Aranya (Shapeshifter Dragons) Read online

  “There’s another nasty little lie from the Princess of liars.”

  But Zip, who had begun to draw her weapon, stopped the motion with an effort. Aranya saw the guards around the room taking an interest in their altercation.

  “I don’t lie.”

  “Only with the First War-Hammer, I hear,” spat the Remoyan. “Fifteen days aboard his Dragonship. Now you’re painting him little love-pictures.”

  “It’s the truth. Find out for yourself.” Fight the fire, keep it down. Only words, Aranya. Only words. She said, “What do you know about love? All you do is bleat about Barulak of Geban.” She bleated, exactly like a ralti sheep, “Ba-a-aa-rulak. I love you, Ba-a-aa-rulak. You don’t even dare talk to him. You’re a coward.”

  Over at the Princes’ table Barulak and his fellows burst into nervous laughter.

  “No Princess of Remoy is a coward.”

  “Fine. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Aranya strode over toward Barulak, who stopped rocking on his chair and began to look rather alarmed. As she approached him, Aranya slowed, intentionally making her hips sway and pasting a seductive smile on her lips. Before he could move, she slipped onto his lap and twined her arms behind his neck.

  “Hi, handsome Princes. Having a good time?”

  “Now we are,” said Hamarath, the dark, muscular Warlord from the Ur-Yagga Island cluster, who had a love-affair with his mirror, everyone said. “How’re you doing, beautiful?”

  “Fiery,” said Aranya, which was rather closer to the truth than she would have cared to admit. “I brought you a present all the way from Remoy, Barulak. Let’s Zip those lips.”

  She kissed him on his mouth. Thoroughly.

  Zuziana gave a small shriek of dismay. Barulak’s hands flapped helplessly. Hamarath whistled. The lamps in the room flared once more.

  That was as much as she could stand–either of the kiss, or of her own ugly behaviour. Aranya released Barulak so suddenly that his chair toppled backward. He sprawled on the floor.

  Her face utterly devoid of colour, the Princess of Remoy stormed toward her.

  “You and I will finish this,” she hissed. “Tomorrow, the hour before dawn. I’ll find you.”

  “A duel?”

  Old-fashioned, but Remoy was renowned for its adherence to the old ways.

  “Quivering in your pretty slippers, Princess? Should’ve thought of that before you called me a bastard.”

  * * * *

  Aranya awoke long before the appointed hour, before the pied warblers nesting outside her window stirred to chirp their greetings to the dawn. She could easily imagine a hundred ways yesterday’s confrontation with Zuziana could have gone better–starting with one hot-tempered Immadian not launching that Dragonship in the first place. Zip was irritating, granted. And spiteful. But was it worth a duel?

  As the long-awaited tap sounded upon her door, Aranya crept out into the corridor.

  Zuziana thrust a staff into her hand. “Follow me.”

  Twin shadows ghosted through the Tower of Sylakia, avoiding the places they knew were guarded. One shadow was a head taller than the other, but they moved with equal stealth. Aranya silently thanked her father’s foresight in providing her training that might be regarded as somewhat unusual for Princesses of other Islands. No ‘she’s only a girl’ for him. Strategies of war, weapons training, code breaking and even lock-picking had featured in her past.

  Ever the cunning cliff fox, King Beran.

  She glanced at the staff. Ironwood? She had read about ironwood. Thin but heavy, the staff would easily break bones or skulls. Zuziana probably did not want to kill her–but the lesson she intended would be bruising at best.

  Zip led her down six levels to the unused basement level of the Tower. She paused to light two torches. “You go that way.”

  As they lit the lamps situated in sconces around the perimeter of the circular chamber, Aranya realised that she was in an underground arena. Ten levels of terraced seating led to a sandy centre below. The fighting area was cordoned off with ropes.

  “You prepared this yesterday?”

  Zip glared at her. “No vipers, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

  “I wasn’t insinuating–”

  “Like your ‘size of their families’ comment? So I have sixteen brothers and sisters. I can see what you’re thinking–by the Cloudlands, she must have drawn the very shortest straw to be chosen as the worthless exile out of that lot.”

  “Zip, I’m sorry–”

  “Oh, shut your yapping muzzle, you mongrel! I’m through with words. I’m here to fight.”

  Aranya bit her lip. She had to go through with this.

  Silently, the two girls shucked their warm outer robes and stepped onto the cool, fire-lit sand. Zuziana, like her, had chosen a close fitting under-tunic and knee-length under-shorts, allowing a freedom of movement the traditional long dress for Island women would only obstruct.

  Zip twirled the staff above her head, limbering up her back and shoulders. “Ready?”

  Aranya stretched her back. Her crysglass cuts from the battle with the windroc had healed well, but still felt a little stiff, especially in the mornings. Beri said there was hardly a scar to be seen. She wondered if that was another effect of her healing power–perhaps when she poured strength into Beri after the snakebite? Another weirdness. She sighed inwardly.

  The hard point of Zip’s staff thumped her chest. “Ready?”

  She was so irritating!

  The two girls circled, testing each other with sharp blows. As Aranya had suspected, Zip was fast–very fast–and capable. She handled her ironwood staff with ease, whirling it from attack to attack with hypnotising suppleness and speed. Aranya received a clout on her thumb and a thump on the bone atop her left shoulder. She speared Zuziana in the ribs in riposte. The staves fell into a click-clack rhythm, faster and faster, whirling through the cool, motionless air of the fighting arena to fall upon each other in thrust and parry. Aranya wondered if Sylakian warriors had once trained here, or if it had been a gladiator-pit. The Sylakians were ridiculously proud of their gladiators. There was one tournament where fights were to the death.

  Her inattention earned her a bruising blow on her kneecap.

  “Awake now?” Zip taunted her. “Warmed up? Ready for the real battle to commence?”

  Aranya rested her staff in the sand for a moment, renewing her grip on the wood. The staff was as tall as she was. She could keep Zip at bay with her longer reach, but the wretched girl buzzed around her like a pesky wasp on a hot summer’s day.

  Without further ado, Zuziana dove into the attack. No jest. That really had been the warm-up, for her. A scowl creased the petite little face as Zip’s staff picked up speed, blurring around her head and shoulders. Her own staff jerked this way and that, trapping the blows, skittering and rasping as she pushed Zuziana away, only to have her fingers thoroughly mashed for her trouble. Smack! Her knee collapsed and Aranya went down.

  Zip stepped back. “Enough, your lady-ship?”

  The pun was blatant; Zip comparing her to a Dragonship. Fire smouldered dangerously within her. Again, the torches around the room flickered as though a sudden breeze had entered that dead, forgotten chamber.

  She leaped to her feet. “I thought you were through with the talking, sparrow?”

  They clashed furiously, driving in hard, swinging the ironwood staves with intent to break fingers and snap ribs. Around and around they battled. Their breaths started to come in gasps. Aranya’s longer arms kept Zip ineffective for periods of time, but the smaller girl was a ferocious fighter and simply would not give up. Aranya launched a powerful overhead attack, beating Zuziana to her knees with a flurry of blows, but she wriggled free and riposted, deflecting Aranya’s staff into the sand before kicking her in the stomach.

  “Oof!”

  Zip leaped in; Aranya swept horizontally with her staff as she rolled head-over-heels across the sand. All she collected was a mout
hful of dust. Zuziana thrashed her three times on the back of her legs. Aranya broke away quickly, coughing and spitting.

  “Like … your spanking?” panted the smaller girl.

  Aranya flung a handful of sand into her face.

  “Hey!”

  She pounded Zuziana in the ribs, but her follow-up blow missed. Aranya tripped her up by trapping her toes with the point of her staff, before throwing herself on her opponent, sinking her knee into her stomach, and forcing her staff downward, trying to stifle Zuziana’s counterattack. But the crafty girl punched her right in the eye.

  They fell apart, groaning.

  Aranya was the first to clamber to her feet. She wiped her eye. There was blood trickling from a cut. She blinked to clear her vision. She smelled smoke in her nostrils. There was so much anger in her, so much hurt and pain at having been exiled, that she was finding it almost impossible not to pour it out on her tormentor. But she knew somehow that that decision, once made, would change everything. She had to choose a better way.

  Instead, lifting her staff, she chose to channel her anger into the wood. With that as a focus, she would not be tempted to kill the girl.

  Maybe.

  “Yeeeeaaah!” screamed Aranya.

  The strength of her assault staggered Zuziana. Aranya tried to overpower her, to beat the staff out of her hands, to break the resistance of her arms with an overwhelming attack. Her breath hissed through her teeth like a hungry fire licking around dry wood. In quick succession she scored hits on her opponent’s elbow and right thigh, followed by a skull-rattling connection with the back of her head. Zip retreated, showing real concern for the first time. But she did not give up. Suddenly she rolled in underneath Aranya’s defence and tangled with her legs. Aranya howled as Zip bit her calf muscle.

  “You wretch!”

  She kicked Zip away. Aranya channelled her utmost fury into the ironwood grasped in her hands. Her staff whistled down, smoking through the air. It cracked Zuziana’s staff in twain.

  Both girls stared. Ironwood, broken? Impossible.

  With an animalistic growl, Aranya sprang atop of her opponent. Using her superior weight and strength, she forced her staff down across Zuziana’s throat. The girl writhed and fought like a crazed rajal, but Aranya ignored the blows to her face and chest. This was for her humiliation. This was for Immadia. This was for her dead mother.

  Pinned to the sand by her neck, by the wild strength coursing through her opponent, Zuziana began to choke.

  “Give up? Give up?”

  “Never.”

  “Ladies!”

  Hands, rough hands, reached in and tore them apart. Three warriors wrenched Aranya off Zuziana; another two prevented the smaller girl, who was frothing and bleeding at the mouth, from throwing herself at Aranya again. Panting, bloodied and hurting, they faced each other.

  Aranya shook off the warriors’ hands. The lamps were ablaze, so much so that several had cracked with the additional heat, but as her fury cooled, so did the lighting until Nelthion, Zuziana and all the warriors glanced about them in puzzlement. She said nothing. The thought of revealing her powers snuffed out her heatedness; it scared the living pith out of her.

  “Ladies. Taking a little morning exercise?” Nelthion’s tone was scathing. “Duels are expressly forbidden in my Tower. Don’t want daddies descending on this place in full battle array demanding to know what happened to their precious little Princesses.”

  Aranya uncurled her fingers from the ironwood staff. The wood was charred where she had gripped it. Charred!

  “Now, my men will escort you back to your rooms. You two will patch each other up. You will report to my office in one hour, together, where I will assign your punishment. Don’t ever let me see stupidity of this magnitude again.”

  A warrior scooped up the two halves of Zuziana’s staff and handed them to her. “How do you break ironwood, lady?”

  “Ask the monster from Immadia,” sulked Zip.

  Nelthion bellowed, “Enough!”

  * * * *

  Zip had a broken forefinger and a swollen, split lip. She had two lumps on her forehead that made her look surprised–or like she was growing horns–and a magnificent purpling bruise across her neck. Aranya sported a black eye that by evening had swelled completely shut, despite the generous application of cool cloths. She had a generous collection of bruises in a range of colours similar to her hair. Neither of them could walk properly for a week.

  The punishment Nelthion determined was for the two Princesses to serve their compatriots dinner every evening for a month, and to wash dishes in the kitchen for the same period of time. The servants loved it. Aranya was convinced the dirty dishes multiplied by themselves overnight. Their fellow-exiles missed no opportunity to take advantage of them; the torment was merciless. Dinners were suddenly well attended and lasted twice as long as before. Aranya could cheerfully have throttled any of them–and Beri, too. She, even more than Nelthion, made it clear what she thought of the Princess’ behaviour.

  Aranya and Zip formed a grudging partnership–not quite a friendship, though.

  When the period of punishment had run its course, Aranya disappeared into a frenzy of windroc-painting. Nelthion’s brother had placed ten orders from prospective clients.

  “Your teardrop sold for five hundred gold drals,” he said.

  Aranya’s mouth hung open.

  “Shut the gaping rabbit-hole, petal,” said Beri.

  Nelthion inquired, “What shall I do with the money?”

  “Put it to my supplies?”

  Beri patted her arm in a way that made Aranya growl. “Let old Beri take care of it, alright? Before we all fall off an Island laughing at your ignorance of the real world.”

  She was painting up a storm late that evening when Zuziana stopped by. One moment she was delicately finishing a cruel beak, the next, a face popped out from behind her easel. “Surprise!”

  Aranya clucked crossly. “Look what you made me do.”

  Zip cocked her head cheekily to one side. “Maybe he’s holding a leaf in his beak.”

  “My friend, if you’d ever met one of these–and I have–you’d know that beak isn’t meant for anything but tearing strips off–”

  “Your favourite War-Hammer of the Sylakian hordes?”

  Aranya waved her paintbrush at Zip. “Shall I paint a beard on you? Ignathion is not my favourite … anything!”

  “Oh, but you’re on first-name terms with him. I’m not.” Zip added archly, “There’s a rumour circulating in Sylakia Town that you saved him from a windroc. Smooth, Immadia. Very smooth.”

  “If you’re just here to cause trouble …”

  “Trouble? Me?” Zuziana plucked a message scroll out of her sleeve with a flourish. “I brought you a letter from King Your-Daddy–you know, leads an Island somewhere north of, well, anywhere? You’ve been ignoring your post, never mind everyone else. People will talk.”

  Aranya sighed. “Alright, what’re they saying?”

  “I received ten scrolls to your one. Just look at this mountain. Advantages of having a large family. Jealous?”

  “No … yes.” She cracked the Sylakian wax seal on her scroll, which would have been placed by the censor, and unfurled it. “What was it, sixteen brothers and–”

  “Seventeen, as of two weeks ago. There’s a new girl in the family, unnamed as yet. Look, they sent a little drawing of her. Isn’t she just too cute?”

  “Even the boys in your family are cute, Zip.”

  “If you say so,” she simpered. “To me they’re just irritating brothers. Say, did I tell you that Ignathion’s son is visiting tomorrow? His name is Yolathion. Eighteen summers old.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at Aranya. “Apparently, he’s over seven feet tall.”

  Aranya snorted, “What are you hinting at, ever so subtly?”

  Zip’s eyes danced in a way that made her feel decidedly hot under the collar. “Maybe you should wear heels?” She parodied looking up at
the ceiling. “Oh, Yolathion, at last I’ve met a man who it would hurt my neck to kiss.”

  “Zuziana of Remoy!”

  “I’d have him, but I’d have to drag up a ladder every time I wanted to kiss–”

  “You’re preposterous.”

  But Zuziana’s face grew sterner. “He’s bringing the Supreme Commander’s son on an official visit–Garthion. Have you met him?”

  “No.”

  “Slime. I’ve met him twice.” Zip looked as though she wanted to spit. “Thinks he owns the Island-World. Definitely has an eye for the ladies. It’s open knowledge he ordered the massacre of Jeradia Island. Now, what news from faraway Immadia?”

  Aranya scanned the rest of the text quickly. “Ugh, look, the censor’s been busy. Father thanks me for giving some relief from the tax burden, that’s nice. The twins got their first daggers. My Mom’s pregnancy is progressing well.”

  “Aranya, how do you break ironwood?”

  “Huh?” Zip’s changes of conversational direction were the thing that would give her a neck ache, Aranya thought crossly, not some overgrown–oh, Ignathion’s son. Was this the unfolding of a strategy he had hinted at during their journey together?

  “Ironwood. It’s unbreakable.”

  Aranya muttered, “With the power of my little finger?”

  No way was Zuziana going to surprise that secret out of her.

  Chapter 5: The Butcher of Jeradia

  As the three Dragonships of the official delegation manoeuvred over the Tower of Sylakia’s landing field, Aranya found herself thinking back to Zuziana’s words about Garthion, the son of Sylakia’s Supreme Commander, and therefore one of the most powerful men in the world. His moniker was the ‘Butcher of Jeradia’. During the invasion of Jeradia, the mechanism of the town gates had broken down, leaving Garthion and his troops waiting outside for three hours before they could make their triumphal entry to accept Jeradia’s surrender.