Part 39 (2/2)

The man pulled his arms in around himself and almost seemed to be grabbing the flesh at his waist as if it were a tunic. He started to pull up and out, and in an eyeblink he transformed into a ma.s.sive green dragon whose claws effortlessly gouged grave-deep furrows in the greensward.

Erlestoke had to smile. The cries of terror from his army quickly s.h.i.+fted to cheers of triumph as the men realized their dragon was bigger than the enemy's beast. Men began beating swords against s.h.i.+elds, raising a horrible din.

On the other side a lone figure stepped from the dragon's shadow and suddenly the Aurolani had two dragons. The second one had purple scales tinged with gold. The human force began to grow quiet as the thunder of Aurolani drums built.

Dravothrak shook his head slowly, the dawnlight glinting from gold flecks in his scales. ”They are nothing, my friend. Pups only. Procimre was chased from Nawal, as I will chase him from here.”

Erlestoke saluted him. ”Signalman, bring all troops to arms.”

The bugler began to play, but his song tailed off as a third dragon, this one larger than either of the other two, made his presence known. He was green like Dravothrak, save for gold stripes over his rear haunches and tail. And he reared up and walked forward on his hind legs. Spreading his wings, he battered the other two aside, then roared a challenge to Dravothrak.

Dravothrak raised his muzzle to the sky and replied with a shriek that chilled Erlestoke to the bone.

Toward the rear came the sounds of men screaming and running.Those would be the irregulars. Erlestoke flicked a hand out, smacking the bugler in the shoulder. ”To arms, mow!”

Dravothrak looked at Erlestoke. ”I will keep them off you for as long as I can. Any two I could kill, but Sidrachuil...”

”What about him?”

”If you ever have a hatchling who hates you, never let him live long enough to steal a name.” Dravothrak lowered his body, then his wings unfurled as he sprang into the air. The powerful downbeat flattened the bugler and blew apart Erlestoke's tent.

The prince, having braced for it, was only driven to a knee. He looked up, quickly remembering the fluid ease with which Dravothrak's muscles worked when they'd flown to Meredo. He recalled the dragon's having slain a copper dragon in Sarengul. ”You cando it, Dranae; you can.”

Sidrachuil took to the air first, but with a twist of his tail and the furling of one wing, slid to the side to let the other, smaller dragons make for Dravothrak first. As they drove in directly, flapping their wings hard, the striped dragon curved around to the east. For a heartbeat Erlestoke feared the dragon would lace the southern lines with fire before soaring up to engage his father. Fortunately, he was content to drift over the lines, letting men scream, faint, and run, then he began his drive up toward Dravothrak's back.

The younger dragons must have thought Dravothrak ancient enough to be senile, or hoped he would be distracted by their larger companion, for they sped toward him. Dravothrak waited, then thrust his head forward and vomited out a great gout of fire. Erlestoke felt the heat and watched it engulf the gold dragon. Adachoel's wings folded in and he fell from the sky, trailing smoke. It did not seem as if he were on fire, but as if the force of the attack had stunned him. He slammed hard into a hillside, flattening bushes and leaving a ten-foot-deep indentation, then bounced once and rolled.

Procimre twisted in midair, then looped over onto his back. His tail flicked by slowly, tantalizingly.

Dravothrak lunged at it, snapping his teeth on empty air, then started to dive toward the point at which the purple would come out of his loop. As he did so, his tail came up and left his belly open to Sidrachuil's attack.

The striped dragon blasted out flames. Almost impossibly for a dragon of his size, Dravothrak rolled and twisted his tail past the fiery jet. His tail continued around as his body twisted, then flicked out, smas.h.i.+ng Sidrachuil in the shoulder. Scales shattered and fell to the Bokagul foothills.

Sidrachuil, clearly surprised, spun away, then looped and climbed. Beneath him, Procimre came out of his lazy loop and craned his neck around to find Dravothrak. He looked back over his own right shoulder, but the green's roll had taken him further to the left. Procimre's head twisted around even more, his body beginning to roll to relieve the pressure, when Dravothrak's mouth snapped shut over the purple's head. Scales parted with the thunder of a distant avalanche, then the purple's headless corpse began an awkward tumble from the sky.

Dravothrak spat Procimre's head out, bouncing it through one of the Aurolani light cavalry units. He then folded his left wing, slewing his body around to the right. Sidrachuil's dive carried him just to the left, narrowly missing the green. The gold-striped tail did hit, however: a flailing blow that crushed scales over Dravothrak's spine. Dravothrak's left hind leg spasmed, extending and clawing at air.

At that moment Adachoel hit him from below and tore at his belly. The gold's slas.h.i.+ng claws ripped away lighter green scales. Black blood began to well up in the wound. Droplets rained down and smoked, and spring gra.s.ses withered where they landed.

Despite the wounding, Dravothrak twisted in the air swiftly. With a flick of his right forepaw, he snapped Adachoel's right wing. The gold dragon flapped hard, but uselessly, the broken wing fluttering raggedly.

Adachoel screamed, then smashed into the ground again, this time on his left flank. Something snapped with a report crisper than a draconette shot. Adachoel clawed at the ground, struggling to regain his feet, but sagged back onto one rear haunch.

With the speed of a stooping hawk, Sidrachuil slammed into Dravothrak's left side. Claws tore at scales, but that was just insult added to injury, for the impact had already crushed scales and bones beneath.

Dravothrak fell from the sky.

If a last-second flapping of his wings did soften Dravothrak's landing, Erlestoke could not tell. When the dragon hit, the ground shook beneath the prince's feet. Horses reared and plunged, soldiers were knocked to the ground. Over on the Aurolani side, the drums stopped and a half-dozen draconettes shot.

Dravothrak did land on his feet, but his belly hit hard as well. Flames shot from his mouth and nostrils as the impact knocked his breath from him.

Sidrachuil took no chances, but cruised past and hit Dravothrak with a pillar of fire. The flames laced the fallen dragon's left flank, and where scales had been broken, flesh sizzled. Dravothrak roared and rolled to the left, smothering most of the flames. His head came up and his return blast of fire caught Sidrachuil beneath the tail. The striped dragon's cloaca bubbled and blistered. But the wound, while painful, was not life-threatening.

At the base of the hill where he had landed, Dravothrak regained his feet and curled his tail around to protect his belly. He kept his body low and watched warily as Sidrachuil circled. He hissed something in dragontongue that Erlestoke could not recognize, but the tone dripped with contempt. There he was, bleeding, black wounds smoking, his armor broken and his belly leaking, defying his offspring to come down and fight.

To Erlestoke it seemed obvious that the only way Dravothrak stood a chance of defeating Sidrachuil would be for the younger dragon to descend.And for him to oblige would be foolish, but pride can promote so much foolishness.

Sidrachuil made another pa.s.s and wreathed Dravothrak with fire again. From within that conflagration a fiery lance rose, but missed the striped dragon's tail. Dravothrak beat his wings and extinguished the fire, but had trouble furling them again. Raising his head, he snarled defiantly at the flying dragon and spat flame at him.

That attack never even came close to hitting Sidrachuil.

The striped dragon rolled in the air, then furled his wings and landed solidly on the hilltop. His claws digging deep, he shrieked at Dravothrak. Again the words needed no translation, for the venom in the tone told all. Erlestoke could have imagined his using that tone with his father and wondered what Dravothrak had done to make Sidrachuil hate him so.

Sidrachuil roared, then leaped onto his father. Claws scored some scales and ripped others away cleanly. Sidrachuil's head darted down, biting Dravothrak at the base of the neck.

Fire appeared around his mouth and Dravothrak shrieked. The larger dragon rolled onto his back and kicked out with his hind legs.

That attack boosted Sidrachuil into the air and back up the hill. He landed on his rump, with his tail flicking up between his legs. The scales over his breast and belly had been grooved and gouged, and some were gone altogether. Had the blow to Dravothrak's spine not damaged one of his legs, the attack could have easily eviscerated the younger dragon. Sidrachuil glanced down at his own ruined middle and howled, but even that painful cry ended victoriously.

Below him, at the hill's base, Dravothrak struggled to rise, but he could not. The bite at the base of his neck ran black with blood and burned in several places. His left rear leg dragged and his right foreleg was not working. Though Erlestoke could not see much of his belly, black blood ran from beneath him in an oily sheet that withered gra.s.ses. His every motion became weaker until his last attempt to raise his head did nothing more than s.h.i.+ft his muzzle a couple of feet.

Dravothrak's chest rose and fell once more, then the green dragon lay still.

Sidrachuil raised his head to the sky and roared loudly. Fire shot high and Adachoel, crippled though he was, joined him in celebrating. To the north, the Aurolani drums began again, pounding out with ceaseless regularity.

Preyknosery screamed angrily and launched himself skyward. The Gyrkyme's call rang with agony and resonated deep in Erlestoke's chest. Dranae, though inhuman, had been incredibly human. Erlestoke realized he had become friends with the dragon, and that their friends.h.i.+p had transcended their different natures. Seeing Dranae in his dragon form, and not seeing his manform dead, gave Erlestoke a moment of detachment, then the full impact of the loss slammed into him.

Fury and despair warred in his chest. Erlestoke, hearing the enemy drums throbbing powerfully, threw himself into that fury. Despair would just suck the life from him, and that he could not afford. Anger hurt less and, even better, fueled his desire to make Dranae's killers pay.

The prince grabbed the bugle from the signalman and raised it to his own lips. He tried to blow an alert, but all he got was a weak squeak. Disgusted, he tossed the horn back to the signalman. ”To arms, for the third time. Do it!”

The bugler nodded and blew the alert perfectly. Up and down the southern line other bugles echoed the call. The southern formation stiffened as men moved back into line. They checked their armor, checked their weapons, and prepared for whatever their leader would demand.

Erlestoke marveled at their devotion. He supposed it could have been that each and every one of them a.s.sumed that the dragons from the other side would just hunt them down if they ran. But then he decided his warriors finally understood that if they did not oppose Chytrine here, there would be no escape. A line had been drawn, and the Aurolani could not be allowed to cross it. For if they did, all of Oriosa and all of the world would fall. In that light, it didn't matter if they were going to die; their task was to take as many of the enemy as possible with them.

Sidrachuil roared one more time, his throaty rumble mocking the southerners. Erlestoke drew Crown and wondered how it would fare against a beast that size. A thrust through an eye might work, or perhaps there was enough of a gap on his chest for the blade to reach his heart. Erlestoke wasn't thinking he'd survive too well being bathed in dragon blood, but avenging his friend might well be worth the experience.

Suddenly that roar switched to a squeak, then a squeal. Erlestoke looked up from his sword and saw the hill around Sidrachuil boiling, almost the way sand jumps on the head of a drum. Brown and red, yellow and black, humanoid creatures emerged from the earth and swarmed over the dragon's haunches and tail. Some had reached a wing and others were climbing up his flanks.

UrZreth.ilThe prince's heart started to pound faster.The Bokagul havejoined us!

The urZrethi went after Sidrachuil as if they had been created for the sole purpose of killing dragons.

Though tiny by dragon standards, they were incredibly strong. They had all s.h.i.+fted the shape of one arm into a wedge that could be driven beneath a scale, and the other a hook. Their toes had spikes, allowing them to pull themselves beneath the dragon's own armor. Though Sidrachuil clawed at them and beat on his own flesh, smearing some of them over his scales, blood began to flow from countless other places.

More and more urZrethi seeped from the earth and swarmed over Adachoel, too, dragging him down.

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