen Dragons could hound a lone Dragon like the painted dogs of the far Western Isles ran down their prey, persisting to the inevitable, bloody end. Better to face an enemy fresh, than exhausted.
The Tourmaline Dragon warmed up his throat with a ripping battle-challenge.
I AM GRANDION!
Razzior’s Dragonwing responded with a chorus of booming snarls, causing the Dragon’s Bell to vibrate with an aftershock. Grandion powered into the clear sky, the song of battle already rampant in his hearts.
Lia asked quietly, “Will they want us alive?”
She understood they could not flee. “Razzior seeks revenge against my shell-father, and authority over all Dragons,” he noted. “We cannot know which imperative holds the ascendancy in his thinking. I believe he’ll seek to capture you alive. But if he calculates he can gain more by your death …”
“Do we admit–”
“We speak of the
ruzal
only if required.”
“My senses are yours.”
“Hualiama …” Rage, grief and gratitude filled his Dragon hearts with heavy-fire, a sensation like molten lead coursing through his veins. Despite all, she still offered herself? Lia was too ready to sacrifice. “And my powers are yours.” What Dragon would willingly abase himself like this? “All of them.”
Her Haozi war bow creaked as she tested the draw. “Appreciated. Let’s burn the heavens together–”
“–as Dragon and Rider,” he finished in concert with her.
Grandion tuned in to Hualiama’s senses. She sat straight-backed as always, in dignity and worth, far surpassing the title of Princess of Fra’anior which she often gently disparaged. Her gaze was sweeping yet concise, a warrior’s habit of checking one’s surrounds while focussing on the immediate threat. Incongruously, a picture of a bud came to his mind. Pure white, seven-petalled, it flowered before his startled observance. The perfume of her thoughts penetrated the Dragon’s awareness. So close. So intimate.
Now he
knew
the paths of her intuition, so akin to a Dragon’s seventh sense. She waited–for what? A deep-seated urging kept him spiralling above the Dragon’s Bell. This was the right battleground, here at the edge of the Island-World. Here, her mental voice noted, the King of Dragons and his Princess would hold court. Grandion’s fires clarified and intensified, burning at a pitch he marvelled at. Like Lia, he knew this for a crucial juncture, the fates about to avalanche over a Dragon and his Rider. Would they survive? Fragile as that chance was, Hualiama held it with the fabled grace of the legendary Star Dragoness, Istariela.
She believed for both of them.
RAZZIOR!
The massive Orange’s salutation pounded their ears.
Hualiama! Blue-star!
Lia electrified Grandion’s Storm powers as she produced an unexpected battle-challenge of her own.
Razzior’s brow-ridges furrowed.
Grandion, shell-son of Sapphurion. Hualiama, child of Azziala and Ra’aba, heir to the throne of the Dragon-Haters. Hand over the
ruzal
you possess, or perish.
Dragon-direct, the Orange Dragon stated his case, while seeking to tar her with her legacy.
Neither Dragon nor Human possesses the
ruzal
–
Grandion punctuated his reply with a mocking, smoky snort–
o Razzior, renegade dark-wing, detritus of Gi’ishior.
Razzior bared his fangs.
I’m in no mood to play games, youngling. I’ve a possession of yours, Human girl–a blade you dropped on Franxx. Using its powers, I’ve kept a Dragon’s Eye on all your doings since. I know of Ra’aba’s demise. I understand your shell-mother’s hatred. And I, Razzior the Orange, declare it is time to put these misunderstandings to rest. But first I must thank you, Grandion, for your service to the Dragonkind.
The Tourmaline growled,
What–
Why, you brought the Scroll of Binding to our trysting-place, as agreed.
The Orange Dragon’s eye-fires blazed as Hualiama gasped audibly.
Oh, didn’t you tell your precious Dragon Rider of our bargain? Dragons of a colour wing together! Thank you, shell-brother. This is high service indeed.
Grandion could find no words bar spluttering denials.
Hand the Scroll of Binding over to me, and I shall grant you this magical blade and your miserable lives.
I don’t possess the
ruzal
.
Lia’s voice was a ravaged whisper. ‘Betrayed!’ it screamed. Razzior’s accusation had no basis, but the Tourmaline Dragon knew the injury had been wrought in a flash. Now his Rider hated him. Her distrust also cut Grandion’s pride, but he knew Razzior’s indictment for a classically Dragonish ploy, twisting just enough of the truth to make his accusation seem plausible.
A hundred fangs gleamed in the late morning suns-light. Heavily sarcastic, Razzior replied,
How draconic an answer, little one. Of course you don’t. The
ruzal
possesses you! Dragons, the legendary Scroll of Binding lives! There it sits, atop that miserable specimen of a Tourmaline Dragon. Deny the truth, Hualiama of Fra’anior. Tell me I lie.
Grandion sensed the tiny flexion of Lia lifting her definite chin.
I do not deny it.
Her damnable obsession with telling the truth and keeping promises! A chopped-off bugle of dismay issued from Grandion’s throat. Razzior’s eyes smouldered the enormity of his pleasure.
The Orange began to shout,
Fetch me the Dragonfriend! Kill the Tour–
A grey mass materialised in the air literally in front of Razzior’s nose and blurred into the Orange Dragon’s shield, buffeting him and his Dragonwing backward with punishing force. Grandion blinked automatically, forgetting he was blind. Lia’s eyes jumped. Ianthine! The Maroon Dragoness hurtled down like lightning from azure skies, followed by battalions of Lost Islands Dragons–a stranger, fiercer group of Dragonkind he had never imagined. Long, undulating quadruple-winged Dragons! Blocky beasts almost lost beneath their hide-armour! And a low, deadly drone on the wind that he quickly identified as the host of smaller Dragons gathered around the serpentine ones, as though each Dragonwing was a battle group reporting to a specific leader.
Oh, please can we play too, hatchlings?
Ianthine’s scorn lashed out.
I’ll be taking the Dragonfriend, Razzior. This day, the Cloudlands will harvest your pitiful corpse.
Hualiama’s acuity noted the force which had struck Razzior–one of the ultra-heavy Dragons, who had eased to a dazed landing on the mountaintop above the Dragon’s Bell. His wings felt leaden. Despite his labours, Grandion felt himself losing altitude. For a panicked second, he suspected the Land Dragon’s medicine. His stomach felt queer. But he sensed this force emanated from Ianthine herself. Did she want them out of the way? Or was she forcing a landing to make her quarry vulnerable?
Is she ally or enemy?
Lia responded to his concerns.
Enemy until proven otherwise. Agreed?
Aye.
The moment stretched so thin, the air itself seemed too rarefied to furnish breath for all the creatures gathered in uncompromising, expectant array.
Then Ianthine bellowed,
I AM IANTHINE!
Two Dragon armies hurled themselves at Grandion and Hualiama.
* * * *
The Overminds opened up with a salvo of Grunts. A rising hiss of magical power preceded sounds like the deep popping of lava-lake bubbles. Impelled at a fantastic rate toward Razzior’s Dragonwing, each cumbersome armoured Dragon turned into a flying battering-ram. The instant before the strike, the grey Grunt twisted in the air to lead with their left or right shoulder. The Blue Dragons’ shields kept them at bay–at least for two or three strikes. Hualiama recoiled as the rearmost Grunts of the slightly staggered barrage smashed into Razzior’s massed force. Three Reds of Razzior’s Dragonwing fell, two killed instantly, another with a primary wing-bone snapped a few feet from her shoulder. That Dragoness would never fly again. Two Blues appeared to have been knocked unconscious, but were saved from a fatal fall by the quick actions of their fellows.
Four Grunts plunged toward the Cloudlands, stunned or killed, but the rest shook themselves and circled the arena with slow, laboured wingbeats, returning to their Overminds.
Why do the shields fail, Grandion?
she asked.
Backlash,
he growled, shaking his muzzle in disbelief.
The flying Dragons’ momentum transfers into the shield as energy, which is usually absorbed or bled off by a Blue Dragon. This power is unprecedented. Each strike sends a shockwave into the Blue, overwhelming some, as you saw.
Barely had Grandion spoken, when Razzior’s Dragonwing replied with an onslaught of fire, ice and acid. They decimated the foremost Overmind group. Charred reptilian bodies spiralled out of a cloud of acrid grey smoke, while the cries of the mortally wounded rose above the bellows of furious Dragons. Grunts hurtled forth. Another of Razzior’s Blues fell. His force abruptly broke ranks in order to present a more dispersed target. Ianthine responded at once with a mental command to release the Swarm. Among Razzior’s forces Lia recognised Yulgaz the Brown and Cerissae, Grandion’s old flame, and some three hundred yards off Ianthine’s left flank, Affurion the Brown Overmind, half again the size of his compatriots. Was he their leader? Or Ianthine?
That was the last moment she had for coherent thought. In a sky filled with Dragons, attack was swift and brutal. Grandion jinked and furled his port wing smartly, avoiding a shock-attack by one of Razzior’s Reds, trying to ambush them from a height with an attack at terminal velocity. The Dragon hissed by, his fireball sucking the breath out of Lia’s lungs, and came within inches of ploughing a furrow in the mountainside. Lia drew her Haozi bow, and pinned a Swarm Dragon in the eye.
By my wings, they’re ugly!
snarled the Tourmaline, biting a Purple Swarm in half. He spat to clear his mouth.
Underslung of jaw and mean of eye, the Swarm were as fast as bats and triple the size of the average dragonet, up to ten feet in wingspan. Lia yelled,
Mind their poisoned fangs–they’ll paralyse you–and their tails.
What about their tails?
Grandion hissed, rolling away from a Green Dragon. His hind legs kicked out, slashing bloody furrows in the Green’s flank.
The Swarm hunted in iridescent purple shoals, as if rainbow trout swarmed in the suns-shine. They mobbed individual Dragons like army ants attacking a luckless spider, trying to paralyse with multiple bites. Their tails shot grapnel-like barbs–just like the Swarm around Grandion now. Helpfully, Yulgaz’s fireball crisped ten Swarm in a single shot, but the Tourmaline did not pause to thank the Brown. Thundering a challenge, Grandion slapped Yulgaz in the jaw with his tail while simultaneously encasing six Swarm in tombs of ice. The Dragons fell into the mountainside and shattered.
Lia cried,
Shot, my beauty!
Still, thirty or forty Swarm pursued the much larger Tourmaline Dragon. He bellowed and shook his right wing as grapnels pocked its surface. Lia groaned in concert with him as the fifty-foot, silken cords attached to those grapnels snarled his wing and anchored his attackers. She began to unbuckle her straps, but Grandion stopped her with a snarl,
What’re you doing?
He cleaned his wing with a brief blast of ice-shards. But the Swarm were too numerous! Lia quickly expended her stock of arrows on keeping Grandion’s wings clear. He flapped hard to gain height, but the strange opposing force continued to shepherd them toward the mountaintop.
Grandion thundered his fury!
Lia snapped,
Save your strength, my Dragon. We need cunning. Do you sense any Burrowers, any of the–
she accessed the Feyzuria’s knowledge, flashing it across their mental link–
the Anubam?
No … Cerissae!
The Tourmaline Dragon jolted as Cerissae’s undetected attack opened a ten-foot gash in his flank. The Amber-Red Dragoness whirled, trying to force them toward Razzior’s Dragons, Lia realised.
Grandion snapped at her, but the wily Dragoness side-slipped out of range.
So, Grandion, does the Human runt light your fires as I do?
Her sneer was only a smokescreen for a new attack, thick ropes of yellow fire which lashed from her throat and wrapped around Grandion’s body, sizzling against his scales.
He flicked them aside with a touch of his shield.
Pathetic, you double-crossing null-brain.
Cerissae reached out with her mind, but Lia was faster than Grandion, this time. His strength had only just begun to fade when she presented a shining, white-fire mental armour to the Dragoness, who recoiled.
No healing reversals today,
Lia growled. Could she fight like this? Could she help Grandion somehow with the magic which sang so fiercely within her, she must surely release it or die?
Caught in her inner reflections, Lia startled as she realised that Grandion battled toe-to-toe with Yulgaz and Cerrisae, while Razzior had rallied his Dragons somehow to hold off Ianthine’s Lost Island forces. He wanted her. She knew it in his burning, covetous gaze. He desired her power.