"Sometimes," I said. "We have to risk our lives… For a good cause."
The features on Papo's rugged face sank. He opened his mouth to say something, but I raised my hand to still him.
“Papo, you know I have to do this.”
And he sighed and then returned to reading his magazine.
Meanwhile, despite the pain in my ankle, I continued to practice attacking the training dummy. In a way, I realised, in the heat of battle, I couldn’t let minor injuries get in the way. Though I tried not to display the pain to my father, keeping as straight a face as possible as I dived and darted and lunged and stabbed at my target.
And I got into the flow of things too. So, I don’t know how much time passed before I was interrupted mid-swing by a commotion coming from the doorway.
Lieutenant Wiggea — not just my trainer but also my most trusted (and handsomest) dragonelite guard and the most likely to get the next promotion — stormed through. He had slick brown hair and wore an olive coloured uniform with a neatly ironed shirt and cotton trousers. He had a parchment in his hand and three other guards followed foot behind him.
"Dragonseer Wells. Dragonseer Wells, I knew I'd find you here."
"What is it, Lieutenant?" I asked.
"It's Taka… He's missing."
"What? How did he get out?"
"He just walked up to a Grey, sang to it, leapt on, and then he was gone. We tried to catch up, Maam, but his song kept his dragon flying so fast, and he slowed down our own as well. We lost him into the clouds after that."
My heart started beating in my chest. I kind of promised Sukina I’d look after Taka. "Lost him? Have you any idea where he might have gone?"
"That's not all, Maam. We went searching and got ambushed by automatons. We took out four Greys in the search party and lost three of them. Only I got out alive."
This wasn't good. "Wiggea, tell me everything. And fast…"
He tugged on the collar of his shirt. "There's not much to tell, Maam. We encountered an airship, with guns on it and ten or so war-automatons on the ground. Taka had already weakened our dragons. And we found his dragon dead on the ground. We’re guessing the airship got away with Taka.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. “Did the airship have an insignia on it?”
“No, Maam.”
I looked up at the sky. Charth, please don't tell me it was you… I reached out and said this in the collective unconscious, just in case he could hear. But Charth wouldn't, surely. Not after how much he’d risked getting Taka out of the palace in the first place.
But as I thought about it more, I started to feel sick. Sukina had died so that we could rescue her son. Now, two years later, we’d lost him once again. And we didn’t even know who had taken him.
I clenched my fists at my sides. “Cini must have a play in this,” I said. “And probably Alsie Fioreletta too.”
Then, I reached out again in the collective unconscious. Gerhaun, it seemed, was now awake. I was right, she hadn't been able to sleep through Taka's scream. What should I do, Gerhaun? I was really at a loss.
Despite the urgency of the situation, Gerhaun's old and tired voice sounded completely calm inside my head. What do you think you should do, Dragonseer Wells? If you want to be the leader, you need to make decisions like this for yourself.
I need to investigate, I said, though I hated the idea. I need to see what happened firsthand, look for clues.
Taka didn't go far it seems, Gerhaun said. I already sent some more dragons to scout the location. Perhaps someone even enticed him out there.
It occurred to me then. How could we have been so stupid? Maybe it wasn't Charth but Alsie flying overhead all this time. She could have been using her powers to try and convince Taka to leave Fortress Gerhaun's walls, despite us instructing the boy not to.
There's no way of knowing, Gerhaun said. But whoever it was, you have to make haste. We might be able to catch up with them if we make the right decisions.
Right. I stormed towards the door.
But Gerhaun had already read my intentions. Not always, did I remember to mask my thoughts. Don't go alone, Pontopa. Take a team with you. Oh, and take Faso as well. It's time he realised the consequences of not stepping up to his plate as Taka's father.
Right. I turned to Wiggea. He stood to attention and saluted.
"Your orders Maam?" he asked.
"Get a team of twenty men and twenty Greys together. We're going to go and see what happened."
"And you'll take Velos I presume." Velos, by the way, was my own personal dragon who I'd grown up with since I was seven years old.
"Yes, but first I'm going to go and find Faso. That buffoon is coming with us, whether he's busy or not." I had a bone to pick with the inventor. While I'd genuinely forgotten Taka's birthday, he had deemed it as unessential and shunned Taka away.
"Papo," I said. "I need to go a while."
"Let me come," he said. And he leaned forward, clutching at his chest as he stood up again.
I raised an eyebrow. "No, you should stay. You know what the doctor said. I'm only going out to investigate and will be back soon."
Mamo then came wheeling through the door. "Pontopa, I can't find Taka anywhere," she said. Then she saw the concern on Wiggea's face. "Oh my…"
"Papo will explain," I said, and I hurried out the door.
CHAPTER 2
FASO WASN’T INSIDE HIS WORKSHOP but in the section of Fortress Gerhaun's courtyard that he'd cordoned off to construct his dragon automaton. He didn't turn to look at me when I walked in and instead was busy tightening up a plate the size of his hand with a wrench. His six-legged pet ferret automaton, Ratter, sat on Faso’s shoulder watching the inventor’s every move as if supervising the whole operation.
The air had a slight chill to it, a little more than usual. Sometimes, the wind came from the ocean to the west and then passed through this land which only saw sunlight through thick gloomy clouds. It brought with it the smell of secicao — a faint eggy tang that took some getting used to, I have to admit.
"Faso, you buffoon," I said. "Why did you turn your son away on his birthday?"
"Not now, Pontopa. I'm busy." That was the problem with Faso. He never seemed to care about anything but science.
I put my hands on my hips. "Do you really think that your stupid automaton is the most important thing in the world right now, Faso?" He had the thing splayed out across the floor, a flat brass carpet, looking especially unimpressive.
Faso looked up at me, bemusement stretched across his eyebrows. "This 'stupid automaton' is going to save many human and dragon lives. Much like the armour I developed for Velos saved yours if you remember. While you're whacking training dummies all day, I'm creating something of value."
I snorted. "Something of value? Well, I’ll have you know that because you just shunned Taka away, he's gone and run off and got himself kidnapped."
Faso jerked his head up towards me and his eyes widened. As if startled, Ratter darted down Faso’s arm and buried itself in the sleeve of the inventor’s pinstripe suit. This sleeve was flared out a little more on the left and seemed to be one of Ratter’s favourite hiding places.
"What?” Faso asked. “When? Who took him?"
"Wouldn't you like to know? But if you'd have looked after him when he wanted you to, none of this would ever have happened."
Faso shrugged. "I offered to have him help out in my workshop. But he said it was too boring and would rather go train with his favourite auntie."
"So you just let him go?"
"Yes, what else should I have done?"
"You could have offered to do something that involves actually focusing on spending time with your son rather than your machines. Maybe you could have even accompanied Taka to the training grounds."
Faso exhaled, puffing out his cheeks. "I can't abandon my work. Anyway, we could argue about this all day, but we should go out and get Taka back, right? Whoever took him, Velos and his armour will shoot t
hem back down again. It's been a while since I used the dragon armour…"
"We don't have a clue where Taka went," I said. "Lieutenant Wiggea sent out a task force, and they were ambushed not far from here. Only Wiggea managed to retreat and come back with the news."
"Then you wanted to investigate the last place he was seen, right. I'm sure having me along would help you find some clues."
"And help you appease the guilt you should be feeling for abandoning Taka."
"It sounded like you abandoned him, Pontopa," Faso said. "He went straight to find you. And now you're just screaming at me to make you feel better."
"You're right. I should just push you out of the sky and leave you injured on the floor. See how you like to be left alone."
Faso sighed. "The number of times you've made that threat and never acted on it. You know I'm far too valuable to Gerhaun."
"Fortunately for you. Otherwise, I'd have left you rotting in Gerhaun's prison a long time ago."
"Surely that's Gerhaun's call, not yours."
"Whatever. Now, leave that damn machine alone for a while and get moving. We need to get going."
"Pronto," Faso said. And he carefully slotted a metal part into place on the dragon automaton, then he stood up sharp.
I stormed through the long corridors of Fortress Gerhaun, far enough ahead that Faso couldn't walk alongside me. I didn't want any of his natterings right now. Together, we went through Fortress Gerhaun's winding corridors, passing hanging tapestries depicting dragons in battle against King Cini’s war automatons. A young girl and an even younger boy waltzed passed us and I almost bumped into them.
“Watch it,” I said. And the girl looked up at me and then run away giggling. These children should have been Taka’s playmates, but they tended to stay away from him. Taka had told me numerous times they were scared of him because they found him somehow different.
Which was why he spent so much time around the adults.
My dragon, Velos, no longer had to stay in the courtyard, since we'd manage to build his own stable on the outer perimeter of the fortress, just inside the castle's walls. With the exception of a little shelter in the west part, the stable was open at the top, which made it much quicker to get out into the Southlands when we needed to take him out on missions. And, I admit, these missions had been few and far between the last year. Still, I made sure to take him out at least once a day, although it had been a long time since I’d left the Southlands.
After a few sharp turns down the fortress' musty corridors, we reached his stable, and I opened the wooden door into a wide-open area. Since Velos was much larger than the other dragons and wasn't used to confined spaces, we'd decided to knock down two walls to create a stable three times the size of a usual Grey's.
Velos deserved it — he was a VIP around here, as a coloured dragon, which made him the only creature in the whole fortress who could get Gerhaun pregnant. Velos had managed to impregnate Gerhaun with five eggs by now, but all of them had hatched as male dragons and all of them Greys, meaning they were infertile. You could tell the type as soon the egg was born, as the egg would also be the same colour as the dragon. Dragon queen’s eggs would therefore be a shiny gold colour and an egg like that hadn’t been birthed for hundreds of years.
Coloured male dragons were also much rarer than Greys. If Gerhaun birthed one of those, once hatched we'd have to send it out of the Southlands so the secicao fumes didn't end up turning it into a Grey. Rarest of all were dragon queens, and Velos felt continuously anxious that he hadn't birthed one yet. Every man and dragon alike knew that Gerhaun Forsi was getting old and would soon leave this world. If she didn't have another queen to replace her, then an entire lineage would become wiped out in the next few hundred years, making it a lot easier for Cini to dominate the Southlands and for secicao to destroy the planet.
This put a lot of pressure on Velos, and I kind of felt for him.
Velos could sense my own anxiety as I entered his stables. In response, he raised his head to the sky and roared, sending a stone tumbling off the top of the stable wall. Then, he lowered his head to me and crooned as I stroked the blue leathery skin at his muzzle. Meanwhile, Faso didn't waste any time climbing up the ladder on the armour that Velos wore on his back. Faso took his position at the back seat — an unnecessary feature the inventor had created for the three riders. "My, my," Faso said. "I forgot for a while what a marvellous creation this armour is. It's funny how you learn sight of your earlier genius when you're working on loftier things."
His armour was a veritable war machine, complete with cogs, Gatling guns on either flank and these huge soft bladders that contained the secicao oil needed to power the device and augment Velos’ speed and accuracy.
"I still think he'd be better off without it." Although I said that more to temper Faso's ego than what I believed. I didn't like the armour aesthetically, but it had saved our lives several times. One of the few things about Faso I was grateful for.
I sang a song to Velos to help placate him a little. Dragonsongs were strange in that they didn't sound like songs as such, but rather like the harmonies in an orchestra. Lacking melody but still having an innate sense of beauty about them. To listen to one would be more like listening to a waterfall than listening to a traditional song. But still, they had powers that could command legions of dragons. And only dragonseers could sing them.
The song not only calmed Velos' mind but also my own. We were both kind of one, anyway. I'd grown up with Velos since birth and he'd looked after me as much as I'd looked after him. Once I came of age, I spent a while working for King Cini, harvesting secicao for his military operations against dragons, until my favourite author and (it turned out) fellow dragonseer, Sukina Sako, came to visit and illuminated me on how nefarious these operations were.
I climbed up on Velos' back and took my position just behind his steering fin. "We need to go out and get Taka back, Velos," I said. And he growled in agreement. He didn’t understand my words, spoken in the native language of Tow, but he always understood the sentiment behind them.
Some warmth rose up from beneath my feet and underneath Velos' armour had begun to glow green. Faint pulses of light began to weave through the network of veins in the armour, set between cogs and other devices. I turned to Faso, who was just bringing himself back up from the spigot that he'd turned to send the secicao through Velos' armour.
"Are we ready?" I asked.
"Breathing apparatus," Faso pointed out.
"I know…"
There was a compartment underneath the seat, and I took out my bit-and-plug breathing device, much like what divers used. This would give me oxygen when I entered the secicao clouds. Most would prefer a traditional gas mask, and there was also one inside the compartment, but I hated the stuffy feeling underneath such masks. I also checked that my pistol and golden hip flask were secured in my belt that I’d threaded through my leather jerkin.
The flask contained secicao oil — a drug that we used in the military to augment ourselves in superhuman ways. The effect depended on the blend, and I’d mixed mine with the kind Sukina used to use. This would give myself the ability to see in the dark, gain dexterity and strength, and to compress time inside my head so things seemed slower than they actually were.
I'd promised Wiggea I wouldn't use secicao during training, as I needed to grow my skills without the oil. So I kept it inside the armour usually, so I had it available when I flew out on missions. On that particular assignment, we'd need the extra strength and speed, particularly if we were going up against Alsie and whatever nefarious automatons King Cini had sent with her.
Faso’s secicao had different abilities than mine, raising his mental acuity rather than focusing on brute physical speed and strength. That helped him, he'd pointed out many times, to make snap decisions when he fiddled with the armour's complex controls at the back. Although, strangely, his secicao also gave him the ability to leap great heights.
“You’re no
t forgetting about me, Maam?” Lieutenant Rastano Wiggea’s voice came from the floor just below Velos’ ladder. I looked down into his soft hazel eyes. Although Wiggea trained me hard during training, outside of the ring he was the kindest man you’d ever meet. And, as he had been before to Sukina, he was as loyal a dog to me. My most trusted dragonelite guard employed by Gerhaun Forsi to protect me until death. He wore a similar olive coloured uniform to the other guards around Fortress Gerhaun, but he also had a few chevrons on each shoulder to denote his rank, and a golden dragon broach pinned to his breast pocket that depicted his special status.
“Of course not,” I said. “Hop on, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Wiggea saluted and then climbed up the ladder. Once he was seated and seatbelted in, I turned around I nodded to Faso. Then, I pulled up on Velos' steering fin to launch him into the roiling brown-grey clouds. As I did, I sang a song to the other twenty Greys that Wiggea had also assembled in the courtyard, instructing them to launch.
Soon, we were in formation, speeding towards the ambush site.
CHAPTER 3
I FELT THE DRAGONS IN the collective unconscious before I saw them through the thick brown secicao clouds. A couple of them still had some life left in them. Not entirely dead, but the last threads of their souls being sucked away into the thorny secicao that entangled them. They were far too gone for rescue and I could feel their anguish in my mind.
I sang a song to thank them for being brave. To tell them that it's okay to go now. If I could see images, or hear their words, then they'd perhaps be able to tell me exactly what happened — who took Taka and where they were heading now. But I could only feel emotions. A sense of having failed. I added a slight lilt to my song to tell them that they'd done their best. To communicate my gratitude even more for them fighting to the end.
Dragonseers and Bloodlines: The Steampunk Fantasy Adventure Continues (Secicao Blight Book 2) Page 2
