Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (31 page)

Her head whipped around. “Nak! Beware!”

Sylakian Crimson Hammers boiled out of the forest near their campsite, raising their hammers as they rushed Nak and Ri’arion. Aranya growled as she launched herself across the field toward them. How had the soldiers crept so close without her hearing them? She had been sleeping too deeply; not listening, unaware of any unfamiliar sounds. She was too far. Too slow.

Ri’arion burst from beneath his cloak, swinging that great sword of his in a deadly arc. He danced between the oncoming Sylakians, making them resemble lumbering ralti sheep to his lithe rajal form
. The Sylakians dropped in twos and threes, pierced by the sword or struck down by crackling energies cast from his left hand. When his blade stuck in a Sylakian’s armour, the monk abandoned it. Now the daggers whirred out in short arcs, terminating in throats and bellies and knee-joints. The Sylakian charge faltered. Aranya slammed into those who hesitated at the rear, striking with her claws and snapping at a fleeing soldier’s leg. She spat out the limb.

The monk moved quickly amongst the fallen, finishing
off the few he had not killed. Then he looked up. “You didn’t hear them, Dragon?”

“No. Sorry.” Aranya looked away. “Ri’arion, I’ve not long been a Dragon–”

“Feeble excuses hurt my ears,” he spat, retrieving his sword.

To her surprise, Aranya felt her lower lip quiver at the sting of his words. What? She was not six summers old
, to be scolded like a child! To cover her chagrin, she pretended to check on Beauty. The dragonet perched on her nose and made silly faces at her until she cheered up. Her speech was a baby-like chirping. Aranya wondered if the dragonet had not yet learned to speak, or could not. A question about her age received no answer other than a backward flip in the air.

“Very clever,” said Aranya.

From Erigar Island was the longest leg of all, a day-long labour against a rising headwind that truly tested Aranya’s newly healed wing. Nak continued to hold forth as though he had never stopped talking, now with stories and legends he knew about Dragons and their Riders. The imagined heat of Ri’arion’s disapproval fuelled Aranya’s efforts, so that they sighted Archion Island by late evening of that second day. Archion was since ancient times a Sylakian ally, named for the great arch its Island made over the Cloudlands, as though two tall mountains had once leaned together to make a perfect natural archway though which the companions saw the White moon’s rising. Huge layers of terraced lakes surrounded its twin pillars, making the whole Island resemble the legs and torso of a warrior wearing banded metal armour such as Zuziana wore. Even from afar the sleepy twittering and croaking of the millions of great-billed herons, blackwing storks and blue-banded mallards filled her ears with a restless cacophony of birdcalls.

During the daytime millions of bats roosted in the cave-riddled underbelly of the Island. They flitted around the Dragon and her riders in sharp flurries of attacks. Nak cursed furiously as the bats scratched at his face; Ri’arion struck out efficiently with his daggers, extending his protection to Nak. Aranya tried eating a couple, but it was like trying to chew leather bags stuffed with bones. She spat them out at once.

Aranya brought them to a safe landing in an isolated spot alongside the second-from-bottom terrace lake. Ri’arion had to carry Nak off her back. After a day in the saddle, the old man was too stiff to move his legs.

“Not as young as I used to be,” he wheezed, stretching out his legs before him. “Used to fly for days without giving it a thought.”

Ri’arion passed him a prekki fruit and the waterskin. “Refresh yourself, old man.”

After slaking her thirst at the lake, Aranya returned to her companions.
Nak was on his stomach, groaning as Ri’arion thumped his legs with a massage that to Aranya looked more painful than helpful. “Nak, Ri’arion, why was everyone so surprised at my testing? Aren’t the gifts–fire, lightning, life and healing magic–common among Dragons?”

“Aye, those are,” said Nak.

“But not all together,” said Ri’arion. “Nor has any candidate ever displayed the power to reject the testing.”

“Perhaps it is a Shapeshifter power,” Nak suggested.

Ri’arion pointed his finger at Nak. “Or an Amethyst Dragon power, Nak. Our records, covering a span of nigh on two thousand summers, show no record of an Amethyst Dragon in the Islands–I had our scholars check before we departed. But I do know this, old man. When a Dragon of such power rises, great events are afoot. The Island-World quakes at its roots. It is a portent we must labour to understand. Where did you find her?”

Aranya fidgeted at his words. Great. Ri’arion’s expectations of her only reached to the moons.

“Her roots are in Ha’athior,” said Nak. “You tell me, Ri’arion.” The monk scowled and kept his silence. Nak added, “Lightning and ice are rare enough. But storm power is almost unheard-of, Aranya. Offhand, I can’t remember ever meeting a Storm Dragon.”

“Fra’anior has storm powers,” she said. Ri’arion gasped and made a strange sign with his hands. “A vast, Black Dragon who appears in a storm of boiling black clouds, his many heads lashing about–”

“Stop!” Ri’arion barked, leaping to his feet, cold sweat clearly beaded on his forehead. “Stop, stop … please.”

When it was clear that he would not
reveal why her description of the Black Dragon had disturbed him so severely, Aranya said, “Ri’arion, why did Fra’anior demand that you follow me?”

“
Fra’anior
asked this?” Nak’s tone clearly communicated his disbelief.

“I’ve dreamed of a Black Dragon since I was a child,” Aranya said. “I remember my mother once sketching such a Dragon for me and telling me stories about him. I used to think it was just a childhood fantasy, but then, when I was coming into my powers–”

“You said you saw the Black Dragon when you were falling from the Last Walk,” Nak interrupted.

“Yes, I did.
I dreamed intensely about him in the months before I died.” Aranya swallowed. It had been a death, of sorts. “I mean, almost died. I thought I heard him say, ‘It is time,’ in a voice that, as Ri’arion put it, quaked the Islands. Obviously, I don’t know what that time is, unless either of you–no? Not even the Nameless Man?”

“It is not revealed,” said the monk.

Aranya wanted to slap him when he talked like that. “Ri’arion, why must you follow me?”

Ri’arion said, “I follow because I am named. It is my destiny.”

The thought of this intense, unsmiling man shadowing her because an ancient Dragon had declared it was his destiny, made Aranya shudder. Ri’arion would obey with unflinching faith. His world saw only Islands and Cloudlands, and nothing more. He saw destiny as an irresistible force. Perhaps it was, but Aranya wanted to fly free. She wanted to fight a destiny that pitted her against Sylakia, her against the powers of the Island-World and against her own kind, Humankind. According to Oyda, she wasn’t even Human. Or Dragon. Shapeshifters were a third category, truly
other
.

‘Your new life has begun,’ was how Oyda had put it. How right she had been. What would King Beran say? ‘Um, Dad, I’m actually a Dragon.’
Aranya longed to journey to Immadia Island. How they must have sorrowed. Yet here she was, arguing with an old man and an inscrutable monk.

Maybe staying away from
her family was the wisest course of action.

She dreamed about the Black Dragon all night and woke with one thought in her mind: she must hurry back to Sylakia. Something had happened; something bad. She prayed it was not Zuziana.
Had Zip not recovered from the Green Death? She had given her tears. But her mind’s eye could not help seeing Zip pushing up a flame tree, just one more fresh grave in Fra’anior’s graveyard. She woke Nak and Ri’arion long before dawn.

“I’ve had a dream,” she said. “We must hurry.”

Beauty rode on her nose for the ascent toward the low-lying clouds. Aranya smiled as the little dragonet preened and admired her reflection in the much larger Amethyst Dragon-eyes looking at her–well, through her, really, keeping a Dragon’s eye on the way ahead.

“Keep heading upward,” said Nak. “There should be a
n airstream up here–a Dragons’ Highway, we used to call them. I completely forgot to tell you about it yesterday, petal.”

“A Dragons’ H
ighway?”

“A v
ery fast-moving wind,” said Nak. “You’ll need to go higher.”

“You’ll tell me if you’re struggling to breathe?”

“Aranya–”

“Nak! You will tell me.”

He grumbled non-stop for half an hour after that.

Aranya climbed through the damp greyness into a starlit wonderland beyond, so high above the world that she imagined she could see it curving away to the horizon. The air became bitterly cold. Ri’arion hardly appeared to notice, but Nak huddled in his cloak and the dragonet with him. The perfect white carpet of puffy little clouds
beneath them lay serene by the starlight. Only the Mystic moon was aloft, casting its gentle, eerie light over the stillness.

T
hey rose into the airstream.

“Great Islands
,” gasped Aranya, feeling the blast upon her tail and wings.

“Aye!” shouted Nak. “It’s pushing a little from the right wing. Don’t fight it; use it.”

Dragon-Aranya wanted to shout at him that it was one thing to talk, but her mind was fully preoccupied with learning how to fly all over again as the wind whistled over her body in an unaccustomed direction, from behind. It changed the natural flow and lift of air over her wings. But with Nak shouting in her ear, mostly encouraging words but with a few typically Nak insults thrown in for good measure, she figured out how to adjust and accelerate to what she knew must be a tremendous velocity.

The cloud cover disappeared with the dawn. Aranya covered the gap to Sylakia in what Nak averred was a third of the usual flying time
. She fell upon the dell like a purple thunderbolt out of the bright mid-morning sky. Her Dragon claws tore the sward next to the prekki-fruit tree.

Zip came running out of the hut to meet her.

Aranya bugled her happiness and relief before remembering she could speak.

I
f Zuziana was
well, what could there be to fear? Aranya’s three hearts thumped in concert as she waited for Ri’arion to help Nak alight. There was Oyda, dusting her hands on her apron, obviously caught halfway through baking something. Her Dragon form did not think much of that smell coming from the chimney, but Human-Aranya found it delicious.

Zip waved a cloak in front of her nose. “Actual clothes, your highness?”

“I missed you too, Zip.”

“New saddle? New Rider?”

Aranya scowled at the reproachful look Zuziana cast her. “It’s a long story, I’m bushed and I have one Rider–you.”

“He looks like he’s fresh from Dragon Rider warrior school.”

“I have
one
Rider!” She had to jerk her head aside to let her fire singe the grass. Zuziana jumped. “I spend two and a half days breaking my wings to get here in a hurry because I’m worried about my Rider, and you’re snivelling about a monk who hitched a ride?”

“Sorry.”

Oyda called, “Aranya, will you transform and come inside, please? Right away.”

Aranya’s hearts lurched into a gallop. “Zip? What’s the matter?” Her friend just looked at the ground. “Oyda? Zip?”

“There’s a visitor inside,” Zuziana said.

Having transformed, Aranya quickly drew the cloak over her shoulders and closed the front. “Yolathion? Er, the Supreme Commander?”

Zuziana shook her head.

Aranya almost stumbled at her first step. She needed to eat. She needed to sit down. Where was the dragonet? She probably needed to feed, too.

“Take my arm, Aranya. Wow, what’s this? A miniature Dragon?”

“She’s a dragonet. I call her Beauty,” said Aranya. The dragonet landed on her shoulder and hissed into her ear. “Hey, stop that, Beauty.”

“She prefers the name Sapphire,” said the Remoyan Princess.

Fire surged within her.
Aranya slumped against the doorframe, shocked to her core. “What did you say, Zip?”

Zuziana did not seem to notice. “Inside, Aranya.”

As her eyes adjusted to the gloomy interior of the hut, she saw a man sitting in the light streaming through the door. “Nelthion? It is you, isn’t it?”

“Cup of tea, petal?” asked Oyda.

“Of course. Oh, Nelthion, I’m … sorry I burgled your Tower. Did it cause you much trouble?”

“A mild but official censure from the Supreme Commander,” said Nelthion
, blowing on her knuckles. “Aranya of Immadia, I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to see you again, even under the circumstances. I–”

“What? Is it my family? My family are dead?”

Zuziana pushed her forcefully into the nearest chair. “Sit. Listen.”

Nelthion sighed, easing his back. “The answer to your question–oh, Aranya. Your family is fine, for now. Immadia
Island is safe, but not for long. Listen to me carefully. I believe that Garthion is on his way to Immadia with a fleet of Sylakian Dragonships.”

“No. Garthion …”

“Aye. It was all over Sylakia Town when the Third War-Hammer Yolathion returned to explain to the Supreme Commander what happened to his best and finest Dragonships out there around Remoy and the Crescent. You two made yourselves mighty unpopular. But that was nothing compared to your rising from the dead as a Dragon Shapeshifter, Princess. Some thought the Supreme Commander had thrown a fit at that point. Between the Immadian forked dagger found on the battlements on the night you stole the Princess of Remoy and an Immadian Shapeshifter on the loose, destroying Sylakia’s forces–the Supreme Commander could not let it go unpunished. Garthion begged to be the instrument of his revenge. The Supreme Commander despatched him with all haste to Immadia.”

Aranya trembled. She whispered, “To take revenge on King Beran?”

“To obliterate the Kingdom of Immadia, Princess.”

Aranya could not speak. Her mouth opened and closed; her throat constricted in horror.
The gravity on Nelthion’s face struck her like a physical blow.

“
Burn him beneath the Cloudlands,” Nak hissed.

“The entire Northern Dragonship fleet has gathered at Yorbik Island, Aranya,” said Nelthion. “That’s upward of two hundred
fully armed Dragonships. They’ve left the thinnest of garrisons around the Islands as they take ten thousand warriors to wage war on Immadia.”

Zuziana laid a hand on
Aranya’s arm. “Garthion left four days ago, Aranya. Today’s the fifth morning. We’ve been waiting; how did you know …”

“Five days behind on a fifteen-day flight?” Ri’arion said. “Can that be caught up?”

Oyda, Aranya and Zuziana all shook their heads. Nak scratched his beard and tried to look sage, but only managed to appear befuddled.

“And Yolathion?” Aranya grated. “What of Yolathion?”

She could read the answer right off her friends’ faces. Oyda moved around the table to put her arm around Aranya’s shoulder. “He flew north with Garthion, petal.”

“No, Oyda. No, no, he …
it’s a lie. Tell me–”

“He flew on Garthion’s own Dragonship.”

Surging to her feet, Aranya screamed, “NO!”

A towering fire blasted up the chimney. The world closed in, dark-winged and vengeful
. The table rose up to smack her forehead. Then all went dark.

* * * *

Aranya awoke with a horrible jolt, weeping uncontrollably. Immadia!

She had dreamed of standing on the battlement of Immadia’s castle as the Sylakian fleet swept in. This time it was not First War-Hammer Ignathion who strode into the square, but his son Yolathion. He stamped right over the green cloth to where King Beran stood.

“Surrender is not an option,” roared the Third War-Hammer. “Kill them all!”

She tried to stifle her
sobs with her fist. But Oyda had heard. She came into Aranya’s bedroom. “Petal. My poor petal.” She put her arms around Aranya. “Come now.”

Her gentle tone broke the retaining walls of a terrace lake within Aranya. The
keening of her grief and pain, torn from deep within as though wrenched forth by a Dragon’s claws, shook her with appalling violence. She had never wept like this. Not even at her exile. Perhaps over Zip, but that was different. She hurt to cry. The more she cried, the more she hurt. Sparks and whirlwinds raced around the room, fighting and clashing with each other. Thunder growled nearby.

Yolathion was going to destroy her people. Yolathion, who she had somehow hoped in her heart of hearts, would renounce his duty to Sylakia and pursue her for love.
All that stupid talk of honour and regret–it had all been a lie. Standing before the Supreme Commander, he must have blamed it all on her. That was the easy lie, the lie that regained his honour in the eyes of his masters. He hated her. He hated her Dragon-ness. He hated how she and Zip had shamed and defeated him. Now he would prove his loyalty to Sylakia in the most unequivocal terms.

She’d had that premonition. Had she not said, ‘Watch out that the hunter does not become the hunted’? She would hunt him. She’d hunt him and kill him.

But that would be all too late for her family, and for Immadia.

Aranya groaned.

Suddenly, a flash of blue streaked into the room. Shrieking piteously, the little sapphire dragonet crash-landed on the bed.

“Oh, poor
darling,” whispered Aranya.

“Sorry, I couldn’t stop her,” said Zip. She had a three-clawed wound on her cheek, like a deep cat-scratch.

Aranya soothed the hissing, spitting little dragonet until she calmed down enough to be held in her arms. It soothed her too, a little–which helped, as the room smelled of smoke.

“So,
exciting trip?” said Zuziana, with false brightness. “A little kidnapping cunningly avoided and a cousin found? You brought home a dragonet in one pocket and a tame monk in the other?” She held up a couple of scraps of cloth. “Nak left us in no doubt as to what he thought of this outfit. Yolathion might appreciate it–like the time you two were chained together for the dance. You don’t think there’s a chance, some little chance …”

Her headshake made tears fly off Aranya’s cheeks. “I’ve been a fool, Zip. As big a fool as ever walked the Islands. I don’t want to talk about Yolathion. Next time we meet, he’ll be the first Human I eat. I’m going to tear his head off and feast on his–”

Zip looked alarmed, but it was Oyda who snapped, “Shut that foolish talk, petal. Burning Dragonships is one thing. Eating Human flesh–you cross to that Island, you’re never coming back. You hear me?”

Oyda struck her as so vehement, that Aranya saw a curl of fear-born flame burst into life across the room. She swallowed and wille
d the flame to wink out. “Oyda–”

“Promise me!”

Aranya nodded, wide-eyed and trembling. “I promise and swear with all my heart. Er, hearts, Dragon and Human.”

But her hearts were torn so deeply she knew they would never be whole again. How glibly she had told herself she understood how her father must have grieved
at the betrayal of his friend, the King of Rolodia Island. Rolodia had been crushed by the Sylakians. Her soul had been crushed, a pyre spent and burned to ashes, like Immadia’s soon-to-be fate. Oh, Yolathion!

“Good. Now, Nak thinks he has an idea. Come and listen, petal.”

“What?” Aranya’s eyes were leaking again. Her brothers, her little brothers! What had she done to them? “Reach Immadia in time? That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“Nak doesn’t think so.” Oyda clapped her hands sharply. “Up with you, Princess of Immadia
. Do your duty.”

Aranya stared at her. Duty was the last thing she wanted to think about. Yolathion was doing his duty. But his was duty
with neither heart nor honour. Quickly, she pushed her aching body out of the bed. She took the dress Oyda held out for her and scooped up the dragonet on her way to the kitchen, where Nak and Nelthion pored over a map.

“Aha
,” said Nak. “How’s about a kiss for clever old Nak, then?”

“Nak, I’ll give you ten kisses if you’ve figured out a miracle. And a Dragon kiss if not.”

Nak did his little dance. “It’s dangerous, Aranya. But it’s the only chance you have. Look.” His fingers traced a route Aranya had travelled once before. “North of Sylakia, we traverse the Spits on the way to the Twenty-Seven Sisters. Plenty of windrocs up there. Then up through the Sisters toward Yorbik Island. But look what happens now. First you travel north and two points easterly to Helyon via Ferial Island, then directly northeast to Gemalka on this long crossing, then you turn your Dragon’s nose over to four points north of west–not quite northwest–and cross to Immadia.”

Aranya nodded
soberly. “There’s a sound reason for that big loop, Nak–there’s no other viable route to Immadia, unless you travel up from the far Western Islands.”

“If you had a long-range Dragonship, you could cross directly from Helyon–or even earlier, from Ferial Island–to Immadia, skipping Gemalka.” His hand swept the blank section of map that his suggested route traversed. “But there’s nothing here, right? No Islands.”

Biting her lip, Aranya nodded. “Unless your name’s Nak?”

Ri’arion said, “We call it Immadior’s Sea, after the great White Dragon for which Immadia was named.
Powers of winter’s ice and–”

Nak shushed him irritably even as Aranya threw him a look of amazement.
She had never heard this tale of the origin’s of Immadia’s name. Gleaming of eye and clearly hopping with excitement, Nak continued, “But if you could skip Gemalka, it’s elementary to see that you’d be taking the third side of the triangle–the long side, granted. Overall, it’s shorter than the route via Gemalka.”

Aranya
measured the gap with her eyes. “By a full day, perhaps two?”

“Aye, there we are, m
y petal. Not just a pretty nose.”

Zuziana said, “Nak said that with
the trade winds or a Dragons’ Highway, we could cut up to three days–”

“Imp. Whelp of a chattering sparrow.
Let your elders and betters speak.” But Nak smiled at Zip. “I’ll have a kiss from thee later, o ravishing Remoyan. So, here’s the plan.”

Aranya calculated in her mind, remembering how she had discussed the navigation of this same route with Ignathion. Sylakia to the Spits, four days. Two
days for the Twenty-Seven Sisters, clustered closely together. Another two up to Yorbik Island. One day further to Helyon, past Ferial Island. After that, six days, give or take, from Helyon via Gemalka to Immadia Island.

Impossible. Why were they even talking about it?
“Nak, I’d have to land in that enormous gap–Immadior’s Sea–between Helyon and–”

“Aye, you
couldn’t do four days on the wing, Aranya. Oyda’s Emblazon could do two and a half, but he was as strong as–well, an Island. But what if I told you there are two possible landing spots in that nice blank expanse? Not big ones.”

Aranya opened and closed her mouth as hope flared ridiculously
in her breast. Landing places?