Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 134
The Immadian Princess eventually accepted a simple Herimor dress to cover her nudity; due to her height, it hung scandalously short. Someone pressed a man’s trousers upon her, but she had to knot the belt to prevent them falling off, for the belt could almost fit twice about her scant waist. She had to eat more. This storm was burning her up from the inside. And as she moved among the people, Aranya noticed them making a certain strange sign, pressing the splayed fingers of their left hand to the chest as the right hand made a swirling, outward-flowing genuflection starting at the heart. They held babies up to be blessed and children approached to touch an arm, a leg, even just her hair. How could she refuse? Even if unadulterated worship … itched. Madly.
Toward afternoon, Aranya took a meal of spicy Herimor breads and unfamiliar fruits with Human-Huari, Gang and Brityx. They talked strategy. Huari had summoned all the Marshals within a three hundred-league radius to a council of war, and sent messages to many more. Her army gathered. On the Eastern front, they already fought Thoralian’s legions, trying to ensure the safety of their people. Here at the fortress, they were not cleaning up save for placing bodies upon funeral pyres. They were preparing to ride to war.
Aranya shared her vision of the First Egg’s location; her companions immediately exchanged significant glances and Huaricithe said, “Easily identified, impossible to reach. That heptagonal Island-Cluster is unique in Herimor. It’s called the Inscrutables, and it is protected by the most powerful and unique Dragon-magic shield known to our kind. It has never been penetrated, not in six hundred years.”
The Cluster, it was said, had formed around the time of Hualiama Dragonfriend. Her Amethyst Dragoness stirred in the aether. That’s our place. Destiny’s Dragonsong.
“Well, that’s where we must fight Thoralian,” Aranya said firmly.
Gang threw her a longsuffering look.
The Immadian added, “I must clarify, Thoralian will want me there – yet I must go. You have your own battles; don’t feel that you have to fight mine for –”
“You shut the hells up!” Gangurtharr exploded, making Aranya fumble her bread and knock over a goblet of water.
“Gang!” gasped Huaricithe.
“What?”
“Be polite to the Star Dragoness.”
“Very well,” he said acidly. “With respect, your Celestial Majesty, I humbly refuse to be fobbed off by some irrepressible chit of a Star Dragoness when the most important battle in six hundred years is looming, and what, by Fra’anior’s paws, do you think you’re going to accomplish on your own, flying through hostile territory, when there are friends here willing to give their very wings for you? So you can tie that idiotic idea in knots and shove it right up –”
“Gang!” roared Huaricithe.
WHAT?
The Marshal eyeballed him, heat for heat, fire for fire. Slowly, the enormous Dragon’s fires receded to a muted roar. No, the heat had not reduced. Aranya saw a different fire emerging between them.
Flushing slightly, Huari said, “You’re such a Dragon.”
“And you, as a woman …” His eyes bulged. “What is this? I’m a good Dragon! Well, not a good one, but try to live with white-fires. Now, I’m finding Human hide … desirable. It is wrong! And your abnormal hair, Star Dragoness –” He choked on an expletive.
Aranya moved to stand beside her relative, gazing up into Gangurtharr’s bewildered eyes. “Uh, is now a good time to explain that my tears can turn people into Dragons, and possibly, Dragons into Shapeshifters?” Smoke belched out of Gang’s nostrils. Awkwardly, she added, “That’s why you’re having these unaccustomed feelings regarding Humans. My tears also heal in unexpected ways. I’m sorry, but all these people and Dragons who drank of my tears yesterday …”
Huaricithe breathed, “All those mortal wounds you healed?”
“Shapeshifters?” echoed Gang.
“Sorry? Aranya, you saved their lives,” Brityx growled. “Should we regret wings to bear us up in renewed life? Now, that old Marshal’s trembling in his mangy hide. Little ones, we’ve a battle ahead. Gang, you need to keep any further assassins at bay. Huari, you speak to the incoming Marshals. I’ll speak to our people and the Dragonkind.”
“We gave to hundreds …” Aranya’s voice trailed off. Shihooyi had claimed to see starlight in their flesh. A child’s truth once more. “Assassins?”
“During the night. Two Dragons, one Phase-Shifter and a Scorpiolute,” Gangurtharr said briskly. “I’ll oversee security – upon your word, Marshal.”
“Granted.”
“You will obey my instructions implicitly, Scrap.” Gang’s heavy talon tapped her shoulder with a staggering, no-nonsense air. “Understood?”
She wagged an eyebrow at him.
The huge Dragon snarled, with palpable relish, “Let’s clear the air about one matter, o former fodder of the Pits. Not every Dragon around here feels compelled to worship your scrawny, undersized haunches, alright?”
She laughed so hard, the scar on her stomach twinged. Oh, it was good to have the old Gang back.
* * * *
Leandrial traced a long curve on her mental map. “This is where the Balance-trail of Aranya’s Storm power leads us, down toward the Straits of Hordazar. Here, around these archipelagos, there’s a disturbance indicating great magic at work.”
“Got you, Aranya!” Zip said.
“I warn you, Thoralian will know this as well,” the Land Dragoness stated flatly.
Zuziana touched her belly. Leandrial said she had scented urzul, but it was either hidden so well or now absent … she must assume the worst. She could not tell anyone, not even her own husband, or the urzul would emerge to contaminate her babies. Thoralian’s vile plan had purpose and forethought.
Trapped.
“Then what are we waiting for?” asked Ri’arion.
Rapidly, they reformed their group and descended beneath the Cloudlands, angling for the minor Shuk-Shuhukii current, and the realms of the great Land Dragons East of the Straits of Hordazar. Shell-Clan. Welkin-Runners. Thousands of Land Dragons were already locked in battle in the Southern Kahilate, according to the intelligence Leandrial had gathered, and the Strait itself was blockaded by a division of Thoralian’s Lesser Dragons. They could use subterfuge again, or …
“Why don’t we raise our own army, Leandrial?” Zip said.
The monk said, “Why?”
Zip said, “Because there’s only one sure way to pick up Aranya and reach the Inscrutables quickly and reliably. Under the Cloudlands. Fast.”
“Why?” he repeated.
“Time’s against us, leopard-man,” said Zip, aware from his half-smile that Ri’arion was testing his wife – a hazardous pursuit, her Dragonesque smile informed him. “It’s clear these armies and the Thoralians are converging on the First Egg. We need to move in force. Leandrial said that most Land Dragons in Wyldaroon are not infested by Theadurial. But if we’re held up fighting Thoralian here, then we’ll be too depleted to face him further ahead. Leandrial, as an Elder, can issue the call.”
“Smuggle a Star Dragoness around the Island-World?” In the semidarkness of Leandrial’s mouth, Tari’s fangs gleamed a brilliant white. “And shift an entire Dragon army through the Straits beneath the Cloudlands, if this Marshal Huaricithe will join us? The idea has merit.”
“A brilliant strategic move,” said Leandrial, unexpectedly effusive. “Once we reach the middle layers, I will initiate longwave communication. Now is the time for Land Dragons to rise and fight!”
Then, they dived in search of the current, deep into an area of darkness below Wyldaroon. Soon the great Island-forests surrounded them, where myriad Islands floated below the Cloudlands, anchored by the great flat-bladed khaki forests through which the Shuk-Shuhukii ran as if guided along endless, winding hallways demarcated by nodules for Islands and sprawling nets of vegetation stretching in every dimension. Great Hammer-Runners and Serpent-Clan Dragons inhabited the forests in enormous numbers, appearing periodically to query the intruders; each time, Leandrial’s explanation flummoxed and enraged them, positively, as the Land Dragons responded to confirmation of the plight of their Eastern kin.
Querulous Dragonsong began to swell for tens and hundreds of leagues about the deep-swimming Dragon army, like the rippling effect of Islands dropped into the Cloudlands. Soon, the gloomy halls alongside and behind were rife with the snaking, luminous orange Serpent-Clan and the mighty Hammer-Runners, whose heads were broader and harder than Leandrial’s, shaped almost exactly like the business end of the Sylakian war-hammers Zuziana remembered all too well, with a mouth of legendary, crushing power running the full width of the hammer portion of their heads.
A full twenty-six hours the Land Dragons ran and swam and sang, until they approached the area where Leandrial had identified the magical disturbance at the fortress of Marshal Huaricithe, Aranya’s owner at best, and captor at worst.
“Go aloft and secure the Amethyst by any means,” was the sum total of Leandrial’s instructions for her companions. “I will rally the Land Dragons. If you need help, call.”
Call and Leandrial would raze the fortress. The Azure Dragoness smiled grimly at her monk. Aye.
Zuziana launched out of the Dragoness’ mouth with Ri’arion upon her back and Tari’s Dragonwing gathered in close array. From three leagues’ depth they winged upward, first passing through the dense, tangled forests that linked the floating Islands in great rafts of vegetation, avoiding or shielding from the numerous eel-like predators, any one of which could have snaffled her up like a bird supping on a tasty insect. Then, the expansiveness of the deeps surrounded them, a brilliant blue-in-blue ocean apparently without end. Still they soared, taking care for decompression and detouring around the flotillas of sub-intelligent, flora-like Land Dragons that floated peaceably in their native realm, harvesting the bioluminescent bacteria and microscopic life-forms with long, sweeping strokes of their tentacle-nets, and speaking to one another in a language of gorgeous flowers that opened, closed and waved along their lengths.
Leaving the flower-Dragons behind, they ascended directly, passing through the acidic wash of the opaque clouds and into the upper realm of Wyldaroon, shielding with every artifice known to Herimor Dragons. Tari did not know this area well, so it took them several hours to locate Marshal Huaricithe’s well-disguised fortress-complex amongst the Archipelagos floating between three and seven miles above the Cloudlands. Again, the characteristic tangled masses of Islands first roped together by ragions, then literally grown together, caused confusion as they attempted to navigate the extremely busy airspace without being detected.
So many Lesser Dragons on the move, Ri’arion wondered.
There’s been a major battle here, Tux’tarax added, pointing at blast-points on the side of a reddish sandstone Island. Fireballs. There, foliage destroyed by acid. Yet Leandrial gave an indication that Thoralian lurked further East –
Pressuring these Dragons to essay the trap waiting in the Straits of Hordazar, Ri’arion realised. Thoralian plays his strategy. Above the Cloudlands or below, it’s all the same to him.
Tari the Green purred, You even think like a Dragon. It’s uncanny.
Blame it on the gorgeous flying rug, he teased.
Testily, Zuziana said, It’s like before. Everyone wants a bite of Aranya. She rubbed her forepaws together. This smells of armies gathering. Why don’t we just fly in and introduce ourselves, Ri’arion?
Because this Navy-Blue, Huaricithe, might just conscript Aranya’s luckless friends, too?
Then I will.
Not without your Rider, Ri’arion growled.
Ooh, Mister Monk, is it you stirring my fires up there?
He chuckled softly. I’ll do more than stir your fires, you wretch, if you plan to leave me behind again.
Tari said, Alright, soul-bound lovers, let’s touch wingtips with this delegation.
And with that, the Green Shapeshifter unshielded and winged off between the Islands, calling out a friendly greeting.
Shortly, their relatively small Dragonwing tucked in behind the larger and much grander train of Marshal Guragiirr, a Yellow male of suitably impressive dimensions and bearing. They weaved between Islands overrun by a pernicious creeping vine with poisonous lavender flowers, apparently toxic even to Dragons, before crossing an open space patrolled by more Lesser Dragons than Zuziana had ever seen gathered in one place at one time. The level of scrutiny increased, but so did their surprise. Everyone seemed to know about Aranya the Assassin. Everyone expected to find this monumental champion at Huaricithe’s fortress; others whispered about the rumoured advent of a Star Dragoness, talking about her in whispers, with the greatest reverence. Only she could destroy Thoralian, they said.
Shortly, they arrived at a tangled Archipelago more battered than most, finding Huaricithe’s fortress firmly on a war footing. After a further two hours of questions and barriers and guards and suspicion later, Zuziana the Azure was a pregnant, vastly annoyed and therefore decidedly dangerous Dragoness.
“I’m her best friend, from Remoy. That’s North of the Rift,” she growled at the huge bruiser confronting her, Gangurtharr by name.
“I’m a purple-headed slug passing as an S’gulzzi, robed in gossamer and starlight,” he agreed.
“If you’d just mention my name –”
“For the freaking twentieth time, Azure, the answer is ‘no’,” growled Gang. “I don’t care for pretty, whirling fire-eyes. I don’t care if your shell-uncle owns the suns. You’re only the sixty-first creature to request an audience with Her Worshipful Highness today, not counting the assassins who have a different type of audience in mind. No means no. And you can tell your bald-headed brolga-brain over there to stop trying to probe my mind.”
Ri’arion folded his arms stiffly. “We’ll just call Aranya.”
Gangurtharr flexed his oddly burgundy-tinged scales, suddenly transformed from a chunky middle-aged beast into a dangerous, muscled predator. Zuziana realised how very strong he likely was, and shelved her ideas of trying to trick him or nip past his forbidding bulk. He said, “Maybe I’ll just whistle down a moon. Aranya is shielded by ten Blue Dragons. And, she needs her sleep.”
“You haven’t fallen in love with her, have you?” Ri’arion asked conversationally.
Gang’s belly-fires ticked upward several notches. “No.”
“Or fallen under the spell of her power?”
“Listen closely, puny man,” snarled the Dragon, “before I sharpen my fangs on –”
Zip interjected, “I’m pregnant, Gangurtharr. Do I need to tell you how cantankerous a pregnant Dragoness can be?”
His gap-toothed grin widened. “Amply proven.”
GRRRAAAARRGGH!!
* * * *
Aranya swam up from a very peculiar dream of her Dragoness hugging Zuziana, wondering if she had heard her best friend speaking. Surely not. Impossible, or not impossible if she simply missed her so sorely, she was starting to imagine the dulcet tones of the oversized blue wasp?
Gang’s argumentative tones rumbled through the arboretum which had been given over to her as the only sleeping-space large enough for her to be entirely surrounded by Dragons, with enough space around her personal shield-troop for the Blues to deal with nasty specimens of Herimor life that specialised in assassination, such as the deadly poisonous, projectile-firing Scorpiolute that could climb sheer walls with its twelve insectoid legs, flatten its body into a one-inch gap, run faster than a furious Dragon and which possessed magical camouflage capabilities to boot. If that was not enough, she had just endured a spectacularly dull lecture by the Marshal’s scholars on expert Dragon-saboteurs and assassins, vipers, intelligent assassin spiders, poisons, toxic birds and flesh-mutilating insects, which framed their brief introduction to the more charming methods of murder, not to mention thousands of species of poisonous plants. On top of this toxic menagerie came sixteen major classes of Shapeshifters that specialised in the elimination of minor complications such as roving Star Dragons.
As if Thoralian did not present her complications enough for one lifetime!
Herimor was lethal.
Aranya wandered over to the arboretum’s self-contained waterfall, powered by steam, apparently, and scrubbed her face vigorously. Alright, back to –
GRRRAAAARRGGH!!
The wide crysglass panels vaulting above her head vibrated in their casements. Aranya whirled with a pained wheeze. That bellow! She’d know the Princess of Remoy’s soothing roar anywhere! She ran. How she ran, dodging beneath the trees and skimming over the flagstones! There, in the crack of light beneath Gang’s substantial belly, she spied a trim set of sky-blue paws! Aranya screamed, Zuziana!
Whang! The Immadian slammed face-first into the Blues’ shield and rebounded, crash-landing flat on her back.
“Islands’ sakes!” She tasted blood. “Gang – Zuziana! Let me out. Let her in!”
Mercy! Gangurtharr poked his muzzle through the doorway, goggling at her unravelled state. Aranya’s fingers returned from her forehead wet with blood. Great. Now she’d split another lesion, but what did she care? For Gang’s eyes bulged comically as the pointy skull-spikes of a certain Azure Dragoness inadvertently socked him firmly in the family treasures. Zip wriggled beneath his belly, causing Gang to thump his head on the wide lintel. His bellow was an ode to bruised machismo.
As the Blues around the arboretum responded, the Immadian escaped the shield and crashed to her knees, scramble-crawling beneath Gang’s chunky neck, throwing herself upon whatever she could reach of Zuziana, sobbing, exclaiming and howling the overflow of her riotous heart. Aranya found herself squeezed on top of the Azure Dragoness’ muzzle, hugging her with both arms and legs as she stared right into her friend’s effervescent, bubbling eyes. Dragon joy in rainbow colours! Human laughter! Love! A paw squeezed through to cup Aranya’s head and back tenderly, stroking her cheek as if Zip beheld her Immadian friend for the very first time. They chuckled in one accord.
