Dragon Thief (16 page)

F
rom the Southern
Archipelago, the Indigo Dragoness and her two Riders swept in a steady curve that bent ever northward. Four days out of Yin’toria, at a Dragon’s flying speed, they settled in for the long crossing to Elidia Island, just northeast of Mejia. Old haunts for the Dragoness. Tazi spoke barely a word in all this time. The weather retained the perfect southern balm of the late hot season, bar a squall that engulfed them midway during the crossing, dumped a load of hail on the intrepid threesome, and whistled on. None of the previous storm’s madness, Kal thought. Why had that tempest seemed so preternaturally bent upon their destruction?

As a starry night mantled the Island-World and Tazithiel flew into the heart of the huge Yellow moon, covering fully a third of the sky, Riika fell asleep in Kal’s arms.

The Dragoness spoke. “Riika said you would tell me her story.”

He had been expecting this. Without preamble, Kal replied, “Riika was the offspring of a Pygmy girl chained by traders for entertainment aboard their Dragonship. The pregnant girl somehow escaped and found her way back to her village in the Crescent Isles. She was treated like dirt and died in childbirth. The babe survived, but as you see, she has mixed-race features. At her first birthday, the Pygmies threw her to the spirits to see if she would survive. Apparently a Dragon found her and brought her back to the village–so they kept her alive to honour the Dragon, but as the unwanted bastard of a white-skinned barbarian, they pushed her harder than any other young warrior in that village. They threw her into the forefront of every battle, thinking she’d die, which would have been convenient. But she survived.”

Tazithiel’s fires boiled madly, but she did not speak.

“When she was six, Riika’s father came back for her–we don’t know how he found out, but we know why. He took her and eventually sold her to the Assassins Guild at Franxx, but not before he had abused her in the foulest ways imaginable. Pygmies are natural-born warriors; sackweight for sackweight, the best fighters in this Island-World. Trained brutally and tortured, Riika was a valuable commodity and probably made her father’s fortune.” Kal made to spit, but did not want to soil Tazi’s back, small as the gesture might be. “The Assassins secured their prize by further torturing her, inducting her in their most diabolical secrets, and then drugging her with
yi’tx’txi’taxnayt’x
–” he pronounced the clicks carefully “–a poison which originated in Dramagon’s laboratories, I believe. Dragons are familiar with its use.”

“She takes a grain of antidote every second day, or the poison attacks the nervous system, causing unspeakable pain. The body will convulse so violently, the victim usually breaks their own spine. They say the pain is worse than death.”

“Four years ago, a business rival contracted Riika to assassinate me. She was already developing her legend with the Guild. But Riika failed her mark–for I have unexpected talents of my own. See this scar?” He indicated his neck, knowing the Dragoness would have no trouble seeing the puckered three-inch scar in the dark. “She came that close. The kid’s talented, given as she was only ten at the time. I was fortunate. We made a bargain. I took her in. I inquired at the Guild of Assassins for her treatment.”

“They surrendered this information freely?”

Kal knew his smile was a thing of malign cruelty. “I can be very persuasive when pushed. I felt … motivated. And let’s just leave it there, shall we?”

Tazithiel’s rumble held a dispirited note. “So you keep Riika supplied with antidote?”

“Aye. Problem is, there’s no known antidote for
yi’tx’txi’taxnayt’x
. What she takes only delays the inevitable.” Kal stared off into the darkness, wishing … “She’s got a few years left–two or three at most.”

The Dragoness’ rage and grief lit up miles of sky with a titanic lightning bolt.

Kal smelled the sharp tang of ozone, a smell he associated with storms. His fists clenched painfully. Oh, to have Tazithiel’s power unleashed upon the Guild of Assassins!

He said, “Riika’s brave, but she doesn’t talk about her past. This is why I couldn’t leave her. Do you understand?”

“Aye. We grew us a teenager overnight. Life isn’t all petals, is it?”

Kal said, “You seem to have worked wonders already. She respects you.”

“Dragon fires, Kal, let’s pick the humiliated hermit for a role model.”

“On the other hand, I thought you displayed astonishing trouser-divesting skills, Tazi. That’s the hallmark of a desperate yet admirable woman.”

“Dream on.”

He laughed curtly. “Let’s concentrate on figuring out how to ensure the school survives Riika, alright? How many hours should I lecture her about the need to respect her teachers? What rules should I set?”

“Rules? For teenage girl-assassins? Kal, Kal, Kal.”

“Fine.” Kal poured syrup into his voice. “Listen to how reformed and humble I am. O Indigo Dragoness, I entreat you to instruct me in where I’m going wrong with the female of the species.”

She chortled, “Ten thousand years, Kal, and you still wouldn’t have a clue.”

* * * *

On the way to Elidia Island, Kal succeeded in convincing Riika that she might be able to shake hands or accept a traditional kiss upon the palm, given as not everyone in the Island-World was potentially planning to kill her. The rest of his rulemaking fared less well.

Kal congratulated himself on his stellar parenting skills.

Elidia and Mejia Islands had always struck him as having an unfinished quality, as if a juvenile Ancient Dragon had smashed together a pawful of proto-Islands like blobs of clay and then plopped the result on top of a handy foundation rising out of the Cloudlands. They had none of Fra’anior’s majestic league-tall cliffs, nor its austere, brooding volcanic majesty–in his geologically astute and wholly impartial opinion. What they possessed in abundance was range upon range of lumpen mountains, with one unique feature which had always intrigued Kal. The mountains rose from below. Same parts of these two Islands and their small outlier Islands were so unstable, neither Dragon, Human nor beast chose to live there. A farmer could lose half a field overnight as it swelled, cracked and tumbled over the edge of a cliff. Kal had seen mountains popping up before his disbelieving eyes.

“These Islands breed peculiar people,” Kal said to Tazithiel, expounding on his observations. “They are resilient, yet so fatalistic. I mean, they even build their huts without foundations so that an entire village can up and move at the proverbial flip of a dragonet’s tail.”

“But they do breed spectacular Dragons.” Tazi winked at him over her shoulder.

Riika made a gagging noise. “Will you two quit flirting? It’s weird, alright? I’m bored. When are we going to be there?”

“I’m not the local ox-cart,” growled the Dragoness. “We’ll get there when I decide.”

With exaggerated amazement, Riika cried, “Great Islands, the cart speaks!”

Over Kal’s hoots of laughter, Tazi snorted, “This cart bites, little girl. Now, who’s for a bath in hot springs and the luxury of long, soft grass to sleep upon?”

“Me,” said Kal, managing to turn the word into a vulgar proposition.

“I’m fourteen! I don’t need to hear these things!”

Sometimes, Riika still wanted to be the child she had never been. Kal wondered how greatly the loss of childhood innocence affected a person. His story had been one of falling in with the wrong friends and learning a new trade. The loss of innocence had quickly followed at some point between his eighth and ninth summers. Riika’s young life had been marred by a different scale of brutality altogether.

“Say, Tazithiel, riddle me this,” said Kal. “I’ve noticed that upon transformation, your dirt falls off but the Dragon scale-mites remain. Does that mean the mites transform with you? Remember, you said that Shapeshifter babies transform within the womb?”

Riika punched Kal’s knee playfully. “What’s the grin for?”

“I propose an experiment. Let’s say Dragoness-Tazi on the off-chance happened to swallow an insolent half-Helyon half-Pygmy urchin into her food stomach, and then transformed. What would happen to the little ragamuffin? Shall we find out?”

“For that insult, I challenge you to a duel, Sticky-Fingers.”

“You’re on, Razorblades. I’ll even let you choose your weapons.”

“Let me guess–her tongue?” Tazi put in.

The young assassin smiled the smile Kal had dubbed ‘the poisoned blade’, and rolled her eyes at the Dragoness. “You wait your turn. Dragons, I tell you. Always so pushy.”

“For that insult, you two can clear the feral windrocs away from our bathtub.”

Kal said, “But one fireball, my darling Dragoness …”

Tazithiel yawned hugely. “I’m so tired after all this flying, lugging two identically lippy specimens of
Humanis Aggravatus
–” she lapsed into mock-Dragonish scientific language “–between the Isles. Couldn’t summon so much as a spark. Nor lift a talon. I’m feeling so–what was that four-letter word you used the other day? Weak? My wings are drooping. My spine aches. My–”

“We get the point!” Kal limbered up his war bow. “Come on, Razorblades. Let’s teach this puny, limp, prim–help me here, I’m running out of words–Dragoness a thing or three about shooting down windrocs.”

Tazithiel drawled, “Just remember, miss one and it’ll have your hand for breakfast. Tell you what–I’ll keep score. I can manage that.”

Suddenly, Kal’s throat felt as dry as the desert they had just flown over.

Feral windrocs were akin to Dragons in their wild, uncontrolled aggression. Kal had many times encountered feral windrocs on his travels across the Island-World. They would attack without provocation. A few pecks of a tasteless air balloon usually convinced them dinner was not on the menu and they would start fighting each other, which was apparently fun and far more rewarding. Occasionally a windroc would not give up. Kal’s preferred method was to waste a poisoned throwing knife on the persistent ones.

Shooting a bird with a twenty-foot wingspan was not usually the problem. Doing enough damage to dissuade them was. Most times, an arrow in the gut merely served to annoy an already belligerent animal.

Seeing their hated enemy gliding in toward a sizzling lava-pool, which Kal fervently hoped was not Tazi’s notion of a warm bath, the windrocs rose in a cawing, squabbling mass and employed the only reasonable strategy. They attacked the Indigo Dragoness.

Kal scored with his first shot, which was hardly a miracle given how the huge, brown-and-cream birds were bunched together. “Ha!” he yelled. “Beat that!”

“I will,” said Riika, raising her much more compact Pygmy bow. Her little shaft zipped through the air. With a soft
whomp,
pieces of windroc splattered the raucous flock of birds.

“What the hells was that?” Kal shrilled.

“Experimental arrows. My design.” Riika downed another bird in an explosion of feathers. “The blasting gel’s still far too unstable for commercial use, but I have the research division working on the problem.”

“You have my researchers doing
what?
Riika!”

“While you were off gallivanting around the Islands, I was sadly neglected and bored. I sort of borrowed a few of your scientists and engineers for my pet projects.”

Kal swore luridly. By complete fluke, the arrow he released in anger speared two windrocs through the head, threading them like meat kebabs on a single arrow-shaft. “By the beard of the Great Dragon himself!” he crowed. “Did you see my shot?”

“Incoming!” yelled Riika. Twisting in her seat, she pinned a windroc angling for Kal’s cranium.
Crump!
Feathers, blood and a meaty slab of bird smacked him in the back of the head.

That served to focus the mind.

Kal and his ward traded each other shot for shot and insult for insult, while the Indigo Dragoness glided in to her landing without so much as bloodying a claw. Riika’s exploding arrowheads were more than effective when she landed a shot, but Kal intended to haul the snarky virtuoso inventor over the coals for storing unstable chemical compounds in the quiver right next to his knee. Not that her wise old guardian was without a few tricks of his own, Kal smirked. His marks developed an odd hitch in their wings and a glazed look in the eye before tumbling out of the sky, paralysed.

Two could cheat at this game.

Landing right in the lava with a showy flare of her multi-segmented wings, Tazithiel wriggled her tremendous rump down into the molten rock. She sighed, “Much better.”

“What was the score?” asked Riika excitedly, pulling a length of windroc intestines out of her hair.

“Eight to you, eight and a half to Kal.”

“Yes!” Kal danced an outrageous jig on his saddle as Riika let out a loud groan. “And you can just suck on windroc eggs–”

“But I’m subtracting one because you let a windroc bite my wingtip, Kal.”

“Naaaaah! Suck on a luminous flesh-eating slug, old man!”

“Unfair! I demand a recount. And can we get out of the lava, please? Boiling.”

Riika simpered, “Who’s a sore loser, then?”