Pip scowled at being referred to in such an impersonal way. Not all Dragons were comfortable with her Shapeshifter nature, and Tazzaral appeared to be one of those. Ha. Ralti sheep droppings to that. Maybe a Word of Command would sink their floating Island into the Cloudlands and everyone could go home in peace.
Maybe ralti sheep danced on the Yellow moon.
Durithion added, “What I’m worried about, if that Silver Dragon reads minds, is how much he already learned about our defences at Jeradia–the patrol patterns, where we would hide our students, and all those details which Emblazon would have known. I don’t believe we can afford to wait for the scholars to find the right Dragon lore. Someone has to rush ahead to forewarn our friends at the Academy and prepare our defences there. And someone should be ready and waiting, here at Fra’anior, to rush any information that is found over to Jeradia.”
Duri had grown almost overnight, Pip thought. Was that the confidence that becoming a Dragon Rider bestowed upon a man? Just listen to him outline a bold strategy, his hand resting on Jyoss’ paw as he spoke.
“Did he get anything from you, Pip?” asked Emmaraz.
“Apart from an eyeful?” sniped Maylin. Dragon and Rider laughed together.
“And a stomach full of bone shards?” growled Pip, deadly sweet. Emmaraz gulped. She stalked him sinuously. The Red Dragon’s jaw sagged as his belly fires soughed in audible appreciation. “No. I kept him out, only just–I hope. Could you do the same, Emmaraz?”
Kaiatha came alongside her as she stared the Red Dragon down. She reached up to place her hand on Pip’s neck. “We need to work together. All of us. Pip, our Dragons have magic. Yaethi has magic. We Fra’aniorians are adept at mental skills. You need to teach us to stand against the Silver Dragon’s power–mentally and physically, whatever we can work out.”
“Me? I don’t know …”
“I’ve an idea,” said Yaethi. “What about the Nameless Man?”
* * * *
When they returned to the courtyard, bubbling with enthusiasm about Yaethi’s idea, it was to find Dragon-Kassik speaking earnestly with a man who resembled a tall, upright stick-insect of indeterminate age. His deep-set violet eyes fixed on them as they landed. He had pointed Fra’aniorian ears, but in his case, the point was so exaggerated his ears could have furnished the average rajal most proudly. His shaven head was tattooed in its entirety. There was about him an aura of such quiet dignity, that Pip and her friends stayed their banter and bowed to him in silence.
Was this the Nameless Man? He was legendary on Fra’anior; the monk said to know the mind of the Great Dragon Himself, and a formidable magician in his own right.
Kassik said, “Friends, may I introduce Master Ga’am? Upon my request for help, he has been sent by the Nameless Man.”
The monk assessed them calmly, one by one. Pip felt the strength of his gaze. The man was a mental fortress. She brightened. If anyone could teach them how to resist the strange Marshal and his Silver Dragon, this monk could.
He inclined his head, very slightly. “The Nameless Man extends the defenders of the free Islands most sulphurous greetings in the Name of the Great Dragon, Fra’anior.” His voice was like steel concealed in silk, so calm, Pip imagined he would drive Maylin crazy at some point. “I am Master Ga’am. We have several hours before departure. That will give us time to cover a few basics.”
Pay heed, Dragons. This is for you, too.
Master Ga’am’s wrinkles cracked, very slightly, into what had to pass for a smile for him as the Dragons reacted to his use of Dragonish.
I am no Dragon, but I have lived many summers among the mighty Dragon-kind.
Kassik nodded to them all. “Please excuse me. I must attend to a few small details–a lost hatchling, for one.”
Master Ga’am folded himself into an improbable cross-legged position in the courtyard. He said, “We will sharpen our minds as a Dragon sharpens his claws. Great magic requires great clarity of thought. All magic is rooted in the essence of the being–Dragon, Shapeshifter or Human–but formulated, honed and shaped by conscious thought. Whether you think so or not,” his gaze stopped briefly on Maylin and Casitha, “you have magic inside of you. Each person does. Each Dragon does. It is who we are, written into the very fundament of our existence. But magic is not all. Character matters. Willpower plays a role. Stubbornness, too. We will speak about these things.”
Pip winced as the word ‘stubbornness’ brought his gaze to rest on her.
“Now, let us start by clearing our minds of all thoughts, and passions, and worry. When your mind is clear, reach for me here in the centre and I will show you what to do next.”
Next was the likelihood of developing a thumping headache, Pip grumbled inwardly.
Suddenly, a clear image of Ga’am appeared in her mind.
Evict me if you can, student Pip. I’m here.
Pip swatted at him.
No, over here.
She steeled her defences, but the Master was already behind them.
Don’t flail at insects. Think about what you’re doing. Strategize.
After a few minutes of chasing the elusive monk without success, Pip realised that he was doing the same with most of her other friends and their Dragons, simultaneously. She gasped.
Indeed.
The image bowed. There was no arrogance in his manner.
He was just an image. Pip erased him.
Step one passed,
noted Ga’am.
Now, don’t let the fire touch you.
An armoured Dragon appeared inside her head. Fire erupted between her temples.
T
wo EVEnINGs later,
the Dragonwing from Fra’anior camped at the northernmost end of Yaya Loop. Twenty Dragons filled the small dell Kassik had chosen for them, while two patrolled overhead. Oyda and Nak invited Dragon-Pip over to their fire, where Emblazon gleamed in the firelight, more than twice Oyda’s height even when the Dragon lay flat on his belly.
“A headache a day keeps the Onyx Dragon grumpy,” said Maylin, favouring Pip with a falsely bright smile as she moved off.
Pip scowled. “I will flirt with Emmaraz if I want to.”
“You’re a girl.”
“And a Dragon. Unless you’ve forgotten?” She tempered her hot response with difficulty. Her Dragon senses and responses were just so fiery! “Fine, I’ll admit that finding a Dragon attractive is a touch weird …”
“
Very
weird.”
“You’re the one acting like a jealous girlfriend.” At Maylin’s hiss of annoyance, Pip snapped, “Maybe if you thought of me more like an animal from the zoo, it’d help?”
“Maybe it would, seeing as you’ve an Island-sized chip on your shoulder–”
“Stupid big person.”
Maylin glared at her. “Pig-headed Pygmy.”
Oyda shouldered her way between them. “Pip. Over here. Girl talk.”
“Tell her about young Dragon hormones,” Nak advised as they passed him by. He was helping Yaethi adjust Arrabon’s saddle harness for a better fit.
“Oh, and you’re blameless on that front,” Oyda snorted, throwing in an extra waggle of her hips for emphasis.
“Phee-ooo,” whistled Nak. “Sweet.”
“She does have nice haunches,” Arrabon offered. Everyone who heard, gaped at the usually diffident Dragon.
“Arrabon! Not you, too.” Yaethi slapped him, hard, shaking her head. “Hold on, which one of my friends are you referring to?”
“Whichever riles you most, precious Rider.”
That earned him a second slap.
Arrabon’s dry humour brought a smile back to Pip’s lips as she walked over to Oyda’s fire, close by. Emblazon lay curled in a half-moon about the blaze, his flank radiating the fire’s heat, his scales so lustrous she wondered if Dragon hide did not possess gemstone qualities. One very sleepy eye cracked open to regard her.
Pip. Roost with us.
Thanks, Emblazon.
He still sounded rueful.
Copying the other Dragons, some of whom were sleeping half on top of each other, Pip settled herself alongside Emblazon’s foreleg, facing in the opposite direction to him. Odd, how as a Dragoness she was supposed to have no qualms about sleeping next to a large male. Pip wondered if it was all so innocent between Dragons. Mya’adara would have had a thing or three to say!
Emblazon had been working non-stop with Master Ga’am; he was exhausted. Oyda’s pursed lips as she regarded her Dragon made that much clear. But soon Oyda was outlining a theory about how women were like the different moons. Pip listened with half an ear.
When she woke, what could have been only a few minutes later, it was to find Oyda stirring the contents of a small pot and playing a word game with Nak, who was teaching Yaethi how to punch a needle through saddle leather. Oyda shot her a quick, quirky smile. “Tired?”
“All flapped out for today.”
Duri, Kaiatha and Maylin had joined them around the fire, along with Emmaraz and Tazzaral. The huddle of Dragons was becoming a little claustrophobic, even for someone used to sleeping next to an Oraial Ape every night, Pip thought. The fire’s blaze was delicious, though, spreading warmth into her aching flight muscles.
“Your turn, Nak,” said Oyda.
He replied, “Perfectly pint-sized Pygmy paws pack a powerful punch. There, that beats your effort with seven ‘P’s’.”
Oyda pouted, “Oh, Nak, you’re such a
man
.”
Of course, that was an excuse for him to puff out his chest and strut over to her and drop a fond kiss on her forehead. Duri made a droll face behind his back, which set Kaiatha and Maylin off into helpless fits of giggles.
Dragon-Pip reached out and picked Nak up into the air by the back of his belt. “Protesting Pygmy Pip plucks pontificating pipsqueak precisely pending … er …”
“Pitiless punishment?” suggested Yaethi.
“Paddling his purple pants?” put in Duri.
“Who’s the pipsqueak around here? Put me down, you fluttering lump of soot,” Nak demanded. Dangling six feet off the ground, that was a rather ineffective complaint. “At least my Shimmerith knows how to treat a Dragon Rider with due respect.”
Pip grinned. “Make me.”
“Oh?” Nak swung around to face her. “Try this one for size. Thou, my dusky spirit of the night, didst descend star-bright to gleam in fulsome, oleaginous majesty upon this trembling spit of rock.”
A silly smile spread across her face before Pip could stop it, fuelled by the fires so blatantly ignited in her belly. She blushed heatedly. “Nak, is ‘oleaginous’ even a word?”
Durithion whistled softly. “Do Dragons always respond to compliments like that?”
“No,” rumbled Emblazon.
“Yes,” Nak disagreed. “Dragon hormones, as I was saying. Try it on your Jyoss, Duri. But don’t insult Dragons–eh, Pip? It turns them into mad, rending battle machines.”
Duri turned to Jyoss. Before he could speak, she blew softly into his face, ruffling his hair. Her beautiful, rose-petal eyes glimmered with their inner magic. “Thou wouldst say, my inexpressibly handsome Rider-heart?”
This reduced Durithion to spluttering, blushing confusion. Everyone laughed.
Nak, restored to his feet again, strolled over to Emblazon’s flank, winking at everyone when he thought the massive Amber Dragon was not looking. He said, “In a bonfire, the amber heart is always the hottest part of the blaze. Emblazon always reminds me of that yellow–ouch! Oyda, call your Dragon off.”
Emblazon cracked his eye open lazily. “He who would woo my Rider, must pay the price.”
Pip saw that the Amber Dragon had trapped Nak’s boots between the long toes of his hind foot. Oyda shrugged and indicated, playfully, that she was helpless to intervene.
Nak said, “Bah. Very well. Emblazon.” He knelt down, putting his hands on the Amber Dragon’s toes. “Ah, these mighty pillars bestriding the earth, hid within, steely, flashing talons which deal swift death to thy foes …”
To everyone’s delight, Emblazon made a sound like a feline purr, only it shook them all with its low, throbbing roar, and flame flared thirty feet out of his nostrils, momentarily lighting the entire dell.
The mighty Amber Dragon guffawed, “Ay, you win, Rider. You may court my Oyda.”
Nak did some kind of silly, stamping war-dance around the fire, capering with such ridiculous joy and raising such a hullabaloo that Dragon, Human and Shapeshifter alike roared with mirth.
Pip fell asleep musing upon the bond between Dragon and Rider.
Pip.
The mental whisper woke her.
In the deepest dark of the Island-World’s night, which was almost never truly dark because of the moons in the sky, Maylin stood beside her neck.
“May I?”
“Um …” Pip mumbled, trying to wake up. Toting her blanket, Maylin wriggled between her neck and forepaws. Across the fire, Emmaraz’s eye glinted, open the merest slit. He inclined his head.
“It’s weird, Pip. I know you miss having a Dragon like the rest of us,” Maylin whispered. “I’m sorry I made things worse for you. Emmaraz does feel like a boyfriend, bizarrely. A seventy-foot, fire-breathing boyfriend.”
“That’s right, Maylin.”
“I have all these strange feelings and I don’t know what to do with them.”
Strange feelings? She could clasp a friend between her paws. Dragon-Pip flexed her talons slightly, struck by the incongruity between her Human feelings, hid somewhere within her, and the alien, unaccustomed Dragon feelings stirred in her breast. She was a Pygmy girl. Before, she had always been the tiny one. People looked upon her as cute and even childish–a perception she constantly fought against. Now Maylin seemed tiny to her, curled in her paws. The scent of her friend, the softness of Maylin’s cheek as she rested her head in the cup of Pip’s paw … she felt a surge of protectiveness, a sweet ache of motherly jealousy, at the fragile yet beautiful life she embraced.
She had to give up her dream of being Human. Just look at her.
All she could say was, “It’s alright.”
“I shouldn’t have been horrid about the zoo. Pip, I’m an idiot sometimes.”
“I was bent on making you mad,” Pip admitted. “I don’t know what to make of being a Dragon, Maylin. I’ve wings and fire inside, and … he looks at me and it does things … you know, makes me feel–”
“Like a woman–a female Dragon?”
Pip sighed gustily. “Like I’m worth knowing. A teensy bit of attention and I’m melting like hot glue inside. I’m sorry, Maylin. I wish I had your confidence. It’s always that I’m always the smallest and the least and I want to be
more
.”
Maylin turned over, lying on her back so that she gazed up at Pip. “You have power.”
“I never wanted it.”
“I’d not want anyone else in this Island-World to possess that power, Pip.”
She gulped hard, too stunned to speak, too full of doubt and sneaking fears, mingled with an inkling of hope. Was Maylin right? Could she manage her power? And develop the wisdom to use it well, as the Land Dragon had so sagely suggested?
Maylin added, “Living in the zoo–and I hate the idea as much as you–made you understand the true value of freedom, Pip. I don’t see you as a ‘little person’. You are not stunted. You’re strong. The very fact that you fear and weigh the consequences, fills me with hope.”
“Then why do I harbour these wretched feelings for that Silver Dragon?”
Her friend chuckled, “Expound the mysteries of a Shapeshifter’s heart to me, Pip. I’m listening.”
* * * *
Master Ga’am called it ‘cage thinking’. Pip had been unable to shake the words as they completed the last leg of their return journey to Jeradia Island. Her captivity, and the trauma before and during it, had branded her psyche indelibly. He counselled that what mattered, was what she did with and learned from her experiences. Easily said. Even just hearing the word ‘little’ in a conversation made her bristle.
Deep within, she understood now that she needed to return to her village. She needed to reconnect with her people and her parents. That was part of understanding the puzzle of a Pygmy girl–a Pygmy Dragon.
Pip sighed, raising her eyes to the Island massif on the horizon. Dark storm clouds hung over Jeradia. Portentous, spine-tingling clouds. Her Dragon senses had been bothering her so much that she spoke to Kassik, who had agreed to increase their speed. Most of the Dragonwing pushed ahead rapidly, while Emblazon and three other Dragons hung back to shepherd the injured Jyoss, now a just a speck on the northern horizon.
She had to admit, seventeen Dragons speeding along in synchronised flight was an awesome sight. They speared across the face of the Yellow moon, half-hidden by the storm clouds ahead, making over twenty-five leagues per hour. The wind hissed across her scales. Already, her phenomenal Dragon sight detected the patrols guarding their volcano. A small Dragonwing of three Reds approached from the south at a great height.
Nothing amiss, apparently,
Kassik said, looking to Pip, who was trailing his left flank in the slipstream position she had made her own.
Sorry, mighty Kassik.
Don’t be. We must be vigilant. The next attack, when it comes, will be made with greater cunning.
Pip asked,
Do you mean the Silver Dragon?
Even injured as he was, he’ll recover. Their healers will see to it. My senses tell me we’ll see the Silver Dragon sooner rather than later. A week to heal, Pip. That’s the most time we’ll have.
Only a week. Well, Pip had seen what Rajion could achieve with her injuries. But she had shattered Silver’s ribs. Even the memory of that strike made her cringe. Had the impact broken her shoulder, or was that later when she landed in Leandrial’s paw? Whatever the case, she was healed now. Her shoulders ached only because of the amount of flying she had been doing.
Working her flight muscles to keep up with the powerful wingbeat of her much larger companions, Pip pensively watched the great, dark-walled volcano materialising within the storm’s gloomy underbelly. It was right over her home.
Home? It must be the first time she had thought of the Academy as home.
But Pip could not shake the chill in her bones. The sooner they arrived and confirmed that all was well, the better.
* * * *
“Yah moving out all mah favourite students?” Mistress Mya’adara bawled at Master Kassik.
“We can’t very well move their Dragons
in
, can we?” he replied. “Dragons in Human-sized dormitories? Ridiculous.”
Quite reasonable, thought Pip, glancing around at her friends as they dismounted on the main field outside the dining hall–the place where she had so infamously assaulted Shimmerith. Mya’adara was not in the least bit cowed. In fact, she was in a positively Dragonish mood. The Western Isles warrior’s eyes lit on Durithion and Kaiatha.