Dragon school first mess.., p.1
Dragon School: First Message, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
DRAGON SCHOOL: FIRST MESSAGE
First edition. March 30, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Sarah K. L. Wilson.
Written by Sarah K. L. Wilson.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Behind the Scenes:
For Cale, always.
Chapter One
We fled, in the black of night, from those spine-shivering terrors. If it had taken all the magic Savette could draw to demolish one Ifrit, what could we do if the other one found us? Hubric and Kyrowat led us and Raolcan and I brought up the rear. Between us, Enkenay bore Savette and the Dark Prince. They’d bound their eyes with scarves again and they clung to one another like survivors pulled from the wreckage of a ship. I watched them as much as I watched the horizon, scanning, scanning, scanning for any sight of a creature made of smoke and fire with ten horns on his head.
Fear fuelled me, keeping my tired eyes from closing. My bad leg throbbed incessantly – it had twisted in the battle and while it wasn’t broken, I was sure it must be a mass of bruises under my leathers. I wasn’t going to think about how it could have been healed if I had just landed inches closer to the arches. No, I wasn’t going to think about that. I didn’t think about it through the long hours of flight. I didn’t think about it as the sun came up – finally – on the horizon, bathing me in gold and hope. I didn’t think of it when Hubric signaled a weary stop and we landed exhaustedly next to a pond in a rolling field of grass.
Stop thinking about it. Seriously. You’re driving me crazy.
But honestly, how did you stop thinking about something like that? I’d been so close to having something I’d wanted all my life. I’d been so close to getting what I didn’t even believe was possible. Now that I knew it could happen, how could I stop longing for it?
You’re going to eat yourself alive. Like Draakuna who bit off his own tail, and finding that he tasted very good, quickly devoured the rest of himself.
I really hoped that was some sort of dragon legend and not something true. It sounded awful.
No more awful than what you’re doing to yourself. Set it aside. Raise your chin high. You are Amel Leafbrought, rider of Raolcan the Purple. Your value does not lie in your leg.
He was right ... of course.
I’m always right. It’s exhausting.
Hubric dismounted. Stumbling for a moment before easing into a crouch. Kyrowat slumped beside him. Were they injured? I dismounted and hobbled over to him. Every step was heavy. Had I ever been so tired?
“Hubric? Are you hurt?” I squatted down beside him.
“No,” he grunted. “Tired. Kyrowat also tires. We need an hour to rest. Make that two hours. One for me, and one for you. The dragons need to sleep through both or we’ll fly them to death.”
He has a point. That healing left me worn out.
“Can you take the first watch?” Hubric asked me, rubbing his face tiredly.
“Yes,” I said. How did you take a watch?
Sit on my back while I sleep so you are up high and watch all the horizons. We’re in a wide field. No one can sneak up on us if you watch carefully.
“Thank you.” Hubric didn’t even bother to pull out a bedroll or blanket. He slumped against Kyrowat, closed his eyes and was snoring before I stood.
Beside Enkenay, Savette and Rakturan lay in the long grass, their arms entangled around each other. It was going to be hard not to sleep myself, but I needed to stay awake to keep them all safe. I climbed onto Raolcan’s back again and sat up in the saddle, scanning the horizon through a yawn. Raolcan’s breath grew long and deep as he fell into sleep. Good. He deserved it. They all did.
I needed to think about something other than sleep to stay awake. My leg. No. Raolcan told me not to think about that. Savette and Rakturan? Something had passed between them that I didn’t understand. Some bond that formed with the change of Rakturan’s eyes. Could all those strange prophecies Hubric was fond of quoting be about them after all?
I scanned the horizon carefully in every direction. The mountain and hill country had sloped into these rolling plains of grasses nearly as high as I was. From dragon-back I could see over them, but not with my feet on the ground. I’d heard tales of these plains – the heart of the Dominion where crops grew twice in a summer and herds ate their fill, guided by migrating families. There was a peacefulness in the way the wind waved the heads of the long grasses to and fro, in the patterns they formed and the whorls of air on grass. With nothing but grass and sky, the sky felt very close, like I could reach out a hand to touch the wispy ribbons of cloud above. I’d never been in such a place before.
I’d been looking too long in one direction. I turned slowly to look behind me. The grass was moving in a straight line towards us. This time, it wasn’t the wind moving it.
Chapter Two
“Raolcan! Hubric!” I called. “There’s something in the grass!”
What was it? All I saw was the grass rippling and rolling like something was on the way. Raolcan’s head arched up and his gaze followed the rippling grass.
Up, up, up!
Kyrowat leapt up, leaving Hubric to fall to the grass, his head spun to follow Raolcan’s gaze. Hubric scrambled to his feet, calling to Savette and Rakturan.
“On your dragon, now! Now!”
I still couldn’t see what it was. Was it so small that it was disguised by the tall grass?
Strap in! Secure your crutch and our baggage. Hurry!
I scrambled to obey, tightening and fitting straps in place.
Launching!
I was still fumbling with my waist strap when Raolcan leapt into the air. Beside us, Enkenay surged upward. I leaned to the side, straining to see what was below me, and then Raolcan spun suddenly to the side with an angry cry. I held my waist strap in both hands, clinging to it as he snapped in one direction and then the other. Heat flared over me, leaving me hot and afraid. Had one of the dragons flamed?
Kyrowat.
Why would he let off flame so close?
He fights for us.
We were flung to the side so suddenly that I fell from the saddle, only my safety belt holding me. I reached for the saddle and clung to it, as Raolcan flew in a wide curve, arcing upward. My heart hammered in my chest while wind whipped through my hair and around my legs. Only my hands clinging to the saddle and the leather of my safety strap held me.
Free! Thanks to Kyrowat.
Now that the arc was predictable, I was able to catch one of the stirrups with my good foot and scramble back into the saddle. Below me, in a green field of waving grass the Ifrit stood with hands raised high, flames swirled in his mouth and the smoke of his horns flickered and flared in time with it. Between he and us was Kyrowat, swooping in a second time to flame at the Ifrit, but I noticed he kept a wide space between them. He wasn’t taking any more risks.
That was close.
Where was Enkenay?
Above us. He launched when we did, but the Ifrit grabbed my tail. I couldn’t get free until Kyrowat flamed him.
I swallowed. He’d had Raolcan’s tail! It was the Ifrit who had shaken me loose! My head was spinning. My vision darkened.
Come back to me, Amel. Don’t spiral out of control. All is well, spider. He cannot reach us here. He is bound to the earth.
Enkenay dropped to our level and we drew up beside him. I signaled greeting to Savette who held his reins with Rakturan behind her. Enkenay must have agreed to let her be his rider, too.
He owes nothing to Dragon School anymore. His bonds broke when he died.
He died?
Just before Savette healed him. He is a free dragon now. But he’s adopted those two.
Kyrowat pulled in between us, looking unhurt, though Hubric’s expression was grim. He signed to follow and for me to take the rear as he sped ahead of us. There would be no rest for me tonight, and no more rest for anyone else.
We will be fine. Dragons are made of tough materials. See Enkenay? He’s not even flagging, and he was dead not even a day ago.
I thought Raolcan hated White dragons, but he seemed to be taking to this one.
Enkenay is different. He’s more than a normal dragon now.
Good. Because we were going to need more than normal the way things were headed. We were going to need everyone to be extraordinary.
Chapter Three
I slumped over Raolcan’s back, fingers tingling as I clutched the saddle and tried to keep my drooping eyes open. I’d been nodding in and out of sleep. I didn’t even know how long. It was our third day of flying. We stopped every four hours to refill waterskins, let the dragons drink, and do other necessary tasks, but Hubric only allowed ten minutes each stop and none for sl
I am growing very weary. Hubric presses us too hard.
The moon was nothing but a slender crescent tonight, but with no clouds in the sky, I could still make out the velvety landscapes below. The constant grasses had morphed slowly into fields interspersed with rock formations and ahead was a single, slender, pillar-like formation of rock, rising high above the landscape. What would have caused such a thing to exist? It was formed almost as if human hands had carved it and then it had slowly crumbled – far too regular for the fashioning of wind and rain, but such a thing was impossible.
My mind drifted, imagining giant people with hammer and chisel carving this pillar in certain strokes. I startled. What was that?
We’re landing. Oh, my wings ache! I hope he lets us sleep.
I could barely open my eyes to see us land with a bump on the top of the pillar.
The needle. Humans call it that.
Hubric was already dismounting and Enkenay was settling onto the narrow top of the pillar. There was room for three dragons and four people and not much else.
“We can see everything from here,” Hubric said. “And even our enemies must sleep sometimes. We need to stop or the Dragons will not recover.”
I couldn’t imagine a safer spot to choose. No humans could reach us here.
“I’ll take first watch,” Hubric said and I didn’t bother to wait to hear the rest of his words - if there were any. I loosened the belt around my waist and fell asleep in the saddle, across Raolcan’s back.
When I woke, stiff and sore, the sun was up and Hubric squatted over a tiny fire, a kettle and mugs prepared.
“Is that tea?” I asked thickly, sleep still heavy in my body.
“Better than tea,” Hubric said with a tired smile. “It’s caf. It will put a jolt in your blood and keep you going days past when you should.”
“Do you have enough for two?”
He grinned as he poured out a second mug.
“I let you sleep through both watches,” he said. “We’ll give the others a little more time and then we fly again.”
“Is it always like this on the road?” I asked, sipping the black bitter drink. It was harsh on my tongue but the feeling of it as it filled me was like drinking pure sunlight.
“Sleeping in strange places with Ifrits chasing you, enemies in every town, and powerful people along for the ride?” he asked, gesturing to Rakturan and Savette. “Yep. Pretty much. The Dragon Rider life isn’t ever boring.”
I took a long sip of caf. The bitterness was growing on me. Hubric pulled a battered book from a pocket in his leathers and flipped through it until he found what he was looking for. I sat down on the ground near the fire, enjoying the warmth of it on my face and hands as I sipped my caf. I still felt bone-weary, but at least I could keep my eyes open.
“Twice blind,” Hubric muttered.
“What?”
“Twice blind but still seeing,
The only bulwark against the dark
Watch as the arches proclaim
Dominion of Light.” His eyes were far away as he spoke – not even looking at the book.
“That’s those prophecies again, isn’t it? I thought you had them memorized.”
“Some.” He turned to look at Savette and Rakturan. Did he still think the prophecies were about her when there were two of them now with glowing eyes? “Twice blind...”
Oh. Now that I looked at them, too, I saw what he meant. Twice blind – two of them blind? And that part about the arches ... we’d been inside a ring of arches. Maybe he had a point.
I looked up to find him staring at me.
“You see it, too. Don’t you?” He sipped his caf, never looking away from me. “You see it’s her. It’s a good thing that you pulled her along with you, Amel. She needs to be guarded. If the Dusk Covenant knew about her – although I suppose they know a little now – they’d never let her survive.”
“They weren’t going to let her survive before. They stole her and held her captive.”
He looked at the horizon. “They didn’t know who she was or they’d never have kept her alive. She is everything they fear.”
“Who are they?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense to start a secret society to destroy your own country. There must be something else to it.”
“There’s always layers with people, Amel. Layers of wants and which layer makes the decision is always a question. Some swear to the Dusk because they do hate the Dominion. The Dominar has enemies and there are people who abhor our way of life and the systems that hold us together. It becomes worse if someone they love is hurt or killed in the middle of that system. Those are the true believers – people who aren’t much different than you or I, but they’ve lost everything but that one desire – the desire to right one particular wrong or make someone pay for what happened. It eats away everything but that one thing and they lose any conscience about how their actions might affect others. All they see is their goal.”
I shivered. “That was what Magika Hectorus was like. But it wasn’t what Corrigan was like.”
“Like I said, there are layers. People might agree with the principles but there’s more to it. Maybe they finally find a place with the true believers – a place they never had before with anyone else. Maybe the ideals, while not that important to them, open up paths to success or honor that weren’t open to them before. Maybe they get power they didn’t have. Maybe it just makes them feel good to rub other people’s faces in the dirt or feel like they’re somehow in the right or cleverer than their neighbors, or to rebel – not against anything, just to rebel in general. People are strange. In that buzz of thoughts and wants any one thing could be the controlling impulse that launches them down a path you can’t turn back from.”
It made a lot of sense. After all, I’d joined Dragon School with a lot of layers. I’d wanted to keep my family safe from the burden of my care and I’d wanted to go out in a flame instead of just rotting slowly over the years.
“What about your secret society?” I asked. “The Lightbringers? I know nothing about them.”
Hubric coughed. “You shouldn’t know anything about us. That’s the point of secrecy. But Ephretti had a loose tongue and no surprise. She’s been smitten with Leng Shardson for years. She isn’t taking a rival very well.”
I felt my cheeks growing hot. I looked at my mug of caf instead of Hubric’s piercing eyes. He saw too much.
“But now that you know, you need to either swear secrecy and agree to be an agent of the Lightbringers or join us yourself.”
“What does an agent do?”
“You keep our secret and report information about the Dusk Covenant so that we may counter their actions.”
That seemed simple enough. I wanted the Dusk Covenant eliminated, not just countered.
Hubric coughed and I looked up at him again. His eagle eyes were trying to stare right through me. “I’d rather you joined, apprentice. Although that’s ultimately up to you.”
“What does it mean to join?”
“Lightbringers protect the light. We stand for truth and right. We do not tolerate lies or evil. It’s not about protecting the Dominion – although we do that, often. It’s about the prophecies. We believe they will come true at the time we most need them, and we do what we can to protect and promote them.”
He offered me the book in his hands and I took it. It was thinner than I’d thought, but the words in it were small, densely packed on the page in a tight, spiky handwriting. The leather cover was old and battered, crumbling at the edges.
“That’s my copy,” Hubric said. “If you join, you’ll be expected to copy it into your own book and keep that book on your person, memorizing as much as you can of it and being faithful to keep the words of the prophecies to the best of your ability.”
“It sounds like it takes up a lot of time. I mean, I’m still learning to be a Dragon Rider. I’m not sure I’m ready to have my whole life controlled by prophecies I don’t even believe.”
“Don’t you believe them?” he asked, looking meaningfully to Savette.
I swallowed, nervously. Maybe I did. I wasn’t sure. It was certainly strange to watch her and Rakturan sleep, their glowing eyes shining through where the blindfolds had slipped.
