Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (16 page)

“Friendly? Do you at least taste nice?” Aranya pretended to sniff around her friend’s legs.

“Down, you wicked
, wicked beast!”

* * * *

Nak stood at the kitchen table in his pompous lecturing pose. Aranya wanted to laugh, but he was being so very serious and earnest that she had to settle for biting her knuckles and winking at Zuziana instead. She narrowed her eyes, clearing indicating Aranya should pay attention.

Zuziana had been thoroughly
impressed with the responsibilities and honour of being a Dragon Rider. Now, Nak moved on to their proposed journey to Remoy Island.

“
When you travel, you can hole up in caves or use ledges on the cliffs, or any convenient forest will do,” Nak said. “I suggest you don’t transform while you rest, my lustrous petal, because you’ll need all of your strength for the crossings between the Islands. Not many people or creatures will bother a sleeping Dragon. I used to sleep beside Shimmerith’s neck–did I tell you she was killed by a gigantic feral Dragon?”

Ten times, Aranya thought.
A tear came to his eye every time. Mopping his eyes on cue with an absurdly oversized handkerchief, the old man continued:

“The bond between Rider and Dragon is
so special and magical and … I couldn’t tell you. You just have to experience it. Travel together, face dangers together … aye. Well, I’d often wake to find Shimmerith’s foreleg curled protectively around my body. Kept me warm many a cold night, she did. You are very, very fortunate, you two.”

Zip prodded Aranya with her elbow. “Beast of burden.”

Aranya elbowed her right back. “Annoying little pest. Do I have to carry you everywhere?”

Nak wagged his finger sternly. “Every hand is
raised against Dragons and their Riders. Travel at night, and only at night. I’ve already seen message hawks flying overhead.”

“Message hawks?” asked Aranya.

Nak explained, “They’re also called homing hawks. They are able to return to the nest where they were born from anywhere in the Island-World. The Sylakians developed the idea of training them to carry messages rapidly from one Island to another. I’ve absolutely no doubt you two are the subject of a number of those messages. The Sylakians will not have enjoyed being bearded in their own den. You did rather announce your presence, Aranya.”

“Battle rage,” she muttered, hanging her head.

“Well, word has even reached our village back there,” said Nak, referring to the nearest village, half a day’s walk distant. “Everyone’s talking about the return of the Dragons.”

“Quite the ker
fuffle,” Oyda put in, but Aranya heard only pride in her voice.

Nak said, “The Sylakians will be out to destroy you. Don’t expect any quarter
. This journey to Remoy will be dangerous. But you are Dragon and Rider, now. The Island-World as we know it has already been changed. It’s in your hands–and paws–as to what you make of this gift.”

Aranya squi
rmed at the force of his words.

Zuziana asked, “Nak, I thought Dragons could breathe fire. How come, if Aranya has so much fire in her Human form, she cannot raise even the smallest spark in her Dragon form?”

Aranya grimaced. “Shall I bite you now or later, Zip?”

“J
uvenile Dragons can’t always breathe fire,” said Nak. “The ability might develop soon. Furthermore, it might all be different for Shapeshifters, we don’t really know. Dragon fire is a great mystery. Even our Dragons didn’t know where it came from. They just breathed it.”

Zuziana added, with a wicked little smile, “Aranya’s fire seemed to arise from high emotion. Like whenever she thought about Yolathion. Isn’t that so, Aranya?”

“He’s the enemy,” Aranya mumbled, turning pink.

“Huh,
” said Nak. “A Sylakian brute, like that all-conquering father of his who you stupidly saved from the windroc.”

“Nak,” Oyda warned, “don’t say something you’ll regret. The female heart is a mystery greater
even than your precious Dragon fire. I know you care about these two petals and that’s why you’re cross, but we need to let them fly off. They’ll come back sooner that way.”

“A couple more petals and we’ll have a whole flower in our house,” Nak grumbled. But then he brightened. “You’ll come back and give me a kiss?”

“Both of us,” said Zuziana.

“At the same time,” added Aranya.

Nak did a silly dance with the help of his canes. “I’m going to raid my stores for you two. You’ll need drals for food; a few jewels to cover incidental expenses. Can’t have starving Princesses on my doorstep. Your fathers would cross the Island-World just to smack me like Oyda enjoys doing.”

“Like this?” Oyda growled, reaching out.

Nak dodged her swipe and ran into the back room, cackling gleefully.

T
wo days later,
they were ready to fly.

Dragon-Aranya twisted her long neck to look at Princess Zuziana, seated between her twentieth and twenty-first neck spines, just ahead of her wings. The spines ran the length of her body to her tail
. They were smaller on her neck and tail but rose to two feet tall where Zuziana sat. Nak had said her spines would grow bigger and sharper with time. Aranya wondered how much larger her Dragon form would grow. She estimated her length at forty feet from nose-tip to tail. Both Oyda and Nak had flown Dragons over ninety feet long.

That was huge.

As if she wasn’t self-conscious about her size already, Aranya frowned. Although, in comparison to her Dragon form, her Human body was tiny. She rather wished Zip had not teased her about the size of a Dragon’s behind.

“Ready?” Aranya asked.

Zuziana squeaked, “No.”

Her ride walked to the cliff’s edge anyway.
An hour after nightfall, with Iridith still hiding below the horizon, the time was perfect to set out on their journey to Remoy Island. Aranya felt confident she could manage the first leg to Telstroy Island, which lay sixteen leagues south-east of Sylakia’s southern tip. The most challenging part would be to cross the mountainous heart of Sylakia undetected. Flying the long way around the southerly point, Nak argued, might be too much for Aranya to manage.

Oh,
for a sight of Immadia. They planned to fly in the opposite direction. If only she could get a message to her father … but that was too dangerous, both for her and for the Kingdom of Immadia. Aranya agreed with Zip and Nak. They needed equipment and any Dragon lore the Remoyans may have hidden from the Sylakians. She only wished their route lay northward.

Nor could she have managed the long crossings between the northerly Islands–they were beyond her flying range. Remoy w
as the better choice, an opportunity for both Rider and Dragon to gain experience.

“Scared, Princess of Remoy?”
she asked.

“You’re the one with the wings.
”

“I intend to do my level best to keep you safe. Hold on tight.”

Zuziana was strapped in above Aranya’s shoulders via an arrangement Nak had figured out. A cloth pad between her spine-spikes protected the Rider’s seat and legs from the Dragon’s sharp scales. A long strap ran beneath Aranya’s powerful chest, just behind her forelegs, keeping the seat secure from beneath. Nak had cut leather straps and fitted them with buckles to hold the Rider’s thighs and torso, providing her security against slipping or falling off. Two travel packs containing their supplies were fastened in the spine-space ahead of Zuziana’s seat, where she could reach them if needed.

Aranya flexed her flight muscles. Excitement accelerated her heart-rate. Although she was sad to be leaving the little dell which had been her home for a month and a half–the time felt much longer–her appetite for adventure, for flying into her future, felt as whetted as an Immadian forked dagger.

Zip’s voice trembled as she said, “This takes trust to a whole new level, I’ll have you know.”

Dragon-Aranya banished a flare of irritation as quickly as it rose. Of course Zip was scared. Didn’t she know her Dragon
-friend was scared, too? She held another person’s life in her hands. Paws, even.

“You’ve flown with me before, Zip,” she said. “I’ll try to make your flight more comfortable this time.”

Nak and Oyda stood hand-in-hand beneath the prekki-fruit tree. Their farewells had been said, but now Oyda called, “Go burn the heavens, Dragon and Rider.”

Aranya took one last look back and leaped into space.

“Oh, oh,
oooooh,
” wailed Zuziana.

Dragon-Aranya levelled out, flying swiftly along the cliffs in a southerly direction. She deliberately eased off the pace. The surge of Dragon adrenalin was so potent, she could hardly control herself. But she knew she had to take it
slow for Zip’s sake.

“Easy on the yowling there, rajal,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. She heard the smack of Zip’s gloved hand, but barely felt it. “Enjoying the ride?”

“
Aaaa-ooo,
” moaned her friend.

Perhaps now was not the moment to show Zuziana that she had recently learned how to do loops in the air.

“Look at the Jade moon. That should help,” she advised.

Zuziana did not
howl for much longer. But it did take her a very long time to stop gripping the spine-spike in front of her with white-knuckled desperation.

After
an hour or so aloft, Aranya recognised the soaring ravine-wall that Nak had mentioned as their first landmark. Here, a river had been terraced into a huge lake that led into the interior of Sylakia. There was so much water that it spilled over the terrace edge in a gleaming sheet, a vast waterfall. At the end of the waterfall, Aranya rose and veered to the east, following the uninhabited southern lake shore.

Aranya flew low over the water, easing into slight changes of direction to follow the curve of the lake. After a while, she heard Zuziana say, “I can see our reflection down there.”

She was right. There was enough light from the White moon to cast not only a shadow, but a fast-moving reflection upon the mirror-calm surface. That was what they must look like from beneath. She hoped no Sylakians would be watching the night sky this evening. Aranya saw the tall, white-tipped peaks of the mountain range ahead. Three spear-like peaks, she reminded herself. She should aim for the rightmost.

When she glanced over her shoulder, Zuziana essayed an unconvincing smile.
“I’m enjoying this–Aranya, really I am.”

“I’m glad, Zip. It’s peaceful out here.”

“Just pray we don’t run into any Dragonships.”

Aranya’s hearts leaped, as
did she in the air. She settled crossly. “Positive thinking there, Zip. Thanks.”

Several further
hours of flying across a vast tapestry of forest and lake brought Rider and Dragon to the farthest shore. Now they climbed into the mountains, rising above the treeline into a barren land of snows and icerocs, the fierce inhabitants of the mountains. Like windrocs, they were wild and dangerous, but Nak had stressed that the huge white-feathered birds hunted by day, not by night. Nevertheless, Aranya kept a Dragon’s eye on their surroundings.

As they winged over a frozen lake, a brilliant shower of meteorites streaked the sky ahead of them. Aranya exclaimed in wonder. She focussed
her gaze carefully, following the brightest trail down to its explosive landing in the snows of a faraway peak. Steam and fire blazed upward momentarily.

Descending from the mountains, their rout
e led them across the barren deserts of eastern Sylakia, inhabited by constantly warring desert tribes, and on to the Island’s edge. Aranya detoured and flew low across the desert to avoid a group of Dragonships motoring their way toward them from the east.

Then they rested in the lee of a barren, rocky outcropping.

“How’s my ride doing?” Zuziana asked, stretching her back.

“A little tired. Good thing I filled up on a sheep yesterday,” said Aranya. “There’s the long haul to Telstroy to come, yet–straight across the Cloudlands.”

“What about the hole in your wing?”

“Healed over, but still tender.”

Zip walked around to her nose. “Dragon-Aranya, if I ever start to take this for granted, I give you permission to bite me.”

Aranya blinked her secondary optical membranes. “Huh?”

“This. Flying. Being with a Dragon. It’s …” she sighed. “I thought I would grow old and die in that Tower. Now I’m flying Dragonback across Sylakia on my way home, seeing sights I never imagined. Actually, bite me now. Then I’ll know if I’m dreaming or not.”

Would Zuziana leave her in Remoy? Would she want to continue to wherever Aranya would go next?
The old feeling of fire sparked in her belly. Raising her forepaw, Aranya poked her friend in the ribs with the longest claw of her five-toed foot. “Wake up.”

“Ouch! That hurt.”

“Oh, Zip, you’re bleeding. I’m so sorry.”

Aranya apologised at least twenty times before Zuziana managed to locate their small pot of a sticky, pungent cream Oyda swore by for cuts and bruises. A dab of her finger, and the bleeding of the deep puncture wound began to slow.

“Alright,” said Zip. “Enough bellyaching, Dragon. If you’ve got that much energy for endless apologies, then it’s time you were flying again. Agreed?”

“
Grr,” said Aranya.

This time,
the Remoyan did not howl as Aranya flung herself off the low eastern cliffs of Sylakia. She laughed and spread her hands in the wind. But her heart was hammering away back there. The Dragon smiled to herself. Just like Zip.

The Jade and White moons
, risen high in the night sky’s starry vault, lent the Cloudlands a sickly cast that spoke only too eloquently of the poisons below. Aranya wondered how she had survived flying beneath the clouds before. Had she dropped into the Cloudlands themselves? For how long–long enough to hold her breath? Did poisonous gases not affect Dragons? Could it be that the Dragons had hidden themselves somewhere within or beneath the oceanic vastness of the Cloudlands?

Aranya flexed her flight muscles, pushing into a steady headwind. This was not going to be fun. She tried to remember what Nak had advised about the optimal number of wing beats per quarter-
hour, which minimised a Dragon’s effort while maximising forward momentum. Now her mind filled with what-if’s. What if she ran out of energy? What if they missed Telstroy Island? What if they ran into a Dragonship? After a long while of flying in silence with her thoughts, she said:

“Zip, tell me about your family. I’d appreciate some distraction.”

Zip began to tell Aranya about her father, King Lorman, and his four wives, three of whom sat on the Ruling Council of Remoy, and the antics of her many brothers.

T
hey passed the hours with Zip chattering away and Aranya labouring against the brisk headwind as they crossed the gap between the Islands. Toward morning, having pushed herself much further than she imagined she could fly, Aranya sighted Telstroy Island, at last. With a tired groan, she bought them to a safe landing on a ledge a quarter-league below the main surface of the wide, low Island.

When Zip stumbled on alighting
, Aranya’s paw flashed out at a Dragon’s reaction-speed to steady her friend. But she was more circumspect with her claws this time. Zip settled herself in the curve of the Dragon’s neck, pillowed her head on their travel pack and pulled her robe over her head. Aranya wondered if she’d be able to sleep once the suns rose. Experimentally, she drew her wing up to shade them both. There, that was better. The suns would still shine through her wing membranes, but it was better than nothing.

They sank into an exhausted sleep.

Aranya’s muscles twitched as though she were still flying.

* * * *

By evening, when they were ready to resume their journey, the skies had clouded over and the wind freshened with a tang of rain. Dragon-Aranya tested the breeze, wishing danger smelled as clear as that approaching storm did. Maybe they could outfly it. Maybe she was having the Dragon equivalent of cold shivers for no good reason.

“
This wind will be helping us, mostly,” she told Zip. “I think we can proceed.”

“There’s heaps of Islands along the Crescent,” said Zip. “Most are uninhabited. It gets much thicker down there–jungles, Aranya. Something you’ve never seen as a Northerner.”

“I’ve seen a few trees in my–”

“Down, bristly Dragon-lady,” Zuziana laughed. “Don’t start breathing fire all over me just yet,
especially not when I’m irritating you. Once you’ve seen the jungles, you can have your little burst of flame, if you like.”

Aranya growled something unintelligible, deliberately deep in her chest. But she crooked her paw so that Zuziana could use it to step up onto her shoulder
. From there she clambered nimbly up into the saddle. Zip fastened the thigh straps through the buckles Nak had carelessly cut off an old leather-bound trunk back in his storeroom. On second thoughts, she fastened the dangling ends with an extra knot. Aranya swung her head around to observe the process.

“Making sure I don’t fall off?” Zip asked.

She sighed so gustily that Zuziana blinked at the breeze she created. Aranya said, “I can’t get it out of my head what Nak said about that Rider falling off into the Cloudlands and his Dragon not even noticing. When the Dragon realised, she flew after him and was never seen again.”

Zip nodded, cinching her waist belt. “I’ll give you something else to worry about, if you like.”

“Oh–don’t.”

“
You asked earlier whether or not we’ve been spotted.” Zuziana patted her flank. “I’m in. Let’s fly. I’d be more surprised if we weren’t spotted. The Sylakians must have guessed where we’re headed. A little eastward swing over the desert? That won’t fool them. With these beautiful moons the night’s lit up like the heart of a meriatite furnace. You and I don’t look a whole lot like a Dragonship. Who’s missing from the Tower? Who dropped her Immadian forked daggers on the battlements when she changed into a Dragon?”