The primal dragon, p.1
The Primal Dragon, page 1
The Primal Dragon
By Laura Millar
Copyright 2022 Laura Millar
Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes
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Cover Artwork Copyright Merilliza Chan
Table of Contents
The Primal Dragon
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Chapter One
Mackenzie was in deep contemplation. A bead of sweat slowly tracked down his temple with the heat of the Houquin Aviator Defence Force’s incubation room. The chair he was slouched in was one of the few comfortable things the HADF owned, yet it sat sticky and hot beneath him.
He dragged a breath from his cigarette, exhaled more smoke into the already smoky room, and wondered sulkily how his decision to join the HADF had landed him in this room. He remembered wind whipping his hair, rocks flying, his dragon contorting beneath him as the rage of battle rang in their ears.
He hadn’t felt that in a long time. It turned out he hadn’t been as good at battle as he had thought he was.
He started at the clink of eggs knocking together and looked up, searching. All the eggs were still, quiet, row upon row of big ovoid pearls cushioned in their bunks. They were beautiful in a way that hurt, because he knew he would never be a part of their lives. Each one would grow into a full-fledged dragon with mastery of an element. Each one would complete someone’s soul.
His eyes snapped to a black egg in a clutch of white as one of them rocked, drawn to possibility instead of probability. If the eggs held potential, this one quadrupled it. Yet it was not due for another year.
Impossibly, the black egg rocked before his eyes, gently clicking against the eggs at its sides, and the soft sound cut through Mackenzie’s disbelief.
He smashed his cigarette into the overflowing ashtray by his feet and swiftly peeled himself from his seat. He took the stairs two at a time, emerging from the incubation room at a frightening speed to inform someone that it was hatching.
***
A gentle, salty breeze wafted through Houquin, country of seafarers, country of dragons. It came through the docks and swept through the dark, empty streets of the city.
Usually the city was a flurry of activity, the docks alive with traders and acquirers, tourists and locals. Dragons’ wingbeats would tousle hair and rock boats, burdens clutched in claws or perched atop backs.
Usually.
But at night, the city was subdued. Heat and a soft silence permeated the air. The breeze murmured through the thick, stunted trees on the outskirts.
Nestled among these trees was a house, though it held but a scrap of resemblance to one. It was weathered down to rotten beams and patchy tiles. A rare chip of paint clung stubbornly to the wood. It groaned an eerie chorus in this breeze.
Inside, a girl tossed restlessly in her bed.
***
Daena forcefully expelled the air from her lungs and tossed onto her back, limbs spread wide. Her sheets had been kicked angrily to the floor, where they lay in a sulking, crumpled heap. The fan whirred its consolation but did nothing to relieve the clingy air, scented with the dragon dung she’d been shovelling all day. All for a few coils to buy a patch for her clothes, which would probably be forever steeped in dragon shit stench now anyway.
Her muscles still ached from the work. She should have slept through the night. Instead, her mind had decided to dredge up memories of her father. There was no letting them go now.
If her father hadn’t left them when she was four, maybe she wouldn’t even have had to think about mending clothes. She would have just bought new ones and been done with it.
She wiggled to the right a little, avoiding one spring sticking into a lower rib, and causing another to stick into her shoulder blade. She turned her head to check the time: 04:54. She closed her eyes and witheringly tracked a wave of heat slowly rolling over her body.
If her father had never left, would he still have loved her? Would her mother still have loved her? Would home not have been such a hellhole?
When the wave of heat reached her fingers and toes, Daena’s tolerance ended abruptly.
She shoved herself out of bed, stormed to the patio door, and yanked it open. The hinges squeaked in alarm as the door banged loudly against the wall.
Of course not. Her father had left because he didn’t love them.
She crossed the rough planks of her patio and stepped off into the dry, overgrown weeds of her yard, beelining to the creek. A trickle of water strained between the rocks of its bed before pooling in defeat.
If her father had never left, would her brother never have turned up as bones in some ditch two months later?
Daena plunged her toes into the pool of murky water and lowered herself to sit on a rock. The coolness inched into her skin. She closed her eyes.
Her mother hadn’t turned cold immediately. She’d endured Daena’s angry outbursts and her sister Sapphire’s pestering. And then one day she had snapped. Daena’s wrist had been snatched up, her small body dragged, kicking and screaming and cursing, until she was dumped unceremoniously into the creek. It had been more substantial at the time.
Daena had scrabbled for the nearest rock and clung to it, watching in spiteful hurt as her mother retreated into the house without a backward glance. She had waited and waited for her mother to come back and rescue her, to apologise. Yet the minutes passed, and the door remained shut. Daena had thought up a thousand comments to spit at her mother, until eventually the water lapped up her anger, and her comments sank to the bottom, along with her resolve. She had struggled to the edge by herself, climbed out, and sulked back into the house.
From then on, whenever Daena had burst into anger, her mother had silently taken her wrist and repeated the whole process again. Daena had been dumped countless times before she had learned to go to the creek by herself, to wash away her anger without the humiliation of the throw.
Now the water leached out thoughts of her father and what could have been, and replaced them with the dull loneliness of what was. She convinced herself she didn’t need to go back into the stifling house filled with memories.
She had lived in that house her whole life, watching it degrade, and collecting its splinters in her heart until she became a prickly reflection of it. Daena held a grudge against that house as surely as it held her hostage.
She lay down across the rocks and gazed at the stars, the only splash of beauty in this bleak world that was hers. She had long since stopped believing in their power to grant wishes, but it was a comforting, familiar ritual, so she found the brightest star and made her wish.
***
General Alcoser sighed and shifted back in his chair, tossing his paperwork onto his desk. It glanced off the piles already there and settled in disarray. A headache was making itself at home between his temples.
He couldn’t remember what it was like to be at peace. To be the country the world left alone because water dragons could sink ships and air dragons could pluck planes from the sky. He had forgotten what it was like to read the word Ticheil and think, Ally.
He almost sighed in relief when his door crashed open and Mackenzie stumbled in, the scent of tobacco rolling in to fill the room. Alcoser longed for a cigarette almost as much as he longed for a distraction, and here lay the promise of both in a heaving, dishevelled heap.
“Sir,” Mackenzie gasped. “The primal dragon is hatching.”
Alcoser snapped forwards. “Are you sure?”
“Yessir!”
“Get Captain Johnson in here. And isolate that dragon egg somewhere cool. The hatching room will need to be prepared, but only after Johnson.”
Mackenzie just stood there staring, and it was impossible to decipher the array of hectic emotions running across his face.
Alcoser didn’t wait for these emotions to spur him into action. “Now!”
Mackenzie fled the room.
Alcoser gripped the sides of his desk hard. The primal dragon was hatching way too early. They hadn’t even attempted to prepare for it yet. This could ruin everything.
A few excruciating minutes later, Johnson appeared in the doorway with Mackenzie at her shoulder. She saluted, crisp and sure over steady eyes. “General, you wished to see me.”
“Captain.” Alcoser relaxed his grip on the desk. “The primal dragon has begun to hatch. Are there any new recruits with an affinity for all elements?”
“Begun to …” The overhead light glinted in her widening eyes. “We have no fresh recruits.”
Dread tried to worm into Alcoser’s gut, but he forced it away. There was only one solution he could think of. It wasn’t really a solution, but a desperate last resort to remedy a disaster. No time to second-guess it. “We’ll have to send out a patrol to scout for someone in the city. Just one of each element. And be discreet.”
He hoped dragons could sense a person’s affinity through walls. If not, the chances of discretion—
“General,” Johnson cut in carefully. “May I ask what you mean to do if you find someone like that?”
“You mean to capture them. General.” She glanced away and back. “That’s illegal. We can’t drag someone here to risk their life without their consent.”
Alcoser leaned forwards against his paperwork. “Captain, you know as well as I that we cannot risk this dragon turning feral on us. It can turn the tide of this war and break the stalemate. This small act is for the greater good.”
“The government would not allow it,” she protested.
“The government.” If the government had assigned enough farmland for dragon food production to support a full force, this war would have been over already. “The government does not have to know.”
Johnson’s lips tightened.
Mackenzie, still lingering in the doorway, shifted as he glanced back and forth.
Johnson’s shoulders sagged slightly. She saluted Alcoser. “General, I will send out scouting parties immediately.” She turned to leave, the light casting a shadow across her brow.
“Mackenzie,” Alcoser snapped when she was gone. “The room. And get me a damned cigarette.”
***
Daena’s eyes had drifted closed, heightening the lapping of water around ankles and the whispered breeze across skin. So she didn’t notice when two shadows fell over her house, or when those shadows spread across her lawn. She only noticed when the shadows landed on the weeds of her yard and a powerful gust of wind slammed out in all directions.
The trees groaned. Her house groaned louder.
Daena flung herself upright, hair slapping her face. She did not generally scare easily, but as she took in the two hulking dragon silhouettes towering over her with the blush of early dawn behind them, she shot to her feet.
A man peeled away from a silhouette and rushed her.
Adrenaline shattered her confusion. She bolted across the stones of the creek and right into another man. When had he gotten there? Hands grabbed at her arms, and she twisted violently to shake them off.
“Stop!” the man cried.
Daena jerked her knee up.
A grunt, then, “Fuck …” His hands loosened.
Before she could wrench away, a sharp pain stabbed her skull. She was dimly aware of her legs buckling beneath her as her consciousness melted into darkness.
***
Daena was aware of being conscious several times, or perhaps she was dreaming. Wind streamed past her face and her stomach flopped with a nauseating up-down motion that sent her straight back into the void.
On her third or fourth awakening, she stayed conscious long enough to despise the pain this motion inflicted. Her breath ran ragged. Something was terribly wrong with her head.
People were talking nearby, but their words were torn by the wind.
I was attacked, she remembered with a jolt.
Something shifted drastically beneath her before falling to a terrible and painful halt. Stars sparked behind her eyelids. She felt strong hands hoisting her to the ground, the world tilting, an arm catching her around the torso.
“Whoa there,” a woman’s voice said, sounding far off and close at the same time.
Daena wanted to struggle but found she didn’t even know how to stand.
“Captain,” a man’s voice said, further away, “we need to get a doctor.”
“I know that.” The woman’s voice was just a touch too high. “But this will all be for nothing if she doesn’t bond first.”
Daena’s top half was dragged forwards by her upper arms, and her bottom half stumbled to keep up. Her vision focused to make out three people in the dim light of dawn. They were wearing HADF uniforms.
The closest one was staring at Daena. “Can she bond in this state?”
The silence was filled by the roaring in Daena’s ears. Her breath struggled to pass through her suddenly thick throat. Nothing made sense.
“Get a doctor. I’ll get her to the incubation room. She can be treated there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The man sprinted off.
“Who the fuck …?” Daena started, but her brain couldn’t figure out what the rest of the sentence was supposed to be.
“I am so sorry,” the woman supporting her said. “I will explain, but not now. Please wait a little longer.”
Daena wanted to protest, but again her brain failed her.
They entered a building and made their way through a hallway, reaching a room lit by a fireplace. There was a single chair as furnishing.
The woman guided her to it and gently pushed her down. A tag on her shirt declared her to be Johnson.
Daena clung to the armrests as her head spun. When her mind cleared a little, she gingerly touched her fingers to where it hurt. She cursed and yanked her hand away as pain splintered through her skull. It hurt.
The woman crossed her arms over her chest tightly, though worry escaped from her eyes. “A doctor will be here shortly to check on you.”
Daena only had time to draw in a quick breath before the door burst open and the doctor hurried in, bag swinging in his tight grip.
“Move away from the patient, please.”
Johnson took a few quick steps back.
The man set his bag on the floor and crouched in front of Daena. “How are you feeling?” His eyes searched her face and head. When he apparently found what he was looking for, he turned to his bag.
Daena’s head spun as she looked down at it. Dread clawed into her gut. “What is that?”
“It’s a medical kit. I’m here to help.” He handed her a bag of ice.
Daena looked at it sceptically. “You’re here to help.” Something stirred inside her. Habit made it anger. “If you’re concerned about my health, why was I bashed on the head?”
“Yes, I heard that was what happened.” The doctor cut his eyes to Johnson acidly. “I also heard she was transported here by a dragon immediately after. Honestly, what were you thinking? The most important person in the HADF presently, and you have no regard to the permanent consequences of a concussion.”
Daena’s muddled brain only caught the last bit. Her heart stuttered at permanent.
Johnson squared her shoulders. “How bad is it?”
The man turned back to his bag and rummaged through it until he produced a penlight. “We’ll see. Head up, please.”
Heat coursed through Daena. “I’m fine! I don’t need that. Why am I here? What are you going to do to me?” Her racing heart pulsed pain into her skull.
The man shone the penlight into her eye. “You’ll get your answers after I examine you.”
Daena blinked furiously and snatched the light out of his hand. “I said I’m fine!”
“Hand-eye coordination seems to be normal,” he commented dryly. “As does your speech.”
Daena was about to cut a sharp reply when the door banged open a second time, and another man walked into the room carrying something wrapped in towels.
Johnson rushed over, seeming relieved, and directed the person to place the bundle in front of the fire.
“What is that?” Daena snapped. “Will someone fucking tell me what’s going on?”
“Can you tell me who the president of the government is?” the doctor asked.
Daena couldn’t believe her ears. She whirled on the doctor. “Is this some kind of interrogation? Why the hell are you asking who the president is?”
“I’m trying to determine whether your head injury has caused any memory loss, a symptom of brain damage.”
“I remember perfectly fucking well that I was just assaulted and kidnapped, thank you very much.”
The doctor shot an aggravated look at Johnson.
She threw a distressed hand up. “Just go!”
The doctor was all too happy to comply. He pointed at Daena as he was leaving. “Come see me if you have any lingering effects. For both our sakes, I hope you don’t.” The door slammed shut behind him.
Daena turned her glare on Johnson. “Now my answers.”
Johnson’s chest expanded, then contracted. She indicated the thing being uncovered. “This is an elemental dragon egg. How much do you know about the bond between elemental dragons and humans?”
