Test of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  Halldor laughed good-naturedly as he ruffled Tibo's hair. "There probably aren't any ghosts around," he admitted. "And even if there were, they won't come out during the daylight. Everybody knows that."

  "So." I sat down on the ground and fixed Tibo with a stare. "Where do you want us to take you? Do you have any family on the continent here, maybe?" I hoped he did, since we couldn't afford to turn back.

  Tibo shook his head. "Not that I know of, and my parents were the only family I had in Warosia." His face fell again, and he blinked rapidly to hold back tears. "I'm all alone now," he whispered.

  "You're not alone," Halldor said, looping his arm around the kid's shoulder. "You've got us, and we're going to get you someplace safe."

  "I think our best bet is to find a ship heading back to Warosia," Rhia said. "There are Warosian and Elantian ships that regularly make the crossing. Hell, even a Zallabarian ship would do, though of course we'd have to keep the dragons out of sight."

  "What if I stayed with you?" Tibo asked hopefully. "I could work as your servant. My mother taught me a little bit about how to cook, and I can clean up after all of you. Maybe even take care of your dragon tack, too." He glanced through the missing wall at Ykos, who slept right outside. Lessie and Kiethara were off hunting while he guarded us.

  "I wish I could take you on, but we can't afford it," I said. "We're on a very dangerous mission. No offense, but we can't put you in danger by bringing you with us."

  Tibo's shoulders sagged. "But what if the ship you put me on sells slaves?" he asked. "I've heard that some of the merchant ships smuggle slaves."

  "We'll make sure to find a reputable captain," Halldor promised. "Someone who will take you on as a crew member. You can be a cabin boy for starters, perhaps, or they'll teach you how to be a proper sailor."

  Tibo propped his chin on his fist, his brow scrunching as he gave the thought serious consideration. "I've always thought it would be cool to be a captain one day," he finally said. "If you can get me honest work aboard a ship, maybe I can rise up in the ranks when I'm older."

  "That's the spirit." Halldor ruffled his hair as he gave the boy a fond smile. "Now let's get to sleep."

  We bedded down for the night, and I took the first watch, sitting atop the wall as I looked out at the grassy landscape. The verdant landscape reminded me of Elantia, except there were no hills or mountains, and the forests were very far away. With my goggles, I could see deer grazing, and patches of grass waving here and there as smaller animals scampered underfoot. It seemed like a peaceful place, but I couldn't quite relax. Without any mountains or trees to shield us, I felt too exposed.

  "I wonder if there was a river that cut through here once," Lessie said sleepily. "Or maybe a lake. These people couldn't have survived without a water source somewhere."

  "Whatever it was, it dried up thousands of years ago." And had been ransacked long ago, I added privately. My treasure sense only picked up a few items buried in the ground—ancient artifacts that would fetch a high price, if I had the time to dig them up and sell them.

  When it was Rhia's turn to take watch, I snuggled into my bedroll and fell asleep. At first, I thought the sunlight still kept the dragon god away, because I slept deeply for a while, a blanket of nothingness cushioning my mind. But that darkness gradually lightened until I was walking the city streets of Elantia again. The familiar glow of gas lamps surrounded me, illuminating the brick path I trod, but the crackle of the flames was the only sound. There was no laughter, no music, not even the whisper of a breath.

  "That's because this city has abandoned you, Zara." Salcombe's voice echoed all around me, and I spun in a circle, trying to see where it came from. "How can you expect to return to it and find it as it once was?"

  "Come out and face me, asshole!" I shouted. My voice bounced off the walls, and the buildings seemed to close around me, suffocating me, until I was being pressed between two slabs of concrete. No, not two slabs. I realized, as the world tilted, I was on one slab of cold metal that seared my naked flesh.

  "Let me up!" I cried, pulling at my restraints. Hard leather banded around my wrists and ankles, pinning me to the table. But with each motion I made, an invisible blade slashed at my skin, until rivulets of blood were running all over my body.

  "The more you struggle, the more it will hurt." Salcombe stepped from the shadows, except it wasn't Salcombe at all. His eyes were a pure, demonic red, and his skin was too white, too perfect, as if he were dead flesh made whole again. "Or at least that's what they all say, isn't it?" His grin widened, and I nearly screamed at the sight of long, sharp fangs protruding from his upper teeth. "The truth is I have no intention of sparing you, little champion. That reprieve I gave you last night was only meant to lull you into a false sense of security. To give you false hope that would make your pain all the sweeter when I invaded your fragile mind again."

  He lifted his hands, and white-hot pain ripped through my body. "As long as you hold my heart, there is no escape," the dragon god snarled, his dark magic twisting inside me, tearing at my guts until I was a bloody, bleeding, writhing mass of pain. "I will tear you apart, piece by piece, until there is nothing left for your lover to hold. Until you can't even recognize yourself."

  "Like hell you will!" I fought harder, pushing back with all the will I could muster. Hands clamped my shoulders, shaking me, and I lashed out with the only appendage left to me—my head.

  "Oww!" Halldor's voice ripped through the air, jerking me from the dream. My eyes flew open as he fell back, rubbing the spot on his forehead where I'd struck him. "Dammit, Zara, that hurt!"

  He was whispering in broad daylight, so I sat up, alert and ready. "What is it?" I whispered back. Rhia stood at the entrance, sword drawn. "Is someone coming?"

  "Ten someones," Halldor said darkly. "They wear green paint and clothing that helps them blend in with the surroundings, and several of them carry scalps and shrunken heads from their belts. If not for my talent, I wouldn't have been able to spot them skulking in the grass." His jaw tightened as he helped me to my feet. "We've got maybe ten minutes until they're on us."

  Scalps. Then these weren’t the kind of men we could negotiate with. I nodded at Halldor, reaching for Lessie through the bond. "Don't use fire," I warned her. "We don't want to leave any trace that there were dragons here if we can help it."

  "Understood."

  Rhia gave Tibo a dagger and ordered him to stay hidden while we crept out of the building. I extended my dragon blade halfway as I pressed against a crumbling wall closer to the north entrance of the town. I poked my head out just far enough to see the men entering the village. As Halldor had said, they were dressed entirely in green, their skin covered in some kind of tribal paint. To my relief, I saw that they carried no guns, only spears and bows and war axes. They spoke in a guttural language I didn’t recognize, their eyes gleaming with undisguised bloodlust.

  Ykos roared as he leapt over the building he'd been hiding behind in a single bound, snapping his wings out in the air. The men yelped in terror as he snatched one out of the air and crushed him between his talons, then swiped at the rest with his tail. They went down like a row of empty wine bottles, weapons clattering to the floor.

  Rhia, Jallis, and I rushed them, yelling war cries as we went. Three of the men were on their feet by the time we reached them, and I gored one while Rhia slashed at another with her sword. Halldor spun through the others like a dervish with his twin blades, slicing them up like cows at a slaughterhouse. By the time we finished, blood spattered our armor and the nearby houses, running through ancient streets that probably hadn't seen this kind of action in centuries.

  "Skies." Rhia wiped her blade off on one of the dead men's trousers before sheathing it. She looked a little pale beneath the spatter of blood that dotted her cheek. Though she'd seen warfare, she likely hadn't killed very many people in her short military career. "I think I'm going to be sick."

  She spun around and made it ten feet before she
collapsed to her knees and vomited. Halldor was beside her in an instant, holding her hair out of the way while she heaved her breakfast.

  "It's all right," he said as she retched, rubbing her back in soothing circles. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to everybody."

  I retreated to our camp to check on Tibo and give Rhia and Halldor a bit of privacy. Part of me was glad I wasn't retching with her, but the rest of me wondered if I hadn't lost something of myself. But no, my retching days at the sight of dead bodies were long over. I'd killed far too many, both in the name of self-defense and in the defense of others, for blood and gore to turn my stomach now.

  "Are they all dead?" Tibo asked when I walked in. He was clutching the dagger Rhia had given him, and his keen eyes took in my blood-covered armor with an intensity that was unsettling. "You didn't get hurt, did you?"

  "No." I shook my head as I sat down behind him, reaching for a bottle of water and a rag to wash the blood off me. "With our dragons, they were no match for us."

  "Good." He leaned his head back on the wall, his white-knuckled grip on the dagger finally loosening. "Don't feel bad," he said, glancing at me. "They deserved it."

  I arched an eyebrow at him. "How do you know I feel bad?"

  He shrugged. "You've got this look in your eyes that adults get when they're not sure they did the right thing." A sad look passed across his little face. "My mother would get that look sometimes when she punished me for doing bad things. But those men would have done worse if you'd let them live. If someone had taken down the men who attacked my village the way you killed these men, they'd be called a hero."

  "Out of the mouths of babes," Lessie said, a little disbelievingly. "You know, I'm glad we rescued this kid. I like him a lot."

  I smiled at Tibo. "You know, you're a pretty smart kid," I said. "Wherever you end up, I think you're going to do just fine."

  17

  The next several days of flying were some of the most grueling traveling I'd ever done. With the dragon god determined to thwart us, our days were haunted by nightmares, making the night flights exhausting. We had to use the tincture Daria had given us, but one of us had to refrain each day, which meant we were still all short of sleep.

  Worse, the tincture didn't work on the dragons at all, which meant they were feeling the strain worse than the rest of us. More often than not, we were woken by the dragons thrashing or roaring in their sleep. Once, Ykos had set fire to the field we'd been sleeping in. If Halldor, who'd been keeping watch, hadn't roused us from our sleep-in time, we might have lost our belongings in the resulting firestorm.

  "At least we're not flying through the desert anymore," Lessie said on the fourth day. "I was worried that we would never see water again."

  "Yeah, that was pretty nerve-wracking." Because the dragons were so tired from lack of sleep, it had taken us three days to cross the vast Aranean Desert instead of one. Prior to that, we'd been flying over a tropical landscape thick with humidity, the forests crawling with all manner of poisonous and deadly creatures. But the desert had been worse. With only cacti and other strange desert plants, there had been no trees to shelter us from the sun as it pounded overhead. If not for the canvas tents we'd packed, I'm not sure we would have survived it at all.

  Now we were finally flying through a temperate climate again, the country of Temeire sprawled beneath us. A large triangle, it made up the southernmost tip of the continent, surrounded on two sides by the vast Nirean Sea. My heart rose at the sight of ships traveling to and from the various port cities lining the coast. None were quite big enough to carry three dragons, but I was sure we would eventually find something.

  "Let's land there," Halldor said, pointing to a thickly wooded region several miles inland. "That's only a few hours’ journey to Roccar. If any captain has a ship large enough to transport all of us, we'll find it there—it’s the largest port city in Temeire."

  “Okay.” We directed the dragons to land in the forest, settling in a clearing large enough for them to hide in. "You up for walking?" I asked Tibo as he slid off Ykos's back. He'd taken turns riding with each of us so as not to overtax the already exhausted dragons.

  Tibo nodded, but the dark circles under his eyes worried me. "I can manage," he said stubbornly, lifting his chin as he caught the sympathy in my gaze. "I'm just as strong as you."

  "No doubt about it, kid," Halldor said as he caught Tibo by the waist. The boy protested as Halldor lifted him onto his broad shoulders. "But you need your strength for tomorrow. Gotta be sharp for those interviews, right?"

  Tibo nodded, his face tightening with nerves. We'd stopped twice on our journey in small villages, partly to refill our supplies, but also to see if there was a family who could take Tibo in. No luck so far, and though I'd never tell Tibo, I was starting to worry. What if we couldn't find someone to take him? Were we really going to bring him to the forge?

  "Who knows," Lessie said wryly. "He might end up being helpful. For all we know, Derynnis has a soft spot for children."

  "Not likely." I smacked her shoulder. "Now settle down and get some sleep."

  The four of us took only the basic essentials, leaving the rest of our luggage with the dragons. They would stay tucked away in the forest while we scouted out the city, then meet us once we'd secured a ship. Though the piece of heart weighed heavily in the pouch on my hip with every step I took, I was happy that Halldor and I were taking the relics away from the dragons. Hopefully with some distance between us, the dragons would be able to get some good sleep for once.

  By the time we arrived in Roccar, it was well after midnight, and Tibo was sound asleep in Halldor's arms. Luckily, we found an inn with a room large enough to accommodate all of us, and after taking first watch—no way would we let our guard down with two of the relics in our possession—I smeared some tincture under my nose, fell face-first into the bed, and instantly sank into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, Halldor and I slipped out into the city while Rhia and Tibo slept.

  "They're going to be pissed we left them behind," Halldor said cheerfully as we walked through the busy streets. "This place is fascinating."

  "I agree."

  As the largest port city in Temeire, Roccar was a bustling hive of activity. Conversations in more languages than I could count swirled around us as people from all over the world moved through the city, some in a hurry to their destination, others on leisurely strolls. The citizens seemed to come from all over the continent judging by their looks. Some had eyes the size of saucers, others narrow and slanted. There were bronze-skinned women with golden eyes, and pale skinned men with silver hair. Large, hulking brutes that looked like they crushed skulls for a living, and tiny waifs who were full grown and yet came up no higher than my waist. I’d never seen so much variety in one place before.

  "But the nightmares seem to be hitting Rhia especially hard,” I continued, “even with the tincture. I think giving her time away from the relics will help." As for Tibo, he was a growing boy who'd been through a lot of hardship. Giving him a soft bed to sleep on for as long as he wanted seemed like the least I could do.

  "Yeah." Halldor sobered a little. "She's been incredibly strong through all this. I don't know that I would have been able to shoulder the amount of responsibility she has when I was her age."

  I glanced sideways at Halldor. He was a few years older than me—maybe thirty-two, thirty-three—while Rhia, though I often forgot it, was just coming up on twenty.

  "Just how long have you had designs on Rhia?" I asked, remembering that he and Rhia had been at the same camp while I'd been stuck at the Traggaran Channel.

  He smiled crookedly. "Since the moment I saw her," he said. "When she first walked into camp, she was nervous. She's gentler, more feminine, than the other female soldiers in the camp, and I think some people underestimated her in the beginning. But behind the fear I saw the steel, and I knew that with just a little bit of hammering, she'd become a formidable weapon."<
br />
  I raised an eyebrow. "Exactly what kind of hammering are we talking about?"

  Halldor's cheeks turned bright red. "That's not what I mean, and you know it," he sputtered as I cackled with glee.

  "I know." I clapped him on the shoulder. "And that's why I'm going to let you marry her."

  "Marry her?" Halldor looked like his eyes were going to bulge out of his skull.

  "We can pick out a ring right now, if you'd like." I gestured to a ruby as we passed a jeweler's stall. "I think she'd like this one, don't you?"

  Halldor let out an exasperated huff. "Quit messing with me."

  I whirled around and poked him in the chest. "I will," I said, looking up into a pair of bewildered blue eyes that were far too similar to my own to be a coincidence. "Just so long as you understand that if you mess with her, you have to answer to me."

  Halldor's gaze hardened. "Women's hearts aren't playthings," he growled. "I would never promise Rhia anything I wasn't prepared to follow through on."

  "Good," I said cheerfully. "Then we understand each other."

  I dropped my hand and continued walking, Halldor behind me muttering something about women. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't have pushed, but I knew from my time spent with Rhia at the academy that she hadn't had much time for romance. When she wasn't training to be a dragon rider, she'd spent all her spare time helping her mother with the family shipping business. And because Rhia's family were of the merchant class despite being dragon riders, most of the guys, who came from noble families, hadn't been allowed to show interest in her. Now that one was, I needed to make sure that he wasn't going to treat Rhia like a conquest, someone to tumble in the hay with before moving onto bigger and better things.

  She deserved better than that for her first time.

  "Here we are," I said as we emerged from a shopping district. The port spread out before us, a long row of docks jutting out into the ocean. Dozens of vessels floated in the bay, at least ten large enough to carry dragons. "There's got to be someone here who will take us." We'd brought more than enough gold to buy off even the most recalcitrant captain.