Dragon Racers: The Complete Trilogy, page 37
Sharrah let out a scream of rage and frustration, but her terrifying grandfather was already fading back into a million fragments of light.
“No need to worry about giving Lady Pykefish her spectacle now, is there?” Anshi jested from beside her.
“I guess not,” Sharrah looked at him with tears streaming down her face. “What should I do? I’ve sworn a hundred times, if I race I will win no matter the cost.”
“Do what he would want you to do.” Anshi shrugged, his dark eyeballs brimming and glossy as well. “Win and end our father’s suffering.”
Part VII - Race of the Dead
Chapter Forty - One
Sharrah had to give it to Queen Vydak. For a few moments, when her grandfather was thundering down words from above her, she looked like she wouldn’t recover.
The Queen of Maipan stood, shrugged out of her fancy pastel frilled cloak, smoothed her stunning bejeweled dress, and resumed the start of the race, as if nothing occurred. Whatever spell was making her voice carry over the din still had its effect and, as she resumed, the murmurs of fear and uncertainty shifted back into an exited roar. Not so much unlike they mindless fae, Sharrah thought. Here were thousands of humans, all letting fear of death amplify their desire to witness mayhem in the sky.
Queen Vydak met her eyes and gave Sharrah a long look. Sharrah thought she might see wrath there, or something dark, for bringing the likes of King Grayscon to her doorstep, but that wasn’t it.
Sharrah saw a look she’d seen a thousand times before. Her father had it; Hen Huai, Sir Deren, and Meifeng, too. She’d seen the look in Kin’s eyes for first time just recently, when he tried to apologize for savoring the glory of being a winner. It was the look of a racer’s sorrow.
There was always a price for victory. The queen knew this wasn’t what Sharrah expected, and maybe the look was her showing bit of pity for the tragic turn of circumstances.
Something struck Sharrah then. Was all her grandfather doing enjoying the spoils? He was cruel no doubt, unnecessarily so. But he’d earned his power by winning.
No, Sharrah shook her head. One could be a winner and not steal the hope from others. Her grandfather had a sickness. Somewhere along the way he’d stopped being a king and become a conqueror. Sharrah had hoped to win the chalice and make her father proud. Instead, if she won Grayscon would kill him. Worse, what was causing the head sized block of ice to fill her guts, was the fact that she had no intention of losing.
Anshi was right. Her father would want her to win. That is what would make him proud. She wanted to win, but could she? Could she win knowing his life would end because of it?
Under her, she felt Azure shiver from snout to tail. He was ready, and when teams of men came to help the steam trucks take the flatbeds away, Sharrah realized they had been hauled right to the start.
“You can’t just fly in front of them, dear.” Meifeng called up. “Use those mirrors. Do not mingle with Kin. Think about your father’s book. Use everything you can.”
“Here, guards,” from Azure’s back Sharrah waved some of the men she’d seen with Tink, over. “Escort her to our sponsored box, please.” Sharrah pointed over at Soot.
King Travvingto II was there yelling at Anshi and waving his arms around. Sharrah couldn’t make out specifics, but understood the petulant boy was berating, and disrespecting him. It was a shame how the power of a kingdom had fallen into such an ignorant petty human. “I do not want to temp that—that—“
“Understood,” one the men said. The whole squad gave Travvingto a look of contemp. They must have already been humiliated by him. “Come, Lady Meifeng.” The guard was chivalrous and the rest of his men formed a protective ring around her friend.
“Our coins are on you,” one of the men said. “Timo said you told our queen to bet her kingdom on you.”
Sharrah nodded. “Take care of my friend, and don’t any of you dare forget the blood price of the profit you collect this day.”
The man paled, but nodded his head. When he looked away, Sharrah felt the same sort of power over him as she had the gnomes who’d come from Emperia Radosta.
A race announcer, one of the voices she remembered from the wild wing events she attended, was calling out instructions. Sharrah was amazed by the numbers of people lining every one of the evenly spaced terraces going up the pyramid. She was glad Azure was listening to the commands and moving them around to get positioned correctly. She found her eyes following King Travvingto II’s procession through the crowd away from Anshi. He and his group went up to a wide platform level about a third of the way up from the pyramid’s base.
The announcer was naming the racers and their dragons. Sharrah resituated her goggles and forced his voice and the crowd noise out of her mind.
Are you ready, old man? She thought to Azure.
Yesss, little one. Azure hissed back. Bootlocksss?
I’ve been locked in since the parade started.
Master Luuminsss?
His fate is his own, Sharrah said coldly. She wasn’t nearly as confident as her mental-self sounded, though.
Yesss, Azure acknowledged as he crouched for the start. There was a hint of sadness in his tone. Loops.
Sharrah leaned forward and put her hands through the straps on each side of the saddle. She put her chin out and saw in her mirror that the gnomish-looking woman on the red had King Grayscon’s emblem etched in the top shoulder of her armor. Her fire wyrm was right behind Azure. When she saw Sharrah looking at her, she grinned.
Sharrah felt something then. A wave of heat washed over her from afar.
Sizzle and Scorch reached her mind. Flame was helping them. Fear not the dragon fire, a motherly female voice hissed through Sharrah’s skull. The warmth that assailed her penetrated right to her core. Bonded, we have become.
Sharrah felt something else as well. She sensed the Qilin moving through the portal. It was an alarming realization.
When Azure leapt into flight her arms were nearly yanked out of their sockets, because she wasn’t paying attention. She had no idea what the Qilin was doing, and found the distraction was too much.
We will see about it, Flame assured her. Winsss.
Shaking away her confusion, Sharrah tilted her head to the side and watched off to her right as the other dragons surged and fall away, then surged and fall away again. Only when Azure’s powerful wing strokes started double and triple pumping, did she put her head forward and check what was behind her.
Oddly she focused on the little lightning bolt branded in the saddle between the mirrors. Azure grunted and rolled sideways. A jet of fire that might have burnt him and her both, missed. Then, she found her mirrors and saw Azure’s tail crack across the red wyrm’s snout, splitting one of its eyes wide open.
Looking up, Mala was right in front of Azure, and Sharrah urged her mighty blue scaled mount to draw in breath. She’d warned Kin Kuul not to get in her way, yet here he was. It was time to give him something for his own good, something that would allow her to finish without having to worry about him anymore today.
“How can you win knowing he will kill Master Luumin?” Kin Kuul yelled. His face was torn and covered in sweat and tears. “How can you?”
With that Azure followed Sharrah’s will and unleashed a gout of liquid lightning across Mala’s rump. When she bucked from the pain, Azure snapped at her tail, and she went rolling into an uncontrolled dive toward the crowd below.
Chapter Forty - Two
Somehow Mala recovered, and was back in the race three or maybe four lengths behind Azure, now struggling with a pack of the wild wingers. Sharrah couldn’t see the red scaled wyrm, but sensed it was near. They were starting into the first turn, a slow banking curve, but Azure made his body rigid and began making subtle three undulation bursts that accelerated them one, two, then three lengths ahead of the others. Sharrah’s head and neck were at the breaking point, but it didn’t matter. If these wyrms couldn’t beat her through a left hand turn, they were as good as done in the next.
Azure didn’t slow his pace, even though he could have. Sharrah couldn’t see anyone behind her until she and then they, were out of the turn. When she saw, she had to keep her heart in check. In her mirrors, Mala and a red, either Shimmer or the one Grayscon’s gnome was riding, were fighting neck in neck. There was a yellow wyrm striped down its spine with light green splotches, and when it looked like it was alongside Anshi, Soot banked into it.
It must have been Shimmer squabbling with Kin Kuul, because Azure sent a sharp warning through Sharrah’s whole being. When she lifted her eyes, the angry red wyrm with the tail gashed head, and the gnomish assassin, were hovering before them in the middle of the air.
Azure was forced to draw up, and lift over them. The fae woman gave a snarl and slung a small crossbow around right as Azure slid past. The bolt was aimed and loosed and Sharrah watched it streak headlong at her exposed ribs. The tip never touched her where it should have, though. Instead, she felt the wood and metal absorb into the spell she forgot she’d cast earlier.
She was relieved to not be shafted, but her mount had lost quite a bit of momentum. Here they were passing the pyramid, the halfway point of the race, and there were four wyrms nipping and jostling for position in the sky right behind them.
Metallic spew from the left, Sharrah thought. Full roll in.
Yesss, Azure did as she intended. When it came to maneuvering, the big blue scaled racer picked up more than her words. Sharrah’s intention, what she thought, what she saw and heard, it all had a part in guiding him.
Strangely Soot and the green striped dragon went spinning away. Sharrah had to lift her head and look back over her shoulder. Anshi had one hand held high. It was full of blue glowing energy.
His big black wyrm had its maw clamped on the head of the yellow dragon, and they were spinning slowly as they fell toward the pyramid. Looking at their trajectory, Sharrah saw they were probably going to crash into one of lower terraces.
Banking back to the right now, as she entered the final turn, Sharrah was aware no one was going to catch her. Azure was going so fast the world was a blur. The only thing that could keep her from winning was her.
Kin Kuul’s pleading face asking her why, formed in her mind’s eye. She winced and bit back her tears. If she won, her father would die. It was unbearable to think about. I can’t do it. I can’t condemn him to certain death.
She urged Azure to stop his undulating. He did, but only for a moment. A feeling of intent washed over her and her mount. Then they were coming out of the last turn, still alone in the lead. Up ahead by the finish, King Grayscon and his icy white dragon were hovering above the pyramid in their stormy purple cloud. He had her father clutched by the neck in one fist. A crackling blue ray was arcing out of his other hand. The gnomish assassin and her wounded red wyrm were being charred to cinders by Grayscon’s evil magic even as they fell from the sky into a crowded lane.
A glance in her mirrors told her Mala, Vontor, and Shimmer were struggling out of the turn. None of them could catch her.
Sharrah saw Anshi banking. No longer part of the race, he was coming around to face her and Azure as they sped toward the finish.
The green and yellow dragon was sprawled across a terrace. Sharrah realized it was where King Travvingto II had been, and then she took her father in, for it was his magic that had overridden her call for Azure to slow. It was his magic that was drawing her attention even now.
You must win and not look back, Sharrah. His mental voice was strained. Win and ascend.
But I can’t just let him kill you! There has to be another way.
Yesss, Azure agreed with her.
It is my time. His voice was fading. You’ve made me proud, Sharrah. Now be true to yourself and win.
I’m so sorry, father.
Yess, Azure responded to his command and bolted that much faster toward the finish.
Sharrah dared to stare King Grayscon down as she shot past the finish a full five lengths ahead of the next group of racers. He was hovering in the same sort of stormy purple sky as he had been before and Sharrah wondered where he was. What sort of spell was he using? Anything, to distract her mind from what was about to come.
Azure slowed and banked after they won. Sharrah wanted to keep her eyes on the racers and more importantly her grandfather. Part of her hoped he would spare her father, but deep down she knew it wasn’t to be.
She was just in time to see Kin Kuul and Mala get slightly scorched by Shimmer, and then dodge a blast of charged yellow fluid from Vontor and his blue scaled mount. Kin rolled left, no he faked left and then went right. Pavril was nearly unseated when Shimmer bucked over a hump of disrupted air caused by Mala’s bigger wings. The red ended up flailing off course.
Kin brought Mala back around above Pavril. Then Mala dove sharply, making a quick snap at the back of Shimmer’s neck. After that, Mala burst ahead and Kin came streaking across the finish with Vontor just a half-length behind and beside him.
Below, Pavril and Shimmer crashed into the cheering crowd. And then the last few racers crossed the finish.
Anshi eased Soot up to a hover not far from Sharrah and Azure. King Grayscon’s glowing blue eyes seemed to be taking them in. His face, what she could see of it, conveyed a strange mixture of anger and pride.
“Yes, Sharrah Skyborn,” the King of the Spoils laughed deeply. His voice was loud and carried across the considerable space between them. “You have winner’s blood in those veins, after all. Say goodbye to this wretch, then prepare to race me before the gods!” He gave a slight head bow. “Blessed be your Day of Death.”
With that he clenched closed his grip and snapped Luumin’s neck.
“You’re a fool, grandfather.” Sharrah tried to fight back the tears spilling down her face. “Not only have you over reached your welcome by invading Deggari, but in all your spite and glory mongering, all of this popping in with dramatic storms.” Sharrah threw her arms out. “You and your turkey winged buzzards forgot about the Qilin.”
His cocky stance shifted and he leaned forward in Glacia’s saddle as if he was trying to make sure he didn’t miss Sharrah’s next words.
“That’s right,” Sharrah snarled back at the foul tyrant who’d just ended her father’s life. “While the fabric of all things has been stretched thin on this magical eve the Qilin paid Xuanpu a visit. A great shift in power is coming and there is naught you can do to stop it now.”
King Grayscon dropped Luumin’s body and seethed. He stared at Sharrah for a few moments then cocked his head like he just had an idea. He and his purple clouds disappeared so swiftly a few of his Icari were left behind. The sound of his thunder was quickly replaced by cheers and savage wonder.
Come, sister. Anshi said. Claim your chalice, and let us be off.
The chalice presentation isn’t until the morrow. Sharrah said through a flood of tears. My father’s body-- Meifeng is down ther— but they were no longer in the sky above Piktalla.
Anshi’s magic had taken them away.
Chapter Forty - Three
Sharrah felt the Qilin. It was pulsing with all the Otherworld essence it absorbed when it trekked through the Freemarket in the heart of the Dregs. Sharrah, relieved her brother had taken them some place familiar, reached out to it with her mind. The silver scaled ox was only in Xuanpu moments, it thought back to her excitedly. Just long enough to flash its glorious horn for the fae. Those who saw it were suddenly a little less influenced by the sway of the masses. The Qilin was hopeful for them.
Azure was gliding them down over a section of dense forest. It was dark and Sharrah was still frantically worried for Meifeng, and maybe even for Kin a little. She hated to burst the bubble of joy the Qilin was basking in, but she had no choice.
My father is dead, Sharrah thought. I sensed you passing in and out of Xuanpu.
It was his time, the Qilin responded, not so much in a voice, but more as a feeling.
Azure back flapped them down into a clearing hidden deep in a crooked valley. Her thoughts were so caught up with the Qilin’s Sharrah was barely aware they were landing.
Sharrah replayed the race with her mind and the feel of the whole area, the aura and air of hope that prevailed just moments before was both lifted to a new level of anxiousness, because she’d won, but then deflated when her father was killed.
Sadness swept over her, and the now hundreds, maybe thousands of fae protecting the Qilin looked to be feeling it too. Even the Qilin changed its demeanor and mumbled a hopeful thought for Captain Skyborn. After that the mood grew solemn.
Soot landed beside Azure and Sharrah looked to Anshi. “Meifeng is back there alone.” She looked around at all the fae staring at them through the trees. There were dozens of gnomes and goblins gathered in the tree line, scores of them, really. Some had even climbed up into the higher branches. “I hope they aren’t waiting for me to tell them what to do. We shouldn’t be here, Anshi,” Sharrah shook her head. “He will find all of them because of us. I can’t be the cause of anymore death.”
Sharrah fought back her sadness. She found Anshi there, not physically, but still there, with his arm around her shoulders comforting her. His ability was as strong, possibly stronger than their father’s.
“You did not kill him, Sharrah.” The form comforting her whispered close beside her ear while she also heard Anshi saying the same words in uncanny unison from Soot’s scaled neck. “Gax Grayscon killed him. Do not ever forget that.”
He was right, Sharrah decided.
She was glad when thunder rumbled and rain started to fall. Azure loved the lightning, and though the air was chilled, the raindrops were fat and warm. Sharrah climbed off of her dragon and used her spells to remove his saddle. Soon the whole valley was hidden in a damp misty fog. She encouraged her blue scaled friend to stay close, but doubted a storm dragon dancing with a front would draw any attention this far away from everything.
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