Get the baby, and get out! She thought. Something was happening in the town, something was waking. She could feel the energy whisper over her skin, speaking to the wyvern soul within. Josephine shivered within her and Millie shivered as well, turning back to the hole in the wall.
Wylan was larger in wyvern form than most of the wyverns she knew. It wasn’t unheard of to see one as large as Wylan, but it was certainly rare. She hoped that Josef could keep her attention long enough for Millie to get the baby.
Josef saw Millie creep toward the wall, and he frowned at her. Millie shrugged and pointed to the crying baby. Each time the baby cried out, the wyvern soul cringed and shifted. It was getting harder for Millie to keep it at bay. The baby was in danger. The thought filled her mind and the wyvern lurched within her. She stopped and had to close her eyes to calm Josephine once more. It had been a long time since she had to go through the breathing exercises that calmed her beast.
Josef cried out. Millie’s eyes snapped open in time to see Wylan advancing on him. Blood flowed from Josef’s arm and the scent of battle and danger filled every one of Millie’s senses. The cries of the baby, the burning house billowing black smoke into the sky, the prospect of battle…it was too much. The wyvern soul consumed her, drowning out the better sense of her human half until there was little thought in her mind other than protection from a greater threat.
Green scales bloomed along her skin, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight. The wyvern soul claimed her so fast that it was like stepping from one piece of clothing right into another. In moments, the green wyvern crouched where she once stood.
She roared and Wylan turned to face her. Wylan crouched low, stepping through the opening in the wall. Snakelike, she slunk along the ground, circling Millie. Mille backed away. She wasn’t sure if it was her desire to protect the baby that drove the wyvern, or if the wyvern was concerned with Wylan’s safety as well. Normally she could control the beast, but not this time.
Wylan lunged at her, and Millie lashed out to meet her. Her talons raked across Wylan’s face tearing scales loose. Wylan roared and Millie was surrounded by searing flames. They bit at her, consuming her in an orb of dragon fire. She held her ground, sinking into her hind legs. Her forelegs, or arms, held her wings tight to her body.
She opened her mouth to let loose her own power, but strained to hold Josephine in check. She couldn’t blast Wylan with poison. The green dragon in her town had done that same thing to her…the green dragons had started the plague that had brought them to this point. She couldn’t poison Wylan.
As she readied another attack, the baby’s crying stopped, changed, and rainbow music flooded them once more. In her wyvern state, through a haze of fire, she saw rainbow light spilling across the hard-packed street, meandering over the rubble of the wall to ensnare Wylan.
Immediately, the red wyvern changed back to the girl and she collapsed on the street, tears streaming down her face, her body wracked with sobs.
The music-light eased toward Millie. She could taste the colors; she could feel the song within her very soul. The wyvern hummed with the power and eased to one leg, relaxing from its battle stance. When the light completely covered her, the wyvern vanished without any encouragement from Millie.
Millie went to her knees beside Wylan and pulled her into her embrace. Wylan accepted, latching her smooth arms around Millie’s waist. She sobbed harder, her shoulders shaking.
“Oh, awesome, you’re both naked. Am I dreaming?” Josef winked.
Millie rolled her eyes. “I remember you,” Millie said to Wylan. “I was there the night you were born.”
Wylan’s sobs eased.
“I midwifed you in Dulasan that night. I had no idea that you’d survived. How did you survive? Oh, I should have never assumed you were dead. I should have sought you out. I’m such a fool!”
Through tears, Wylan told her how she’d been found by water farmers, how they’d taken her as their own, raised her and loved her until the blue dragon came and destroyed everything.
“And you followed the baby’s call here,” Millie finished.
Wylan nodded.
“There’s something special about her for sure,” Millie said, looking at the baby. “The visions show her controlling dragons. I never thought she might have the same control over us.”
“But what is she?” Jose asked. “It can’t be a dragon tamer. Tamers haven’t been alive since…”
“The time the dragons vanished,” Millie said. “It is a strange time we live in, for sure.”
“We have to take them both,” Josef told Millie. “Wylan needs training, and this baby needs safety.”
Millie nodded. “Of course.”
Wylan pulled away from her. “No.” She shook her head vehemently. “The blue dragon is still out there. He has to be stopped.”
“And what will that prove?” Millie asked her, loosening her arms enough to let Wylan pull away. Wylan dashed her tears away and looked deep into Millie’s eyes. Millie shivered staring into the depths of her golden eyes, so much like a dragon. She couldn’t feel any dragon fear from this girl, but she could almost see a woman, clad in red scales, dancing behind those eyes. The wyvern soul. Josephine recognized the image just as Millie did. This one was going to be hard to learn to control.
“Dragons can’t be mindless. He will know what he’s done, and then he will die,” Wylan nearly growled. She was so sure of herself. “And then the rest of them will pay.”
“And you, a lonely girl that can’t control her wyvern soul, is going to do all that?” Millie asked her.
Wylan broke their gaze and didn’t say anything.
“You will never make it on your own,” Millie told her.
Wylan detached herself from Millie and crossed her arms over her naked chest. She blushed and glanced at Josef. Millie felt the girl closing in on herself, like she was shutting them out; not paying attention to what they said. Millie knew that given a moment, Wylan would bolt and try to take on the dragon on her own.
Josef must have sensed it too, because he saved the day. “So you want to hunt down this dragon?”
“Absolutely.” Wylan didn’t look at either of them.
“Then you’re coming with us, soldier,” Josef told her. “That’s what the dragon guard does, and I’ve just picked up a new recruit.”
“Do you have that kind of power?” Wylan wondered.
Josef shrugged. “This hasn’t really happened before, but everyone that comes to Darubai has a job, and if you’re a wyvern and want to fight dragons, then you’ve got a spot in the guard.”
Wylan gave a small smile that turned to a blush. She glanced back down at her nakedness.
“I’ve seen boobs before,” Josef said. “You get used to being naked around people when you’re a wyvern like us.”
“Sadly, it’s true,” Millie said. “Come on, let’s find some clothes.”
“Um, I hate to be a party pooper, but I think we have a bigger problem,” Josef said. His face had gone pale.
Millie followed his gaze and there, at the end of the street, a wall of mist rose. Millie could feel the power she’d felt before—the dead had come back to claim their town.
“Can we fly?” Josef asked.
Wylan shook her head. “I don’t know how to shift. The wyvern just comes when I get mad.”
“That’s normal,” Millie said. Wylan noticed how comfortable the woman seemed being naked. She wasn’t sure it was something she’d ever be comfortable with. Being naked around other people wasn’t normal…was it? What’s normal now? Wylan wondered. She’d been shut up in her parent’s farm for so long and her only interaction had been with her parents. Maybe things were different now.
“We could piss you off again,” Josef said. He didn’t take his eyes from the mass of ghosts forming at the edge of town.
Wylan didn’t want to look. She could only imagine what was happening. She would rather face the ghosts with some clothes on. Hell, she would
rather stand before Josef with clothes on. She needed clothes. “I need clothes,” she said.
“We will get you some,” Millie said. She helped Wylan stand. “For the moment they don’t seem to be coming into town. Maybe there’s another way out?”
Josef handed Wylan her sword and a couple canteens that hadn’t been destroyed when she shifted. She thanked him, slung the canteens over her shoulder, and gripped her sword, as if that would help her fight off the ghosts. But even if she did know how to use them, she couldn’t imagine steel would be any use against spirits.
At the end of the street the ghosts parted, and a dark figure stepped forward. There was a chill to the air that Wylan felt the moment she laid eyes on the hag. She was shorter than the rest, not as translucent, and covered in tattered black robes. Tendrils of thin, white hair spilled out of her hood, and Wylan could just see the end of a knobby, hooked nose protrude from the darkness of her hood.
“How do you even fight ghosts?” Wylan wondered, allowing Millie to lead her from the scene and, thankfully, the hag. They couldn’t get out of town fast enough. Wylan accepted Millie’s help.
It felt awkward for her to have been accepted so quickly by these two. Where did they come from? It felt strange for her to accept help from two people she’d just attacked.
“You don’t,” Millie said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“Fire might help,” Josef said, glancing sidelong at Wylan.
“Fire wouldn’t help,” Millie said. “They may look like mist, but they aren’t. Spirits are trapped here, there’s nothing physical about them. Even destroying their physical bodies doesn’t help. If we had a black wyvern with us…”
“What do the blacks do?” Wylan wondered.
Josef shivered. “You don’t want to know.”
“They can control the dead,” Millie told her. “Black dragons can create or destroy as well as control the dead. The wyverns aren’t as strong, they mainly deal with spirits and the undead.”
Undead…A shiver ran through Wylan and she wished she hadn’t asked. She’d read about death magic before. In her books, bad people were often adept in necromancy, and she didn’t want to run into a black wyvern. She could almost imagine that they lived secluded lives in desolate mountain passes. They’d most certainly have dry, frayed hair, with white eyes and…she shivered again fighting the urge to look to see if the hag and her legion were gaining on them.
“Is there anything ghosts can do to us?” Wylan wondered.
Josef followed in their wake, carrying the baby. “It depends on how strong they are. If they are weak ghosts, like those trapped between worlds, they can’t make much happen in the physical realm.”
Josef handed the baby off to Millie and jogged across the rock garden to retrieve their bags. Millie had a hard time holding the baby and carrying her sword.
The baby started to fuss, and Millie tried soothing her. Wylan figured if the baby had worked so well with the energy to calm them, that the tumultuous energy of the ghosts would only further her aggravation.
Wylan glanced behind them, and breathed a sigh of relief that the crone hadn’t moved, and neither had the ghosts.
“I think the baby likes me,” Josef said, a smile playing across his lips as he they met him at the opening of the street Wylan entered the town through. “Millie, the midwife, losing her touch?”
Millie rolled her eyes and handed the baby back to Josef where she instantly settled back to sleep.
“We can’t keep calling her ‘the baby’, she needs a name.” Millie shouldered both of their packs, gripped her sword in one hand, and motioned them to follow her. The fastest way out of town, along the street they’d been following, was already blocked by translucent beings. Wylan refused to look directly at them.
“How about Kira Dragonkin?” Wylan suggested.
“Oh, like the dragon slayer from the series, right? I loved Amaranth, it sucked that they killed her all the time,” Millie said.
“Those bastards,” Josef muttered.
“Yea, it’s a good strong name,” Wylan said. “And considering what she can do in the visions…”
“I agree. Kira Dragonkin it is,” Millie said with a note of finality, as if any of them were going to argue.
“So we are just going to run away?” Wylan asked, fighting the urge to glance at the ghosts again.
“Yes, there isn’t much we can do against them. The longer they stay, the more they brew on their death and the anger that’s keeping them here…” Millie trailed off.
“Bad?” Wylan asked.
“Very,” Josef said.
Wylan eased away from Millie and led them down the streets toward the house she’d found her clothes in. Every street she gazed down Wylan saw misty banks of fog clogging the end. It didn’t look like there was any escape.
She pushed the thought from her mind as she turned into the house where she’d feasted. She stopped abruptly, a gasp frozen on her lips. There, around the table, sat three ghostly forms—a mother, a father, and a little boy. While they were opaque, Wylan could see their features were webbed with frost, as if they’d been caught in a freezing storm. None of the spirits looked toward them.
Millie took several steps into the house toward the table, but the mother continued to cut her meat, taking small bites. The boy continued to kick his feet as if nothing was out of place.
“They don’t see us,” Millie said. She waved her hand before the father’s frosty figure. He didn’t flinch.
“Trapped in some living loop,” Josef said. “Maybe they will all be like that.”
Wylan could only hope. She didn’t want to stick around this town longer than she had to. She grabbed Millie’s arm and led her down the hallway and to the closet she’d found before. She tossed the woman a pair of trousers and a green tunic. The clothes were a bit large on them, but they dressed, bound the pants tight around their waists and fastened their sword belts over their hips. They rejoined Josef in the dining room where he was poking his finger into the side of the mother’s head.
“Josef!” Millie cried. “What in the long desert are you doing?”
“What?” he tucked his hand into his pocket. “It’s not like she can feel it!”
“And could you?” Wylan asked.
“Yea, it feels almost spongy. I’ve never touched a ghost before. It’s like air, but there’s some give to it.” He trailed his fingers through her face. “Like I can feel her chewing…kinda. Strange.” He shivered.
“I think it’s stranger that you’re poking a ghost,” Wylan told him.
“We need milk, something for her to eat.” Millie ignored him.
“Um…” Josef looked around the house. “Where do you think we will find that?”
“When I first came in, there was food laid out for me,” Wylan said, pointing to the table.
“And you ate it?” A look of disgusted astonishment on his face.
“I was hungry…”
“Foul.” He groaned.
“Go see if there’s librak milk in there,” Millie ordered, taking the baby from him. “Did you take all of the canteens?” Millie turned her attention to Wylan.
“There’s some in here!” Josef called. “Damn, we need one of these self-replenishing houses.”
“Fill up a couple canteens with milk if you have enough,” Millie called.
“How do you think she’s been eating?” He asked.
Millie shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe she had a magic milk jug too.”
Josef appeared in the doorway and handed out canteens. There was only four and Wylan wasn’t sure which ones had milk in them.
“You don’t think that old crone had been feeding her from her wrinkled old teat do you?” He made disgusted face.
“Let’s just go,” Millie groaned.
But when they stepped into the streets they realized leaving wasn’t an option. The family in the house might not have paid them any mind, but the ghosts clogging the streets were all too
aware of them.
The ghosts had surrounded the house. The townspeople all looked the same as the family dining behind them. They were ethereal, like clouds of the people they’d once been. Frost covered their features, spider webbed across eyes, blooms of winter chill along arms. Wherever Wylan looked, there was some indication that the ghosts had been exposed to extreme cold. One face was completely black with what Wylan could only imagine was frostbite. It was said some tribes in the Northern Mountains had suffered from such afflictions.
There was no evidence of the crone in black.
“I defer to your better judgement,” Josef said, slinking behind Millie with Kira, who was fussing again.
“Gee, thanks,” Millie said. She let her gaze travel along the crowd. “We will just be going now,” she told them.
None of the ghosts moved.
“Not just yet,” a wizened voice said to their right.
They turned toward the voice to see the stooped hag approach through the fog of ghosts. Her hood was thrown back, her white hair swooped up on top of her head in a messy knot where some strands of hair had fallen free. She shuffled forward, her wrinkled face in a grimace of pain, as if walking hurt.
“Wh—who are you?” Wylan asked.
The old lady drew to a stop before them, her black robe whispered to a halt around her knobby ankles. Amidst the folds of her dress, Wylan saw a long, gnarled wand that appeared made of bone. “I am Baba Yaga,” the crone wheezed. “What are you doing in my town?”
Josef peaked between the women. “Normally you greet guests when they arrive, not when they’re leaving.”
Baba Yaga made a sharp, strangling gesture at Josef, and his voice cut off with a high-pitched yelp.
“Whoa!” Wylan said, holding up her hands as Josef made choking noises. He pawed at his throat with his free hand and rose up to his tiptoes as if he were being lifted, or trying to escape the strangling might of Baba Yaga’s magic.
Dragon Plagued: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 2) Page 3
