Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) (33 page)

Aranya spat a fireball as she accelerated, striking the windroc square in the beak.
The bird screamed as it burst into flame.

Both
bows twanged as Aranya weaved through the gathering windrocs, making for a green marking she saw on the far side, a league or more distant. The windrocs gathered as though they were flies drawn to rotting meat.

“Three for me,” said Zuziana, sighting and shooting in one movement. “Got him
.”

Spit, spit, spit!
Aranya added to the kill-count. She dodged a windroc hurtling from above, continuing into a barrel-roll as four more birds whistled down toward her. One struck her belly, but Aranya swatted it with her forepaw, the three forward-pointing claws curved for maximum damage.

Ri’arion swore. His shot had taken a windroc, but it still crashed into his head and shoulders. Aranya lashed her tail, smashing the wings of two would-be biters.
Spit
and
spit!
Her small fireballs were getting out of control. Aranya oriented herself, scanning the sky above. As a half-dozen windrocs dived-bombed them simultaneously, her challenge bellowed out until it echoed off the far cliff face. Aranya tucked in her wings and coiled up, striking out with her claws. Ri’arion beat off a windroc with his bow and stabbed it in the eye with an arrow. Zuziana fired smoothly, left and right, as Aranya peeled away. She shuddered as a windroc slammed into her body near the base of her tail. It stuck there, somehow, perhaps speared by several of her spines, but the bird was clearly alive and clawing her repeatedly as it refused to die.

“Get it off
,” shouted Ri’arion.

Aranya lashed
out with her tail, but the angle was awkward. She could not reach it with her mouth.

“Dive!”

The Dragon furled her wings and tipped into a swift dive, right between a pair of windrocs. They screamed challenges at her, striking out with their beaks. Aranya bit off one’s head, but the beak sliced her tongue open.

Aranya screamed and spat fireballs as the windroc on her back opened up her hide. She aimed backward, but suddenly
had to swallow as she saw Ri’arion standing between them. He was balancing along her back with the ease of a mountain goat. Untethered!

“What are you doing?” screamed Zip.

The monk’s sword swung, beheading the windroc stuck to her back. Zuziana, fully twisted around in her saddle, shot another windroc just as it extended its talons to claw his face.

A weight crashed into Aranya’s left wing, slewing her around in the air. She veered instinctively,
taking the power out of the blow, but left Ri’arion with no chance, even holding onto one of her spines with his hand. The centrifugal force whipped him away. Where had he gone? Aranya stalled frantically. Turning her nose toward the Cloudlands, she dove with her fullest power. Her throat worked, sensing the readiness of her fire-stomach. The windrocs converging on their prey were blasted away by fire and arrows. Ri’arion, twisting in the air even as he fell, struck out again and again with his sword.

But one remained. The windroc sunk its talons into Ri’arion’s shoulder and neck and rushed away with a cunning jink of its wings. Aranya shot her tiny, white-hot fireballs twice, but missed. Zip’s arr
ow feathered in its throat, well above the heart. But the Dragon gained quickly on the bird, laden with its intended meal. She swerved sideways, grabbed the windroc between her forepaws and ripped it apart with her fangs and claws. Aranya thundered her triumph as the blood burst around her muzzle. Her left hind paw closed around Ri’arion’s thigh.

“Got you
.”

Rocks whirled into Aranya’s view. She banked at once,
using her forepaws and free hind leg to run along the edge of a stone column. She dived over the far side. A windroc crashed into the stone next to them, breaking its neck instantly.

“Left,
” shouted Zip. “Mind Ri’arion’s head.”

Aranya hurtled into the crevice, having to tuck her wings in to avoid scraping the rocks either side.

“Maybe I won’t mind his head,” growled Aranya, concentrating on the tunnel rushing toward them, adjusting neatly, minutely, screaming around a corner, straightening a fraction of a second before they sideswiped the wall. “Idiot! Walking Dragonback … all those windrocs …”

They broke out into a storm. One movement there was rock above them, the next, torrential rain. Aranya peered through endless grey curtains, searching. Not a windroc to be seen, as far as she could see–which was only a thousand feet or so. She eased up on the speed. Flying headlong into a rock wall would be unwise
. Given the quantity of adrenalin pumping through her three hearts, she needed to calm down from her battle-pitch. But the wind was also from behind. Could they use it without losing the trail?

Ri’arion
must be uncomfortable down there. Aranya fought off an urge to shake him like an unfortunate ralti sheep feeling the weight of a hunting Dragon.

“Let’s get him back aboard,” said Zip.

“Reading my mind now, Rider?” asked Aranya.

“Aranya, relax. The battle’s over. We’re all friends, here.”

A growl forced its way out of her throat, but Aranya knew Zip was right. Spotting a rock face ahead, she scanned it for caves. She spotted a splash of paint. They were still on the trail.

Zip slapped her neck. “Good Dragon. Nice Dragon. Why don’t we rest while the rain holds, then fly on the skirts of this storm and see if we can make up some time?”

“Where’s Sapphire, Zip?”

Her friend gave a low cry. “
Oh, no! Call her, Aranya.”

Sapphire? Sapphire!

Aranya heard nothing. She shook her head slowly. “Did a windroc get her?”

“We have to go back.”

More roughly than she intended, Aranya dropped Ri’arion on the ledge outside the cave and dashed back through the rain toward the crevice they had left. But they had barely sighted the faded green splash of paint when Aranya heard a shrill cry. Sapphire shot toward them like a miniature bolt of lightning, crashing into Zip’s arms, squealing and purring and crooning her delight.

“Okay, okay, you silly creature,” laughed Zip. “Don’t get left behind next time.”

When they landed, Zuziana launched a tirade at Ri’arion, until Aranya felt it necessary to put her wing between them. She said, “But he did remove that windroc, Zip. Its claws cut me deeply, which could have been dangerous, that close to the spine.”

Muttering about tossing the monk off the nearest Island, Zip relented.

Later, Zuziana exploded at Ri’arion for not having his wounds seen to. Shirtless, he submitted to having Zip pore over his cuts and puncture-wounds, extracting bits of cloth with her fingernails. The monk was all lean muscle, much like her Dragon-muscle, Aranya reflected. Zip evidently noticed, too, because Aranya’s sensitive hearing conveyed her exact heart-rate as her friend’s eyes flicked over his back, taking in much more than just the wounds she was now dressing with Oyda’s ointment. They were both breathing a little fast.

At length, Zip touched his back. “What’s this scar, Ri’arion?”

He shivered slightly. “A burn from a testing. That was when I learned how dangerous those with powers can be.”

“And this?”

“In our fourteenth summer of training, we hunt and slay a wild rajal with just a dagger.” The monk chuckled. “He left me three fine mementos–that scar, one on my thigh and another here on my stomach.”

His stomach was formed like twin rows of stones. Even in the cave’s gloom, Aranya made out the hint of colour that stole into Zuziana’s cheeks. Oh, by the mountains of Immadia–neither of them knew it, but a Dragon could tell. Aranya kept her silence. It was unfair, being able to judge emotions with the perception of a Dragon
. Abruptly, another quality in Zuziana’s skin came to her notice, something that had not been there before. Reflexively, her Dragon sight magnified the image until every pore of Zip’s skin appeared as large as a bucket. She was not mistaken. The magic of her Dragon tears was still thriving in her friend in the form of miniscule stars forming, swirling and disappearing within her flesh.

Aranya caught her breath. Suddenly, eavesdropping on her companions’ budding attraction to each other lost its novelty. She could not tell Zip.
What had she set off?

Ri’arion stirred. “Thank you for yo
ur kind help, Princess. I–uh, apologise on two accounts. I am not much used to women, having grown up since my infancy in the warrior monastery. While we don’t take vows of celibacy like most of the Fra’aniorian monasteries which follow the Path of the Dragon Warrior, that is the reality for most. So if I am awkward and ill-mannered, it is for this reason. I also apologise for walking your Dragon’s back during the battle. It was foolish. Aranya could have blasted the windroc with a fireball had I not stood in her way.”

It was the longest speech Aranya had ever heard pass the monk’s lips.

“But you saved me much hurt,” said Aranya. “May I lay my paw on you?”

“Healing?” He nodded.

“Actually, it wasn’t that foolish an idea,” said Zip, colouring again, “despite my earlier interruption–”

“Eruption,” said Aranya.

Zip wrinkled her nose at Aranya. “Very well, eruption. But Ri’arion, if you were tied on, or better, if you had short stirrups you could stand in but still be secured to Aranya’s back–you could wield a sword against the windrocs and not be trying to strike past my head and shoulders.”

Aranya placed her paw on Ri’arion’s shoulder, considering this. He staggered beneath the weight. “I’m willing to try it,” she said. Concentrating deeply, she released the healing power. “After we sleep.”

T
hey chased the
storm out of the Spits, making the best use of the blustery winds. Another full day’s flying and several ultimately harmless skirmishes with single, marauding windrocs saw Aranya and her charges free of the Spits. Aranya declared a sight of Si’oon Island on the horizon, the most southerly of the Twenty-Seven Sisters.

Zip, eyeing the storm heading north, said, “I hope it grounds their Dragonships.”

“Let’s stop at Si’oon and let Aranya hunt,” the monk suggested. “I’ll try to find out how far ahead Garthion’s fleet might be.”

After landing in a secluded forest clearing, Ri’arion walked to the nearby town to make enquiries. He returned
shaking his head. “I make it four and a quarter days. They aren’t dawdling. Besides that, I nearly got into trouble, asking that question.”

Aranya lifted her nose from the enormous wild ralti sheep she had been eating–not enjoying, just eating. “We made up time. With short but regular stops, we could extend my flying time even more.”

“We saw that Dragonship,” said Zip. “We should stay out of sight.”

“It’s a risk,” Ri’arion put in.

“If we’re spotted, we’ll have to take the Dragonship down. But not innocent traders,” said Aranya. “Not if we can avoid it, anyway.”

“Votes for numbing our behinds in the saddle for a few
hours?” asked Zip.

“A few more bites first,” said Aranya.

“That’s truly a Dragon-sized sheep, that one,” said Zip. “Maybe we should toss the carcass over the edge before someone figures out what happened here. Are you sure you won’t be waddling in the air, your oh-so-greediness? Your stomach’s dragging on the ground.”

“A girl needs her strength.”

Aranya tried to suck in her stomach. She settled instead for offering Zip a grin full of shredded strips of meat dangling between her fangs.

* * * *

The hunting was excellent in the Twenty-Seven Sisters, but Aranya did not feel hungry again after eating a third of that massive ralti sheep. She dropped the carcass over the edge of the Island on take-off, but still felt the extra weight in her stomach. They winged north, ever north over the verdant Isles of the Sisters, pausing only when needed to rest or refresh themselves. A hot south-westerly breeze helped them along, so that the crossing of the Sisters took only a day and a half. Aranya found a sweet green dell on the uninhabited northernmost Isle of the Sisters, scared off a few rajals, and declared:

“Well, my smelly Riders. Here’s a waterfall and a pool for bathi
ng, I see sweet grass for sleeping on and hares playing in the sward.”

“There’s a subtle hint if I ever heard one,” Zip snorted. “By the lakes of Remoy, it’s even hotter down here than up in the air.” She wiped her brow and examined her arms. “I
guess I am a bit dirty.”

“You have to have a Dragon’s sense of smell to truly appreciate the richness of your odour,” said Aranya. “Come on, I’m dying for a swim. Please get me unloaded, Zip.”

“Not if you’re going to insult me.”

But Zuziana and Ri’arion willingly unbuckled the saddles and travel packs. They had to duck as Aranya, with a bugle of delight, jumped into the
water. It was not the Immadian Princess’ most elegant moment. She had forgotten she was a Dragon. Her belly-landing almost emptied the small pool. But then she stood beneath the small waterfall which dropped into the pool from a height of nearly a hundred feet, shaking out her wings.

“It’s magnificent
,” she called. “You have to try it.”

Sapphire sped into the waterfall with gurgling cries that sounded so similar to Human laughter, Aranya
had to look three times to convince herself it really was the dragonet. Zip was next, shucking her armour and underclothes behind a boulder before diving in with barely a ripple of the water. Remoyans could all swim like fish, she was reliably informed. Immadia’s lakes were usually too cold for swimming, but she had been taught at a young age by her father at the private hot springs behind Immadia’s castle. Aranya glanced at Sapphire. The dragonet was actually flying beneath the water. Slow flying, to be sure, but a body streamlined for flying was also good for swimming, evidently. She would try it at the next terrace lake, Aranya decided, not some pretty pool that only took her up to her knees.

Zuziana had a scrap of soapstone with her. She scrubbed away energetically. Aranya sneaked up behind her and pushed her over in the water.

“I did not want a back scratch,” she spluttered. “Not with those talons.”

“Zip, what did Nak say about feeding my Human form?”

Zuziana pretended to stroke an imaginary beard. “He said it was different to the Dragon form. Why, is Human-Aranya going to come out to impress our nice monk?”

“I think you’ve got that covered,” said Aranya, before she thought the better of her words.

“A-Aranya!”

“He came to sleep near you last night, next to my neck,” said Aranya. “That’s all I meant.”

“That is
not
all you meant, you liar.”

“Do you think I could transform here and be Human for a bit? Do you think it’s safe?”

Zuziana changed her deliberate scowl to a smile. “As long as you leave my monk to me. He’s–oh.”

Following the widening of Aranya’s eyes, Zip whirled. Ri’arion stood beside the boulder, clad only in
his loincloth. His gaze flicked to the scars on her body, before apprehending Zuziana’s shriek and horrified expression. He turned on his heel but stood his ground.

Aranya heard his heart hammering away. She and Zuziana exchanged baffled
glances.

“So, I fail to understand,” said Ri’arion
, evidently through clenched teeth. “Yesterday, I learned from a reliable source that Remoyans bathe together in social settings. I assume it’s no problem for a man to bathe near a Dragon, except that you’re a Shapeshifter, Aranya. Therefore I wore a decent covering.” His hand indicated the loincloth. “Am I offending you by being clothed, even so little? What taboos has this ignorant monk stomped all over, this time?”

Zuziana began to chortle. Soon, she was bending over, unable to even gasp out a coherent sentence. Every time she began to speak, another attack of the giggles
overcame her.

Finally, in exasperation, Ri’arion said, “The Mystic moon does not make monks mad, unlike the saying.”

Aranya said, “I think, Zuziana, that you neglected to clarify that Remoyans bathe in separate gender-groups, apart from within close family. Ri’arion, a loincloth might be decent among monks, but in most Island societies, you may as well be nude. For example, seeing Zip’s hair is an affront.”

“But she has beautiful hair.”

Zuziana said, stiffly, “If so, then what does a Ha’athior Islander think of a scarred body?”

Ri’arion appeared to consider this for some moments, although they could not see his expression. He replied, “We all wear our scars, Princess, just some are more apparent than others. Life scars every person.
Although scars may be mute, yet still they may speak such words as should make the heavens weep.”

Zip’s face crumple
d. Tears welled in her eyes and tracked down her cheeks.

Aranya
transformed, and gathered her friend into her arms.

Suddenly, Ri’arion fell to his knees, still facing away from them.
His voice thickened with passion as he declared, “I grieve for your wounds and pain, o Zuziana of Remoy. I sorrow that you suffered, but rejoice in the spirit I see revealed in you.” His upraised fists punched toward the skies and a fearsome cry tore the still noonday air, making his companions jump. “And I say, curse the hand that writ such a tale of woe upon your flesh! I say, spirits of the Ancient Dragons, be roused against this evil and may the hand of the afflicter be forever afflicted!”

His voice was thunder to the heavens. A
ranya sensed a sudden stillness. The suns paused in the skies. A hiatus in all the world’s doings persisted as the magic gathered in him.

A bane upon the hand that scarred thee, Zuziana of Remoy!

Concentric circles of monstrous power raced out of him, a momentary perturbation of the fabric of the Islands. Aranya gasped. Ri’arion had spoken Dragonish! The monk pitched forward on his face, senseless.

She whispered,
“Hidden depths to his Island, you said.”

Zuziana shuddered violently against her shoulder. “I would not like to be Garthion, this day. My father always counselled me to be careful what I wished for, Aranya. I did not wish for this.”

Moving forward, Aranya bent to check Ri’arion’s pulse. “He’s still alive. We should put him in the shade; make him comfortable. Should I transform to keep us safe–”

“No. You should feed your Human side.”

Aranya heard the warning in her friend’s voice. Her heart ached for Zuziana. But when they moved the monk into the shade, Zip paused over him with an unconsciously tender expression. Aranya dug in her bag for her clothes while she tuned in her Dragon hearing.

She heard: “You really think a loincloth is decent dress, you ridiculous man?”

“Zip, shall I get some tea on the boil?”

“Nice and sweet to get my man on his feet.”

“Oh?” Aranya chuckled. “Are you planning to run around in just a loincloth, too? That’ll get his attention. Ah–what shade of pink do I make that?”

“Says she who propositioned the King of Fra’anior?” Zip wagged her finger at Aranya. “The demure and innocent Princess of Immadia was heard to declare, ‘You can do anything you like with me, o King’? I need to write that
down …”

“If I see a scroll I’ll burn it.”

“Aranya, how did it feel?” Zip dropped her gaze. “When you started to learn about your powers, how did–”

“Dragonship!”

Zuziana dived for her Pygmy bow. “Darn! Don’t have fire arrows ready. Light it, Aranya.”

She swung the bow up, aiming high over the waterfall where the armoured Sylakian Dragonship had paused, clearly having spotted them down in the dell. Aranya knew the shot was impossible. Zip’s
arms trembled as she struggled to make a full draw; three quarters was the best she could manage. The war crossbows overhead oriented unerringly on them.

Aranya reached out with her flame and lit the arrow. “Shoot, Zip.”

“It’s too far.”

The power was there in her throat, clamping her chest like a Dragon’s paw, the memory of it from her testing as raw as a fresh wound. Aranya remembered the pain of her head striking the arena’s floor after the Nameless Man’s attack, and what had followed. She clung to that thought.

Zuziana, having glanced at her friend, nodded. “Now.”

A thunderclap of sound accompanied the release of the arrow from Zuziana’s bow. The speed of the arrow all but extinguished the flames as it climbed and climbed above the waterfall, an impossible arc that defied gravity. The arrowhead split the Dragonship’s armour cleanly. Aranya caught her breath.

WHHHOOOSH!

The Dragonship imploded with a blinding flash of light.

“The gift of storm,” she said. Aranya thudded down on her tailbone as the strength in her legs gave out. “Ouch. Islands’ sake, that windroc really pecked my backside.”

* * * *

They rested for the balance of the afternoon. Ri’arion awoke and acted as though nothing had happened. He and Zuziana trained at unarmed combat while Aranya dozed in the shade of a prekki-fruit tree. Sapphire hunted dragonflies around the pool and waterfall.

Aranya startled
awake at a merry cackle of laughter from Zuziana. “Teach you to hold back, Ri’arion.”

Zip helped him to his feet. Ri’arion rubbed the back of his head. “I think you’ve mastered that technique, Zuziana.”

“Beating up little Princesses?” asked Aranya. The day was almost spent. They should be on the wing soon.

Ri’arion’s dark blue eyes, so deep they seemed like pools of night’s darkness, lit upon her before
darting back to Zuziana. He said, “I’ve ascertained that the Remoyan rajal can hold her own.”

“Ye
s, if he’s tied up, blindfolded and has a Dragon sitting on his chest,” said Zip.

“I see that you two destroyed a Dragonship,” said Ri’arion. “Did it come low over the dell? I hid the pieces, by the way, Aranya. Quite the wreckage.”

“Over the waterfall,” said Zip, pointing. “Up there, about two hundred feet up–and before you give me that sceptical frown, Aranya helped. She sped the arrow along.”

“Storm
powers, Dragon?”

Aranya nodded. “It’s the first time I’ve ever used Storm.”

“We should talk about what I know about Dragon powers,” said Ri’arion. “Having the power is one thing, Aranya–and by the Islands, you have power–but knowing how to use that power is the greater challenge. Any Dragon with a pair of wings can spit fire. But can they control fireballs like I saw you trying to do against the windrocs? Or, as you’ve now told me, speed an arrow using Storm power? Very innovative.”