Dragonfriend (3 page)

Perhaps she might share her maggots with him? There was an agreeable thought.

With a contented gurgle, Flicker returned to his medicines. Now, where to start? If she was anything like a dragonet, her hide was a sack which held the fluids inside. First, the wound must be thoroughly cleaned. After that, the muscles should be returned to their rightful places, and the hide sewn together to prevent it from shifting about while she healed.

He worked for several hours more before deciding, with a huge yawn, that his heroism and dauntless service ought to be rewarded with a nap for the remaining three hours of darkness.

* * * *

Lia dreamed the blasphemous dream.

Once, she had dared to tell Fyria about her dreams. Her sister relayed them to their father; King Chalcion beat her with his fists. That was the day she learned, to the tune of a broken rib and a split lip, that people did not dream about flying with Dragons. Only wicked, depraved girls dreamed about soaring over the everlasting thermals of Fra’anior’s great caldera upon wings a hundred feet wide, which cut the moons like crystal blades.

She woke with a choked-off sob. A daytime thermal drove hot, faintly rancid air up from the depths. Up at Island level, a league above the Cloudlands, the air would be fragrant with the scent of a thousand pollens and rich with birdsong and dragonet-song, but down here, the heat shrivelled her lungs. Lia’s eyes traversed the lush green precipice rising above her until it was lost in the mists above. She wondered dully why she roosted in a tree.

Captain Ra’aba’s dagger! Falling through the twin suns’ warm, radiant beams … she was alive? Ridiculous! Off-the-Islands crazy.

Despite the heat, her body felt chilled. Hualiama shifted her aching neck to examine her wounds. Shock jolted her as she discovered a green dragonet curled up against her left shoulder, purring softly in his sleep, just like a wild rajal kitten she had once tried to tame. How sweet! The tiny paws twitched slightly and the eyes darted about behind the animal’s shuttered eyelids as though it dreamed. She saw multi-jointed wings, folded neatly back to its sides. It had a row of spine spikes which exactly matched those of the Lesser Dragons who roosted at Gi’ishior Island to the west of her home, and at Ha’athior, and claimed many other Islands for their homes. But Fra’anior’s great volcano was the most ancient and beloved of Dragon roosts, where Dragons lived on the peaks and in the caves, and Humans on their Islands, in an often uneasy truce.

Lia moistened her lips with her tongue. She remembered small, fluttering wings, and the sharp clasp of talons. This dragonet had rescued her, landing her on Ha’athior Island? That was the only possible explanation. She had explored the caldera and its twenty-seven Islands many times, sailing her single-handed or solo Dragonship with her brother Elki, or alone. Even Elki, more mischievous than a troop of monkeys rolled together, had never set foot on holy Ha’athior Island. Dragons tended to take a dim view of trespassers. They dropped them into lava flows or hurled them into the Cloudlands.

Nobody crossed a Dragon.

And whoever had dreamed up the misnomer ‘Lesser Dragon’ to describe an awesome reptilian predator which grew up to a hundred and twenty feet in wingspan, and could devour a three-thousand pound ralti sheep in a sitting, had to have a flock of chattering lovebirds for brains. Dragons were the mightiest creatures of the Island-World, bar none.

That did not stop some people dreaming about them.

Craning her neck gingerly, Hualiama worked out that she lay on a leafy, spreading branch a mile above an open magma pit. She was further down the cliffs than she had ever been, probably being poisoned by the Cloudlands’ toxic gases. Her right arm was heavily bruised, almost definitely broken. Between her shoulder blades, her back ached as though Ra’aba had cut her open a second time. And her stomach–great Islands! Someone had cleaned the wound and stuffed it full of green pulp. She saw very little bleeding on the outside, but she did not want to think about the mess inside.

This must be the dragonet’s work–just look at the neat piles of herbs stacked on broad leaves near her left hand, and the sticky green mess still visible on the animal’s paws.

Impossible. Dragonets were beautiful, amazing, and as thoughtless as the average clump of rocks. What they could do was sing. Often, when taking vocal training as was required of all Fra’aniorian royals–proper or adopted–Hualiama would hear the trilling descant of dragonets accompanying her vibrant soprano. They seemed to prefer her voice even over her youngest brother, Ari, whose developing tenor was widely regarded as the finest voice of his generation. Big Ari. His speech was a muddle, but when he sang, the very Islands sat up, wide-eyed and agog.

Would she ever see her family again?

She was alive. Quiet, hopeless tears slid down Lia’s cheeks. If they were fortunate, her family would be marooned on an unmarked boulder somewhere in the trackless reaches of the Cloudlands.

When a volley of sobs shook her body, the dragonet stirred.

* * * *

Flicker awoke from a dream of being a hatchling again, sleeping alongside his egg-mother, safely cocooned in the warm heart of a dragonet warren.

Unfortunately, his waking was not quite so peaceful, as he found himself cuddled up to his patient. A squeak of dismay escaped his muzzle as Flicker instinctively tried to flap away. Agony! He tumbled muzzle over paws, but something jerked his wing.

The creature had grabbed him! He bit her paw.

“Ouch, you little rajal!” she cried.

Don’t you touch me, you freak!

“Islands’ sakes, little one, I didn’t … I only wanted to save you a fall.”

Flicker hissed, flaring his wings and mock-charging the two-leg. Ooh. He grimaced. Whatever damage he had done, he could not escape …
don’t touch me. Grr!
By the First Egg, the wretched little windroc had dared to grab his wing! Dragonets were extremely fussy about their wings and tails.

She withdrew her left hand. “Down, girl. Take it easy,” she said. “Here, I won’t hurt you. Did you make these herbs? And treat me? I feel surprisingly good, thank you.”

Meaningless monkey-chatter issued from her flat muzzle, but when she indicated the herbs, he realised that the creature must have some sort of tiny brain after all. Well, didn’t he know that? They used tools and built their communal warrens–so why couldn’t they talk like normal creatures?

Now, her strange face became animated. He began to say,
You’re the ugliest …
Flicker pulled up with a gurgle of surprise. He was quite certain she was baring her fangs at him, but as he gazed into her smoky green eyes, exactly the same colour as his scales, an inexplicable power seemed to seize his body. His hearts expanded in his chest. A singing began in his ears; not Dragonsong, but a deeper, more spine-tingling melody, a type of magic he had never experienced before.

All Flicker knew was that he neither wanted to move, nor could he.

Her lips parted even further, exposing her pathetic incisors; those gimlet eyes crinkled at the corners. With more of her soothing noises, the creature reached out to touch his neck with her worm-like digits. The dragonet trembled.

“You’re a beautiful, perfect little Dragon,” she said. “Are you hurt? Did you hurt yourself, saving me?”

Don’t, that’s … very nice.
Flicker’s scales prickled as she stroked his neck, growing bolder. A low vibration of satisfaction emerged from his chest.
Listen here, flat-face, you’re taking liberties … I can’t believe it. I’m actually touching a two-leg. By the First Egg, just wait until I tell my warren-mates!

Wonderingly, she said, “When you look at me like that, I could swear you’re trying to talk to me, little one. Are you talking? Do you like this?”

Flicker shifted restlessly.
Enough. Remove your paw, scoundrel.

She jerked her hand back as he made a token snap toward her trespassing digits. She said, “Gently, my beauty.”

How do you survive with no Dragon hide?
he wondered, awash in confusion and wonder.
Aren’t you cold? Do you have belly-fires, like me? What is this water leaking from your eyes? What magic did you summon? Why did the fungus-faced one try to kill you?

She was looking around, taking in her precarious perch in the V between two branches, supported from beneath by the thickness of the secondary growth, which twined together beneath her body. Flicker moved to his pile of medicines and selected a leaf. She needed to eat at least a pawful to keep the infection at bay. Right. Since he was so brave, this should be easy.

* * * *

“No!” Hualiama flinched as the dragonet rushed toward her.

The movement jerked her right arm. She distinctly felt the bones grate together, a few inches above her elbow. A deep groan accompanied the blenching of her face. Fire spread in her stomach as fresh blood began to seep from one of the puncture wounds.

Eat,
insisted the dragonet.

“Er …” Hualiama flopped back on the branch, which swayed and dipped alarmingly. Dancing dragonets–she chuckled to herself as the phrase crossed her mind–she was right near the end, a bird in her leafy nest. How a small dragonet had dragged her to safety, she had no idea, but she had the scratches and burn-marks from branches to prove what the miniature Dragon had achieved. “You want me to eat that concoction?”

It looked like something the dragonet had regurgitated.

Don’t you know what’s good for you, two-legs?
said Flicker, flicking his eye-membranes in irritation.
This is medicine for the pain.

Feeling too weak and dizzy to refuse the strangely insistent dragonet, Lia sniffed the mess being waved beneath her nose. Actually, it smelled rather agreeable, like one of Queen Shyana’s allegedly ‘uplifting’ or ‘invigorating’ herbal brews she swore by for all ailments.

“Can you–” she squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing a word which would have earned her a reprimand from one of her tutors back at the Palace. She began to sweat and shiver simultaneously as the pain swept over her. “I’m going crazy. Talking to a dragonet in my crazy bird-perch.”

Eat,
chirped the dragonet, making the sign again.
Eat.

Eat,
she chirped back.

Fine, I’ll feed you, you useless … what did you just say?

Lia knew she was badly wounded. The song of her body was anguish, a counterpoint to the consuming grief over her family’s fate. King Chalcion was a proud, unbending man. This would be a dagger to his gut. As for Queen Shyana–she was sweet and accommodating, the person to whom Hualiama had always turned. She truly treated Lia as a daughter, unlike the King. Should she be ungrateful for her position in the royal household? No. But the royal life was not all blossoms, as the Islands saying went.

The dragonet’s paw touched her lips. The animal fed her patiently, pawful by pawful, as Lia forced herself to swallow. Perhaps it thought she was a wounded hatchling? She had never imagined animals could care like this. There was something deeply peculiar about being tended by a dragonet, she felt, sinking back against her bough-bed, the type of impossible magic often served up in dreams. Yet, only reality could hurt this much. Lia spied on the creature as it worked. Fussy little thing, deft of paw and as nervous as a wild rajal kitten. Clearly undecided on a choice between two different mounds of herbal mush, the dragonet bit its little forked tongue exactly as her second-youngest brother, Elki, liked to do when he studied with the royal tutors. The dragonet chirruped to itself before hopping over to examine her broken arm. Quite the little physician. She had no doubt of its intelligence.

A monstrous lassitude swept over her Island like a sinister thunderstorm enveloping Fra’anior. The howl of the tempest sang her sorrow, while the jagged bolts of lightning represented pain, searing her body again and again. Even when Lia lay unmoving, it hurt to breathe.

Later, among her delirious dreams, she felt water spilling down her cheek. Lia opened her mouth instinctively, parched. Was it raining? Or was this the dragonet’s work once more?

The branch swayed in the hot volcanic breeze, rocking her to sleep.

F
licker tended the
unconscious female flat-face for two more days before heading underground to consult with the Ancient One. He returned with a head buzzing with ideas and new words.

Girl,
he said to himself.
Human girl. Um …
“Girl.”

By his wings, that speech-pattern offended the throat! This was how they talked? According to the Ancient fire-breather, Humans talked only with the sounds of their mouths, just as he could produce Dragonish vocally if needed. Clearly, their brains were severely underdeveloped in comparison to a dragonet’s–or a Lesser Dragon’s.

The old one had said
, Thou art possessed of the gift of understanding, little one. Learn to use it well.

He did not enjoy being lectured.

Flicker’s flight muscles were recovered enough that he could test them gingerly for short stretches in the caves and tunnels that riddled Ha’athior’s underbelly, but when he returned to the tree, he dug his claws into the bark and walked across to the place where he had left the unsightly thing–the girl.

To Flicker’s surprise, he found her awake, sitting up on a thicker part of the branch as she bit into a purple prekki fruit with evident relish. Juice dripped from her chin. She had used the metal shard to assist her talon-less digits, so that she could peel the fruit and eat the inside. Well, these Human creatures were quite adept with tools, he had observed, using them to supplement the disadvantages of their pathetic paws.

“Oh, you’re back,” she greeted him, showing her undersized fangs.

“Girl,” he announced, rather grandly.

“What? Did you just say ‘girl’? Aye, that’s right.”

Flicker struck a pose that displayed his gleaming scales to best advantage. He had just bathed in a waterfall.
Aren’t I clever?

“Lia,” she said, tapping her chest.

“Leeeeee-ya,” he parroted back. Was this monkey-chatter supposed to convey meaning? How droll. Well, he would learn this simple speech in a few days.