Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 1-4

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  “Thank you!” The apprentice grabbed his heavy basket and hurried off.

  I looked both ways before stashing the basket I had under the corner of a tent. These satchels were a better cover anyway. And they needed to go to the very place I was headed. Lucky, that.

  Perhaps you are touched by a great story. Sometimes, what looks like luck is just a great story catching you up and propelling you along. Like how we came to be bonded together, or how you escaped our first battle unscathed, or how you ran into Bataar when we needed an ally ...

  I hoped not. People in stories had the worst time of things. They never had enough to eat or a comfortable bed or a bit of fun. It was just work and sacrifice all the time.

  You mean like now? Don’t forget, Tor. The world hangs in the balance. Hubric said so.

  I tried not to curse.

  I hurried through the camp, the very picture of an apprentice on a mission. With the rise of the dark, the Magika camp seemed busier than ever and their bright fire-displays in red, magenta, and emerald were pretty enough that I would have stopped to watch them practice if I wasn’t in such a hurry.

  I felt sweat cooling on my brow. Great. Now I was nervous, and I never let myself get nervous about anything. Things either were, or they weren’t. No point fretting about it all.

  You’d be a fool not to be nervous. Now that I see those Magika light displays, I’m worried that your distraction won’t draw the attention you were hoping for.

  She was worried?

  I was worried!

  She was the one safe on the hillside while I was the one risking my neck!

  I rushed through the traffic of people moving between the tents and breathed a sigh of relief when I was finally just outside the red and white tent. This was madness. I should be far away from this camp by now, heading back to Vanika.

  Where men with swirls in their eyes stalk you?

  She knew about that?

  You think about it a lot.

  A pair of guards stood watch at the entrance, but that wasn’t how I was planning to go in anyway. People always forgot that tents were just made of cloth. A cloth wall was nothing to a man with a sharp knife.

  I quickly scurried around the back of the tent. It backed against two other tents and the second that I thought no one was looking, I snuck between them, hiding from view in the small space between the tent backs.

  I could hear the murmur of voices from the white and red tent as I slipped the satchels off my shoulders. If I got a chance, I’d take the one with the bread with us. We could use the extra food.

  Okay, now’s the time, Bataar! Bataar? If only he could hear me like Saboraak could.

  Give him time.

  Or, maybe he was betraying me. Maybe even now he was telling the Magikas that I was here and that I was trying to take something from them. Maybe I should go without his distraction.

  Wait.

  You couldn’t trust people who just turned up out of nowhere. That just didn’t make sense. It was too convenient, too easy. I’d been a fool to trust him.

  One more second ...

  A fool! I should be found out and tortured by magic. It was what I deserved for being such an idiot!

  BOOM!

  The sound was so loud that I fell to the ground, landing hard on my rear and for a moment, everything was silent.

  Chapter Sixteen

  UP! UP! HURRY!

  What happened?

  Bataar lit the storage tent on fire just like you asked him to.

  A simple tent fire was a good distraction, but I didn’t expect ...

  Stop thinking and act! Bataar is in trouble and I might need to fly in sooner than we expected.

  Don’t hurry just for him. He’ll be fine.

  Don’t be heartless! I certainly will not wait if he needs me! We promised him a rescue, too. Now, get moving. I can only give you a few minutes.

  I leapt to my feet, slashed the back of the red and white tent with my knife and rushed in through the slash. The old expression ‘A fool rushes where a blind man is too wise to tread’ came to mind.

  As soon as my head was through, I froze.

  The tent was full of people, most of them clustered at the entrance, looking out at the distraction. There was a pair of burly guards close to the entrance and a few Magikas of various sizes, shapes, and colors. But what caught my attention was a man with a heavy, curving blade in one hand who stood at the center of the tent looking out. He wore bright purple Magika robes lined with strange symbols and scrollwork.

  Maybe that’s why they call him Shabren the Violet.

  He was a bit ostentatious. Could anyone be taken seriously in clothing like that?

  They can when they carry big swords and perform magic. And the girl? Where is she?

  I heard a small sound and looked right below me.

  Skies and Stars! I could have cut her with the blade!

  Gold colored eyes glittered in the light, just as Hubric said, and I started to smile. My smile melted when a second set of gold eyes turned to me. There were two girls – both with hands tied and both with imploring golden eyes. I looked from one to the other. They were mirror images of each other, each with dark skin, freckles, golden eyes, and short, curling hair. They looked about my age, maybe a year or two older, but delicate and slight. They were mirror images of one another and I found my eyes quickly looking back and forth from one to the other as if to compare each set of features to the other. Hubric never said anything about two girls!

  I blinked, but there was no time to second guess. Hubric could figure it all out later.

  Carefully, I eased my way through the gash in the tent and slipped in behind them, slicing the ropes that held them tight. All attention was still on the tent entrance but at any moment it could turn back to us.

  Skies and stars! Rescue missions were not my thing.

  “Stop!” the word thundered from the center of the room and I looked up, knife in hand. I pulled my dagger awkwardly from its sheath, licking my lips.

  “Run,” I whispered, hoping the girls would listen. They scrambled behind me without a word.

  Shabren the Violet raised his curved blade, but humor painted his face.

  “And what are you, little mouse? More boy than man, no proper weapon, and I can sense ... no magic. What do you think you’ll do here? Gnaw at my heels?”

  Saboraak had better hurry!

  I told you not to pick up more stragglers. What am I supposed to do with four people?

  It was her idea to include Bataar, so she could figure it out. Besides, there was no way to tell which girl we were here for.

  I could feel my legs trembling. I willed them to stop. You were only as big as the image you projected. I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. Focus on looking big and bold!

  Behind the Magika the others fanned out like an audience trying to get a good spot to watch from. No one bothered with weapons, though there was a grin or two from the audience. I shifted my grip on the dagger and glanced quickly over my shoulder.

  “Oh, they ran out the back like you wanted, boy. Two more mice running out of the trap – but a mouse won’t get far in a camp of traps. Someone will scoop them up for me. You, on the other hand, you interest us.” Shabren smiled. He was even bigger than I realized and his smile was a little too easy, a little too charming, a little too handsome, like the smile of a man who always got what he wanted.

  “Us?” I hated that my voice wavered. I wasn’t afraid. Of course not! I’d seen worse. I clamped down on my own mind as it tried to feed me images of a burning city and people screaming as they were engulfed by flames. I wouldn’t think about that. Couldn’t.

  “Davorek here had been asking me to demonstrate a new trick I learned,” Shabren the Violet said. Maybe they called him that for the purple shade across his cheeks where blood vessels had burst and left their spider lines across his skin. They didn’t quite mar his otherwise good looks. I’d known my share of men with faces like that. They like
d to drink.

  A man with dark hair set off by wings of white over the temples smiled slightly. Davorek. He carefully circled, blocking the rip in the tent where I’d entered. I’d remember him. He looked like he’d eat horses if he got the chance. Horrible man.

  Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

  Was that her first joke? Now is not the time for jokes!

  I lifted my dagger a little higher.

  “I won’t be using the blade,” Shabren said. “Except to direct the flows of magic. Did you know you don’t need to actually hurt a man’s body to make his mind think he’s hurting?”

  That didn’t sound good. No, no it didn’t. What was I doing here? Facing evil people face to face was not my deal!

  Wait.

  What was I doing here?

  I leapt at the same time that violet bands of energy – horizontal lightning – reached for me. That’s how he got his name! The lightning flashed over my head as I hit the loose rugs on the floor with a thud, but I wasn’t done. I scrambled forward, one thought in mind.

  I crawled to the corner of the tent, ignoring the cursing behind me. There! In the corner of the tent. I sawed at the rope holding the edge of the tent out. If I could get out under that corner I could cut the ropes and collapse the tent. That was more my style.

  My knife dropped from limp fingers. Wha-

  And then pain hit like I’d never felt before. Horrible, wracking pain. I fell backward, writhing and tossing on the floor like a strong wind was whipping my rag-doll body across a field of rocks. I couldn’t make out the words or sounds above me, couldn’t even see the world except for in glimpses.

  Panic washed over me like waves. Horrible, squeezing waves, snatching my breath, filling my lungs with water, battering me back under just when I thought I might escape.

  Darkness filled my vision and then a quick glimpse of the interior of the tent, the hole I’d cut in the side flapping in the wind. I wished – pain took the wish right from my mind like plucking a leaf from the grasp of a toddler.

  Saboraak! Help! Help me!

  Darkness again and then a glimpse of Shabren, Davorek and the others standing over me, looking down. I needed – thought left again.

  Saboraak!

  Darkness and then faces, but over their heads the cloth of the red and white tent tore apart, flames licking the edges. Burning ash rained down over us.

  The faces vanished and through my shaking and twitching, I thought I heard screams and the scent of burning flesh. There was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground and then a wet white muzzle drew close to me. One burning eye was inches from mine.

  Still alive?

  If she drooled on me, I would make her haul a cart for the rest of her life.

  Our relationship doesn’t work that way. Besides, you called me. I came. End of story.

  Someone was calling my name. I was too disoriented to know who – and then rough hands were lifting me, and I was thrown over someone’s shoulder. Oof! The breath knocked out of me as his pointy shoulder dug into my diaphragm. Would a little care be too much to ask?

  I was thrown roughly over the saddle. There was a sense of being crowded, like people’s legs and rears were closer to my limp body than I might like. All I could see was the pattern of the rug on the ground below us. There were holes in the pattern where the burning ash had seared it.

  Screams and smoke surrounded us.

  “Hurry!” A female voice shrieked over me. It pierced my skull, reverberating through my brain. I tried to slap at the sound, but my hand barely moved.

  We lifted into the air suddenly, but with more wobble than I was used to with Saboraak.

  Four is a lot!

  I remembered Kyrowat carrying six people.

  Males are stronger.

  The carpet was suddenly far away and instead I was watching a burning encampment, fire everywhere. Balls of fire in green and magenta streaked toward us from the ant-like people on the ground, but bright orange flames consumed the tents below. One here, one there, and where the supply tent used to be was nothing but a black crater.

  “You almost killed me with that brilliant ‘distraction’,” Bataar said as we rose higher in the air, so high that even the fireballs couldn’t reach us. He sounded annoyed.

  “Mnph,” I replied. Yeah! Take that comeback!

  “If it wasn’t for this dragon, you’d be useless.”

  Ha! Joke was on him, because I was alive and while there was life, there was ... something. Not hope, obviously. Utility? Use? Life?

  Get some rest. I’ll find a relatively safe place to take us and then we’ll worry about your ability to mangle old wives’ sayings.

  I couldn’t afford to sleep. I needed to keep everyone safe. Not that I would, of course. That wasn’t my deal. I wasn’t the hero type.

  Just go to sleep. Hero.

  I wasn’t going to sleep, and she couldn’t make me. And I wasn’t a hero.

  And yet, you act like one constantly.

  Exhaustion hit me like a sledgehammer and everything went black.

  Dragon Chameleon: Paths of Deception

  Chapter One

  “THEY’RE FOLLOWING US. A fire is a bad idea,” a girl’s voice was saying.

  Why did she have to be so loud? I just needed one more minute of sleep. Just one more minute to clear my head a bit.

  Wake up, trout, or you won’t get any say in what happens next.

  Memory crashed in like an uninvited guest. Oh yes, my bossy dragon friend, Saboraak. It sounded like her threat skills were as bad as her joke skills.

  I felt the equivalent to a mental sigh.

  I’m looking out for you. Do you want others to decide your fate for you, or do you want to be master of your own fate? We are ruled by our choices, but also by the choices of those around us. As much as possible, we should influence those choices for good. We must refuse to only look out for ourselves.

  It would be nice to be master of something. Other memories were flooding my head now. Had my heroic moment really been when I ran away from a guy named Shabren the Violet?

  Precisely.

  Ugh. It would be hard to hold my head up high with that on my mind. But I’d never pretended to be a hero.

  I think you will find that character isn’t always what’s impressive about a person from the outside. It’s an inner mettle they possess that shows itself in the middle of great difficulty. Together, we will hammer some character into you.

  The only thing inside of me was a trace of beef jerky. My stomach rumbled to emphasize the point and my eyes shot open.

  I was lying against something hard and hot – Saboraak, no doubt. She was faithful, it would seem. I had no idea before meeting her that dragons were so affectionate to humans.

  Don’t mistake my nurturing spirit for affection, trout. It’s not about who you are. It’s about who I am.

  I also had no idea that they were so bad with nicknames. Trout? Really? Just because my eyes went big one time?

  Flames licked sluggishly along wet wood in a circle of rocks just in front of me. Bataar – my new ally – leaned over the flames, blowing into the embers a little too aggressively. We had a dragon here. Why didn’t he ask her for a fire?

  He is too independent to ask for help. A trait you both share.

  Beside of Bataar, a pair of girls watched nervously. They were mirror images of each other from their tousled curly hair – barely brushing their chins in length – to their wide golden eyes. I’d never seen girls like them before. And they were a puzzle. They were holding hands as if they were afraid of letting go.

  Well, first things first. Always lead with a grin.

  I sat up, offering my very best grin. “I expected to rescue just one girl. Zyla.”

  The girls exchanged a glance, but they both looked away from me, as if they weren’t going to say another word. So much for gratitude.

  You need to get over yourself, Tor. This isn’t all about you. Compassion is the door to w
isdom. Open it, and you’ll find that you see the world more clearly.

  I didn’t sign up for a second conscience. Saboraak could keep her moralizing to herself.

  I’m not sure you have a first conscience! Stop whining about what you signed up for and step up! Start with compassion.

  I drew in a deep breath. Skies and Stars! I thought nagging authorities on the outside were a problem but now I was going to have one inside my head for the rest of the foreseeable future.

  The rest of your life.

  Don’t remind me!

  I must have been silent for too long because Bataar stopped blowing on the fire and spoke.

  “The other girl is Zin. They’re sisters.”

  “I can see that.”

  They were staring at me with twin glares, like cats who had just been doused with water.

  “And are we being followed?” I asked Bataar.

  “It seems like it.” He looked over his shoulder nervously and I stared past him, assuming he was looking in the direction of the camp. How far had we flown? It was too dark to see anything, so it must still be night.

  Not far. I was worried about you. We fled less than an hour ago.

  “So why the fire?” I asked, standing up. “Won’t that show them where we are?”

  There was a gasp when I stood, and I turned to see the girls with mirror looks of surprise on their faces. Seriously? Did they do everything in tandem? Were they just one person in two bodies?

  “Where did you get that?” the one on the right said, her deep voice musical. I could get used to that voice. Maybe she could sing ...

  She was staring at me. Those golden eyes were like glittering gems. They were fixed on my chest, probably looking at the tiger’s eye pendant that slipped out of my shirt, but I was very conscious that I was under her gaze.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Oh. Yes. Speaking. I should do that.

  I never signed up to deal with your hormones.

  “Ephretti Oakboon gave it to me. She’s the Castelan of my city – Vanika.”

  Bataar shifted his weight and cursed quietly at the fire he was trying to build but the girl’s eyes widened even further.