Shadowed By Wings (9 page)

“You’ll not learn how to serve Re, standing there like a fool,” a voice growled behind me. I turned and met the gaze of the dragonmaster. His bald head gleamed in the sun’s glare, and for a moment, the venom in my blood made his pate look like a mosssplotched chestnut.

“Think you that I’ve angered Temple just to have you gawk at insects in my stables? That’s not why I’ve spent the last days arguing with the Ranreeb over ancient scrolls and debating with Temple fools!” He jerked a calloused thumb to the east. “Get you to the vebalu course with the other apprentices, or I’ll whip you for your sloth.”

I flared my nostrils. Alas, venom brings out the worst of my temper. Always.

“Temple can’t refute my legitimate claim to serve Re,” I argued. “The Scroll of the Right-Headed Crane clearly states that anyone who has been rendered clean by a holy knife and has been chosen by a Temple-sanctioned dragonmaster may serve a bull.”

“I don’t need reminding what the scroll says, girl. And what is stated in the scrolls and what actually occurs in Malacar are frequently two different things!”

“Temple can’t deny me this position. It
can’t
.”

The dragonmaster’s face turned puce as he struggled to retain his anger. I remembered, then, how precariously balanced he was upon the knife-edge of insanity, after years of venom exposure.

“But I’m sure that your clever arguments will have swayed even the dullest Temple minds in my favor,” I hastily added, to assuage him.

His teeth chattered briefly, as an excited cat’s do before it pounces upon a bird, and then he shuddered and his shoulders convulsed once, violently.

“We’ll see if I have or not,” he rasped. “Doesn’t matter now, anyway.” He smiled maniacally. “There was an uprising last night. Several Hamlets of Forsaken joined forces and launched an attack on Clutch Maht. The Ranreeb flew out this morning to deal with the rebels.”

“So I’m safe.”

“Safe, gaah! Unless you train hard and survive this year’s Arena, you’ll not be safe. Re will gut you with one swipe.”

“You’re not sending me into Arena until I’m ready!” I cried, alarmed.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do! There are rules, Temple governs Arena… .” He sputtered angrily, then pointed wildly to the east, as if he could fling me away with the gesture. “Get to the vebalu course and start training. Now!”

I bit my tongue and turned from him to pack the tools back into the crate.

As I crouched to open the lid, a hot ember snapped against my back, burning through the cape I wore into the flesh of my left shoulder. I yelped, leapt to my feet, and spun around in one movement. Venom-tainted, my vision spun several heartbeats after my eyes did, and I swayed like one drunk.

The dragonmaster stood with a short braided whip dangling from one hand.

“Yes, Komikon!” he shouted.

I licked dry lips. “Yes, Komikon.”

“Don’t forget it again!”

“Yes, Komikon.”

“And never turn your back toward anyone, understand? Ever.”

“Yes, Komikon,” I replied. But he was already walking away.

I walked east, in the direction the dragonmaster had pointed, into the adjacent stable courtyard. I say walk, but it felt as if I drifted, my venom-oiled muscles moved that easily. As I passed stalls of frisky dragons, some growled at me, while others merely stared intently at me with their still, slitted eyes. The diamond-shaped membranes at the ends of their short, twiggy tails slapped against stone at my passage.
Slap-slap, slap-slap.

It took me several moments to realize that the sound synchronized with my heartbeat, that the sound of muscle and blood caged behind the bars of my ribs was in precise rhythm with the dragon muscle and blood caged behind the stable’s gated stalls.

Slap-slap.

The synchronicity unnerved me, even while under the spell of venom. I didn’t want to be one with the dragon in
that
manner, didn’t want to experience the dragons’ captivity deep within my breast.

I hurried on, averting my gaze from the dragons.

The vebalu course was located behind the grain silo in the third courtyard of the stables, the same silo I’d hidden behind during my first day in the stable domain. The grunts and cries of young men hard at work acted as my compass. No sooner did I appear at the dusty outdoor gymnasium than Egg lumbered over to me.

“Sit there!” he bellowed above the activity, pointing to a group of inductees squatting on their haunches. “And watch!”

I knew at once by Egg’s manner that Ringus hadn’t told him of the haunt’s visit last night. As I joined the inductees, I scanned the gymnasium for Eidon. There he was, locked in a wrestling match with Dono while other veterans wrestled in pairs around them. Eidon hadn’t seen me. Yet.

Overhead, the sun blazed like it had a vendetta against all things green and living. The ground of the gymnasium was as dry and red as a brick, and the peculiar equipment within the gymnasium was so thickly furred with rufous dust that in the heat it seemed to glow like live coals.

So this was where I’d learn vebalu, the exercises that developed a dragonmaster apprentice’s physical agility, coordination, mental faculties, reaction time, and skills with Arena goading tools.

I’d expected something more refined.

I spotted Ringus. The slender servitor was leading a group of his peers through a furious drill of calisthenics. He had his back to me, hadn’t seen me enter. I wondered what had ensued after he’d fled from me last night.

Abruptly, Ringus stopped exercising and gave a long whistle. The servitors began hurling themselves over, under, and along the assorted gymnasium equipment at his signal.

First, they leapt onto and raced across a waist-high narrow bar, then leapt off the bar with a somersault. Upon landing, they snatched up one or more of the many goading tools scattered about the ground, and, while dodging around and whacking a series of tall, straw-wrapped pylons, they antagonized and hindered one another with their tools.

The action during this obstacle race grew quite fierce, shields, lances, capes, and bludgeons all swirled and stabbed with malevolent vim. Grunts and the occasional cry of pain peppered the air.

Upon completing eight circuits of the sparring obstacle course, the servitors then sprinted back to the balance bar, dropped their weapons about its base, and hurled themselves at a domed structure.

Twelve feet high and constructed of steam-bent bamboo, the hide-covered dome clearly represented the back of a dragon. The aim was to vault directly onto the bamboo dragon’s back, using its nearest hind leg as a springboard to flip oneself up onto the dorsum, whereupon one tossed oneself off the other side with a half twist, to land facing the opposite flank of the beast.

At that point, Ringus dodged in and out under the dragon’s scrotal sac, an impertinent bulge I thought surely more prominent than that of a real bull, though I couldn’t be sure, as the only male dragons I’d seen had been the senile kuneus of Convent Tieron; the testes and penile forks of
those
beasts had been as withered as their infirm wings.

Each time Ringus darted toward the bull’s testes, he spread his arms wide, embraced as much of the scrotal sac as he could, and rubbed his torso and hips against the bulge as if trying to scribe circles upon the thing.

I flushed furiously.

This was the ignoble part of an apprentice’s duties, the part children giggled over and women sniggered about, and the moment in Arena when men lustily roared their approval and their lewd taunts. This was where we apprentices used our hands and bodies to bring the bull to full penile arousal. This was when we became Temple’s dragonwhores.

Understand, a bull only achieves erection during shinchiwouk, display and combat with another bull dragon. But due to the scarcity of bulls, no Clutch lord wanted to risk his prized bull in such a conflict. Thus Abbasin Shinchiwouk, oft called Arena, was created. This, then, is what I knew of Arena at the time:

Situated on the outskirts of Fwendar ki Bol, Village of the Eggs, Arena was both a place and an event. Each year, for eight days, the bull dragons of every Clutch in Malacar underwent shinchiwouk in an enormous Temple stadium. Many wagers were laid concerning how long it would take the dragonmaster apprentices of each Clutch to arouse their bull, how many apprentices would die in the process, and how many female dragons each bull would mount once aroused. The bloody, ribald spectacle was attended by the elite from both Malacar and the Archipelago. The lower stands of Arena, nearest the action, were always filled to capacity by rishi, Xxelteker sailors, and lower-class merchants. The status, wealth, and political standing of each Clutch was determined annually at Arena. Half a dragonmaster’s apprentices never left its bloody grounds.

During shinchiwouk in the wild, much butting of domed head against flank and scrotum takes place between bulls, with the intent, of course, of driving away one’s competitor. The few extant accounts of shinchiwouk sightings in the jungle all state that the weaker bull withdraws before real damage occurs. All that physical stimulation of the testes, combined with the excitement of battle and the odor exuded by the female dragons witnessing the conflict, causes a bull to achieve erection. Remove even one of those elements from shinchiwouk—butting of the scrotal sac, battle lust, or the scent of gathered female dragons—and a bull is unable to mate.

For shinchiwouk to be successfully re-created in Arena, then, a dragonmaster apprentice must incite battle lust in a bull while stimulating the bull’s testes. The young female dragons witnessing the mock battle behind a series of huge iron gates exude the necessary pheromones.

Flushing from the roots of my hair to my toes, I looked away from Ringus as he continued his vigorous, full-body manipulation of the bamboo dragon’s scrotum.

There were more stations on the vebalu course; I just couldn’t see them clearly, my view obstructed by target pillars, bamboo dragon, and whirling bodies. But this much was obvious: Vebalu training would be intense and exhaustive.

After leaping several times over the bamboo bull, Ringus came to stand before us inductees. His skin gleamed with perspiration and his lean chest heaved deeply and easily; he looked bright-eyed and exuberant. He was good at vebalu, very good. No doubt he’d be granted veteran status soon.

His eyes fell upon me.

He stopped still. Paled. Shot a look toward the wrestlers, where Eidon trained. Ringus’s larynx jogged up and down a few times, then he turned stiffly back to face us, avoiding my eyes, his exuberance gone. Clearly, he
had
told Eidon of what had occurred last night.

Anger flooded me, swift and thin, and then was gone. In its wake, I realized I’d expected as much. I’d now have to find a way to use Ringus’s fear of me to my advantage.

“On your feet,” Ringus cried at us inductees. “Do as I do and don’t fall behind, or Egg’ll beat you.”

Standing scowling to one side like a gandi, a herder, Egg thwacked a leather baton into one meaty palm. We all flinched. A sloppy grin broke through Egg’s frown and a chortle of delight escaped him before he could pull his somber mask back into place.

“Like this, keep up, follow me,” Ringus shouted, and he began leaping high into the air to briefly grab his heels before landing again.

Venom-charged, I felt as agile as a jungle cat, my muscles like coiled springs. I kept my eyes on Ringus and matched his every move. Then I began trying to speed up the pace, press him into a competition, and sure enough, aware of me from the periphery of his gaze, he accelerated his pace to keep even with mine.

I accelerated my pace further, leaping so fast my toes only grazed the ground with each landing. Ringus matched me leap for leap.

Soon the inductees on either side of me were falling, gasping, wheezing, our ranks in chaos. Egg charged from inductee to inductee, bellowing and thwacking his baton with abandon, a harried look on his swarthy face.

“Stand up! What’s wrong with you? Jump, jump, all together!” He threw his baton to one side with an aggrieved roar, grasped a young boy about the waist, and hoisted him over and over into the air.

“In time with Ringus!” he bellowed. “Jump. Jump. Jump!”

I kept pace effortlessly with Ringus, whose eyes were now locked upon mine. We were in an open contest, one that he was clearly determined to win. Soon all the inductees collapsed in a chest-heaving heap about us. Egg quit badgering them to watch us in amazement, his jaw slack.

My lungs began to burn, as if the air were turning into thick, hot blood in my throat. My vision began to swim. But I would not give up. Not yet.

Ringus, too, was struggling. Although he had the advantage of years of training, I had the advantage of the dragonmaster’s venom draft soaring through my limbs. Both of us were failing badly, though, jumping no longer swiftly or gracefully, but as if stones were tied to our ankles.

After a clawful more lung-burning leaps, I decided I’d pushed Ringus far enough. That he’d been willing at all to engage in a contest of wills after witnessing my unnatural rapport with a haunt the night previous garnered my respect for him. If I wanted to restore his sense of worth before me and earn
his
respect—and possibly his alliance—I needed to gracefully lose this challenge I’d lured him into.

So, with a shuddering wheeze that wasn’t at all feigned, I collapsed upon the ground. After a few more leaps, just to prove his win fair, Ringus likewise stopped.

While he and I heaved for air like hooked fish, Egg pulled his wits together.

“That’s enough warmin’ up, hey-o,” he muttered, thoroughly disgruntled. “ ’S not normal.”

He gestured at the inductees and took his unease out on them. “Sit up, sit up, get yourselves ready for the next part! You’re going to learn your weapons now, an’ I want you all to pay close attention.”

While the veterans began target practice with bullwhips, the servitors gathered in one corner of the gymnasium to practice drills with capes, bludgeons, hooked nets, and staffs capped by great, bulbous knobs. Poliars, Egg called these, as he explained the different goading tools to us.