They purred at him in a chorus, eyes gleaming with admiration.
Pip said, “If that’s what you call it, owning their minds. You obviously haven’t a clue what a real friend is.”
“You shut your–” he began to yell, shaking with rage. The Silver Shapeshifter stopped with a palpable effort, but he still held her so that her feet dangled off the ground, lifted by the blade at her throat. “Enough.”
“My friends are outside,” she rasped past the constriction of her throat. “Three hundred of them. How are you going to escape, Silver Dragon?”
He glanced at Shimmerith’s remaining egg. “By taking this–oh, you’re a wily one, aren’t you? Stubborn. Manipulative. And such an opinion of yourself. What do you know about having friends; don’t they just keep you for a pet?”
And her tactic blew up in her face, just so. Pip sagged against him.
He twisted the verbal knife. “Oh, did that hurt?”
She had no reply.
Now, Silver called to the Dragons,
Come. Taste of your first meat, my friends.
Pip gasped. The two hatchlings seemed interested, but Shimmerith paused.
Dragons don’t eat Humans, Silver.
The mental coercion blazed out of him.
This is a jungle monkey.
She cast about for an idea, any idea, which would turn the situation against the Silver Dragon. Shimmerith’s pause triggered a sneaky thought in her head. Pip cried out,
Oh, Shimmerith. Please let me warn you. Silver only wants to befriend you for your hatchlings. Don’t be fooled by his clever words. He steals little ones for a living.
The beautiful eyes blinked.
What? Is this true, Silver?
No, no, she chatters like a monkey,
he said.
I love you, Shimmerith.
Didn’t you see?
Pip asked.
I was a hatchling when I flew into the cave, Shimmerith, and he changed me into this. Now all he wants to do is kill me.
Shimmerith’s belly-fires swelled in her belly, a dull, dangerous roar. Her eyes changed colour, filling with blazing orange before Pip’s disbelieving gaze. She silently reminded herself to thank Maylin for teaching her how to rile a Dragon–if she lived through deliberately aggravating a hormonal, aggressive mother Dragon.
He said,
I’d never do anything to your hatchlings.
Softly, Pip quoted,
‘How are you going to escape, Silver Dragon? By taking this … egg.’
Ignoring his shout of rage, she added,
It’s a special egg, isn’t it, Shimmerith? That’s why he wants it. He doesn’t love you, Emblazon does. All he wants is your hatchling.
Pip I swear …
Silver gulped at Shimmerith’s murderous growl.
You stop her, or I swear I’ll kill that hatchling right inside the egg. I can. You know I can, with just one thought.
“You idiot, how do you expect me to stop a brooding mother Dragon from protecting her hatchlings?”
He called out, “Stop, Shimmerith, or I’ll kill this Pygmy.”
Pip vented a disgusted snort before he even finished speaking. “Killing babies in the shell isn’t enough for you, now you’re killing me as well? Murder, infanticide, it’s all in a day’s work for you, isn’t it, Silver?”
“I’m serving the Marshal well. With honour.”
“By killing hatchlings? Admirable.”
“I’m taking you to the Island.”
“By all means. What’s the plan, Silver? I’ve already briefed Kassik and Emblazon out there. They know I’d never willingly hand my power to your precious Marshal. I’d rather die. I will die. I’ll throw myself on your sword right now.”
She pressed against the blade at her throat. “Slay me, Silver. Slit my throat.”
He swayed, torn by some emotion she could only guess at.
Pip did not pause to find out if her captor possessed the nerve to act on his threats. She struck with her free hand, ripping the blade away from her neck regardless of the damage to her fingers, and then wrenched herself sideways, strange-strong as Hunagu had always said, leaving a decent sliver of her flesh beneath Silver’s talon-like fingernails as she spun free of his grasp.
Shimmerith pounced. With a yelp, Pip dived aside. Two Dragons clashed. Silver’s transformation had been almost instantaneous. Silver was strong, and powerful in magic, but the old saying that no beast in the Island-World was stronger than a mother Dragon protecting her young, was being proven before her eyes. Shimmerith cuffed him repeatedly with a flurry of her paws, driving him backward. She sank her fangs into his spine. Maddened beyond madness, she body-slammed the Silver Dragon into the crysglass window, and through it. The glass shattered over his back in a cascade of a million diamond-like shards.
The Silver Dragon teetered at the edge of the ledge. He roared a challenge, looking to Shimmerith’s last egg, the one that he so desired. Why?
Shimmerith! Protect your egg!
Pip knew she was on an edge of her own, the edge of having no magic left. But still she transformed, feeling it tear within, somehow, a pain deeper-seated than the marrow of her bones consuming her for an infinitesimal second. Her Dragon form wavered into being.
She had to negate his attack. Silver meant to kill that unborn Dragon.
Shimmerith whirled, protecting her egg with perhaps the futile gesture of the bulk of her body. Pip gasped out a wordless plea as she sprang at the Silver Dragon, so lustrous in the full suns-light, the incongruity between his beauty and the murder blazing in his eyes was like a kick to her chest. A tiny, dark fireball sparked out of her throat. Not orange, but black. Pip had an odd, dislocated second to think ‘tarball?’ and then it splattered against his muzzle. Silver’s magic fizzled. She crashed into him, pitching him off the edge of the cliff.
Tail up, head down, she chased him over the edge.
O
nyx and Silver
tumbled through the sky, tangled, screaming, cuffing at each other with open-clawed paws. Pip was less than a third of the Silver Dragon’s size, but her ferocity eclipsed his. The smaller Dragon chased and harried him relentlessly, hacking off bits of his scales and snapping a neat, painful bite out of his left wingtip.
Pip spat bits of skin and wing-struts at the Silver Dragon.
This is my fight,
she snarled at Kassik and Emblazon, hovering nearby. Their Riders, Casitha and Oyda, gave her identical frowns.
He’s mine.
Emblazon’s smile was wreathed in a twenty-foot plume of Dragon fire.
Don’t bother to leave any bits for us, Pip.
The Silver Dragon smirked at her.
You think you’re going to beat me, little one? I’ve seen Dragon fights more times than you’ve seen the suns rise.
Spiralling in between his grasping forepaws, Pip lashed out, slashing three bloody trenches right through the middle of that smirk. He snagged her wing in passing, shredding a section midway along her right wing.
Don’t fall asleep there, Silver.
In answer, his challenge thundered across the huge volcanic caldera. With a neck-popping wrench, Pip changed direction mid-swoop and curled in beneath his belly. His hind legs worked as though he were sprinting, trying somehow to keep her at bay, to strike a telling blow or buffet her clear. A claw smacked Pip in the jaw. She bit it instinctively. Tumbling away, she caught herself with flaring wings and drove in once more, gashing his flank in two places. Golden Dragon blood welled up at once.
Silver spun in the air.
You’re going to pay for that, you pest!
Spoiled your good looks? Next, I’ll trim your slug-ugly nose.
His gaze told her that he could not quite believe a Dragon of her size was attacking him–but now, Silver was hurting enough to take her assault seriously. His eyes narrowed. Suddenly, fire slashed across her path. She braked, thinking it was a fireball, but instead, the spray of white fire opened like a blossom and smashed into her from every direction. For a moment the heat was so intense she imagined she had flown into one of the suns. Her scales burned from black to white, as if coal had turned to ashes in the heart of a bonfire. Pip screamed.
Within the fire there was something else. His mind. A Silver Dragon appeared in her mental space, diving toward her with a howl that shook her Island to its foundations. All was white. All was pain.
But Pip drank deep of that pain. Within the refining agony, she found the strength to push back at him. Silver reeled. His attack evaporated. Perhaps he was not as powerful as a Silver Dragon could be, given the injuries she had dealt him the week before. Pip stared at her paws and then back along her body. Her virtually indestructible scales looked melted in several places.
Silver Dragon star power,
Kassik’s dry voice sounded in her mind.
Pip, let us intervene. You can’t fight this. No Dragon can.
What had been meant as a private communication to her was easily read by Silver. His smile made its reappearance.
Star power,
he said.
Why don’t you let Kassik and Emblazon die for you, Pip?
Pip needed to clear her head.
No. I’ll kill you myself.
You? You fight like a dumb animal.
A wave of rage engulfed her. Stars were meant to be beautiful. He was evil, a travesty of what should. Through clenched teeth, Pip said,
A few nursery spats don’t count for battle, Silver. They couldn’t cage me. I am a jungle warrior.
The power grew within her, the strength that Hunagu had always feared.
You don’t want to learn how much of an animal I can be.
Try me.
His sneer was all the incentive she needed. Pip’s challenge resounded across the beautiful green lake, ten times louder than his had been. Silver’s eyes had only begun to widen when Pip closed with him. They locked claws and limbs, wrestling, straining, trying to jab a claw into a vital spot. Their jaws champed furiously, fangs clashing, tearing at the scales of each other’s necks. Wrenching her upper body sideways, Pip leaned around his flank and punched him with all her strength in the precise place she had struck Silver before, breaking his ribs–just aft of his left foreleg, in the upper ribs of a Dragon. She sensed the quake her blow caused in his body. He whimpered. Grimly, Pip punched him again, five or six times in rapid succession, until her much larger opponent managed to kick himself free.
He winged for the sky.
Silver flew badly, clearly in extreme pain. Pip took a moment to enjoy his limping wing-stroke before chasing after, driving her tired body upward. There, above the black volcanic rim, she caught him. Pip sank ten claws into his lashing tail and pulled him back as though she were yanking a cat by its tail.
Try some Onyx power,
she hissed.
I’m not finished with you.
She flung him back down toward the two huge Dragons circling below.
Pip gathered herself, eyeing his tumbling body. The Silver Dragon was not stricken, yet. He had fight left in him, and if her senses were not mistaken, the star-power which had struck her a moment before, was gathering somewhere within his chest. She had to have something left. Her magic was spent, but she had her strength and her fury. Furling her dark wings, Pip nosedived.
Her wings beat. Once, twice, thrice. She had struck him this way before. She did not have long to gather speed, as she had done before, but five hundred feet would have to be enough. Pip aimed for his neck. This time, she would snap his vertebrae with her strike. A tension gathered in her body and limbs, forming her into a dark thunderbolt of strength. She arrowed toward the gleaming Silver Dragon. Dark and light. She was the unseen spear hurtling from the deepest jungle, the animal power he so despised. He was radiance and beauty, yet as evil as the Shadow Dragon stalking the Island-World’s night.
At the very last instant, the Silver Dragon’s wings flared, arresting his flight. He barrel-rolled sideways, presenting the curve of his back rather than his neck to her strike. She was unable to arrest or divert her attack. Pip smashed into his back. She groaned as his spine-spikes pierced her belly in numerous places.
Murderer,
she wheezed, clawing at his wings.
Stubborn wretch,
he retorted, trying to shake her off.
Bellyful too much for you?
Kill you …
Her struggles only drove the spikes deeper.
Silver clawed ineffectually at her. In her position, stuck midway along his back like the Pygmy kebab she had once joked with Zardon about, he could not easily bring his claws to bear. He flapped weakly. Pip hoped she had reopened his wounds. He deserved worse.
But she knew her battle was finished. Her strength had spilled out like water. There was nothing more.
He snapped,
Emblazon, I order you to come help me.
Not a hundred feet from them, the Amber Dragon laughed scornfully.
Try another Dragon, Silver.
Was he waiting for the moment to strike? Pip willed him to withhold, just for a vital second or two …
Silver’s eyes widened in shock and realisation.
I will.
Emblazon lunged. He struck the base of Silver’s tail. Pip realised he had modified his attack to avoid clawing her. The Amber Dragon kicked out with his massive hind talons, opening three ten-foot gashes in the gleaming, silvery hide. As his fierce blow rotated the younger, smaller Dragon in the air, Emblazon whirled and struck him a whiplash wallop with that bulky tail, a brutal, meaty smack to the side of the head. Silver went limp.
Oyda yelled triumphantly, raising her sword over her head.
Pip, flung free, saw Kassik swooping up toward her. He broke her fall with his own wing, before clutching her to his chest with both forepaws.
Got you, Onyx Dragoness. Just a helping paw.
Thanks, Kassik.
“Nice catch, my Dragon-heart,” called Casitha.
Pip did not know if she could have flown another foot. Blood mixed with a clear, pearlescent liquid gushed out of her stomach in quantities that dizzied her. Emblazon loosed a wrathful fireball of disdain after Silver, who tumbled end over end until he splashed down in the lake.
Fish him out,
said Kassik.
I want that grass-chewing ralti sheep right where I can smell his fear.
She was in so much pain, it was difficult to laugh. But Pip did chuckle when Emblazon fished Silver out of the lake. He was not at all gentle. He dumped Silver on the shore, before following Kassik’s orders and ‘flying’ him to the field outside the dining hall. Emblazon did not seem inclined to swing his load over any boulders or trees in the way. Oyda said something from the saddle, but she suspected it was only encouragement. That made their feelings quite clear, Pip thought, wincing as Silver’s dangling head smacked against a boulder and uprooted bushes and trees.
The huge Brown Dragon flew her directly to the infirmary. Emblazon dumped Silver contemptuously on the grass nearby.
“Great Islands, yah a mess,” said Mistress Mya’adara, looking her up and down with a jaundiced eye.
Pip struggled to her paws. “Uh … what about the other Dragons? The battle?”
“Yah lie down right there,” screeched the Mistress, flapping her arms so violently that Pip wanted to laugh again. “Peace, mah girl. We’ll win the battle, don’t yah fret.”
There was still a faraway roaring of Dragons and sizzling of fireballs out there, but Pip no longer had the strength to lift her head. The roaring in her ears drowned out all else. Her belly burned. Pain stabbed deep in her shoulder joint as she shifted.
“Pip!” Oyda bounded down from Emblazon’s back. “Rajion. Over here. Belly wounds, mostly. Lie on your side, Pipsqueak. Don’t you know to catch yourself with your paws if the lower Dragon brakes? Spine-spikes are there for a reason, girl.”
“I … discovered that, Oyda.”
“Mmm,” said Maylin. She had a slab of a bandage plastered over her left eye. She and Emmaraz, looking on nearby, looked battle-weary. “I figured you’d bring a boy Dragon home at some point.”
“Shame he’s the enemy,” Yaethi said, acidly.
“Sooooo
sexy
,” Maylin persisted, drawing her words out as though seeking to goad a reaction from Pip. Had she been able to move, her reaction would have been an irritable slap, Dragon-sized.
Kassik had his own ideas. “I’m going to lock that miserable piece of slug vomit in the deepest, darkest dungeon I can find,” he said, thumping his huge paws over to the prone form of Silver. “Get me that collar, Casitha. And chains. Heaps of chains.”
“Right here, Kassik.”
“And all my implements of torture,” Yaethi whispered, very softly.
“Ahh, don’t make me laugh,” said Pip. “I just remembered, someone needs to go fetch Prince Ulldari. Silver recruited him, too.”
“Done,” said Yaethi. “If Shimmerith hasn’t eaten him already, petal.”
“I hope I didn’t break his neck.”
“Mercy, Pip, I can put both my hands inside these puncture-wounds,” said Maylin, as helpfully descriptive as ever. But she ran off immediately on Oyda’s orders to fetch cloths and a bucket of herbal cleansing rinse and the gluey bandages fondly called Dragon-hide bites, because their application made an injured Dragon look moth-eaten.
Rajion nosed Maylin aside in order to make his examination of Pip’s belly. He said, “Straightforward wounds, little one. Whatever you do, don’t transform. These are dealt with much more easily in your Dragon form.”
Pip grimaced. “I couldn’t transform again if I tried, mighty Rajion.”
She risked a glance over to Kassik. The Brown Dragon favoured her with a blistering glare, obviously having overheard every word. Oh, heavens above and Islands below. One more time to the Master’s carpet. But when the Silver Dragon stirred, Kassik pounced on him with a leonine growl. Three or four dozen other Dragons, injured and well, drew closer with menacing intent. A choir of low growls greeted Silver’s opened eye.
The Brown pinned him with an ungentle swipe of his paw.
Transform, or die. As I believe you told Pip, before.
Silver’s regard flicked to her, his silvery gaze undefinable–regret? Surrender? An acknowledgement of her victory? Pip expected to feel triumphant. Instead, a sorrowful wind keened within her spirit. She could not bring herself to gloat, unlike the other Dragons. The sense of connection with him was so deep, so intense and captivating, a craving unlike any she had ever felt before. So right, yet so wrong. It had to be another trick of his. Pip dropped her gaze deliberately. She let her ears bring to her awareness the Lavanias collar’s click about his throat, the jingle of chains, and Kassik’s soft command to bring forth salve for his wounds and clothing.
Ga’am approached to confer with Kassik. “The collar suppresses magic, as we suspected,” she heard him say. “Extraordinary.”
“Still, the Shapeshifter holding cell is the place for him,” said Kassik.
“Ay, Kassik,” agreed Ga’am. “Wisdom dictates it.”