Aranya Treasury - The Complete Shapeshifter Dragons Series, page 47
Zip was now a Shapeshifter, changed irrevocably by Aranya’s life-saving Dragon tears. Zuziana, Princess of Remoy, was now able to transform between her Human and Dragon forms at will. Guilt and happiness roiled in Aranya’s breast whenever she remembered what she had done to her friend. Zip said she was happy. She had to cling to that, or the remorse would grow wild-animal claws and fangs within her.
With a heavy sigh, Aranya spread her wings. The huge, flexible flight membranes flexed at will, the thousands of auxiliary muscles along her wing bones and flight struts turning them into the highly responsive instruments of Dragon flight. Garthion had fallen onto the flagpole set upon this very tower. Speared through the brain, he had died instantly. His crimson Dragon body still filled the castle courtyard below – the body of a Shapeshifter Dragon, the Sylakians’ great secret.
If the son had been a gigantic Red Shapeshifter Dragon, what about his father? Or any other siblings and relatives?
“Now you’re the one dawdling,” said Yolathion. “Why so pensive, beloved?”
“I was thinking about Garthion.”
“Forget that coward,” Yolathion said. “Fly, Aranya. Let the splendour of Immadia Island fill your Dragon hearts and erase that man’s evil forever.”
Thank the heavens he understood.
The merest tilt of her wings caught the breeze. Aranya glided over the rooftops of Immadia city. The streets had been cleared of bodies, while the graveyard beyond the city walls had swelled immensely, filled with Immadian Islanders and Sylakian troops alike. So many killed. So many immolated upon the pyre of Sylakia’s ambition to rule the Island-World.
She eased into a few wingbeats and peeked over her shoulder. Precious! Yolathion’s face was a picture of wonder.
Aranya climbed, circling slowly to give her Dragon Rider a fine view of Immadia’s jagged, snowy peaks north and west of the city. The Island was only five leagues long; seven if one counted the outlying Islands to the north. Around the edges, above where the Island massif rose from the poisonous gases of the Cloudlands, the ancients had built great terraced lakes to trap Immadia’s unreliable rainfall. Iridith covered fully two thirds of the south-eastern horizon, while the crescent Jade moon dominated the northern sky as if to form an archway leading to the end of the world.
Her Rider shouted, “This is incredible, Aranya!”
“No need to shout, you daft rajal,” she returned. “Ready for a bit more?”
“Er, steady as she goes, gorgeous Dragoness, or my lunch will make a bid for freedom.”
“Look, here comes Sapphire,” said Aranya.
The tiny dragonet abandoned Ri’arion’s lap and shot over to Aranya and Yolathion, calling shrilly. Aranya laughed. Hello, you ridiculously beautiful creature, she greeted her in Dragonish. Sapphire flitted around Aranya’s muzzle, her jewel-like eyes swirling with excitement and appreciation. At only one foot long and perhaps one and a half in wingspan, the dragonet was as manoeuvrable as a bat. Right now, she demonstrated her skills in a spiralling double-backflip, before suddenly noticing Yolathion in the saddle and coming to a mid-air stall of surprise. She volleyed a series of querulous chirps at Aranya.
He’s my Rider, she said. My … er, mate. He’s called Yolathion.
“What did you say to her?” asked Yolathion, crossing his eyes as the dragonet flipped around his head, examining him suspiciously.
“That you’re my Rider,” said Aranya, editing her response hastily. Despite that, her belly-fires soughed, stoked by her embarrassment. “I think she expected Zip – who is far daintier than you, you great lump. You weigh a ton.”
He laughed, flexing his powerful frame. “I’m sure you’ll grow into the task, o mighty Amethyst Dragon. No, I am a man and a warrior, riding a great winged beast over the Islands, not a diminutive wisp of a Princess from Remoy. And you are dainty in your Human form, compared to me.”
Her height did seriously reduce the potential pool of boyfriends who were taller than her, Aranya thought. She loved it when he tucked her head beneath his chin, making her feel safe and cherished. But he seemed so wrapped up in her looks, as though a Princess should be perfectly coiffed at every hour of every day, and her smile should never fail to dazzle. Perhaps a hundred-fang smile was a little over-dazzling? And should come attached to rather less of a Dragon?
“Who’s diminutive and wispy around here?” growled Zuziana, slipping into formation with Aranya. Ri’arion greeted them across the divide.
“Easy on the fires there, Dragon-love,” said the Fra’aniorian monk, giving his own mount such a hearty slap it had Yolathion’s eyebrows hopping. “We’ve been practising fire-breathing. Zip hasn’t learned to burn the heavens yet, but if you keep insulting her, it shan’t be long.”
“Darn right,” said Zip, still snarling. “Nice of you to saunter up here this afternoon, slow-slugs. King Beran has a job for us.”
Aranya interjected, “Don’t you find it cute to hear that soft-as-dorlis-flower Remoyan accent growling between a Dragon’s fangs?”
“Bah, says the Immadian parakeet who pronounces every vowel six distinct ways?” retorted Zuziana.
The Dragonesses took playful nips at each other, startling their Riders.
“Zuziana is dainty compared to my Dragon,” the Jeradian put in. “Aranya says that when she grows up to be a big Dragon …”
They all laughed as the Amethyst Dragon’s belly-fires rumbled and a hiccup of flame flared ten feet out of her nostrils. Sapphire gave a squeak of delight and dived into the flame, bathing in it.
“Well,” said Zuziana, as surprised as everyone else at the dragonet’s response. “How’s about a trip into the mountains to see if any of Garthion’s Dragonships are still salvageable? Beran interrogated the Sylakians who survived the hike down. They said the Dragonships the ice-dragonets downed weren’t destroyed – but they couldn’t repair them because of the cold. Do you think you could manage that, or do Jeradians turn as blue in the snows as my monk from the overheated volcano-Island, here?”
“It will be freezing,” said Aranya.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Zip smirked. “Yolathion can cuddle you all you want later, Aranya.”
With a clip of her wings, she darted away toward the nearby peaks.
Aranya gasped, “Zuziana of Remoy! Just you wait until I catch you …”
* * * *
Family dinners had now expanded to include Ri’arion, Zip, Yolathion, Beri and Commander Darron. The table was a riot of laughter as Zuziana had them in stitches with her colourful retelling of how they had dealt with her diarrhoea while flying from Ferial Island to the great volcano in the middle of Immadior’s Sea, the huge Cloudlands space south of Immadia Island. After that, Aranya retired to bed feeling just as warm as Zip had promised. She touched her lips, still tingling from one last kiss. Yolathion was gallant in just the right measure. Perfect manners accompanied by an ever-so-wicked kiss.
Leopard, to borrow Zip’s favourite phrase.
She eased onto her pillow-roll, wondering when Zip might leave off whatever naughtiness she was perpetrating with her monk – now ex-monk – and come to bed, too.
They had managed to drag a Dragonship’s hydrogen sack intact out of the mountains, and had located nearly a dozen salvageable vessels. Beran would despatch several troops of soldiers and engineers in the morning.
Mercy, she was tired. Her wounds ached. A storm rolled in behind her closed eyelids.
Aranya fled on the wings of her inner fires.
For an interminable time, she soared across the Island-World, embroiled in a bizarre mixture of battles and falling into the Cloudlands. Garthion’s paw reached out from the smoky, billowing storm clouds to tear her wings. Battered, tattered, she escaped once more. But the storm swelled, growing blacker and more menacing by the moment.
Zip’s cool fingers soothed her brow. “You’re burning the blankets, Aranya.”
She moaned, flopped over onto her right side, and dreamed again. Thunder pummelled her world. As fast as she flew, the storm moved faster. Evil green-black thunderheads boiled all around her, trapping her Dragon-self in a cloud-canyon. Lightning jagged nearby.
Suddenly, three of the Black Dragon’s seven heads lunged out at her, roaring, How dare you flee? Listen to me!
Aranya screamed.
His voice was a crack of thunder. Find me the Dragon of the Western Isles! Aranya tumbled into the maelstrom.
She jerked upright, tasting a metallic tang of blood in her mouth, panting, “Fra’anior? Great Dragon?”
The dream was gone. Suddenly wide awake, Aranya hugged her knees to her chest. Why was the Ancient Dragon so furious with her? Perhaps foolishly, she had once promised him her help – puny as she might be in comparison to his Island-shaking might.
Aranya slipped out from beneath the covers. Great. Another couple of scorch-marks. Zuziana’s soft breathing assured her that her friend was sound asleep in the bed opposite. She padded over to the drapes and peeked out of the tall crysglass windows of her royal bedchamber. Dawn in two hours, she judged from Jade’s position in the sky. The Mystic moon rose within Jade’s crescent, a perfect disc clasped by a lover’s two arms. The artist in her sighed. Beauty to snatch one’s breath away.
A twinkle of light in the tower opposite caught her eye. Beran’s map room? Her father must be awake. At once, Aranya tiptoed over to the doorway, picking up a brace of Immadian forked daggers and a cloak for decency’s sake, before stealing out into the hall.
“Islands’ greetings, Princess,” the guard greeted her. “Up early?”
“Oh, Felial? It’s Felial, right?”
“My lady,” said the young soldier, straightening until he resembled a fire-poker.
“Felial, are your brothers still teasing you about being the one who discovered the Dragon on the battlements?”
“Aye, my lady.”
“Why don’t you tell them that the Dragon will come to visit if they don’t behave? How’s your father, Felial?”
“He wanted to thank you for healing …” Felial’s cheeks developed high spots of colour as Aranya smiled at him. Suddenly, he spluttered, “The stump of his knee is better and Commander Darron also came to see our family and talked to him about working as a Dragonship navigator in the future and he sent engineers out to repair our house and we’re so thankful, Princess.”
Aranya nodded. “Well, I’m just going to see the King, Felial. At ease.”
“Aye, my – watch out!”
Felial’s shoulder punched her aside. Cloth brushed her head as a tapestry fell nearby. The young soldier tangled with a man, grunting, spoiling a flailing sword-blow aimed at her neck.
The man shouted, “Die, Dragon scum!”
A face, half-seen, snarled at her over Felial’s armoured shoulder as the guard thumped her assailant awkwardly against the passage wall. The would-be assassin groaned, but his left hand rose behind Felial’s back. Metal winked in the half-light. Whipping one of the forked daggers from her belt, Aranya hurled it instinctively in a low arc. A short blade spun from the man’s severed fingers.
“Dragon sc –”
His cry choked off as Felial’s sword slipped into his chest.
Aranya blinked as she observed a wisp of navy-blue smoke curl from the fallen dagger. Taking the form of a dragonet no larger than the ball of her thumb, it flew toward her faster than her eye could follow, and … vanished? She rubbed a tiny, icy patch on her upper arm. Nothing. Or, magic? Her inner fires flickered briefly. Not quite awake, shaken by her dream, she might have imagined it.
“Quick, Princess.” Hands grasped her arms.
“Take me to the King’s tower,” she said. The soldier who had seized her was a hulking Jeradian, fully a head taller than her.
“Just a crazy man,” she heard someone say. “How’d he get in?”
“A servant,” said another soldier. “Worked here longer than I remember. Good work, Felial.”
Aranya glanced over her shoulder as the Jeradian hustled her along. Judging by the red-black blood seeping across the corridor, there would be no questioning that man. Crazy? Armed with sword and dagger, hidden behind a tapestry? She was not so certain. She limped up the winding staircase one step at a time, trying to still the racing of her heart, and then followed a chilly stone corridor to the eastern tower. Another staircase greeted her there.
The Jeradian handed her over to two Immadian guards. “All quiet here?” he rumbled.
“Aye.”
Leaving the guards discussing the incident in low tones, the Princess slipped within. She found King Beran, babe on arm, staring at his map table in deep concentration. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Sparky. Couldn’t sleep?”
“No. You? Leanya’s keeping you awake?”
He chuckled. “Just a little. It’s Silha’s turn to sleep. Two busy twin boys to run after in a couple of hours and this baby girl … what was that shout I heard?”
“An assassin,” said Aranya. King Beran blanched paler than the ice of an Immadian winter. “Dad – I’m fine.”
“A – what?” Boots thumped down the corridor outside. “Aranya … I’ll kill –”
“Dad, I’m not hurt. Can we talk?”
With an evident effort, the King uncurled his white-knuckled fingers from his dagger hilt. He sighed, “Aye. An assassin, you say?”
“Or a crazy man.”
“Forgive me, one moment.” Beran stalked over to the door and yanked it open. Aranya winced at the low-voiced but acerbic tenor of his interrogation of the duty guard. But when he returned, all he said was, “A trusted insider. It’s almost impossible to defend against such an attack. Are you truly unharmed?”
“Not a scratch.”
Aranya decided not to bother him with the question of the magic she may or may not have glimpsed. Seeing his daughter apparently rise from the dead was more than enough for a father to deal with for one week, wasn’t it? She touched her upper arm pensively. Not an inkling of magic.
On cue, King Beran said, “Apart from assassins, what’s on your mind, Aranyi?”
Aranyi – the intimate form of her name. She always considered it a special sign of his affection for her. She wondered what he had called her mother, Izariela. Izari? Izi?
She stared at the map table, which depicted the northern part of the Island-World from the northernmost Islands, the frozen spits of rock north even of Immadia, to a thousand leagues south of Remoy. The surface was a square thirty-six feet across, but separated into nine parts so that a person could walk between the segments rather than trying to reach across that width. It modelled every known Island and significant spire of rock. Each was meticulously labelled in Beran’s own hand. Aranya noticed that the volcano and the Dragon’s Foot had been added, near a label for Immadior’s Sea. Zuziana, with her obsession for maps, had probably added that detail.
But the disposition of Beran’s forces was what trapped her attention. Model Dragonships, Sylakian outposts … King Beran had been strategizing. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she grasped his intent.
Find me the Dragon of the Western Isles.
Trying to disguise her discomfort, Aranya held out her hands. “Let me cuddle Leanya for a bit, Dad, while you explain this two-front strategy. Do I not recall –”
“That I swore never to fight on two fronts? Indeed.”
Beran passed over Aranya’s baby sister – her half-sister, although she did not think of Leanya that way. She cradled the babe in the crook of her left arm. Her Dad was not fooled by her calm demeanour, she knew.
He turned to the table, saying, “I’ve been toying with this two-prong strategy ever since we defeated the Sylakians, Sparky. Let’s be clear. Despite the severe reverse we handed them, we still need to deal with the Sylakian Southern Dragonship fleet, currently under First War-Hammer Ignathion.”
“Given as we stole Ignathion’s son,” Aranya put in.
“Exactly. Even disregarding the remnants of the Northern fleet, we still face a force greater than any we can assemble.”
“There’s at least one more Shapeshifter Dragon.”
“Aye, that too.” He swept his hand across the map. “You see, the problem has always been that there are two viable routes to attack Immadia Island. One from the south, the other from the far Western Isles. There are sizeable enemy strongholds placed along both routes. The time to strike is now, while they are disorganised and dismayed. But we need to balance readiness against capability. Our forces are severely depleted. The Sylakians have vastly greater resources. So, coming to our strategic needs. Resources. Securing our borders. We know that Ignathion is the real strategic thinker, while Supreme Commander Thoralian is one-dimensional in his approach. So, if we’re dealing with Thoralian we must fight on two fronts. However thin that spreads us, it will cloud his judgement.”
“But my mind keeps returning to two Islands. And they lie reasonably close together, here to the west and southwest of Sylakia – Fra’anior and Jeradia.”
Aranya nodded, enjoying the spark in her father’s eyes as he expounded his views. She said, “Fra’anior I understand, because they’re our ally and there’s Dragon-lore to be found there – we discussed that. But, Jeradia? Dad, you’re not doing me a favour because of Yolathion?”
“A teensy favour,” he said, illustrating with his fingers. “I’m hoping Yolathion can persuade his people to rebel. That would give us a pool of excellent warriors and a powerful bargaining-chip with Ignathion. In twelve summers’ fighting against him, I never enjoyed that luxury. Jeradia and Fra’anior are the keys to the Isles west of Sylakia. Hold those and you hold the West – if you don’t have a group of angry tribes or Sylakians backstabbing you. Hence the surprise tactic, the attack that sweeps north-south along the Western Isles before turning – suddenly – toward Sylakia.”
