The Onyx Dragon (14 page)

“Jerrion, are you begging for a beating?”

“I’m all for realism in disguise,” he grinned. “You haven’t seen the best yet–clay to muddy your already pungent outfit. And dung.”

“Dung?” Pip glowered at Kaiatha. “Don’t you giggle. I have my standards, they just aren’t as high as some.”

“If you smell terrible, people won’t look as closely,” said her friend, rapidly forging her path to becoming a non-friend. Kaia helped her fasten the headscarf with pins, covering her face until only her eyes showed through a narrow band. “Welcome to the world of headscarves. Right. Now, none of that perky-Pygmy walk either. Timid and self-effacing is what you’re after.”

“Timid? Self-what? I’m not that kind of girl!”

Nak, passing with an armful of supplies, helpfully put in, “Ay, she accosted me in public one day, stark naked. Nothing timid about that.”

Pip snapped, “Nak!”

“Imagine my shock. Delicate heart, you know,” said Nak. “Now, fabulous Fra’anior, if you’d only do the same …”

“Ignore him.” Kaiatha daubed tan mud artfully here and there on her clothing, particularly around the hem and sleeves, and finished up with a healthy dollop of fresh dung. “Perfect. Now for the banded knee-leggings and leather-wrap shoes. Phew. These also stink like the genuine article. Let’s show Silver.”

Silver had dyed black hair and a tan! Pip stared at him, abashed. Only the eyes betrayed his true nature, and his slightly quirky grin. Just like the girl chatting to him … oh mercy, she wasn’t seeing a gleam of magic in her friend’s eyes, was she?

“Kaiatha?”

The luminous blue eyes turned from Silver to her. “Pipsqueak?”

Shapeshifter.
Kaia just kept staring at her. No, it could not be. Kassik had revealed that Shifters understood Dragonish perfectly. “Uh … I’m seeing things again. Imagining things.” She winced at Silver’s expression. “I thought I saw magic in you, in your–”

Kaiatha’s eyes filled with moisture. “Islands’ sakes, Pip! Can you please not allude to my father? I … I just don’t need to hear it right now.”

“Sorry.”

A quarter-hour later, Pip tramped through the damp woods with her newfound family. Off to peel open her own hurts.

The zoo stood a short ways out of town, a broad, flat area of otherwise infertile ground which had been converted to displays of crysglass-fronted cages arranged along a circular walkway. A towering blackthorn hedge backed by a rough picket fence kept the curious public from intruding on the zoo compound, forcing all traffic through the main gates. Pip pretended a deep and abiding interest in her toes as Nak charmed the matron in charge of selling tickets. She should have convinced Zardon to wreak a properly draconic destruction on this place–only, that would have killed the animals. And Hunagu. There was another loss to prepare for. The Ape had become withdrawn during the journey. Perhaps he felt it, too. Perhaps the advent of an Onyx Dragoness had forever spoiled what had been a strong friendship.

The smell! Pip clutched Silver’s hand. She must breathe past the claustrophobia crushing her lungs against her ribcage, the memory of waking to impassable cage walls hemming in a free-spirited jungle creature …

“The monkey cages were this way,” said Pip, tugging Silver’s hand impulsively. “Let’s get this over with.”

A couple of brass drals purchased even a poor family a chance to stare into the cages. Caged for life, most animals would not know what she felt. Perhaps they came to see the zoo as home, and had no past to remember. Yet she recalled this people-babble, the children exclaiming as they rushed from the violet flamingos of Remoy to a cage of Fra’aniorian parakeets to the rajal display, the adults strolling along sipping hot, thin Sylakian ale which smelled of nothing so much as stale urine. Even Silver wafted a hand past his nose. Abruptly he gripped her hand, his palm febrile to the touch.

Pip squeezed his fingers gratefully. He understood.

Ahead of them, Jerrion moved through the crowd with ease, a man-mountain in motion. His role was to protect and to distract–easily done by a giant. Children stared with a mixture of fascination or fear. The adults balked and stepped out of his path.

No obvious signs of danger,
said Nak, his telepathic Dragonish imperfect but understandable.

Emmaraz flies above,
said Silver.
My extended senses detect nothing so far. Pip? Balance or imbalance?

That awareness when one stepped into a cave and knew the almost-imagined, almost-certain sense that a predator lurked somewhere in the darkness. Her nape prickled. Hyper-awareness, Master Ga’am called it, indistinguishable from plain, cold fear. Fear was her enemy.

No imbalance. No Dragon minds.

Three telepathic gasps greeted this assertion. Silver said slowly,
You detect draconic minds? Pip–

Probably not shielded ones,
she replied, cutting off whatever label of peculiarity she had just earned herself. Normalcy? Oh, Kaiatha. She was not unusual. No, she was cursed.

Well, I feel something and it’s not one of my usual itches,
said Nak.
Stay alert.

Pip shut her mind before he conjured up an unforgettable image. Master Kassik thought the prize was worth the danger. Their disguises were sound. Looking ahead, she saw that the zoo management must have rebuilt the monkey enclosure. A crowd had gathered around one of the nearest windows, exclaiming excitedly.

“Look, chabbik lizards from the Southern Archipelago,” said Nak, reading a plaque on the enclosure opposite the monkeys.

Pip pretended interest. Yaethi said that the flightless, carnivorous lizards were ancient relatives of the Dragons. Meantime, she listened to the crowd, the tone of their comments, the excitement–there was something in there. Something oddly … draconic. Her keen eyes scanned the enclosure. A dozen six-legged lizards, some larger than a hatchling Dragon, squabbled over a fresh animal carcass. Their finger-long fangs flashed as they tossed back their heads to bolt scraps of meat.

“What’s the excitement?” Nak asked a passer-by casually.

“New display. Some kind of monkey,” came the reply, emphasized by a glob of spit that landed near Nak’s well-worn boot. “Out of my way, peasant scum.”

“So tiny!” Pip heard. If these lizards were draconic cousins, maybe that was the bloodthirstiness she sensed–and she should never mention the possible relationship to real Dragons. “Roaring rajals, what is it?”

She turned. Alright, Pygmy girl. Look into the cage, into your past. Deal with it.

Apparently noting the purpose communicated by her movement, Jerrion leaned into the crowd. “Way for a small one, folks?”

As she walked into what seemed a dream, Pip came face-to-face with a little girl of similar height, who stared at the dark eyes and skin beneath Pip’s veil and headscarf. The girl raised her hand as if wanting to touch her face, but she did not dare. She said, “Are you a monkey, too?” The father pulled her away. “Don’t talk to the dirty peasant girl like that, my sweetbun. It isn’t nice.”

Pip barely heard. She knew what the cage contained. The knowing was a spear of flame stuck through her spine. Pressing past Jerrion’s thigh, she came to the crysglass. Touched it. Peered within.

“Would you look at that?” someone said. “Dirty little savage.”

Her first thought was that the woman had spoken directly to her. Not true. For Pip was inside that cage in thought, feeling and memory–no, not her, but it may as well have been. A tiny Pygmy girl stood on the other side of the glass, sucking her thumb. No more than five or six years old. No larger than Pip had been when the slavers first brought her to this cage. Staring at her with dark, beautiful eyes framed by ringlets of muddy black hair. Naked. Innocent of what all this meant.

Pip sagged against the cool crysglass, groaning, clutching her heart. Such pain! She must surely die.

Strong arms gripped her. Voices, calling her name. Pip ripped her face with her fingernails, moaning and wailing in her native Pygmy language, tearing the skin, the cloth, the life from her own body to spill it as the honour-sign of shared, inescapable grief. Oyda pulled her away and it felt as though she tore her soul from her flesh. Every step exacerbated the pain. The crowd began to close the gap. Oh, the caring arms. Mercy, the little dark eyes trapped behind the crysglass, just starting to widen in realisation.

“No! Oh please, oh please, I can’t … I’d rather die …”

Oyda, saying urgently, “Pip, you have to come away. We’ll think of–”

“NO!”

Voices drowned out in the torrent of rage thundering through her being. All was crimson. All was fire.

“Pip, please!”

Silver. She shoved him off, fought free of Jerrion’s arms, and the giant Jeradian could not hold her. The fire would not be denied.

Pip! DO NOT TRANSFORM!

Sobbing, she shoved Silver out of her mind too. The power existed, locked behind a barrier erected by the magic-annulling, perverted Shapeshifter poison. Pip ripped those restraints asunder. That was no longer her. That was Imbalance. This was the person she had been created to be, a fusion of fire and flesh. Nak’s grip tore her peasant dress as she surged forward. Running. Charging through the crowd as though they did not exist.

Smash!
Power erupted as she swung her tiny fist.

Pain lanced through her arm! The crysglass window vibrated as though she had struck a gong; fault-lines shot from the point of impact, but the glass did not shatter. She drew back her arm with a moan, but suddenly a hammer whirled past her.
Boom!
Jerrion, his face ravaged by anguish. He swung again.
Boom!
The armoured glass sagged. The Jeradian warrior kicked his way in.

“Come on,” he growled, holding out his hand.

The Pygmy child’s mouth hung open in shock. Pip knelt, reaching for her, speaking gently in Ancient Southern, “Little-sister. Jungle-sister. Come with me. This is no place for the jungle-born–see, I am like you. I will take you to your village.”

Tiny arms clasped her neck.

Sweetness. Warmth. Another heart thudding against her chest, matching beat for beat.

Pip rose. “Thank you, Jerrion.” She arranged the child on her forearm, for she had either sprained or broken her wrist with that punch. Turned to leave. A hundred eyes stared at her through the shattered crysglass frame, halting her with the force of their outrage. Who was inside the cage now? There was neither inside nor outside. Freedom beckoned.

A monkey–a vervet monkey, just as she remembered–began to scamper past her. Then it reversed course, fleeing across the cage with a wail.

Pip stared past the crowd. Above their heads, inside that chabbik lizard cage, a low mound of dirt had reared up into a mountain. Thick black legs thrust the pile toward the window, scattering the hissing chabbik lizards to the winds. Beneath the dirt, a well-remembered pair of eyes blazed at her, filled with the dark-fires of draconic hatred.

The Dragon’s voice was fiery winds blasting over barren Islands.
So, Pygmy girl–or should I call you Dragoness? It has been too long since I cast you from the skies.

Rambastion!

All her flame turned to ice.

P
ip CLUTCHED HER
foundling, glaring across at the renegade Dragon, who lifted his paw to flatten it against the intervening crysglass. His talons flexed as if the Dragon imagined he were sharpening his talons upon a pestiferous Pygmy’s spinal column. Flame licked the glass hungrily.

You look good in a cage, Rambastion,
she blurted out.

He should have been enraged. Instead, the Dragon only laughed curtly,
Walked straight into our trap, little one, didn’t you? How’re you planning to escape now?

Between them, the crowd began to scatter, screaming and flapping as if a rajal had pounced upon a flock of fowl. Nak mopped his brow with a large red handkerchief–a pre-planned signal, easily seen by Dragon sight from two miles above. Yet for Pip, none of this existed. She said,
I’m taking this child home, Rambastion. Don’t even think of trying to stop me.

The Marshal will reward me well.

With life?
Pip laughed in exact imitation of Rambastion’s tone.
You’re serving the wrong master if you think that, Rambastion. He has already turned your colour and your mind. Your fires are dust to him. Join us, and choose life.

Beside her, Jerrion hefted his massive war-hammer. “You go, lady Pip. I’ll rearrange that lizard’s fangs.”

Nak and Oyda had their swords drawn; Silver looked stricken. “I can’t transform, Pip. I can’t transform, and I can’t reach that lizard …”

What? Why was Rambastion waiting? Did magic’s scent tingle in her nostrils? Pip stepped out of the cage, glancing about. Immediately, a line of sinister men–or creatures–caught her eye. They ranged across the path in both directions, clearly moving against the tide of hysterical humanity. They were manlike, but the resemblance stopped there. Beneath their cowls, the slate-grey faces lacked eyes, but slit nostrils and small, puckered mouths were present. Each creature carried a loaded crossbow and each weapon was levelled at her–not at Silver, nor at Nak or Oyda. Undoubtedly, these creatures had no need of eyes to see. Pip imagined they had been scraped out of a cave somewhere. Sightless. Fusty. Deadly.

Another figure leaning against the chabbik cage, right next to the crysglass window, caught Pip’s attention. “Telisia!”

“Took you long enough, Pygmy scum.” Telisia pushed her hood back, revealing a pretty yet deathly pale face. Was she sick? “We had word of your coming a week ago.”

“You turned Rambastion into an earthworm for a week?” Oyda chuckled. “Suits.”

Telisia raised her hand. “Hold.”

The Night-Red remained motionless, but his inner infernos raged audibly. His entire length smoked furiously as flames burned through the rock and soil piled upon his back. Pip squared her shoulders and willed her knees to remain firm. That initial burst of courage now seemed the foolhardiness of a bite-sized portion of meat presenting itself to the Island-World’s mightiest hunter. Meantime, she wondered what was wrong with Telisia, how she commanded a Dragon, and what those creatures were–doubtless beasts of Herimor, but whatever they represented, they could not be the messenger hawk of joyous tidings.

For a breath, everyone stared at everyone else and nobody moved. Pip knew Nak’s signal would already have been relayed to the Dragons waiting in the wood. At top speed, they could cover the mile to the zoo in less than a minute. She had to stall.

Rambastion made that decision easy.

The huge Night-Red leaped out of the cage with a snarl of rage, surmounting the wall in an instant. Pip and Jerrion peeled off in one direction, Nak, Oyda and Silver in the other. Rambastion ignored the other three. He lunged for Pip, stretching out his right forepaw.

Quicker than the eye could follow, Jerrion slammed his war-hammer into that outstretched paw. Rambastion, however many tonnes he was, staggered as the bone cracked audibly. Pip froze in disbelief. What? Somehow, Jerrion seemed possessed of a draconic power, for the giant moved again in a blur.
Wham!
The war-hammer thudded into the muscle of Rambastion’s lower left flank. The Dragon staggered. The Jeradian warrior’s third blow knocked the Dragon to his knees.

That was Emmaraz’s cue. The Night-Red’s belly vibrated like a hide drum as the fledgling struck with all the power of a two-mile vertical dive. Perhaps Rambastion had expected to play a trick on the youngster similar to what Silver had done to Pip. Whatever the case, the massive pirate Dragon was unprepared for their combined assault. Emmaraz savaged him unopposed, opening huge rents in his flank and belly before springing sideways at Maylin’s shout. He snatched up Nak and Oyda in one forepaw and Silver in the other.

CHYMASION!
Bellowing his battle-challenge, the hatchling snagged one of the grey creatures by the scruff of its neck and hurled it at Telisia, missing by inches as the girl seemed entranced by the sight of her younger sister, a Dragon Rider, nocking an arrow aimed at her forehead. The grey thing crunched into the stone and slumped, its neck crooked at an impossible angle. Arosia fired! Telisia waved a hand, flicking the arrow aside. Chymasion shuddered beneath an invisible blow. He stalled, bouncing off the felled Rambastion before skidding to a halt just beyond, mere inches from Pip’s feet.

Arosia lolled from her saddle, bleeding at the mouth. The grey creatures leaped in with the speed and sinuosity of cats, wielding a blade or a crossbow in either hand.

“Go!” yelled Pip, shoving Jerrion toward the Dragon.

Use this,
whispered Chymasion.

Impossible strength flooded her veins. The hatchling must have helped Jerrion thus … suddenly, the grey things slowed. Pip slapped a crossbow bolt out of the air, vaulted over Jerrion, and kicked out. A pair of chins snapped backward. She dropped the child in Arosia’s lap, spun, and seemed to enjoy all the time in the world to catch a pair of bolts headed for Jerrion’s kidneys. She hurled them back at the attackers, taking one in the belly but missing the other. The grey creatures did not slow.

Why could Silver not transform?

With a volley of sharp, guttural barks, five creatures leaped at her, unnaturally graceful in their movements and quicksilver of speed. She saw the world afresh. Fires whiter than snow veiled her vision with thin yet inescapable translucence. Just the barest outlines of flesh and bone impressed upon her senses. Chymasion? This was his sight? Her hands blurred before her face. Arrows, blades, nothing touched her. The hatchling did not appear able to shield her, for two blades sliced through her flying clothing, but no metal reached the flesh. Pip lashed out with her left fist and both elbows and feet, pounding the Herimor creatures in the face, throat and groin areas. When the fifth stayed his ground, having stumbled to his knees, Pip head-butted him brutally in the nose.

Chymasion’s power dissipated as the creatures fell away. She sprinted up the Jade Dragon’s tail and vaulted onto his back, pleased to see Arosia, blood-streaked yet sitting upright, clutching the child firmly to her chest. Jerrion was already seated behind them, brandishing his war-hammer.

Pip shouted,
Go Chymasion! Fly!

Scrambling upright, the young Dragon staggered several steps before Telisia abruptly appeared right in front of his nose. Pip was quickest. As Chymasion jinked; she hurled her sword and spoiled Telisia’s crossbow quarrel, intended for someone on the Dragon’s back. Then she was clutching a spine-spike for dear life as the Jade Dragon ran vertically up a cage wall and sprang from the top, beating for the sky.

Pip laughed as Telisia’s furious visage dwindled below.
Great work, Chymasion.
Telisia waved again, but only appeared able to buffet the Jade Dragons’ tail with wind as he powered away.

Enemies incoming!
bugled the young Dragon.
Look north!

Pip swivelled in her improvised seat. Over a dozen strong, a Dragonwing of Dragon Assassins sprinted for the zoo. No! What next?

The Marshal had sprung his trap. Who could the traitor be?

* * * *

Pip trotted up Chymasion’s back and slipped between the two spine-spikes in front of Kaiatha, facing her friend. “Alright, Kaia. Start spilling. What did you two just do back there?”

“Saved you from a roasting?” said her friend. In Ancient Southern, she added, “I Pygmy girl safe. Shh, infant.”

Not bad. The little girl blinked. “Ancient One safe?”

Safe? A Dragon? Pip laughed, explaining, “He’s a good Ancient One. Those dark ones are bad. Will you wear a … rope? Keep safe?” Switching languages, she added, “Jerrion, belt yourself in place. This is looking rough.”

GRRARRRRGGHH!
Silver’s cry split the cool morning skies.
Pip. On my back. That was–freaking feral windrocs, those grey things are running as fast as we’re flying!

Pip chuckled briefly at the sight of Silver wearing his trousers on a skull-spike. Ah, the joys of transformation. A few hundred feet below, the grey creatures were indeed keeping pace, hurdling obstacles with the enthusiasm of a herd of buck in mating season. She saw no sign of Telisia, but that girl seemed capable of almost anything–controlling Dragons, transforming, vanishing upon a handy breeze and, lest she forget, a dash of murder by way of entertainment.

Silver extended his wing with a peremptory waggle. “Now.”

What if he was the traitor? Rising, Pip stepped onto his tertiary wing-joint, the equivalent of the Human wrist, and ran the length of his primary wing bones to his shoulder, taking care not to place her feet on the thin, flexible wing-struts. Please let him not read the suspicion rife in her mind.

“Help!” The wind’s buffeting made her slip on her final step from wing-bone to shoulder. Silver’s paw arrested her fall with draconic reaction-speed. He flicked her atop his shoulder effortlessly. “Great catch.” Pip slipped into position, masking her trepidation with a playful, “You’re a nice boy-Dragon. What’s your name?”

Silver’s laughter gurgled up his long throat. “You may address me as, ‘O Magnificent Plucker of Pygmies.’ ”

“Silver, what are those things?”

“Some form of
shuzzalich
.” Pip clucked in annoyance. “A swamp-dwelling magic hunter,” he clarified promptly. “Most people call them Leeches. They’re tough, fast and deadly. But Leeches are most famed for never giving up on a hunt–the only way to escape them, once they have your scent, is to fly to another Island.”

Or to kill them,
said Chymasion, flexing his talons.

“They sound as delightful as my sister,” Arosia called over.

Pip said, “Right. I’ve a few questions. How can I hear Arosia, who is a hundred yards away, as clearly as if she’s talking in my ear? And what did Chymasion just do to Jerrion? Big as he is, I don’t think even a giant can hammer a full-grown Dragon to his knees. It’s impossible.”

Roaring rajals. She really needed to erase that word, even the notion itself, from her vocabulary.

Emmaraz and Chymasion veered rapidly to follow Emblazon’s lead, the Dragonwing forming up with instinctive ease. The Jade hatchling dropped Oyda and Nak off with their respective Dragons. The group exchanged information rapidly. What had transpired? Who had seen what and what could they conclude? The Leech-creatures. The Pygmy child, perfect bait for the trap. Arosia received Shimmerith’s healing touch, as did the child, although she shrieked and buried her face in Arosia’s arms. What of Telisia’s authority over Rambastion? And her unprecedented ability to prevent a Shapeshifter from transforming? All this took valuable minutes as they fled eastward, leaving Sylakia Town far in their wake.

Silver said, “I’m afraid your sister may be in mortal peril, Arosia. The Marshal’s power burns too fiercely within her–a terrible design has been wreaked within her being by poison or magic, perhaps both, to grant her these powers and abilities. I’ve seen the Marshal twist the First Egg’s supreme magic to corrupt his minions. And Chymasion, if I’m not mistaken, you’re a … I don’t have a word for the Dragon capability. It’s legendary. You amplify magic.”

“Catalyst-synthesizer,” said Pip. “Page sixty-seven of your father’s notebook, Kaiatha.”

Duri threw up his hands in mock-disgust. “How does she do that? How many times have you read that diary, Pip?”

“Once,” she replied.

“Aren’t you going to check the reference?” suggested Nak.

Kaiatha shook her head. “What’s the point? She has eidetic recall. Totally annoying.”

“Catalyst-synthesizer Dragons awaken and amplify the magic around them by means of an internal mechanism which is little understood,” Pip quoted. “It is said the Ancients relied upon Chayvuron, a two-headed Ancient Dragon of Green colour, to focus and enhance their magic during their mightiest feats of Island-raising. I’m sorry, Kaia. I should’ve been paying more attention to the notebook.”

Oyda put in, “Pipsqueak, just to tidy up your earlier question, we Riders hear through our Dragons’ senses. It’s a function of oath-magic.”

Chymasion said, “Noble Oyda, may I elucidate your point? I believe this power is a function of the innate draconic ability to see and interpret sound-waves at medium distances. At close range, the ear-canals take over this function.”

“Sound has waves? Slap me over the head with a windroc!” Nak exclaimed. “Alright. Insatiable Pygmy curiosities aside, we need to escape. I don’t think we want to argue with fourteen fully-grown, horribly unsightly Night-Reds.”