Band of Breakers

by Alisha Klapheke

  His voice snapped through the sound of thunder. “Call me fool again, Lapis worm!” His voice was rough from the sudden shift. Lightning cracked, and he drew the sort of breath that preceded dragonfire.

  Nix held up her hands. “I’m no Lapis. I’m a Call Breaker. The Call Breaker. Mistress of the Cider House of Dragon’s Back. If you rain your fire down on me, every Breaker on this island will hunt you down.”

  Vahly sheathed her sword. The earth’s heart thudded in echo to her own pulse, the beat that shuddered through the cut beneath her collarbone.

  The rogue dragon’s nostrils bled night-dark smoke.

  He was going to attack again.

  Drenched to the bone and bleeding freely, Vahly bent and dug her fingers into the sandy mud. The grit pushed beneath her fingernails, and she welcomed the feel of it, the scent of the world supporting her, holding her.

  “Rise,” she called to the earth.

  The ground trembled as if a great clap of thunder had rolled through.

  But this was her power. Not the storm’s.

  A circle of the earth rose around the rogue dragon, bringing a salt cedar shrub with blood-red blooms and a tangle of long-since-forgotten akoli grapevines with it.

  Nix’s smile was white in the storm’s gray light.

  “Defend,” Vahly whispered to the earth before her.

  A tremor shook her bones, and the storm nearly blew her backward as the beat of the world thundered in time with the angry sky.

  Arc stood beside Vahly, eyes wide.

  The ground piled upon itself to form a circular barrier around the rogue.

  And then it fell, crashing, pressing, shoving the enemy dragon into the ground.

  The rogue’s terrible roar was cut off with a finality that could only mean death. Lightning washed the mountain pass and the new grave.

  A spasm shook Vahly, and her teeth chattered enough to make her jaw ache. Her knees jellied. She fell, all her energy drained from using her new magic.

  The rain departed like a crowd finished with the entertainment at hand.

  “Not bad, Queenie.”

  Vahly wanted to feel triumph, but only a hollowness filled her, a shade of the sadness that haunted her since the death of Dramour, Ibai, and Kemen.

  Arc put a warm, strong hand on Vahly’s back. “It was necessary.”

  Her eyes shuttered at the gentle contact, and she imagined soaking in Arc’s kind words. With a deep breath, she was able to nod in silent gratitude.

  “Stones, yes, it was.” Nix blew a bit of dragonfire over the dead and buried rogue. “He would’ve killed at least one of us if it came to more fighting. What a maniac. No manners whatsoever.” She crouched by Vahly, her gaze darting from Vahly’s cut to her face.

  Arc moved the partially ripped neckline of Vahly’s shirt, then let his hands hover over the jagged talon cut on her chest. Tingling warmth eased into her flesh. The blood stopped flowing, but the pain lingered.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “I’m hurt,” she said dumbly, her ears ringing.

  “Yes.” Arc traded a pinched look with Nix.

  Nix brushed Vahly’s hair from her forehead with a cool, damp hand. “Arcturus is healing you. I’m guessing the magic you did sucked you dry. What do you think, Arcturus? Don’t you think that’s really the big issue here?”

  “I do. You aren’t accustomed to wielding your earth magic. It’ll take time and practice to grow strong enough to withstand the toll it takes on your human body and soul.”

  “Does magic drain elves, too?” Nix asked.

  Arc finished his healing work. “It does. When I was younger, the magic exhausted me. But after much training, I seem to remain unfazed by using great amounts of magic.” He plucked a soft, unusual leaf from where it sprouted beneath another salt cedar shrub and dabbed it along the dried blood of Vahly’s cut.

  She took the leaf from him with gentle fingers. “Thank you, Arc. I’ve got it from here.”

  Her body was still shaking, and her ears rang with the knowledge that something was off, but she couldn’t sit here forever. Perhaps moving on—back to the ruins in the sea—would ease the feeling. Perhaps her magic was urging her to get under the sea as quickly as possible.

  She cleaned the blood away as best she could and straightened her vest, and they headed down the mountain.

  Their voices mingled in low tones, talking of the rogues and how Vahly’s magic might work against the sea folk.

  “I could raise a small island in the ocean, perhaps.” Vahly stepped beneath two olive trees, their leaves dripping from the earlier storm. “But I’ll most likely pass out right afterward, so I’m not sure how helpful that is.”

  “My kynd could leap to your new islands,” Arc said.

  “I said one island. Don’t get too excited.”

  “When you grow stronger—which you will—and you create several new islands, my kynd could use them as a base from which to throw spellwork farther away from shore. We can blind the sea folk temporarily by darkening the sea to black, then washing it in bright light. Their eyes are far more sensitive than ours.”

  Nix plucked an olive from another tree and popped it between her lips. “If your islands are large enough, and you wall them up like you did to that rogue, we dragons could be further protected from salt water the sea folk spell with their spears and chanting. We could use the earth creations as bunkers between strikes.”

  Arc’s eyes flashed. “And I could drive back the salt water near the land bunkers as the dragons lift off again. This could truly work.”

  Vahly shook her head to try to stop her ears from ringing. She touched her pack, feeling for the egg, for the strange comfort it gave her.

  “I love your enthusiasm,” she said, “but the Sea Queen can raise waves taller than a respectable mountain. My islands would have to be enormous. How can I possibly—”

  Her heart stopped.

  The pack was flat as a cooking stone.

  Empty.

  Her stomach heaved, and she fought to stay upright.

  “Vahly?” Arc was at her side in a flash of movement, Nix just behind him.

  “The egg.” Vahly’s trembling fingers lifted her satchel to show a ripped seam along the bottom. The rogue’s second strike must have torn the pack open. “It’s gone.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Vahly’s throat seized up. She fought to breathe, panic beating fists against her ribs. “The egg must have fallen out during the fight.”

  She was already running on weak legs back up the mountain. The sun glared down, drawing the moisture from Vahly’s hair and clothes.

  Behind her, Arc’s breaths came hard, but his feet made no sound. “We’ll find it.”

  “He’s right.” Nix flew to catch up with them, her wings blocking the sun and casting a dusky shadow over Vahly. “We haven’t been gone but for a few minutes. It’ll be there.”

  “And the ground is soaked, so its landing was most likely soft,” Arc said.

  His gaze was focused on the next turn in the trail, eyebrows knitted, mouth pinched up to one side. For a moment, Vahly was distracted from sheer terror at losing this egg that oddly meant so much. Arc had known her for such a short time, but her needs had become his.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat. “It’s good to have a royal elven warrior at my side.”

  “Fat lot of good it’ll do having one elf if we run into a gang of these Jade rogues,” Nix hissed, pointing and pulling Vahly to a stop.

  The top of a head bobbed beyond the turn, over the smooth, quickly drying boulders. Pale hair, a slip of green scales—a Jade-blooded dragon in human-like form.

  Vahly gripped Nix’s arm. “It’s them.”

  Nix huffed. “Well, it’s not Amona’s reinforcements.”

  The dragon disappeared from view.

  Arc leaned closer to Nix and Vahly. “Let’s climb that grassy knoll and do a count,” he whispered. His magic swirled around his temples, and Vahly tried
to take strength from his powerful presence and his royal elven blood.

  “Agreed.”

  She was the first to scale the small rise, pulse pounding in her ears.

  Peeking through foot-tall plank grass, she could see eight dragons around a stack of tree limbs most likely gathered for firewood. One dragon, with his sage-hued scales and wide jaw, seemed familiar. Vahly was almost certain she’d met him at some point in the past. The dragon beside him had pale hair, tied into a queue at the back of his neck.

  The pale-haired dragon turned, possibly hearing the shuffle of Nix’s wings as she spread them low along the ground to keep them out of sight. His eyes were a bright lavender, a rare trait seen only in dragons with Jade blood.

  Nix met Vahly’s gaze. Vahly jerked her chin at the first dragon—the one with the sage scales—as if to ask Do you remember this dragon?

  Nodding, Nix shimmied back down and waved for Arc and Vahly to do the same.

  Before following Nix’s suggestion, Vahly watched the dragons, making sure the sage-colored one hadn’t seen them. But the rogue went back to collecting wood. They were setting up camp, building a fire. A third male—this one with three thick, hickory-brown braids—dropped a full-grown ram beside the stack of firewood. Sometimes dragons enjoyed using their own fire to cook their food, but usually they used wood for roasting food. Controlling dragonfire to a degree that would cook and not burn the food was difficult.

  They obviously had no knowledge that Vahly had killed one of their own just down the way. It was possible they had traveled via the northwest passage through this range and had yet to discover the pile of earth that covered their dead cohort.

  Guilt stabbed Vahly for a moment before her agony over the egg reigned once more in her heart and soul.

  Then she saw it.

  The egg sat, partially upright, against the wall of rock that hemmed in the pass. That must have been where it fell from Vahly’s satchel. Rolling to her back, she squeezed her hand into a fist and pressed it into her aching stomach. Tilting her head, she checked the egg again. Its deep plum-colored specks glistened with raindrops that must have drizzled from the olive tree growing out of the rocks above. Everything in Vahly demanded that she leap from this hiding place, annihilate every creature in her way, and shield the egg with her own body.

  Nix tugged on her boot, her eyes narrowed.

  Vahly climbed down. “The egg is there,” she whispered. “Beside what looks like the beginnings of a camp. I don’t think they’ve seen the egg yet, but they will. It’s huge. And they’re dragons.”

  “And that means?” Arc cocked his head and slicked his wet hair off his forehead.

  “They’re hungry,” Nix whispered. “Dragons are always hungry. Haven’t you learned that yet? And you call yourself a man of science.”

  Vahly took a slow, deep breath to keep from losing her mind. “So you recognize the sage dragon with the wide jaw too?” she asked Nix.

  “I do. He was a palace guard, the one we paid off when we smuggled that sharkstone out of the Jades’ lesser treasury.”

  “Oh. The stuff we used to reinforce the ocean-facing wall of the city of thieves in case of a sea folk attack.”

  “Exactly. He took his coin like a good boy. He adores gold, and we paid him well for turning his eye away from our little project.”

  All dragons loved gold, loved lying in it, rolling around in it, breathing in its metallic scent. But some dragons became obsessed with the stuff. It was like a powerful herb to them, driving them mad with glee. Amona called that type weak, but the Call Breakers had their own term for it—binger, one who binges on gold. They tended to find others like themselves and grow close, their shared obsession binding them like an oath.

  “I’m guessing he’s a binger.” Nix clicked her tongue, thinking, while Arc kept a keen eye out for the rogues. “We can use that.”

  “We don’t have any coin on us. But we could claim we’re on our way to a well-paying job at the Jades’ palace. Get him in on it somehow?” Vahly forced herself to breathe normally, but her head pounded, and her thoughts whirred in dizzy, nonsense circles like a smacked mosquito.

  Arc glanced at her, his eyes pinched with worry. “Why not simply explain the situation and how you’re the only one who might be able to fight the Sea Queen and save the island? It seems ludicrous that they wouldn’t side with us.”

  Vahly sighed. “We’ll try it if they react in a non-ludicrous way. But I’m guessing a pack of rogue dragons whose alcohol I can smell from here is not going to be reasonable.”

  “She’s right.” Nix stopped pacing and regarded Arc and Vahly in turn, her lips turning up at the edges. “If they seem like they might listen to our improbable tale and perhaps watch a demonstration of your magic, then we’ll go that route. If they’re a bunch of thick-headed louts, we’ll use the Jade job lie. And we’ll just casually notice the egg. We’ll make an offer. I know a Jade youngling with a penchant for rarities like a gryphon egg. His father is a wealthy noble who would pay three times what the egg would be worth to anyone else.”

  The ache in Vahly’s head faded, and she returned Nix’s sly smile. “It’s a plan.”

  Sharpening his knives, Arc hung back in case they needed reinforcement. Explaining the presence of an elf would only make the con more difficult. These rogue Jades most likely still believed elves to be extinct and wondered what kind of foul magic was at play. Or the rogues might decide he was valuable and worth auctioning off to some Jade with whom the rogues remained in contact.

  Nix led Vahly into the rogues’ camp, hips swaying and feet delicately picking their way along the game trail’s sandy rocks and salt cedars.

  Vahly’s eyes longed to glance at the egg, to check if it sat where she’d seen it moments ago, but she forced herself to play her role.

  The pass opened to show a crackling fire and the rogues gathered loosely around a makeshift spit. The sage dragon turned the skinned ram over the flames.

  Nix feigned surprise and touched the ruby necklace at her throat. “What is this?” She used that husky voice males loved. “A bevy of handsome fellows in the middle of nowhere? How lovely!”

  A lightness filled Vahly, helping her bear the weight of worry about the egg. This was the Nix she knew, the dragon unshadowed by grief—confident and charming. Of course, Vahly would never begrudge Nix her mourning, but her inconsistent behavior was worrying, and seeing this transformation back to how she once was heartened Vahly greatly.

  “Greetings, fellow travelers.” Vahly’s gaze ripped along the ground, searching for any glimpse of plum-hued spots or soft, smooth surfaces, to see if they’d already found the egg and planned to devour it.

  The pale-haired dragon stood and whipped the weather-worn edges of a chestnut-colored cloak away from his sword arm. The hilt of his blade was ivory like Vahly’s.

  “Halt,” he said, his lavender eyes bright.

  Nix waved him off and sniffed the roasting meat. “Don’t worry, love. We’re no threat to you and your mighty assembly here.” Her gaze went to the sage dragon. “Luc! Oh, it is good to see you. How have you been? I didn’t realize you’d given up your post as palace guard.”

  Luc. Yes, that was his name. The middle-aged dragon cocked his head at Nix, then ran a gnarled hand over his wide jaw. His scales reflected the afternoon’s final sun rays, light that pierced the retreating storm front’s charcoal clouds.

  “You know this dragon?” the pale-haired male demanded. His words held the command of a leader.

  “I do, Baz. This is Nix of the Dragon’s Back. She leads the Call Breakers there, near the clanless city, and runs the cider house. I looked the other way when her band of thieves stole sharkstone from the lesser treasury.”

  Baz narrowed his rare eyes on Nix and Vahly. “And did you pay my friend here well for risking his life for your personal gain?”

  Nix smiled at another male, a gangly fellow who looked like he should’ve been young but had the wear and tear of age. The
male scooted to the far side of the log he’d taken as a seat, and Nix settled herself beside him like it was the most normal thing in the world to cozy up to dangerous strangers.

  “Why don’t you tell him about our deal and how it went for you, dear Luc?” she asked, a purr in her throat as she eyed the sage dragon. “He’d believe you over me, I presume.”

  Every one of the dragons stared at Nix, their mouths slightly agape and their eyes half-slitted.

  “She paid me handsomely, Baz.” Luc offered Nix a bladder of what smelled like alcohol, but it wasn’t cider or wine.

  An acrid scent wafted from the container. The stuff could probably clean the rust off a one-hundred-year-old blade.

  Nix took a swig without spilling a drop or blinking an eye. She nodded in thanks and handed the bladder back to Luc. Luc tied the bladder to the pack sitting at his feet, glancing at Baz with reticence in his eyes.

  “Hmm.” Baz crossed his arms. The bronze-studded gauntlets on his forearms caught the fire’s light. “Make a heart oath that you won’t reveal our whereabouts to either the Jade or the Lapis matriarch.”

  Vahly gritted her teeth. Nix couldn’t make that promise. Who knew when the information would be useful during their quest? It wasn’t worth the risk. But how could they get around making this oath?

  Nix frowned and leaned forward. “Are you not Jades yourselves?” she asked Baz, then studied Luc, feigning ignorance of their identity as rogues, as Amona had informed. “Don’t tell me you are Call Breakers like myself now?” She widened her eyes and smiled.

  “We are,” Baz said. “But we don’t care to work for you. With all due respect.” He shut his eyes for a moment and tipped his head in a nod that reeked of mockery.

  Vahly’s teeth ground together. “Who says she would have you?” She stood ready to reach into the dirt at her feet, to access the earth’s power, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that, because her head was spinning, and she’d most likely pass out before she proved anything to anyone.

  Baz glared but otherwise ignored Vahly’s barb. “I suppose you’re Matriarch Amona’s fancy little pet, hmm? I heard about you when I was a lad, before I came to these mountains and broke the Call.”