City of Dragons

Tintaglia had stared too long. A net thudded over her. At every junction of knot, the ropes had been weighted with dangling lumps of lead. Chains, some fine, some heavy, and some fitted with barbed hooks, were woven throughout the net. It trapped and tangled her wings, and when she clawed at it with her front legs, it wrapped them as well. She roared her fury and felt her own poison sacs swell as spearmen waded out into the shallow waters of the pond. She caught a glimpse of archers beginning a stumbling charge down the sandy slopes, arrows nocked to their bows. She jerked as a spear found a vulnerable spot between the scales behind her front leg, in the tender place between leg and chest. It did not penetrate deeply, but Tintaglia had never been stabbed with anything before. She turned, roaring out her pain and anger, and her venom misted out with her cry. The spearmen fell back in horror. As the venom settled on the net, the lines and chains weakened and then gave way to her struggles. Tangles of it still wrapped her, but she could move. Fury enveloped her. Humans dared to attack dragons?

Tintaglia waded out of the water and into the midst of them, slashing with her claws and lashing with her tail, and every scream of rage she emitted carried a wave of acid toxin with it. Soon the shrill shrieks of dying humans filled the air. She did not need to spare a glance for Icefyre: she could hear the carnage he was wreaking.

Arrows rattled off her body and thudded painfully against her entangled wings. She flapped them, tumbling a dozen men with them as she flung the last bits of netting free. But her opened wings had bared her vulnerability. She felt the hot bite of an arrow beneath her left wing. She clapped her wings closed, realizing too late that the humans had been trying to provoke her into opening them to expose the more tender flesh beneath. But closing her wing only pushed the arrow shaft in deeper. Tintaglia roared her pain and spun again, lashing with her tail. She caught a brief glimpse of Icefyre, a human clutched in his jaws and raised aloft. The dying man’s shriek rose above the other battle sounds as the dragon severed his body into two pieces. Cries of horror from more distant ranks of humans were sweet to hear, and she suddenly understood what her mate was doing.

His thought reached her. Terror is as important as killing. They must be taught never even to think of attacking dragons. A few we must allow to escape, to carry the tale home. Grim and terse, he added, But only a few!

A few, she agreed and waded out of the waters and in among the men who had gathered to slay her, batting them aside with her clawed front feet as easily as a cat would bat at a string. She snapped at them, clipping legs from bodies, arms from shoulders, maiming rather than killing quickly. She lifted her head high, and then flung it forward, hissing out a breath laden with a mist of acid venom. The human wall before her melted into bones and blood.

As afternoon was venturing toward evening, the two dragons flew a final circle around the basin of land. A straggle of warriors fled like disoriented ants toward the scrub-covered ridge. Let them spread the word! Icefyre suggested. We should return to the oasis before their meat begins to spoil. He banked his wings and turned away from their lazy pursuit, and Tintaglia followed.

His suggestion was welcome. The spear had fallen out of the hole it had made in her hide, but the arrow on the other side had not. She had not meant to drive it deeper into herself. In a quiet moment after the first slaughter was over and while the mobile survivors were fleeing, she had tried to pull it out. Instead, it had broken off, and the remaining nub of wood that protruded was too short for her to grip with her teeth. Clawing at it had only pushed it deeper. She felt the unwelcome intrusion of the wooden shaft and metal head into her flesh with every beat of her wings.

How many humans fought against us? she wondered.

Hundreds. But what does it matter? They did not kill us, and those we allow to escape will carry the word to their kind that they were foolish to try.

Why did they attack us?

The attack did not fit with her experience with humans. The people she had encountered had always been in awe of her, more inclined to serve her than attack her. Some had squeaked defiance, but she had found ways to bring them into line. She had fought humans before, but not because they had ambushed her. She had killed Chalcedeans only because she had chosen to ally herself with the Bingtown Traders, killing their enemies in return for their help for the serpents that would, after metamorphosis, become dragons. Could this attack be related to that? It seemed unlikely. Humans were so short-lived. Were they capable of such reasoned vengeance?

Icefyre’s rationale was simpler. They attack us because they are humans and we are dragons. Most humans hate us. Some pretend awe and bring gifts, but behind their flattery and cowering, there is hatred for us. Never forget that. In this part of the world, humans have hated us for a very long time. Once, before I emerged as a dragon, the humans here sought to destroy all dragons. They fed slow poison to their own herds to try to kill us. They captured and tortured our Elderling servants in the hope of finding secrets they might use against us. They destroyed our strongholds and the stone pillars by which our servants traveled in an attempt to weaken us. Those few of us they managed to kill, they butchered like cattle, using the flesh and blood of our bodies as medicines and tonics for their feeble bodies.