Forged by Fire

F
or support unlimited, thanks go first and foremost to Linda DeMeulemeester. Sincere gratitude to my editor, Liz, and my agent, Caitlin, for their insights and patience. Thanks also to all the listserv folks at SF Canada; Claire Eddy, for encouraging and challenging me, way back when; John D., my computer guru; and Sean Kerr, who asked me some pertinent questions when I’d reached an impasse, and thus provided me with forward mobility. As always, much love to the Faerie and the Bean, for all the magick they regularly conjure.

The tunnel reeked of dead air. No mildew or lichen grew on the walls; the stones were a lifeless gray that leapt briefly into a fluctuating tapestry of shadow and flamelight under Gen’s torch before being swallowed again by darkness.

Gen gripped my elbow, urged me on faster. I stumbled. Pain lanced across my fractured ribs and I cried out.
“Steady,” he murmured.
“Hurts,” I snapped.
No empathy from him. “The bull dragon’ll be mounting his last breeder soon, and the crowd’ll expect to see your head paraded afterward. We don’t want to be caught in this labyrinth when that spectacle doesn’t occur, so
move
, girl, move.”
The tunnel rumbled.
Earthquake, I thought with a spurt of panic, but realized, even as I thought it, that the rumble was the bellowing of the bull dragon in Arena above us, answered by the cheers of two hundred thousand Arena spectators. A clammy sweat broke over my skin.
It was then that I thought of Dono.
I don’t know why; perhaps because I’d smelled the sweat of fear on him as he’d attacked me in Arena, just a short while before.
“What about Dono?” I asked.
I could see nothing of Gen’s face beneath the ivoryhued Auditor’s veil he wore, save for the whites of his eyes gleaming like the petals of wet lilies, and his pupils, black as beetle carapaces. “He can’t hurt you now, Babu. Keep moving—”
“He’s dead?”
“Bastard refused to die,” a voice gurgled behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder at Dragonmaster Re, who was supported by a man disguised, like Gen, as an Audi tor. Blood ran dark as plum jelly down the dragonmaster’s thighs; he’d been wounded by the bull dragon’s venomous tongue. A great flap of torn skin hung from his chest in a bloody frown. His goatee braid dangled in the wound.
“I couldn’t strangle the air from him, so I ripped his throat out with my teeth.” The dragonmaster’s eyes rolled. “The bastard still refused to die.”
“Dono’s alive? Up there?” I stopped, looked at the stone ceiling that was so low, Daronpu Gen walked stooped over.
“Dead,” Gen said with finality. “The bull will have tram pled him by now. Keep walking.”
I jerked my elbow from his grasp. “The bull
flies
when mating. Dono won’t be trampled.”
“Not trampled, oh, no. Not him.” The dragonmaster cackled. His head lolled; he was barely lucid from the bull’s toxin. “Crawling through the dust I left him, pressed against the stadium’s walls; oh, no, not dead, that bastard, not dead.”
“Gen,” the other would-be Auditor said curtly. “We have to
go
.”
Gen jerked on my arm and we were moving again.
“Son of a whore turned against me!” the dragonmaster shrilled, and his voice echoed down the tunnel.
“Shut up,” the man holding him growled.
We reached a crossroad of tunnels. One was blocked; the ceiling had collapsed, whether long ago or recently, I couldn’t tell. I wondered if there were any human bones moldering beneath that blockage. Or on the other side of it.
Without hesitation, Gen steered us down the tunnel to our right. The air was cooler and slightly damp. I pictured Dono—my milk-brother, the orphan I’d spent my childhood with—crawling through the hot, dusty Arena above, his sight impaired by the wound I’d inflicted on one of his eyes the day previous, his throat mauled by the dragonmaster.
“They’ll execute him,” I said. “He was supposed to kill me in Arena, and he failed. Temple’ll behead him.”
“A mercy,” Gen said flatly. “There’s no place in a stable for a crippled apprentice.”
I stopped again. “We have to go back for him.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
My teeth chattered. My head was pounding. My ribs were a fiery, creaking ache. The image of my sister, Waivia, bloomed in my mind. I’d seen her in the stands in Arena, leaning provocatively against Waikar Re Kratt, the over seer of Clutch Re—the same man who’d murdered our father and beaten health and sanity from our mother. A man I’d once vowed to kill. I wondered if Waivia was watching Dono crawl blindly in the dust; I knew she’d do nothing to save him if she was.
It suddenly became essential to rescue Dono. If I didn’t, I’d be condemned to wander Arena’s dark tunnels until I collapsed and became nothing but moldering bone. I felt sure of it.
So I lied, then, and used the only weapon I had: Gen’s be lief that I was the Dirwalan Babu, the Skykeeper’s Daugh ter, a woman prophesied to liberate dragon and human alike from Temple’s rule. “Dono’s a part of it, Gen. I don’t know why, but we
need
him. I can feel it in my marrow. We have to go back.”
The dragonmaster babbled to himself like a babe drift ing into sleep.
Daronpu Gen spoke slowly. “Zarq. You’re under the in fluence of venom—”
“You gave me hardly any,” I spat. “Every step I take is an agony; I feel every fractured bone as if I’d drunk nothing more than water.”
The torch crackled and threw uneven heat and light across my face, his veil, the encroaching stone walls.
Gen abruptly turned to the man who held the dragonmaster upright. “Take them down to the end of this tunnel.” He sounded angry. No. Trapped. “You’ll come to a threeway; take the middle tunnel, turn left at the end. Hurry. Tell the men stationed outside to wait for me.”
“You jest,” the man holding the dragonmaster said, aghast.
“Move it!” Daronpu Gen bellowed, and he thrust the torch into my hand and shoved past me, heading back the way we’d come. “Wait for me outside, with our dragons.”
“For how long?” the man shouted after Gen’s back. But Gen had already disappeared.
I’d be fine now; we’d find our way out of the labyrinth, wouldn’t be condemned to die in it as punishment for leav ing Dono behind.
Then why were my teeth chattering?
Dimly, I knew I was under the influence of venom, was deluded, paranoid, intoxicated, giddy. Didn’t matter. Dono
was
family, and I’d be damned if I’d leave him for Temple to execute under the callous eyes of my sister. I’d be damned if I’d be anything remotely like
her
.
We moved faster after that, lurching along in a broken run. Things skittered in front of us, sometimes behind. Once I saw something lumbering into the darkness ahead, knee-height, the yellowish gray of overcooked yolk, with a spine like a knuckled fist. It moved crouched, and smelled like matted fur and oily dander. I had no idea what it could be. My skin prickled.
We followed Gen’s instructions, wordless. Even the drag onmaster fell silent. On and on we stumbled. On and on. Through endless dark.
On and on.
Great Dragon, had we missed the turnoff? No: ahead, a three-way. We took the middle route, found ourselves in a narrower tunnel that ascended gradually at first, then steeply. An abrupt end: a stone wall in front of my face, a tunnel on my left, one on my right. I turned left. The tunnel curved, curved, curved. The ceiling grew lower. Lower. We were going in a circle, stooped.
“This is wrong,” I wheezed. The heat from the torch I held drew the skin on my face taut. My fractured ribs felt like dragon talons raking my guts.
Abruptly, the tunnel angled away, opposite how it had been curving, and behind me, the man carrying the dragonmaster let out a bark of relief: Ahead of us was light, and I could smell fresh air, green things, and warm earth. Stifling a whimper, I staggered forward.
Stooped, we spilled out of the tunnel’s mouth. I dropped my torch and leaned heavily on my knees. A warm breeze licked sweat from my skin. Dragons snorted. Wooden stir rups clunked and bridles jangled.
“There’s only three of you,” a voice barked. Steel hissed from a scabbard. “Were you followed? A fight?”
A silhouette appeared before me in the blinding light of full day: a man, frowning, holding a sword. He looked from me to the tunnel mouth at my back.
“Gen went back for an apprentice.” Beside me, the man who was holding the dragonmaster hacked and spat. “The girl insisted. Give me a hand; this one’s fainted.”
Squinting in the light, I watched the two men heave the dragonmaster onto a winged dragon while a third held the dragon steady. When they were done, the man who’d carried the dragonmaster through the labyrinth shucked his Auditor’s robes; he wore breeches and boots beneath, and had arms like a blacksmith and legs twice as thick. He looked at me and gestured brusquely with his chin at a sad dled dragon. I straightened and limped toward her.
Was she a destrier? No. She didn’t smell of venom. An escoa, then, one of the winged dragons employed by Malacar’s parcel-and-letter dispatch service. All escoas had their venomous sacs removed.
The man with the build of a blacksmith helped me— roughly—into the saddle. Two dragons snorted and shifted on the other side of my mount, tethered to a sapling they could have uprooted with one lunge if they’d wanted to.
From atop the escoa, I looked about. In the distance, roll ing orchards stretched toward the horizon, and at the end of the alluvial plains stood a girth of low mountains. We were at the far side of Arena, away from the taverns, hawk ers’ stalls, and caravansaries of Fwendar ki Bol, the Village of the Eggs. Away from the main entrances to Arena.
To my right, the massive curved walls of Arena towered above us, gray and intimidating.
The dragonmaster revived and muttered invective, but remained atop the escoa he’d been heaved upon. The three men stood beside his mount, watching the tunnel mouth. One kept his hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
“There’ll be seven of us. If Gen returns with the appren tice,” the sword holder said grimly.
Seven couldn’t fly upon three dragons. Six, yes. Seven, no.
“Two of us will leave with the girl and the dragonmaster,” Blacksmith said slowly, testing his own words for logic even as he spoke them.“One of us’ll head for the fields, leave the third escoa for Gen and the apprentice.”
Sword Holder’s grip tightened on his weapon. “This place will be swarming with Temple soldiers soon.”
“The quicker two of us are in the air, the sooner our decoys’ll depart. Better chance for Gen to make it.”
The three looked at one another in that way men have when they’re taking the measure of one another.
The third man spoke.“Reckon I can reach those orchards before the alarm is raised.”
All of us looked at the orchards in the distance. Either he was a very fast runner or an optimist. What choice did he have but to be both, given the situation? Blacksmith clapped him on the shoulder and, without another word, the man sprinted away from us.
A muted trumpeting came from beyond the Arena walls, followed by the oceanic roar of spectators. I shivered.
“How long do we wait?” Sword Holder asked, eyes upon the tunnel’s mouth.
“Until Gen returns,” I said. Both men looked at me. There wasn’t much friendliness in either of their expres sions. “He
will
come back,” I added.
I repeated that silently to myself as we waited, as the es coas grew restless and tossed their snouts and whipped their tails at biting flies, as the air grew fraught with tension. But my refrain petered out as time crept onward, and finally I just sat there, mind as empty and black as the tunnel’s maw, while my pulse raced and my mouth went dry.
“We’re leaving. Now,” Blacksmith ordered, and he spun and came toward me.
“No,” I said hoarsely. “He’ll come; he has to come—”
“We wait any longer and we’re as good as dead. Half our decoys may have been discovered by now. Mount up!” He barked this last at Sword Holder, who swung up behind the dragonmaster.
I’d sent Gen back to his death.
“We can’t leave.” I started to dismount from the escoa.
Blacksmith gripped my ankle. “If he’s alive, he’ll join us. If he’s been captured, there’s no point—”
“Soldiers!” a hoarse voice shouted from the tunnel, and our eyes swung toward it. Gen staggered out. Dono was draped limply across his arms, naked save for a loincloth, dust, and blood.
“Take him, mount up, move, move!” Gen wheezed, and Blacksmith and Sword Holder were instantly at his side. Sword Holder took Dono; Gen leaned on Blacksmith and lurched toward me. “Soldiers following. Seven. Maybe more. The decoys ready?”
“Six escoas, each with a rider,” Blacksmith said. “They’ll take flight and head south and east the moment they see us airborne.”
“Where’s Granth?”
Blacksmith pointed to a figure bobbing in the distance.
“Dragon give him the sense to drop and keep still once we’re airborne,” Gen muttered. “He’ll stand a chance of not being seen.” He looked at me. “Lie as flat as you can, Babu.”
Flying a dragon means lying half-prone along the dor sum, knees locked against scaled flank and leather saddle, feet lodged in the stirrup rungs situated either side of the dragon’s spine. Gritting my teeth, I carefully assumed the flying position. Gen swung up, stretched atop me, mindful of my broken ribs, and reached with both hands for the reins either side of the escoa’s neck. Sword Holder was al ready mounted, Dono lashed atop his escoa like a sack of grain. Blacksmith mounted behind the dragonmaster and took up reins.
We exploded into the air.
I watched the ground, looking for the man Gen had called Granth. Didn’t see him. I didn’t know who he was—where he called home, whom he loved, whether he had children— but found myself praying he’d see us winging westward and have the sense to fall to the ground. Surely, if he covered himself with dust and weeds, he’d be safe from the eyes of Temple. Surely.
I had to believe so.

In reality it’s noisy and exhausting. Cramping muscles locked too long in one position vie for attention with ears that ache from both the changes in elevation and the wind screaming past. One’s throat becomes parched from the wind; one’s tongue cleaves to the roof of one’s mouth. Each breath feels hard-won and insufficient in the incessant wind. Eyeballs feel like desiccated peas. Nostrils burn with dryness. It requires unflagging concentration to stay seated upon a dragon, not to be caught unawares from a sudden list to one side and plummet through sky and clouds to death miles below.