Dragons of Dark (Upon Dragons Breath Trilogy Book 3)

by Ava Richardson

  Saffron could stay up here with us, if she chose. Ysix flicked the edge of her long, sinuous blue tail with a heavy slap which splintered some of the smaller shale fragments of rock. She was the daughter of the grand dragon who had raised me, Zenema the White, who had stayed behind on Home Island to fight King Enric’s navy alongside human villagers and youngest of dragons.

  “Great Queen Ysix.” I bowed my head to her, knowing that even though my den-sister Jaydra was equal to Ysix, the blue had left Home Island to become queen of a brood of her own. “Thank you for the offer, but I cannot. I have many human duties below.” Like training Bower’s new Dragon Rider army! I thought heavily.

  What do you mean you cannot live up here? Ysix raised her snout to look at me as if I were ill. Her mind against mine wasn’t like Jaydra’s. There was nothing soft or comforting about it, instead she was all queen. Noble, cold, and commanding.

  There was a time when sister-Saffron lived in Home Mountain with nothing but the sandy floor of the caverns for her bed, as it is with all of us. Or have you forgotten?

  “No, great queen!” I gasped, my heart breaking to think that was the dragons’ opinion of me. Did they think I had turned my back on them? That I had abandoned my past?

  But what sort of past is it? The cruel and callous thought emerged from the depths of my mind. I am no dragon. I have never been a dragon. I am but a little lost orphan girl who was taken in by the dragons. I have the blood of the Maddoxes running in my veins, and I always will…

  I felt torn and divided. Queen Zenema had always wanted me to embrace the magic of my blood, but at the same time she had always been wary of it, bidding me to go slowly, and to have caution. Queen Zenema had tried to teach me the powers of flight, using magic alone, and no dragons beneath me, and I had almost died. She had known all along just what I was and where I had come from, informed by the old island Hermit who had been sent to watch over me by the rebels known as the ‘Salamanders.’

  In case I turn into Enric, I thought. Dark, power-mad, evil. Everyone thought of me as something else. To the dragons, I was still their almost-brood child, to the Three Rivers I was a Maddox, and to Bower it seemed I was a liability. I was starting to feel lost. Who was I really? Who was Saffron Maddox, herself?

  “If I had the chance, Ysix, I would throw away all of this,” I said and knew it was the truth. “All of these human responsibilities—but if I did that, we would not have peace, ever, until King Enric was defeated.”

  Dragons are fierce and brave creatures, Ysix informed me. We were not built for peace. But that does not mean we were built for war, either.

  I bowed my head, accepting the responsibility I bore for bringing the dragons into this war, after all. They were the only creatures strong enough to face King Enric and his magical Iron Guard. Their rightful place was at their ancestral and sacred home on Dragon Mountain, the site of the citadel of Torvald, King Enric’s capital city.

  And yet, if Ysix decided to give up her claim to Dragon Mountain, to take her brood and fly away from this war, I didn’t even know if I would blame them for leaving me alone to stop King Enric’s brutal reign.

  I do not intend to fly away, Saffron of Zenema, but you should also be aware that we may. These new Dragon Riders you are attempting to train are cruel, loud, and clumsy creatures, and they do not match us well. The queen sniffed, raising her head to gaze up the mountain range like the queen she was.

  “But the dragons and the humans,” I said. “Bower told me how they always used to live together. How there used to be Dragon Riders throughout the whole world!”

  Used to be, child, Ysix said, the words clipped and exact. And if there could be once again, I would welcome the peace between us. But these humans and dragons are ill-matched. They need something else to bond them, to draw them together. You and Bower are close to us because you respect us for what we are. We are not dumb animals to you, nor are we fearsome monsters, we are our own beings. These humans…?

  “I see, Ysix. They need to learn to listen to their dragon partners, and quickly, otherwise we will lose the dragons,” I sighed heavily, feeling like the whole project was doomed from the start. How could we ever recover the lost secrets of the Dragon Riders, when King Enric of Torvald had worked for years to dismantle their legacy?

  You are the one training them, Saffron, Ysix reminded me, and I knew she meant the humans.

  The large ram’s horns bugles that were used by the Three Rivers to signal to their whole community sounded, and I turned to see tents dropping to the ground. As I watched, the camp below became smaller and smaller as the humans packed their things expertly. Already at the head of the camp people were starting out. The scouts galloped forward on their small mountain ponies, and then a phalanx of tribal warriors rode out slowly, keeping time with the farmers, herders and citizens behind.

  “Well, I guess that is our call as well,” I said.

  Your call, maybe, trainer, Ysix purred at me and her words stung. I will stay here with my retinue for a few hours yet. The rocks are getting warm, and I am sure your slow feet will not have gotten far by the time we are in the air!

  “As you wish, my queen.” I nodded to her. She was right: I had a lot of work to do if I were going to build more than a haphazard coalition between the humans and the dragons. I was exhausted, and the sun felt good on my back, but I turned my mind out, and called to Jaydra, who was diving and swooping on the edge of my vision.

  Saffron! Wind-Across-Talons showed me an exceptional lake where we found breakfast! Jaydra answered, excited and giddy as she spiraled in the air as if she were a hatchling once again.

  Watching, it was hard to think she was only a handful of years younger than Queen Ysix, her sister.

  “Did you?” I asked Jaydra, while thinking to myself at least one of us had no trouble making friends. Now if only it were just as simple between dragons and other humans.

  Everything is wrong, I thought, as a tide of exhausted frustration crashed over me. I can’t even call these trainees Dragon Riders.

  We were flying over the mountains, using this time to train high above and ahead of the procession of the Three-River’s tribe. Despite the urgency Bower had tried to instill in them, they stopped often as they made their slow way up the valley. There just wasn’t any way of getting a few hundred people to move quickly.

  The mountains rose on either side of us, the air turning cold and fierce where it blew down from the peaks, forming strange gales and currents of air. All of the dragons—except the wild mountain natives—struggled against the cold air and sharp wind.

  What dragon wants to be cold? Jaydra asked me, shivering her scales once more to try and generate some warmth.

  “Well, your friend Wind-Across-Talons, for one,” I said, raising my voice over the rising howl of the wind. Off on one side of us, the wild mountain dragons were spiraling and barreling through the currents, showing off their mastery of this sort of high-altitude flying.

  And if most of the dragons were having a bad time, it was even worse for the humans. I looked in astonishment as one of the tribal riders clung upside down to his dragon as they dropped altitude, the man only barely managing to hang on as his beast righted itself, just in time. Thanks to the difficult conditions, there had already been two collisions. No one had been seriously hurt, thankfully, but it was insult amongst dragons to ever accidentally bang into each other.

  I looked glumly up at the phalanx of rider-less dragons surveying the disastrous training session—Ysix at their head. The group had pulled way back from the trainees.

  Sister-Queen Ysix doesn’t seem happy at all, Jaydra snickered. She had always been a little antagonistic to her sister the queen.

  What if Ysix decided we’re all hopeless and flew off? I thought as I watched another newly-trained Dragon Rider battling fiercely with his mount.

  “Hengist! Pull up! Pull up!” I shouted, urging Jaydra to speed up towards the arguing pair. The human warrior was sending the wrong sig
nals to the creature, telling it to fly straight towards the rocky outcrop.

  I watched in horror as the dragon balked at the nonsensical command and Hengist, the tribesman, started shouting at his beast, kicking with his feet and pulling with his reins at the same time, not the way to train a dragon at all!

  “Hengist, no!” I shouted, and I could feel Jaydra’s surge of annoyance as she saw how stupid the human rider was being. I was just about to tell Jaydra to fly in the way, even scare them both if she could to snap them out of their battle of wits when the wild mountain dragon regained control, and flew how it wanted to, corkscrewing up the cliff. Hengist roared in alarm, thinking his steed had gone almost completely feral.

  Still, it was too close for my liking, my jaw clenching in rage. “Take us alongside them, Jaydra,” I dreaded to think what might happen if one of the wild dragons and one of the tribal trainees had a proper falling out. The whole fragile peace between them might be threatened.

  “Hengist!” I shouted across at him.

  The tribal warrior was a large man, with a red mustache which flew wildly on either side of his face.

  “Did you see this thing nearly kill me?” he spat, glaring back at me.

  Thing? Jaydra hissed, tensing beneath me, her claws sliding out of their sheaths.

  “Right, that’s it Hengist. You’re out!” I yelled to him. “Your dragon will fly you down to rejoin the rest of the clan. You’re done flying for today, and maybe for good!”

  Hengist looked at me as though I had insulted his own mother. “I am one of the few brave enough to stand up in front of the whole clan and ask to be a Dragon Rider! It’s not me, it’s this dragon!”

  The wild dragon underneath him convulsed and snarled savagely.

  “Woah! You see? She’s trying to kill me!” Hengist said.

  “She can sense what you’re feeling, Hengist, and if you are getting angry at her, kicking and pulling at her like that she just thinks she cannot trust your judgement to fly!” I told him.

  “Then she should just fly like I tell her to!” the warrior snapped.

  “She can’t, not in these currents,” I said. “That’s what she’s trying to tell you, if you’d only listen to her body language.” But Hengist just snorted and shook his head, as if I were suggesting he do something insane. He was clearly a man who didn’t like hearing what anyone else had to say. Not his dragon, and especially not a girl who was half his age.

  “Look, Hengist, all you have to do is to calm down. Ease up on the steering reins and give her her head. Use the reins to indicate where you want to go, but let her choose how she gets there,” I said and spurred Jaydra on to fly upward, so he wouldn’t have time to argue with me. Even so, I still heard a growl of frustration from the warrior below, followed by his dragon’s happy whistle as Hengist did as he was told. Their flying was still sloppy, and I wouldn’t want them in a battle any time soon, but it was miles better than it had been before.

  The poor thing is probably glad of the change, I thought with a sense of despairing resignation.

  She is, Jaydra said in my mind, just as we cleared the lead outliers of the Dragon Riders, to see the path up ahead where the pony scouts had stopped. They were waving their arms at us, yelling. Though they were too far away for us to make out the words, their desperation was clear.

  Oh no, I thought, as Jaydra and I raced ahead. How long have they been calling for help?

  4

  Bower, Mountain Ways

  “Sire! There are people trapped under there!” one of the tribal scouts shouted as soon as I came into yelling distance.

  I had been at the head of the procession with the other chieftains and elders, hearing their complaints and wishing I was upon the broad back of Jaydra instead of a tiny mountain pony when an island dragon had broken into my mind and summoned me to Saffron’s side, to a scene of devastation.

  “What happened?” I called to the tribal scout who stood at the head of a narrow path leading through the gap in the rock walls. Or rather, where a gap had once been, before being blocked with large boulders.

  “Bower?” It was Saffron, already heaving at the pile of boulders that sat tumbled all over each other across the pass. She looked pale and weary herself, frowning with concentration. “Jaydra tells me they are still alive in there,” she said uncertainly. “She can hear them.”

  “We have to get them out! Can she say where? Can the dragons lift the stones?”

  “No!” Vere and Mother Gorlas said instantly behind us.

  “No?” both Saffron and I said in unison.

  “Bower, sir, I mean,” Vere raised his palms to me, as if he were trying to slow me down. “This is one of those times, unfortunately, when you are, yet again, not very knowledgeable of the ways of the mountains. We have tried to use the wild dragons before to clear rock falls and tumbled houses. They’re too clumsy, too careless.”

  “Maybe that’s because you were too bullying?” Saffron snapped. It was no secret she didn’t like the older Three-Rivers Chief, but there was something else here as well—a tiredness. It was as if she were exhausted by dealing with the Three-Rivers clan as a whole.

  “Yes, Saffron is right,” I said. “Before, you used the wild dragons with yokes and shackles and chains, now we work together, with the dragons. We can make sure the dragons are much more careful…”

  “No, my Lord Bower, you still don’t understand,” Mother Gorlas cleared her throat. “It wasn’t just because of the wild dragons. I am sure your island dragons, ma’am,” she nodded towards Saffron, “are very skillful indeed. But it is the way with rock slides. They may look like great solid lumps of dirt and stone, but, inside,” the wise woman made a complicated gesture with her hands, miming wobbling stones balanced on top of each other.

  “I see, that makes sense,” I said, thinking of the tedious books about city building and construction my father had forced me to read. I saw now my father had been trying to prepare me for the day I might have to make decisions like this.

  “What’s the mountain way to get them out?” I asked. “Quickly, before they run out of air!”

  Mother Gorlas shook her head sadly. “There is only the slow way. We use people, scouts with long sticks, metal bars, and buckets to try and ease the stones apart and test for weaknesses in the pile. Occasionally we can get people out of there without killing anyone…”

  “There must be another way,” I said angrily, turning to the pile to see the scouts were already pulling out their equipment. Long metal bars, knives, and wooden mallets.

  There was a disturbing rumble from above, and my eyes shot up to see the walls were still splintering, with several sections standing proud of their foundations.

  “Saffron!” I started to warn her.

  “Shhh! Don’t shout!” Mother Gorlas hissed at me. “Sound can trigger unsteady rocks to collapse, as can heavy creatures, like horses and dragons!” Dust and grit ran down the sides of the rocks and smaller pebbles bounced down the cliff, while Saffron hurriedly scraped at a seam between two of the largest slabs of rock.

  5

  Saffron, Disaster Averted?

  The stones shifted around me, beneath me, and, most disturbingly, above me as I worked. From the corner of my eye, I saw a scout backtracking down the rocks, looking nervously over his head. One of the others though, the woman with the braided hair who had watched as her colleagues were trapped, remained just a few feet away. From her backpack, she handed me one of the iron bars, about as long as her forearm, and with a point-like wedge at one end.

  “Like this,” she hissed, showing me how she found a crack, and then banged the iron bars in with a small wooden mallet.

  “But the blows, the noise—”

  “These are only small,” she said, wedging the iron bar in just a few finger’s widths between the rocks, “and we’re playing dice with our lives anyway.” She threw me a devil-may-care smile, and I despite my exhaustion, I felt the giddy surge of adrenaline as I shared this bra
ve woman’s recklessness.

  “My name is Kella, by the way,” she said. “You might as well know who you may die with!”

  “Saffron,” I said as I copied her example, driving the stakes into the same seam of rocks. There was a loud pop as below us, a crack as wide as my hand showed where the rocks had split apart under their own weight, with the added help of the iron bar.

  “Pssst!” Kella called down through the crack and into the darkness below. I heard a groan, and a snort as someone coughed. After a moment of pressing my face to the fissure in the rocks, I saw two slabs of rock had fallen to create a rough stone tent, leaning against each other with smaller boulders reinforcing them—just. Down below were two of the tribal scouts, both covered in grey and white rock dust, and looking out at us with eyes which appeared bright in the gloom.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, before feeling instantly foolish. Of course, they were not all right. A mountain has just fallen on them.

  “I am. Just a bit bruised. But Jarla here, he’s got a trapped foot!” the trapped scout replied.

  The woman beside me cursed, looking away with a grimace.

  “What? What is it?” I whispered to her, out of earshot of the two trapped below.

  “We can’t get either out of this tiny crack, and Jarla is trapped. There’s no way we can—”

  A large creak sounded from the shelves of rock above us, showering me with dust and gravel. I looked up instinctively to see a long split downwards through the rock above, forming a chimney-like column which was wavering. A sudden gust of wind and it would come crashing down, killing all four of us.

  Saffron-sister! Jaydra said, alarmed enough to stride toward me, meaning to leap, grab me in her claws and swoop high into the air. But that would mean death for the other three humans here.

  No! I insisted, Please, my den-sister and my heart, hold your fear, for just one more moment…