The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle

by Chris D'Lacey

  ‘No,’ she said, before Graymere could launch. ‘I want to see him.’

  The De:allus blinked his yellow eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘He knew my father.’ (It was a distant connection, but it wasn’t a lie.) ‘If Rogan is ailing as badly as you say, I want to see him – alone – and offer him forgiveness. This is my right as a queen-elect.’

  ‘But if Gallen finds out I’ve taken you to—’

  ‘This will rest between you and me,’ said Grendel. She stretched her beautiful wings, casting a soft light all around her. ‘Now, show me fhosforent glowing in the moonlight. I cannot think of anything more appealing, can you?’

  And then it was Graymere’s turn to blush. ‘Follow me,’ he said. And with a rush of pleasure lifting his wings, he took off into the night.

  15

  It was indeed an impressive sight. On an ordinary night it would have been impossible to see any natural features in the mountainside. But where the moon shed its subdued light against the slopes, the rocks sparkled in frills and patches, just as if the sky had spilled its stars upon them.

  Using his eyes to light the way, Graymere strafed the scarps and ridges, ending his tour with a jet of flame that made a small portion of the ground explode, showering pink sparks high into the sky.

  Grendel was breathless with wonder by the time Graymere invited her to land on a bluff above a quarry filled with misshapen rocks. They were some way from Vargos now, cresting a narrow range of hills that wrinkled in a long tail back to Skytouch.

  ‘Did that please you?’ he asked.

  ‘It did,’ she confessed, her lytes glowing brightly. ‘The sights – and the guide.’ She kept her words pleasant and true, but without suggesting anything deeper – though the heat from her neck could not be denied. Had her second heart not beat for Gabrial, she would have been more than happy, she thought, to bring up wearlings in Graymere’s company. But Gabrial was the one, she was certain of it. To be sure of deflecting their dialogue away from anything that might be misleading, she said, ‘Was that fhosforent you burned? I thought you didn’t allow that?’

  ‘An impure seam,’ he said. ‘The finest crystals are deep in the rock. By burning off the layers of a weak or scattered seam, we can sometimes reveal a stronger vein underneath. We have lost a few good sources that way, but it spares the talons of the dragons who work here. Grymric spends a lot of time healing claws.’

  Grendel nodded. She’d been scratching at the rock face as she listened to this. Although a dragon could crack a large stone between its claws, endlessly gouging the surface of a mountain had to be painful and damaging over time. ‘Is there no other way to retrieve the ore?’

  ‘Not as yet,’ Graymere answered truthfully. ‘Patient grazing still serves us best. We alternate the workers and rest them well. They’re young, so their claws regenerate quickly. Some prefer biting to gouging. Regrowth keeps the incisors healthy.’ He showed her his two most prominent teeth. They looked sharp enough to slit a clean edge through cloud. ‘Dragons that work the mine will boast of a fighting advantage over others. A myth, in my opinion, but we’re never short of volunteers. Recently, we’ve been testing ways of opening a seam by i:maging fissures in the weakest strata.’

  ‘You mean, Prime Galarhade works the mine?’

  A faint splutter of smoke left Graymere’s snout, hiding him for a moment in a yellow haze. ‘Forgive me,’ he coughed, ‘I don’t wish to belittle you. I understand why you would think that. Prime Galarhade does have extraordinary powers of physical i:maging, but, no, he does not attend the mine. Elder Givnay is helping us.’

  Grendel’s eye ridges tightened slightly, a not unpleasant look on her. ‘I thought Elder Givnay hardly ever left his settle?’

  ‘He doesn’t need to. We map out the mountainsides and i:mage him any promising sites. He does the rest remotely.’

  Grendel dropped her jaw in disbelief. Elder Givnay could i:mage remotely? She knew his mental powers were legendary, but to mine rocks from a distance was astonishing.

  Graymere went on, ‘I pray the technique is perfected soon, if only to spare dragons like Rogan more trauma.’ He nodded at the void. ‘You’ll find him down there. Listen for the scraping and the sounds of his voice. I can light the first part of your descent from here. Call if you need assistance.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Grendel said. She tented her wings and pushed away from the ridge, needing nothing more than the night air to glide on. Under Graymere’s light she was able to gyre down without clipping the sides of the quarry. But as the drop increased and the light grew less, she looked around for a suitable perch and landed safely on a smooth cold boulder, close to the centre of the pit.

  She opened her ear ducts fully. Right away she heard Rogan’s voice. He was singing quietly, like a wearling might. A song about a fire star that opened in the heart; a gentle cry of unrequited love from an elderly dragon who had never been a father as far as she knew. It touched her deeply to hear it. Tonight, she decided, someone would share his lament.

  She began to join in, harmonising softly as she clambered nearer to the sound of his voice. He faltered when he heard her and she thought at first he might stop and hide. But as her notes drifted sweetly through the darkness, he picked up again. He was still singing as she reached his shoulder.

  ‘Per Grogan?’ she said, ignoring Galarhade’s ruling on the name. What did it matter down here? ‘I am Grendel, of the Fissian line. You knew my father. Will you speak with me?’

  He could see her, she knew, for the moon had moved well clear of the clouds, giving their eyes sufficient light to work with. He continued singing as if she wasn’t there.

  She tried again. ‘I have flown here from Skytouch. I need your help.’

  ‘Be gone, vapor,’ he croaked.

  Was that what he thought she was, a spirit? ‘I am no vapor,’ she said, looking at the rock he was working. It was streaked with dark green blood. To her horror, his claws had completely worn away, his arms little more than infected stumps. He was using bone to dig for the ore.

  ‘Per Grogan, please stop this,’ she said.

  She reached out to him. A bad mistake. He turned on her and roared, but didn’t use flame. She backed away, her primary heart pounding. Graymere would have heard that. Another burst would bring him to investigate. Or worse, bring Gazz.

  ‘I wish you no harm,’ Grendel said urgently. ‘Please, you must help me.’

  This sounded callous in the circumstances, but she had seen his eyes when he’d challenged her. They were void of colour, their once-jewelled surfaces cracked and dull. He was going to die in this pit and he probably didn’t care. There was little Grendel could do for him, but still much he could do for her.

  ‘I am charged with caring for Grystina’s wearmyss. I believe I can prove that you and Gabrial were not responsible for the quake at Vargos.’

  ‘Varrrrgos,’ he slurred. He punched the rock, cracking a splinter of bone.

  It was all Grendel could do not to empty her gut. She fought back a dangerous tear. ‘Brave dragon, I want you to sleep with the knowledge that you and Gabrial were true to the Elders. But first, I must find him. You were a mapper once. One of the best in the Wearle. You know the domayne like no other dragon. To which region of the line would they send him, Grogan? Where will I find the blue?’

  He moaned and swept his head back and forth, babbling in the manner Graymere had described, some unrelated murmurings about his mother, then a complicated chatter about rock locations. Even now, punished by madness, he was using his mapping skills to chart the position of every stone in the quarry.

  ‘Gabrial… ?’ she pushed him.

  He twitched and seemed to have a moment of lucidity. ‘I know no dragon of that name,’ he growled. Then he was muttering again and moving away to a new location.

  ‘Please,’ she said, scr
ambling after him. ‘Gabrial – Abrial, whatever you want to call him – is the only dragon who can help me. There were Hom in the mountain when Grystina died. Hom, Grogan. You have been misjudged. I want to see your honour restored. In the name of Godith, please help me find Gabrial.’

  ‘Godith,’ he murmured. And he swayed for a moment, gathering himself, before emitting a roar that shook the whole pit.

  Grendel instinctively spread her wings. In the darkness, the rumble of rocks was terrifying. Their hewn cries wailed like the spirits of the dead as they cleaved and slid and bounced over one another in their quest to find their lowest resting place. She immediately took off, hovering at a level just above the jumble. A fearful madness had taken hold of Rogan. He was snarling and biting and thrashing his tail, calling Gabrial’s name in challenge. At the place where he’d been scraping, a pink seam winked like an open wound. Rogan set his jaws against it, and using what remained of his shattered teeth, he grated raw fhosforent into his mouth.

  He was seeing Gabrial in every dragon now. And as the pink ore melted and his fire sacs enlarged, he unlatched his jaw and tried to burn Grendel. The result was horrifying. A bright red flame poured out of his throat but quickly billowed back around his head, setting him alight down the length of his neck and all along the edges of his wings. At the same time, his body was going through a terrifying change. He seemed to be withering, turning black.

  Grendel screamed and flapped away, helped by the warm air rising from his body. Graymere was flying to her aid by then, but he was rapidly overtaken by two of the Veng. Gallen, the Veng leader, was in the air as well. As he swooped overhead he gave a command that would haunt Grendel for the rest of her days.

  ‘Kill it,’ he hissed.

  And the Veng burned, without mercy, what was left of the dragon that had once been Grogan. They aimed their fire at his open mouth, forcing it deep into his broken body until the flames had vaporised the tissues within and he exploded in a fizzing ball of scales. They had taken him down as if he were nothing but hunted prey. Just a thing, consumed by hatred and darkness.

  No longer a dragon at all.

  16

  ‘Give me one good reason,’ Elder Grynt said angrily, as rain began to fall in steady lines around him, ‘why I should not send you back to Ki:mera to spend the rest of your days teaching wearlings how to scrape dung off their tails?’

  ‘I was roaming, as I’m free to do,’ said Grendel. She proudly lifted her head, taking the opportunity to swivel one eye and glance at Gallen. The Veng commander was behind her, pacing back and forth through puddles forming in hollows in the rocks.

  ‘Look at me!’ Grynt thundered. The dark tints in his purple face were more prominent than Grendel had ever seen them. She looked at him squarely, fearful of the power in his brilliant green eyes. ‘You went to see Rogan the traitor,’ he said.

  ‘Elder, may I speak?’

  ‘No,’ Grynt snarled at the healing dragon. Grymric, along with De:allus Graymere, had been summoned to Grynt’s superior eyrie – a high ledge on an isolated slope. Green hills and a strip of forest one way, Vargos and the open sea the other. Grendel had been brought here during the night and guarded till sunrise by two of the Veng. As if that wasn’t serious enough, Elder Givnay was also present. Givnay had silently impressed upon her the need to open her third heart fully. Godith was everywhere and nowhere, he’d said. No harm would befall her if she spoke the truth.

  Grymric bowed submissively and shuffled back.

  ‘You went to Rogan,’ Elder Grynt repeated, water dripping off the wavy stigs that grew beneath his chin. ‘Why?’

  ‘To offer comfort. He was cruelly mistreated by your Veng.’

  ‘He mistreated himself,’ Gallen cut in. ‘And when I got there, he was shouting the name of the blue. Now why would he do that?’

  ‘Well?’ said Grynt, smoke winding from his nostrils.

  Grendel looked away. ‘Gabrial was his charge—’

  ‘Abrial,’ the Elder reminded her. ‘Dishonour the name of Godith once more and you will be removed from the Wearle.’

  Grendel sighed and bent her knee. She glanced at Elder Givnay for support. The spiritual leader of the Wearle was sitting with his foreclaws pressed together, his eyes focused on the shape they were making rather than on Grendel’s anxious face. She said, ‘Rogan was…confused.’

  ‘And so are you,’ Grynt said, ‘if you think you can lie to me any longer. Do not forget you are in the presence of Elder Givnay. One word from me and he will enter your mind and scrape the truth out. I know about your arrangement with Gossana. I know about your feelings for the blue. The only reason you would go to a mapper is to check on layouts or ask for directions. The healing dragon has testified to me that you intended to seek the blue’s help. Why?’

  ‘I tried to stop her,’ Grymric said weakly.

  ‘Silence,’ snapped Gallen.

  Grynt continued, ‘Answer my question. What were you planning to do if you found the sweeper?’

  Grendel was shaking. The rain was drumming hard on her back, as if it would have the truth from her too. She might as well tell it, even though they would mock her. ‘I believe the Hom were in Vargos when Grystina died.’

  ‘What?’ said Graymere, as if he’d suddenly woken from sleep. He stepped forward, shaking water off his wings. The whole eyrie grew a little brighter, thanks to the widening light from his eyes. ‘What’s this about the Hom?’

  And so Grendel told about the wearmyss, Gayl, and the drawings they’d seen in Grymric’s cave, including her suggestion that the Hom were somehow to blame for the quake. The healer, she noticed, was shaking his head. But Elder Givnay was looking at her carefully now, as if he’d like to float into her mind and view the evidence for himself.

  De:allus Graymere spoke up again. ‘This is extraordinary,’ he gasped. ‘Has any of it been reported to the Prime?’

  Gallen snorted in amusement. ‘You expect the Prime dragon to believe the ramblings of a wearmyss?’

  ‘She spoke her brother’s name,’ Grendel said fiercely.

  ‘So?’ said the Veng.

  ‘So he might be alive,’ Graymere said breathlessly, all the while keeping his gaze on Grynt. ‘You heard G’vard’s words at the funeral: he couldn’t say for certain what happened to the drake. What if Grendel is right and the Hom got in and took the wearling? What if he’s out there, beyond the scorch line?’

  ‘Impossible,’ sneered Gallen.

  Turning on him, Graymere said, ‘What would it take to send out patrols over all the Hom settlements? Or are you so unsure of your questionable security that you’re too embarrassed to go looking for one so young?’

  ‘Freeze your fire,’ spat Gallen, flicking out his claws. In the rain, he looked even more hostile than usual. ‘You may be quick of mind, but I could have those yellow eyes on my tongue before you’d have a chance to blink them again.’

  ‘Enough,’ Grynt rumbled. His gaze fell on Graymere. ‘You are forgetting, De:allus, that our “questionable security” rests ultimately with me. There will be no patrols.’

  Graymere hung his head, as though to let his frustration drain away. ‘With respect, Prime Galarhade should know of this.’

  ‘And he will,’ said Grynt, ‘when I have a mind to amuse him with it. The death of Rogan has angered and distressed him. The Prime is resting.’

  ‘Is he ill?’ said Grymric, his concern feeding into his jittery eye ridges.

  ‘No worse than this De:allus,’ Gallen muttered.

  Graymere ignored the slur and said, ‘When the news of Rogan’s death begins to spread there will be great unrest among the Wearle. Thanks to Gallen’s brave defenders, Rogan died without shedding his fire tear. You don’t need the brains of a De:allus to know what mutterings that will cause. The Veng that summoned me here were already talking about the Tyw
yll.’

  ‘The Tywyll?’ said Grendel, looking shocked. As a wearling, she had heard many frightening tales about the fabled black dragon without a third heart, but she had never expected to encounter it. She turned to Grynt, whose jaw was set rigid.

  Graymere said quietly, ‘If the roamers believe that a black dragon has risen among them, there will be panic. News that Grystina’s drake could be alive will do much to ease any superstitious whispers. I’m sure Elder Givnay sees the wisdom of that?’

  Givnay lifted the tip of his tail and slowly turned his isoscele, a gesture that could be taken one of two ways: he was either intrigued or irritated. But as no thoughts were flowing from his mind, it was impossible, just then, to say which.

  Graymere went on. ‘Prime Galarhade should be informed of this – now. The longer we wait—’

  ‘I have spoken,’ Grynt said, in a tone so deep it wafted the rain aside momentarily. ‘Grendel has beguiled you with her stories, De:allus. Next you will want me to believe that the Hom have captured the first Wearle and are hiding them somewhere among the trees.’

  ‘But—?’

  ‘I have spoken,’ Grynt snapped again. A rivulet of water ran between his eyes. ‘I will not tolerate another interruption. The Wearle will be told that Elder Givnay is praying for the auma of Rogan and asking Godith to accept his fire. Any talk of black dragons will immediately be quashed.’

  ‘And the Hom? The drake?’

  ‘Forget about the Hom. They are no threat to us. I do not believe they were in the birth cave or that they caused the quake. You have already told me that Rogan disturbed many rocks in the mine. Is this not further proof of his guilt?’

  Graymere fanged his lip. He wanted to say that any dragon with a loud-enough roar could disturb a small amount of quarry rock, but not on the scale they’d seen that day at Vargos. He sighed for Grendel. Her case was hopeless. Without real proof of the Hom’s involvement, the blame was always going to fall on Abrial and Rogan.