Sister of the Sword

6

Blusidar’s island was no mere rock in the midst of the ocean. From high above, Duranix could just barely see it in its impressive entirety. Both shape and terrain were surprisingly regular. Though the coast had been etched by centuries of tides and tempests, the island was a nearly perfect circle. The outer edge was bordered by a wide band of sand dunes. A ring of steep mountains sat in the center, and a heavy belt of forest filled the area in between.

The odd regularity was a puzzle to be pondered at a later time. For now, Duranix remained convinced Sthenn was hiding somewhere in the forest. Days had passed without any sign of the green dragon. He must have been badly injured by Duranix’s lightning strike to remain hidden so long. Though a satisfying theory, it was also troubling. Wounded, Sthenn might be more desperate, more dangerous than ever.

Duranix floated on high, riding the steady winds available over the island. The sky was bright and cloud-free. Though he could see the natural life of the island with his usual clarity, he detected no visible trace of Sthenn. His deeper senses did not lie, however. His old enemy was near.

He descended to the mountain where he’d first encountered Blusidar. He hoped to see her again and scrutinized crags and crevices as he swooped in. She was nowhere around. Disappointed, Duranix alighted atop a forked pinnacle, balancing on the narrow peak with his tail spread out behind him.

Stop being a fool, he chided himself. Why waste time looking for the female? She was backward, awkward, and blind to the danger Sthenn represented. It was dangerous to divide his attention between the two. Better to concentrate on his green nemesis and leave Blusidar to fend for herself.

Cast-off scales glittered on the slope below his perch, and he realized Blusidar must have used the notch in the peak for preening. The thought birthed an irresistible itch between his shoulders. His wings, numbed from his long vigil over the island, were regaining feeling, and it felt as though a hundred brazen-toothed vermin were gnawing at him. Leaning to one side, he lowered his shoulder and scraped his back against the sky-blue stone.

Instead of a dull, stony scratching sound, the air was filled with a sonorous droning, like the organized noises the humans in Yala-tene called “music.” Duranix stopped scratching and the sound ceased. Experimentally, he rubbed his shoulder again on the rocky crag. The noise resumed. The spire of heavily crystallized stone vibrated in sympathy when scraped, creating an impressive sound.

He tried striking the spire with his horned head and tapping it with a talon. Each method drew a different note from the rock.

Movement in the air interrupted the performance. Extending his wings, Duranix prepared to pounce or fly.

Blusidar flashed past him, close enough that he felt the wind from her wings. He called to her.

“Why are you still here?” she said, passing close behind him. She was a swift flier, he had to admit. Young dragons often could outfly their elders. Mature dragons were stronger but also much heavier.

“I’ll stay until I find Sthenn,” he replied. “I have pledged to put an end to him, whatever else happens.”

Blusidar extended her rear claws and landed on a lower prominence. “Make not the sound,” she said, shifting from one clawed foot to the other with evident agitation.

He looked from her to the pinnacle. “Rubbing the stone? Why not?”

“It is for ji-ri-ni, not for play!”

In the ancient dragon tongue, ji-ri meant “hatchlings.” The syllable ni indicated “to make.” So ji-ri-ni meant “making hatchlings.”

Taken aback, Duranix tilted his huge, homed head to one side, regarding the spire. Apparently the dragons confined to this island in the past had used the sonorous stone as part of some sort of mating ritual.

“Forgive me,” said Duranix, embarrassed. “I don’t know your customs here.”

“Dragons of your land, they do not do this?”

“I have never seen it.”

His own mother had mated just once and subsequently laid three eggs. Duranix’s father was an ancient bronze known as Venerable Ro. (It had once been customary for each new generation of dragons to gain a syllable in their names—Duranix and Blusidar, having three, were of the same generation. Sthenn and the Venerable Ro were of the eldest generation.)

Blusidar settled down, flaring her nostrils. “You will not go until the green is found? Then follow, and be quiet.”

She leaned sideways and fell silently from her ledge. Spreading her wings, she glided over the jagged lower slopes and soared up a hundred paces. Hovering in an updraft, she waited for Duranix to join her.

Feeling more than a little old and clumsy in her wake, he opened his heavier wings and pushed off his perch. Stones loosed by his talons clattered down the mountain. Blusidar gave him a disdainful glance and flew on.

She traveled some way, paralleling the cliffs. He flew slightly above and behind her. The woods below presented an unbroken canopy of intertwining branches, alive with thousands of birds.

When at last a break appeared in the tree cover, Duranix saw a shallow river meandering through the forest. Blusidar dropped her tail and landed on a stout fallen tree. He settled on the sandbar beside the tree. His claws promptly sank into the damp, loose sand.

He didn’t have to be told why they’d come here. The stink of Sthenn was strong in the air. Across the river lay the remains of a herd of wild pigs, recently slaughtered. Blood from their mangled carcasses mingled with the flowing water.

Duranix waded into the river, holding his wings up out of the mud. He counted six dead pigs and signs of at least that many more devoured by Sthenn. A great heap of brush and logs was scattered in all directions behind the herd. The blood was still fresh; the kill wasn’t very old.

He hadn’t flown away, or Duranix would have seen him. He must have crawled away. In the river—yes! The flowing water would conceal his trail, and the open air above the stream would help disperse his fetid odor.

Duranix pondered which way Sthenn might have gone, until the sound of sloshing broke his concentration. Blusidar waded to the pig carcasses. She hoisted one of the more intact ones by its hind leg and skinned back her lips to take a bite.

Like lightning, Duranix swatted the dead pig from her claws before she could sink her fangs into its flesh. She snarled at him, dropping on all fours and shrinking back to present a smaller target.

He snapped, “Calm yourself! You don’t want to eat that. Sthenn doesn’t leave gifts behind. What he couldn’t finish, he tainted.” Duranix picked up the carcass and sniffed. “Yes, poisoned with one of his vile secretions. Eat this animal, and you’ll wish you could die!”

Blusidar uncoiled herself and sniffed the dead pig cautiously. She blinked rapidly, eyelids clashing like swords. “This smell... is poison?”

“The worst sort. It would rot you from the inside out, and nothing on this island could save you.”

Duranix piled up all the carcasses and incinerated them with a lightning bolt. Blusidar watched closely.

“How do you do that?” she remarked. “I cannot make fire.”

“It’s not born into us. You must find the fire in the clouds, breathe it in, and keep it here.” Duranix tapped a single talon against his chest. “I could teach you.”

She hesitated then replied, “I need it not. Find the green one and go.”

Blusidar launched herself into the air and vanished beyond the treetops. Duranix found himself staring after her. His experience with females was nonexistent.

Silver-sided fish flashed between his motionless legs, and he looked down. Sunlight glinted on their iridescent scales. Along with the speeding trout came swirls of gray mud. Something was churning the river upstream.

Duranix did not return to the air. Too long he’d delayed doing the obvious thing: combing the forest for Sthenn at ground level.

Sleeking his wings back tight, he bounded up the shallow river, raising enormous splashes with every leap. The streambed wandered this way and that, descending from the high ground at the center of the island to the low-lying shore. He slammed around the bends, scraping against trees and skittering over boulders buried in the river. The water grew thicker with mud the farther he went. Something big was floundering upstream, and he was certain he knew what.

Duranix rounded a tight bend and crashed into a heavy tree trunk lying across the river. It yielded, sliding off the bank into the water. The tree had fallen very recently. Wood in the break was still white, and the tree’s leaves were still green.

A loud splashing sounded nearby, followed by roars of reptilian anger. Duranix stepped over the big tree and assumed a more stealthy pace as he made for the sounds of conflict.

He’d come to the foot of the ring of mountains. Here, the river was born, cascading down a series of short steps made of fractured slabs of blue stone.

When he reached the edge of the forest, Duranix beheld a shocking sight: Sthenn and Blusidar violently entwined in the lower falls. The green dragon’s elongated claws gripped the female’s neck just behind her head. Her wings were splayed out, pummeled by the waterfall. She kicked at Sthenn’s belly with her hind feet, but the old monster had her pinned against the rock table, the greater length of his back and tail wrapped around her like a rope snare.

Sthenn’s head snapped around. He opened his mouth and hissed, drawing the warning out into a dry, withered laugh.

“Little Duranix!” he wheezed. “Good of you to join us!”

“Hang on to him, Blusidar,” Duranix called. “Don’t let him go!”

“You know each other, do you? How interesting.” The joints in his long foreclaws worked. Scales squealed on scales, and Sthenn’s claws sank into Blusidar’s throat. Her tongue fell out between her parted lips.

“Stand where you are, dear friend, or I’ll tear her head right off!”

Duranix strove to conceal his concern, knowing Sthenn would only use it against him. “She’s just a child, no more than a nymph with wings.”

“Hehhh, hehhh.” Again, the dry-as-dust laughter. “Is that supposed to dissuade me? You forget, my darling enemy, I killed your clutchmates, and they were mewling newts.”

Duranix advanced two steps. Sthenn twisted away from him, trying to keep his distance and not lose his grip on Blusidar. It wasn’t a simple task. She was still resisting and hampered Sthenn’s mobility.

“Stay back!” Sthenn cried shrilly. “Stay back! I’ll kill her!”

Duranix sat back on his haunches and prepared himself to leap. “I can’t stop you. But know this: I can reach you in a single jump. You’ll die far more slowly than she, old wyrm.”

“You frighten me,” Sthenn sneered.

“I notice you’re not using your teeth. Why not? Surely an elder like you could bite through a young dragon’s throat far faster than you can strangle her. Ah, I remember. Back on the plain, when we grappled, you didn’t use your teeth then either.” Duranix’s eyes narrowed. “You’re so old, you’re more than half dead. Everything about you is decayed. Those yellow fangs of yours are as brittle as icicles, aren’t they, Sthenn? That’s why you don’t use. them. They’d shatter on hard bronze scales.”

Sthenn heaved himself and his captive a step farther away, gurgling hatred deep in his throat.

“Shall I bite through this fine young throat to prove you wrong?” he wheezed. He opened his narrow jaws and rested his long, eroding teeth on Blusidar’s neck.

“Go ahead, if you can. Blusidar, if you can hear me, keep fighting! You’re a tenth his age. He’s vicious and cruel, but he’s too feeble to hold you down forever.”

Her tail thrashed once from side to side. Sthenn shifted one of his back feet to restrain it, wavering a bit as he sought his balance again.

“Are you afraid yet, Sthenn?”

Blusidar twisted violently against the grip of her larger foe. Duranix tensed himself to strike, but Blusidar and Sthenn were too much in motion for him to aim his attack precisely. They rolled under the steplike waterfall and out again. Blusidar’s tail, freed from Sthenn’s grip, lashed out, whipping across his side and back. The spiked center ridge caught him in the face, and black blood flowed.

Furious, the green dragon let go Blusidar’s neck with one claw and raked his thick talons across her eyes.

Her high-pitched trill of pain was Duranix’s cue. He sprang, aiming his whole body at Sthenn’s head. When he landed, the stone ledge beneath them shattered, dumping all three of them into the deep pool at the base of the falls.

For a while all was swirling water, rushing bubbles, and reptilian limbs striking and clutching. When Duranix emerged at last from the tangle, Sthenn was scrambling ashore, wings outstretched. The raw wound on his chest was bleeding again, and the lacerations on his face and back oozed steadily. His decrepit lungs gasped for air as his sides heaved in and out. He looked back at Duranix.

“Come for me, old friend, and the female will bleed to death!” he panted.

It seemed too true. Blusidar lay motionless on a broken slab. Blood stained her bright scales and hid her face completely. Duranix couldn’t tell if her throat had been slashed, but dark blood was rapidly covering the stone on which she lay.

Sthenn labored into the air. He did not circle but simply called, “I’ve won, little friend! You’ve been gone too long from your pet humans. Return home and see my victory!” Then he flew away, his course erratic, his belly skimming the treetops.

Duranix went to Blusidar. Her right eye was badly cut, and there was a deep wound from her right earhole to the bottom of her left jawbone. Blood pulsed slowly from this terrible gash.

He rinsed her face and neck gently with cool water. Through these ablutions, Blusidar never moved. She barely seemed to breathe.

There was nothing Duranix could do for her eye, but the throat wound had to be closed, or she would surely die. Arching his neck and inhaling deeply, he called on the lightning deep within. It would require extraordinary precision to seal the gaping wound without incinerating Blusidar or burning off his own foreclaw.

Duranix gazed skyward for a moment, feeling a fearsome calm settle over him. He lowered his head and breathed blue-white fire on the dying dragon’s wound.

Deer were plentiful on the island, and it didn’t take long for Duranix to catch four. He carried them back to the headwaters of the river and seared a brace for his dinner. The other two he left raw. Having little experience of fire, Blusidar would be accustomed to eating her meat uncooked.

She had not stirred from where he’d laid her after closing her wound. Day passed into night and then into day again, and still she did not move. After catching the deer, Duranix never left her side. He coiled himself on a rock ledge, watching over her and listening to the wild things in the woods.

At twilight two days after the battle with Sthenn, Blusidar twitched. The tremors became aimless movements of her limbs. When her head moved side to side, Duranix’s own head lifted.

Her eye opened, and she rolled onto her side. After a pause, she crawled to the water’s edge and dipped her parched, swollen tongue in the stream.

“How do you feel?”

She spasmed hard with fear at the sound of his voice. “Why are you still here?” she said, her voice a hollow whisper.

“I waited to see you through.”

“The green... is dead?”

“No, but he’s gone.”

“Then why stay? I thought you want to kill him.”

“There’s time. He’ll be returning to our homeland to see his humans triumph over mine. He’s old and injured. I can catch him.”

Blusidar examined her reflection in the water. “My eye,” she whispered, claw waving helplessly before the ruined socket. “I cannot see with it.”

“Sthenn put it out. I can’t heal it, but in time a new one will grow in its place.” He had to reassure her of this several times before she turned her attention from her damaged face to her empty belly.

“You spoke true,” she said as she devoured the raw venison. “The green wanted to kill me. Why are such creatures living?”

“Sthenn defies explanation. In some hearts, evil arrives at birth. He’s as craven as he is wicked, and I thought if you fought him he’d flee, but I made a mistake. He felt trapped, and even a trapped rat will bite.”

She said nothing more but curled up at his feet and fell into a profound slumber. Duranix stood over her for two more days, bringing fresh game from the forest. When Blusidar awakened again, he told her he was leaving.

She considered this in silence, eating part of a deer and then moving to the stream. Once she’d drunk her fill, she said, “The green is far away. Why not stay?”

Duranix was amazed by this reversal. “I must make sure Sthenn doesn’t hurt anyone ever again,” he told her quietly. “I have to finish him.”

Blusidar rose her feet. She was steadier now, and her injuries had acquired a healing crust.

She flexed her wings several times and tilted her head, fixing him with her good eye. “When the green is dead, come back. Live here.”

The same thought had entered his mind as he watched her lie motionless by the pool, teetering between life and death, but he had dismissed the idea as absurd. She wouldn’t be much of a companion—too wild and ignorant.

And there was Amero. How could he explain to her of his friendship with a mere human—creatures Blusidar had never seen—a friendship more important to him right now than mating or offspring? It was irrational to care more for a soft-skinned, inquisitive, two-legged pet than the furtherance of his blood. Yet, he had to admit, he did.

“My life is in the Valley of the Falls,” Duranix said. “I must protect my domain from Sthenn and his like for the rest of my life.” He regarded her closely. “You could come with me.”

“I cannot fly far,” she replied. Duranix realized it was true. Blusidar had neither the size, strength, nor stamina to fly all the way back to the Valley of the Falls. After another century’s maturity perhaps, but not now.

A shadow fell over the ring of mountains. Clouds, larger than the island itself and pushed by the sea wind, blotted out the setting sun.

The clouds gave Duranix an idea. He opened his wings. “Come aloft, and I will show you something wondrous.”

She was weak but able. When they reached a certain height, Duranix turned his face into the wind. The powerful current of air filled his wings, and he shot up into the clouds. Blusidar followed warily. She seldom flew so high and did not enter clouds if she could help it. Some deep, unexpressed fear made her dread the billowing white walls.

Duranix lowered one wing and banked tightly, then flapped steadily to increase his speed. Blusidar came alongside him, wingtip to wingtip. Before long sparks of blue fire began to play over Duranix’s wings. Blusidar shied away, flitting off into the mist. Duranix followed, lightning crackling as he flew.

He mischievously maneuvered on her blind side. The sky was exceptionally charged, and a corona of incandescent blue formed around his bronze body. When their wings brushed, the lightning passed from Duranix to Blusidar with a loud crack! Thunder rolled. She promptly folded her wings and dived.

Duranix dropped after her. She was spiraling slowly, wings limp. Chagrined, he realized the bolt had knocked her senseless.

He dropped beneath her and spread his wings to their fullest extent. She landed heavily on his broad back, and his muscles coiled with the strain. He held them both aloft until she recovered.

“Bad trick!” she snarled immediately. Rolling off him, she flapped hard to support herself.

“Try again,” he urged. “If you can take the fire in, it will be yours!”

Blusidar followed at a reluctant distance as he climbed again into the cloud. Lightning was already snapping from sky to sea. Two bolts hit Duranix in quick succession. The power surged through him, and he made a loop in midair out of sheer delight.

Blusidar appeared close by, gliding on his left wing. She too was limned in blue radiance, and sparks formed on the tips of her horns, claws, and wings, flashing off into the storm-laden atmosphere.

Unconsciously, they matched rhythms, wings rising and falling in perfect unison. Lightning leaped from one dragon to the other and back again. Duranix roared his full-throated cry, and to his surprise, Blusidar answered. Her voice was high and shrill with youth, but he was glad to hear it. She had found fire at last.

Catching her attention, he opened his mouth and loosed a bolt at the sea. She tried to do the same, but no lightning emerged. He showed her how to arch her neck, inhale, and let the lightning form deep in her throat.

On her third try, a spear of white, forked fire burst from Blusidar’s mouth. Ecstatic despite her exhaustion and wounds, she rolled and banked and looped all over the sky. Her maneuvers left Duranix speechless. She truly was a peerless flier.

The sundered cloud surrendered its rain. Pelted by the downpour, both dragons slowly lost their surcharge of fire. Duranix circled the center of the island, taking his bearings from early stars glimpsed through the upper clouds. Finding west at last, he hovered in place a moment, bowing his long neck. Blusidar circled him.

Saying farewell is a human custom that dragons do not share. Duranix merely changed the angle of his wings and flew on. Blusidar dropped away. The last he saw of her were the tips of her slender wings as she vanished in the clouds below.