Dragon Plagued: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 2)

by Travis Simmons

  To kill that many dragons, she would have to use the wand, and that wasn’t something she wanted to do…at least not at the moment. And what if Josef and Millie were right? Would the dragons see her before she had the chance to strike? It was better for her to bide her time and plan a better attack. She didn’t care if she died in the process. But if she were to die, she wanted to take dragons out with her.

  Even now she was worried the dragons might see them. They weren’t far enough from the dragons that the wyrms couldn’t see them. In fact, Wylan wondered why the dragons hadn’t spotted them, or come after them. Were they truly that focused on destroying the town? And what had drawn them to the town anyway? Was it the release of power from the wand? Had they also felt the call of the baby? Did they have similar visions that told them to come to the ghost town and protect the baby with their lives? If so, why were they torching the village?

  Wylan was dizzy, and she didn’t want to think any more. The sounds of their feet shuffling through the sand sounded miles away to her. Josef’s arm, warm and protective, around her waist felt as though it came from a great distance—she could feel all of it, but almost as if it were a living dream. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep, but she couldn’t.

  “I should attempt to get the Kira back to Darubai,” Millie said. “They will be expecting her there.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Josef said. “But you might want to wait until the dragons clear out.”

  Millie nodded. “Wylan looks like she could use a break.”

  They stopped so that Wylan could rest. She didn’t know how long they’d stopped, or if she’d slept, but long before she was ready to head out again, Josef was pulling her to her feet and they were trudging on.

  The day passed in a haze. Wylan slowly became more and more aware of the spirit world around her than she was of the physical world. Was she dying? Had the wand poisoned her with some kind of deathly sickness? Was Baba Yaga working her magic and pulling Wylan farther into the spirit world where she could polish her off and take the wand back?

  She studied the ghosts, wondering what they were doing. Did they have a plan? The way it looked, there was no plan for them, they simply shuffled here and there, caught in some kind of dark dream only they could see. Many of the ghosts had been tethered to that plane for a long time, their features showing the signs of rot their bodies must have felt decades before. Were they all like her? Was this what she had to look forward to if Millie and Josef couldn’t figure out how to get her soul anchored to her body once more? Had these ghostly wanderers gone up against Baba Yaga and failed? Had they won a small victory, only to be cursed because of it?

  “It was stupid to take the wand,” Wylan said. “Stupid. I should have given it back.”

  “It would have been more stupid to give it back,” Millie told her. “You did a brave thing to save us. You saw the only option that could possibly help, and you latched on to it. You could never have known what would happen.”

  “Yea, don’t be so hard on yourself. Millie will do that for you in time. At any rate, I’d rather be cursed to the Dark Below than deal with Millie for any length of questing. We will figure this out,” Josef said. There was a note in his voice that told Wylan he didn’t truly know if there was any way to fix what was happening to her.

  “You sure about that?” Wylan asked.

  Neither of them answered. She changed the subject.

  “What brought the dragons?” Wylan asked.

  Millie shrugged, her eyes drifting down to the baby in her arms. “It could have been a number of things. Maybe there were a few flying around and they saw us.”

  Josef snorted. “It wouldn’t have taken that many dragons to do us in.”

  “Maybe they were drawn to the power of the baby,” Millie suggested.

  “Or the wand,” Wylan offered up.

  “Or the wand,” Millie said. “We should be far enough away from them by the time the sun sets so that we aren’t worried about an attack.”

  “Still, we shouldn’t light a fire,” Josef said.

  However, when night came, Wylan could still hear the thunder of wings and the cry of dragons close by. Either they hadn’t made it as far as they wanted to that day, or the dragons were following their trail. Wylan wondered now if it wasn’t Kira the dragons looked for. She had definitely put out some kind of signal for the wyverns to feel, did the dragons feel it too? Wylan agreed with Millie, the baby belonged in Darubai. But the baby had promised her that she would help kill the dragons. When was she going to help? Was there something she needed in the imperial city first? Millie and Josef should just leave Wylan and get the baby to Darubai so she could do whatever she had in mind to kill the dragons.

  I’m holding them back, Wylan thought. She shouldn’t have come with them in the first place. Maybe if she hadn’t come with them she would have avoided all of this with Baba Yaga, and she would have been able to hunt down the dragons once they’d left the city.

  But she was too tired at that moment to keep her eyes open, let alone think of taking on dragons. How long had it been since she slept? She couldn’t really remember. The last night Cuthburt and she had been in the long desert before getting home…

  Thinking of her father and mother wasn’t something she wanted to do in her current state, so Wylan curled up in the sand and drifted to sleep.

  She was woken later, when true night had fallen, by Josef offering her a hunk of raw meat. She squirmed away from the meat, revolted at the thought of eating something that hadn’t been cooked. But the wyvern soul—Lissandra she’d called herself—had other thoughts about raw meat, and in a dizzying shift of perspective, the wyvern soul bubbled to the surface, pushed Wylan’s reluctance aside, and devoured the meat.

  When the raw salamander was fully consumed, Wylan lay back down and fell fast asleep.

  It felt like she’d slept for a full day, and when Wylan woke again, there was no trace of sand or a camp. She was alone, and her friends had left her.

  Wylan was lost.

  Even worse, Wylan wasn’t anywhere she’d ever heard of in the long desert. The land around her was hard and cracked. Puffs of smoke billowed up between the cracks in the land, and on occasion she could she light flickering from the depths of the bigger chasms. Here and there tangles of skeletal brush sprouted up from the ground, parched and looking as if one soft touch would crumble them to ash.

  Wylan glanced around, wondering if she’d ever read of a place like this before, but she hadn’t. Had she finally lost herself to the spirit world? Was this what the ghosts ambling through the long desert saw? If it was, where were the other ghosts? Could they see one another while they ambled in torment? She certainly couldn’t see any of them now.

  The more she looked around the barren wasteland the more she became certain that she was trapped in the wretched limbo those tormented souls had been.

  Though she couldn’t feel heat or cold in this place. Wylan shivered at the thought that she was so far removed from her physical form to not feel discomfort. She wrapped her arms around herself, noting that they were her arms and not the scales of her wyvern soul. A stiff wind tugged at her shifting gray robed, and strewn tangles of her black hair from her face.

  She could still feel the bone wand in a pocket, though she no longer wore what she’d worn in the physical world.

  The moon hung high overhead painting the land an eerie blue. The land was so devoid of sound that Wylan could hear the thunder of her heart roaring in her ears and worried that it would attract unwanted attention.

  But she didn’t know what attention it would attract. As far as she could tell, she was the only living creature within miles—if she still lived at all. Was there any other attention to draw? She thought so. She felt eyes on her, though there was no telling where they came from. There were no mountains of trees for creatures to hide in. She could see in every direction around her, and what she saw was nothing. Just land, parched brush, and blue luminescence.<
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  Where were Millie and Josef? Where was the desert? More importantly, where was she? She needed to get back to them, but how? If she truly were one of those ghosts, she would have manifested in the same spot they made camp. She couldn’t see it though. She tried not to recall that the other ghosts in the long desert hadn’t seen her until she’d gripped the wand.

  Was the wand the key? She reached for the pocket of her robed, and moments before she gripped the length of bone, a sound rose behind her.

  “Give me the wand, and you can return to your friends,” the voice said.

  Wylan spun around and there stood Baba Yaga. She didn’t look the same as she did in the living world. Here she was in all of her glory, in her own power. She was a giant of a woman, easily standing twice as tall as Wylan. She rested within a giant black cauldron, and in her hands was a broom she held as if using it as an ore to row herself over the parched land, or through the clouds above. Her hair was unbound, and hung around her waist in glowing white locks healthier and beautiful than Wylan would have guessed from seeing her in the physical world. Her eyes were lit with emerald fire. The hand she extended to Wylan, urging her to give the wand back, was wrinkled, knobby, and covered with warts. Her robe was as black as the lightning the wand had discharged, but it didn’t shine. If anything, her robes drank in the blue light of the moon.

  Wylan took a step away from her, only then realizing she held the bone wand.

  “What is this?” Wylan asked, her voice holding more courage than her quaking figure felt.

  “It’s mine!” the hag snarled. Spittle bubbled between her lips as she gnashed her teeth.

  “It’s made of bone,” Wylan said.

  “And if you don’t give it to me, I will make another one from your bones. I would really love a fire wand.” Baba Yaga eyed Wylan critically. “But you’re a wyvern. I’ve never made one from wyvern bones. Probably much weaker than the dragon bones, but I would make a solid effort.”

  “So it’s a dragon bone,” Wylan said in wonder. Her eyes drifted over the length of the bone wand. It was rounded at the wide end, and filed to a near point on the other end. If it could withstand the blast that sent Baba Yaga here, it certainly would hold up to a sword, or even able to skewer a person with…or maybe a dragon.

  “That’s obvious,” Baba Yaga said. “Now give it to me. I tire of you and will have the wand back one way or another. If you’d like to live through this encounter, I suggest you do as I say.”

  “And you used this wand to get into the physical realm?” Wylan wondered.

  “No, I used one of the huge holes in the ether to enter. Dragons are back, young lady, and that has allowed for all kinds of things to happen that haven’t happened in years.” Baba Yaga cackled, a shrill sound among the fragile silence of the parched land. “I dare say that humans will find themselves on the losing side of living.”

  “What kind of things?” Wylan wondered.

  “Are you not in the slightest bit scared of me?” Baba Yaga asked.

  “Oh, I’m terrified of you,” she confessed, “but I also realize you want this wand, so it must hold vast power for you. I saw what it could do, and I’m hesitant to give it back, but I may be persuaded if you tell me more about these holes in the ether.”

  Wylan had called her bluff. As long as Wylan held the wand, she had the advantage. She’d already acted faster than the giantess had in the living world, and it was likely she could do it again if the need arose. Baba Yaga chewed her tongue, her cheeks puffing out as she chuffed in anger. If Wylan wasn’t nearly fainting in panic and terror, it would have been funny. She figured laughing at a giant hag was a bad idea, though.

  “Fine!” Baba Yaga roared. She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff.

  “What are these holes in the ether?” Wylan asked.

  Baba Yaga glared at her as if she hated the thought of answering any of her questions. She glanced at the wand held at Wylan’s side and sighed again. Wylan was aware that the giantess was going through many motions she wouldn’t normally have just to secure the wand. For that reason, Wylan wanted to ensure that Baba Yaga didn’t get the wand back. If she wanted it bad enough to answer questions, Wylan could only imagine what Baba Yaga had in mind for it.

  “The dragons weren’t supposed to come back,” Baba Yaga said. “They left the land ages ago, never to return.” In the distance, a howl rose in the dead air. Wylan glanced in the direction the howls came from, but she tried not to look concerned. “I will have that wand back one way or another. My hounds are coming.”

  Wylan frowned, but tried to ignore the implications. “What do you mean, they weren’t supposed to come back?”

  “They took an oath to the arch-mage Andraal, and he placed powerful magics around the Dar Desert, ensuring they would stay out. Many magics, many souls, and a lot of blood went into binding the dragons within the mountains.”

  “I never read anything about this pact.” The howling came closer, impossibly close for the amount of time that had passed since they last sounded. There were many hounds coming. Wylan hoped she had her answers before they showed up. She wanted nothing more than to toss the wand at the hag and flee, but where was she going to go? If this really was the same place she’d been partially damned to before, then this was the precise place her sleeping body rested in the long desert. Fleeing would only take her farther from where she wanted to be—back in her body.

  “And you wouldn’t have. This was secret. He didn’t want anyone to know about the spells that might be able to interfere. Once the spells were in place, they would hold forever, or so he thought. Certainly he made sure the wizards died out so no one could tamper with his magic. But, as with all things, time takes its toll, and the magics became weak.”

  “Are you saying Andraal killed the other mages?” Wylan couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How much of this was true? She couldn’t be sure. This was a powerful being in the Dark Below, could she honestly be trusted? It was completely possible that she was biding her time for the hounds to show up. In the distance, Wylan thought she saw dark shapes moving, and she hoped it was only her mind playing tricks on her.

  Baba Yaga smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “But the dragons came back, brought here for a purpose.”

  “And what’s that purpose?” Wylan asked.

  “Do I look like a dragon?” Baba Yaga asked. “How am I to know? I do know that the dragons wouldn’t have come back to the Dar Desert without great reasons to do so.”

  “And they came back through the weakening wards?”

  Baba Yaga nodded. “They came through the weak wards and tore holes in the ether that keeps dimensions from leaking into one another. Mind you, they aren’t great, but I dare say many things that have long been thought dead will start arising once more.” She cackled again. “A most terrible time to be human.”

  “You’re lying!” Wylan roared.

  “Give me that wand!” Baba Yaga snarled, taking a step forward, her hand swinging out at Wylan.

  The hounds were there in a flash. Great hulking beasts with blazing green eyes. They growled, surrounding the two of them, their nostrils sending out puffs of smoke every time they barked.

  Wylan acted before she could stop herself. She raised the wand, a scream of terror on her lips. The black lightning of the wand blasted Baba Yaga in the chest and launched Wylan backwards. This time when she landed, it wasn’t ground she hit, but her body.

  Her soul thundered into her physical form, and she gasped awake, sitting straight up.

  Millie yelped and sat up beside her, Josef moaned and sat up rubbing sleepy eyes.

  “What happened?” Millie asked.

  “She’s going to kill me if she finds me again,” Wylan mumbled, her head dropping into her hands.

  “Who is going to kill you?” Millie asked.

  “If she kills you, will I be able to sleep?” Josef mumbled.

  Wylan ignored them both because just then, staring around her, she notice
d one thing was missing—the ghosts. She looked to her hands and didn’t see scales. She was fully back in her body. The voices of her companions didn’t sound as if they were coming from miles away, her head didn’t feel filled with fog, and she didn’t see ghosts surrounding her, waiting for her to grip the wand so they could converge.

  “Who is going to kill you?” Millie asked again.

  “You’re looking better,” Josef mumbled, and flopped back down.

  “Baba Yaga,” Wylan said. She told them about what she’d been through, in the land of the dead, facing off with Baba Yaga. But more importantly, she told them what she’d learned about the wand and the dragons.

  “I refuse to believe Andraal killed the other mages,” Millie frowned. “The stuff about the dragons I believe, but not that.”

  “One guess why they came back,” Josef said.

  “You mean the baby?” Wylan asked.

  Josef nodded.

  “I don’t believe that either,” Millie said.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Josef scoffed.

  “For good reason,” Millie countered. “The baby was just born; they came back eighteen years ago.”

  “But she was born from the ether,” Wylan told her. “Maybe they’d felt her power building for a while.”

  Millie bobbed her head as if she didn’t believe it still, but she entertained the possibility. “Barring any other good reason, I guess that’s as good as any.”

  “And wands made from dragon bones?” Josef whistled.

  “That’s what’s interesting me,” Millie said. “We know that many parts of a dragon are magical. Their scales can entrance, they have power, their meat helps heal as well as strengthens the body, and their blood can be used for any number of potions. It’s surprising to me that we’ve never considered their bones.”