The Dragons of Noor (18 page)

At some invisible signal, the dragons all unfurled their wings, some golden, some blue-green, and lifted over the water. Taunier, Meer Eason, and Kanoae glided higher and higher above the thin clouds. In the gentle rain, Miles watched Taunier and Findarr turn and disappear beyond Mishtar’s Prow star as they headed for the glade in search of the hidden trebuchets.

Breal nudged his side.

“Come on,” Miles said.

Hanna didn’t budge. “I’ll stay here a moment longer.”

Miles took off up the beach. More dragons were lining up, and he was ready to fly. His heart raced. He wasn’t going to miss the next departure. He crossed the beach to where the Damusaun waited. The queen’s vast form glowed iridescent in the wet moonlight, the
crosshatched scars on her breastplate lit up like lettered runes.

Bowing, he addressed her. “May I ride with you, Damusaun?”

It was the formal speech of the rider’s ritual, delivered as perfectly as Taunier’s request. The she-dragon spat a javelin of fire at Miles’s feet. He jumped back, the toes of his boots smoking.

“Your ride is mine to choose, pilgrim,” she growled.

“Forgive me,” he said, trembling with fear and awe. Taberrell dragons were the largest living creatures in Noor, and their queen held enormous power. It would have been easy for her to spit her fire directly at him and burn him to a crisp. He saw again how forcefully she held back her great power.

On the rain-pocked sand the Dragon Queen flicked out her tongue.

Miles’s eyes fell on the queen’s broken talon, the saw mark just above it. He’d heard a Cutter had used his saw to sever the tip as she’d flown him away from the azures. The she-dragon did not speak of her talon or the man who’d severed it, but he’d overheard one of the terrows talking to another dragon in a hushed voice last night.

The Damusaun caught his gaze, buried the broken talon deeper in the sand, and gave her order. “You will greet the sky with Endour.”

Miles felt a presence come up behind him, warm breath drifting through cold rain, the sound of a tail dragging in the sand. He pivoted, saw One-eye, and privately winced as he bowed.

“May I … ride with you, Endour?”

The dragon’s long orange tongue flicked out. Knots of muscle rippled beneath his scales. The fiery burns along Miles’s arm began to sting under his sleeve. Endour had scorched him in their brief battle, so why had the Damusaun picked One-eye, out of all the dragons on the beach?

Endour lowered his head. “One who fights is willing to risk all,” he said in a husky voice.

“I will risk all.” Miles wondered what his pledge meant and how he would be asked to fight when the dragons expected him to follow the law of the Old Magic. He and the meers had joined them without spears or swords, having no weapons at all but their hands and their wits. Still, Endour had claws, fangs, and fire. He found some comfort in that.

Endour said, “We will greet the sky together, pilgrim.”

The rider’s ritual was complete as Endour’s voice washed over Miles, and the dragon knelt for Miles to climb on. They’d fought against each other, but that was in the past. They were out to protect the Waytrees. He would go anywhere with this dragon now.

Endour soared over the dark cliffs. Miles met the wind, feeling as if he were swimming in a great black sea. In that moment he found the gift the seal shape-shift had left him. Not a physical change of heightened hearing or keener vision like other shape-shifts, but a gift he’d abandoned long ago—a sense of playfulness he thought he’d never have again. He’d found it again when he tumbled in the sea in his seal’s form, and that same sense of playfulness came back to him now as he greeted the sky with Endour.

The wind filled him like an empty flask. He drank.

They were still far away from the Cutters’ camps. He let out a loud whoop as the land sped by below. The dragons before them seemed to swing from the very stars.

Turning east, terrows and taberrells rode the thermals high above Jarrosh, rising up and dropping down as the wind opened the way. They glided toward the base
of Mount Olone, flying over mile upon mile of clear-cut forest. The Damusaun’s words came back to him.
All the Waytrees were bound in their making, and the azures are the greatest of them all. When they fall, the others fall with them
. How many dead trees were below him?

Under the racing clouds, he stared down through the drizzle. Even with his heightened vision, it was hard to make out distinct shapes on the mountainside.

The dragons flew northeast of one of the lower work camps. As Endour swept soundlessly over the hills, Miles spied a long pole protruding from the bushes. And wasn’t that the glint of metal?

“There.” Miles pointed down to his right.

Endour spotted it with his single eye and swooped down. Two landed near the trebuchet, half hidden in a mix of saplings and boulders. Miles was surprised to find it unguarded. The Cutters must be too busy drinking ale or sleeping in their huts. He slid to the ground beside Meer Eason and looked up at it in wonder. The weapon on its wheeled stand was more than twelve feet tall, and the spiked iron balls piled beside it were each nearly a foot in diameter; he wondered how the men could even lift them.

Meer Eason’s dragon helped Endour lift the weapon. Gripping the base in their strong talons, the dragons pumped their wings hard, sending up a pungent wind. It held the scent of fennel, of earth, and the sharp evergreen smell of azure needles, an odor Miles had not known before coming to Jarrosh.

Eason stepped closer and wiped the rain from his face. Together they watched the dragons struggling with the trebuchet. The great long-armed weapon of wood and iron was heavy, but they lifted it at last. Their flight seemed almost drunken as they dipped up and down with the weight; they flew over the hills to the deep, black water and dropped the trebuchet into the sea.

Miles was too far away to hear the splash even with his sharp ears. But he saw the weapon fall, and he raised his fist with Eason in a silent cheer as it sank out of sight.

“One down,” said Endour triumphantly as the dragons returned. Miles could swear old One-eye was smiling. He laughed as he climbed on Endour’s back and gripped the warm neck folds. Soon they were speeding through the night.

An hour passed as they crisscrossed the high hills,
and still no sign of a second weapon. Dawn would break in a few hours, removing the covering of night.

In the clearing just above the second camp, Taunier and his terrow wheeled down with the other dragons. Endour sped in. There! Another trebuchet. But unlike the first, this one was guarded. A shout came from below. “Dragons! Dragons overhead!”

T
he camp exploded with screams and shouts as half-dressed men burst from their huts and plunged into the bushes.

“Load the ball!” one man shouted below. Endour winged down, claws extended to grip the trebuchet before the Cutters could use it.

Thwack!
The first metal ball flew skyward, striking a riderless terrow in the belly. She lurched back, screaming, wings flapping. Vicious roars came from the other circling dragons as her head drooped and she spiraled helplessly down.

Endour and Findarr flew in. Men panicked and ran. They were found out now. No need to haul the weapons secretly out to sea. They’d burn this one.

Cutters darted through the bushes below, shouting and scattering like rabbits. Still Miles spotted few manning the weapon. Two of the youngest terrow fighters, Agreeya and Yint, soared in, taunting the fleeing Cutters with squeals: “Jit! Jit! Jit!”

Endour circled the terrows. “Draw back, younglings!”

His call was answered by another spiked ball. Miles heard the telltale whistling through the night air before he saw it.

“Watch out!” he shouted. Endour doubled back and flew directly before Agreeya to shield her from the hit.

There was a horrendous jolt. Miles gripped Endour’s neck, his feet flying upward with the impact. They spun back in the smoke, wings flapping, as Endour roared with rage and fire. Dragon’s blood spattered over Miles’s face and chest as they plummeted down and bashed into the treetops. The violent impact ripped Miles from Endour’s back. He tumbled after the dragon, hurtling from branch to branch until he came to a sudden painful halt in an azure tree. Miles sucked in a sickened breath.

“Endour?” The dragon was somewhere on the ground below. Miles waited for the dizziness to subside, then carefully pulled himself closer to the thick trunk. His body
throbbed with pain. The rough branches had left long bloody scrapes down his arms. The stinging cuts along his burned arm made him suck air between his teeth.

Screams and shouts from the continuing battle came from higher up the hill. Miles wiped the blood and snot from his face and peered down from his uneasy perch.

“Endour?” His eyes found the outline of the great, long body on the forest floor. Then he saw the gaping hole where Endour’s belly had been ripped open by the spiked metal ball.

“No!” Miles jumped to the ground. At Endour’s snout he waited to feel the dragon’s warm breath, but there was none.

Dead. Miles drew back, shuddered, and looked away. It had all happened in a moment, the sound of the trebuchet, the ball careening upward.

He placed his hand on Endour’s broad neck. Wind rustled the wet branches. Quietly at first, then louder, Miles sang the death knell for the great taberrell.
Kaynumba, eOwey, kaynumba
. The ending comes, O Maker, the ending comes.

In the time it had taken Miles to hear the spiked ball, Endour had flown between it and the young terrow. He’d
given his life to save little Agreeya without a moment’s thought.

Miles wept as he sang, though he’d flown with Endour only this one night. He sang the requiem they’d sung over Othlore Wood the night the great forest fell, and he felt as he did then that something very rare and very old had passed from the world.

Running his hand along Endour’s neck, he wrote the Othic mark of passage in blood on his scales,
Walk home swiftly;
then, wiping the first word away, he changed the runes to
Wing home swiftly
.

When he cleaned his hands in the grass, the dragon’s blood was still warm, and some of the stain remained on his skin.

Men’s voices shouted down the hill.
Thwack!
They would kill another dragon tonight if they could.

Miles’s legs shook. Endour had followed the law of the Old Magic; he hadn’t killed a single Cutter. But the men did not follow such laws.

The King of Kanayar paid the Cutters to fell the finest timber in Noor, and neither the king nor his men seemed to care how many dragons they had to kill to get it. The wet wind had the metallic smell of dragon’s blood
on it. A fiery bolt shot up Miles’s spine. He knew the danger of shifting in anger. He’d been sucked into the Shriker’s form this way. But he let himself lose control. Let the rage over Endour’s death pour through him and shape him with its fiery hands. Beneath the windblown trees his flesh began to stretch.

A scream ripped up his throat as the shift tore open his human form. The rapid change made him stagger. He fell onto all fours, his arms and legs growing, thickening; his fingers and toes sharpening into long, deadly talons. Heavy wings jutted from his splitting spine. Scales spread over his body like tarnished armor.

Roaring, he beat his wings, lifted higher, and soared over the clearing.

He was king of the air, masterful and mighty.

He was a dragon.

High above the mountainside, he inhaled the wet air like wine. Never before had he known such power, not even when he was the Shriker. He was ten times stronger than any beast alive, a hundred times stronger than a man. Taking on speed, he careened toward his enemies.

His nostrils caught the smell of the Cutters’ fear-drenched sweat before he saw them. Their scent heightened
his desire for revenge. Down below, two men grunted as they loaded a spiked ball onto the leather basket of the trebuchet. A third man helped them pivot the great weapon on its metal axis.

“There’s one!” The men’s backs were to Miles. The one who’d shouted was pointing at a soaring terrow. “Filthy dragon! This will down him soon enough. Release the—”

Miles’s deafening roar overpowered his next word as he wheeled down, breathing molten fire to the earth. The men fled, screaming. Miles winged in closer and tore the garments off the back of one. The man lost his balance and fell headlong down the steep hill.

Spinning about, he captured another man and dropped him into the trees. He heard him scream as he tumbled down, cursing as he hit and broke the branches of the sapling in his fall. He’d fly back to kill him and the others later. First he had to destroy their despicable weapon.

Miles doubled back and lit the trebuchet. He circled overhead and watched the long launch arm burning. He could not burn the spiked balls, but he flew down, took several in each claw and hurled them down the mountainside.

He soared upward. Below him, men were running, shouting, terror sharpening the pitch of their voices. He dove down, letting the angry fire build up in his chest. He’d set the putrid men below alight. He’d kill them for killing Endour!

Two taberrells flew past on his right. Kanoae rode the second. Miles turned and dropped back out of sight. Dragons had a heightened sense of smell. What if the taberrells caught his scent and recognized he was not one of them but was a human in dragon’s form? Would the Damusaun be angry if she knew? Uneasy with the thought, he headed toward the cliffs.

Thwack!
A ball had been released. A third trebuchet? Where? He pivoted too late. The flying metal ball spun him sideways as the spikes tore through his scales and flesh. Searing pain swept through his body. He screamed fire as he plummeted down.