Serpent''s Kiss

  He wouldn’t fight fair.

  But then, he was Chen.

  It was a shame really. That tightly fitted cheongsam and the high heels would have hampered his female form’s ability to fight. Chandra had been looking forward to the advantage. She reminded herself that Chen had many forms, just as she did, and was determined not to be disconcerted by any sudden changes.

  That trick should work only on amateurs.

  They circled each other, watchful and ready for the first move. They were on a small plateau notched out of the side of a mountain. There was a snowy peak far overhead, as well as an endless blue sky, and the drops were sheer on every side. Whether they were in Myth or the remote mountains of Tibet didn’t matter: death was possible in either place. One misstep would send the loser plummeting into the abyss below.

  The trick was that Chandra couldn’t shift shape into a dragon. If she tossed Chen over the side, he’d shift and survive. If he pushed her over the edge, she was a goner.

  He smiled at her and she knew he’d guessed her thoughts. Maybe he could read them. Maybe he’d heard the skip of her heart or the accelerated pace of her breathing. Chandra was determined to school her reactions to hide her intent from him.

  She was going to kick his butt, for Thorolf and the Pyr.

  “Yes, you will die here,” he said, his voice so low and melodic that he might have been trying to convince her. There were flames dancing in his eyes, orange flames that couldn’t possibly be there. Chandra was tempted to look more closely at them. “After all these centuries, aren’t you weary?” he murmured and it seemed like a tempting prospect. “Don’t you long to surrender the battle and finally rest?”

  Chandra abruptly remembered about the Pyr’s ability to beguile. If the Pyr could do it, and Slayers were Pyr turned bad, it made sense not only that Slayers could beguile but that they’d use it for their own purposes. Beguiling was a kind of hypnosis, an ability to direct the thoughts of humans. The Pyr used it to convince humans that they hadn’t really seen a dragon overhead, or a man shifting to a dragon. Beguiling worked best if the dragon shifter in question found a secret urge in the victim that could be exploited. Most humans didn’t want to believe dragons lived among them.

  Chen, however, was trying to give Chandra a death wish, maybe to make this an easy triumph.

  She was tired.

  But she wasn’t done yet.

  She sighed, as if his argument made sense, and let her shoulders relax. “It’s so hard,” she murmured. She looked over the top of his head instead of into his eyes, and hoped they were far enough apart that he would be fooled. “The same fights, the same issues; nothing ever changes.”

  “But you grow more weary all the time. It seems so futile. It has to seem that mortals can never learn.”

  “They repeat their errors over and over again,” she agreed, with another heartfelt sigh.

  “They don’t deserve you. They shouldn’t have your help. The Pyr, too, want only what you can do for them. It must be so very tedious.”

  Chandra exhaled and dipped her head, apparently in resignation, but she was ready. “It’s all true,” she whispered.

  Before she even finished speaking, Chen spun and aimed a kick at her head. He was fast, faster than she’d expected.

  Maybe Chandra was faster than he expected. She ducked, then leapt up and seized his ankle when his leg passed over her head. She might not have her powers, but she was still strong and a good fighter. She twisted his leg, continuing the movement, and tossed him bodily over her shoulder. She flipped him quickly and gave him a shove, making the most of having surprise on her side. She divested him of the knife in his boot, tossing it into the abyss.

  He howled with fury as he landed on his back, at least until he thunked his head hard on the stone. His hands scrabbled at the smooth stone and he managed to stop himself when his head was over the lip of the precipice.

  Chandra felt his shock that she had fought back with any success.

  Then she felt his determination to make her pay.

  It was now or never. Chandra loaded her crossbow with lightning speed. She didn’t even take an instant to check the rune. It was always right. She fired, hoping to finish him off before he recovered.

  But Chen wasn’t an old dragon for nothing. He roared and rolled, shimmered blue, and shifted shape even as the arrow whistled past him and buried itself in the stone. “Lying bitch!” he roared. “What else can be expected from the patroness of thieves and outcasts, liars and criminals?”

  “Just your type, I would have thought,” she countered even as she jumped. There was no target in the shimmering blue, and she didn’t dare wait. Chandra leapt upon him while he was still shifting.

  Chen was an old man when Chandra fell on his back, but his form didn’t make her hesitate. It was an illusion and no indication of his true power. If he was hoping to make her pause, he’d hoped wrong. She decked him, but he elbowed her and fought with a ferocious strength uncommon in old men. She grabbed him by the beard and slammed his head against the stone.

  They struggled together, fighting for supremacy, back and forth across the small platform of stone. They came precariously close to the lip of the stone, close enough that Chandra had more than one glimpse of the dizzying drop. Chen moved suddenly, twisting around, seizing her and flipping her to her belly.

  Chandra caught her breath that she was looking down into the abyss. She couldn’t even see the bottom. Far far below, there was mist gathered in a valley, but the river that must be at the bottom was hidden from view.

  Chandra closed her eyes and pretended to faint. She tried to slow her heartbeat.

  “You won’t fool me this time,” Chen muttered as he shoved her forward. Chandra let him push her until the lip of stone was beneath her shoulders. She waited one beat more, until he’d be sure that her weight would inevitably carry her over the edge.

  He eased his grip, just a little, confident that he’d won.

  Chandra kicked up and back as hard as she could and Chen yowled in pain. When he staggered backward, she bounced to her feet and spun around. She swept his feet out from beneath him with one good kick. He spun to catch his balance and snatched at her throat. His hands changed to dragon claws, his eyes to dragon eyes. He snatched her crossbow and flung it over the chasm. She snatched after it impulsively but he laughed that she couldn’t do anything but watch it fall.

  He grinned at her as he hovered between forms, his talons tightening around her neck with savage force. Chandra couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t break free of his grip, and she knew that he really would kill her.

  Then who would save the Pyr from Tisiphone?

  She couldn’t fail.

  She never failed.

  Chandra roared with new strength. She kicked and scratched, and managed to get one hand beneath his claw. His talon tore at her skin as she ripped free of his grip and she felt the warm flow of her own blood.

  Blood? How could that be? She was never wounded, not really. She certainly didn’t bleed. She looked and discovered that she was bleeding now. There was no time to think about it, not when she was battling Chen.

  Chen shimmered blue even as they fell, locked in a battle for supremacy, and this time, when he landed on top of her, they were facing each other.

  And he had completely shifted shape to a lacquer red dragon. He smiled, letting her see the sharp array of his dragon teeth, and she knew he had to feel her panic. She couldn’t control it, not when she was going to lose, not when she was going to die, not when she was going to fail to keep a vow for the first time in her long life. Not when the Pyr would be lost. Not when Thorolf would be turned Slayer.

  Not when she was going to be either flown over the cliff and dropped, or fried alive. Chen took a deep breath, his eyes glittering, a move that revealed his plan.

  Fried alive, it would be.

  He reared back, presumably to awe her with his majestic form. He probably assumed she couldn’t escape because there wa
s nowhere to run. He took flight, hovering over her, his dark wings spread wide, and inhaled even more. His chest swelled and his eyes shone with malicious intent.

  The underside of his belly was only six feet above the stone platform.

  And he’d forgotten her quiver.

  She could injure him, at least. That might help Thorolf.

  Chandra pulled an arrow from her quiver just before Chen exhaled. She ran her thumb over the arrow head, satisfied with the rune etched on it. Eihwaz, the death rune, would do very well. She hoped this arrow would be as toxic to Chen as the yew that the rune was named after.

  She ran beneath him suddenly and jabbed the hard point of the arrow up, forcing it between his scales. She moved quickly and shoved hard, guessing this might be the last deed she ever did. Black blood spurted from the wound, the foul smell of it making her stagger backward as she gagged.

  Chen bellowed in pain, even as his blood sizzled on impact with the stone. To Chandra’s horror, it seemed to be dissolving the stone, because big fissures opened in the surface. The stone platform cracked and crumbled, beginning to fall away. Chen flapped his wings, flying high above her as he roared in anguish.

  The platform was cracking beneath Chandra’s feet and she leapt from one part to the next, trying to land on a stable piece of rock. One collapsed just as she landed on it, the pieces tumbling into the valley far below. She caught her breath after jumping to one that seemed stable and looked up. Chen pulled the arrow from the wound and snapped the shaft in half, before he breathed fire at it.

  When he turned his furious gaze on Chandra, she knew it was over.

  Given the choice of Chen or the drop, it might be better to jump.

  She had no chance to decide.

  * * *

  Chen snatched Chandra up and flung her off the side of the mountain. The wind rushed around her as she tumbled through the air, powerless to affect her course. It could have been a thousand miles down to the river at the root of the mountains. She looked up, even as she fell, and saw Chen bearing down on her. His eyes blazed with fury. He bared his teeth and she saw that he intended to fry her to cinders before she hit the ground.

  She also realized that his focus on her was so great that he hadn’t realized they weren’t alone anymore. High in the sky, silhouetted against the sun, was a second dragon, and he was headed directly toward them. His wings beat the air with powerful strokes, his intent so absolute that he might have been hunting them. Chandra wouldn’t have recognized the charred and blackened dragon if she hadn’t felt the tingle of the firestorm deep inside.

  Thorolf!

  She had to make sure the firestorm didn’t give him away.

  “Dragonfire,” she scoffed at Chen. “What makes you imagine yours is hot enough to hurt me? I’m a goddess!” And she spat at him to ensure she enraged him.

  “Yes, I can see your invincibility,” he retorted.

  Chandra laughed. “I’m immortal, you fool. You can’t kill me.” That had never been entirely true, and she doubted it was true at all now, but her declaration startled him.

  “Let’s find out,” Chen purred. He closed his eyes, then loosed a stream of dragonfire so wide and so hot that Chandra’s confidence faltered. She’d miscalculated, because Thorolf was still too far away to reach her in time. Once again, the firestorm had messed with her tendency to plan carefully, making her impulsive…

  Before she could blame herself too much for her mistake, Thorolf appeared before her. He grinned and even though he didn’t have a dimple in his dragon form, there was a recklessness about his expression that made her heart sing. He snatched her out of the air and passed her toward his back. He turned gracefully, but not quite quickly enough to avoid all of Chen’s dragonsmoke. Chandra winced when she saw it strike his tail and gagged at the smell of burning scales.

  He looked terrible, she noted with horror. He should look glorious and jeweled, but his scales were blackened and dull. They were more than tarnished: they looked stained.

  Tattooed.

  “Hold Rafferty,” Thorolf said and she saw the opal and gold salamander on his extended claw. The other Pyr looked pale and his eyes were closed. If he’d used his ability to spontaneously manifest elsewhere to get himself and Thorolf here, he had to be worn out completely. He’d been doing that too much for his own health.

  Chandra doubted she could say anything to change his choices, given Rafferty’s devotion to the firestorm. She cupped Rafferty carefully against her heart, glad he’d helped Thorolf. She climbed between Thorolf’s wings, wrapping her legs around the joints where they grew from his back. His wings sheltered her a bit, beating high above her.

  Rafferty’s tail wound around her wrist, just like the dragon tattoo on Thorolf’s wrist, and he sighed with relief. She leaned against Thorolf, sheltering Rafferty between the two of them, and the golden glow of the firestorm seemed to surround him. She heard the rumble of thunder, but didn’t know what it was.

  “He said there’s nothing like a firestorm,” Thorolf murmured to her. “Hang tight.” Chandra had time to nod, then there was a clash of dragon against dragon. The mountains seemed to shake with the impact as Chen and Thorolf locked claws. They spun in the air, then fell together, tumbling end over end. She heard the rumble of thunder, although the sky was still clear.

  “Taunts,” Rafferty said weakly. “In old-speak. It’s tradition.”

  Chandra stifled a smile. Of course. It was common in many cultures for warriors to exchange insults when they first met in battle, a way of establishing emotional supremacy before the fight began. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised that dragons, of all creatures, would sustain that tradition.

  The pair thrashed and snarled at each other, breathing fire as they continued to fall toward the earth. Chandra supposed that was tradition, too, like a game of chicken.

  When she adjusted her grip, Chandra realized that where she’d touched Thorolf, his scales looked more moonstone and silver. The taint was being purified by the heat of the firestorm.

  How could quickly could she run her hands all over him?

  She caressed Thorolf’s hide, running her hands over him as much as she could, given that she had to hang on. She was excited to see the golden touch of the firestorm returning the brilliance to his scales.

  “You’re distracting me,” Thorolf complained.

  “She’s saving you,” Rafferty corrected. He moved weakly up her arm, freeing her hand from holding him, and gave her a quick look. “Only the firestorm can save him,” he whispered.

  Chandra stroked her favorite Pyr as far and as wide as she could. It took many passes of her touch and the firestorm’s heat to even begin clear the scales, although she was sure she saw the incremental difference each time. She tried not to think about how long it would take to heal him completely, but tried to work steadily. She felt almost as if she were polishing him, as a medieval squire would polish his knight’s chain mail.

  Meanwhile, the dragons fought. Chandra felt the heat of dragonfire and felt each blow they exchanged. A plume of dragonfire shot over Thorolf’s shoulder, singing the tip of his wing. He howled in pain, then struck Chen with his tail so hard that the red lacquer dragon lost the rhythm of flight. Thorolf released his opponent, flinging him against the side of a mountain. The impact launched an avalanche of snow and ice that plummeted down the side of the rock face and obscured Chen.

  Chandra had a moment to hope that he was injured, but then he came raging out of the falling snow and ice. He roared dragonfire and leapt toward Thorolf. Thorolf spun and flew hard toward the mountain peaks again. Chandra couldn’t help but look back at the dragon giving chase. Chen chuckled then seized Thorolf’s tail in two claws, slowing his flight. Thorolf turned to fight, but Chen bit down hard on his tail, nearly severing the end of it. Thorolf bellowed and thrashed, then twisted to strike Chen in the face. His blow broke one of Chen’s small golden horns and black blood began to flow from it.

  There was a rumble of th
under again and Thorolf stilled even as Chen smiled. He rubbed his head on Thorolf’s tail in an unexpected move. Chandra didn’t understand until she saw his black Slayer blood run into the gaping wound on Thorolf’s tail. To Chandra’s horror, the blood dripping from Thorolf’s wound began to darken.

  Worse, the scales she’d polished to moonstone and silver blackened all over again, as if she’d never touched him.

  Thorolf faltered and struggled, as if he wasn’t sure what to do. He spun to confront Chen but didn’t seem able to strike a blow. His one claw rose as if he’d grab Rafferty, but Chandra leaned closer to him, trying to encourage the firestorm to burn hotter.

  He was snared in indecision, caught between two states of being.

  Then Chen began to breathe slowly, exhaling so steadily that Chandra knew he had to be breathing dragonsmoke. Thorolf jumped as if he’d put his claw into an electrical socket and Rafferty swore softly.

  “The missing scale,” he said, which made no sense to Chandra. She was aware that Rafferty’s breathing had been very shallow and feared that he’d done too much. She didn’t know much about salamanders, but he looked paler than he’d been before. His eyes were closed, too.

  “Once more,” he whispered, then flicked her a quick bright look. “Once more for the firestorm.”

  Chandra watched in horror as Chen reached for Thorolf, his eyes shining with triumph. She felt the wind as his claw snatched on empty air. She heard his shout of frustration.

  But they were caught in that tornado again, surrounding by the spinning power of wind. Chandra buried her face in Thorolf’s back, even as that pale blue light shone. He shifted to human form, then back to dragon form, cycling between his forms with increasing speed.

  She held tightly to him and to Rafferty, and hoped Thorolf’s involuntary shifting wasn’t a bad thing.

  Even though she knew it was a sign of a Pyr having a fatal or near fatal injury.

  When the wind stopped and they were dropped against the ground, she was surprised that Rafferty disappeared. Thorolf was in human form and the firestorm was burning with a faint silver light.