The Dragons of Noor (11 page)

The taberrells floated near the fire islands like moored vessels. Neck extended, the hatchling flapped her wings irritably as she fussed at the great dragons floating before her.

Where had this pip come from? The female’s cheek pouches had been empty when she landed, Miles was sure, and anyway, this pip was a terrow, a smaller, golden-scaled breed, not iridescent green like a taberrell.

The she-dragon tipped her head. “Little one, where is your mother?”

The pip turned a moment, then lifted her foiled tail and pointed to Hanna.

Hanna? Harboring a terrow? They’d been on the
Leena
three weeks together. Why hadn’t she told him?

“Step forward,” the female said sternly.

“Wait, Hanna,” warned Kanoae.

“I will address the terrow’s meer,” said the dragon.

Miles thought to say his sister wasn’t a meer, that unlike himself, she’d never studied on Othlore, but Hanna was already at the prow. He came to her side, still grasping his water bucket. The dragons hadn’t summoned him, but Hanna was his sister, after all, even if she
had
hidden a terrow from him. They’d been preoccupied day and night fighting heavy storms, but that was no excuse.

“What is your name, young pip?” asked the she-dragon.

“Thriss!”

“Courage.” The dragon nodded approvingly. “And who named you?”

“Mama.” The terrow’s voice warbled like a robin’s. She nuzzled Hanna’s arm affectionately.

“You shouldn’t have come out like this,” Hanna scolded under her breath. “You’ve gotten us into more trouble.” The pip wrapped her tail around Hanna’s wrist. Hanna stroked her scaly back and scratched the purple patch under her uplifted chin, much as she might soothe a kitten.

“Why did you keep this secret from me?” Miles
managed to ask, but the one-eyed male dragon interrupted him in a rumbling voice. “Where did you get the terrow’s egg?”

“It came to me from the sea,” said Hanna. “It seemed to be an ordinary stone at first, but it was beautiful, and I kept it in my pocket.”

Miles suddenly knew what she meant by the egg. “A lightstone,” he blurted out. “We called it that. A blue light came out of it when—”

“Who asked you to speak?”

Miles clamped his mouth shut. Blood pounded in his ears.

The she-dragon lowered her head and peered into Hanna’s face. The nearness of the great beast made Miles’s heart race. Her orbed eyes glowed menacingly. Her scales mirrored blue and purple light like shards of twilight. But it was the rows of long, sharp teeth that made him steel himself, those and her muscled jaw, which was powerful enough to snap a horse in two, let alone a man.

Taunier appeared on his right, the meers to his left. He was grateful to have them close by.

The ruffled scales on the dragon’s neck rose up. “The girl child is sqyth-born. A blue eye and a green.”

“One eye to the earth and one to the sky,” said the male on the left. “One so born can call on earth kith and sky kith to help in times of trouble.”

“Aye, Hanna’s sqyth-eyed,” said Kanoae. “What of it?”

The taberrells ignored the comment.

The she-dragon said, “The pilgrims have come.”

One-eye shook his great head. “This flimsy girl is not the Kanameer. She did not come to us on the wind.”

“Do not ignore the signs,” argued the female. “The girl is sqyth-eyed, and she has brought the Fire Herd. It is the prophecy.” Her head swayed as she began to chant,

The male dragons joined in:

The males had more to sing, but the she-dragon ended the song midverse, calling, “This is our Kanameer.”

The males joined in, chanting, “Kanameer. Kanameer.” The dragons seemed to have forgotten their anger.

As the dragons sang, Miles trembled. He knew some DragonTongue, but what did the word
Kanameer
mean? The second half of the word,
meer
, meant “one who wields magic,” but the first half? He tried to think. Servant. That was it. So Kanameer was “servant and one who wields magic,” or simply, “servant of magic.” Did the dragons see a servant of magic as a peacemaker? Or someone to be sacrificed?

His thoughts were soon overpowered as the rhythmic chant encircled him, and he felt himself falling under the dragons’ spell.

The voices were rich and wild, deep and hollow, and there were broken sounds within them, too: a syncopated drumming, a snapping of sharp teeth. He’d heard
them speak, but now he felt their music resonating in his chest. If a storm sang, this would be its song, or if a mountain had a voice, it would summon wind and cloud this way.

“Kanameer. Kanameer.”

Miles began to sway. The water bucket tumbled from his hand as his blood danced to the song. His mind fought against it, but he went on swaying, just as the dragons swayed, just as the meers behind him swayed. Only Hanna stood still, her hand resting on her terrow’s back.

The floating isles of fire fell to a low, red burning. The chant grew louder until the Morrow Sea seemed to sing. Waves lapping up against the ship drummed the chanters’ time.
Kanameer. Swish. Swish. Kanameer …

The she-dragon swam in closer. In a flash she reached out her scaly forearms, catching Hanna and Thriss in her right talons and Taunier in her left. Hanna’s sudden screams were drowned out by the dragon’s loud victory cry as she flew skyward.

Miles shook himself from the song-spell. “Wait!” he screamed. The wind swirled with the beating of the taberrell’s giant wings as Meers Kanoae and Eason woke
from the enspelling chant and shouted, “Stop! Bring them back!”

The male dragons stroked the sea with their powerful wings, and heavy waves raced toward the ship. A wall of freezing water swept Miles off his feet, lifted him high into the air, and smashed him into the rigging.

C
haos on deck, as everyone scrambled to get a foothold, and Meer Kanoae shouted orders. Another wave crashed overhead. Miles caught the base of the mast and clung to it to keep from being washed overboard. The ship tipped wildly before righting itself.

Coughing and sputtering, he pulled himself to a stand. A warm wind stirred by the dragons’ fire blew against his wet clothes. The female circled in the twilight sky above with Hanna and Taunier in each claw. Her forearms were tucked against her belly, sheltering her prey. The male dragons stirred the ocean again and lifted skyward. Miles gritted his teeth and braced himself as seawater swirled around his legs and sloshed overboard again.

“My harpoon!” Kanoae shouted.

Meer Eason grabbed her arm and tried to pull her back. “No meer has ever turned against a dragon!”

“We have to do something!” she demanded.

Above the arguing, Miles’s acute hearing picked up Hanna’s distant screams. Breal was leaping into the air, barking wildly.

Already the she-dragon flew high above the sea, dipping in and out of clouds. Hanna’s screams tore through his head, ripped down his neck, and knifed his heart. He had to go after her. The idea of shape-shifting again filled him with terror, but every moment of indecision put Hanna and Taunier in greater danger. Hanna’s cries ripped away his doubts layer by layer, as a strong wind will steal a scarecrow’s clothing.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t wait to think. Even now, the dragons were winging east. Miles freed himself from the mast and splashed through the knee-deep brine. He needed room. There were no spells to call on, only the heat found at his core, pouring outward from heart and lung to spine, to head, to hands. A giant falcon. He focused on the image. Lifting his arms, he stretched them farther and farther. He shut his eyes, pictured the great bird stretched
out and out and … nothing! Why hadn’t he changed?

The
Leena
tilted. A freezing wave receded around his ankles and swept over the deck. Hanna’s screams were getting farther away.
Hurry. Try again. Focus
.

“Miles!” shouted Kanoae from behind. “Grab a bucket and bail! What are you doing?”

He spread out his fingers, stretched until he felt a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. He leaned into his instincts, felt his ferocious desire, let the energy scream up his spine and race through his body. His arms grew broader, flatter, the stinging pinions feathering outward. His chest rounded. His face narrowed. There was a stabbing pain along his nose and jaw as they sharpened to a beak.
Fly!

Miles flapped his enormous falcon’s wings. As he took off he heard cries and shouting from below, but he didn’t bother looking down. He needed speed to catch the dragons. He was smaller than his opponents, but large enough to free Hanna and carry her on his back down to the
Leena
. How he’d rescue his sister and Taunier both from the dragons he didn’t know. But he was a winged beast now. He was like them.

His fear had been stripped away along with his human
flesh. He’d left the boy behind on deck. Now he’d fight to the death with pleasure.

Pump. Pump. More speed
. Clouds covered the new moon. Lightning flashed ahead, and he saw the dragons outlined in the sudden brightness. He pumped harder still, working against the brisk sea wind. As the clouds rolled across the twilight sky, strength poured through him as if he’d eaten lightning, drunk the thunder.

The fennel smell from the dragons’ scales wafted through the air. The males flew ahead, the female behind. His only chance was to strike and strike quickly. Miles darted for the she-dragon’s underbelly, where Hanna and Taunier were caged in her black talons.

Landing on the dragon’s forearm just above Hanna, he pecked and tore the fleshy part above the claw. Wound the dragon there, and she’d have to loosen her grip. The female roared in alarm and tried to shake him off.

“Miles?” He caught sight of Hanna’s frightened face. She’d seen him shift before, knew his power. Her cry of recognition was caught by the wind.

Miles speared the flesh above the she-dragon’s claw again, using his beak the way a woodpecker stabs a rotten tree. He jabbed until the dragon’s hold on Hanna began
to weaken. One of her talons was broken, and the tip was missing. Hanna used the gap to free her arm. Miles flew beside her. She would have to push her way out and ride on his back. His bird-form was large enough to take her weight, though he’d have to fly back a second time to rescue Taunier. Hanna pushed harder to squeeze the rest of the way through, but the opening was still too narrow. Next she tried to push her pip through to Miles, but the hatchling refused to leave her and scrambled to safety under her cloak.

From the right claw, Taunier was shouting, not understanding what was happening.

Miles flew higher, just above the claw, and tried to pry the talons farther apart. He was circling again to get a better purchase when One-eye fell back and flew below the female. There was a sudden blast of heat. Shocking pain seared Miles’s flesh as the dragon’s fire lit his left wing. He beat his wings frantically, tried to press his burning feathers against the she-dragon’s scales and smother the fire, but he soon lost his grip.

Wing still burning, he tumbled helplessly down and down until he broke the surface of the churning water below.

T
he she-dragon held her prisoners close to her belly as she flew east behind the males, her great golden chest breaking the wind’s flow. Hanna braced herself and peered through the stiff talons. The warm night air wafting down from the dragon’s scales chafed her cheeks and dried her tears as soon as they left her eyes.

How badly was Miles hurt? Was he even alive? He shouldn’t have taken such a risk, shouldn’t have shape-shifted. Still, she knew why he’d done it. She would have done the same for him if she’d had that kind of power. But if he were dead now …

She wept again. Her eyes burned.

Taunier shouted something, but the wind washed away
his words. He put his arm out to her through the talons. She pressed her arm through the gap left open by the she-dragon’s severed talon. The dragon’s claws were too far apart, and their hands did not meet. Still, they left them outstretched a long while, the slick air blowing between them.

Hiding under her shirt, Thriss wriggled closer to her side. The pip could have escaped if she’d obeyed her and flown to Miles. But then she, too, would have fallen burning into the sea.

Riding the swift air currents east, the taberrells flew tirelessly a full twelve hours, through night to the edge of morning. Red clouds rolled across the water stained by the sun’s first light.

Taunier called out, pointing ahead to a place where the crimson clouds were spinning round and round. There was a great hole in the sky, and clouds whirled around it as if they were swirling down an enormous drain.