Dragon Force: The Complete Series

by Lucia Ashta

  “She’s learning,” Dean said. Was I learning to become visible? I didn’t think I was. But Dean carried on. “She’s only just discovered she has faithum.”

  “Oh,” Boom said, and several of them nodded their heads, as if that made perfect sense. As if faithum were something they’d known about all along. I felt more shocked than any of them looked.

  “Which makes her an even better option to spy on Pumpoo. Last time we saw him, when Jore tried to stick us down a hole, Pumpoo said he had faithum.”

  “We remember,” Scar said. “It’s not something we’re likely to forget. He forbade all of us from even considering faithum, meanwhile, he’s all into it, building his power. That’s one thing I have every intention of making him pay for. He limited his ‘people,’ making us feel less powerful than we might be, all for his pathetic little power trip. He’s gonna get it from me if I have any say about it.”

  “Your intentions are noted,” Dean said, as if the charmers made threats to the chieftain every day. Maybe they did, he certainly deserved them.

  “Wait,” I said. “Are you suggesting that all of the Ooba people might have... faithum?” It was a ludicrous question, but none of them looked as if it they thought it was.

  “Why not?” Scar said. “If that sniveling rat, who hides under a shade he can’t even bother carrying, can have faithum, then we sure as hell might. We certainly deserve it more. We’d do good with it, not what that creep would do.”

  Dean said, “We’re only as limited as we believe we are, right?”

  “Right,” Brute said. “You’ve been telling us that since the start.”

  “Well, if there was ever a time, now is most definitely the time to believe in ourselves and our potential. Not only do we have to defeat a power-hungry chieftain, who has all our people in his pocket, but we might also need to find a way to ride a dragon.”

  Boom chortled. “Sure, that’s an easy one. Who the hell’s going to ride one of the crazy beasts? No offense meant to you, Rosie.”

  So I wasn’t the only one to talk to Rosie as if she were a person....

  “Besides,” Boom continued, “that’s what Pumpoo claimed one of the seers said, one of the seers we conveniently never see. It might all be dragon dung.”

  “It absolutely might be. Pumpoo is filled to the brim with dragon dung. But there’s something about it that makes me think there might be something to it. Maybe it isn’t exactly how Pumpoo said it, but there’s... something there.”

  “Is this one of your feelings?” Peachy asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Then we need to take it seriously.”

  Dean nodded while I reeled. What? They take feelings and senses seriously? This was a way of life I’d never imagined possible. Is this how Father was? With a pang, I realized how much I missed him, especially now that I realized he might have actually understood me better than I understood myself. These were his people. This was the crew he ran with before he died. He would’ve shared their beliefs. He would have completely accepted me, and he would have even perhaps been able to guide me into becoming something more than the error I’d always thought I was.

  Damn, I missed him. I missed Rane too, as if I were missing an appendage. I’d never been separated from him for long. I missed Traya and mother. I missed the life I’d thought I couldn’t wait to leave behind. And now I had no idea when I might be able to return to it, if there was any returning.

  Scar said, “So we can send Anira to spy on Pumpoo, but we have some problems. What to do with Rosie, and this dragon rider issue.”

  “And the shadow man,” Shula, who’d remained quiet till then, said.

  “Aye, the shadow man,” Dean said. “I have no idea how we’ll deal with the shadow man.”

  From the reactions of the other charmers, Dean didn’t lack ideas often.

  “It’s possible—maybe even likely—that this shadow man was heading toward Anira when he came here.”

  “But he could have also been heading for Rosie, right?” Crush asked.

  “Right. We don’t know if he managed to see Anira or not.”

  “Can anyone see her?” Peachy asked.

  “No,” I said. Not even my twin. “But I think Rosie can. She’s the only one.”

  “So dragons can see you.”

  “Uh, no, not all dragons.”

  “And you know this how?” Dean asked, sounding a bit like Mother.

  “Because I, uh, have gone to see the dragons... a bit.”

  “A bit, huh?”

  “Aye.”

  “And they can’t see you?”

  “They don’t seem to.”

  Scar said, “But if the dragons are far away, they might see you and still not attack. They don’t always attack us.”

  “But we’re charmers,” Boom said. “We’ve earned a certain level of trust with them. They wouldn’t be that way with someone they didn’t know.”

  “It’s true,” Brute said, in his deep bass.

  “I’m sure they can’t see me,” I interjected before they could continue belaboring the point. “Other than Rosie, they’ve never seen me, and before you ask, I know because I’ve touched one before, and she didn’t know where to turn to find me.”

  For the first time, silence filled the clearing.

  “You... touched a she dragon?” Peachy asked.

  “Uh, yeah. I, uh, slapped her, actually.”

  “You slapped a she dragon?”

  “Mmm, aye.” It wasn’t one of my proudest moments. “I only did it to save someone’s life, it’s not like I go around slapping dragons or anything.”

  “Dram.” Dean said only the one word. He was far too perceptive. What else did he see that he didn’t let on about?

  “Aye, Dram.”

  “What about Dram?” Scar asked.

  Dean said, “The boy nearly got mauled by a she dragon. But he didn’t. The dragon had him pinned down, and then she turned and ran the other way, long enough for him to get to safety.” To me, he said, “Did I get it right?”

  “More or less.”

  “So you’re the one who got Dram to safety.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  I didn’t answer. There was no need. They seemed to know more than I did.

  Boom barked in laughter. “I like this girl.”

  “Aye,” Peachy said. “She’s crazy enough to fit in with the lot of us.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be looped into their kind of crazy. Legend had it that it knew no bounds. An undeniable warmth spread through me anyway.

  “You’ll like her even more once I tell you who her father is,” Dean said.

  “Oh? Who would that be?” Peachy asked Dean.

  But Shula was the one to answer. “Alden.”

  A second bout of silence filled the clearing. Then Peachy, with what looked suspiciously like a tear in her eye, said, “Well then welcome to the family, Anira.”

  “Hear hear,” Boom said, and even the gruff Scar said, “Now you’re one of us.”

  And as the dragon charmers drew nearer, I was certain my secret was safe with them.

  Too bad I still had another one I hadn’t shared, and it would get me killed more readily than my invisibility.

  Chapter Six

  Once the dragon charmers realized I was my father’s daughter, as a group, they became protective. What Father had done to earn so much dedication and loyalty, they didn’t tell me, but they left no doubt they took their promises seriously. Which was a good thing, except that now they didn’t want me go spy on Pumpoo.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Scar said for the umpteenth time. “Not just Pumpoo, but whatever this shadow thing is. If he can see Anira, then she can’t leave our side.”

  “We don’t know if he can see me,” I said, also not for the first time.

  “So you’ve said. But you can’t be sure he doesn’t, which means you going out there to spy on Pumpoo is not an option.”

  “It has to be an option. We have no
other ones. We have to learn what Pumpoo’s up to. If we don’t, we’re at his mercy.”

  “I don’t think mercy is the word to use with him,” Crush said.

  “No, out of the question,” Scar said, crossing his arms across his chest, concealing the scars on the backs of his hands. “We owe Alden. We can’t send his daughter into that viper’s nest.”

  “I agree,” Dean said, “but what else do you suggest? Because I’m out of ideas.”

  “Then we’ll just have to wait until you come up with something, because I’m not letting her go.”

  “Since when do I need your permission to do anything?” It came out harsher than I intended, but I wasn’t used to strangers telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I ignored Mother’s wishes half the time, and I didn’t even know these people. They knew my father, not me.

  “You might not need our permission, but I don’t care. Your father wouldn’t want you to go, so I’m not letting you.”

  I made an exasperated sound, but no one cared. These men and women dealt with dragons on a daily basis. I doubted there was much I could do to intimidate them, especially when they couldn’t see me.

  “You want to go,” Brute said, “but what would you do if the shadow man found you?”

  When I didn’t have an answer, Scar said to the rest of them, “See? This is why she can’t go? The shadow man took out three of our own. Three of us, and you all know what we’re capable of, how honed we are to our surroundings. If the shadow thing could surprise them, she doesn’t stand a chance.”

  Even though every word he said was true, it made me want to go all the more. I realized it was a reckless desire, and it was probably immature, but I didn’t like it when people told me what I couldn’t do. Who did? I’d lived a life where I was told all the things I couldn’t do. Now that my secret was out, I wasn’t having any of it. “The reality is that you can’t stop me. If I decide to spy on Pumpoo and help our people that way, I will, because none of you can even see me to interfere.”

  That’s when I discovered that Scar didn’t back down from a fight. He seemed only to grow stronger. He took a step forward. “We might not be able to see you, but we can see Rosie.”

  Dammit. He was right. “You said we’d need to tie up Rosie so I could do this anyway, didn’t you? Then I’ll tie her up.” I said it, though I didn’t mean it. But I didn’t back down from a fight either, even if my fights had been far smaller than a man’s who’d earned the nickname Scar.

  “You wouldn’t,” he said. “You were just saying how you wouldn’t do that to her.”

  “That was before I realized you’d try to control me.”

  “I’m not trying to control you, I’m trying to keep you alive.”

  His words touched my heart, but I still said, “My life, my choice.” It was why Mother called me hard headed.

  Scar glared at me. I glared right back, even if he couldn’t tell. He said, “You won’t tie her up.”

  “Oh yeah? Just watch me. Does anybody have some rope?”

  But when Brute pulled some rope out of his pack and handed it to me, I realized I couldn’t do what I’d threatened to do. Rosie nuzzled my thighs, and I wouldn’t allow her to pay the price of my big mouth. When my hands stilled on the rope, Dean came up to me, put a hand on my back, and said, “You don’t have to do it, you know. No one would blame you. It’s not cowardly, it’s the smart thing to do.”

  “It’s not that,” I said, even though it was, just a little bit. “How else will we gain an advantage in this fight if I don’t do this? Pumpoo has the odds stacked in his favor. If I don’t do this, things will only get worse. I mean, he has a shadow man working for him!”

  “We think the shadow man’s working for him.”

  “He must be. It’d be too much of a coincidence if he’d just shown up out of nowhere at the same time as Pumpoo announces he’s looking to amass faithum. Didn’t you tell me there was no such thing as a coincidence?”

  “I’m sure he did,” Peachy said. “It’s not like we haven’t heard that same thing like a thousand times.”

  “If Pumpoo has shadow men at his disposal, what else does he have? What else will he be able to surprise us with? He was looking for a connection between the dragons and faithum. It could get bad really fast.”

  Dean allowed the weight of the burdens he carried to pass through his hand. It felt like it weighed as much as him across my shoulder.

  “See?” I said. “There is no other way. I don’t like this either, and I especially don’t like leaving Rosie behind, but if I don’t do this, the entire Ooba tribe could pay the price. Tell me that isn’t true, and I’ll stay.”

  He hesitated. “I can’t.” The admission pained him.

  “Exactly. I have to go.”

  “You could die. Pumpoo could kill you. The shadow man could kill you. Something else we haven’t seen yet could kill you. Anything—”

  “I get the point,” I said, cutting Dean off. “Lots of things could kill me. Well, I have news for you. That’s an ordinary day for me. I’ve lived with a death sentence over my head my entire life.” Dammit! I didn’t think, and I’d voiced my deepest thoughts. I hurried on, hoping they’d believe the death sentence was from being invisible and not a forbidden twin. “I’ve lived my entire life without any purpose. I need to do this, not just for our people, but for me.”

  Dean looked at me so hard I almost believed he could actually see my eyes. “All right. Do it, but promise me you’ll be more careful than you’ve ever been in your life.”

  “I promise.” That was one I could make. I had every intention of returning. “But I can’t tie up Rosie. We need to find another way.”

  “Try talking to her.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve seen you talk to her like a person. Dragons are like all animals. They understand us more than we think. That’s one of the few things that set us charmers apart. We believe this.”

  “It’s true,” Crush said.

  “All right,” I said, feeling awkward about talking to Rosie in front of everyone there. “Rosie, girl, I need to go somewhere, and you have to stay behind. You can’t come with me, do you understand? I want you to stay here. I’ll be back, but until then, they’ll take care of you.”

  Rosie took me in with those deep eyes, and I swore she understood. I smiled. Maybe there wasn’t all that much to this dragon charming business. “Good girl. I’ll be back soon, all right? Now, stay.”

  I took an experimental step away, and she stayed. I laughed. “Good girl.” I took a few more steps away, and Rosie watched. She let me get all the way across the clearing before she bounded toward me, without evidence of her former injuries. “No, Rosie. You need to stay. Stay.” But when I took several more steps away from her, she bounded toward me again.

  “She’s a baby. She thinks it’s a game,” Brute said.

  “Dragon babies play games?”

  “Considering Rosie’s the first baby we’ve ever gotten to spend time with, I’d say, yes. All babies play games, all animals, even dragons.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “I have a sleeping potion,” Peachy said. “We could put her to sleep. By the time she wakes up, you’ll be gone.”

  “And she’ll be all right? I mean, this sleeping potion won’t hurt her?”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  “It shouldn’t, or it won’t?”

  “I’ve used it on full-grown dragons before, just never on babies. I’ll err on the side of too little for dosing. After all, she doesn’t need to sleep long, just enough for you to get away. She should be fine.”

  I stared at Rosie and sighed. Dammit, why couldn’t life be simple? “All right, let’s do it,” but even as I said it, I felt the weight of a premonition settling across me, whispering, Don’t do it. But what other choice did we have? I couldn’t very well spy on Pumpoo with her along. “Let’s give her the sleeping potion.”

  Chapter Seven

  I got just far
enough away that I couldn’t return to the dragon charmer camp fast enough to prevent whatever was going to happen. I didn’t know what would happen, but I sensed it wouldn’t be good.

  I was about halfway up the mountain path that led to the village when the first whimpers reached me. But though they sounded like whimpers to my ears, they couldn’t have been. The sound traveled too far to be anything less than a sharp, agonized cry.

  And that wasn’t the worst of it. I’d already turned back around to return to camp, because I realized who was causing the sounds. Though the cries were unlike any I’d heard before, they tugged at my heart with familiarity. Rosie had woken up and was crying for me.

  I had to be the one to spy on Pumpoo; there was no putting aside that obligation, but I wouldn’t go like this. I didn’t know of another way, but I’d find it. The dragon baby had already endured more suffering than was reasonable. I wouldn’t contribute to her torment.

  I was making good progress when the crying turned into a keening that wove its way across the distance to pierce my heart. I ran. As fast as my feet could carry me, I tore down that mountain path. The keening only grew stronger.

  I tore past the sacred pools that I’d never before passed without stopping to appreciate. I flew into the clearing, eyes scanning desperately for Rosie. Every one of the charmers but Crush, who stood back and watched both the group and the surroundings, huddled around Rosie. They’d backed her into a thick copse of trees at the edge of the clearing, and though I knew they meant her no harm, she might not.

  “Oh thank the oasis,” Crush said. “She’s here!”

  As if I were some sort of savior, the dragon charmers parted for me. I expected Rosie to dash to my side, but she whimpered and cowered. A thousand different ways, I regretted having decided to leave her behind. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen any other way to do what I needed to save our people, nothing was worth the betrayed, hurt look on her plump dragon face.

  “Rosie,” I said as I slid my arms around her. “I’m so sorry, girl. I didn’t mean to upset you. The last thing I’d ever want to do is cause you any kind of harm.” I pressed my head against her snout, and only then did she collapse into my arms.