Dragons of Dark (Upon Dragons Breath Trilogy Book 3)

by Ava Richardson

  “Enric,” I said and knew the truth of it in my veins. Who else would do something so terrible so far out here, at the ends of the world? Whatever Chief Vere and the others thought of the Stone Tooth clan, surely they wouldn’t butcher and burn to death innocents in their homes, huddling against the cold?

  “There’s more.” Saffron nodded further across the valley, where there was another darkened patch of ruined ground a little lower down the mountainside. Jaydra beat her powerful wings and we swung off towards it to find what had once been yet another hamlet of five or six buildings, all burned to the ground and sitting in a pile of smoking ash. I couldn’t even comprehend how Enric had done this.

  Saffron frowned. “No tracks,” she announced, in amazement.

  “What?” I asked, following her gaze. The snow below was pristine except for the odd rabbit or goat track across the glistening fields. “But how, the soldiers must have walked between the villages, surely?”

  Jaydra continued flying toward the horizon, and we found yet another village wreathed in a haze of smoke and just as burnt as the others.

  “Saffron, I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “I think Enric somehow got here before we could.” The mere thought the king could strike even out here filled me with a cold which had nothing to do with the snow. If Enric was all-powerful, could do anything, go anywhere, what chances did we have against him?

  “He’s looking for us,” Saffron said glumly, as we flew on. “We thought his forces were following us, but somehow they managed to get ahead of us.”

  “And leave no trace.”

  We dove around the next rocky outcrop, and all of a sudden the mystery was made clear. We were not alone in the sky.

  “What is that thing?” Saffron shouted, as the strange wooden, canvas and metal structure banked against the current and turned directly towards us. Jaydra’s body tensed and Saffron used her knees and feet to indicate she should turn and rise, away from the strange contraption.

  “It looks like a giant flying cart,” I said, struggling to make sense of what I was seeing “It’s a balloon!” I shouted at Saffron, as I realized what the seven or eight bulging canvas shapes were. Saffron shook her head and I remembered she had probably never seen a balloon, raised as she was in the wild islands.

  The balloons I had seen before were little more than child’s toys, with canvas balloons attached to baskets made of wicker-work and reeds, their hot air supplied by small candles or tiny oil lamps. They were quite clever, I thought rather begrudgingly, but King Enric had used the idea of mastering flight through science and alchemy as a means to eradicate the idea of dragons from the very minds and the imagination of the people below.

  The balloon-platform swayed and floated, the large paddles on its wooden body steering it towards the village below. We could see, like a ship, the thing had decks, where people in the dark uniforms and the armor of King Enric’s forces scurried inside. There were humans manning it, I thought in confusion.

  Kiaaaaa! Jaydra challenged the vessel as if it were another dragon, but it did nothing. The structure was almost bigger than Jaydra was herself, constructed of wood, reinforced with metal girders, and hung with gigantic iron wheels. Yet it was more than that, I realized as it dropped its deadly contents. Barrels fell from its sides, striking the mountain below where another small cluster of huts stood. When the barrels hit the ground, they burst apart in great gouts of fire, splattering everything nearby in burning pitch and oil.

  “Saffron, look,” I pointed to where small shapes where fleeing the village, only visible as the lowering sun caught them and threw long shadows behind their forms. They wore white pelts and leathers so dried and faded they almost vanished against the snow drifts all around. “They must be the Stone Tooth clan,” I watched as the balloon-platform dropped still more of the exploding barrels onto their village, and then turned to follow the escaping people.

  “We have to help them!” Saffron said savagely. These fierce people of the snows had been the very ones to cause the rock fall when we had tried to enter the territory, and yet Saffron was willing to try and save them from our mutual enemy. “Jaydra, away,” she called, as Jaydra beat her wings into action and we flew towards the balloon like a thrown dart.

  “Bower?” Saffron nodded back at me. I knew what I had to do.

  If I can… despite the rising danger, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the roar of the wind and the screams and shouts of the alarmed people below. Somewhere… There. I could feel the connection I had with Jaydra, like a thread that joined us two together. It was easy to feel Jaydra as I was so close to her; both physically and emotionally. But, in just the same way, if I concentrated very hard, I could reach out and feel the shape of the other dragons’ minds too.

  “Dragons! Dragons, this is Bower of Torvald, Warden of Dragon Mountain. Come to the aid of your sister-dragon Jaydra! We need your help!” I used my erratic dragon magic to reach them, and felt Ysix’s mind first react to my faint scratchings. I felt the buzz of her answer, but she was too far away for me to discern it. Was she refusing? Was she telling me she’d had enough of orders and summons from humans?

  “Duck!”

  Saffron’s shout jolted me back into consciousness, having done all I knew to do, just in time to throw myself backwards against Jaydra’s scales and spines, and dodge a hail of crossbow bolts heading towards me.

  Jaydra let out a sharp grunt of pain as some of the arrows slid between the thick plates of her scales and found flesh. Saffron howled with rage, lunging forward and joining her strength and will to Jaydra’s own. The dragon dove to scrape her claws across the side of the thick balloon-platform, scissoring through rope nets and causing a deep gouge in one of the balloons below. The flying cart lurched to one side under the assault, and the injured balloon shook and deflated with a screaming wail of escaping air.

  “Again,” Saffron shouted angrily, as the balloon-platform fought to right itself, but before Jaydra could descend upon the balloons again, an echoing boom sounded.

  “Cannons!” I gasped, as gusts of smoke rose from the side of the platform. Jaydra flashed out of her flight path and flew low over the snow to avoid being hit, growling and shivering with fury. When I turned to look around, great gobbets of rich crimson were falling from her hide where some of the crossbow bolts, fired from the platform, had hit.

  The balloon-platform didn’t seek to pursue us however. Instead it slowly wheeled towards the fleeing people.

  “Hiyaah!” Saffron turned Jaydra in a wide arc. This time Jaydra darted towards the underbelly of the platform, with Saffron exhorting her to fly ever faster, faster, and faster!

  Hissing like an army of snakes, Jaydra shot between the fleeing humans and the platform, slashing at the ropes, rigging, and boards with her talons as she spiraled past.

  Twice more the cannons fired, but Jaydra was too fast to be hit again. I was more worried by the humans aboard the balloon-platforms with crossbows, as I raised my small round shield and tried to protect our dragon from the next volley.

  Where are the other dragons!? I thought desperately.

  The air reverberated with the sudden thunder of bolts, and more still smashed against Jaydra’s hide. The damage Jaydra had inflicted however, caused the balloon-platform to sink and sway in the air, ruining any shot against the humans. “We did it, the humans are getting away!” I shouted.

  “But only if we keep this up!” Saffron was frowning, looking over my shoulder at the bright drops of crimson on the snow, cast off by Jaydra’s wounds.

  “Come on Jaydra, you can do it, you can do it!” Saffron urged as she laid low on the dragon’s neck. We made yet another raking pass over the top of the balloon-platform; this time snagging the ropes and nets which tethered the balloons to the wooden structure below. I felt a shudder as we connected, and heard a roar of anger and discomfort from Jaydra herself.

  The cannons blasted and again they missed us. Jaydra was getting tired, I thought, as once aga
in there was a clatter of crossbow bolts from the people hidden inside. Our efforts had only managed to distract the soldiers of the Iron Guard, or whomever was inside the thing, from chasing the Stone Tooth clan below, but not incapacitate them. How long had we been fighting this thing? It felt like hours, and the day had fallen and become true night around us. We could not last much longer.

  “Bower!” Saffron shouted back at me, and another bolt wedged itself into Jaydra’s flesh. “Bower, we have to pull back! Jaydra is getting too weak to fight!”

  Despite my anger and her fury, I could tell she was right, and nodded as she patted Jaydra’s neck. “My good girl, my fierce sister. Come now, leave them.” Yet Jaydra had other intentions in mind, she turned in mid-air to return to the fight.

  “No!” Saffron shouted, as we turned into a hail of crossbow quarrels, fired from the platform. Jaydra shook her head and shivered her wings and flew onward.

  Suddenly the air filled with the sound of high calls as, out of the sun, descended more shapes. There was the long Ysix and four of her children, come to defend their kin. But there was also Queen Crimson, the largest dragon I had ever seen. Ysix flashed past the platform, her tail splintering wood and snapping ropes. However, it was Queen Crimson who did the most damage as she extended her fore and hind claws and grappled with the platform body, dwarfing it with her massive wings as her claws punctured canvas and wood alike. With a sharp stab of her head, another hole was breached in the side of the platform, and the entire structure lurched again, spilling armored soldiers out of one side.

  I watched as the dragons made short work of the much slower device, biting it and swiping it with tails and claws as it sunk lower and lower to skid across the snows in a tangled ruin.

  Ysix shrieked in victory, emitting a sharp bolt of flame up into the night sky. It was only then I realized that it was full night, we had been fighting the device through the evening, and had drifted away from where we had originally seen it.

  “Thank you, brave Queen Ysix, Queen Crimson. Thank you, dragons,” I called and they answered with roars of acknowledgement. But I could tell from the way Saffron hunched in her saddle, reaching down to trail her hand over her dragon-sister’s neck, that she was tired and worried for Jaydra.

  “Has she got the strength to get back to the camp?” I asked Saffron, who shook her head as she looked at me with wide eyes. She was murmuring to her dragon, urging her to carry on despite the wounds she had suffered.

  “Down there,” I pointed, below on the dark snows were a few of the people were gathering. They had surrounded the small handful of Enric’s soldiers who had survived, and some of them were waving up to us. “Let us go down.” I suggested.

  Saffron, gratefully, nodded.

  Jaydra landed heavily, the snow gusting all about her in great plumes as she skidded across the frozen top of the world. But instantly, her body started to relax as the cold snows soothed the many cuts and bruises and angry tears in her scaly hide.

  “Bower, go to them,” Saffron was saying as she unclipped herself from the harness. I could see the delegation of tribespeople in their white furs and bleached leathers coming towards us. Up above, other dragons were calling their low, mournful calls as they started to descend to land around us. “Quickly,” Saffron nodded. “Before Ysix gets down here and starts to boss them about.”

  “But… What about you?” I asked uncertainly. I wasn’t sure I was even able to do this without her, and I wanted to tell her so, but she just shook her head.

  “I’m going to stay here and tend to Jaydra. This is your job. It is what you were meant to do,” she said sternly.

  Even as I unclipped myself from the harness and dismounted, I felt worried. Could I negotiate with the Stone Tooth, and tell them I was the rightful leader of all of the Middle Kingdom. What if I failed? What if I messed it up? Get a grip. I shook my head at myself. I could do this. We had saved them from the balloon-platform.

  “Go on, Bower!” Saffron hissed, her hands full of the small store of bandages and unguents she carried in the dragon’s saddle bags to apply to Jaydra’s wounds. “We have to become who we want to be. Who we have to be. For these villagers as well as for ourselves! Go!” She hurried to the nearest crossbow bolt embedded in one of Jaydra’s sides as I turned and walked towards the Stone Tooth delegation, alone.

  “I am Dol Agur,” the first woman said and thumped the snow-white furs, pelts, and leather armor that swathed her body, making it even harder to make out the woman’s features in the dark. From her muffled voice, Dol Agur seemed to be at least of an age with Chief Vere perhaps, and I imagined she must be some sort of matriarch to the ruined village.

  “Bower,” I thumped the considerably thinner furs and leathers I was wearing, but I barely felt the freezing cold after all the fighting we had done. “Of Torvald,” I added.

  “Torvald?” The woman turned to look at the few huddled Stone Tooth tribal peoples who had come to join us. The others, the ones who had survived, at least, were still surrounding the few of Enric’s soldiers who had managed to escape the destroyed war machine. “Like them? They are also from Torvald?” She pointed at the soldiers who sat in a circle on the ground.

  “No,” I shook my head. “I’m from Torvald of old. The Torvald of the Dragon Riders.” I put two hands up to the sky to mimic that of a flapping creature.

  “Hmph. Yes. The Dragon Riders.” Dol Agur nodded, looking warily up at where Ysix and Crimson swooped waiting to learn whether we were staying out here in this cold waste, or flying back to the Three-Rivers clan. “Bower,” the woman repeated a little softer, speaking to herself.

  I cleared my throat, and nodded to the prisoners. They might be King Enric’s forces, and they might even be horrible individuals, but I myself had spent time in the king’s dungeons. I knew what being powerless felt like. I was also reminded by the sight of them, so pale and so far from home, they were the sons and daughters of Torvald. I would have to rule over them too, one day. “They—you won’t kill them?” I said, meaning it to be an assertion, but realizing just how weak my own voice sounded.

  “Kill?” Dol Agur looked at me as if I were strange. She shook her head. “No. After we have found out what they know, they will be set free. We do not keep slaves in the mountains.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. But they would still die, out here in the cold. As if reading my thoughts, Dol Agur shook her head.

  “They will be brought with us to our refuge, and then, a few days from now, they will be taken to the edge of the wilds by our guides, and released.”

  “Oh, right.” I felt suddenly nervous. Better get this over and done with. I thought, taking a deep breath. I had been rehearsing this speech the entire way here. I opened my mouth but the woman interrupted me.

  “You come from the lowlands? The Three-Rivers clan?” Dol Agur said warily.

  “Uh, yes. They, I mean, the Three-Rivers clan is helping us. We are…” I clasped my two hands together in front of me, wrist to wrist. “We are together.”

  “Hmph. Yes.” Dol Agur frowned. “But your dragons… They are not slaves? The Three Rivers keep slave dragons.”

  “No!” I said, shocked that any could have thought that of us. “Look,” I pointed up to where Queen Crimson and Queen Ysix were circling, both immensely large, and without any humans on their backs or chains around their necks. I thought of both their proud and stubborn nature and found myself grinning despite the seriousness of the situation. “Have you seen the size of them?” I joked.

  “Yes, ha!” Dol Agur laughed, thumping me on the shoulder. “Good. We Stone Tooth have always mistrusted the Three Rivers, because they kept their dragons as slaves. We Stone Tooth came out here to the far mountains because we didn’t want to be slaves,” she looked at me hard, “to new Torvald.”

  “I know. I agree, Dol Agur.” I said, wishing I were taller, or older, or had a vast army at my back so I could impress these people. In the end, all I had were my words and my heart. “I wish to r
eturn the Middle Kingdom to the ways of old Torvald. To re-forge the links between humans and dragons; to bring an end to the sorcerer-king.”

  “Together.” Dol Agur raised her hands and imitated my own gesture. “Dragons and humans. Together. They belong together.”

  “Yes!” She understands! They understand what it is we have to do! I was amazed I had come so far from everything I had ever known, right to the ends of the earth and here I found a people who thought as I did, or seemed to, at least.

  “But, why do you feel like this? How do you remember this?” I asked. It had, after all, taken my father decades of careful hoarding and collecting to gather every last drop of restricted information left in the city, to try and keep the flame of the past alive and teach me to stay true to the image of Torvald of old... And he had access to books and maps. How did these ice-clad people at the top of the world find out about the dragons of old?

  “Hah. We will have much to talk about later.” Dol Agur stamped her feet, and said a few words in a thick, guttural dialect which I only recognized a few phrases of. She turned back to me and waved her hand to indicate we should fly. “We have a way to go, where it is warm. Where the Stone Tooth and Bower of Torvald and his allies can rest.”

  “Thank you, Dol Agur,” I said. “But, will there be room for all of us?” I threw a glance up to the two queen dragons above.

  “Thank you, Bower of Torvald! You saved what was left of our village. It is the Stone Tooth people who should be thanking you,” Dol Agur said. “Now, come with us, and yes, there will be plenty of room.” Her lined and wrinkled face grinned in a mischievous way. Before I could ask what sort of camp or base the Stone Tooth people had besides the villages we’d witnessed being destroyed, she waved to the other clansmen and women around her, and they marched off into the night.