Dragon Thief (13 page)

The powerful rust-red Dragon crushed a drake with his jaws; the two halves waggled either size of his muzzle for a few seconds as he had a good chew before spitting out the remains.

“Charming,” said Kal.

Thundering her battle-challenge, Tazithiel joined the fray with powerful lightning-strikes that slew two drakes on her first pass. Kal had never experienced a fight like this. Upside-down, sideways, jerking and jinking, slipping through the scrimmage with the speed and guile of a Dragoness … firing arrow after arrow to a chorus of encouragement from Tazithiel, screaming in joy as one struck a drake in the eye … laughing in concert with the Dragoness’ cruel battle-joy as she broke a drake’s neck with a snap of her powerful jaws and gasping in awe as she encased a trio of the lethal lizards in ice, sending them to a smashing death on the Island far below.

Green Islands. As they wheeled into clear air, enjoying a momentary breather, Kal had a second or two to consider their surrounds. The landscape had changed dramatically over the last day to verdant Islands broken by deep ravines and caves–perfect hiding and breeding grounds for drakes, Tazi had suggested. An army could hide in this region which comprised over five hundred rugged Islands clustered together in a shape oddly reminiscent of a Dragon’s outstretched wing, seen from high up.

Clutching his bow, Kal attempted to sight his shots despite Tazithiel’s unpredictable flight patterns. She lurched, dropping to crush a drake in her talons, while simultaneously yelling,
Kal,
fire!
Kal could not believe it. Smoothly, as though he had plotted a line with great forethought, his arrow shot fifty yards across open air and plugged to the fletching in a drake’s eye. He could do that? For a few seconds, he seemed to exist in another world. Three arrows. Three kills. Who was this Kal, Dragon Rider, blood hazing over his vision as they swung through the heat of battle? Tazithiel lashed out with her ice and lightning, driving the drakes away from a beleaguered pair of Dragons and their Riders, who quickly regrouped.

Kal blinked. One, two … hold on. Where was Jalfyrion, Tazi’s stocky friend?

There. Two ravines over, he saw drakes dive-bombing what had to be a Dragon, although their quarry was hidden by the terrain.

Tazi! Jalfyrion needs our help!

Jalfyrion!
Bellowing wildly, Tazithiel swept over on a burst of her power, overshooting the conflict. She doubled back on a brass dral. The Indigo Dragoness’ body rocked as she smashed half a dozen drakes away with powerful strikes of her tail and claws, while she dealt death with another lightning-strike. Jalfyrion was dangerously near the treeline, the subject of an ugly brawl. He had two drakes dangling off his upper lip, while another blunted its fangs on the armoured torso of his petite Rider. Several more hung off his right wing, dragging him toward a densely forested ravine. Kal slammed a four-foot arrow through a drake’s skull. Nice!

Come here! Pick on someone your size,
Kal shouted.

He sensed a ferocious flash of amusement from his Dragoness.
Me? Or you?

Kal could not believe his strength. Maybe it was battle-rage. In practice, he had only been able to draw the powerful bow to a three-quarters position. Now he had the string past his ear.
Twang!
A puff of dust rose from one of the dull red drakes savaging Jalfyrion’s wing-struts. Load. Draw, aim … he and Tazithiel struck the same drake simultaneously.

She bugled,
We need to get that one on his back, Kal!

She meant the drake chewing the Rider. Kal’s arrow punched home in its flank but appeared to make little impression. He could not risk a head-shot. Must not.

The female Dragon Rider flopped about beneath the drake’s attack; she stabbed with her sword, albeit weakly.
Jisellia!
the Red Dragon bugled in distress. He tried to snake his head back to bite the drake, but could not reach.
Jisellia! No!

Can’t risk lightning,
Tazi panted.
Claws?

Kal burst out,
Don’t!

What?

You’ll tear that Rider in half.
Kal sensed the Indigo Dragoness had intended to land on Jalfyrion’s back to attack the drake, but that would also crash-land the Red in the trees.
Throw me.

Tazi hesitated. Kal gave her no choice. Cutting his ropes, he bounded to his feet, took four deft, running steps across his Dragoness’ shoulder and leaped into space.

Kallion!
He had never heard Tazi shriek in pure panic.
Catch on–stupid!

Kal ran on air. Perfectly. It was like running on crysglass, a hundred feet over to Jalfyrion’s wing. Idiot. He still clutched his bow! To do what–tap the drake’s head, crying, ‘Eat me please?’ At a dead sprint, Kal fired his ready arrow blank into the drake’s flank, just behind his foreleg where he understood the second heart to be. He cast the bow aside and palmed his poisoned daggers, one in each hand.

Dodge!
He barely heard Tazi, but he felt the strike of her power that lifted him, corkscrewing through the air, above a drake’s compact but deadly fireball. He had not seen … yet still the monk-trained saboteur in Kal judged the angles and found them acceptable. With a terrible cry, he flared his limbs to untuck from a rapid forward somersault, landing astraddle the drake’s neck. In a seamless concert, Kal reached forward to drive both daggers deep into the drake’s burning red eyes.

Die!

Great Islands, he was actually starting to enjoy this Dragon Rider-warrior lark. Madman.

Greenish-golden blood spurted over his hands, blistering the exposed skin. Kal scrambled for his footing as the drake suddenly slumped sideways, its jaws parting to release the woman, Jisellia. Her green eyes bulged in a purpling face–she had no air! Dying? Gripping a saddle strap one-handed, Kal quickly checked for injuries, finding nothing too serious apart from cuts to her neck and cheek. Astonishing.

He hissed, “What’s the matter?”

She made a wheezing noise.

Wham!
The Indigo Dragoness punched the air above them, removing two marauding drakes that shrieked their strange, grating cries at her before she hurled them against a rocky outcropping on the ravine wall. Tazi kicked the drakes in tandem with the exposed talons of her hind paws, shredding their flanks so deeply Kal caught a glimpse of one drake’s spine.

“Hold on!” Jalfyrion howled. His body lurched as the Red launched a huge fireball into the forest–no, something like a fireball, only it detonated on impact, clearing a swathe of trees and brush. He landed heavily in the gap, absorbing the shock with his knees and thighs, but Kal still jerked forward, clashing heads with Jisellia.

With a snarl of indignation, the Red snatched up the last drake dangling off his lip and body-slammed it against the ground, before stepping deliberately on the creature’s neck with his forepaw.
Crack.
One less drake.

“Jisellia!” Kal slapped her face gently. “Speak to me.”

“
… heeee-theee …
”

“Roaring–you can’t breathe?”

Her head flopped against his chest. Kal glanced upward, searching for Tazithiel. She was doing a dint of unmentionable quarrying about in the innards of yet another drake, several hundred feet overhead. Pushing Jisellia backward, he found her breastplate had been flattened by the drake’s bite, compressing and perhaps breaking her ribs or sternum. Get her out! He felt for the ties at her sides–windroc droppings, what was this design? Metal hinges and catches rather than traditional leather thongs? The catches were twisted beyond repair. Jisellia made another horrid rattling noise. Slipping …

Ignoring Jalfyrion’s panicked roaring in his ear, Kal unsnapped her saddle harness and swung the tiny woman into his arms. “Catch us, Red.”

A rapid paw-ride later, they were on the ground. Kal scrabbled at the locks; broke a dagger on them. Tazithiel landed and shouldered Jalfyrion aside for a view as Kal bent over the Rider, working feverishly at the suffocating armour.

Tazi! Paw–now!
For once, the Dragoness obeyed instantly. Kal guided her grip.
When I give the word, squeeze like this.
He made a pinching motion with his fingers.
Not too hard or you’ll crush her like an eggshell.
I’m going to pop it out.

The Red cried,
Be strong, Jisellia!

Pressure, Tazi.
Placing his hand flat on the Rider’s stomach, Kal forced his arm up beneath her armour. He pressed outward with all his strength.
More.
The Dragoness bore down.

With a sweet
ping
, the dent corrected itself and Jisellia heaved, gulping a huge, relieving breath, then another. Kal withdrew his hand. Well, she was sweetly built. He had never handled a woman’s chest for a better reason, he supposed, trying not to feel a traitor to Tazi.

“Here. Let me help you with that.” Kal unbuckled the chin-strap of her helm. Masses of curly brown hair sprang free. He checked her head for injuries, but the cuts he had spied on her cheek appeared to be superficial.

“Wet cloth,” said Tazi, using her power to offer one to Kal.

The Dragoness had already raided their saddlebags, he realised. “Thanks. Your neck’s bleeding quite nicely, girl. Hold still.”

For a long moment the Dragon Rider just lay on her back, her chest rising and falling as a normal colour flooded her cheeks. Beneath the blood and grime of battle she was winsome, he noticed, concentrating on stanching the flow of blood from a deep cut on her neck. She had a definite chin, and an impish nose and green eyes that danced with mischief in the corner of his vision. She was young, maybe Tazi’s apparent age. How long had these two been Dragon and Rider?

He met the Rider’s grateful gaze, just inches separating their faces. “I’m Kal. My Dragoness is called Tazithiel. I think you’re going to be alright.”

“Thank you, Kal, and you, mighty Tazithiel. I’m Jisellia. My beautiful living-flame creature is called Jalfyrion. Your help was timely indeed.”

“It was noth–”

Kal yelped as she kissed him full on the lips!

T
HERE WAS NOTHING
of the Island-trembling he had experienced with Tazithiel, but Kal was so nonplussed and his hands so preoccupied with pressing the deep cut on her neck closed, that when Jisellia’s hand snaked around to snare him for a kiss, he simply froze. Bad idea. Very bad. For the kiss was rather more involved than a mere social peck. He began to reciprocate automatically, then jerked back. Windroc gizzards!

“Thank you
very
much,” she murmured.

Kal could only think of Tazithiel’s fiery breath sizzling his neck-hairs. “Uh–what was that?”

“In my culture, that’s a kiss of gratitude.”

“In mine, that’s more of an invitation to the pillow-roll,” he spluttered.

Still clasping his neck, she chuckled, “You’re audacious, Rider Kal, but I’m agreeable. I’m sure our Dragons wouldn’t mind.”

“What?” Kal tweaked a neck muscle with the speed of his guilty sidelong glance. Tazithiel and Jalfyrion both glared at the Humans, their eyes ablaze with emotions which had to centre upon cold-blooded murder. He was quite certain someone would mind. Very much. Very, terminally … much. But what of Jalfyrion’s reaction?

Could he reveal Tazi’s Shapeshifter nature? One more matter they should have discussed beforehand. He said, “I apologise, Jisellia, but I’m with someone else.”

“With me,” growled Tazi, her tone suggesting she intended to establish how slowly she could screw Kal’s head off his shoulders. “He’s with me.”

“Oh, good,” Jisellia agreed brightly, missing the point by a goodly hundred leagues or so. “I’m with Jalfyrion, too, and I’m not swapping him for any Dragon in the whole Island-World. He’s
mine.
”

As Jisellia gabbled away, Jalfyrion turned to regard Tazithiel with a transparently macho flexion–an impressive display of popping, ripping, hulking Dragon-musculature, Kal had to grant, feeling his insides ignite into red-hot coals of hatred. The Red was comparable to Tazithiel in length and height but had to weigh half as much as her again, a thickset block of dark-red Dragonflesh beside the Indigo Dragoness’ slender grace. By the sounds of things, she was not immune to whatever passed for attraction between the Dragonkind. Tazi’s belly-fires suddenly modulated to a wholly different tone, but Kal wondered suddenly if she felt not simply bashful, but terribly afraid of a male Dragon? He had to intervene.

In telepathic Dragonish, Kal snapped,
Don’t you make moon-eyes at my girl
. Yet when he looked at Jalfyrion, it was to see a strange image of a young, broad-shouldered man peering uncertainly at him. He was a Shapeshifter, too!

Jalfyrion said,
Does he know your nature, noble summer-sister Tazithiel?

Aye,
said Tazi.
He’s my man.

I shall correct my Rider’s behaviour. And … mine.

What’s a summer-sister?
Kal asked.

We were hatchlings born the same summer upon Mejia, Kal,
the Red explained.
How is it you speak such excellent Dragonish? My Rider has not yet awoken to mind-speech. You have grown into a Dragoness most magnificent, o breath of my younger days.

Suddenly, Kal knew there must have been attraction between them in the past. Smoking volcanoes! Did this situation grow any more complex? He would not stand for any male Dragons sniffing around his Tazithiel!

Peace, noble Rider,
said Tazi, apparently amused by his quivering outrage.
I thank you for seeking to safeguard my secret. You may tell her.

“Were you just talking with the Dragons?” asked Jisellia, struggling to one elbow. “Have you been a Rider long? What’s wrong, Kal?”

“Two glorious weeks.” The Indigo Dragoness bristled visibly at his tone. “And it has been wonderful. Astonishing.”

Kal wrestled his scattershot thoughts into something resembling order. If Jisellia did not know about Shifters, it stood to reason her Dragon had not told her–or did not know himself. Fat ruddy hormonal male Dragon chance of that! He was in hiding. Keeping secrets from his Rider.

“Kal?” Jisellia repeated.

“Jisellia, thou most dainty damson-flower of Mejia Island, this Rider is grateful to have assisted in succouring your precious life this day,” Kal said, with his infallible rakish grin. He was not certain, but he thought Tazithiel gave the faintest of snorts as the young Rider’s mouth popped open. “Thou art a jewel of incalculable price; thy kisses as rainbows tenderly encircling the heart of a man–”

Tazithiel rolled her eyes at Jalfyrion.
Shall I swat this shameless braggart, most noble of Reds, or would you prefer to do the honours?

Hastily, Kal adjusted his tack. “Jisellia, Tazithiel is my Dragoness, but she is also my girl. She is a Shapeshifter Dragoness, and a fearsomely beautiful one at that.”

“She’s a … oh. Truly? They’re very rare.”

“Also, she’s the insanely jealous type,” Kal advised. “You’ve no idea …”

Tazithiel scratched her chin with one long, razor-sharp talon, making her meaning as blatant as a Dragonship poised to drop upon his head.

Kal saved his verbal daggers for the Red Dragon. Directly, he said, “Jisellia, I don’t know how rare Shapeshifter Dragons are. Coming from Fra’anior, I’ve always imagined you might bump into one on the next Island.”

The Red kept perfectly still, but Kal saw the talons of his forepaw clench the ground. Oho. Melt that in your furnace, Jalfyrion!

* * * *

Leaving Jisellia in Kal’s care, the two Dragons took to the skies to see if they could help the other Dragon Riders. Trust, Tazithiel’s look warned Kal. He glared the same message at her.

Kal fully expected Jisellia to ask about Shapeshifters. Instead, she smiled, “Was it a good kiss, at least? Seeing as it’s the only kiss we’ll ever share?”

“I rather doubt I’ll be exploring the inside of your armour again,” he retorted. “Whatever are you wearing, Islands’ sakes? Any trouble with that and you’d need a blacksmith to cut it off you.”

“Protection against rogues.”

“Bah. It’s not as if you’re wearing armoured trousers, is it? You shouldn’t encourage roving Fra’aniorian pirates. We’re renowned for walloping impressionable young Dragon Riders over the earhole and dragging them off to our lairs in chains.”

Jisellia hissed as he cleaned a four-inch cut on her lower leg. “On my native Garamoy, a tiny Island a couple of hours west of Remoy, it’s the women who do the walloping.”

“Aye? You nearly got me walloped by my Dragoness’ paw, that’s what.”

“Honestly, you let her treat you like this?”

Kal bit back a scathing remark about young women who threw opinions about with the abandon of a volcano spewing pumice. Tazithiel did not browbeat him. He hated that there was an iota of Jisellia’s criticism that resonated within Kal the free, master of his own winds and destiny.

The calloused fingers of a swordswoman and warrior stroked his arm. “Kal, are you quite sure you don’t want to–”

“Great Islands, no!” He snatched his arm away as though burned. “Toss it in a Cloudlands volcano, woman, don’t you know a thing about Dragons? Even if we aren’t caught, she’ll smell your scent on me and know by my breathing and heart-rate and sweat and the Warlord of Ur-Yagga only knows what else that I’ve played her false!”

Her eyes dropped as though he had wounded her spirit.

Kal shook his head. Manipulative little cliff-fox! How dare she? “Look, Jisellia, I’ve never been a good man. I’ve blown over the Isles in a whirlwind of lies, greed and conceit, but I’m trying to do right now, contrary as it runs to every grain of my being. I am for Tazithiel and she is for me. End of Island.”

Jisellia’s glance beneath her eyelashes informed Kal that she was far from giving up; that she found his passionate declaration for Tazithiel attractive; a challenge, even. His hands shook. Suffering volcanic hells, she had a vulnerable edge to her personality that practically begged for a strong man’s protection, and she was far from unattractive. Now, his mind slithered in a mire of useless, unwanted speculations. Fidelity no longer seemed the noble path. Faithfulness was a shackle for his emotions and actions, all because of this vixen he had pulled from a drake’s maw. His jaw ground furiously. Well was it said that every man harboured a personal Dragon, the tormentor, the root of his weakness.

The Shapeshifter Dragoness had also unearthed a Kal he had only known in isolated flashes in his life. Kal the not-despoiler, who tied his victims gently. Kal the reluctant judge, deeming one man worthy of the poisoned dagger and another, merely a weighted cosh to the skull. Kal, who oftentimes had shared his ill-gotten loot with random beggars and starving street children. The man who longed to sever the sordid roots of his business ventures.

Aye. Tazi was his bright-fire, his muse.

That was a thought to lighten the dreariest day. Kallion the drake-slayer, rescuer of an exceedingly grateful damsel, had at last taken his place upon the great stage of Island-World life. His eyes returned to Jisellia, appraising. Now, about that shifty Shifter Jalfyrion …

* * * *

By evening, Kal was prepared to slit his own throat and hurl himself off the benighted stage of Island-World life, or fly into the suns-set to live as a hermit for a few decades.

The group of Dragon Riders were new graduates from the same Academy he and Tazithiel had picked as the best place to seek lore about the Rim-Wall Mountains. Happily, they were not hunting reprobates of dubious past. But they were youthful. Brash. Strutting in their fancy new armour, which Kal had helped Jisellia out of before it killed her. He had never met such a wet-behind-the-flapping-ears, immature, flamboyant bunch of marsh toads with less sense between them than the average purple parakeet! Worse, their posse of Red and Green Dragons. If one more lava-stuffed lizard whirled his fire-eyes at Tazithiel–who was the most resplendent Dragon of this company by the proverbial league and a half, evidently–then he was seriously going to stuff an arrow sideways up their collective left nostrils.

Just look at Jalfyrion cosying up to his girl now! Girl, as in a massively sleek, scaly sky-monster? Apparently that was the Dragon way of being sociable, practically sitting on top of each other, while the Humans gathered around a roaring fire to swap boasts about their drake-hunting prowess, their gross ineptitude already forgotten.

He felt the touch of Jisellia’s gaze. Again.

Enough. “You!” Springing to his feet, Kal marched over to the massive Red Dragon. “You and I need to talk, Dragon. Now.”

The Red blinked lazily. “I was enjoying the fire and the chatter.”

Tazithiel cracked open one eye as if she were a serpent sleeping in the suns. Kal shivered at the reptilian imagery, for he loathed snakes with a positively draconic antipathy. “Kal. We were just swapping stories of our hatchling days.”

“Aye.”
I was listening, Tazithiel. I’m always listening.

Fine.
Her lip curled into a half-snarl at his mental tone.
Go be two grumpy males together.

“Jalfyrion, you can bring your personal fires along,” said Kal, deeply sarcastic. “I want to talk to you in private. It’ll be quick and painless, I promise.”

Kal led the Red Dragon away from the fire. When they were far enough to defeat even a Dragoness’ hearing or lip-reading, he hoped, he turned to Jalfyrion. “I know what you’re hiding.”

The Red smirked. With a hundred fangs gleaming in a jaw apparently built for bulldozing flocks of ralti sheep down his capacious gullet, his smirk was truly impressive. “Brave Human. Moved from insinuations to direct accusations?”

“Fine, I’ll say it. You’re a Shapeshifter.”

“Your Tazithiel is a Shapeshifter. My dark-fires burn at her travails, Rider Kal.” The Red lowered his muzzle. Suddenly there was an awareness of connection, heat, the knowledge of an alien mind somehow attuned to his. Brotherhood? With a Dragon? Kal felt faint. “The Green Endurion is a blight upon the Dragonkind of Mejia. He was once a Dragon Elder, but now skulks about his black-rock fortress, disgraced and dishonoured. I will not trouble your ears with that shameful tale, but suffice to say, your Tazithiel is but one victim of his dark-fires. His … how do you say it in Island Standard?”

“Evil?”

“Aye. A small word for great wickedness. He’s adherent of Dramagon’s philosophies–well do you shiver, little Human.”

Kal could not speak. Suddenly his annoyance over Jisellia seemed but a petty grievance; his planned exposure of Jalfyrion, the small-minded and self-serving upshot of craven jealousy.

“My wings quiver most agreeably at your liaison, Rider Kal. You’re a brave and noble soul–” Kal cringed “–and I imagine my summer-sister is, in her Human manifestation, regarded as striking of form and flight among your kind?”

“Uh–very.”

They both chuckled at Kal’s gruff, revealing response.

Jalfyrion’s eye-fires whirled with good humour. “Now, how many fireballs did you wish to hurl at me, Dragon Rider?”

Kal modified what he had been about to say. “This morning, when Jisellia kissed me, I saw something in your expression which matched that of my Tazithiel. Something I did not expect to see in a Dragon. So I looked deeper.”