Of Bone and Thunder (5 page)

“I don't want to talk about it,” Jawn said.

“Aha. What happened? Get kicked out for turning one of your professors into a frog?”

Dolt!
“For all the . . . thaumology is a key pillar of the natural sciences. It conforms to and amplifies the laws of nature. There's nothing mystical or miraculous about it.”

Rickets shrugged his shoulders. “I thought thaumology by definition had to do with druids and miracles. Gray-bearded fellows in long robes calling down lightning from the heavens, turning water into mead and the like.”

Jawn rolled his eyes. “Yes, but that's because people didn't understand what was happening, and so that's why it was called thaumology. They really did believe gods and angels were involved,” Jawn huffed.

“So, you weren't kicked out for turning your professor into a frog?” Rickets asked.

Jawn flung his hands in the air, then quickly reached down to grab on to the harness chain. “No! That's the purview of witchcraft and wizardry,” Jawn said, wrinkling his nose as he said it. “Just a whole lot of potions, elixirs, dried newts, and cackling.”

“You still didn't answer my question,” Rickets said.

Jawn ground his teeth. The man was relentless. “If you must know . . . I left of my own accord and volunteered for the army. I felt this was the right thing to do. Our country's at war and I wasn't going to let my privileged position keep me from serving.”

“Mmm. How very noble of you,” Rickets said, his voice thin like a stiletto.

Jawn swung around to stare Rickets down. “Mock me all you want, crowny, but I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
I don't have to justify anything to him.

Rickets leaned back. “Never said you did. Don't mind me, I'm a cynic of the first order. Spent my whole life serving a king who it turns out isn't one at all. What's a crowny to do? Figure I'll put in my time, make a little extra silver on the side, and live long enough to collect my pension. But you . . . well, you're a patriot, you are.”

Jawn searched Rickets's face and tone for even a hint of sarcasm, but if it was there, the crowny hid it well. “I don't know how patriotic I am—I just felt I had to do something,” Jawn said, knowing that was at least part of the truth.

Rickets leaned forward and reached out, giving Jawn a friendly slap on the shoulder. “I understand. You're young. I almost remember that feeling.”

Jawn gave Rickets a halfhearted smile. The heat and the wind were combining to batter Jawn into numbing exhaustion. He couldn't sleep and didn't want to talk anymore but had no desire to be alone with his thoughts, either. Feeling at a loss, he twisted in his harness until his back rested against the dorsal plate. Slouching down out of the hot wind, he stared out at the ocean.

“HERE,” RICKETS SAID, HANDING
Jawn a small metal flask between the dorsal plates. “This'll revive your spirits.”

“I'm not really a drinker,” Jawn said, deciding the distraction of Rickets was the lesser evil.

A moment later, a simple leather water skin appeared. “Here, try this instead. It's hot as tea and probably tastes like piss.”

Jawn grabbed it and downed several mouthfuls. The water did taste like hot piss, but right now, it was as refreshing as a cool mountain stream. He handed it back.

“Thanks. I should have come more prepared.” Jawn cringed the moment the words left his mouth. He didn't want to delve deeper with Rickets into his rationale for joining up. “You seem to know a lot about these rags,” Jawn said, sitting up straighter and forcefully projecting his voice. “I've heard stories about fireballs seen in the sky—” he started to say, but Rickets finished it for him.

“That rumor about rags overheating and exploding?” The crowny nodded. “It hardly ever happens in the wild because they know enough to slow down and cool off. They aren't the sharpest arrows in the quiver, but they know not to get themselves killed by flying more than they should. That all changed once we tamed them. Now we fly the living shit out of them.”

Jawn winced at the vulgarity. Government officials were supposed to be schooled, thoughtful . . . patriotic. He tried to console himself for having the great misfortune to sit beside the one exception. “So, are the stories true?”

Before the crowny could answer, the co-driver turned around in his seat and waved his hands to get their attention.

“Praise the maker an' sing on high! Loot-ox dead on!”

Jawn sat up straight in his saddle and looked past the co-driver. A dark line appeared on the horizon and grew larger with every wing stroke.

“Thank the High Druid,” Jawn muttered, forgetting his oath not to invoke deities he didn't believe in.

“I wouldn't thank him just yet,” Rickets said.

Jawn turned and looked at the crowny, expecting to see a wry smile on his face.

“Wait, you're serious?” Jawn asked, suddenly desperately hoping to see Rickets's yellow teeth again. “We've made it. Luitox is in sight. The old gal could probably glide in from here.”

Rickets gave Jawn a nod, but it wasn't reassuring. Jawn wanted a better answer, but the noise on the rag increased as the passengers yelled their joy that their long shared misery was about to be over. Sighting land had done wonders for the mood on the back of the rag. There was no more talk of dying, and best of all, no vomit.

Perhaps sensing the end of her journey was now at hand, the rag picked up her speed. Her wing strokes cut through the air with far more purpose and the heat emanating through her scales increased. She was as eager as everyone else to land.

Jawn turned away from Rickets and began going through the checklist he'd made in his head before he left the Kingdom. This was his war, his adventure, and it started now. He wanted to remember every detail from the most mundane to the enormous. More, he wanted to find the words to commemorate the moments. Later, back in the Kingdom, he would be asked what it was like.

He looked up and green mountains stretched across the horizon. It would all be over soon. Best of all, he'd be forever done with this rag and its crew. Not to mention Rickets.

He counted over a dozen large ships of war anchored far off the beach and another six merchant ships moored to makeshift piers. Troops were disembarking by the hundreds. There was no way the Kingdom could lose. He was tempted to point this out to Rickets but held his tongue, enjoying the relative silence instead.

“Weez claws dry!”

Mercy be, we've made it.
The beach stretched inland for a good hundred yards before it gave way to swathes of tall, thin grass that followed a natural slope away from the water all the way to the foot of a squat, jungle-covered mountain range running parallel to the shore. The peaks were round and fuzzy looking, the tallest just a few hundred feet below the rag's current height. Judging by the rag's speed, they'd be flying right over the mountains in no time.

The rag's wings began to beat faster and she started climbing. Unlike in the rough air of a short while earlier, however, she had little power left. They gained maybe another hundred feet before her wings slowed and the rag started to drop again. The co-driver was half out of his seat with his iron bar but then seemed to think better of it and simply reached down and patted the scales on the rag's neck.

The co-driver turned and waved his hands again. “Burrow in laek youse a tick, yah?!”

Jawn let go of the heavy harness chain and raised both his hands in exasperation. “I have no idea what that means!”

The man just grinned and nodded before turning his back.

“You best heed his warning and tuck in tight,” Rickets said, detaching from the dorsal fins and disappearing behind them.

“What . . . why?” Jawn asked, not seeing a reason to panic. The air felt smooth—none of those rough, invisible hills—and they would clear the mountaintop by fifty yards or more. Not a lot, but enough. It would give him a chance to overlook the land. He'd never seen jungle before. He wanted to experience every moment of this. This was living! All the agony suffered on the flight was forgotten. “Our landing at Swassi was actually pretty smooth. We glided in like a feather. She might be tired, but the old girl should let us down nice enough.”

The crowny's head popped up. There wasn't a trace of a smile this time. “We come in a bit steeper over here on account of the slyts.”

“A . . . what's a slyt?”

Rickets never answered, ducking down again. The other passengers did the same. Jawn looked back toward the ground. He could make out a dirt path winding its way down the mountain wherever there were gaps in the
foliage. He looked closer and saw black scorch marks around those areas, as if they'd recently been burned. Maybe the peasants were clearing the land for farming.

The smell of the jungle rose up and struck Jawn's nostrils for the first time.

He'd gotten used to the smoky aroma of the rag and the scouring, clean smell of salt water over the ocean. This was something entirely different. It was as if the scents of a hundred different animals, dead and alive, had been thrown into a bubbling vat of rotting vegetation and heated until the resultant steam stained the very air like a hot, moist mold.

“Ugh. That's putrid,” Jawn said, trying to breathe through his teeth.

“Hah. Wait until summer!” Rickets shouted.

A gleam caught Jawn's eye. A group of soldiers were spread out on the path. Some of them waved and motioned toward the top of the mountain, but most of them simply looked up at him. One pointed his crossbow at the rag as it flew overhead.

The rag continued to descend, picking up speed as they approached the mountain ridge. He'd misjudged. They'd clear the top with less than forty feet to spare. It was a shame they were going so fast, though; everything would be a blur when they overflew it.

A movement in the treetops drew his attention.

“What are those in the trees?” he asked, then realized he was talking to himself. A moment later, the canopy of leaves in front of them began to sparkle as several small flames appeared in the crowns.

“What—” was all he got out before the rag nosed down. Finding a final reserve of energy, she flapped her wings and thrashed her tail, pushing forward even as she fell. Black smoke poured out of her nostrils and streamed back along her body. A shimmering heat seeped through the spaces in her scales. Jawn madly tore off his jacket and stuffed it underneath him.

Damn it, I should have taken a ship!
A howling rumble built into a roar as the rag's scales creaked with the strain. Chunks of scale cracked and flew off from the area around her rib cage. Jawn ducked as pieces as large as two-foot paving stones cartwheeled past his head.

An orange glow grew in intensity forward of the rag's wings on each
side of her massive chest. Jawn squinted and saw a large section of scales lifting into the wind stream.

“She's breaking up!” His innards contracted into a frozen block of fear.

“It's her air gills!” Rickets shouted. “I figured the old girl's would have seized up long ago, but I guess not!”

“Air gills?” Jawn cursed his limited lack of knowledge on all things dragon.

“Lets them suck in more air to feed their fire when they need the speed! Makes things exciting when they use them!”

“This is normal?!” Jawn shouted, gasping as the heat coming off the rag got hotter.

“If we survive, it is!”

They began skimming just above the treetops. A mat of thick green flashed by beneath Jawn as small black objects streaked into the sky all around them. Several trailed smoke and fire.

“They're shooting at us!” Jawn yelled, slamming his body forward so hard that he bounced his head off the rag's hide. He yelped, not from the impact, but from the heat seeping through the scales. They were close to scalding.

Jawn ducked his head again as a maelstrom of torn leaves and shattered branches flew past his head, the rag now blasting through the treetops.

“Weez gone to tha weeds, yah?! Caterwaul if'n y'all want, might spook the slyts' aim a skosh!”

Jawn was desperately searching for meaning in the co-driver's rambling when the rag's wings stopped flapping and the spray of vegetation ceased. With a grinding of bone and scale, she tucked her wings in against her sides and bent her long neck straight down. After almost a day of living with the nonstop beating of her massive wings, the solitary sound of rushing wind was disconcerting.

That changed a moment later.

A rain of vomit and urine soaked Jawn, seeping under his collar to run down his back. He ignored it, turning instead to look over his shoulder at the mountaintop they'd just cleared. In a stunning reversal of the laws of the natural world, the mountain appeared to be hurtling upward.

Arrows peppered the sky in their wake. As the rag's tail swished into view, Jawn saw half of its vertical fin was missing. What remained was quilled like a porcupine.

More fluids splashed in Jawn's hair and plummeting to his death or not, he'd had enough. He faced forward and reached out to jab the sickly officer in front of him. His arm froze as he cocked it back.

The officer was sitting upright, his arms flapping above his head in the wind as if waving. A single arrow wobbled from his neck just above his collar. With each back-and-forth movement of the arrow, the gash grew larger as more blood spurted out in a dark red mist. His head lolled between his shoulders and then tipped back. The weight of his head and the rush of the wind widened the tear until the muscles ripped and his neck bones cracked, flopping his head to hang upside down between his shoulder blades. His sightless eyes stared at Jawn as blood surged up from the gaping wound.

Jawn hunched down as close to the rag's scales as he could stand, gritting his teeth as the heat burned into his cheek. He closed his eyes and searched for anything to replace the grisly image in his head. Unable to control his stomach, he vomited, which immediately steamed as it hit the scales. Thoughts of battles and poignant words fled his mind as his entire existence narrowed to a plummeting, blood-and-vomit-and-filth-covered moment in time. His war couldn't end like this
. Not like this!