Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (21 page)

“Oh, no-fire Dragons can still cause plenty of trouble,” said Zip, so sweetly that Aranya knew at once she was in trouble. “You know, just to pick a random example, like causing Sylakian War-Hammers to visit Kings to complain about Dragonships being destroyed.”

“Uh–I have a confession to make, Zip.”

“
Really?
A confession?”

She told her friend about her escapade, leaving out no detail other than kissing Yolathion on the cheek. Aranya tried to sound off-hand about how gorgeous
she thought he was. She failed miserably at that task. When Zip demanded to know if the complete truth had been told, she had to sheepishly relate the kissing detail, too.

But Zuziana’s response was unexpected. She said, “Aranya, Sylakian
Hammers have spent the last three days tearing Remoy Town apart, looking for someone answering to your description–a bad description, granted, but still. Old widows have been thrown out into the streets, fathers beaten and children threatened with war hammers if they don’t confess. Houses were torched, shops looted and a daytime curfew imposed while the search was carried out. Here. Read this scroll. I don’t think Father’s too impressed with your efforts.”

Aranya read the scroll, pale of cheek. By the time she finished she was ashen. “I should go back and apologise, Zip.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Zuziana shouted. Then she bit her lip and clearly tried for calm. “Look, that’s the last place you should go. We need a plan. I’ve sent the boys back for our saddle and equipment in case we need to leave in a hurry.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Words aren’t enough, Aranya. Maybe we can lead the Sylakians away from Remoy. Yes. Yolathion’s mad enough to take any bait.”

Aranya wiped her eyes. “Zip, I’m such an idiot–”

“You are. Next time, can we decide to be idiots together?” Zip collected a slack-jawed stare from her friend. “I’m your Rider, you idiot. Can you at least pretend we’re in this together? Not flying off to chase enemy officers on our own, even if they’re a thousand times leopard?”

Feeling sick to her stomach at what she had caused, Aranya curled up on the couch and rocked back and forth. How could she have known? A harmless bit of fun
soured into a very harmful bit of foolery. The children must have been terrified. Now Zuziana thought Aranya would rather not have her in their partnership, for Aranya had treated her as a worthless tag-along.

“Aranya.” Her friend grabbed her hands and shook them. “Aranya! Listen, I’ve a crazy idea. It would take a pair of complete idiots to pull it off.”

The corners of Aranya’s mouth dragged themselves upward. “You want me to agree to what, exactly?”

“To start a war against Sylakia.”

Honestly? Aranya’s mouth sieved the air for flies. She said, “Two girls decide to start a war on a brutal empire that spans a quarter of the Island-World? Your brain’s turned to prekki-fruit mush.”

Zip touched the underside of Aranya’s chin with her forefinger. “
Shut the rabbit-hole, petal. This isn’t two girls. This is a Dragon and her Rider. Now, you brainless beast, you shall attend in awe and wonder as I outline our strategy for the upcoming war. Pay attention.”

W
hen Iridith declined
beneath the horizon at the third hour of night, a Dragon Rider and her Amethyst Dragon emerged upon a wide balcony at the rear of the Remoyan King’s residence. Zuziana, tiny as she was, looked fierce in her new armour. Zuziana embraced her brothers fondly.

“We’ll let Father know,” said Tarka.

Yuka added, “I’ll see to your apology personally, Aranya.”

“May I point out that I am not jealous,” Tarka lied cheerfully.

Zip mounted up and buckled herself in. She strapped a quiver of arrows flat along her left thigh and set her bow crosswise across her shoulders. She checked the oil-pot beside her right knee and her spark-stone at her belt.

Aranya craned her neck to examine
her Rider’s new equipment. The banded, silvery metal armour fit her as though it were made to measure. Probably a long-dead Remoyan relative who had been a Dragon Rider, judging from the petite size–but she was pleased and so was Zip. The armourer had spent a great deal of trouble over balancing the coverage of vital parts with flexibility. The elbow and shoulder joints moved freely without having a single weak point she could see. Her thighs, knees and calves were well armoured too, aside from the obvious breastplate. Plating, she should say, given as it was seven pieces. What kind of metal was this, so light and flexible? The scrolls said nothing but that it had been forged in Dragon fire.

But Aranya worried, “Are you quite sure about the oil, Zip?”

“It’s what the Dragon lore says Riders did,” she replied.

“If it
sloshes on you …”

“The armour’s fireproof. Hopefully.” Zuziana patted Aranya’s side. “Look, we’ve discussed this.”

“You’re as stubborn as a mountain goat. Fine.”

Aranya stepped up onto the wide ornamental wall of the balcony.

Yuka said, “Go burn the heavens, Dragon and Rider.” He grinned his impish grin, so like his sister that Aranya’s eyes flicked between them several times.

She spread her wings
and took to the air.

Always, that first rush thrilled her. Human-Aranya could not believe she was flying. She could not believe the power of her wing beats thrusting her across the dark fields of Remoy, toward the towering wall of forest that separated the King’s estate from the outside world. Only the Mystic moon shone, high in the sky so brilliant with stars it was almost white. A rare sight, Aranya thought. An Immadian would call it a good omen. She quivered as the cool wind brushed her scales. Her throat swelled with an exultant bugle that she did not release. The Sylakians should not be forewarned.

Still lay the Island-World beneath the whisper of a Dragon’s wings.

Aranya knew the Sylakians would be watching, this time. They arrowed toward the encampment
, keeping as low as possible.

Zuziana’s voice came to her ear, “This is magical, my friend.”

Aranya turned to blink her amethyst eyes, widely drinking in what light there was, at her friend. “Nak and Oyda said it, Zip. Flying is mystical beneath a Mystic moon.”

“I’m just thankful, Aranya.”

She considered this. “I am, too, but I wonder what we should do with this gift.”

Zip chuckled, “
I thought I was supposed to be the practical one? Aranya,
doing
is what we’re doing–if you’ll excuse the play on words. I don’t see you terrorising villagers, stealing their sheep and hoarding gold in a cave.”

“I suppose not.”

After a quarter-hour aloft, Aranya heard the spark-stone clicking as Zuziana lit the oil pot. Once it was burning, she gathered speed. Her Rider seated her helm on her head.

Zuziana flexed the bow. Her voice issued reverberantly from inside her helmet, “I’m out of practice. Try not to singe us, Aranya.”

Dragon and Rider raced over a low line of hills, closing in on the Sylakian encampment. Aranya angled for the nearest of the Dragonships, her wings flexing with the air currents as they blasted over the perimeter of sentries–who were awake, but they passed over them before the alarm could be raised.

“Let’s
tickle them awake, Zip.”

Flames licked hungrily
around the arrow Zip dipped into the oil pot. Each arrow had been prepared and fitted with an oil-soaked collar just behind the arrowhead. It burned fiercely. Zuziana shouted at Aranya to keep her eyes forward and peeled for crossbow quarrels. A streak of orange shot into the flank of the nearest Dragonship.

Thunder echoed off the hills. A blinding flash disoriented Aranya for a moment. The Princess of Remoy grumbled about suns-spots on her vision as she fitted a second arrow to her bow. Dragon-Aranya’s membranes worked over her eyes. Now she remembered what Nak had said about looking at
the suns. She glanced back to see the Dragonship’s frame outlined in charred, glowing embers. The rest was gone.

“Ready,
” called Zip.

Aranya adjusted her flight muscles, sweeping past the conflagration. “Take the shot …”

Sss!
The arrow leaped across the intervening space like a hungry rajal pouncing on its prey. A wave of heat scorched Dragon and Rider as the Dragonship exploded. Aranya swerved instinctively, taking Zuziana away from the furnace blast. A fiery joy sang within her being. Dragons were creatures of flame, creatures of the inferno of heat and smoke and blazing passions. Now her roar resounded, cutting short the warning trumpets of the Sylakian troops, unnecessary now that the hills blazed orange in the reflection of the fires they had caused. Dragon-Aranya’s wrath burned against these men.

Caught up in her passion, she almost didn’t hear Zuziana
shouting at her to watch out for crossbow quarrels.

Aranya’s tail snapped sideways, knocking them off their previous p
ath. She heard a crossbow twang; the sound of the quarrel, a low, angry whistling through the air. But the shot went awry. She took them between two Dragonships. Yolathion’s … Zip was not ready. She plucked out another arrow, lit it, raised the short bow and fired almost in one motion. Aranya tucked in her wings and rolled as the Dragonship exploded right next to them, letting her belly feel the heat and her body protect Zuziana from the explosion.

“Ouch! Darn it, Aranya.
”

“I can’t avoid the flames if you shoo
t a Dragonship right next to us.”

“No, I mean,
oooooh!
”

Aranya wobbled in the air as she tried to look at Zuziana, whose scream trailed off into a groan. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m burned.”

Aranya’s wing
s flared as she braked. She heard Zuziana’s neck pop as the gravitational forces pressed them hard in their bellies. The Dragon rocketed upward. Two crossbow quarrels passed beneath them, one clipping the edge of her wing and chipping a chunk of light bone off her flight strut.

“Ha, they shot their own Dragonship. Zip, are you–”

“Bring us around, Aranya. I still want to deliver this message to your leopard-man.”

In the light of the fires, what she could see of Zuziana’s face was pale and drawn with pain, not at all her usual tan.

“You think after this–”

“I’m fine. Turn!”

Yolathion would want to kill her. He did already. But Aranya knew that, whatever she might feel for a man who served Sylakia, like his father before him, she must deny it for the sake of others. Her Dragon hearts sang a melancholy song as she arced through the night air, bringing them back to the Sylakian camp at a different angle of attack. All of Nak’s words on crossbows and shot-angles and tactics–bless that crazy old man. Laughter bubbled though her. At least he knew what he was doing when he tweaked a Dragon’s backside. She missed him. He would have loved to be breathing fire and smoke with her and Zuziana, or dodging crossbow quarrels, like this one spitting toward them now.

She dodged it easily. More would come.

Arrows rose to meet them, the Hammers of warriors organised on the ground now, sheltering behind their shields as their archers aimed at the Dragon in the sky. Arrows pattered against her tough, scaly hide like the first fat drops of rain before a thunderstorm. She saw Yolathion, aground, bellowing orders at his men–clad only in his armoured trousers, a huge hammer clutched in his left hand. She ripped her eyes off him.

Good. Now they could destroy his Dragonship without destroying Yolathion.

The laughter born in her Dragon hearts, wild and vicious and sad, thundered over the burning camp. Dragonships, helplessly tethered, awaited their burning arrows. Two began to rise into the air. Smart. That would give better attacking options and a field of fire for the war crossbows. Aranya powered on, swooping into the heart of the camp, feeling the next Dragonship crisp at the bite of Zuziana’s arrow as though it were a strange, slow flare against her senses, tracking the crossbow quarrels as the men struggled to aim at her darting form, using a moored Dragonship to protect her right flank as she lined up her next shot, Zip working in concert with her, raising her bow to their port side and taking the shot that destroyed another Dragonship. She doubled back abruptly, confusing the Sylakians’ riposte as she ducked beneath a Dragonship, tucking in her wings to avoid the anchor hawsers and then rolling upward, almost brushing the side of the ship with her tucked-up legs. Without thinking, she adjusted to bring her talons to bear, opening a ten-foot rent in the hydrogen sack.

“Useless oil
,” Zuziana shouted, pain sharpening her words. “Oh, Aranya … once more around. I’ve got the scroll ready.”

Aranya jinked to her left. A crossbow
quarrel smashed into a Sylakian warrior on the ground. They snaked through the air until Aranya could orient on Yolathion. There he was, snarling of face, sculpted of muscle, stalking through the battle not as a leopard, but like a rajal shaking its mane as it roared at the enemy.

Shouting something about having spotted him, Zip
took aim and shot their message at the War-Hammer.

To the evil
rulers of Sylakia,

Greetings from Dragon and Rider.

We declare war on you.

Aranya stared incredulously. “Zip, you hit his
knee.”

“I hope he gets the message
.”

“He might just.”

“One more Dragonship; that one, Aranya.”

Crossbow
quarrels converged on them. Down! Aranya thumped into the ground. That was a mistake because the ground was closer than she thought. But her legs worked frantically, driving her forward as she gathered her hind legs beneath her to launch upward with a mighty thrust. Something sharp scored her side. But that flying bound took them up over the hundred-and-fifty foot length of the Dragonship ahead. Zip aimed over her flank. As they passed overhead, she delayed the shot slightly before swivelling to send one final burning arrow on its path to destruction.

WHOOOMP!

The Dragonship exploded behind them, shielding Dragon and Rider as they beat a strategic retreat from the charred field that had been the Sylakian encampment.

* * * *

Aranya flew until they had put several leagues between them and the Sylakians. Then she landed in a quiet spot beside the uppermost of Remoy’s terrace lakes. Her eyes tracked Zuziana with concern as she dismounted.

“Shall I transform and–”

“We might need to leave in a hurry. Your healing magic works better in Dragon form, right?”

Zip peeled off her lower armour and then her trousers. She groan
ed, “Oh, roaring rajals, it helps if you fasten the armour properly, Aranya. Look, I left a gap.”

T
he burning oil had trickled into that gap just above her kneecap, and seared a patch of skin from below her knee to her ankle-bone. Aranya eyed her friend’s sooty face and singed hair curling back from her brow. She checked her own flank. A crossbow quarrel had torn a nice little chunk out of her side, there. But she would be fine. It was Zip that she was worried about.

Unexpectedly, Zip smacked her on the neck, grinning a madcap grin. “Did you see your boyfriend’s face when we shot him with our message?”

“Boyfriend? After that? Who tried to kill whom first, may I ask?”

“Well, we sure singed his beard
.”

Aranya chuckled. “My
gorgeous
enemy is clean-shaven, Zip.”

“Oh, for the Islands’ sake
,” cried her friend, pretending outrage, “I’ll shoot him properly next time. Or would you prefer to sharpen your fangs on him first?”

“Maybe I should start a Dragon hoard with just him in it?” Zip hooted. But Aranya pressed her paw gently upon Zuziana’s shoulder. “Let’s see to your wound, my friend. I’ve a shiver in my spines that says the sky’s going to fill with Dragonships
very soon. We need to outfly any message hawks to Tyrodia Island. Have you got Oyda’s ointment? Does it hurt?”

“
Like the blazes.”

Aranya laid
her forepaw on Zip’s leg. “I know you’re brave, but if we’re going to pretend to be in this together, you need to learn to ask for help when you need it.”