I have seen,
Zardon retorted.
We know your plans; we know of your Shadow Dragon …
Then you must die!
A vast, roiling fireball shot toward them. Emblazon and Zardon peeled away at once, allowing the fireball to scorch the air between them. Pip smelled smoke and sulphur as she coughed at the fireball’s aftermath.
“Beware molten rock,” Zardon called over to Oyda and Pip, wheeling on his wingtip as one of the Reds snatched at him. “And those crossbow bolts.”
“He has a lava attack?” Pip panted. She had read about the Dragon ability to chew down rock and melt it in one of the stomachs–mostly a fairly rare Orange and Yellow Dragon ability, according to the scrolls.
Oyda said, “Ay, Rambastion is–”
Their enemy thundered,
I have the power. Now die, you miserable excrement of worms!
Pip bit her lip. Oh, for the strength to down their enemies. Instead, here she sat on Emblazon’s back with a tiny bow, stuck in the midst of a life-and-death clash between Dragons. She had to make her shots count. She had to feel Emblazon’s course and adjust, to time her shots even as he spiralled now into an attack, punching his claws into the Red Dragon which had suddenly dropped toward Zardon’s back.
Dragons thundered at each other, sounding like a storm gathering on a sultry afternoon. Claws scratched and scraped across Dragon hide, seeking a chink in the armour or a disembowelling blow. Fire raced across the evening sky, as golden as the suns setting in the west. Emblazon scrapped with three Dragons while Zardon threw off the remaining Red and homed in on Rambastion. Clearly, there was no love between them. But Pip was afraid. Zardon was already wounded and weak. Rambastion was fresh and cunning, the survivor of a great many battles.
Emblazon threw his Red opponent directly into the face of his next attacker, one of the Orange Dragons. Pip sensed his movement now, the moment his wings would flap to raise them above the entangled pair, the second Red Dragon turning sharply to bring his claws to bear from above, and anticipated the clear shot she knew would arrive. Her arrow feathered between the Orange Rider’s eyes.
“Shot!” shouted Oyda, making her own target blink with a dagger hurled directly into the Dragon’s eye. The scaled eyelid stopped the blow, but the Dragon jerked reflexively, distracted for a vital instant. Emblazon reached out and ripped his belly open.
Behind you!
Pip cried. They shuddered in the air as the Orange Dragon struck Emblazon. Fangs sunk into the base of his tail. Emblazon bellowed in pain, clawing madly with his hind legs before folding himself in half and bringing his long neck around. Pip found herself hanging upside-down above the Island-World. She saw Zardon, a Red Dragon clawing trenches in his back. Rambastion smashed into his side, slashing with his hind legs, the Riders and weapons on his back all but forgotten in his snarling, snapping blood-madness.
“Zardon! Oh …”
Somehow, Emblazon ripped himself free. He snapped reflexively at the Orange Dragon’s left wing, near the shoulder joint. The Orange squealed as the Amber Dragon’s jaws champed upon his primary wing-bone. Emblazon bore down with all of his enormous strength, shaking his head to snap the bone and sever the wing. Dragon and Rider fell from the sky. The disembowelled Red had ribbons and loops of intestines dangling fifty feet long from his belly, but he still shot a weak fireball at them.
Emblazon’s laughter was full of fierce joy.
I gutted you like a deer.
The speed of his turn made Pip dizzy. They smacked into the remaining Orange Dragon. He and Emblazon traded monstrous blows. Somehow Oyda was in the middle of it, swinging her sword at the other Rider, his face a mask of surprise, his helmet dislodged by one of her strikes. Raising her bow, Pip fired an arrow point-blank into his throat.
Eat this,
snarled Emblazon, and rotated the other Dragon in the air.
Pip’s ears nearly popped at the scream the Orange Dragon made. A crossbow bolt stood upright as if nailed into its skull. How had Emblazon even seen that coming? Now! Her heart stopped in her throat as Pip saw her opportunity, her fingers releasing the bowstring before she had time to think, the arrow diving into the depths of the Orange Dragon’s eye. He went limp. Her heart wept as she saw, from just ten feet away, the light fade from the Dragon’s eyes. He would never fly the skies again. The Dragon tumbled helplessly toward the mountains of Jeradia Island.
“Ready for Rambastion?” Emblazon checked his Riders. Pip was startled to find that her side was bleeding, but she was otherwise fine. Oyda sported a deep sword cut in her arm.
Oyda said, “Fly strong and true, my beauty.”
“We’ll send this pirate to his doom,” agreed Emblazon, trimming his wings with a low, bloodthirsty gurgle of passion.
As they blazed toward Zardon and his two attackers, the huge Red clawed a hole in Rambastion’s wing. Zardon engulfed the other Red Dragon in a blast of fire. The flames were still blazing as he bit the Dragon’s wingtip, dragging him through the air. Zardon threw his body into a spin.
Crack!
Pip winced as the sound of snapping bones carried across to them. With one wing dangling uselessly, the Red Dragon spiralled to his doom.
Zardon flapped weakly, trying to gain height. Golden blood pumped from his wounds. He could barely keep aloft.
Go to the Academy, Zardon!
Emblazon thundered, closing with Rambastion.
I’ll hold this ralti sheep off.
Rambastion swiped a parting chunk out of Zardon’s hide with his claws, but then he discovered he had a bigger problem to deal with. Emblazon shot three fireballs at him, setting one of the catapults on his back ablaze. Arrows whipped across the space between them. The Dragons circled each other, searching for an advantage, snarling their mutual hatred. The remaining war crossbow twanged.
Pip glanced ahead. Was that another Dragon rising from the volcano? Had they been seen? They were perhaps half a league short of the Academy. Where were the patrols? Hadn’t Master Kassik trebled their protection?
Emblazon shouted in pain as a crossbow bolt smashed into his left wing, mid-wing, just inside what would be his elbow in Human terms. A surge of rage blossomed within his body. Pip sensed the crimson fires of madness. Their Dragon shot toward Rambastion, despite Oyda’s shouting at him. Had he gone feral? Was this what happened to a Dragon in battle? Pip braced herself as the two massive Dragons smashed together with a resounding smack. They snapped and growled and lunged at each other, all tangled up, falling from the sky, tearing brutally at each other’s scales and bellies and wings. Emblazon bit the paw in his mouth. Rambastion sank his fangs into the younger Dragon’s muzzle and shook him as if he were a luckless ralti sheep. Oyda howled as molten rock splattered across her leg. Pip parried a half-seen thrown dagger with her bow.
Black claws pierced Emblazon’s back, just aft of her seat. Then Pip saw Rambastion’s muzzle rise above Emblazon’s neck, seeking the deadly bite into the huge jugular veins near the first heart. Tumbling, they turned upside-down in the air. She felt the terrible claws brush her foot as Rambastion deliberately raked Emblazon’s side, opening a gash fifteen feet long. For a moment, she did not grasp his intent. Then, their double Dragon Rider saddle separated from Emblazon’s spine-spikes.
He had deliberately cut the saddle off the Amber Dragon’s back.
They fell.
It seemed slow at first, the Dragons still falling and Oyda and Pip falling at the same time. But the flaring, flapping wings held the Dragons up as they continued to grapple with each other, while the two Riders, strapped to a Dragon Rider saddle which had been ripped off their mount’s back, had nothing to stop their plunge. Something struck the back of Pip’s head a terrible blow.
Uunh!
That was her, lost somewhere in a world of darkness, spinning, falling, trying to find her way back. Somewhere, a Dragon cried out in terror. Wind buffeted her body.
She was about to die.
Mountains, shadowy canyons, rushing up toward her. A flash of Emblazon’s face, desperate, far away. He struggled to tear free of Rambastion as the dark, muscular Dragon held him with all four paws for those precious seconds which counted out her remaining life. The broken, wounded form of Zardon, gliding unheeding toward the volcano, focussed wholly on arriving alive.
Oyda shouted at her. She could not understand.
Her hair, released, fluttered in her face like a Dragon’s wing.
The realisation struck her as slowly as they seemed to float through the air; in reality, falling at a terrible speed toward a steep mountainside. There was a new word. She should have known. There was a creature within her begging for release, a new way of being, a strange-Pip which did not even need a word, but only the will to actuate.
The world leaped around her–or was it her leaping through the world?
Grabbing Oyda to her belly, Pip tried to orient herself. The ground! The agony in her back and shoulders registered just a second before she smashed into the steep slope. Pip and Oyda flipped through the air, tumbling down the mountainside. She had to catch her friend again. She had to …
S
omeone stroked her
cheek. Pip moaned. “Easy, little one. Eat.”
She chewed rich, blood-dripping meat, and swallowed. She slept. She dreamed of the Shadow Dragon winging through the night, hunting for her. There was fleeing and endless burning in rivers of fire.
Wakefulness returned with the blink of her eye. Pip tasted blood in her mouth. Her eyesight zoomed outward, blurring, and then sharpened on a Dragon’s massive flank lying just inches from her nose. Such beautiful patterns. Transfixed, she stared at the scales for an interminable time before she began to separate out the sounds of the three hearts beating in that great body. She heard
every
sound in her vicinity. There were mites scratching beneath those scales, a dragonfly buzzing over on the far side of the cave, a person breathing softly nearby–and the scents! Her head exploded with scents. The air coursing through her elongated nostrils touched off cascades of wonder.
Pip wanted to roll over, but she could not seem to lift her head off a pile of furs. But an itch on her nose had to be scratched. She raised her hand and satisfied the itch with a five-inch claw. At a thought, the claw retracted into her finger. Pip watched the smooth flexion with dull amazement.
Something was not right. Her body felt heavy, far too heavy, and her heart–hearts–throbbed with an unfamiliar, complex rhythm. She thought about this problem.
“Pip?” A soft query made her stir. “Pip, are you awake? Rajion. She’s awake.”
“Kaiatha?” She wanted to speak, but her friend’s name came out as an incomprehensible moan.
Fingers rubbed her cheek. “Oh, Pip. We were so worried.” A tear splashed on her neck. Pip gazed upward, seeing a crystalline droplet forming at the edge of a huge eye which filled her vision. She saw every tiny thread of the iris, the tiny flecks of gold trapped within radiating filaments–and suddenly her vision jumped. Kaiatha?
Her friend’s smile spread across her field of vision. Blink. There, now she saw her whole face.
Forming her words carefully, Pip croaked, “Oyda? Is she … alive?” That was not her voice. Who had stolen her voice?
“Everyone survived–you, Oyda, even Emblazon,” said Kaiatha, her voice choked with happiness. “Oh, petal, if you could only see yourself! It’s amazing. Master Kassik said … but I didn’t know … you
are
Pip, aren’t you?”
“I am me. Yes.” She chuckled gingerly, because everything hurt as though a Dragon had trampled her for fun. “Why, Kaia–why do you ask like that? Honestly, I haven’t grown horns.”
“No, not exactly.”
An unfamiliar surge of anger bubbled in her belly. Pip scowled at her friend. “What, then?”
Kaiatha sucked in a breath, before saying in a rush, “You don’t have horns–but fangs, claws, wings and Dragon hide are all present. Very much … present.”
Rajion loomed overhead, giving her a cheerful but concerned glance. “And how is my patient? Fractured skull, broken leg, cracked ribs and all?”
“Um … surprised,” said Pip, staring at her paw. There was too much information surging into her brain. Her senses were so super-sensitised, she wanted to block everything out in order to simply
think
. She shut her eyes, but magical, multi-dimensional glissades of tiny sounds and impressions still intruded. “What did you do to me?”
“Me?” he snorted. “You, little one. You did it. You saved Oyda’s life.”
“But my skin’s turned black. And scaly.”
“Tends to happen in your Dragon form,” Rajion explained.
“Hold on just a–oh. Oh!” Pip flexed her claws, aware her eyes were bulging. They were so … beastly. “Islands’ sakes, what’s happening? Is this me?”
Rajion nodded. “I guessed this would happen. Kaiatha, bring the mirror, please. Pip, calm yourself. You are alright. You’re–”
“Not alright! No!”
Her howl echoed in the cave. Pip began to thrash about in blind panic, but the deep red mountain next to her shifted. Zardon’s muzzle curved around toward her, soothing. He purred,
Well, aren’t you just the prettiest little Dragon I ever saw?
His soft words and a breath of magic together took the edge off her horror.
Pip caught a glimpse of herself reflected in his slit pupil.
I … ooh, this is madness. I feel sick.
Peace, Pip. All is well. Give yourself a little grace. Ease into it.
Kaiatha brought a large round mirror over to her friend. She had to step carefully around Zardon’s muzzle to reach her. Pip realised that the Red Dragon had curled his body protectively around her, shielding her with his enormous flank. Pip gaped at her reflection. The Dragon in the mirror gaped back in astonishment. It blinked.
“After you and Oyda fell, Pip,” said Zardon, “I understand that you transformed just in time to catch Oyda and crash-land on the mountainside. I don’t know how you did it, but somehow you caught Oyda on top of you, or you arrested her fall … she’s fine. Barely a scratch. Well, she broke both arms. But considering the circumstances, I’d say being alive is a decent outcome for both of you.”
“And how are you?” Pip’s muzzle formed the words. She was an animal! She was a Dragon. A Shapeshifter, as Master Kassik had warned … this was off-the-Island crazy.
“I’m more bandages than hide,” Zardon joked. “I’m fine. I’ve been through worse. But look at you!”
Thou, Dragon-Pip, art the very melody of fire and magic.
Zardon …
she had no words.
The mirror reflected kaleidoscopic eyes, gleaming with gently roiling depths of mystic potential. Pip saw a sable muzzle, slender and lightly pebbled with neat, oval scales. A hint of smoke curled from a nostril wider than her mouth had ever been. Her neck-ruff consisted of four neat, dagger-sharp horn-spikes either side of her head, the largest over a foot long. Experimentally, Pip bared her fangs. Great Islands! She was scaring herself ralti-stupid. A pool of fire simmered somewhere down in her belly, impossibly, and so much besides …
Pip’s ears conveyed the sounds of approaching feet, heartbeats, even the creak of someone’s bones as though they squeaked like a poorly-oiled hinge, to her awareness. She shifted her aching head with care. Here came Casitha and Oyda, dressed alike, Maylin and Yaethi, Master Kassik towering over them all, Mistress Mya’adara and Durithion hurrying to join the group … all the people she had come to know and love. She wished her parents could have been part of this.
For a moment, nobody spoke, perhaps waiting for each other to speak first. With a sinking heart, she took in the awed and confused expressions of her friends.
“Well, I suppose I look a sight,” said Pip. Her voice cracked spectacularly. She thought she might blush, but instead, a rumbling heat ignited deep in her belly.
“Frightful,” said Maylin.
Yaethi smacked her on the arm. “Maylin.”
Suddenly there was a babble of comments. “Wonderful.” “Dragonish.” “A bit battered.” “Ah’m so happy yah alive.” “Pip, you’re
awesome
.”
Kassik said, “So, student Pip. I think we can safely call you an Onyx Dragon. Master Shambithion is very precise with his definitions.”
“Jet black, with just a hint of white around the throat, scale edges and claws,” Yaethi clarified. Pip grinned. Yaethi could equal Shambithion for precision any day.
“Nineteen feet of lethal Dragonish splendour,” said Maylin. “I’m jealous. Let’s just see that Island for what it is, shall we?” But her smile lit up her eyes, and she wrinkled her nose at Pip in the Pygmy way. “Enormously, Dragonish-ly jealous.”
“Your every inch is a delight,” rumbled Zardon.
Only nineteen feet? She was the size of a three month-old hatchling, Pip realised, trying very hard not to be disappointed. Was she doomed to forever be the tiny one? Maybe her Dragon-part would still grow? Maybe she wouldn’t be a fifth of the size and a tenth of the bulk of a Zardon or an Emblazon?
Mya’adara said, “Yah perfect, petal. A perfect Pygmy Dragon.”
Pip gulped, wide-eyed.
Her friends cheered and hooted and stamped their feet.
* * * *
Granted the benefit of Rajion’s Dragon magic to aid her healing, Pip was astonished at her progress. She had been unconscious for two days. Emblazon had reported she had flared her wings just before impact, or she and Oyda would both be dead. As it was, she hurt as though a Dragon had rolled over her.
Three days later, she was able to start hobbling about the infirmary and chatting to the other patients. There were many, for Rambastion’s force had mounted a diversionary attack from the north while he led a smaller group on what was intended to be a raid on the school, only to be thwarted by the alert Dragon sentinels patrolling a league above the Academy. Three Riders and two Dragons had been killed, and one Dragon, Serhion, had been blinded by an acid attack by a Green Dragon. They did not think she would recover her sight.
Dragon-Pip was wobbly and unstable. She needed to learn to walk, like any hatchling. The other hatchlings did not have a Human brain to interfere, however. She despaired of learning to fly. She’d probably only make a second attempt at breaking her neck.
To Pip’s amusement, Nak followed Oyda around like a puppy, doting on her. He fed her meals. He fetched whatever she needed. But Oyda vocally drew a line at having him help her undress. “Try another one, Rider!” She winked at Pip.
Nak protested his innocence in four lines of rhyming verse, but Oyda cut him off with, “Nak, how’s Shimmerith?”
“She kicked me out,” he moaned. “My roost’s so empty without her. What am I to do, Oyda? My darling Dragon despises me. I’m dying. I’m–”
Oyda said, “She’s brooding, Nak. You just take her the juiciest haunches of meat and put them outside her cave. Whatever you do, keep your distance.”
“I am bereft. Mournful. Alone.”
Pip prodded him in the back with her muzzle. “You’re going to be a surrogate father, Nak.”
“Ah, it’s you, my dusky beauty.” He scratched her beneath the chin absently. “I am inconsolable, despite your sweet encouragement.”
“Today, Rajion says, you can transform back,” Oyda informed her. “But–”
“Great.” Pip, who had been waiting anxiously for this moment, tried to trigger her transformation. Her body shivered. Suddenly, she felt tiny. Her perspective switched to Human, with all the limitations of sight and sound and sensation that entailed. For a moment, she feared she had gone blind and deaf.
“Close your eyes,” Oyda snapped at Nak.
“Ay?” he drawled. “This I remember–ouch!” Oyda had kicked his shin.
“Take off your shirt and hand it to Pip, you shameless philanderer.”
Pip felt a fool. Of course Dragons did not wear any clothes. Neither would she when she changed back to her Human form. “Sorry, Oyda. Sorry, Nak.”
“Sorry?” His smile assured her he was anything but sorry, which was no harm to her ego … “Oyda just wants to admire my muscular physique. Shall I remove my trousers too, Oyda–ouch! The bruises you’re giving me, woman.”
“If you’d prefer, bend over and I’ll boot your backside,” the female Rider offered.
“
You
bend over and I’ll–”
“Nak!”
He said, “You’ve no arms to defend yourself.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, you shaggy-bearded pirate. Besides the damage to listening young ears.” The pretty Rider turned to Pip, high spots of colour in her cheeks. “Don’t listen to him. He’s shameless. You need to take it easy, petal. Shall I help you to your dormitory?
Nak’s wicked chuckles followed them out of the infirmary. Oyda walked alongside Pip, who was still limping, with solicitous care.
“Says she who has both arms in casts?” Pip teased.
“Maybe I should start by kicking your scaly Dragon hide over to the next volcano?”
Pip grinned at Oyda, feeling so alive, she was positively buoyant. “I’m Human-me now. You’re acting a bit feisty this evening. Is our Nak getting you riled up?”
They emerged from the infirmary beneath a vast Yellow moon, which hung over the volcano as if determined to block it up forever. Its cratered surface was easily visible to the naked eye, as was the jagged, darker line that the scientists theorised was a canyon of fantastic proportions carved into the Yellow moon’s surface. As they walked up a long flight of stairs to the balcony above their level, which housed a play area for children of the staff, Oyda sighed deeply.
“Partly, Pipsqueak,” she said. “It’s partly that I can’t use my hands, partly Nak, partly you being naked in front of Nak, and probably an unhealthy dollop of Emblazon’s jealousy rubbing off on me.”
“Er … mercy.”
“A little more honesty than you bargained for? Sorry,” said Oyda. “Pip, you need to understand–I’m terribly grateful for the rescue, and so is Emblazon, but his pride has been wounded. This isn’t your fault. Not only did he lose Rambastion, who escaped, but he lost both of his Dragon Riders. You saved us, not him. I know that smacks of Dragon logic, and it is, but he feels he failed and it’s you who made him look bad.”
“I can’t seem to put one foot right in this school,” Pip said, bitterly.