The Black wing (d-2) Read online

  "We'll see if it's high enough," the dragon said at last.

  Anxious to test her wings in flight, Khisanth stepped from the protection of the trees and into the sunlight that had chased the rain clouds away. How the nyphids could enjoy the sun's blinding light, she would never understand. Squint shy;ing, she lumbered past her lair and continued upward some distance on the shelf.

  That should give me enough room for a running start, Khi shy;santh reasoned. She raised herself high and extended her wings, once, twice, as a test. Drawing in a deep breath to con shy;centrate, she tucked her wings tightly to her sides. Leading with her right foot, she took elongated strides, gaining great speed as she approached the precipice. The ground shook beneath her; rocks tumbled away. The clawed toes of her right foot met the edge first, as she had planned. Then Khi shy;santh pushed herself up with all her great strength, drawing her wings out and driving them first down, then up.

  She plummeted like a rock.

  For five heartbeats, she scrabbled and clawed and flapped to no avail. Then she met the moist ground and tumbled head over wings.

  Breathing heavily, Khisanth let her face remain covered by her left wing as it had fallen. She could feel Joad at her side, silently examining her right wing. She didn't stop him, though she knew she wasn't hurt.

  "Thou wast trying too hard."

  Khisanth's head snapped up from under her wing. She glared at the nyphid, who was hovering above her left shoul shy;der blade, his own little wings fluttering effortlessly. "How can I try …. 'too hard' to learn to do something I don't know?"

  "Thou dost not need to be taught to use thy wings-drag shy;ons fly naturally. Didst thou need to be taught to walk before the Sleep?"

  In truth, Khisanth could not recall.

  "Thou likely took stumbling steps at first. But thou assumed upon waking that thou couldst walk, and thou didst."

  "Are you saying I should just assume I can fly, and I will?" Khisanth scoffed. Standing, she brushed damp pine needles from her chest and tail and affected a look of disinterest. Still, she waited for the nyphid's response.

  "No." Kadagan shook his head as he alighted to the ground. "Though the skill is natural, the knowledge is not. Thou needs to practice, but effortlessly, like a leaf falls from a tree. Thou must stop caring about flying and just do it. After thou hast practiced, it will become second nature." Kadagan could see that she was trying to absorb his words, yet her nat shy;ural hostility had wrinkled her brow into a scowl.

  "Stop thinking about being a dragon, and just be a dragon."

  Khisanth's thick lips ruffled contemptuously. The nyphid's gall was limitless! "If there's anything I know more about than you," she stormed, "it's how to be a dragon!" With that, she spun her snout around and thundered off again toward the shelf above her lair.

  The indignant dragon posed herself as before and pre shy;pared to sprint down the hill toward the ledge. But at the last second, she caught a glimpse of Kadagan, standing far below, arms crossed expectantly, face tilted up to catch the sun as he watched her. Whether from spite, or some emotion far more powerful, Khisanth abruptly conjured a brief mental picture of herself flying above the earth. She stopped think shy;ing of every step she would take, of leading with her right foot so she could push off with the same. She commanded herself to move, to run, and when her toes touched the edge, she sent no conscious message to her wings.

  She was over the brink. Her wings snapped up, then out. The dragon's horned head jutted forward, and her four wing shy;less limbs stretched backward beneath her expanding chest, in starched, straight lines, parallel to the ground.

  Khisanth was gliding. She saw the tree line fast approach shy;ing and tensed for a moment, then remembered to simply be a dragon. Her wings angled slightly on their own, and she rose sharply above the thick green leaves and into the wait shy;ing blue sky. Coming at last out of the glide, her long, leath shy;ery wings folded, then sprang open again with a snap. Wind currents tugged at her, jostling her as she soared. She let the wind take her where it willed.

  Khisanth saw the whole of the world as the gods had cre shy;ated it-rugged land, shifting water, turbulent air-and she thought what a loss it would have been to sleep through her entire life beneath it all. Looking back, she saw herself with an admiring detachment. The scales above her rippling mus shy;cles were sleek and black like polished onyx. What perfect creations are dragons, Khisanth thought. Surely as god-touched as the land itself.

  Ah, flying…. The blood-rush it inspired was akin to that of gorging, especially when a tail wind helped her cruise with impossible swiftness. She pushed herself on this maiden flight, past the first ache of her wing muscles, until the legs that would help her land cramped as well. She located the edge of forest that shielded her lair and let her body take care of the details of returning to earth.

  Either she had flown too long, or her body had little practi shy;cal knowledge of landing, because her legs buckled upon con shy;tact with the ground. Khisanth tumbled head-over-tail, losing count after the tenth rotation. At last her tail met with a stout tree trunk and she stopped, unable to tell up from down.

  "Not bad," said Kadagan, as ever at her shoulder. "Not good, but not bad. Next time thou wilt know not to fly beyond thine endurance."

  Khisanth was still smarting from Kadagan's chastisement when she awoke the next day. She had wanted to make him choke on the smug look he maintained during his insuffer shy;able preaching about qhen. Khisanth had proven that she could fly, and the greatest compliment he could offer was "not bad." She'd asked him about it, challenged him. The nyphid had said with maddening serenity, "Thou canst fly. So can a mosquito." She'd cast him a scorching look that made her golden eyes look like burned amber. He'd been unmoved. Then he'd left her for the night. Before following the younger nyphid, Joad had handed her some herbal lini shy;ments with the unspoken understanding that she should apply them to her stiffening muscles.

  Stretching painfully now, Khisanth was sorry that she had defiantly flung the small, unused pots of balm across her lair the night before. Spotting the cracked vessels of ointment, she dabbed the fleshy ball beneath one claw into a partially dried puddle and touched it to the sorest muscles in her wings. To her surprise, the goo provided instant, if not total, relief. The dragon reached down for more and was dismayed to realize that she could not salvage enough from the sandy floor to apply to her whole body. It enraged her to think that her anger had cost her the cure to her ills. Her tail lashed out, and she sent the shards of the crude ceramic pots flying through the lair's opening.

  "Anger will defeat thee in battle as well as in life," said Kadagan, calmly dodging the flying fragments as he flut shy;tered into the cave. "An old nyphid maxim."

  "Does nothing enrage you? Aren't you furious those humans took Dela?"

  "Anger is energy spent foolishly."

  Khisanth's eyes rolled up in exasperation. "It never ceases to amaze me that such a wise and all-knowing race has come to the brink of extinction," she stabbed.

  As usual, Kadagan did not rise to the bait. "A cruel trick of nature hast given nyphids wisdom without the physical strength to defend it. Thou hast the opportunity for both." Kadagan settled himself, pulling up his tunic slightly to sit cross-legged on the dirt floor. "Art thou prepared for the next lesson in qhen?"

  "Qhen?" snorted Khisanth. "I intend to fly today."

  Kadagan watched the dragon's stiff, jerky movements as she shuffled around the cave.

  "I feel fine! I'll have no problem flying," Khisanth croaked defensively at the nyphid's cool gaze. "Besides"- she whirled on the small creature -"I thought you and Joad were in a hurry for me to rescue your Dela. I'm just trying to oblige you." She crossed her claw arms in a challenging pose.

  "So let's skip these fascinating lectures of yours and get on with teaching me to shapechange."

  "I am more than anxious to rescue Dela," said Kadagan evenly. "But thou wilt surely fail in the task if thou dost not moderate thy temper. How canst t
hou hope to control an enemy without first controlling thyself?"

  "Is that why you're always so maddeningly calm?" Khi-santh snapped.

  They both knew the question needed no answer. In a strange way, she was beginning to understand the nyphid's logic. Besides, she was tired of looking foolish in contrast to the nyphid's unshakable tranquility. "How long will it take to learn what you want me to know?"

  "As I said before, that depends on thee," said the nyphid. "I cannot hurry and teach thee patience." Sensing the circular course this topic could take, Kadagan noted, "The males of my race pass down a tale that might help thee:

  The time came for a young nyphid to develop her magical nature and learn qhen. She walked to the pod of her teacher uncle and said, "It is time for me to become the finest nyphid qhen. How long must 1 study?"

  "Ten years at least," her teacher uncle said.

  "Ten years is a long time," said the young female. "What if I studied twice as hard as all thine other students?"

  "Twenty years," replied her teacher uncle.

  "Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?"

  "Thirty years."

  "How is it that each time I say I will work harder, thou tells me that it will take that much longer?"

  "The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon thy destina shy;tion, there is only one eye left with which to see the way there."

  The thick, scaly skin above Khisanth's brow bones drew up in understanding. She heaved a rumbling sigh of surren shy;der. For a hot-tempered dragon, grasping qhen was going to be a lot more difficult than learning to walk or fly.

  Chapter 4

  Under cover of darkness, Khisanth, with Kadagan clinging to her neck, soared over the eastern cliffs of the bay known as the Miremier. Guided by the nyphid, the dragon was learning the names of the lands over which they flew.

  The terrain just south of the long narrow forest of End-scape was unremarkable for anything but its rugged coasts on both the east and west sides of the peninsula. Impossibly long stretches of flat, unforested land continued south until, abruptly and without foothills or even forest, the easternmost ridges of the Khalkist Mountains jutted out of the earth like jagged fangs.

  The flat land might have made for good farming, if any humans cared to go into the far northern reaches of the Ogre-lands, to face the isolation of life beyond the populated vil shy;lages of either Kernen or Ogrebond. It was a strange and silent stretch of land, surrounded by lonely rain-washed cliffs.

  The nyphid and the dragon shared a new spirit of, if not mutual respect, common purpose. Khisanth was learning qhen even more quickly than Kadagan had hoped, for the dragon was a very bright student and was learning, above all, to control her ever-ready temper. Her muscles were toned by long daily flights. With a little more practice, she would be able to master the rudiments of shapechanging. With a little more mental discipline, both teacher and student knew that Khisanth would be ready to fulfill her end of the bargain.

  In light of this fact, Khisanth had persuaded Kadagan that she was ready to begin shapechanging. Kadagan himself had said she must see, firsthand, a human female in order to assume its shape. It would also be helpful, Khisanth had rea shy;soned, for her to see the village where Dela was being held. The young nyphid had given a fairly detailed description of Styx from his own journey there with Joad, but Khisanth had a difficult time envisioning it. She'd never seen human dwellings before.

  "Something puzzles me mightily, Kadagan," said Khi shy;santh now. "How have these humans come to govern the world? By your own words, they are weakly built, to the point of perishing from simple indigestion. They aren't the least magical by nature. Only after a lifetime's study can a very few of them wield even paltry spells.

  "You've said they can do almost nothing for themselves," the dragon continued. "Beasts of burden plow their fields and pull their wagons. They use bows and arrows to bring down prey larger than the smallest rodent, and even those they will not kill with their bare hands or teeth."

  "That's all true," noted Kadagan. "Yet they can walk freely, while nyphids and dragons must hover in shadows, for fear of retribution."

  The dragon shook her head vigorously. Kadagan clutched her neck more tightly against the sudden turbulence. "Tell me, how have they subordinated so many more powerful races?" Khisanth demanded. "Why would anything but a worm fear them? They aren't nearly as strong as dragons. They can't even fly! I will hate being one of them!"

  The nyphid's expression softened at the dragon's plight, and he added with gentle confidence, "Thou wilt understand their crude power after thou hast been one. They are emo shy;tionally complex. Their many facets make some weak and small, but give others a fire that inspires followers."

  "I will never follow or fear them," said Khisanth, scowling. "As dragon or human, I will bow only to the Dark Queen." She snapped her head up, to punctuate the end of the discus shy;sion.

  Recalling Kadagan's qhen teachings to live the moment, the dragon concentrated on something more pleasing. She watched the ground below with vain pleasure, catching glimpses of her graceful, menacing, moonlit shadow as it skimmed from cliff face to dusky bay and back. At full exten shy;sion, she was the most beautiful creature of her limited mem shy;ory-powerful, gliding silently over the unsuspecting land. What a world it must have been when those of her kind had traveled wingtip to wingtip in the skies-but that had been long ago, before the banishment known as the Sleep.

  "There is Styx," Kadagan said abruptly into the dragon's ear. Khisanth followed the line from the nyphid's tapered fin shy;ger to a dimly glowing collection of lights in the distant southwest. The village was cupped around a calm, indigo blue bay, and its back was pressed against a low ridge of mountains.

  "Remember to keep thy distance," warned Kadagan. "For Dela's sake, we cannot risk detection."

  "Why would they assume a dragon flying overhead was looking for a kidnapped nyphid?"

  "After the disturbance Joad and I caused, they will be sus shy;picious of anything unusual. But thy presence is nothing compared to thy nature. Lest thou forget, the return of drag shy;ons is still just rumor to much of the world. The villagers of Styx would be most surprised and alarmed to sight one of your kind."

  "No one will see me," Khisanth said confidently.

  Taking in the dark ridge of mountains at Styx's back, Khi-santh banked and flew southeast, paralleling the far north shy;east edge of the village. "I should be able to see what I need from the foothills above Styx," she explained. Reaching the northernmost peak, Khisanth slowed her speed, dropped her elevation to just above the tree line, and lowered her right wing ever so slightly to swing westward.

  The dragon became aware of a dim, flickering glow from the forested foothills below. Curious, cautious, Khisanth dropped back behind a spiky pine and fluttered her wings just enough to remain aloft. Kadagan clung to her craning neck as she peered down into a small glade that would have gone unnoticed if not for the firelight illuminating it. A dozen or more creatures were reclining around a small campfire. The flames made the orange tusks that protruded from their jowly mouths glow like hot coals.

  "What are they?" breathed Khisanth.

  "Ogres."

  Khisanth vaguely remembered them from the maynus, lurking in the background at Dela's capture. By comparison to the two-foot-high nyphids, ogres were huge, perhaps ten feet tall, with sloping foreheads that made them look witless. The warty yellow, brown, and violet flesh beneath their green hair was covered with torn scraps of animal fur that stank even at a distance. Despite the foul stench, Khisanth found the underlying scent of living flesh inviting.

  If thoughts of their taste weren't invitation enough to strike, Khisanth spied gem-studded swords near each crea shy;ture, the precious stones winking at the dragon in the fire shy;light. Picking their teeth with the bones of their recent dinner, the sleepy ogres did not notice the threat that hovered in the shadows beyond the trees.

  'Thou art planning to attack."
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  Khisanth had to force herself to think enough to respond. "Instinct tells me to, yes." Spittle flooded her maw in antici shy;pation of the feast. Blood hammered at her temples and burned in her veins at the thought of the treasure.

  "It is most unwise-"

  The pounding in Khisanth's head prevented her from hearing anything but her own blood-thirst. She didn't even notice when, sighing, the nyphid extended his gossamer wings and fluttered earthward into the protection of the leafy branches beyond the glade.

  Unable to contain her hunger for another second, Khisanth spiraled downward like a black tornado. She only distantly heard the ogres' screams as they spotted her circling in the dimness above. They panicked, and every ogre jumped to its feet. Thinking only of running away, they slammed into each other and fell back down in a tangled pile. Several stumbled and landed in the fire, setting their greasy hair and clothing aflame.

  Pulling up short just eight feet off the ground, Khisanth snatched up an ogre by the chest. The creature's purple eyes flew wide open before Khisanth's fangs cut through the flesh and laid its chest bare. The dragon landed with a hop, looked inside the cavity to the heaving heart, and sighed. That deli shy;cacy would have to wait until she had dealt with the others.

  Khisanth whirled to find a second ogre brandishing a thick branch in its talons, slashing the air before the black dragon. Khisanth bit through the club with a satisfying snap, then tore off the ogre's arm. She thrilled to the unaccustomed tex shy;ture of the limb sliding down her long throat.

  In the fighting that followed, Khisanth was aware of only her own sound and speed, the ogres' fear and blood. She sim shy;ply acted and reacted. As with flight, the dragon discovered that she instinctively knew what to do. Her entire body was a weapon, effective beyond anything these ogres could imagine. Her talons slashed like sabers, her teeth impaled like spears, her tail whipped and smashed like a battering ram, her wings beat and buffeted like windstorms. There was no escape for the ogres, and turning to fight was hopeless. One after another they died, screaming, stumbling in their own gore.