Kindred and Wings (18 page)

When Wahirangi wrapped his wings around his body and dropped through the air, Finn managed not to scream. The air raced past his face, and everything grew numb. The talespinner was thrown backwards as Wahirangi collided with something. For a moment Finn worried it was the ground, but then a coil of granite gray skin lashed against his dragon’s shoulder, and he realized that they had found the interloper.

Finally, Wahirangi had managed to find the high air and had taken advantage of it; plunging down with his taloned feet, he had latched onto the menacing creature, and was now engaged in striking at it with his saber long teeth. The beast’s wings were tangled, and both riders and dragons were falling. Finn could hardly breathe or think as the air whistled around him. The snarls and screams of the dragons would have driven anyone mad, and Finn was trying his best not to be crushed as they wrestled back and forth.

Wahirangi had not taken the opportunity to ask his rider if he should attack, so his rage had to be at boiling point. Finn could only hope that the dragon’s sense of survival was as strong as his towering anger.

The talespinner managed to work loose his knife on his left boot, and twisting around plunged it again and again into the gray flesh of the dragon. He had no idea if it was doing any good or not, but at least it was something.

As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the other dragon’s rider, and what he saw chilled him to the bone. Eyes that looked as though they were full of pitch glared at him over the rough gray of her dragon’s hide. She was a child, but like no child Finn had ever seen, and though they were falling to their death, this vision before him terrified him more. A suggestion of something else lurked around her shoulders, as if shadows clung to her, writhing.

Finn lost sight of her as the beasts plummeted to the ground, twisting and trying to get the upper hand. Wahirangi’s talons eventually tore loose from their grip of the rough hide of his foe. Both dragons spread their wings and managed to catch air before catching the ground.

Finn was jerked free in the commotion, and lost his knife as the dire dragon pulled away and began to furiously try to gain height. Wahirangi quickly moved to do the same. The strong thrusts from his wings snapped Finn back in his saddle, and he had to struggle to regain his seat. He would have asked what the plan was, but he was afraid he might bite off his own tongue in the process. Also, there seemed little point in trying to argue with an angry dragon.

Instead Finn crouched low, readjusting his fingers on the pommel again. The gray dragon with his back spines appeared out of the cloud to their right, and his head turned in their direction like a snake ready to strike.

The figure on his back shouted something, though what it could have been was lost in the rush of air. The dragon’s head snapped back. The meaning of that action suddenly flashed across his brain, but Wahirangi apparently knew it better than he did.

Flames rushed toward them, curls of red and gold meant to incinerate and destroy them, but at the last moment Wahirangi banked sharply to the left, turning his belly to the onslaught. The legendary toughness of the dragon skin turned away the edges of the flames, but Finn felt the reflected heat wash over him.

As he climbed, Wahirangi snarled his defiance to his enemy, and then dipped sharply, banking down toward him, with his own flames jetting from his mouth. How much dragon fire the beast beneath him had, Finn was unsure of; the legends differed on the answer to that. Certainly Wahirangi did not seem to have any shortage as he shot toward their enemy. Was it Finn’s imagination or did the creature actually look worried?

He dropped away from them, folding his wings tight and angling directly below, toward the sea, swooping low over the waves.

Finn leaned forward, prepared for the pursuit. Wahirangi, however, circled for a moment rather than following. In those seconds their adversary disappeared into the clouds and the distance.

“We aren’t going after her, Wahirangi?” the talespinner asked. He could feel his blood pumping hard in his veins and was ready for more action. He had already lost one knife but was ready to lose another.

The dragon swiveled his golden head about and regarded Finn with his opalescent eyes. “I too would love to give chase, but there is something that tells me this attack has another reason.”

Finn leaned back in the saddle and rubbed at the spot on his arm where the fire had come the closest. “They mean to distract us from finding Ysel?”

“Possibly,” the dragon said, turning himself about to once more follow the coast. “Her Named creature is very young to engage in battle with me. We grow in strength fast, but by the taste of her blood she has been Named only recently. Perhaps for this one purpose.”

“Do you think they are close to finding Ysel?”

“They sought both of you through time,” the dragon reminded him. “So there is no reason to think they would give up now.”

“Then that unholy child will just have to wait. We shall meet her and her dragon again,” Finn said with confidence.

“She is not yet come to her powers,” Wahirangi growled in warning. “And the strength of her dragon will only grow as she does. We were lucky this time. Once she has harnessed more Kindred they will both be a greater danger.”

Finn shivered at that idea. “Then we must find Ysel, and before they do.”

“Indeed,” the dragon agreed. “And let us hope we fly faster and better than they do.”

“I do not know what you expect to achieve by this,” Baraca said, adjusting the patch over his eye. “The fight for the world is here with us.”

Nyree, her skin softly glowing with the silver lettering of the
pae atuae
, stood at his shoulder, looking at Equo, and it was her eyes that he could not meet.

“I understand that the Caisah has done terrible things,” Equo said, “and he deserves to be punished, but the time has come for my people to return and take up the song once more.”

“You mean to fight with us?” Baraca asked, his voice full of disbelief. “You people were never much for the fighting before.”

“And neither are we now,” Varlesh broke in. He had taken a seat in the tent of the rebellion’s leader, but he did not look much impressed. “We were the friends and allies of the Vaerli. It was to them that we owe our allegiance.”

“The Conflagration is coming,” Equo broke in, looking to forestall any arguments. Baraca and Varlesh had never been best friends when the rebellion’s leader had been human. Now that a scion had somehow filled him, it didn’t seem to have made any difference. “All of us must stand up, or the world will be consumed by fire once more. Nyree, you have the gifts of the seer—you must understand why we have to leave.”

Her eyes, dark and full of stars, raked over him. He missed what they had been. When her eyes had been as his were, there had been some chance that perhaps she would fall in love with him, as he had her. Now, he knew she was lost to him.

“The Conflagration is coming, as you say, Equo,” she said, her gaze no longer locked on him, “but it is imperative that we destroy the Caisah before it arrives. You can help that happen.”

Equo exchanged a look with his brothers; his other selves quite literally. Si, the deepest part of their triumvirate, did not look moved by her pleas. “The Ahouri will be there at the end,” was all he would say.

It did not look like it pleased the seer.

“Go then,” Baraca barked, “leave us for your kin if you must, but I think it is a fool’s errand. The Caisah is the greatest threat to this land.”

They departed from the tent as if they were dogs being chased from a town. Equo, for one, would not go with his tail tucked between his legs.

“I am sorry.” Varlesh’s hand came down gently on Equo’s shoulder. “Nyree meant a lot to you, I know.”

“She means a lot to all of us, if you think about it,” he replied, trying to keep the mood light. “I just wish I believed her visions.”

As they walked to the outer edges of camp, Si kept nodding, his face an unreadable mask. Deep within him, Equo felt a curious lightness. It felt as though every step he took away from Nyree and Baraca was the right one.

Si glanced at him and smiled, as if his other half was only now beginning to reach a conclusion that he had done so long ago. Equo could have kicked himself. Had he been blinded by love and an ancient belief in the infallibility of the Vaerli for all this time?

He grabbed his brothers by the arms and pulled them behind a tent, beyond the reach of prying eyes. “Nyree,” he paused, gathered his thoughts. “Nyree . . . do you think it is possible that she did not get her talents back from the Vaerli?”

Varlesh’s brow furrowed. “Where else would she get them from?”

“Think on it,” Equo went on. “Nyree has been the made seer of her people since the Harrowing, but she has never got her gifts back until now. Do you not find that strange?”

Si glanced up at the sky, and didn’t seem to notice that his other two brothers were paused, waiting on him. “The Kindred have not returned the gifts.”

That was for certain. If they had, then things would have been very different in Conhaero.

The three of them stood closer; they all knew that there was one group of Vaerli that could be responsible. “The Phage,” Varlesh growled, his voice so low it barely disturbed the hairs of his beard.

The three of them considered. The faction of the Vaerli, the ones who had advocated Naming all the Kindred they could, of using them to overcome the Caisah. It was not a name that they had uttered in hundreds of years.

Equo frowned. “It would make sense though. Think of all the signs: the Kindred on the move again, the Scions appearing. If this Conflagration is happening, then the Phage will be able to use their trapped Kindred. They could have broken loose.”

The Phage had been imprisoned below the sacred Salt Plain—some said by the Caisah himself. In the days after the Harrowing, legend and myth were fairly mixed up. If the Conflagration was coming, the normal rules could be bent, if not broken.

“If that is the case, then the Ahouri must stand against them,” Varlesh said, and a song seemed on the edge of his tongue. “But Brothers, should we go tonight? Nyree knows of it. Perhaps we can put it off—”

“It must be tonight,” Si interrupted him, his voice stern and his dark eyes flashing in the torchlight. “Tonight or not at all.”

Equo and Varlesh shared a tense look. “Very well then,” Equo said, “but can we leave Nyree here, with Baraca? We know her, we know that she wouldn’t be part of the Phage knowingly. Whatever and however she got her powers back, I know she is innocent. Perhaps we should take her with us?”

“Do you think we can take her away?” came the chilling reply from Varlesh. “We are not what we once were, brother. If we plan to stand against a scion and the made seer, we must go much further into the healing process.”

“And so must all the others,” Si added. “We must all be united, or we will fail.” They stood together under the wheeling stars and considered.

“Then sing,” Varlesh slapped them each on the back. “Let us sing into forms that can carry us from here—and let them be mighty forms, too. Echoes of the greatest of this world.”

They had already announced their presence to everyone who had ears to hear—there was no use pretending otherwise. It was time for the Ahouri to show what they could do.

The song was of flesh and bone. It was of joy and freedom. None of the three of them cared that the whole camp could hear them. The Form Bards’ song wiped away everything for the three of them. They became lost in its depths, losing all awareness of their bodies.

The Ahouri called all of life and creation and chaos, part of the One Song. Everyone was a note or a rhythm in it.

The song wrapped around them, taking what they were and making it into something else. Equo felt himself ripped apart and the sensation was deeply satisfying. They had not turned the Song on themselves for a long time, terrified that it would draw the attention of the Caisah.

Equo, Varlesh and Si remained separate beings. That song could not be sung by one voice, and could not be undone by one, either. Instead, they arose from the music as three creatures, but different.

Behind them they heard the cry of the warriors, shock or outrage it was hard to tell. Three dragons, tiny replicas of the Named Kindred only as large as a human, leapt into the sky. Varlesh wore the pale green, Equo the scarlet red, and Si was the velvety black of deepest night. They would not rival the dragon of Ellyria Dragonsoul, but they claimed the air as easily as she had. Below, Conhaero was laid out like a detailed map, one where the line of the Road cut through like a knife.

The three dragonets screamed and spun around each other in delight. The air, Equo thought to himself. They had forgotten the joy of the air. This was the domain of the Swoop and all the other birds of the Lady of Wings.

It was freedom.

They passed over the forming hills and mountains, hearing the call of their kin ahead of them like a beacon flaming on the horizon. They could no more ignore it than they could the breath in their own bodies. Still, they took the chance to experience the measure of the land, too.