Sister Of The South

19 - Dragon Night

Rage dissolving into numb horror, Lief saw the opal dragon swing to face the shrieking beasts hurtling over the horizon. He felt the muscles of the dragon of the topaz jerk violently beneath him. Then the dragon’s neck twisted, and the terrible head turned. Lief was caught and held by the fathomless gaze of a flat, golden eye.

‘The Enemy has sensed our attacks on the grey tide, no doubt,’ the dragon hissed. ‘He has sent his killing creatures to protect it. He must be using powerful sorcery indeed to defy the power of the Belt of Deltora.’

It glanced down at the seared section of river bank below, and snorted. ‘There is little enough damage. But the Enemy fears dragons, it seems. Even two are too many for him. I must set you and your companions down, king of Deltora. When the pack has finished with the dragon of the opal, it will come for me.’

‘No!’ Lief exclaimed. ‘There is still time for you to get away from here. Turn and—’

The golden eye flickered. ‘I would rather die fighting than fleeing,’ the dragon said. ‘And I am sick of hiding.’

‘As the grey tide spreads, there will be nowhere left to hide, in any case!’ shouted Jasmine, as Kree screeched wildly, wheeling in the sky above her. ‘You must keep us with you, dragon! The Belt will aid you—and we can fight!’

‘Indeed we can,’ growled Barda, drawing his sword.

‘No!’ Lief cried frantically again. ‘Barda, Jasmine—’

He felt Jasmine’s hand close on his, and saw the gleam of Barda’s savage grin.

‘We know full well that you will not leave the dragon now, Lief,’ Jasmine shouted. ‘And we will not leave you. We were together at the beginning of this, and so we will be at the end.’

‘And if you will take a soldier’s advice, dragon, you will not wait to be attacked,’ roared Barda. ‘You will go forward and fight beside your brother!’

‘That opal beast is no brother of mine,’ the dragon snarled.

‘It is more your brother than the seven Ak-Baba!’ Jasmine screamed furiously. ‘Will you leave it to be torn apart, while you wait your turn?’

The dragon bared its terrible fangs. Its black tongue flickered. Then its eyes seemed to glow.

‘Very well,’ it growled. ‘Together we will fight beside the dragon of the opal, and together we will die. This battle will be our last. But while we live, we will do the Enemy what damage we can, for the sake of our doomed land, and for our ancestors, and for our young, who now will never be.’

It flung itself forward, streaking over the sea of grey, towards the Ak-Baba.

And as Lief drew his sword and screwed his stinging eyes shut, he saw behind his lids words from The Belt of Deltora—words that had always filled him with dread and now had a new and terrible meaning for him.

… the Enemy is clever and sly … to its anger and envy a thousand years is like the blink of an eye …

The book called the Enemy ‘it’. The unknown writer had understood something that Lief himself had never quite accepted until this moment.

However he had begun, the Shadow Lord was now far more—or perhaps far less—than a cruel tyrant who was a master of sorcery.

Long ago, perhaps, he had been a merely a sorcerer, with a cloak of shadows and a boat with a grey sail marked in red. He had felt fear, suffered a bitter defeat, and sailed east across a silver sea to find new lands to conquer.

But if he was human then, he was human no longer. Envy, hatred and malice had consumed his humanity long ago, burned it away to dust. All that remained were memories.

‘He’ had become ‘it’—a force for evil that fed on power, that destroyed and corrupted everything it touched. A force that would never die.

I have many plans … Plans within plans …

How did I ever think that I could defeat the Shadow Lord? Lief thought bitterly. For a thousand years he has worked towards his goal. And we—we have struggled in his web, blindly, stupidly, repeating the mistakes of our ancestors. In his time, Doran the Dragonlover was called mad. In our time, Josef was insulted and avoided. Over and over again we have ignored the lessons of history …

Learn the lessons of history … Despair is the enemy. Do not let it defeat you …

The roars of the dragons were like thunder. The blood-curdling shrieks of the seven Ak-Baba split the air. Jasmine and Barda were shouting. Kree was screeching. They were battered by wind thick with smoke and the bitter smell of burning hair, dust and rotting flesh that was the odour of the seven Ak-Baba.

But Lief had ceased to hear, to smell, to feel. His mind was turned inward and his skin was prickling. For as the memory of Zeean’s faint, halting voice had faded away, another voice had taken its place.

… the Enemy fears dragons, it seems. Even two are too many for him …

The Shadow Lord had thought of everything. But he had not planned on dragons.

Lief opened his eyes. The Ak-Baba had almost reached them. He could see their eyes, like burning pools of madness. He could see their talons, flexed ready to rip and tear. He could see their beaks gaping, their needle-sharp teeth glinting.

He pressed his fingers to the amethyst. He called silently, but with all his strength.

Veritas!

And as he thought the name, more words followed it into his mind. He realised that he was remembering the strange, foreign words that had flowed into him from Doran’s soul stone as he pressed it into the earth.

Veritas hopian forta fortuna fidelis honora joy eu …

And suddenly he knew what the words were. Not a sentence, but a list of names. The most important names in Doran’s life.

He pressed his free hand to the Belt once more, running his fingers across every gem.

Veritas! Hopian! Forta! Fortuna! Fidelis! Honora! Joy eu! Come to our aid, I pray you! For Doran. For the land!

He felt the dragon of the topaz jerk beneath him, saw the dragon of the opal turn abruptly, its rainbow eyes blazing.

And then the seven Ak-Baba were upon them—the Ak-Baba were surrounding them, howling like savage wolves, snarling and snapping, claws and teeth ripping and tearing.

They worked as a pack, attacking from all sides, from above, from below. Three or four would distract their enemies by ferocious charges while the others moved in swiftly under the cover of their wings.

They were vicious, fearless, tireless. They bore the scars of countless battles and were filled with ancient cunning. But rarely had they faced two dragons at one time, and never had they faced a dragon aided by swords, and by the Belt of Deltora.

They screeched with rage as the dragons clawed at them and blasted them with fire. They howled as Lief, Barda and Jasmine slashed at them, preventing them from closing in. Diving at them from above, as fearless as they were, Kree drove his sharp beak into their necks, their heads, distracting and enraging them the more.

Then one fell—one fell, its throat torn open by a single slash of the opal dragon’s talons. Screeching and twisting it plunged to earth, to be engulfed almost instantly by the grey tide.

The dragons roared in triumph. Lief, Barda and Jasmine cheered. But the remaining Ak-Baba charged, shrieking ferociously, and the opal dragon’s roar became a bellow of agony as the soft underside of its neck was pierced by teeth like needles and claws like sharpened iron.

An Ak-Baba with a speckled head was clinging to the dragon’s neck, clinging to it upside down, like a giant bat. Blood flowed from the sides of its gaping beak, dripped over its clawed feet. Howling at the smell of the blood, the other Ak-Baba closed in. In seconds the rainbow dragon was lurching in the air, its body almost hidden beneath a shrieking mass of twisting, snake-like necks and vast, flapping wings.

‘Help it!’ Jasmine screamed. ‘Oh, make haste!’

‘It is finished,’ growled the dragon of the topaz. ‘This is how they end it.’

‘No!’ roared Lief. ‘Get below it!’

The dragon wheeled and soared beneath the struggling mass of bodies. Now the speckled Ak-Baba was directly above them, its ragged wings wrapped around the dragon’s neck, its ghastly body flattened against the dragon’s hide.

Lief and Barda hesitated, suddenly fearful that if they slashed with their swords they would fatally wound the dragon as well as the beast attacking it.

But Jasmine jumped upright, balancing on the topaz dragon’s neck as lightly and easily as once she had surveyed the Forests of Silence from the branch of a storm-tossed tree. Her dagger flashed as she reached up and plunged it into the back of the Ak-Baba’s neck, just below the head.

The vast bird stiffened. It made a hideous, gurgling sound.

‘Go!’ roared Barda.

Jasmine tore her dagger free. Lief caught her by the waist and held her fast, pulling her down as the topaz dragon sped away, and behind them the speckled Ak-Baba dropped like a stone.

There was no moment of triumph this time. Freed from its clinging tormentor, the opal dragon was twisting in the air, slashing and roaring fire at the other beasts tearing at its body. But its movements were clumsy. It was weakening.

And the topaz dragon was weakening too. Its enormous strength had been drained by the terrible struggle with the two-faced beast, drained further by the flight to the Plain of the Rats. All over its golden body, old wounds had begun oozing blood.

The Ak-Baba knew it. They could see the beast’s uneven wingbeats. They could smell the blood.

Shrieking, they abandoned the floundering body of the dragon of the opal, and sped in for the kill. There were only five remaining, but those five were as fresh, as ferocious, as ravenous for blood as they had been at the beginning.

They flew, screeching, through the golden fire and hit the topaz dragon full in the side. It lurched, tilted, lost height, its huge wings beating desperately, its spiked tail lashing. The Ak-Baba pursued it, surrounded it, moved in again.

‘This time, we are lost, I fear,’ growled the topaz dragon thickly. ‘But let us try to take another of them with us.’

And at that moment there was a roar from above them, and the sky seemed to explode in a burning mass of shooting stars. The Ak-Baba scattered, howling in shock. Lief, Barda and Jasmine cowered against the dragon’s scales, coughing in a haze of smoke that stank of singed hair and scorched cloth. And out of the heavens soared the dragon of the lapis-lazuli, wings spangled with stars, starry fire belching from its snarling jaws.

The Ak-Baba wheeled in the air, turning to face it, snake-like necks stretching, beaks gaping wide as they howled in fury. Then suddenly, one was gone, snatched out of the air. There was a sickening crack as its neck broke between vast red jaws.

And as its lifeless body was tossed aside, as the ruby dragon bellowed its triumph and the remaining Ak-Baba shrieked and howled defiance, a ball of emerald fire roared through the smoke haze.

Three of the shrieking beasts dived. The fourth was too slow. The fire ball struck. The feathers of its wings burst into flames and it plummeted to the ground, trailing a plume of fire.

Now only three Ak-Baba remained. Through the smoke and fire they could see five vast, glittering shapes, five snarling sets of fangs, five lashing tails. They shrieked defiantly, hovering, weighing the odds.

But when there was yet another roar, and a gush of purple flame lit the sky in the west, they twisted in the air and fled.

And the dragons did not follow. For by the light of the great, golden moon they could see the grey tide below. They could see it spreading before their eyes. They could feel its deadening chill. They knew what they must do.