The Road to Hell - eARC (37 page)

There were potential difficulties as well, of course. For example, uncaged drakes in Mythal found without a handler would be re-enchanted by a neighboring house and claimed as feral foundlings under the old estray laws. That sort of carelessness could lead to a century or more of careful breeding going to enrich a rival drake line without even a sum of coin or lot of chattel in exchange. The Siduses had taken a few such opportunities in the past, as had every other member of the Seadrake Owners’ Association when granted the chance, but he certainly didn’t care to give away his stock easily, and he considered the legal difficulties of free roaming drakes in the frontier universes. Some type of branding could work, he decided. And he would have to insist marked drakes be reclaimed only by the respective breeder houses after the end of the war, with offspring to be divided on a pro rata basis determined by share contributions of the possible parent drakes released in each universe.

And the Union of Arcana would need to pay rental fees to the breeders for the use of the animals for the duration of the conflict. It wouldn’t do to have the Union’s other members just assuming that Mythal would pay the heavy blood price of war simply because they were best suited to it and were the only ones who had prepared to fight properly at sea.

* * *

Ullery the Fool patted each long neck of his drake and paced around the beast examining every inch of her armor. The sand of the small, created island off the coast of the Sidus estate burned Ullery’s bare feet, but he did his best not to limp. The
shakira
would be watching, and Ullery kept all his attention on Silverstreak’s hide as he scratched the base of her dexter neck carefully. The scales were thinner here at the very back of the animal in the indentation where a drake’s
garthan
driver latched in. The spiny ridges on either side had small, carefully drilled holes which gave the purchase needed to attach his ropes and body netting.

The crystal implants in Silverstreak’s center head were giving her trouble again. Ullery could tell from the way her neck ticked that head in an uncontrolled spasm every few minutes. If they were still back serving the House Belftus, he would have known which of the
shakira
lords to go to and could have gotten it fixed. But since their sale to House Vacus a fortnight ago, he hadn’t been able to figure out which, if any, of the
shakira
masters actually cared about maintaining their drake property.

He’d been born a
garthan
servant, and from certain of his features, he was fairly sure his father had been a member of the Belftus family. But since no Gift had manifested, his bastardry was an embarrassment to be hidden from other
shakira
. A lord was supposed to only breed true.

Ullery himself had continued to expect to be taken into the family proper long after he should have realized it was never going to happen. Still, his unusually advanced early education had granted him a few advantages. Those had kept him alive when no Gift manifested and his early mistakes earned him a place as a drake rider on the animals used to host spectator fights for
shakira
amusements. Ullery did at least understand magic theory, even if he utterly lacked the spark necessary to cast spells. He knew how the drake’s spellware worked, and he had the sense to be very, very careful with the control crystal belted across his waist.

The other
garthans
of the Belftus House had been careful not to offend Ullery lest his possible
shakira
father choose to take offense. And since Ullery didn’t complain and managed his drakes so cleverly that they never
quite
caught anyone who tried to swim the straits to leave
shakira
service, he’d been treated well by his fellows.

But that had been in the last household. In House Vacus, Ullery knew far too few people to really know what his place was. He was beginning to suspect that the reason for the chill distance was that none of the other servants really wanted to get to know him. They’d prefer not to know the man-like-object who’d end up mangled by their House-bred drakes during the next exhibition event.

It was a fair assumption. Except that the last two weekends had passed without a drake-on-drake fight. And just recently orders had come down to begin seeing if any of the drakes could be trained to work together. He’d overheard one of the Vacus handlers muttering worriedly about it. They didn’t seem to think it could be done. And maybe with Vacus drakes it couldn’t. But House Belftus had done it any number of times. The trick was to keep the calm driving head dominant during all the close maneuvers.

Ullery could show them all how to do it…if he survived the next few hours.

The fins in the water around the island were moving in ways he didn’t think were natural. A shark’s head came up with far too wide a mouth for the body and snapped at empty air.

The glare on the surface of the ocean blinded him for a moment, and then Ullery saw the creature clearly in the passing foam. Not natural at all. There were
sarkolis
crystals on the monsters’ flanks imbedded just before the dorsal fins. Idiotic placement for water flow, but no one asked a
garthan
’s opinion.

Just
behind
the fin was the vortex null where natural water magics amplified
sarkolis
enchantment, but some imbecile had implanted the shark’s control crystals higher up the spine at almost at the spellbreak point. Which meant the ocean would polish imperative-strength spell commands down to mere nudges with every passing wave.

Squeals above from young
shakira
voices revealed that the controllers had discovered that exact error.

Ullery marked the width of the island. It was all soft sand that felt steady underfoot but the edge dropped off sharply just beyond the waterline. Only about twice the diameter of Silverstreak’s length from bite to tail, it was a created island, probably on a float spell that could drop to the bottom of the sea on a word.

He ran soothing hands down each of Silverstreak’s necks rubbing out tension and encouraging her to stretch and flex. She was going to need to shark hunt for him today. Bludgeoning tail strikes and rapid
sarkolis
cracking bites should work if he could keep Silverstreak’s delicate inter-talon webbing protected from the razor teeth.

Dark trails followed the sharkbeasts already. The kids had enchanted the teeth to enlarge and sharpen them without considering the damage to gums and jaws.

The mouths were too large for the gullets too. These sharkbeasts wouldn’t be able to feed themselves. Some out of favor
garthan
would have to do it.

He shivered and Silverstreak vibrated in response. He forced himself to still and calm her anxiety. No good panicking about what might happen at the feed pits this evening when he hadn’t yet survived the afternoon.

A child, announcing himself as master of ceremonies, blew a great horn. The poorly tuned blat earned an eruption of laughter from his fellows.

A teacher of some sort confiscated the horn and restored order.

“
Shakira, Multhari,
and guests—welcome! The fosterlings and young ones of the House of Sidus present for you this afternoon’s entertainment. Monsters of the deep patrol a classic drake deathmatch!

“Step right up to the red palanquin if you’d like to take your turn handling a sharkbeast. We’ve colorized the
sarkolis
and the controllers for you so it’s easy to see which beast is yours, but if you have any doubt at all, we have a
spotter next to each control.”

Rousing cheers and a flurry of nursemaided small ones hopped onto small platforms and converged on the red palanquin.

“Ask any of our
garthantri
servants if you need anything at all. Remember your sharkbeasts can’t breath air, so just snap at the drakes when one throws the other into the water.”

A slidercage was beginning the slow float from Sidus Proper to Arena Island. Ullery had heard of Sidus. Every handler had heard of the nightmare Sidus V line. But this cage was big even for a Sidus V, and Ullery had the sinking feeling that the long awaited Sidus VI line might be coming out for first blood.

Silverstreak’s center head let out a low moan and jerked again. She’d seen the cage coming too.

Ullery tested the tension on his straps and practiced deep breaths. If he had to go into the water, he needed to be able to match Silverstreak’s lung capacity. He’d give near anything for an air spell right now, but he’d’ve needed four of them, one for each of Silverstreak’s three heads and one of his own, for it to make any difference.

Belftus had had short-duration breather spells, but Vacus hadn’t bothered to refresh anything to do with his belt crystal. Ullery figured he might have a few gasps left on an old air spell, but if he tried to use that enchantment it might empty the accumulator too much to maintain the control spells. Silverstreak had never yet tried to take a bite out of him, but if the fight ran on long enough she’d get extremely hungry.

Ullery did his very best not to test his drake like that. He’d rather be eaten alive by something else.

The massive slidercage dragged to a stop on empty sand in the middle of the island. And Ullery the Fool finished belting himself in. However bad this got, he’d have the best survival chance on his drake’s back.

The horn sounded again, and the cage bellowed in response. Then all four sides clanged flat into the sand and the roof flew up and away to spiral high over the tops of the audience palanquins.

Ullery didn’t wait to hear the splash. He hunkered Silverstreak down and clamped his precious belt tight against her back. The cloud of dust risen from the cage opening would give him the first and only cover he’d get during this fight. He urged Silverstreak to sidle around the island, feet and tail kept carefully out of the water.

“The House of vos Sidus presents Blackfang Heartripper of their Sidus VI line! And awaiting on Arena Island, from the breeders at Belftus, we have Silverstreak Fleshrender!”

Children cheered. Some threw down pieces of cookie, inadvertently giving away Ullery’s attempt at subterfuge.

He let Silverstreak snap the sweets out of the air before they reached the sand and was rewarded with more substantial cuts of roast and sausages. Iridescent horned crests streaked down all three of his seadrake’s heads, straight to her great club of a tail. She was a lovely creature, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some of the audience on her side.

Silverstreak preened at the sky, and from out of the cloud of sand in the center of Arena Island, a massive black seadrake raised two heads and howled fury. The third head twisted back and struck cobra fast to rip its handler out of the harness straps.

Blackfang’s third head swallowed his handler’s skull. Then all three heads ripped at the corpse’s soft entrails, and gasps from the audience mixed with laughter and applause to acknowledge the fight’s first blood as Blackfang flung limbs and bits of flesh in all directions.

Ullery patted Silverstreak’s neck. A leg still encased in loose trouser cloth landed nearby. It had a shoe.

Blackfang’s sinister head paused long enough to hiss in Silverstreak’s direction. She hissed back and lifted her body high, trying to look bigger and intimidate the much larger beast.

Ullery looked into the sinister head’s eyes and was all but certain it would be impossible to intimidate the uncontrolled monster. Blackfang was operating on pure instinct now, and the sinister head returned to gnawing the body, but the dexter head curled back to watch them. With the control spell broken so abruptly, the large Sidus drake might not even have a dominant head.

Ullery took a wild chance and directed Silverstreak to do something he’d never thought he’d tell a drake to do.

Silverstreak complied instantly. She snapped her center neck forward and closed her jaws around the still dripping human leg. Ullery prayed she would obey the rest of the order too, and somehow—miraculously—she did. She arched her neck and hurled the leg in a high arc. Up, and up…Then it hit the floor of the red palanquin and splashed into the ocean. Blackfang’s dexter head had tracked the full motion. The other two heads snapped back and forth, tracking the sharkbeasts circling the spot where the stolen piece of their kill had hit the water.

The red palanquin veered back, and children clamored at the controls while sharkbeasts swarmed after the leg, some controlled and some not, fighting each other for the taste of blood in the water. That was a mistake, and all three Blackfang heads roared in chorus.

The whole drake dove into the ocean. Nothing got between a seadrake and his kill, and Ullery imagined the points about his tactics that the vos Vacus tutors in the palanquins above would be making to their charges right now.

Silverstreak shivered and trembled with her need to follow, but Ullery held her back with every bit of will he could muster. He let her pick at a bit of cake, dropped from above and missed in the handler’s slaughter, but he had no desire to enter the fray he and Silverstreak had arranged for Blackfang.

But then his drake shied right as a bottle was hurled down at them. It shattered on the beach nearby, and Ullery realized some of the yells above were directed towards him. He glanced up to see Kon vos Vacus gesturing urgently at him to enter the fight.

Ullery didn’t go so far as to shake his head at the Master, but he had no intention of obeying. Still, the spectators needed a show, and as the only remaining handler, it was up to Ullery to give them one. If he didn’t, they’d change something about the arena fight, and it probably wouldn’t be survivable, so he urged the quivering Silverstreak to slink around the edge of the low dune island to give him a view of the ocean melee.

Blackfang’s dexter head cracked the spine of a sharkbeast and tossed it high overhead. It missed the red palanquin but not by very much. Small arms reached out trying to touch this second bleeding projectile before it fell back into the sea.

The crowd roared approval. And cookies rained down from the heavens.

Mostly they fell on Silverstreak who caught them with elegantly arched necks and flicking tongues.