—Amateurs,— the dragon said coldly. When the cloud reached them, she blew on it, and it vanished. She banked gracefully, heading for the Swoop. Tiny figures on the deck pointed at them, while any of the archers who might be in range had their bows up. Someone on the deck recognized Daine and called an order. Slowly the weapons came down.
She peered at one of the dragon’s toes, examining the bone structure and the violet scales. (She picked up several tiny cuts on the scale edges, which were razor sharp.) “Excuse me—weren’t you red yesterday?”
—I was angry. We may change color, to suit our wills—or to reflect strong emotion.— The great creature hesitated, then went on, —I heard you speak to the whales.—
She swiveled to face her bearer. “You did? But these days nobody else hears when I’m talking to just one species.”
—That may be so, among mortal creatures.— (It occurred to Daine her rescuer was a snob.) —We are mages of the air. —Sounding anxious, she added, —Could you send me home? I do not understand how I came to be here, and I wish to be with my family.—
“We don’t know how,” Daine replied sadly as they descended. “We’re trying to learn, though. If you stay with us, we’ll find a way to send you home—if we survive, that is.”
The dragon touched down, more gracefully than she had the day before, and released Daine. Onua, Roald, Kally, and Thom ran to hold her up as the great creature rose into the air and flew back along the cliff. Once more she vanished in midair.
“Any luck?” the baron asked as he and Thayet came over, their faces worn and exhausted. Daine looked around and saw Numair, seated on the wall. He waved a shaky hand.
“No,” she told her audience quietly. “The whales said no.” She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Numair again. “There—there might be something, but—I don’t know. I don’t think it can be here in time. I’m sorry.”
The queen patted her arm. “You tried. You’ve done so much already. I don’t think the men from the camp outside the walls are fit to go into battle today, thanks to your friends.”
“The dragon?” George asked Daine.
“I don’t know. She’s not very strong. I could try and call her back—”
“Well, well. All the little pigs tidy in one pen.” Zhaneh Bitterclaws hovered overhead, just out of bow-shot for the deck’s guards. The Stormwing queen’s looks had not improved: her eye socket continued to ooze. Whatever other magic they’ve got, Daine thought to herself, healing isn’t part of it.
Daine glanced around for her own bow and quiver: they were in Numair’s lap. Thom sidled away from their group, backing up toward the mage with his hands open behind him. “What’s the answer, mortals? Will you surrender the three we want?”
“We surrender nothing to you and your handlers,” Thayet spat. “Tell them they’ve just bought my husband’s eternal enmity—and mine.”
“You won’t live long enough to care about enmity!” Bitterclaws snarled.
Something hard and something leathery pressed against Daine’s cold fingers. Thom had brought her bow, already strung, and her quiver. The girl’s numb muscles couldn’t respond fast enough. The Stormwing laughed and climbed away when she tried to get her bow into a firing position. Daine swore, flexing her hands to get them limber again.
“Children, get below!” Thayet snapped. They wavered, and the queen roared, “Now!” They obeyed at a run.
The girl looked seaward to find what had made the woman raise her voice so uncharacteristically. In the night, the four barges had been moved to the front, ahead of the ships, and each catapult was assembled and loaded with a stone ball. Two of them fired; the balls struck the cliff face below the tower with an earsplitting boom. The stone beneath their feet shook.
The two remaining barges shifted. Must be the sorcerers that move them, Daine thought, since there were no oars and no sails. Their catapults let fly. The first stone ball smashed into one of the other towers; the second hit the curtain wall. Already men were reloading the first two catapults.
The dragon, her scales flaming gold, dropped on them from what had looked like empty sky. She immediately put flight to the stories that her kind spat flame from their mouths. The fire came from her forepaws, and devoured the sails on Eddace’s flagship. Banking hard, she cut directly across the face of one of the catapults to seize the stone ball loaded in it. Her flight sagged from the weight of the stone, but only momentarily. She dropped it on the next barge. The flat boat immediately listed to the side.
Numair propped himself on Daine’s shoulder. “Wasn’t she red yesterday?”
“They change color. Numair, she’s not big enough.”
“Maybe she’s big enough to stop them. And it’s justice, my magelet. They’re the ones who brought her here in the first place.”
Archers shot at the dragon uselessly. The red robes tried their magic, but like Numair’s it washed off her. She hurled fire at a transport, burning it entirely, before heading back to the catapults.
Stormwings broke out of the woods on land and streaked to defend the ships. Daine watched, sobbing, as their claws cut deep into the dragon’s sides. “Can’t you help?” she demanded, forgetting the state he was in.
“I wish I could. Call her back this way, if you can. Our archers can swat the Stormwings away from her.”
Daine called, hard. The dragon ignored her to fall on the red robe at the prow of Eddace’s vessel. With him in her gr
ip, she rose into the air and dropped him among a knot of Stormwings.
They exploded. Scared for the lovely creature though she was, Daine cheered as the other red robes fled to more protected parts of their ships.
Another catapult fired. Moving fast, the dragon was on the missile and had it in her talons. This time, when she dropped it onto a barge, she waited until she was much higher over it. When the stone hit, it went straight through the wooden bottom. With the other stone balls off-balance and rolling everywhere, the barge began to sink.
“Oh, gods,” Numair whispered. “Call her in, Daine. Quick!”
“She won’t listen! What’s wrong?”
“They’re loading the slings with liquid fire. Call her in fast!”
Daine screamed with all the wild magic she could find.
The dragon’s only reply was a vision of a cave, high above the sea, with light coming out of its mouth.
“She won’t come,” Daine whispered, and tried again.
The Stormwings gathered before the dragon, forcing her back. She fought to rise above them or fall below, but they blocked her. At the right moment, the two remaining catapults fired—not stones this time, but balls of a clear, jellylike substance. They splattered over the dragon, and burst into flames.
She uttered an ear-tearing shriek that none who saw the battle would ever forget, and dropped. Her flaming body crashed into a barge, and sank it.
Daine wailed her grief. “I’ll kill them!” she screamed, putting an arrow to her bow with fingers that shook. “Let ’em get near enough and I’ll kill them!”
The catapult that remained in action fired. Its stone thudded into the wall at the base of the tower. “Fall back!” George ordered their guards, who obeyed. “Onua, Daine, Numair—let’s go!”
Numair looked out to sea and froze, his hand locked tight on Daine’s shoulder. His eyes opened so wide they started to bulge. “What dice did the Graveyard Hag roll?”
Someone on the wall below screamed as a huge, black tentacle darted out of the water to grip the catapult that had just fired. Clutching it as a baby might hold a rattle, the tentacle yanked the catapult and the barge it was fastened to onto its side.