Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 157
Ri’arion whistled. “Wow. I’d hate to calculate the cost of feeding one of those.”
“Compared to a Dragoness?” sniffed Zuziana. “I’m ever so expensive. Royalty, my dear husband. We come with a price.”
“I’m a monk. Haven’t a brass dral to my name.”
“We can find ways for you to pay,” she continued mischievously, instantly turning Ri’arion’s bald pate into a passable rendition of smoking, purple prekki-fruit.
Carry on before Zuziana truly embarrasses him, Aranya, Leandrial suggested.
Setting down her chalk, the Immadian Princess laughed awkwardly. “I’m being stupid. Look at this.”
A second later, the steely gaze of the Azingloriax warrior pinned them all as Aranya projected her memory into the mental network. She adjusted the perspective, bringing the near four-foot breadth of his shoulders into focus, before panning backward to show everyone the extraordinary bulk of his plate metal armour. It had to be several inches thick, all over, but the joints appeared to be masterfully fashioned, and the size of the battle axe he wore at his belt beggared belief. Zip wondered aloud if that weapon alone weighed as much as her Human form. The image shifted, the harsh eyes softening as if they had alighted upon a most diverting vision – the watcher, she realised.
Zip giggled, “He’s got it bad.”
“What’s bad, love?” asked Ri’arion.
“That’s the face of a hopelessly besotted man, or I’m a purple dragonet with pink spots.”
The older Grey-Green Dragoness, Brityx, prodded Huari in the back with her sheathed left fore-talon. “Remember those eyes? Can’t for the fires in me recall his name, however.”
The tiny Shapeshifter wrinkled her nose, and then threw back her long navy blue hair with a surprisingly deep laugh. “It’s Sub-Commander Asturbar! Oh, it could be no other – he was promoted to Commander later, I believe. Asturbar’s a good man, besides being a very fine soldier.”
Gnarrr! Gang protested enviously.
Huari slipped both of her tiny hands around his massive right bicep, leaned against him, and cooed, “You are mine, mine and mine forever, Dragon. Do we understand each other?”
This time, the massive Shapeshifter managed only the tiniest of squeaks.
“Good,” Huari drawled. “Mind you, Gang, I think we might just have found you the wrestling partner you’ve been searching for – until we wrestle that Shadow Dragon back into our fold, that is. So, I see that in your image, Asturbar is wearing the badge of a Marshal of the Mistral Fires. The plot grows fangs and talons. What became of Marshal Chanbar, we might reasonably ask?”
“What does Azhukazi want out there?”
“Whatever it is – those Jewels for example – we can safely assume we’re in a race with the Thoralians to secure their power.”
“It’s a guess, but it’s looking like a safe one. My father would call that a strategy that scribes its own destiny.” Aranya paused. “Alright, you can all just stop shaking your heads, you rascals!” Yiisuriel, what say you regarding this discussion?
I am not hasty, unlike you little ones, she rumbled contentedly, but I say, ‘What? Are you still here?’ The Land Dragon guffawed massively at her own joke. Go seize the Balance, Star Dragoness. We slower-moving creatures will bring up the rear, and you can always converse with us via longwave communication. Given the probable distance as we discussed, homing in on the approximate region-origin-locative data, I suggest running ahead first with the noble Leandrial, then striking out with a small raiding party. These tiny fortresses are best penetrated by subterfuge, especially if you are dealing with House Wards.
Slower only in that you bear entire nations upon your back, noble Yiisuriel, Zip said stoutly.
I do indeed, little one.
Not exactly the paragon of modesty, was she? Zip grinned at Ri’arion, who shook his head slightly but winked to indicate that he understood her amusement.
Then, they broke up from the brief, intense conference with a flurry of eager chatter. Brityx declined to accompany them, saying that she had responsibilities to the younglings in her care. Gang pinched Huari’s behind when he thought himself unobserved, and Ri’arion chatted animatedly with Leandrial, working out speeds, vectors, and the amount of supporting equipment she and her Runners could carry in a pinch. Leandrial was set upon travelling light. Dragonwings strong enough to argue properly with two to five thousand Drakes at a time were no mean feat to transport, she noted, advocating a second wave to set out from the walking Land Dragons one to two hours after her departure. That would give the reassurance of quick backup within a few hours of arrival. Easier to conceal one Runner and a small crew than an entire expeditionary force.
Twenty minutes later Huari, Gang and Aranya unfurled their wings and dived off Yiisuriel’s peak, with Ri’arion riding the Amethyst Dragoness bareback. The proverbial journey of a thousand leagues lay before them, but it seemed to a Dragoness, all that was needful was to spread one’s wings upon a zephyr and fly away across moons-lit Cloudlands to realms beyond any fantasy.
Zuziana’s arms ached. Not that she had anything to ache, but they did.
Where was her Dragoness – oh, this was her Dragoness! How could Aranya have claimed to meet her inner presence? Was that a Star Dragoness privilege? Zip felt she was either one or the other.
And I love us, her Dragoness put in quietly. Sometimes I wonder where we found … well, where I came from.
The Amethyst said, There’s a view – widely considered blasphemy across Herimor and probably all across the North too – that all Humans bear fires within their souls. I cannot claim to understand the philosophical ramifications. These Southern Dragonkind talk about the ‘fire-gift’ of Hualiama Dragonfriend as if she merely breathed upon people or Dragons to arouse the Shapeshifter life within them. Clever trick, eh?
Being so vastly different from scattered teardrops turning people into Shapeshifters?
Silence.
Sorry about the sarcasm, but your brain does have the occasional attack of prekki-mushiness, petal.
Laughing, the Amethyst trimmed her wings and sped after Gang and Huari, pursuing the couple down toward a shimmering carpet of silver-chased Cloudlands billows.
At length she said, Are you saying I compare myself to others too much?
No, but you do tread in the paws of legends, which do have a way of being incredibly hard to live up to, given as we’ve no idea what portion of them might be true. Take this fire-gift business. Perhaps Hualiama was just a girl like you, overwhelmed by power and responsibility, so she just danced her way past all the worship and obeisances and general silliness that seems to accompany high position in these parts. Put another way, comparing yourself to Fra’anior, only the greatest Dragon who ever lived, is a bit like trying to fly over the Blue Moon.
Nothing like a best friend to reorient her in a way that Aranya recognised provided the perspective she may have mislaid.
She said, Ha. Maybe I will just fly to the Moons to prove you wrong.
Zuziana rolled her eyes. Honestly! Why do have you take everything as a challenge?
Why does everything have to be a jest with you?
Why does every dawn chase away the dark?
Why … The Amethyst Dragoness shook her skull spikes in amusement. Why are we arguing like this? It isn’t even a real argument.
Ah, the brass dral finally drops.
Pestiferous Remoy!
* * * *
Extra report.
Ardan raised his muzzle as the unexpected command disturbed what had been developing into a fine nap. Only his nostrils showed above the waterline of a bubbling hot-spring he had been enjoying, trying to work out a few of the kinks resulting from a dreary campaign before he would be forced to take to the air once more in an hour’s time. These Drakes needed a constant fiery eye kept upon them or they tended to lose interest – useless bone-gnawers!
Smugly, Prime said: I have heard from the Red Imperator, the mighty Dramagon himself. Let the triplicate know our labours are commendable. Our deeds weigh heavily in the mighty Scales of Eternity!
To his shock, the triplicate’s mental link rang with growls and bugles of triumph! The Shadow Dragon shook his head. What did this mean? Sloughing free of the heated, slightly bitter-tasting water, he prepared to listen to the rest of their customary exchange.
What he received was the mental equivalent of a right cross to the jaw from Prime. SHADOW! WHERE IS THE STAR?
Why, inside the great one’s peak, he returned at last, staggered by the unexpected attack.
Is she? Our spies reported she departed an hour ago. FIND HER!
I … still sense her presence, Masters. She rests in her chambers. The oath magic does not lie –
FOOL! DISCERN THE TRUTH!
Galvanised by humiliation and fury, Ardan smote the waters with a clap of his wings as he sprang a hundred feet into the air, all thoughts of bath time forgotten. That woman was a sneak! How dare she embarrass him like this? He would feast upon her bleeding liver!
Long did he search, only to learn that the Amethyst had vanished like the thinnest of clouds against a white-blue, blazing hot Western Isles sky. The oath-trace remained in place right there in the location they had pinpointed as her chambers, but so far failed to penetrate with any of their agents, thralls or assassins – but that trace pulsated his doom. The Thoralians knew she had absconded. A spy had chanced to see her flashing by as he returned from a scouting trip; the Dragoness had been headed East for reasons he did not understand.
Nonsensical!
High aloft, scanning the region with his every sense at the highest alert in an attempt to discover the magical aurora the Thoralians averred followed the flight of every Dragon, Ardan at last searched his intuition, and pieced together what he knew of her movements and character. The mission East must be a feint. The spy had seen wrong or been misled. So too, his cunning draconic brain noted, the unmoving trace showed no sign her restless life. Aranya would have woken, if only slightly, several times by now had she been napping. He would have known. That meant the oath-trace was also a cunning ruse.
Aranya was plotting, adapting, teasing advantage out of nothingness. Admiration warred with vitriolic malice in his breast. The shackles in his mind attempted to correct the restless nature of his musings, but he needed space to reason more widely than his usual straightforward logic. She was subtle. Wily. His lips peeled back from his bared fangs. A woman!
Ghastly pains racked his skull as the Dragon obdurately set himself to think her way. What would she be doing right now? Busting a talon to fool him, no doubt.
Thought seemed nigh impossible, but his experience with the oath magic and the Lavanias collar had hardened him. At length, the Dragon’s lidded gaze turned to the West. Why did she not want him to think she had headed in another direction? The exact opposite course seemed too obvious a choice; South, there was nothing but wastelands before the mountains. North? Perhaps. Rapidly, the Dragon plotted his search pattern to cover a wide sweep from almost directly North to five points South of due West, along the border of the area called the Doldrums. Aranya would not venture there. No point.
His grin reasserted itself, and this time, it was a study in cold, vengeful craving. He would track down that elusive girl and her chosen minions. It was only a matter of time, for there was more than one way to swing a scimitar, wasn’t there?
If he knew that chattering mob, they would be talking almost non-stop to home base. At some point, he would intercept their communication trail. Then, they would fall beneath his mighty paw.
He thundered, I AM SHA’ALDIOR!
* * * *
Leandrial ran along the bottom, following the seething, roaring torrent of an under-Cloudlands airstream run amok. It seemed inconceivable to Aranya that they should be running fifty to sixty percent faster than a Dragon could fly for sustained periods of time, unless they enjoyed the benefit of a Dragons’ Highway, but the current had picked up to a pell-mell twenty-three leagues per hour, Leandrial had calculated, putting her skills and great strength to the test. Aranya worried about their newly healed companion. Leandrial would hear nothing of it. Not only was the turbulence enough to rattle her teeth and jolt her passengers about unless they braced themselves constantly, but the sheer volume of flying debris made it a dangerous enterprise. Thick scale armour protected her from the worst of the battering.
“This is the result of the First Egg’s passage!” Leandrial shouted above the current’s constant roaring. “Somehow its innate magic stirs everything up, little ones – to the point where our Runners have observed outright inversion of layers. It’s carnage!”
Her brevity exposed her tiredness. After twelve hours and approximately two hundred and sixty leagues of ‘spiteful thuddery’ as Zip called it, Leandrial curved out of the current and found a relatively sheltered dip in which to rest. Aranya tried to trace their quarry, but failed, and they spoke at some length with Yiisuriel primarily to communicate intelligence about the path ahead. The Air Breathers could take some advantage from beneficial currents as well, but they would have to proceed with caution. To accelerate a mountain to flying speeds was no trivial undertaking – their momentum once underway took an inordinate amount of stopping, bluntly put.
“Are you alright, Leandrial?” Aranya asked.
The Land Dragoness knew better by now than to take umbrage at her concern. “Unfortunately, the current shows signs of easing up. I would have needed to take it slower for this second leg anyways.”
“It’s still brutal out there,” Ri’arion observed.
“If the air current eases we can shape you some sails, like we did when we crossed the Rift,” Aranya enthused. “I’ve some engineering ideas gleaned from Hualiama’s writings, you know, when she invented the meriatite furnace engine. She was an expert on many aspects of Dragonship construction and engineering, and even designed far more efficient sails than had been in use before.”
“Whereas we specialise in overthrowing tyrants,” Zip added seamlessly after her friend had spoken.
“And in fooling gullible Gladiators,” Huari needled.
Gang just grinned at his mate without rancour. “Didn’t see you worshipping her starry rump to start with either, Marshal Huaricithe. She sold you the wrong Island and then some. May I take this opportunity to remind you, Scrap, that you are also Huari’s bond-Dragon under Wyldaroon law until the Marshal formally releases you. So you had better just do as you’re ruddy well told for a change!”
Aranya snorted, “Ha! Well, I –”
“My, I am getting so forgetful in my decrepitude,” Huari cut in, with blatant falsity. “You, o Immadia, will just have to ask nicely for your freedom.”
Aranya made a pretend gagging noise. “Mercy, o mighty Marshal Huaricithe. Have mercy.”
Gang complained, “What about me? When will you – ggrrr – release me?”
“You haven’t actually asked, either.” The two Dragons eyeballed each other, the temperature inside Leandrial’s largest cheek pocket suddenly soaring past boiling point. Then, the Navy Blue Shapeshifter dipped her neat muzzle, and murmured, “Would you like to be released from me, Gangurtharr?”
What draconic nuance lurked beneath that simple question!
“NO!” he roared, then caught himself by dint of belling out his fabulous belly-laugh, which was so powerful it set everyone within a respectable radius juddering right along with the palpitations of his ample abdomen. “Respectfully, Marshal, my answer would be both aye and nay, and comes laden with so many conditions I fear we may need to discuss the issue at some length before we could come to a suitable arrangement.”
And that was flirtation at ten thousand degrees centigrade. Huaricithe may have been forgiven for discovering her answering grin turned decidedly goofy at that point.
“Oh, go find a private chamber, you two!” hooted Zip.
Rather more decorously but no less humorously, Aranya put in, “Would that be before or after you and Ri’arion, petal? Or are we taking turns –”
“May I remind everyone of whose mouth you travel in?” Leandrial growled.
“Aye, she isn’t some floating brothel.” Zip, as usual, managed to snag the conversational tone and leap straight into the gutter with it.
Aranya mused, “I’m sure you and I at least spell the word ‘morals’ the same way, Zippy Girl.”
“Bah. You’ll be shocked, therefore, to learn then that Ri’arion and I are definitely leaning toward monogamy, my friend,” said Zip, as Gang commented how peculiar it was to see Aranya holding entire conversations with herself. “My mothers will be heartbroken at how I’m planning to flout family tradition.”
“No, it’s just that Aranya wants to wash her mouth out after you speak, Zip,” Gang suggested snidely.
With that conversational low blow, every person and Dragon in the close quarters of Leandrial’s cheek pocket began to look very uncomfortable.
Unexpectedly, Sapphire said, Gang not play nice. Where Ardan, Ari?
Lying alongside Gang and against the muscular band holding their pocket shut, Aranya could not turn far, but she crooked her muzzle to gaze seriously at her companions. That’s the key question, isn’t it? Thank you, Sapphire. Leandrial, I should fly aloft, and –
Expose our position? said the Land Dragoness. Try from here. Ri’arion and I can amplify your capability.
“Sorry, Zip,” Aranya added. “I guess that’s the line between banter and bickering.”
“I’m … sorry, too,” said Gangurtharr, appearing surprised as an undraconic apology managed to stumble off his lips. “Is this what it means to think like a Human? This idea has strange tastes. Strange strength.”
Zip said, “Accepted and forgiven, noble Gang.”
Slipping her muzzle over his outthrust forearm, Huari snuggled her muzzle beneath his hoary chin. “Don’t you dare snort like that. You are a noble Dragon, Gang. Come. We must consider how we might counter the Thoralians when we next encounter them, with both Shadow power and the First Egg at their talon-tips. How can we prevail?”
Aranya considered the pair, and shuffled a little uncomfortably as in the way of Dragons, Gangurtharr, being the biggest male, slipped a protective-warming wing over her back. Remoyan bathing habits evidently had nothing on draconic society.
