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  Shadow Dragon

  Shapeshifter Dragons Book 2

  By Marc Secchia

  Copyright © 2014 Marc Secchia

  www.marcsecchia.com

  Cover Art Copyright © 2014 Victorine Lieske

  www.bluevalleyauthorservices.com

  Map by Joshua Smolders

  Copyright © 2014 Marc Secchia & Joshua Smolders

  [email protected]

  Map of the Island-World

  Chapter 1: Stranded

  The man AWoke when a sword-point tickled his throat.

  He leaped to his feet with an inarticulate cry. Bowstrings creaked. Shouts assaulted his ears. He whirled, glimpsing dozens of arrows trained unerringly on his heart. He began to back up, but a sharp prick near the spine cut short his instinctive attempt to escape.

  The man found himself standing beneath a lone, lightning-split prekki-fruit tree, on the edge of a titanic cliff. Three feet from his toes, the land carved away into an immense space, devoid of Islands; a horizon-spanning void filled a league below by poisonous khaki clouds. The smell of rotting prekki fruit, cloyingly sweet, filled his nostrils. With it came faintness, a collapsing of the world toward him, black-edged and vengeful. He saw a haze. Voices swirled out of the mist.

  “Naked?”

  “He’s a warrior,” said another voice. “Look at the muscle on him, the scars.”

  “Where’d he spring from? Not this Island, on my mark.”

  “Only half a brain in that basket.”

  “Who cares for brains on the pillow-roll? Not I.”

  Rough laughter beat against his ears with the force of windrocs squabbling over a fresh kill. The man squeezed his eyes shut–as if that could shut out the banter and give him space to think. He could not remember his name.

  “You, boy.” A woman, her voice a hammer-blow of command. Her forefinger stabbed his chest as though she wished to splinter the bone into his lungs. “What’s your name? What’re you doing on Ur-Yagga?”

  Panic flashed dagger-sharp behind his temples. Where was he? Who was he? His head stopped moving, but the world did not. Hot bile surged into his throat.

  The owner of the blade at his back twisted the point into his flesh. “Answer!”

  His eyes popped open, but he refused to gratify them with a groan. A warrior’s honour depended on how he suffered. Instead, he tried to focus on his interrogator.

  He saw a tall, deeply bronzed female warrior–by her proud bearing, clearly the leader of this war-band. She carried four curved daggers slung from the belt of her fitted leather trousers. The leather-bound hilt of a scimitar jutted above her left shoulder, a weapon so massive that the tip of the blade protruded a foot beyond her right hip. Worn boots and brief upper body armour which left her muscular arms exposed, completed her outfit. She called him boy, yet she had to be younger by a number of summers.

  Great Islands, and what a windroc’s scowl greeted his unthinking appraisal!

  His eyes flicked to her troop. They were all warriors as dark as she–perhaps a hundred heavily-armed, exclusively female warriors of the Western Isles. A seasoned crew, he judged. No eye gladdened in greeting, nor did a single hand stray from a weapon. They struck him as strangely ill at ease; despite their rough jests, clearly itching for an excuse to spill out his intestines beneath the prekki-fruit tree. No trifling with such as these.

  Especially not their leader.

  The pressure between his temples ballooned. She was a blade poised to strike, craving the sweet bite of a scimitar into flesh–his flesh.

  “May I ask whom I have the honour of addressing?” he asked, treading that scimitar-edge with care. “And who are your men–your warriors?”

  Her hard-planed face became harder, if that were possible. The dark brown eyes flashed. “I grow impatient for answers, boy.”

  Answers were the problem.

  “I don’t remember,” he said, simply.

  “You don’t remember what?”

  “Anything.” He clasped his hands beneath his throat and bowed from the waist. “My lady, I apologise if I–”

  The scimitar whistled over her shoulder. Before he could blink, the blade stopped a whisker short of trimming his left ear. Dangerous? Make that lethal. He would need to tread like a leopard stalking his prey just to stay alive, while he tried to work out what in the Island-World he was doing in a place with female warriors of this calibre, and not a single memory of his past.

  “I’m not your lady,” she hissed. “I am Kylara, Chief Warlord of Yanga Island of the Ur-Yagga Cluster, and I will not stand for your insults. Speak!”

  “You have me at a disadvantage, Kylara.”

  “Address her as ‘Chief’ before ya lose your head,” growled the woman behind him, punctuating her words with digs of her scimitar-blade. Warm blood trickled down his back.

  Kylara said, “Somebody find a cloth for his loins. His nakedness offends my eyes.”

  Did it? Abruptly, he revised the words readied upon his tongue. Staying alive required a bold strategy.

  As he spread his hands to plead his case, he noticed a number of deep cuts and scrapes on his arms. His chest, chin and knees were abraded, the lesions thick with dirt. A broken-off arrow sprouted from the slab of muscle above his right knee. But nothing hurt as much as it should. He felt well. Weary, but strangely abuzz.

  Well. Time to leap off a cliff and see if he could soar.

  Drawing a deep breath, he said, “Chief Kylara, you do not offend my eyes. Far from it. Your neck is a tower of strength. The muscle tone of your biceps–”

  Kylara’s eyes spat fire. “How dare you comment on my person?”

  Ignoring the alarm gong crashing in his ears, he drawled, “Compliments, not comments. Not a word of a lie.” He took the strip of cloth pressed into his hand and wound it about his vitals until he was decently covered. “Besides, you handle your blade with surpassing skill–”

  The scimitar nicked his throat. Kylara snapped, “Shut your vulgar mouth.”

  “Would you prefer that I lie?”

  “Aye!”

  “As you wish. Lies.” He looked heavenward for inspiration. The yellow moon, Iridith, cut hugely through the twin suns, creating a partial eclipse which gilded the late afternoon with deep coppery hues and crimson tongues of fire. He gestured broadly at the vibrant scene. “O Chief, your hair does not ripple like a dark waterfall glistening beneath the suns. No, it straggles like the pelt of an unwashed goat.” The warriors gasped, the Chief loudest of all. “Your body odour is redolent of a bloated, week-old carcass. I would rather leap off this cliff than gaze one more second upon your visage, which is so unspeakably hideous–”

  He wheezed as the warrior behind him punched him above the left kidney. “Shut your trap!”

  “Flying monkey droppings, woman, I did only what she asked.”

  Kylara snapped her mouth shut. What was that expression in her eyes–disbelief? Wrath? A spark of admiration? Whatever it was, it vanished behind a gimlet-eyed glare. “Your tongue is far too clever for a madman,” she said, dangerously soft. “Perhaps you are a Sylakian spy.”

  He glanced at his ebony skin; at the thrice-scarred pectorals of his chest and the swirling, scarified tribal tattoos on his arms and shoulders, and grunted, “I’d rather cut out my own heart.”

  The scimitar menaced his nose once more. By the Islands, he frowned, this Kylara was all too fond of her blade. He had always liked that quality in a woman. Had he? How did he remember nothing, but this he knew as clearly as the suns burnished her features into a statuesque rendering of the goddess of warrior-women? The braids she wore … there, a memory popped into his mind. Finally. Only the Leopards, the warrior-tribes of the farthest Western Isles, wore their hair in this way–closely and intri
cately braided to the skull, each pattern unique to an Island in the Cluster. She had mentioned Yanga Island. He had never been to Yanga.

  Kylara reached out. “You wear the ur-makka on your wrist.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Give it to me, or I swear I’ll rip it off your carcass when you’re wearing twenty arrows between your teeth.”

  Anger burned away his bile. There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in his mind that she would carry out her threat. The arrows trained on him did not waver so much as a quarter-inch.

  The man unstrapped the narrow wrist-pouch and handed it over, keeping his face impassive. A warrior should die rather than give up his ur-makka, the symbol of the protective spirits of his family. The flat leather pouch housed a chip of bark with his names charred on it–his real name, his family name and his spirit name.

  He wanted to live. Did that brand him a coward? Or wise? He looked to the skies, but found no answers scribed upon the infinite blue.

  He could not have picked a lonelier spot to lose his mind. The prekki tree stood on a rugged peninsula, the western tip of what must be a sizeable Island for the Western Isles, which were mostly small and rugged. They were sparsely inhabited by warmongering Human tribes and multitudes of deadly animals–rajals, leopards, carnivorous baboons, windrocs, scorpions and cobras being among the most common offenders. From the peninsula he gazed either over endless Cloudlands to the western horizon, or back to an abrupt ascent into forested hills which appeared green and verdant at first glance, but doubtless disguised a hundred ways to die.

  He could fling himself off the cliff. That would solve the problem of living by the time he struck rock, or poisonous cloud, or whatever lay below. The height did not bother him. But some of Kylara’s troops cast mistrustful glances at the abyss. They stayed a good fifteen feet from the edge, probably fed from birth with some superstitious drivel about Land Dragons eating whole Islands.

  Kylara extracted the name-chip from the ur-makka and turned it over in her fingers. Without so much as glancing at what she held, the Warlord passed it to him. “Read it.”

  Oh, she was shrewd. A game of trust. He turned the smooth wooden chip over in his fingers, saying, “Can’t read, Chief?”

  She stiffened. “I can read.”

  “Ardan,” he said. “Family name, Yoaggaral.” He caught his breath as he stared at the reverse side. His spirit name was written there, as it should be, but in runes. Runes? He had no hope of reading those. Who in the Island-World wrote in runes? Dragons? He shook off a chill. He must have hit his head harder than he thought.

  “And has this knowledge miraculously sharpened your memory?”

  “No. I’m not even certain it’s my name. Check it.” He extended his hand, palm up, openly displaying the name-chip.

  Kylara’s eyes bored into his for a moment before they flicked downward. No trust. She read the chip. He had not lied. That would have spelled his ruin as surely as jumping off the cliff. She said, “Naphtha Cluster? They were overrun by the Sylakians a month ago–burned out by Dragons, they say. We saw the smoke from here. You’re probably the last Islander from Naphtha left alive.”

  “Begs the question, Chief,” said the warrior behind him. “How’d he get here?”

  “I don’t care.” Suddenly, her gaze seemed hooded, a cobra’s stare before the fatal bite. “He insulted me. Kill him.”

  A blade hissed though the air. Ardan sensed the direction of the warrior’s swing, left-handed, from behind. He whispered into motion, ducking forward so that the point only clipped his shoulder blade. The warrior stumbled, thrown off balance as the expected impact never occurred. He jabbed with his elbow, catching his assailant in the throat. As he twisted in search of the blade, an arrow sliced a strip of skin off his right buttock. He grunted, but still wrenched the scimitar out of the stunned warrior’s fingers.

  “Hold!” Kylara stilled her archers with a sharp command.

  He rose, dangling the heavy blade from his fingertips.

  “So, you want me to kill you?” A wry smile touched the corners of Kylara’s lips. “What are you hiding, Ardan of Naphtha Cluster? Shall I torture it out of you?”

  “I’d tell you if I could.”

  Kylara’s manner lost not a hint of its furnace-forged steel. “Maybe you would, Ardan, at that,” she said. “But you’re nothing but a pathetic man. I’ll give you a chance–a duel.”

  “A duel?” he echoed.

  Someone called anxiously, “I’d watch out. He’s a big rajal, Chief.”

  Kylara did not even glance in the direction of that voice. “You offering to take his place?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “I feel in need of a little exercise,” she sneered at Ardan. “First to fall, loses. If you win, you’re a free man for one day. After that, we’ll hunt you down for sport and kill you. If I beat you, you will become my slave, body and soul. After all, you dared to insult the Warlord of Yanga.”

  Her women roared their approval, beating the flat of their scimitars against their thighs.

  Islands’ sakes, he was supposed to fight this warrior-chief in his condition? Ardan did not fancy his chances. Nevertheless, he offered his biggest, most confident smile yet, and said, “Ah, if my greatest folly was to remark upon a Warlord’s beauty, I shall die a contented man.”

  “Let’s see if you can manage to fall to the ground … alive.”

  That added an unwelcome perspective on her game. Kylara intended to kill him. No hint of mercy lightened her foreboding gaze. Ardan flipped his blade upright, ears throbbing, feeling strangely light-headed and reckless. If today was the day to spill out his life, so be it.

  He crossed scimitars with the Warlord.

  Kylara attacked first, as he expected, but not how he expected. Pain stabbed into Ardan’s knee as he hopped over the low swing of her booted foot. The scimitar swished past his head. Had he not been clean-shaven all over his scalp already, he would have been after that first stroke. By the Islands, she was fast! He touched his pate. It was stubbly, but not to the point of many days of hair-growth. He must have been somewhere civilised of late. Their blades scraped together. He eased into the duel, trying to read her style. Kylara appeared to be the all-offence type of duellist–and he did not trust that assessment as far as he could throw a ralti sheep.

  He allowed the Warlord to beat him backward around the prekki-fruit tree. Her warriors gave them leeway, but not so much as to provide an escape route. No fools, these women. They shouted and betted with gusto, especially when Kylara opened a cut on his left forearm. She pressed in, swinging hard. Their blades juddered and sparked off each other as he countered even harder, trying to jar her wrist. She responded by kicking the side of his knee. Not only was she quick, but she was strong, as that kick evidenced. Ardan stepped inside a powerful overhead strike and jabbed his knuckles at her sternum. He struck nothing but rock-hard abdominal muscle. His knee was not good. Ardan limped where he needed the foundation of two sound legs for the power that scimitar-play demanded. He defended furiously, calculating in his mind how he might yet contrive to live through this duel.

  Surrender? He should rather kill himself. Perhaps she could be baited …

  The clash of blades rang in the still afternoon air as the combatants circled, sweating freely as they matched each other stroke for stroke. Ardan opened a cut on her right flank. Kylara’s riposte punctured the muscle of his left shoulder.

  “You could stand a few lessons in fighting,” he drawled. Kylara’s scimitar hissed past his right ear. Ardan dodged behind the prekki tree. “Need a good teacher?”

  She opted not to reply, letting her blade do the talking. Ardan defended robustly and managed to tap her jaw rather ungently with his forearm. Kylara gasped, touching her fingers to her bloody lip, but fell to the attack immediately with a flurry of blows that he was hard-pressed to defend. Another cut materialised on his shoulder as if by magic. Their clash developed an ebb and flow, a pattern of strikes and counter-strikes. Kyl
ara seemed able to read his every trick. Ardan’s lungs wheezed already. So quickly? Something was wrong.

  “You really think your troops can hunt me down in twenty-seven hours?” He dodged her spinning blade. Kylara’s cunningly-hooked foot would have toppled him, were it not for the prekki tree.

  “I’d save my breath for living,” she retorted.

  Ardan leaned casually against the rough trunk, swiping at her a touch lazily. “Then I’ll take a breather right now. You don’t mind, lady?”

  “I am not your lady!”

  His posture was spoiled as Kylara bruised his fingers on the scimitar’s hilt with a blow of her fist. Transferring the blade to his left hand, he kept fighting. “Not my best hand,” he grinned, “but I can still beat you left-handed.”

  Kylara responded by thrashing him backward around the ring of her warriors, who hissed and snarled insults at him as he gave up step after begrudging step.

  Deflecting another mighty overhead strike, Ardan allowed himself to fall forward, creating exactly the opportunity he had hoped for–to close with her. He snaked beneath the arm holding her scimitar as her blow looped over his back. Now, his greater strength should tell.

  Ardan locked his right arm around her waist and jerked Kylara bodily off the ground, aiming to raid a kiss from her lips. A kiss would certainly madden her, which was the only way he was likely to win this fight. That earlier feeling of wellness had vanished like a brief dawn mist.

  Two-handed, Kylara slammed the hilt of her scimitar down atop the crown of his head. Ardan staggered, tasting blood. Her knee jabbed into his crotch, but a last-second twist saved his worst blushes as he deflected the blow with his thigh. Quicker than he could follow, she punched him in the jaw with a near-perfect right cross. Pain exploded through his jawbone into his skull.

  Again, the tree came to his aid. Ardan dabbed his mouth. She had bitten his lip!

  “Feisty, my hot-blooded Island maiden,” he quipped. But he wobbled as he tried to push himself upright.