But I had caught the idea now.
“We’ll have to put silk on both sides,” I said. “And fasten the front and back together tightly enough that there’s no way for it to gape or catch. ”
“We can sew it all along the top edge,” Marta said. Her eyes were bright, and I could see that she had caught the vision as well. “In fact, we should sew it while you’re wearing it, Shardas, to make certain that it’s as tight as possible. ”
“We’ll be working all night,” I said, shaking out my hand.
“If you will just show me where to cut,” Gala said, losing some of her shyness, “I think I can slice the silks neatly enough. ” She extended one razor-sharp foreclaw.
“Beautiful,” Marta said. “I’ve got it all marked out over here. ” She folded the mirrored silk she was holding with a snap, and laid it on a boulder.
“Oh, Marta,” I said, in a much more cheerful mood. “Why did you buy mirrored silk? Won’t it be too heavy?”
Marta put her hands on her hips. “I knew you’d say something about that, Creel, but the last merchant gave me such an odd look – he was Citatian – that I panicked and bought a bale of the red mirrored silk, too. ” She laid out a piece of silk for Gala, who had just made short work of cutting up the last bit Marta gave her. Marta snorted. “I feel like we’ve bought up all the silk in the world!”
“I know it’s not your fault, but now Shardas is going to look all patchwork and –” I lowered my arms, looking down at the mirrored silk. “Marta!”
“What?” She laid out some silk cord for Gala to cut into lengths for the ties. “What’s wrong now?”
“Can you imagine what it would look like if Shardas spread his wings in the Citatian sun, and this was sewn to the underside?”
I held up a bolt of scarlet silk spangled with tiny mirrors. Even with the trees blocking most of the sun, the cloth itself was bright enough to make my eyes smart, and the mirrors caught stray sunbeams and reflected them dazzlingly.
“If jealousy doesn’t stop Krashath in his tracks,” Shardas said, his voice rumbling with laughter, “he will go quite blind. ”
Dragons in the Moonlight
That night the Citatian army passed overhead. It took a very long time, during which we had to douse our lanterns and huddle beneath the olive trees. I draped Shardas in some dark blue silk I had bought, intending to make wings for Velika when this was all over. Even in the coldness of the desert moonlight, Shardas’s golden scales emitted a warm glow. Most of the rough, burned scales had been shed, and other than the lacework of his wings he was looking in fine fettle.
“I hope Gala is all right,” Marta whispered.
After the sun had gone down, and once she had done all she could to help us, Gala went to see her hatchlings. We warned her to be careful, not wanting her to be caught and re-collared. But it seemed that she knew how to get around the patrols to reach them. And with the army mobilising, it was likely that there would be fewer patrols than ever.
“She’s a lovely dragon,” I whispered, as overhead the rushing of dragon wings filled the night.
“Do you think that she can abide dogs?” Shardas stretched and then readjusted the silk over his neck. “I have been hoping to find a mate for Feniul for years. ”
“One of your kingly duties?” Marta’s voice was sympathetic.
“A familial one. ” Shardas let out a little snort of laughter. “If I had to find a mate for every dragon in the world, I should have dived into the Boiling Sea centuries ago. ”
“Or asked me to harpoon you through the ear,” I put in.
“Precisely. ”
“I think you can stop worrying about Feniul,” I assured him. “Did you not see him making eyes at Ria?”
“Oh, really?” He was quite astonished. “She is a beautiful female. ”
“Yes, and she’s quite stolen my monkey, Ruli,” Marta said with a sniff. “He hangs from her horns constantly and won’t give me the time of day any more. In fact, he’s gone with her now. ”
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“Good riddance,” I said. “Can you imagine if he got in a temper and shredded all this silk? Or decided to … relieve himself on it?”
Shardas shuddered. “By the First Fires, I cannot abide monkeys. If this Ria does like small, annoying animals, then she and Feniul will no doubt do very well together. ”
“She used to have sheepdogs,” I told him. “Apparently, she also used to keep her own sheep. ”
“Really?” He sounded thoughtful. “Intriguing. ”
“Why? Eventually there had to be a dragon out there that likes the same things as Feniul. He isn’t that odd. ”
Shardas laughed. “No, I meant intriguing that she kept her own sheep. She doesn’t have to steal food from humans, then. ”
“Unless she wanted to eat something other than sheep,” I said.
“Maybe she had an orchard, too, or a garden,” Marta chimed in. “There’s no reason why she couldn’t have had one. ”
“Precisely,” Shardas said. “There’s no reason why any dragon can’t be self-sufficient: grow his own fruit, keep his own animals. ”
“Except that humans would notice if the neighbouring farm was run by a dragon,” I said.
“Yes,” Shardas said in a quiet tone. “If there were humans to notice. ”
I started to ask what he meant, but then we heard a dragon flying low overhead, and had to stop talking. We stayed huddled and silent for a long time, until we heard crashing and roars and saw bursts of flame light the sky.
Realising that I would only be taken for some gaping local if anyone saw me, I ran out of the trees to see what was happening. Down near the beach, dragons were fighting in the air, flaming at one another and shrieking while their riders shouted insults and instructions.
Those that had riders.
In the light from the flames I could see white figures crouched on the backs of some of the dragons, but not others. Had Niva led our friends back across the strait? Why?
A dragon swooped down to land beside me and I lunged back to the cover of the trees. Then I heard Gala’s voice calling my name and came back.
“Halloo? Creel?”
“Gala! What’s happening?”
“I freed several of the other females,” she said in a pleased voice. “They were all very angry, and we decided to nip at the heels of the army as it crossed the strait. ”
Shardas stuck his head out of the trees. “Is this wise?”
Gala’s head drooped. “So many of them were angry,” she murmured. “I could hardly stop them now. They ambushed the last regiment before it could cross the strait. ”
“I should help,” Shardas said. He hulked closer to me, and I felt him crouch as though preparing to spring into the sky.
“No you don’t!” I laid a hand on his foreleg. “Your wings are in bad enough shape as it is. You are certainly not going to fight. Remember: you’re resting so that you can defeat Krashath. Don’t waste your energy on this. ”
Feeling him relax, I took my hand off his leg and stepped towards Gala. “Not that you shouldn’t be proud of what you’ve done tonight, Gala. This is amazing! How many did you free?”
“There was only one guard on patrol and I freed at least seven of my fellow females before he came back. And one of the newly uncollared took care of the sentries, forcing the dragon to land and uncollaring him, while the others helped me free more. I lost count around thirty. ”
“Thirty! That’s wonderful!”
“It doesn’t compare to the hundreds collared in the army,” she said modestly. “So I had better go and help. ” She got ready to take off but checked herself to lean down to me. “Creel … if anything bad happens to me … please take care of my hatchlings. ”
A lump in my throat, I readily agreed to bring them up as though they were my own dragon-children, and she took off.
We sat in th
e darkness watching the dragons fight on and above the shore until nearly dawn. It was eerily beautiful: the flashes of fire, the roaring and crashing as the great scaled beasts came together and then parted. Like watching the gods dance.
And then, near dawn, Krashath came.
The pale grey light and waning moon were more than enough to see him by. White and menacing, appearing far larger than I remembered, he hung in the air between our grove and the shore where the fighting still went on. Filling his lungs with air, he roared so that the ground shook and leaves rattled down from the trees all around us.
The skirmishers froze. Dragons locked in fearsome struggle hung in the air, their wings flapping and their claws entwined, and stared at Krashath.
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“What is this?” Krashath’s voice hammered at my ears. “Why have you not crossed the strait with the rest of the army?”
“He’s using alchemy,” Shardas whispered. “To make himself look bigger and sound louder. ” His voice was ripe with disgust.
I put a restraining hand on his foreleg again. “Don’t go out there,” I begged him. “Wait until we’ve finished the silk wings. ”
“I will,” he agreed reluctantly.
“Soldiers, land,” Krashath shouted.
All the collared dragons dropped to the sands. For the first time I noticed other shapes there: in the darkness I had thought they were dunes, but the dawn was slowly revealing the slumped bodies of dragons. I could not say yet who was dead and who was merely injured, but my heart shuddered within me and I prayed to the Triunity to protect Gala and her newly freed companions.
The uncollared dragons hovered uncertainly in the air. I knew how they felt, exposed, perhaps even chastened. Blood dripped from wounds, and I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of Gala’s bronze scales. It was still too dim to tell, though.
Krashath was moving, his body writhing, and I heard words in the dragon tongue spoken low. Shardas growled and pushed Marta and me to the ground, holding a claw over each of us protectively.
Peeping out between his golden talons, I saw one of the uncollared dragons level herself off. She opened her mouth wide, screaming and flaming at the same time, and charged Krashath. It was not, to my relief, Gala, but a beautiful maroon female with violet horns. Just before she reached Krashath, who appeared unaffected by her flames, the white dragon spread his talons, and a golden mist flew out and into the face of his red-scaled attacker.
She wailed and fell to the sands, and the mist spread out. As it reached each of the hovering dragons, they, too, screamed and fell to earth. I couldn’t stand their cries, or the heartbroken sound of Marta sobbing nearby. I writhed out from under Shardas’s claw and ran out of the grove.
“Go!” I shouted to those dragons that still had strength. They were ducking and weaving in the air to avoid the strange golden mist that sought their faces. The dragons that had fallen were still and silent, and it brought tears pouring down my cheeks. “Go!” I screamed. “Fly to Roulain, join Niva, go!”
A dozen or so wheeled and fled across the strait, the golden mist following them a little way before the salt breeze dispersed it. I turned and ran east, away from Krashath but away from Shardas, too, lest the brothers meet before Shardas was ready. I heard the flap of Krashath’s wings and felt the wind of his flight on my back. Something soft and strange struck my side, and it felt as though a warm blanket were enveloping me. For a sickening moment I thought it was the golden mist, but there was no pain. Roaring, Krashath flew over and past, and then wheeled around and came back. His neck whipped from side to side, and though I was right below him, he seemed not to see me.
“Shardas!” he roared, and I covered my ears. “I know this is your doing! Come out and face me, you coward!” He flew over the trees of the little grove, raking their upper branches with his talons, but there was no movement from within.
Finally, a hesitant blue dragon rose up from the beach, his white-clad rider waving one hand. Krashath flew to meet them, anger apparent in the beat of his wings and the clenching and unclenching of his claws.
The soldier asked Krashath a question in Citatian, his imperious manner showing that he thought Krashath was being controlled by the king.
Krashath snarled something in reply; the only word I caught was “Feravel”. With that, Krashath flew back towards Pelletie, searching the grove with hungry eyes as he passed.
The Citatian soldiers mustered the dragons that could fly and continued across the strait, abandoning wounded soldiers and dragons alike. Once the able-bodied had flown out of earshot the blanket-like fog that enfolded me dropped away, and Shardas came out of the trees with Marta at his side.
“Shardas –,” I began.
“I do not wish to speak,” he said curtly.
“Creel! Why didn’t Krashath see you?” Marta rushed to give me a hug.
“I don’t know,” I said. Shardas ducked his head, looking beyond us, and I felt a niggling suspicion. “Perhaps alchemy is more common in their family than we were led to believe,” I whispered to Marta. Her eyes wide, she just nodded.
“Let us help the wounded,” Shardas said, and turned towards the beach.
Speaking Pool
We finished the silk wings just before noon.
The stitches were large and crude, but they would hold. As Shardas said, he wasn’t going to be attending any balls, so he didn’t need to look especially pretty. He did need to look impressive, though, at least to Krashath, who would hopefully not get close enough to see the stitches.
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After our run-in with Krashath, I was more frightened than ever for Shardas, but Marta seemed strangely reassured. When Shardas was out of earshot, catching a wild pig for our breakfast, she confided her convictions.
“Shardas can use alchemy too, Creel,” she said. “You just disappeared, in plain sight. I could hear him saying something, but I didn’t understand the words, and then you disappeared. You mark my words, he’s going to use Krashath’s own weapon against him. ”
“He did live with an alchemist for many years,” I said as I sewed the last of the silk cords in place. “I suppose he might have learned a thing or two from Jerontin. ”
“Exactly. ”
Then Shardas came back, and we had to stop talking. He was particularly silent this morning. The scene on the beach had been grim: most of the dragons and all of the humans there were dead. Shardas had uncollared those dragons that were injured, and then he ordered them to care for one another. When they were well enough to fly they were to head back to the hatching grounds and uncollar the remaining females.
“We must look to the young,” he told them, before going off to find food.
When he returned from the hunt he had two pigs, one for us and one for himself, since he would need a big meal to keep up his strength for the fight with Krashath. He roasted them with a slow gout of flame while I gave his scales a hasty going-over. I found only two damaged scales left, and pulled them off with ease. His spine ridges needed filing, but we had no file at hand to do the job.
“Leave them,” Shardas said, his voice curt. “Eat your breakfast, Creel,” he said in kinder tones. “Besides, they’re sharper this way. ”
After our mostly silent meal, we fitted Shardas’s new wings into place. On the upper sides they were mellow gold, because my original vision had been to match Shardas’s natural colouring as closely as possible, in an attempt to conceal his injuries from Krashath. Red and gold cords tied the triangular panels to his wings, and the underside was the real glory: scarlet silk, brocaded with hundreds of tiny mirrors.
“I feel like one of the temple fan-dancers of fabulous Dhair,” Shardas said, amusement colouring his voice for the first time since last night.
“One of the what?” I looked up from the cord I was tying.
“Dhair and its fan-dancers were destroyed well before
your birth, I’m afraid,” he said.
Marta and I stepped back, and Shardas stretched and flapped to check the fit. The silk stayed in place, even as he twisted and rose off the ground a few inches.
“I’ll try a flight,” Shardas said, and launched himself into the air almost before we could step back.
Running out of the grove of olives, we watched as he circled high above us. From beneath, his wings looked … different, patterned scarlet, but the mirrors were not as impressive as I had hoped. Then Shardas hovered, back-winging, and tilted himself until the undersides of his wings were fully exposed to the sun.
It was blinding.
The intense sunlight of Citatie struck the mirrors and light flared out from Shardas’s wings until we could not bear to look. Shielding our eyes, we watched in wonder as he spun and dived, playing with the light and the mirrors on his wings. At last he came back towards us, but did not land.
“Thank you, Creel. Thank you, Marta,” he said, floating above us.
“You’re not going, are you?” My voice sounded high and childish.
“I must. I must make use of the sun, and these wonderful silk wings you have made me. ” His blue eyes looked down kindly at us. “Go to the shore and see to the wounded dragons. One of them will surely be able to fly you home to Feravel in a day or two. ”
“But we want to go with you,” Marta said, before I could. I nodded my agreement.
“No. Go home. And if you should see Velika again … watch over her for me. ” Then he wheeled and left us.
We stared after him in disbelief.
“He’s going to fight Krashath alone,” Marta said dully. Then she shook herself. “There’s nothing we can do to help now, but still. I just thought we would be there … to at least see …” Her voice trailed away.
“I’m not going to sit here and wait for some strange dragon to take me home,” I said. I took her arm and began to lead her to the beach. “Come along. ”
Picking our way around the bodies of fallen dragons was not pleasant, but neither was not knowing how Shardas was faring. Or Luka and the others. Never far from my mind was the fact that, across the strait somewhere, Luka was fighting an army of dragons at least four times the size of what we had been able to muster.