The Two Dragons, page 30
Benny Markham pulled up at that moment behind them in his new candy apple red steam carriage.
“Benny, get down here!” called Saba. “Let’s get her into the passenger seat. Drive her to hospital. McCoort, you’ve done a good job so far. Go with her. I’ll have Mr. Buttermore watch your shop till you get back.”
A scream made Saba jerk his head back to the side of the road. Mrs. Dechantagne stood with her fists over her mouth, tears streaming down from wide eyes. As Benny Markham’s car steamed away, Saba stepped over to her. He wanted to say something to comfort her, but he couldn’t find any words in his brain. So he just wrapped his arms around her and held her.
* * * * *
Senta stretched her legs out and flexed her toes. At the other end of the sofa, Graham took her left foot in his hands and rubbed his thumbs across her soul. He smiled.
“What are you smiling about, cheeky?”
“I was just thinking,” he replied. “Once a girl lets a boy play with her ankles, it’s only a matter of time before he’s got his hands on her knees.”
“You are cheeky!” She grabbed hold of her black and red leather dress and slowly pulled the hem up until her knees were exposed. Graham sucked air between his teeth. He started to reach for the forbidden fruit, but she pushed the bottom of her dress back down. “Wait!”
“Oy, what a tease!”
“I’m not going to give up my knees for nothing.”
“What is it you want?”
“I want some strawberries.”
“Can’t you just magic them?”
“I want you to bring them—as a sign of your devotion.”
“Your wish is my command, Your Majesty.”
He lifted her legs up in the air, and standing up from the sofa, set them back down in the still warm spot he had vacated. He had almost made it to the door, when Senta spoke again.
“Bring me a copy of the Gazette too.”
Graham saluted with two fingers and was gone.
“Pet,” said Zurfina. “Pet, it’s time to go.”
Senta looked around. She wasn’t on the sofa. She was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin resting on her knees. She wasn’t wearing her leather dress. She was wearing a black gown and a black hat with a veil. It wasn’t that day anymore. It was three days later. It was the day of the funeral.
It wasn’t the right kind of day for a funeral. Funerals were supposed to be held on rainy days. Mourners were supposed to stand beneath their black umbrellas. Grey skies were supposed to weep. The sun was supposed to hide its face. But it wasn’t that kind of day. It wasn’t the right kind of day for a funeral. It was bright. It was sunny. Though not terribly hot, it certainly wasn’t cold. A fresh breeze blew in from the sea. It wasn’t the right kind of day for a funeral at all. But here they were: Mr. and Mrs. Dokkins, Aalwijn and Gaylene, Saba and Loana, Eamon and Dot, Senta and Zurfina, and behind them, dozens—no hundreds—of people. Here they were, lowering Graham into the ground. Senta expected to find herself crying, but she didn’t. It was as if she could feel nothing and hear nothing. She could see tears on other faces. But she didn’t hear the sobs of the mourners. And she had no tears of her own.
Brother Galen made the sign of the cross. The mourners had each taken a handful of earth and dropped it into the grave atop the pine coffin lid. Gaylene had been the first, followed by her mother and father, and then Senta. Zurfina wrapped her arm around Senta’s shoulder and walked her to the edge of the cemetery. They had not quite reached the curb of Seventh and One Half Avenue, when far away across town, the siren shrilly sounded.
Chapter Nineteen: The War Comes to Birmisia
Zurfina had insisted that they spend the night at home before going to their respective assignments, and now that Senta reached the field near the Regmont apartment building, she was glad that they had. The men who were assembled there, more than two thousand if Senta’s estimation was correct, all looked bleary-eyed and tired. Then again, Senta doubted that she had slept any more than they had. Her destination was obvious. The late Professor Calliere’s balloon stood, rivaling the eight story apartment buildings across the street. It was fastened to the ground by dozens of ropes and at its base was the large wicker basket that served as the passenger compartment. Wizard Smedley Bassington stood next to it.
“Are you ready?”
“As ready as I can be,” replied Senta.
A small bird flew down and landed on Bassington’s shoulder. It was no bigger than a man’s fist, with a bright yellow band across its belly, and brown and black wing feathers. It chirped several times. Bassington cocked his head and listened. Then the bird took off again.
“New pet?” wondered Senta.
“An informant.” The wizard smiled. “The news is good. The lizzies have deployed most of their forces to support the Freedonians. The attack that we have to face will be much smaller than anticipated—no more than three thousand.”
“Really? Only three thousand?”
“That’s nothing for magic of our caliber.”
“So that means that Zurfina has to face ten to twenty thousand enemies by herself?”
“She does have the Colonial Guard with her.”
Lawrence Bratihn approached the two from the direction of the mustering volunteers. He looked at Senta for a moment as if assessing whether to say something, but decided against it. He looked to Bassington.
“The plan?”
“The plan is the same. Have the men fan out around the northern edge of the evacuated area. Let Senta and myself deal with the bulk of the lizzies and then, when we signal, move in and clean out the rest.”
“How far away are they?”
“About five miles,” replied Bassington. “So, let us get into position.”
Bratihn nodded and jogged back to the men, while Senta climbed into the basket. The wizard climbed in next and a woman in a khaki dress and blouse followed him.
“Do you know Mrs. Hollerith?”
“Of course,” replied Senta. “What are you doing here?”
“I learned how to work the balloon when I helped the Professor survey the peninsula eight years ago, though I haven’t been up since.”
“I was hard pressed to find a balloon veteran,” said Bassington, as Mrs. Hollerith pulled a handle from the mechanism suspended over the basket, sending flames shooting upwards.
“Cast off!” called Mrs. Hollerith, and the ground crew unfastened the lines as quickly as they could. In scant moments, they were ascending past the tops of the highest buildings in Port Dechantagne. Senta looked down to see the volunteer soldiers moving away in long snaking lines toward the east.
“How high are we going?” she wondered.
“Just high enough to get a clear view,” replied Bassington.
“I don’t know what kind of a clear view you can get. There are so many trees.”
“We just want to be able to see the lizzies moving into the area.”
“Can’t we do that from the top of a building?”
Bassington looked at her. “Would that be anywhere near as exciting as this?”
Mrs. Hollerith gave one more pull on the handle controlling the ascent, and then looked over the edge along with Senta. The balloon was fastened with only a single long rope, the other end of which was wound around a large spool attached to the ground. The spool was quickly unwinding as two men stood, one on either side, watching it. When the balloon had almost stopped, the men locked down the spool, making the basket jerk as it reached the end of its tether.
Senta pulled the mirror from her belt and looked into it. Her own face looked back at her. She looked terrible. She had dark circles under her eyes and her face was drawn.
“Uuthanum,” she said, touching the mirror with her index finger. Her own image was replaced with a view of Zurfina from above. She was standing in some kind of small wooden-floored room.
“Hello Pet,” said Zurfina looking up, but not quite meeting Senta in the eye. “Are you up in your balloon?”
“Yes. Can you see me?”
“No, but I can hear you. I may well be as high up as you are. I’m in the observation tower.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go up this high. Isn’t that why I’m in the balloon instead of you?”
“No. I don’t want to fall down from this high. That’s why you are in the balloon instead of me.”
“What’s the situation there?”
“Oh the Freedonians and the lizzies are miles away,” said Zurfina, waving her hand in a typically dismissive gesture. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Make me proud.”
Senta put away the mirror. She didn’t have long to wait. Bassington pointed down to between two houses as a group of lizzie warriors, painted black, white, and red and covered with decorative feathers ran into view. Others came around the other sides of each of the houses. Soon scores of reptilians were moving through the structures around them. In twos and threes, they searched each building they came across, and Senta could imagine their consternation at finding them empty.
“No one to kill,” she said to herself.
“You’ll have your chance,” replied Bassington, misinterpreting her comment. “Just wait a bit longer for the rest of them to get into range.”
It wasn’t long before the ground in front of them was swarming with lizardmen. There were so many of them that it was easy to see their distribution even amid the many buildings and the canopies of the great pine trees. It seemed to Senta that she, Bassington, and Mrs. Hollerith would be able to watch everything in safety from where they were. They were definitely beyond the range of spears, even cast with the help of the lizardmen’s famed throwing sticks. But at last a pair of witch doctors among the advancing enemy spotted them and attacked.
Neither was particularly skilled, both throwing simple missile spells. Two of the tiny, brightly colored magical darts flew from one lizzie and three from the other. Bassington brought forth a shield spell, which stopped four missiles, though the fifth hit the balloon’s basket, starting a small fire. Mrs. Hollerith emptied a canteen of water over it as Senta fired back her own missile spell. The eight magical darts she sent downward peppered the area around the two witch doctors, leaving them both, as well as another nearby lizzie, prone on the ground, killed or wounded.
“Let me take care of these annoyances,” said Bassington.
“Then take care of them,” snapped Senta.
“They know we’re here now,” said the wizard. “If we don’t cast some spells, they may get suspicious. Get ready, but wait until I give you the word.”
He pulled a small stack of papers from within his black rifle-frock coat and held one up in front of him. “Uuthanum,” he said. The sheet burst into flame and a three magical missiles fired down on the lizardman army. He repeated this again and again, sending triplets of magical energy downward and killing several warriors. The lizzies didn’t like advancing against magic from above any more than humans would have, but the threat seemed relatively small and it didn’t deter them of their goal. The foremost warriors were just on the other side of the Regmont apartment building from the field. It seemed that they would spill beyond the evacuated area and into Port Dechantagne proper within moments.
“Now,” said Bassington.
Senta scooped up a handful of the colorful glamours that orbited her head, invisible to others, crushing them in her palm. These were spells whose sole purpose was to enhance the power, duration, and effective area of her next spell.
“Uuthanum destus pourthanium err.”
Far below, on the ground, a few whiffs of yellowish green mist began to rise up beneath the feet of the advancing lizardmen. These whiffs expanded and became thicker. More and more of the fog spread between the houses and apartment buildings, rising up until it was around the heads and shoulders of the warriors. A few of the lizzies began to cough and gag—then more of them. After a minute, almost all of them were coughing and gagging, and the first among them began to clutch their throats and chests and to exhale bloody mist from their nostrils. Within seven minutes more than two thousand lizardmen warriors lay dying on the ground. Hundreds of survivors fled south. This was not like dodging a few magic bullets.
“Well I think that about does it,” said Bassington.
“Is that what you think?” asked a voice like a thundering avalanche.
The gargantuan dragon form of Hissussisthiss dropped down from the sky like a meteor. With three quick beats of his broad wings, almost two hundred fifty feet across, he slowed his descent and for a moment seemed to hover at eye level with the occupants of the balloon. Then he turned and flicked his wings back sending himself in a circle around the balloon, which suddenly swayed wildly as the wind from the first wing beats hit it.
“Let us see if we are done,” said Hissussisthiss, his voice was loud in their ears despite his movement and a distance of several hundred yards.
When he had come three hundred sixty degrees around the lighter-than-air craft, he opened his mouth and expelled a fountain of fire. Senta threw up a shield spell, much more powerful than the one that Bassington had used only a few moments before, but dragon fire was not so easily deflected as the bolts of energy cast by lizzie witch-doctors. Suddenly everything was on fire: the basket, the ropes connecting it to the balloon, the balloon itself, their clothing, their hair. As flames tore open the side of the great air sack, it deflated and the basket and the people in it dropped.
Senta grabbed a glamour from in front of her face. It was one she had carried with her ever since Mayor Korlann’s house had burned down. Crushing it to release the magical energy stored within flooded the air around them with carbon dioxide, immediately extinguishing most of the fire. She had inadvertently grabbed a second glamour as well, and a bolt of lightning shot off uselessly into the sky. They were all still falling.
“Premba uuthanum eimenium!” yelled Bassington, and their fall was suddenly slowed. It was just in time too, because seconds later they landed atop the eight story apartment building.
The balloon basket tipped over and Senta rolled out. She jumped to her feet and looked around. The wizard looked injured, but he climbed to his feet and tugged off the smoking remains of his rifle frock coat. Mrs. Hollerith lay on the rooftop unconscious, but at least no longer on fire.
A tremendous burst of wind knocked Senta back off her feet and sent her rolling across the roof. She heard Bassington cast another spell and looked up just in time to see a cone of super-cooled air engulf Hissussisthiss, who had dropped down to perch on the top edge of the building. Frost formed over the middle third of the dragon’s body, but it just shook itself and the ice was dislodged, falling like shards of broken glass from his green tinged scales. Then seemingly without a conscious effort on his part, the dragon’s tail flew through the air and smacked Bassington in the side. The wizard’s body was thrown high into the air, over the edge of the roof, and out of sight.
“So much for petty annoyances,” said Hissussisthiss, as Senta jumped to her feet. “Now for the main course.”
“Fire for fire,” said Senta, then. “Uuthanum uluchaiia uluthiuth!”
A massive fireball flew from her outstretched hand to engulf the dragon. As the flames dissipated, Hissussisthiss looked startled by their intensity, but not injured. He shook his head and neck and flexed his wings.
“Poison for poison,” he said, taking a deep breath.
What the dragon expelled toward Senta was not fire, but a cloud of sickeningly olive-colored gas. She took a deep breath just before she was swallowed up in the thick greenish nebule. Even holding her breath, she could feel the evil effects of the poison as it stung her eyes, nostrils, and ears. She could feel it on her skin, as though it had become hundreds or thousands of tiny bugs which crawled all over her scratching and probing for any entrance. Her eyes watered and tears ran down her cheeks.
Then suddenly a gust of wind blew from behind her, sending the poisonous vapors back toward the dragon. Senta looked over her shoulder, through her teary eyes, to see Bessemer on the edge of the roof behind her, his wings fanning the air.
“Presumptuous whelp!” cried Hissussisthiss. “Time to meet your doom!”
“Meet my doom?” said Bessemer. “How do I even respond to that?”
Hissussisthiss roared with rage and jumped toward the steel dragon, knocking off an entire corner of the building as he did so. Bessemer shot into the sky, his tail just avoiding the giant snapping jaws. The green dragon beat his great wings and stormed after him.
“Uuthanum uastus corakathum paj,” said Senta, aiming a spell she had only used once before, at Hissussisthiss. It was the same spell that she had used on the old witch doctor from Suusthek, the same one that Zurfina had used so many years before to turn the then Yuah Korlann to stone. Senta intended that it do just that to the great dragon. But dragons were not subject to the same forces as dressing maids or lizzie witch doctors. A spot about ten feet across near the dragon’s left haunch lost some of its green metallic sheen, and the monster howled out in pain, but it was not turned to stone. In fact, within a few seconds, the affected area had returned to its original appearance.
Hissussisthiss looked down at the human being on top of the building, and then up at the steel dragon circling in the sky, judging which threat was greater and therefore which should be eliminated first. In the space of a second, he had made his decision and turned back down toward the girl. He swept toward her, inhaling another great breath.
Senta prepared to cast another shield spell, knowing that the benefit would be minimal, but just as the first flames began to shoot from Hissussisthiss’s mouth, he was hit in the neck by Bessemer’s diving body. The steel dragon clamped his mouth down on the green dragon’s neck and both beasts fell toward the ground. They smashed into the earth with the force of a freight train, gouging a ditch in the ground fifty feet wide as they tumbled across the empty lot, finally crashing into the Regmont brownstone apartment building, which exploded into a cloud of broken timbers and flying bricks.
