She looked away from the scale, remembering what her father had told her about a similar scale that had hung on their wall. The scales, if given too much attention, if allowed to seep into a person’s mind, could enslave them. People like that were called scale wraiths, and they could never get enough of the power and euphoria the scales brought to them.
Her eyes followed the trail of dragon scales, until she could see the dark shape of the blue dragon, drifting against the sky. It was a trail that she could follow, and it was a trail she would follow. If luck was with her, she would be long gone from the camp before either Josef of Millie rose, and if luck wasn’t with her, she would be dead.
Not like there’s much to lose.
At least that was her plan. As she headed toward the next scale, picking her way across the sand and starting up the dune, cries yelled out from around her.
She barely had time to register a ragged, emaciated human launching themselves over the dune and toward her before something heavy crashed down on her skull, and Wylan knew only darkness.
Wylan woke to darkness. Her skin hurt and she could sense more than see cuts along her arms. The back of her head throbbed and bursts of light danced before her vision. It took her several agonizing moments before she heard the soft whimpering beside her.
“Millie?” she called.
“What?” Millie responded and Wylan nearly jumped with the anger she heard there.
It wasn’t Millie who was whimpering.
:She’s not happy with you,: Josef’s voice came to her.
:I’m sorry,: Wylan said.
:You’re not, and you’d do it again,: Josef said. He wasn’t angry with her, or at least he didn’t sound angry with her, but there was an accusation in his voice. :Maybe next time you could let us know that you were going to go wandering off so we wouldn’t go looking for you.:
“It wasn’t my choice to come to your aid,” Millie said. “If Josef hadn’t been focused on not leaving you behind, we wouldn’t be in this mess, and the baby would still be with us.”
:Who’s crying?: Wylan asked Josef. She ignored Millie as best as she could.
:I don’t know,: Josef said. :They were here when I woke.:
:Why do I feel like I’ve been cut up?:
:You must not have experience with scale wraiths…: Josef said. :They can feel what we are. They’re trying to get the wyvern soul to answer. It’s all I can do to fight down the beast.:
:Why fight it?: Wylan asked. :Just shift.:
:Then they would take our scales.:
:But it’s dragon scales they’re after.:
:Our scales hold a little of the same power they get high on.:
Wylan tried to remember what she knew about scale wraiths, but it wasn’t much. She remembered Cuthburt telling her many times not to stare too long at the scale on their wall or she would get bewitched by it and think of little else. The wraiths were those people who had stared too long, or had carried the scales longer than was wise.
:Do the power of the scales vanish?: she asked.
:Scale wraiths consume the scales,: Josef said. :They’ve found a way to smash them down and they sniff them, eat them, or rub the crystals into their skin until they merge with their blood.:
:So the scales I found must have belonged to them.:
:They’re likely running low,: he said.
Wylan heard Millie shifting in the darkness beside her.
Before her there was a sliver of light that came through under a doorway. As her eyes adjusted, Wylan was able to see more of the inside of the chamber.
:We need to get out of here,: Wylan said.
:I know.:
:What’s the plan?:
:Well, I’ve never been captured before, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you. We need to get out of these ropes though, if you could get your fire to work on them, that would be pretty grand.:
Wylan reached for the wyvern soul, and she felt her more than willingness to help. :I think I can shift.:
:I wouldn’t doubt it. We’re in very real danger and the wyvern knows it. Don’t shift unless I tell you to. Just work on those ropes.:
Wylan followed directions. The flame came even easier than before. This time she didn’t call the fire into her hands because her hands were bound behind her and she worried that she’d catch herself on fire. Instead, she directed the heat to build up around her wrists where the ropes were tied. It was a gamble, Millie hadn’t told her she could do this—and she didn’t want to ask her—but when the smell of smoke reached her nose and she felt any give in the ropes, Wylan knew she was successful. Soon, the ropes fell free, and she went to work on her ankles. The bindings were frayed and difficult to work with, but after several moments of struggling, she was free.
As she knelt beside Millie, she heard footsteps outside the door.
“If it’s a guard, kill them. Drag them inside, and close the door,” Millie told her. “It will buy us some time to get me out of these ropes.”
Wylan sidled up to the door as silently as she could and waited. The footsteps drew closer, and she was very aware that she’d never actually killed a person before. The wyvern soul was there with her, more than ready to take over, slay the person, and flee.
:No!: Wylan was strict with the beast. It didn’t want to listen. It uncoiled from the base of her spine, and she felt the energy spread through her like scales just beneath the surface of her skin, ready to take over. She closed her eyes and pushed the beast down. :Lissandra, you will get us killed.:
:FREE.: the wyvern said.
:The best way to be free of them is to stay where you’ve been for the last several days—down deep and ignoring me.:
The footsteps faltered at the door, but only for a moment. After an agonizing span of time, the feet shuffled past, and Wylan was able to breathe freely.
She crouched next to Millie again. After several moments, the healer was free.
Millie made her way to the sobbing person and Wylan could hear low whispers. She turned her attention back to the door, waiting for someone to appear. When she didn’t hear anyone coming, Wylan made quick work with Josef’s ropes.
“It’s a little boy,” Millie said. “We have to take him with us…he’s wyvern.”
The wyvern soul within Wylan bucked against her mind. She felt the need of the beast to go to the boy, to take him under wing and carry him to safety.
Millie bent low over the boy, speaking in tones that Wylan couldn’t hear.
:I know how you’re feeling,: Josef said. :My wyvern is reacting the same. Just think though, if you do this your wyvern soul will feel closer to you. It will more likely work better with you. The wyvern souls seem to respect their human counterparts better when they refuse to use them.:
Wylan didn’t answer because she felt just as strong a need to help the boy as the other soul did.
“His name is Geffrey Egan,” Millie said. “He’s learned to shift, but hasn’t learned to keep the wyvern at bay. They’ve already taken a lot of his scales. I will have a terrible time healing him.”
Just then the door opened, and a guard strode in. It surprised Wylan, she hadn’t heard anyone approach, but the wyvern soul was close to the surface, and she reacted by instinct. Wylan gripped him by the robe, his gaunt, waxy face showing his surprise. She pulled him in, slammed the door shut behind her, and before she knew it the wraith was wreathed in flames.
He died almost instantly. The smell of charred flesh and sizzling hair filled the chamber. Wylan crouched low to the floor, not because the smoke would kill her—she had a reassuring thought that the wyvern could live as well on smoke as on oxygen—but more to get away from the putrid smell of his burning body.
:Good. The door is unlocked,: Josef said.
Wylan didn’t need urging. She opened the door enough to peer out and was greeted by a long, dark corridor. There was barely enough light for her to see up and down the hallway. If she had to guess she would say they were inside a cave that had been tunne
led farther into the mountains. To her right the light was brighter, but she also saw shadows passing across the opening, casting long shadows down the corridor. To her left, the tunnel turned sharp, and from around the bend she could see a hint of rainbow light, and the soft sound of music she’d equated with Kira the day in the ghost town.
It must go farther back, she thought.
“What do you see?” Josef asked, coming to her side. Wylan stepped back and let him have a look. Josef assessed the situation for several moments before ducking back into the chamber and closing the door.
“We are a little way from our camp. The mountains weren’t too close, but not so far away that we can’t get back to where we were.” Josef told Millie.
Wylan couldn’t see anything now that the door was closed and she was plunged into darkness again. She could feel the boy beside her though. She reached down and grasped his hand and he stepped closer to her, welcoming whatever protection she could give him.
“Are we really going to Darubai?” he asked. His voice was soft, innocent, and full of hope and wonder. It was almost as if his time with the wraiths meant little to him now that three grown wyverns were going to rescue him.
Even though it sounds like he’s better at shifting than I am.
“Yes,” Millie told him. “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”
Wylan wasn’t sure how Millie could promise that when Wylan wasn’t even sure they were safe yet.
“Kira is at the other end,” Josef told Millie as she joined them.
Millie nodded. “You three go get her. I’m going to head up toward the light. There will be a lot of confusion, so whatever guards come running toward the entrance will be easily killed. It would be nice if you could find our weapons.”
Josef nodded.
“By the time you have Kira, the coast should be clear.”
Before Wylan could protest, Millie slipped out the door.
She peeked out the door and watched Millie. Her teacher stopped near the opening, just inside the shadows. Wylan could feel the gathering of magic and watched the nimbus of putrid green energy surround Millie. Moments later, the black woman stepped out into the light, and the cloud of green smoke oozed from her. There were unintelligible shouts.
Wylan looked to her left. She heard footsteps approach from the darkness there. She stepped out into the hallway, pushed Geffrey behind her, and reached for the fire burning within her. Three unlucky guards rounded the corner and each of them was met with a fireball before they could draw to a stop and prepare for a fight.
Over the crackling of their fallen bodies, she listened for more footsteps, but Wylan heard nothing.
She motioned to Josef, and he pushed through the door behind her. Silently, they made their way down the hallway, toward the rainbow light. Wylan worried that they would find more guards. She worried that Millie would meet a danger she couldn’t overcome in the entryway, despite the screams and cries for help issuing from that end. She worried still that they wouldn’t make it out of the cave.
She worried until she stepped into the pool of rainbow light, and then all of her worries vanished. She let the light call to her, put her wyvern soul to ease, and carry her to the end of the curved tunnel until she stood in a great domed chamber so high that shadows obscured the ceiling.
Josef rushed to the left, where Kira rested on the floor. The moment he touched her, the baby giggled, and the rainbow light wavered around them, infusing Wylan with joy, and with peace.
The joy was short-lived when Wylan saw what lay scattered about the chamber—great bones of dragons lay everywhere she looked. There was a corpse of a dragon at the back of the chamber. All of the scales were gone, and now that they were, the corpse was left to rot, to join the other bones littering the floor.
The table in the center of the room was large and covered with glittering dust in hues of red and purple. Wylan took a tentative step toward the table, already knowing that the dust was from scales. There was a thin cylinder of bone laying in the middle of a lump of sand, and slumped against the table was a waxy, emaciated woman with blond hair as brittle as hay. Around her nose red scale dust glittered where it clung to her skin. Her face was coated in sweat and a milky-white trail of vomit oozed from her mouth and over the edge of the table to pool on the floor about her feet.
Wylan grimaced, but she lifted a silvery-white pestle out of the mortar where it had been used to grind the scales.
“What do you think is hard enough to grind dragon scales?” Wylan asked, shooting a look over at Josef where Geffrey stood, staring down at Kira.
“I don’t know, and we don’t have time to deliberate. Is there anything worth taking?”
Wylan slipped the pestle in the pocket opposite the wand, and scouted around for any bones that might fit in her pockets to use as wands. Finding none small enough to carry, she located their weapons, sheathed her own sword, and nodded to Josef before leading them from the chamber. She took Kira long enough for Josef to belt his own weapon, and then she handed her back.
Green fog lay like a blanket across the stone floor of the cave’s entrance. Rudimentary furniture stood against the walls—stones that were worn in the shape of chairs; tables cut out of the rock face of the cave; smaller stones that looked to be used as low tables. Bodies were strewn on the floor, dead eyes staring up at the ceiling. In the center of the fog, Millie stood, staring out the opening to the light of day beyond.
“You killed them?” Wylan asked.
“It was them or us. We don’t have much time, there are others outside. Josef, get Kira to safety.” She waited until Josef had undressed, wrapped Kira in his clothes to make sure she wouldn’t slip loose and then shifted. He turned to Geffrey, and the dark-haired boy did the same. The boy looked strange without any scales, almost like a librak that had been scaled and ready for slaughter. His flesh was light orange, like sand, and speckled with sun spots.
Josef took hold of the baby, and was out of the entrance sooner than Wylan had wanted to be left alone with Millie.
“If you can keep up with us, then you can come with us. But hear me well when I tell you that I’m officially done with you. If you can’t shift and keep up, then you’re on your own to figure out a way to safety. I won’t keep jeopardizing our mission and the safety of friends I’ve left behind just so you can mistreat Josef.”
She nodded but refused to answer Millie. She’d already came to the conclusion that she didn’t need to defend her actions to Millie. Millie was doing what she had to do, just as Wylan was doing what she had to do. For the time being, however, Wylan would keep traveling with them. Every time she tried going after the blue dragon, it led her and them into danger, and Josef didn’t seem ready to let Wylan go yet, for whatever reason. It at least gave her hope there was something to salvage between the two of them.
It only took a moment of surveying her wyvern soul to know that the red beast was ready to shift…and ready to kill.
Wylan stripped her clothes off and tossed them out the opening of the cave. She called to her wyvern and as she stepped out the door, she felt the beast answer. As the sun bathed her, red scales blossomed to the surface of her skin. Her bones cracked and shifted beneath her skin, reforming to the bones of the wyvern. It happened so fast that the pain didn’t register until she was in her other form. She let out a roar and leapt into the air. Her wings snapped open, and as she glided down the mountain pass, wraiths stepped out before her, spears ready to take her down.
Now that she’d given in to the other form, the wyvern was harder to control. She’d heard before that the wyvern and the human were so well linked that in wyvern form you could still control it, but Wylan might as well have been a bystander in the body.
The wyvern struck, fire bloomed from its mouth taking out a line of wraiths before her. Men and women scattered, their thin-lipped mouths open in a terrible scream. Their thin bodies flailed, their wiry hair burned.
Most of them had scattered before the fire took
them, and they were quick to retaliate. Spears glinted in the light of the sun, fly straight and true. Wylan listed to the side, but one still took her in the wing.
She roared again, fire blooming from her mouth. If she incinerated any that time it was by sheer luck. She saw a wraith standing high on a ledge, his spear ready to launch, but he froze when she turned toward him.
Powerful jaws latched around his head and blood flowed down his body, showering those below her. She tasted his blood, his fear, and it tasted wonderful. But she wouldn’t eat. Fire coursed down her mouth, out her open jaws and around the body. The man flailed in death throws, altering her course. She was large for a wyvern, but not so large that a full-grown man dangling from her teeth didn’t cause her some kind of awkward flying.
She let his weight carry her down, his body burning before her eyes. She dropped him to land amidst a group of wraiths waiting for her to circle back so they could bring her down. They were set for battle, and didn’t have time to move before the flaming, flailing body crashed into them. The fire was put out quickly, and they took aim, but by the time they did, Wylan was above the reach of their spears.
Her wing burned. She could feel the wind whistling through the opening the spear had created. She knew there was some serious damage there, but she fought through it. To not fight meant death.
She could see the green wyvern already flying away, the bald shape of Geffrey hanging close beside her. Wylan hadn’t had enough yet. She dove at another group, her talons gripping one wraith. She shook his body, the spear falling as his spine snapped. She dropped him to his friends below.
Spears flew at her, but this time when they connected, they rebounded off her scales and clattered uselessly to the ground.
Her wing hurt enough that the wyvern soul focused less on the need to kill, and more on Wylan’s reasoning to flee. She pushed her need to retreat into Lissandra’s mind, showing the beast that Millie and the boy were out of danger. The wyvern seemed happy enough with that, and let Wylan steer it away from the mob below.
Dragon Plagued: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 2) Page 11
