Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(120)

I wasn’t sure about that, but then I was going home, and that was exhilarating enough for me.



I returned to the atrium, where the former exiles had built an enormous fire and, like true Porphyrians, were preparing a celebratory feast. Cooking was not a draconic art, by any stretch; dragons wolfed down their prey, warm and bloody, like all good predators. The exiles still relished grabbing a felldeer by the throat and shaking it until its neck snapped; I’d witnessed this many times on our journey. It wasn’t raw that bothered them so much as bland.

One of the things Porphyry had agreed to supply, and which the exiles had carried uncomplainingly, were sacks of pepper, cardamom, and ginger. They used these spices now to exquisitely season their roasted yaks.

Comonot arrived just as everything was ready. We feasted long into the night. I slept by Eskar, who’d been told I was going. “You should have asked me first,” she muttered, a sulfuric scolding. “I could have persuaded Comonot to let me go.”

She didn’t say so, but I suspected she would have stayed in Goredd until she found Orma. I rather doubted Comonot’s chances with her.

I was impatient to get going, but another half day passed before the Porphyrian hatchlings were ready to leave. “We had to make preparations,” Brisi—in her saarantras—explained, leading me by the hand to a smaller chamber off the main atrium.

I gasped in astonishment. The hatchlings had built a basket of woven wire and wood. “Do you like it?” said Brisi, bouncing on her toes. “You looked so miserable when Eskar carried you. Now you can sit properly. It’s an aerial palanquin.”

I helped them move it into the atrium, where the hatchlings unfolded in a clutter of extending wings. Quigs scrambled to unlock and open a mechanical door in the ceiling. It let in an unexpected shaft of brilliant moonlight; I’d lost track of night and day down here. Grasping my basket with her front claws, Brisi flew me to the height of the mountain and out into the open sky. The other four hatchlings flew circles around us.

The palanquin was ingenious, but Brisi was not the strong, smooth flier Eskar was. I experienced every wing beat as a terrifying drop followed by a stomach-lurching heave. I was sick over a glacier. Brisi watched with interest and screeched, “A thousand years from now, that will still be there, frozen in the ice. Unless a quig eats it.”

We flew until dawn, hid and rested, and took off again in the late afternoon. Days passed in this pattern. The hatchlings carried me in turns, but none had Eskar’s wingspan. My stomach acclimated, but then I would toss and turn when it was time to sleep, unaccustomed to the stillness of the ground.

The hatchlings, to my surprise, seemed to have a clear idea of how to get to Goredd. I asked Brisi about this one morning when we stopped to rest. “Maternal memories,” she screeched. “I’ve always had them, but they didn’t fit in my head properly. They make sense for the first time, in context.”

We passed encampments, glacial plains filled with dragons of the Old Ard. My entourage took care not to fly too near, and kept a sharp eye out for scouts. It was easier to evade the eyes of other dragons than I would have guessed. Some instinct, or perhaps maternal memory, prompted my entourage to use the landscape to full advantage, skimming valley bottoms and ducking up ravines. Often the clouds hung low, a white ocean between grim island mountaintops, and the hatchlings used this for camouflage. More than once, they landed and held still, disguised as rocks or snow (after stowing my basket and me in the twiggy taiga or under a glacier).

On the sixth night, however, we crossed a ridge and found ourselves above a “vulture valley”—a draconic cesspit. An enormous old male had been resting on the ground, concealed by the ridge; he spotted us overhead and flew to intercept us, screaming, “Land and be identified!”

The hatchlings had strict instructions to comply with all such demands. Per Comonot’s orders, they were to land on the nearest snowy peak and explain that I was another dangerous deviant (like Orma, I supposed) to be delivered to General Laedi.

My entourage had other ideas. Brisi plunged into a sudden nosedive straight toward a knife-like ridge; her quick movement triggered the old male’s prey drive, and he barreled after her. Icy wind bit my cheeks; I could not catch the air to breathe. The earth spun and tilted sickeningly as Brisi stretched her wings. My sight blurred; my ears rang; my head snapped back painfully.

She circled back up toward her fellows. The bright spots in my vision cleared, and I saw that the others had stretched a net of chains between two of them. They flew at the old saar’s face; he was focused on Brisi and couldn’t dodge in time. Claws and horns entangled, he thrashed and bucked, pulling the net out of the hatchlings’ grip. They screamed in dismay, but the net did its job. The hostile dragon was too tangled up to fly. He careened out of the sky and hit the sharp, rocky ridge at a horrifying angle. He died instantly, his neck broken.

The hatchlings, alarmed, buzzed around him like bees. They’d only meant to entangle him so they could escape, but there was no undoing what had happened. After a hurried discussion, they carried his body in the net to a more secluded ravine, where flames wouldn’t be a beacon to our enemies, and burned him according to Porphyrian funereal custom. Brisi spoke words I didn’t know, until I realized it was her native tongue in a dragon’s voice, a hard-mouthed Porphyrian. I understood just enough to discern prayers to her gods, Lakhis and Chakhon.