Dragon Thief (27 page)

Suddenly, she seemed to morph from ancient Pygmy wise-woman into an awkward teenager. “That is … uh, at least … what the scrolls say.”

Tazithiel and Aranya stared at their linked wrists as though Riika had confined them in a prison of terrifying, Island-shivering consequence. Kal had imagined Dragons could never be enchained. Now he conceded his error. Past grief could enslave a soul as surely as the measures Riika had taken in the hope of winning their freedom. A phrase from the
Pygmy Dragon
scroll played through his mind, ‘The courage of the smallest.’ Aye. In the greatest adversity, Riika’s courage shone brightest, almost too dazzling to bear.

He clapped her on the shoulder. “I can completely believe you have Dragon in your ancestry, Razorblades. Look, you made the two most powerful Dragonesses in the Island-World weep.”

“I feel ridiculous. Don’t know where that came from.”

Kal folded his girl into his arms. “A straight arrow shot from the heart.”

* * * *

“Look, I don’t understand what the blindfold is for,” Kal griped, for the two thousandth time. “Aye, today’s the day your umbilical torture is due to be removed, I know that.”

“Patience, o wise mentor,” Riika intoned. “Today is all about surprises.”

“And how’s Tazithiel supposed to be training for our difficult and dangerous mission when her Dragoness hasn’t flown for a week?”

“Tazithiel is fine.”

Someone blew on his neck. Kal yelped.

Sneaking, floaty, Kinetic-powered prankster. Tazi was borrowing far too much from his scrolleaves for Kal’s comfort. The fact that he had accomplished all of his audacious thieving triumphs with his two feet placed firmly on the ground obviously placed him in a class of his own. Old-Kal would have gnawed off a limb for the chance to possess Tazi’s levitation or shielding capabilities. His own magic was perfectly modest in comparison.

“Can I look yet?”

“Wait.” The Shapeshifter’s voice drew away. “Right, Riika. Now.”

“I can’t reach.” The girl could make a sentence sulk so powerfully the words dragged their lips on the ground.

Kal wrenched off the blindfold. Speech deserted him. Reason fled the Island. Lust–that stayed for the party. Amazement, disbelief and a great deal of heat churned about in his head, making his expression their personal playground.

Tazithiel twirled shyly in the suns-beam she had chosen to best highlight her outfit. “Well?”

Aye, and this woman had vowed she would rather gnaw off her own tail than wear exactly what she wore now? Kal was certain they were meant to be armoured trousers, but the impression of black paint kept muddling his mind. Great Islands, the material fit like her Dragoness’ own hide! His gaze rose to her bare, muscled stomach above the weapons-belt. Kal sternly forbade himself from expiring in ecstasy over the perfection of her belly-button in that trim waistline, even if a fading scar intersected it, a visible reminder of Endurion’s abhorrence.

Furthermore, Tazithiel wore midriff-baring Western Isles body armour, which served the dual function of protecting her torso and enhancing her physique into an ode to the most volcanic feminine curves he had ever beheld in his misspent lifetime, which had included a great deal of beholding and associated misspending. The hilt of a three-foot
kuhiko
sword protruded above her right shoulder. Her hair flowed as a night-blue river down her back, tied back with blue razor ribbons which matched her eyes. She had even enhanced her eyes with indigo war-paint.

Kal gestured and said, “Hooooo …”

He coughed; tried again. “Faaaa-warble …”

“I fear we may have succeeded in turning him into a gibbering idiot,” Riika said drily.

“But … the animal hide and tail-chewing bit …”

If Tazithiel kept smiling at him like that, he was definitely never going to string together an intelligent sentence again. He could not peel his eyes off her thighs.

The half-Pygmy said, “It’s silk, not leather. The Dragon scientists here have perfected a sevenfold silk mesh-material reinforced with metal strands which is lightweight and pliable, as you see, yet as effective as light armour. The production process involves a great deal of magical trickery.”

“Magical.” Kal was still trying to work out how it was physically possible for any woman to have legs as long and alluring as Tazithiel’s.

“Riika helped them perfect the production process this week,” Tazi explained. “It’s … mmm!”

Kal kissed her zestfully, while thoroughly checking the fit of her trousers with his hands.

“Kal, stop it.”

He kissed and explored a little more. Great leaping Islands! This was sin incarnate.

“Kal, your daughter’s present–Kallion! Control yourself.”

“Quite impossible.”

“Kal–
Kal!
Hands off before I surgically remove them.”

“Mmm, I like ultra-sexy Tazithiel,” he growled. “What need hast thou of sword and spear, o dancing fire of the dawn?”

“Honestly, Sticky-Fingers, you’re just embarrassing,” Riika huffed, appearing even more steamed than the Indigo Shapeshifter. “Now, Tazi can change into this outfit inside seven seconds. She showed me.”

Kal fixed his most wicked Cloudlands-pirate grin upon them. “Can I see?”

“No, but you can get dressed,” said the Shapeshifter, whose face seemed to be exploring the colours between rosy and crimson. “We’re going tonight. Briefing five minutes ago.”

“Tonight? But my plan was–”

Riika rapped, “It’s still your plan, ego-man. But the spies spotted movement down past Mejia. We go tonight, and we go in fast and hard. Aranya’s already briefing the Dragons and Riders. Tazzer?”

“Turn around, Razorblades.”

Kal had an inkling of what was coming, but it appeared that the saucy sorceress had fine-tuned the art of magical dressing, for his clothing practically exploded off his body. In a wink, his appreciation of her outfit jutted in the breeze.

“Ooh,” said Tazi, with a growl of her own. She tugged him close with a wicked whip-curl of magic. “A shame we’re off to war, Kal, or I’d–”

“Putrid windroc droppings! Slug vomit! Rajal poo!” yelled Riika, storming out of the roost with her hands firmly clapped over her ears.

“A hip kiss for you,” she smiled. “Closely related to the art of the air kiss I once demonstrated. Do you remember?” She twitched her hips suggestively. “How’s this?”

“You’re a profoundly immoral princess,” he spluttered.

“I am? Watch this. Time to get dressed, Kal.”

She conjured up an outfit so fast Kal collected friction burns under his arms. Grumbling about unrelieved urges, he retrieved his essential weaponry and toolkits, which he had checked and rechecked five times in three days. Then, Tazithiel whisked him down the mountain with a touch of levitation and a cheeky upending of the Pygmy girl on the way, which Riika protested vociferously.

The Shapeshifter levitated them all the way to the base of the roost mountain, and inside a series of vaulting caverns Kal had noticed before. In short order, he heard the hubbub of many Dragons and Riders.

Over fifty Dragons and thirty Dragon Riders crammed into what was usually a huge cavern, but Aranya alone made the space feel cramped, for the Amethyst Dragoness was a mountain in her own right. She sat squarely in a large lava pool beneath the tallest part of the cavern roof, Kal noticed, every inch the Queen Dragoness holding court before a Dragonwing of fledglings–only, these were fully-grown Dragons. She made them look like dragonets.

Flanked by two exotic beauties, Kal decided he made an impression worthy of the King of Thieves on arrival. Jalfyrion, to his right, let out an involuntary burp of fire as Tazithiel sashayed past him. Jisellia chuckled and flipped Kal a mock-salute. Oh, she knew about this and he did not?

He dreamed up a punishment involving forced nude dancing atop a table decorated with Immadian forked daggers.

“So, that’s all settled,” said Aranya. “Two groups, one to scour Jeradia for threats to the Academy and one to strike south. By dawn, I intend to be in Mejia.” That distance overnight was impossible–wasn’t it? Kal firmed his lips. “At Mejia, the group will split. One Dragonwing will run decoy against Endurion’s forces while the second, a select group of Tazithiel, Riika and Kal, will penetrate the magical shield, secure the Scroll and rejoin the Dragonwing. Any questions?”

“Aye,” rumbled a rugged young Blue, Cyanorion. “How do we trust the author of this plan? You issued a death warrant against him just weeks ago, o Queen.”

“Kal.” Aranya crooked a claw.

“Aye, o Queen?”

“I once challenged this man to burgle our Academy,” said Aranya, watching as Kal approached charily. “Despite the highest alertness of our patrolling Dragonwings, he danced beneath our noses, penetrating even my own bedchamber, whereupon he spared my life. He is also the only Human ever to successfully penetrate the Halls of the Dragons at Gi’ishior. Kal saved my shell-daughter’s life when Endurion attacked her, and took the Dragon Rider oath.”

Kal glanced uncertainly back at Tazithiel. How wise was it to reveal this to all these Dragons?

“Kallion, would you demonstrate your Shadow power to these Dragons?”

Whispers of Dragonish surrounded him. Amazed. Perplexed. How could this be? No Shadow power had stalked the Islands since the days of the Shadow Dragon. Kal was a Human.

“Ah …”

Tazithiel’s voice entered his mind.
Please, Kal. Trust me, even if you trust no other. Aranya has a surprise for you.

Bah. Like the size of the claw that would pierce his chest, or the temperature of that lava once the Dragons forced him to take swimming lessons? Sweat beaded his brow. Nevertheless, he focussed using the techniques Aranya had been teaching him. Shadow, his cloak. Shadow-friend. The veil of his reality.

Dragon-thunder! Dragon curses and exclamations of disbelief!

SILENCE!
Aranya’s roar engulfed them all. Kal blinked back from his world of Shadow. “Aye, my Dragon-kin, you see rightly. Kal displays the power of my own Ardan. According to the secret records Dragons keep of Ha’athior, which is Kal’s home Island, this man is Kallion, son of Ga’achion, son of Taynurion, son of Immudior, shell-son of Zenziel the Grey Dragoness and Ardan, the Shadow Dragon. He’s a direct descendant of the Shadow Dragon–as proven.”

Kal opened and closed his mouth. Tazi stood beside him, her firm grip preventing him from stumbling away from the drumbeat of the Amethyst Dragoness’ declaration. Ardan? Who had cheated on the Empress of Dragons? And a man called Kallion was descended from the legendary Shadow Dragon … great freaky, flipped upside-down, flying Islands!

Ardan and Zenziel cohabited as feral Dragons after the battle of Archion Island,
Tazi said briefly, using the private Dragonish Yozora the Blue had taught them in the infirmary.
In the feral state, what Dragons do is forgiven. It is one of the few sins a Dragon will readily forgive.

I … unholy sulphurous fumaroles, woman, how long have you known?

Since this morning.
Tazi squeezed his arm.
You always claimed you were legendary–o great-great-grandson of the Shadow Dragon.

Kal brightened. Was it not fated in the stars?
Aye. I shall call myself the King of Shadows, and–yie!

He yelped as Aranya trapped him in her mammoth paw. A Dragon-swift rearrangement of his situation later, Kal found himself helplessly bent over the second knuckle of her paw, pinned in place by her first talon behind his neck and her third behind his knees. A man might thus snap a twig.

“My Dragon-kin,” Aranya intoned, raising him a good forty feet into the air so that every Dragon and Rider could appreciate his ignominious position, “even a Star Dragoness must keep her word, and aye, a Queen of Immadia too. I vowed that if this man burgled our Academy, that would be the day I kissed his filthy, thieving backside.”

The thief uttered a crass rejoinder which was amply drowned out by the fire-spitting disbelief of the Dragonkind present.

“Therefore I, Aranya of Immadia, declare that I was mistaken to set a price upon this man’s head, and a death warrant upon his life. And today, you are all my witnesses as I keep my vow.”

Mmmmweeeehh!

An enormous, blisteringly hot pair of lips kissed Kal right on his upraised posterior.

After laughter both fiery and Human had subsided, Aranya inquired archly, “Are we clear, Kallion of Fra’anior?”

Blast the little mosquito, his daughter was down there splitting her sides laughing. She had known all about this humiliation! And arranged it? That Riika. Just wait, he’d twist her guts into bowstrings!

Muffled in Aranya’s paw, he called, “Could you not have done this in your Human form, o Queen?”

“I think not!” Tazithiel barked.

Jisellia whispered in Jalfyrion’s ear; the Red growled, “The man burgled our Academy not once but twice, o Queen.”

Kal howled, “Great Islands, will this never end?”

Mmmmweeeehh!

S
ToRM WINDS. ARANYA’s
answer to the required speed of their flight was to raise a storm which swept in from the North within the hour after the briefing finished, and snatched the Dragonwing away southward with whistling winds, sharp bursts of hail and the all-important benefit of cloud cover. Quietly, Kal triple-checked his and Tazithiel’s equipment. Riika checked her arrows, throwing knives and flechettes. It was sobering to see how professionally a young teenager handled her equipment. She slipped so easily into her assassin persona. As easily as a certain thief.

Aranya’s instructions had spread a network of Dragons not only south across Jeradia, as Kal had thought to do, but to every point of the compass. A Blue Dragon accompanied each force to employ their superior magic skills in the search. No chances. She included sweeps around Jeradia’s lower cliffs in case the enemy tried to sneak around the Island massif’s skirts to attack from an unexpected quarter.

Ahead and all around Tazithiel in the sky, the massive, rain-slick bodies of Dragons drove southward. Each Dragon stretched to their utmost, their paws tucked up beneath their bodies to ensure optimal streamlining. Many of Aranya’s force carried Riders, ranging from new graduates such as Jisellia and Jalfyrion, to a hoary old Green with a hundred and fifty year-old Rider aboard. Kal wondered who had the more dangerous assignment–bait Talon, or raid his bedchamber? Endurion and Talon had avoided Aranya the previous time, but only because of Endurion’s focus on exacting his revenge on Tazithiel.

As they rocketed out into a space above the clouds after several hours’ flight, briefly overflying the driving storm, the Yellow and White moons’ radiance gleamed upon the Dragonwing’s scales, turning them into effulgent jewels.

Damping,
Aranya commanded.

Tazithiel’s magic spread around them like a rippling of invisible waters, joining two other Blues and Aranya’s shielding magic. Kal shook his head. The subject of shielding was enough to fill a lore-library in its own right. All he knew was that flying Dragons left a detectable signature, a magical equivalent of the aurora which had so entranced a boy in Immadia. This type of shield would damp that signature and attempt to trick any Dragons who happened to be looking at the moons at that particular moment, as a thirty-strong Dragonwing raced through the night.

And we’re past Jeradia already,
said a young, powerful Blue Dragon, who winged to Tazithiel’s starboard flank, repeating this statement in Island Standard for the Dragon Riders.

Riika waved at the Blue. “Thanks, noble Cyanorion. All directions gratefully accepted.”

“All cheeky Pygmies instantly barbecued,” he retorted.

“Just remember, I tear into Master-steaks for breakfast. Snarky Dragons are hardly a challenge.”

“Little one, you aren’t even worth the trouble of snacking upon. You’d only sour a Dragon’s stomach.”

“Whereupon I’d stroll out on your tongue, cool as a jungle spring.”

Cyanorion clipped his wings to shift over to Aranya’s flank, discussing something with her in a low voice.

Tazithiel rumbled, “Riika, were you flirting with that Dragon?”

“He’s a Shapeshifter,” said the girl, squirming in her temporary saddle. “It’s all perfectly above the Island.”

“A rather dashing Shapeshifter, from what I hear,” the Dragoness needled. “Kal, I smell sulphurous gases on the breeze–must be the teenager brewing trouble.”

“That’s normal Pygmy body odour for you,” he agreed, joining in the fun.

“Bah. Typical backstabbing thief,” she groused.

Four and a half hours later, as the Dragonwing neared Elidia Island, having sustained a jaw-dropping average speed of thirty-seven leagues per hour according to Cyanorion’s calculations, Tazithiel peeled away from the others to circle westward, while Aranya’s force angled off first to attack a series of enemy supply farms and warehouses on Elidia’s western flank, before moving on to the citadel at Mejia itself. The timing would be crucial to ensure the success of Kal’s plan.

Go burn the heavens, Dragon and Riders,
Aranya’s soft exhortation followed those of the other Dragons as they parted ways.

She had no need to spell out the dangers. Her briefing had covered those succinctly. Every Dragon knew that if they encountered Talon, many would fall.

Flying at a more sedate ten leagues per hour, Tazithiel slipped away with her own mist puffing about them, generated by the extreme cold of her ice stomach. That was a new skill which she had not yet mastered, Kal thought, shifting uneasily as his legs and thighs started to numb at the chill emanating from her scales. What if they left a vapour trail? Would Talon detect that?

An hour before dawn, Tazi, Kal and Riika were in position four leagues southwest of Mejia Island. Tazithiel pointed out Endurion’s citadel. “That rock.”

Nothing special. A square, artificial-looking summit perhaps a quarter-mile tall surmounted a ragged, rocky base that must split off from the Mejian mainland somewhere beneath the Cloudlands. Kal saw a couple of lights twinkling up top–watch-fires and sentries, the Indigo Dragoness said. Higher up, four Red Dragons circled endlessly, while other eye-fires burned at the base of what Kal took to be the fortress itself.

“Time,” said Tazi, having examined the stars.

“Break out the gliders,” said Kal.

He and Riika raided their saddlebags. Within ten minutes, they had assembled three Western Isles gliders and laid out Tazithiel’s clothing and equipment on her shoulder. Kal and Riika took turns helping each other strap on the lightweight frames, which supported silk wings twelve feet wide and terminated in foot-operated flaps that provided basic control in the air. Western Isles warriors used these to glide between their Islands. Great warriors, but too suicidal for Kal’s liking.

Black hoods. Gloves. Blacking around the exposed eyes. Tacky, soft-soled climbing slippers that most house-breakers stored beneath their beds for reassurance. He checked every detail.

“Ready, Dragoness?” Kal patted her shoulder.

“Aye. You go.”

Kal wondered what manner of courage it took for a master of aerial flight to entrust their fate to a flimsy tubular metal frame and a few scraps of black silk. Tazi had her Kinetic power. She could always Shapeshift back into her Dragoness manifestation, he knew, but once they were inside the shield, she would need to remain Human if at all possible. In seconds, he had his answer. Tazithiel transformed. The idea was to dress and arm herself before strapping into the glider as quickly as possible, but her yelp and a scattershot grappling of magic betrayed a panic Kal would never have credited the Dragoness.

She tumbled inelegantly.

Tazithiel!
Kal tipped his glider and chased her.
Calm. I am your Island; cling to me. Clothes first. Now weapons …

Recovering, the Indigo Shifter straightened her glider, and made a few last-minute adjustments to the razor ribbons in her hair.
Bit a hole in my lip. Kal, what was that?

It’s called being Human,
he smiled.
Most Humans don’t fly terribly well.

Almost failed and we’re not even close.

“Time for my Sylakian farmer to make an appearance,” said Kal, angling his glider toward the faraway dark rock. Smacking his lips lasciviously, he joked, “Girl, your trousers are so smoking hot, you’ll march down the ranks knocking ‘em left and right with every swish of those hips. And, my sweet, sweet petal, don’t you dare bend over! Because I’m not killing no men discovered in the act of worshipping your sweet rondures.”

“As Kal butchers Island Standard to invent a language of his own,” Tazithiel chuckled. “I intend to employ my ‘rondures’–a word basic to every farmer’s vocabulary–to perpetrate acts of devastation and anarchy inside that fortress.”

“Bah, Dad, you’ll just talk them to death,” Riika quipped.

Three black-clad Humans speared through the deepest night, peering ahead as the dark fortress seemed to grow against the opaque Cloudlands, casting a long shadow by the light of the crescent Blue moon. Beneath the clouds, he saw the orange glow of lava vents and the drifting smoke of fumaroles, causing the cloud cover to bubble or creating patches of choking steam. That was the source of the sulphur and acrid smoke that tickled his nostrils, even at this distance. Dragons had always been attracted to symbols of natural power–volcanoes and cliffs and mountaintops–and often loved to play in storm winds or toss lightning bolts about.

Kal said, “Evil Dragon citadel type four.”

Riika and Tazithiel shot him identical glances of befuddlement.

“Form the stack as we practised,” Kal ordered. “Tazithiel, you’re up top where I can’t be distracted by said rondures. Riika–”

“Already here, Sticky-Fingers.” Dropping her hands from the wing-handles, Riika clasped his waist. “Don’t take this as a sign of affection.”

“Ready,” said Tazi, clasping Riika in turn.

Kal had control of the stack, the physical contact allowing them to merge their shield much more effectively. The Indigo Shapeshifter cocooned them in an invisibility and magical damping shield. Kal latched on and injected his Shadow power, changing the shield’s nature fundamentally. From the perspective of those Dragons lurking near the fortress, three gliding Humans vanished from existence.

He dipped the glider stack slightly, increasing their horizontal speed.

A league from the fortress, as the spies had reported, a slight tingling signalled the magical outer shell of Endurion’s defences–not a shield, Kal realised. An alarm system. Tendrils of magic whispered against his senses, a world of white-fire filaments that denoted a pure core of Dragon magic. The Shadow-cloaked trio ghosted through with less presence than a passing breeze. The waiting Dragons showed no sign of alarm.

Soon enough.

The citadel walls were famously unclimbable. Legend told how they were forged of Brown Dragon magic and fire, but Kal had a solution for this too. Closer. Any second now …
dong! Dong! Dong!
The warning gong sounded within the fortress. Exactly on time. Dragon fire flared high overhead, perhaps a league or more, as Aranya’s force made its first incisive engagement. Those sentries up there would not know what had hit them.

Silent now, he made a fist and swept it upward. The three separated, Kal swooping swiftly for a narrow window on the fortress wall, four hundred feet above ground level, while Tazi and Riika raised their wings, braking slightly. Judge the angles. Flow with the breeze. Check for Dragons, but they had all responded to the attacks from the North and above. Kal flicked his feet, snapping the glider upward. He snatched at the barred window. Perfect strike. Shrugging out of his harness, Kal rapidly folded the glider into a single, narrow apparatus eight feet tall. A whisper of air heralded Riika’s arrival. She clutched his belt, landing with the deftness of a spider on the vertical surface. Slipping a vial of powerful Green Dragon acid from his belt, Kal set to work on the bars.

Watch out!
Tazithiel yelped involuntarily in Dragonish. He heard a sharp cracking sound.

Shock clamped Kal’s fingers in place, which was for the better as a dead Red Dragon tumbled past, deflected by Tazithiel’s magic, he realised belatedly. Where was the Shifter–there!

Shrugging out of her broken glider, Tazi lurched toward them and clutched Riika’s legs gratefully.
By my wings, that was too close
.

Kal wrenched a bar loose and placed it carefully on the windowsill. One more. Then, wiping clean the acid with a rag–or anyone climbing within would find a few holes in their hide–he tossed the steaming cloth away. It would disintegrate before it ever reached the rock or Cloudlands below. He pointed at Riika. Silently, they changed places as Kal clung to that final bar. The Pygmy scaled his shoulders deftly and vanished inside. Then Tazi. Now Kal, the largest of the three, scraped his shoulders as he wriggled snakelike through the four-foot deep gap and into the storage room beyond.

“Injuries?”

“Lump on my head,” said Human-Tazi. “Earn your keep, noble
thief
.”

“No drooling back there as you admire my haunches in my new silk trousers,” he whispered, moving to the door to pick the lock.

The thief, the Dragoness and the assassin sneaked deeper into the granite fortress.

* * * *

Kal led his small team confidently past five squads of Mejian heavy infantry, stationed at various armouries and levels, before they came to the type of obstacle that always made infiltrators roll their eyes and sigh like Sylakian ladies of the night. Squeaky metal gates. Bane of his life. Beyond the grating, fifty feet ahead, a squad of Mejian soldiers stood looking in the opposite direction. Good. The gate in that grating, however, was not good.

He signalled to Riika, ‘Come. You take two.’ Nodding, Riika padded up to the gate beside him.
Flick. Flick-flick. Thud.

The soldiers collapsed in a clatter of weaponry that could likely be heard on the next Island, never mind within the fortress. Kal picked the lock within two breaths and eased the gate open, raising a rusty shriek of protest. Bah. No way to do this one without raising some kind of alarm. They rushed down a wide stone staircase. Riika vaulted over the banister and disappeared. Two thuds proclaimed downed soldiers. Tazi cocked an eyebrow at Kal.