She bowed courteously, and a little shyly, to Rajion.
“Injured in the war,” Mya’adara explained, following Pip’s thoughts perfectly.
Shimmerith stirred restlessly in her sleep. She was a beautiful, slender Dragon, a pale gemstone blue with sapphire flashes on her scales and spines, giving her the appearance of having been painted by an artist.
“Shimmerith’s beautiful.”
“Ay, and she deserves better than a worthless layabout for a Rider.”
Pip thought it best to keep silent. Mya’adara sounded positively wrathful.
“Oh, Casitha works here? Casitha!”
The woman looked up with a bright smile from the dressing she was changing on a Red Dragon fledgling’s eye. “No, everyone makes that mistake. I’m Oyda. Healer. Emblazon’s Rider. Mya’adara’s chief lackey and bandage-changer.”
“Bah,” snorted Mya’adara.
Pip grinned at Oyda’s insouciant tone as they walked over to the bowl-shaped bay where the small Red Dragon–all thirty-five feet of him, she estimated–was settled on a comfortable pile of ralti sheep furs. For a famous Dragon Rider, Oyda seemed easy-going and affable. “Honoured to meet you, Rider Oyda. I’m Pip. Lately from Sylakia Island.”
“Sylakia? Don’t they keep Pygmies as pets?” As Pip sucked in her lower lip, Oyda added, “Idiots and barbarians, keeping slaves. Are you joining the first year?”
“So I’m told.”
Oyda’s striking brown eyes, flecked with green and gold towards their centres, twinkled at her. “Good. A Pygmy warrior in that class should shake things up. Anyone who gives you a rough time, you send them straight to me. I’ll serve them to Emblazon for breakfast.”
“Not if I catch them first,” growled Rajion, right behind Pip’s shoulder. She flinched. “How’s his eye, Oyda? Shall I heal Tarragon again?”
Healing powers? Master Balthion had not mentioned that. Pip watched Rajion work his magic with all of her senses alert. Yes, definitely that odd tingling–it had to be magic.
Later, Mya’adara showed her the first year dormitories. Her assigned bunk was in a long room which housed forty-eight students in twelve double bunks, with spaces in between for desks. She deposited her new canvas holdall and her rajal skin in the indicated place, before joining the other students in the main dining hall. Dinner was held late–a Jeradian custom, Mya’adara said. Darkness had fallen, but the hall’s lights blazed cheerfully over the bustling trestle tables and long wooden benches of the dining hall.
Hundreds of pairs of eyes, it seemed, noted her entrance through the immense jalkwood doors, which stood at least twenty times her height–perhaps tall and wide enough to accommodate a Dragon, she realised. She hoped all these big people did not think she was just a child. The huge Western Isles woman led her along to a rowdy section.
“The first years,” said Mya’adara. “Hundreds of the rascals. Now, where’s yah dorm leader–yah Mentor? Hailia, she’s called.”
“Pip!” A glad cry came from nearby. “Great Islands, guys, its Pip.”
A table bounced as Durithion practically threw himself off his seat and dashed between the benches toward her.
“Duri?” she gasped. He thumped into her and gave her a huge hug.
“Yah know this scoundrel?” Mya’adara scowled at Duri. “Hands off the female students, young man, before Ah remove them permanently.”
“She’s … oh, I know Pip from home,” Duri spluttered, his ears heating up until they resembled red flags either side of his head. He dropped the hug as though he had been burned. “Oh, Pip … how, I mean what … this is incredible. It is you, right?”
Pip’s own ears burned as the boys at Duri’s table whistled and hooted at them. “Yes, Duri.”
“You have to meet all of my friends.”
He dragged her over to his table, rattling on about his father studying her and how incredible it was to have her at the Academy and throwing thirty names at her in rapid succession.
But then, from nearby, a voice cut clearly through the hubbub, “Oh, great Islands, it’s the monkey from the zoo. Hello, monkey.”
Cruel laughter rose from the table behind her.
Pip whirled, clenching her fists in rage. She knew that voice. She could never forget it. Telisia!
“Girls, this is Pip,” Telisia drawled. “My father studied her at the Sylakian zoo. She lived there with the monkeys. Apparently, she even speaks monkey.”
“T-T-Telisia!” Durithion stammered, advancing on her.
“How did you get here, Pip?” asked Telisia, playing to her audience. “Did the zookeepers let you out?”
“Actually, I flew Dragonback.”
“Dragonback? Why, you little liar, you–”
Pip ground out, “I’ll just go tell Zardon the Red Dragon you called him a liar, shall I?”
For a moment, Telisia’s mouth worked but no sound came out.
The boy next to her chipped in, “Are you threatening my girlfriend, you undersized
rat?
”
Durithion shouted, “You take that back, Prince Ulldari!”
Suddenly, Mistress Mya’adara stood between all the heated stares. “I trust yah second years are giving our newest student a warm welcome? Telisia?”
“I was just surprised to see Pip, that’s all,” said Telisia, her tone making it very clear that the surprise was not a pleasant one. “Welcome to Dragon Rider Academy, Pip of the Pygmies.”
Pip summoned a deadly-sweet smile. “Thank you, Telisia.”
* * * *
Kneeling, Mistress Mya’adara measured the new student carefully with a knotted string. “Three feet … ten, no, eleven inches. Hold still, Pip.”
“At least four feet, please,” said Pip.
Maylin, a slant-eyed Eastern Islander first year from her dormitory, patted her on top of her head. The Pygmy girl could gladly have bitten that condescending hand. “No tiptoes, Pip. You don’t want to rile the Mistress. She bites.”
“She hits,” said Mya’adara, clipping the back of Maylin’s head efficiently. “Ah’ll have those feet flat on mah floor, yah overgrown jungle imp.”
Sighing, Pip subsided.
“You’re running out of knots down there, Mistress,” said Maylin. When she received no reply, she added, “How tall are
you
, Mistress Mya’adara? Six mountains and how many peaks?”
“Six feet and six,” she replied. “Stop stirring trouble, Maylin, or Ah’ll have yah mending every pair of trousers in mah school.”
“Trouble? Me?” Maylin winked at Pip.
“Yah not just the trouble, yah the sauce on top of the trouble,” said the Mistress, biting her tongue as she concentrated. “Not quite the big four, Pip. Sorry. Three feet, eleven and one-half inches, yah are.”
“The simply
enormous
four,” chortled Maylin. This time, Pip did hit her, a punch on the arm which seemed to function as a general sort of greeting between the first years.
“Ouch, you pocket rajal,” said Maylin, rubbing her arm. “Where’d you learn to hit like that?”
“Wrestling Oraial Apes,” said Pip.
“Mercy.”
“Yah don’t argue with Pygmy warriors, or Western Isles warriors, for that matter,” said Mya’adara, marking down Pip’s details on her records scroll. “Right. We need yah weight, girl.”
“One titchy bag of flour,” said Maylin.
Pip thumped her other arm before Maylin could dodge. “That’s two bags, you short-changing little cheat.”
Maylin grinned, “Ooh, fun with a pun. Two bags of mischief, Mistress.”
“Ah’m having second thoughts about asking yah to help Pip find her way around the Academy,” said the Mistress. “That smacks of giving two monkeys the key to a storeroom full of sweets. Stand still, Pip. Hmm. Seven sackweight and three grains. Need to feed yah up, poor mite.”
To her surprise, Pip found an arm about her shoulder. “If you’re finished, Mistress,” said Maylin, “we intend to take a careful and very polite tour of all the best sights of the Academy.”
“Bah,” said Mya’adara. “And Ah come from a purple Island orbiting the Jade moon. Off with yah scamps. Shoo!”
P
IP’s First week
of school passed by in a blur. There was a mountain of books and scrolls to digest, classrooms to find, Mentors and Journeymen or Journeywomen to meet, and several groups of students to learn to avoid. She lost count of the number of times she heard the word ‘monkey’ hissed behind her back, or was tripped up, sent in a wrong direction, tricked or misinformed, had luminous flesh-eating slugs dropped down her back, or was jostled in the corridors. Being the shortest student by at least a foot, and two or three in the case of the Jeradians, seemed to lend itself to an inordinate number of ‘accidents’. Someone tucked a note under her pillow-roll to inform her that the only student who was shorter than her was Hardak, a third year student in a wheelchair, and that she would be ‘cut down to size’, too. Pip bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood.
To her surprise, Durithion tried his best to protect her. Telisia and her first year prince boyfriend, His Most Islandic Excellency Ulldari the Fifth, Crown Prince of Udalia Island, which was apparently less than half of his full title, seemed to have embarked on a personal mission to make her life a misery.
Pip hid in the infirmary and chatted to Shimmerith, or shadowed Oyda on her rounds amongst the sick or injured Dragons and Riders. She buried her nose in scrolls and Dragon lore and stole out of the Academy grounds, through the tunnel, to see Hunagu. After pouring out her heart to him, she was pounced upon on the way back by the Red Dragon guard. His roar paralysed her; an ungentle swipe of his paw bruised her ribs.
Master Kassik handed down a punishment of working in the laundry room for a week.
Shimmerith and Rajion cornered her in the infirmary and scolded her for causing trouble. Alathion had been very quick to accuse the Dragons of shirking their guard duty, they growled, growing so heated and snappish that Pip began to fear for her life.
Nak ‘rescued’ her, only to start teasing her about fuelling the Dragonish furnace.
Then, the dapper little man grandly regaled her with several tales of his exploits. She was supposed to goggle and make appropriately reverential noises, Pip thought crossly, later. ‘Oh, Dragon Rider, you’re so amazing,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Oh, how did you accomplish that? You’re so ingenious.’ Nak’s opinion of himself evidently reached the moons above. But he was terrifically funny, especially when he mimed Prince Ulldari’s regal pomp.
As she trotted down to the training arena, located in the far corner of the balcony-field outside the great dining hall, on the eighth day of that first week, Pip found her feet scurrying along in anticipation. Finally. She knew about weapons. A Pygmy warrior would show the other students a thing or two, rather than being the smallest, the ignorant one, the one whose feet dangled from every chair she sat on.
By way of greeting, Prince Ulldari said, “Great. The monkey’s taking weapons classes.” The group of four or five boys who always seemed to be around him, egging him on, burst out laughing on cue.
Pip joined the other students warming up on the sandy arena floor. The morning was cool; the suns having not yet risen high enough to warm the inside of the volcano–not that it needed heating, on the whole. Pip imagined that in the summer, the heat from the lava flows and the suns had to be unbearable.
She wanted to join the other first year girls from her dormitory, but the three she was closest to, Kaiatha, Yaethi and Maylin, seemed to be chatting animatedly in a close huddle. It was a world apart to a Pygmy girl. How could she join in without looking like the loneliest fool who walked the Islands? They had been kind, but they had been friends long before she joined the first year class.
Pip flinched as a pebble struck her neck. Ignore it.
A twig pinged the back of her knee. Pip bit back her rage. She did not want to grace Master Kassik’s office twice in her first week.
A larger pebble pinked into the sand beside her. The boys laughed at something. Ulldari tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled.
“You insulted my girlfriend, monkey.”
She said, “I suppose you dropped out of charm school for obnoxious princes?”
Ulldari sneered, “Why don’t you go back to your zoo, runt? You’re just playing with the big people here. We don’t have time for little black monkeys.”
Pip shook with rage. There was a roaring in her ears. She glared up at the richly-dressed prince. “You’d better be ready to back up your words with action, Ulldari. Because you’re ralti-sheep stupid. You’ve no idea who you’re picking on.”
“Pick yourself a training sword,” he retorted, “and I’ll give you a spanking. Then you can go work with the messenger monkeys.”
“Fine.”
Her calm acceptance seemed to rattle him. The Prince must have expected the tiny object of his bullying to back down. Her three dorm-mates ran to intercept her as she marched over to the weapons rack.
“What are you doing, Pip?” asked Yaethi, a tall, pale girl from the Northern Isles. She had been helping Pip work through all of the texts she would need to know for the upcoming examinations.
“Ulldari’s a decent fighter,” said Kaiatha, worrying at her distinctive Fra’aniorian braid. She had eyes the dark blue of a shady lake, and hailed from a volcanic Island renowned for its dragonets, the tiny relatives of Dragons. “It isn’t too late to back out.”
“Huh. You’ll carve up that stuffy old pair of trousers for ralti stew, Pip. Just keep your wits about you,” said Maylin, who had a knack for anything involving a blade.
“Maylin,” protested Kaiatha, ever the pacifist. “We’re not allowed–”
“Oh, go stuff it in a volcano!”
As her friends bickered, Pip picked out two long daggers from the weapons rack, similar to the ones Master Balthion had given her for training purposes. “These will do.” They were blunt, but light and well-balanced.
“No shield?” asked Yaethi, adjusting her modest Helyon headscarf nervously. She always wore a long headscarf in the famed Helyon blue silk, a colour which complimented her light blue eyes and hid her white-blond hair. A Northern Isles cultural artefact, she liked to call the headscarf, but she never wore her hair uncovered. Not even to bed.
“Pygmy warriors fight with two blades,” she replied.
As Pip and the Prince walked out onto the arena sands, the other students of their first year class, sensing tension in the air, stopped chattering to watch. Pip puffed out her cheeks. Please let Balthion’s training work, here. Otherwise she was about to make a stinking idiot of herself, and ‘monkey’ would not be the only nickname she’d earn.
Prince Ulldari held up his sword and shield. “May the best
Human
win.”
“Monkey,” said someone.
“Shut your flapping trap,” snapped Maylin.
Pip flexed her knees, testing the hard-packed arena sand with her toes. It was a good surface for combat. Her concentration homed in on Ulldari, bearing down on her with a sardonic grin twisting his otherwise handsome lips. She swayed aside from his first blow. A touch awkward, she thought. His fighting style was different to the Sylakian one. She should watch for surprises. Pip dodged again.
“Stand still, you little runt,” snarled Ulldari.
He attacked compactly, driving her back around the arena. Pip deflected with her two blades, learning, analysing, calculating. The Prince had enjoyed some instruction, but she knew she could take him. The question was not if, but how. A stone rapping the back of her head distracted her as she broke away from a clash. Ulldari drove in with a powerful blow, knocking her off balance. Pip rolled instinctively with her fall, twisting her torso to scissor-kick the Prince’s legs out from under him. He fell hard on his backside.
Pip bounded to her feet. “Come on, Prince Ulldari. Losing to a girl?”
With a snarl, he leaped to his feet. Ulldari attacked her with a huge overhand blow, but Pip spun inside of it. Blocking his shield with her left elbow, she used her anger-fuelled strength to punch him directly in the groin. He wore protection, but her blow was as Balthion had taught her, anchored by her legs and torso, with the full power of her shoulder behind it as her arm snapped straight. Every boy watching, and most of the girls, gasped reflexively, ‘
Oooooh!
’
Someone said, “Brutal.”
Prince Ulldari folded up on the ground, whimpering. He was finished.
“Never underestimate your opponent,” said Pip. She bowed curtly. “Any other big person want a small lesson?”
Her classmates were utterly silent.
Maylin rolled her eyes at Pip. “Master,” she mouthed.
Shutting her eyes, Pip dropped into the kneeling position at once. Not again! More trouble …
Feet tapped on the arena stairs and padded across the sand toward her. When they stopped, the silence felt as thick as blood. “I am the Weapons Master,” said the man, at last. “No-one else presumes to teach my students, especially not a first year. Your name?”
“Pip, Master.”
“Perhaps you think you are better than a Master, Pip? That you can instruct my class?”
“No, Master.”
“Then what was this? I do not allow sparring without a Journeyman or Master present.” The silence lengthened. Pip kept her eyes downcast. Suddenly, in her language, the voice said, “Rise, Pygmy warrior. Teach me, if you can.”
Pip gasped, “Master, you speak …” Great Islands! Opposite her stood a Pygmy man of middle years, gnarled and muscled like a pocket rajal. His dark eyes seemed filled with thunderclouds.
Now, she flung herself face-down in the manner of a Pygmy child before an elder. Speaking Ancient Southern, she said, “I abase myself, Master.”
“I am Adak’ûlyà’araá’lúyon,” said he, before switching back to Standard. “Call me Master Adak. You must be my newest student? Rise, and attack me.”
“No, Master. Never.”
“Refuse my command, and you may leave this school and never return.”
Her pulse hammered in her ears as Pip rose. Suddenly, her palms were sweaty. She moved into the ready stance. Adak raised his sword and shield.
Did he not see her spirit was unwilling? But she had to obey. Pip’s bare feet darted across the sand to make her first attack, a feint, a concealed strike from the left with the hand sinister. Master Adak read her intentions effortlessly. She snaked clear of his sharp riposte. They closed, testing each other’s defences charily, the Master faster and smoother than any swordsman she had ever faced, a dark cobra on the strike, a rock in defence.
He launched into a whirlwind of an attack.
Pip drew deep, holding him off for almost a minute before the Master’s sword-point bruised her left collarbone. “Good,” he said. “Again.”
Five seconds later, she was eating sand. Islands’ sakes, she hadn’t even seen his kick!
“Teach me, Pygmy warrior,” he taunted her.
So he would test her mettle, above and beyond her skills? Thankfully, Master Balthion’s instruction had extended far beyond the obvious, physical skills.
Rising, Pip flung sand into his face. Master Adak raised his shield; she rolled beneath the blow and stabbed for his knee. He stiffened his leg to break the force of her blow. The dagger spun from her numbed fingers, but her second dagger-strike thumped down atop his boot, bruising the bone. A real blade would have skewered his foot like one of the rats Pip used to pierce with bamboo sticks.
The Master’s eyes flashed with anger. Pip realised he had not meant to allow her to strike him. His pride was wounded; as any rajal might, he leaped into a furious attack, beating her around the arena until sweat ran into her eyes and her arm throbbed with pain. Twice, he crashed the edge of his metal shield into her ribs. Twice, she twisted adroitly, absorbing the impact as best she could. Pip scooped up her second blade in passing, collecting Adak’s boot in her backside for her troubles. She somersaulted mid-air and spun in place, ready once more.
The Master stood at ease three paces away.
“Pygmy in style, but Sylakian in the execution,” said Master Adak, seeming unruffled by their encounter, whereas Pip was blowing like a Dragon. “Where did you learn your swordplay, girl?”
“In a zoo,” she retorted. His eyes widened.
“Who was your weapons instructor?”
“Master Balthion, Second War-Hammer of the Sylakian Army.”
“Ah,” he said. “Then, defend against this.”
And he changed his style utterly, leading with the shield, striking from behind it where least expected, twice toppling her, but Pip rolled with the bruising blows. He split her lip, but she did not flinch. He cracked her knuckles, but she kept fighting even though she knew her right index finger might be broken. Finally, the shield smashed into her cheekbone. Pip saw blackness. The world faded.
Dimly, she thought she heard a Dragon roaring at her, an explosion of fire that raced through her being. It galvanised her. She staggered to her feet, weaponless. Her brow drew down. The power gathered in her breast was a molten core of agony, so scorching that she could think of nothing else.
Master Adak seemed incensed. “Oh, give it up, girl.” He drove in, trying to land a crushing finishing blow with his shield.
Pip rotated in place, striking with every ounce of the anger roaring within her; powering her counter-strike with the product of every humiliation of the last seven years. She shouted a wordless cry to release the anguish before it consumed her. Her clenched fist smashed right through the metal boss of his shield, and into the arm behind it.