Hualiama curled inward. Where was her strength now?
Ianthine bugled,
Stay, Razzior! The Dragonfriend is mine!
Stay? You decrepit, moth-eaten old windroc!
The Orange’s claws curled about his prize as the Dragoness rose to intercept them. Fire billowed from his mouth, choking Hualiama with sulphurous smoke.
Desist, or watch me destroy this puny Human.
The Maroon Dragoness sneered,
Go roost-love a ralti sheep, hatchling. You haven’t captured the Dragonfriend.
Hualiama groaned as Razzior’s claws clasped about her chest like bands of iron. He shook the fist containing his captive at Ianthine.
Haven’t I? What is this?
A bar of soap,
said the Dragoness.
Bah. You–what?
Suddenly, air-pressure popped and creaked in Hualiama’s ears as if she were underwater. The sounds of battle became muffled. She knew Ianthine and Razzior exchanged insults, but she could no longer hear their telepathic Dragonish. As Razzior’s paw clenched, the compression seemed to shift along her body, behaving exactly like a hand grasping a wet bar of soap. She slid between his talons. He shifted his grip, voicing a disgruntled roar, only to see her slip in another direction in an invisible cocoon.
Delighted laughter burbled from Lia’s lips as the Orange Dragon sweated over his prize.
“Whoops,” she laughed. “Careful, Razzior.”
“You … impossible …” The Orange made a convulsive swipe at her escaping body, but it seemed as slick as a Dragon hatchling breaking the eggshell. “Come here!”
His grasp only multiplied Ianthine’s magic. Lia squirted out of his grasp like a boulder shot by a Brown Dragon, soaring across the void above Dragon’s Bell Island.
A swift, cunning Red Dragon’s paw snagged her belt midway. Talons sliced into Lia’s lower back.
Two wingbeats later, the Red imploded in a cloud of golden blood.
“Morning!” bugled Mizuki.
“Hey, short shrift!” Elki screamed happily. “Keep flapping those arms, you might even fly!”
“You’re mine, girl,” growled Ianthine. Lia’s body snapped sideways, punched by an unseen force. The tremendous acceleration caused white to crowd in around her vision, a tunnel leading only to Ianthine. Maroon talons snaked around her body, establishing the Dragoness’ custody of the treasure all Dragons desired. “I’ve not suffered all these seasons–”
A familiar voice crashed over all the Islands of her world. “DRAGONS, OBEY!”
T
oo MUCH! LIa’s
mind reeled. The Copper Dragoness had appeared from nowhere with Saori and Elki aboard. Likewise, almost in the same breath, her mother made her grand entrance on the field of battle. Dragons swung toward Azziala with ugly snarls, both the Lost Islands Dragons and Razzior’s Dragonwing, while yet another Dragon army rushed up from the southwest led by none other than Sapphurion. They would arrive within minutes.
Her mother stood with haughty ease atop the head of a docile eighty-foot Blue Overmind. How? Surely crossing the Lost Islands at such a speed was impossible, unless–
Aye, daughter,
Azziala’s voice trickled into her mind.
Teleportation is another of our powers. Enough minds, enough power … it’s possible.
Her mother boomed, “Dragoness. Bring me my renegade daughter.”
Unbelievable cunning. Azziala must have been lying in wait while the Dragons destroyed each other. Perhaps Razzior’s threat had tipped her hand. Everyone wanted Lia. Nobody wanted her dead, not yet. Not until she gave up the
ruzal.
Then she would become instantly expendable–she should not cling to any illusions in that regard. Azziala had made her intentions plain; so too Razzior.
Ianthine flapped ahead slowly, clearly fighting the Enchantress’ mind-bending power. Azziala’s force drifted on the wind several thousand feet above the main battle, perhaps twenty enthralled Dragons bearing dozens of her Dragon Enchanters. Feyzuria and Shazziya flanked the Empress on her Dragon. Most of Razzior’s force already displayed the slack-jawed contentment Lia had come to recognise as capitulation, but the Overminds or Dramubam resisted, especially Affurion. He rallied his Dragonwings while the Dragon-Haters worked economically, attacking the resilient Overminds in teams of up to a dozen minds and transferring control of subjugated Dragons to lesser Enchanters.
Sapphurion was about to speed into the jaws of Azziala’s trap.
Hualiama reached for Grandion, but could not identify him amongst a host of stupefied minds. Thunder! Four Grunts rattled Azziala’s psychic shield, the hindmost breaking through to crush one of her Dragons, instantly killing all the Dragon Enchanters aboard.
Quick. Ianthine. She had to trust the Dragoness now, for she was the only one Lia could touch. Ignore the pain. Forge past the soft-as-quicksand sensation of Azziala’s command-power draining her will to oppose, Lia opened herself to the unstable Dragoness.
“Dragon, obey. You are my slave.”
Never!
A storm-howl protested Lia’s takeover of Ianthine’s mind.
Imagining herself an Island struck by a Cloudlands storm, Lia allowed the Maroon Dragoness’ rage to sluice over her. In its wake, she soothed, “Ianthine. Work with me. Wake your second self.”
She
saw
the Dragoness. Hers was a realm of strange voices and conflicted emotions, and a mind scarred in ways Hualiama could hardly begin to imagine. A new tone entered Ianthine’s voice, with wild notes that reminded Lia of lava leaping and spitting in Fra’anior’s caldera. “Traitor! Release this Command-hold.”
“No. Shut your fires and listen.” A talon sprang from its retractable sheath toward Lia’s neck. She gasped, “Ianthine! I’m trying to help, trust me.”
Only she had the power to break Azziala’s hold. If she could not do it, these Dragons would fall and Sapphurion shortly thereafter.
“Trust? First, it gives me power.”
“You still lust for
ruzal
after all you’ve suffered? Ianthine–” Lia listened to the Dragoness’ stillness, which belied the internal war raging between her different personalities “–Dragoness, you must choose the right. Hatred will not win this day.”
After what seemed an eternal silence, Ianthine said, “It trusts like a babe. Undraconic in innocence, my dark-fires it incites. What does it intend, o treacherous beauty, this beggar of sweetly insane oaths?” Lia shivered as the mad voice gathered strength. She knew this Ianthine, for the Dragoness had taunted her before with the knowledge of Ra’aba’s identity. “Is it secretly a Hater? Seeded to doom all Dragons?”
“No. I promise–” The word throttled Hualiama momentarily. Promise a Dragoness? Had she not learned? “I promise to release you. As for my plan? What could be more draconic than to attack?”
Ianthine gurgled with pleasure as Hualiama sketched a plan in her mind. “Agreed, Dragonfriend.”
Slow wingbeats brought the Maroon Dragoness up to the Empress’ position above the battlefield. Ianthine kept her expression carefully blank, yet her belly-fires seethed as though a thousand hornets were trapped beneath her hide, matching Lia’s trepidation. If the Dragoness could use her unique powers coupled with the word of
ruzal
Hualiama had taught her …
The raddled Dragoness appeared to swell. Hualiama’s heart turned over as a new magic filtered through her broken scales, transforming the Ianthine into a radiant jewel. Enchained as they were by the Dragon Enchanters, Azziala’s flotilla, to a beast, sighed and made moon-eyes at the Dragoness. The Empress frowned, clearly confused as a hum of approving Dragonsong rose about her. Lia ironed a grin off her lips. Ianthine would never openly admit to possessing the draconic power of seduction, would she?
Fifty feet from Azziala’s commanding position, Ianthine broke into an eye-catching display of streamers of dazzling, coruscating magic. Behind Azziala, her Enchanters gasped as their Dragons bumped into each other and lost position in the formation, trying to keep a burning eye upon the object of their collective desire.
In that instant, the Dragoness hurled Lia at Azziala.
Mid-air, the Princess of Fra’anior unsheathed her Nuyallith blades, crossing the gap in an eye blink. A flash of Ianthine’s
ruzal
sliced through the Dragon Enchanters’ shield. Adjust. Slash! Azziala’s eyes widened as she dived aside, flinging up her hands in reaction. Lia’s left-hand blade sliced cleanly through the outer edge of her mother’s hand, while the right gashed Azziala’s ribs shallowly, deflecting off her body armour and piercing Shazziya’s right thigh, a clean thrust. Hualiama cannoned off the tall Enchantress’ hip, losing her grip on the blade jutting out of her thigh. She landed deftly, whirled on her heel and slammed her second blade down upon her mother’s back. Shazziya’s arm barred hers like a metal stanchion.
Crack!
Pain speared up into her elbow. The blade gashed Azziala’s exposed shoulder, but caused no further damage. Lia’s right forearm hung at an odd angle.
Shazziya barely blinked. “Hands off my Empress, wretch.”
She had barely begun to blanch when the Enchantress blasted her off the Dragon’s back.
* * * *
Grandion saw Hualiama’s flight as a comet-like trail across his magical vision. He had finally worked out how to implement her ideas. High-speed pulses tracked her location amidst the chaos, sound bolstered with a touch of magic that sought out her song, the unique combination of scents, potentials, heartbeat and white-fires which had come to symbolise Hualiama to a blind Dragon.
It seemed she fell slowly. Shadows surrounded her, Dragons in a battle-frenzy, clashing with each other while she fell, buffeted but essentially unmolested, through a sky rife with slashing talons and blooms of Dragon fire. Having thrown up an optical shield the instant he heard Azziala’s commands, Grandion had avoided capture. Now, he knew that the Maroon Dragoness laboured to free her fellows while Lia tumbled through the sky. The Tourmaline flexed his huge flight muscles, powering upward so strongly that his spine creaked with the effort.
A Grunt! The pressure-wave alerted him. Grandion spun mid-air, stalling with his left wing while pumping the right. The speeding Dragon clipped his tail on the way past. He lunged, talons outstretched.
“Got you!” Relief made his voice especially basso, a booming from the depths of his chest as he clutched Lia to his chest.
“Grandion. Thank the heavens.”
“You attacked your mother? That was brave.”
“I failed. Grandion, you heard Mizuki. Your shell-father’s coming–”
He growled, “Where are you injured?”
“Split lip. Talon in my back. Broken arm. Nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious?” The Tourmaline’s displeasure stunned his Rider.
“Islands’ sakes, next time I won’t hitch a ride on a passing avalanche! Grandion, Sapphurion’s coming. We need to rally the Dragons and drive off Azziala.” She drew him into her mind.
Now fly, o prince of the dawn fires!
Her shout galvanised his waning powers. There was a strength of draconic Storm that caused his words to reverberate like a thunderclap among the Dragonkind–audible and magical, he caused every muzzle to turn in his direction.
DRAGONS TOGETHER! RISE AGAINST THESE HATERS!
Bellowing this cry many times, Grandion rallied the disparate Dragons. Lia was right. They could easily be turned against Azziala, for Humans were lower on the food chain.
“Lower on the food chain?” Lia kicked his paw. “Charming beast.”
“Sit, Rider!”
The Tourmaline did not do contrition–not in the midst of a battle. But Lia only laughed at his smoke and thunder. “More war poetry, Dragon, or can I trust you to do the job properly this time?”
Hurricane-force winds preceded the Tourmaline Dragon’s solo assault on Azziala’s forces. Lightning jagged from his throat. Multiple branches struck the Dragon-Haters’ shield, followed by a brief salvo of Grunts–those left alive. Then, Razzior rose at his left flank and Ianthine and Affurion to his right. The Dragons pummelled the Lost Island Humans with fire and ice, lava and acid, and a stream of superheated glue from the single Grey amongst Razzior’s Dragonwing.
Azziala’s force vanished for long seconds behind curtains of flame, but somehow they weathered that first assault at the cost of several Dragons’ collapse.
“DRAGONS, OBEY!” screamed the Enchantress, every vein in her neck and forehead etched in gold. But many of the Dragonkind were beyond reason or restraint, including Grandion. These lowborn scum had turned proud Dragons into slaves. Dragon-thunder shook the morning, and with it, came Sapphurion and his Dragonwing of Gi’ishior, including the egg-siblings Zulior and Qualiana, both massive Reds, and Andarraz the Green, Brown Tarbazzan and Haaja the Yellow Dragoness.
Through the cacophony, Lia’s soft inner cry reminded Grandion of the cost of what these Dragons wrought. Having just lost her father, her mother now stood on the brink of annihilation. She would lose everything.
I AM SAPPHURION!
The mighty Blue leader’s breath frosted the morning air, an ultra-cold blast that froze the Dragon-Haters’ shield in solid sheets which gleamed like crysglass in the suns-light.
Stretching her neck like a cannon, his mate Qualiana fired a series of white-hot fireballs against the shield, so rapidly that they became a single smear of colour across Hualiama’s vision. The Dragon-Haters’ magic shattered. Hundreds of Dragons snarled their praise. Heat seared Grandion’s throat as he joined his Dragon-kin, fire mingling with fire, and a fierce Dragonsong of joy buoyed his wings as a firestorm swept over the enemy Dragons and their detestable cargo. Beautiful fire! The stench of sulphur and charcoal upon the air … oh, blackened bodies tumbling from the sky, a rain of judgement!
Mother,
Lia breathed.
* * * *
In the wake of that stunning obliteration, the Dragons drifted on the breeze, arching their necks proudly or flicking their wings to loosen the soot and grit. Many watched the corpses falling until they were lost in the Cloudlands a league below.
Sapphurion was the first to move, winging over to greet his shell-son with a wingtip touch.
Fiery and sulphurous greetings, my shell-son. The Maroon Dragoness tells me you’ve found the Scroll? My happiness is unbounded.
His eyes measured Hualiama.
Well met, Dragonfriend.
She inclined her head respectfully.
The most sulphurous greetings of Great Fra’anior to you, noble Sapphurion.
Incongruous. Such formality–a warning?
As if drawn to a lodestone, Dragons gathered around Hualiama and Grandion in the air, and the animus in many of their fiery gazes made her shiver. Cradling her injured arm, Lia watched Ianthine and Affurion drawing together with their remaining half-dozen Overminds, while Razzior summoned his Dragonwing with an imperious flick of his tail. Sapphurion’s group matched the combined strength of Razzior’s kin and the Lost Islands Dragons. Balance? Could she hope? Her very presence upon Grandion’s back must enrage them.
Mizuki, bearing Saori and Elki upon her back, descended to align herself with Grandion. Small mercies. Her brother nodded at her, by his bearing, acutely aware of the escalating danger.
Lightly, the wind wuthered atop the Dragon’s Bell.
“My Dragon-kin, there is much work yet to be done,” Sapphurion began.
“There is the matter of the Scroll of Binding,” Razzior inserted smoothly. “And these young Dragons who openly flout the law. What say you to this, Sapphurion? Shall justice not prevail amongst the Dragonkind this day?”
Here it came. Lia’s stomach churned as the great Dragon Elder regarded them, his manner, ineffable, the fire of his eyes bright and proud, as though he harboured not a qualm in the world. She expected him to advance a cunning reply, a draconic subterfuge.