Dragon Fly Page 5

fatigue pounded frantically on the inside of her skull, and her scattered eyesight clouded with brightly-coloured spots. She swayed slightly, all six legs locked straight in a desperate attempt to pin her torso together through the rush.

  It began to fade, back toward manageable levels. Where did it come from? Something about the ad hoc nature of the form, perhaps, the way she knew there were no dragonflies this big in reality, or the strange combination of creatures she'd had in mind when putting it together. It repudiated all logic, and in the Second Realm, that meant fewer limits on the possible. She had to concentrate just to hold herself together. The form wouldn't be stable for long if she had to fight it like this.

  But it would give them the power and speed they needed. She flicked her wings again, barely managing not to laugh as the ground shook. Chag mimicked the gesture, and his amusement rumbled through the resulting tremor. She could tell he didn't have as much power in his form as she did in hers, but it would probably be better not to rub it in.

  Belatedly, she leaned back - one thing that definitely wasn't helped by the dragonfly form - and glanced at the sky. No question about it this time; something up there had noticed them. The chaos of fragmented jewels had begun to swirl around a handful of points, spinning whirlpool distortions in the sky that reached down toward them with needle-sharp, deadly points.

  Time to move. Remembering the weird, weightless feeling of the fly's flight, Pevan launched herself in a hop that catapulted her far too many feet into the air, and only then let her wings begin to whirr into life. There was none of the sense of predatory strength that came with birds' wings, but she felt stronger by far than she did as a fly. Lightning crackled in the gap between her wingbeats and the Realmspace around them.

  It was surprisingly easy to hover, though it left her feeling like a tightly-wound spring, held just on the point of release. Chag took up position facing her, and a shiver shot down her spine at the thought that he might speak. Her reflexes were good, and she could feel this form's readiness to move, but there was no chance she could get out of the way if he did send another cataclysm of speech at her.

  She got herself back under control as he somehow managed to jerk his head at her. Given the limitations of the dragonfly's neck, it was a fair imitation of a 'this way' gesture. It was all she could do to nod in reply, and the attempt stretched at bits of her skeleton she was sure weren't supposed to be stretched.

  Chag turned and zipped off ahead, towards a patch of horizon that looked just like any other. Setting off in pursuit felt like kicking herself forward against the air, a jab of instant acceleration running through her. Flying was like trying to grab a wet bar of soap; every attempt to check the sudden, blinding speed of it just sent her veering wildly in another direction.

  After a handful of zigzags, she fell into a rhythm, matching the way Chag swung from side to side. Beneath them, the terrain heaved and rolled like waves on a choppy sea. Flight felt effortless, easier and less physical even than falling. She thought directions, then twitched the angle of her wings slightly and flowed forwards, as if the atmosphere itself was on her side.

  Overhead, the sky spasmed into explosive movement. Crystals burst out of the whirling, descending vortices and stabbed downwards in a motion that was far too fast, deliberate and violent to be called falling. Pevan pushed aside the uncomfortable sensation of muscles a dragonfly didn't have clenching and threw herself forwards, cutting across Chag's weaving flight to catch up to him.

  The Wild Power pent up behind her closed lips made talking impossible, and with only insectoid forelimbs, she couldn't sign to him, but her appearance at his shoulder alerted him. He turned in a tight circle, and she scrabbled her speed under control until he could take the lead again.

  From behind her, his voice blurred a little behind the rumble of distortion it sent into overstretched Realmspace. "Nothing we can do about it. Maybe they'll disguise our approach a bit."

  Wishful thinking, but there was nothing to gain from saying so. Pevan let Chag swoop back ahead of her, down-draft from his wings stinging her exposed eyes as he flew by only a foot above her head. Pure exhilaration almost drew a shout of challenge out of her, but she managed to swallow it before it could disrupt the charge. She put herself on Chag's right flank, trailing his wing, and fell back into the rhythm of his swaying course.

  Colours washed across the ground below, bands of yellow, then green, then a colour she could almost convince herself was a kind of blue, then a red so bright it hurt to look at. She could feel, hot in the middle of her back, the attention and intent of the chasing Wildren. Ahead, the sharp line of the horizon grew thicker and blacker, but stayed flat. There was still no sign of the archway that would have to mark the entrance to the white cave.

  Then the world transformed, faster than blinking, into a pencil-sketch of itself, bright colours replaced by faint strokes of grey, anything that had previously registered as neutral - the sky, most of the ground - turning pristine white, cleaner and brighter than even the finest paper. The horizon reared up, an impossible hill that darkened and began to swallow the landscape.

  In the black maw, a vertical puddle of dark brown metal welled up and resolved itself into a tangle of linked rings. Lienia, either standing guard or alerted by the horde of Wildren on their tail. Pevan's breath froze in her throat, but there was no time for doubt or analysis. The element of surprise would not last.

  "Where is my brother?!" She screamed, and the sound drove ahead of her in a wrenching distortion, black and grey and shimmering, carrying all the anger she could muster with it. Lienia tore apart under the strike, scraps and fragments of bronze consciousness scattering across the ground and fading.

  The arch of the cave's mouth turned white as they crossed the threshold, colour racing back into the world behind them. In their wake, Realmspace shook, and Pevan treated herself to a moment's grim, inward smile. No going back now.

  Immediately, her eyes found Rel, risen halfway to his feet by the back wall of the cave, shackled and collared in the chains of a steel-grey Separatist whose name she'd never learned. On the floor at his feet, Atla hunched with his head clutched in his hands. Chag had dropped back behind her, even the faint sense of his emotional presence - afraid, exhilarated, nursing anger to use against the next Separatist - all but lost against the background riot.

  No time to think the situation through. Filling her mind with the seamless metal ring around Rel's neck, stoking up her anger, she bawled, "Release him!" Immediately, she dodged sideways, expecting a burst of speech-fuelled destruction, hoping to get closer while the Wilder dealt with it, but nothing happened.

  Stupid. The white cave was word-safe, like the Court. Something in the Realmspace here sucked the toxic emotions out of human speech. There were other ways to bring her Wild Power to bear, but already the grey Wilder was uncoiling a chain limb, weaving it into a mail sheet that rose towards her like a net.

  Chag shot across in front of her, a black-gold blur, leaving pure creative will in his wake. His thought, Water, swept out towards the Wilder, and the chain sheet splashed to the floor of the cave. White stone shook with the Wilder's radiated pain, and in its clutches Rel gasped.

  She didn't have enough control of the dragonfly's limbs to manipulate Wild Power by gesture. She veered around a stabbing, dull-grey limb, feeling the Wilder's hatred in it as a rippling current through her guts. Again, Chag crossed ahead of her, but whatever he tried had no visible effect. Still, it bought her the chance to slip in closer again while the Wilder flailed after him.

  Rel's face was tight with agony, eyes wide, teeth bared. He had his hands clenched in his own shirt, pulling at it hard enough that it was starting to tear. Trying to keep from reaching up to touch the collar, probably. The grey Wilder could kill him any moment, might even do so by accident. She couldn't tell whether the pain that kept Atla subdued came from the Wilder, or from the Guide's own Gifted sensitivity to the emotional disturbance.

  BREAK. Pevan forced the thoug
ht into Rel's chains, pushing her will over the instinctive belief that thinking a thing could not make it so, demanding that the Wilder conform to her logic. Collar and shackles burst, and Pevan swooped low over Rel's shoulder as he slumped to his knees. Bad sign. She had to twist sharply in the air, the strain on her wings slicing fire down her back, to keep from running right into the back wall.

  She felt the cave shudder as Chag followed her example and freed Atla. The tremor rolled back in echo as the Wilder gave the Second-Realm equivalent of a bellow of frustration. How long would they have before reinforcements arrived? There were normally more Separatists than this in the cave, but maybe most of them had gone to wherever they were holding Taslin.

  A low, gravelly moan rose through the rock around them, the sound of Realmspace into which too much emotion was pouring. The shattered metal of the steel Wilder's limbs gave off faint traces of evil brown smoke as it speared past Pevan's face. Injured though it was, it had clearly been chosen as a guard for good reasons.

  Holding the metalwork in her mind, binding it to the image of a chain pulled tight between pitons in the rock, Pevan swooped clear. Her logic sent a pulse of pain through the front of her brain as the