Dragonfire
Charles S Jackson
©2018 Charles Jackson
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‘Ægishjálmr, Helm of Awe’ image courtesy of: Bourbon-88/ shutterstock.com.
Cover art images courtesy of: Jose AS Reyes/shutterstock.com, Francey/shutterstock.com,
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First of the
Shard World
Series
The Keepsakes
All around us, there were places not safe to walk: places where the Old Majik still held power… the places where the Keepsakes lay. Some no more than some small patch by the side of a lonely road, or a place where the careless might trip or stumble over nothing at all: strange, inaccessible pieces of land – sometimes huge, sometimes no larger than a cart or wagon – where nothing lay that could be seen, yet through which no man might pass all the same, and a traveller would strike their knee, chest or face against something invisible that was nevertheless real enough to leave bruise or mark.
Everyone knew what to do. Any man who dared to venture beyond the walls of their village or strayed from the safety of the road in unfamiliar terrain made sure they carried with them a pack of Holding Staves. One placed at each corner, standing waist high with the top painted white to a hand’s breadth for better vision at night, with a Rope of Warding strung between. No one would ever speak of it again once that cord was tied, yet there it would remain, a warning for all.
There were cautionary tales – the stuff of frightful bedtime stories – that told of those foolish enough to ignore the ropes. It was said that in the Old Times, soon after The Cleansing, many tested the will of the dragons by climbing atop these invisible places, declaring to the world their courage and power. But just like dragons, so too the Old Majik had teeth, and it was said that one bite from these unseen things was enough to inflict a fever so brutal and sudden that only the strongest might survive.
For women there was no such ‘concern’, of course… our lot was mundane by comparison. Relegated to the role of idle, unknowing bystanders, we would wait patiently – blindly – was the menfolk attended to what must be done. Blindfolds or shuttered carriage windows were there to ‘protect’ us – to ‘save’ us from Nethug, and from ourselves – for there were many paths to heresy in those times, and the fear of witchcraft was still very real.
The priests – The Brotherhood of the Shard – told us that this age was founded at the end of a time called The Cleansing… a time when the evil of Nethug, the Bicephalus was rampant and consumed all. The world was a wild and decadent place, and the Shard Gods, having for some time tolerated the wickedness of Nethug and his minions, sent great beasts called the Night Dragons to scour the earth and cleanse it of evil. That is what we were all taught: me… my father… his father before him. These were the histories that were handed down through generations, and we believed; believed because there was nothing else for so many years…
Doubt began to grow however, throughout Huon and the rest of the known world. The young are ever suspicious of old ways, and I was no different. Science had come to the kingdoms of the Osterlands in my father’s time, bringing with it the dangerous seeds of rationale and curiosity within the ranks of royalty and lords alike; and also – more dangerously – within the minds of those commoners fortunate enough to be blessed with scholarly learning.
There were mechanical things now, pulled behind horse and ox to help farmers plant and till their lands. In the great mills of Swales and the northern Blacklands, paddles turned by running water in their turn powered endless rows of ‘Jennifers’: huge, clattering spinning-wheels that churned out reams of cloth by the cart load. In similar fashion, the great forges of Croweda produced tons of precious iron and steel with the aid of this water-powered revolution, and in the saw mills of Strahn and Zeehn and other working villages across the western reaches of Huon, razor-toothed blades of newly-forged, Crowedan steel sliced the huge trees of the inner highlands into long planks, bound for the shipyards of Burnii and Demon’s Port.
Some began to openly question the old ways and dared to doubt the words of the priests, and although it was true this had happened before, this time there was less effort from above to silence such whispers of discontent. Like those who’d dared to speak out, some rulers whose economies were now irrevocably bound to these nascent technologies had also begun to question… and The Brotherhood looked on, taking careful note of every slight and transgression, for to question The Word was to question the ways of The Shard, and that threatened the very existence of The Brotherhood itself. It is said that even the weakest animal will fight if its life is in peril, and The Brotherhood was anything but weak.
Introduction
The Collected Writings of Phaesia I
Year 16NE (New Era)
Contents
Map
Prologue
A Day in The Life
A Momentary Lapse
Unanswered Questions
The Night Dragon
The Cold Light of Day
The Dragon’s Daughter
Difficult Journeys
Secrets
Long Hop
The Keepsake
Catalyst
Catharsis
Machinations
Chance Encounters
Harbingers
Havoc
Nemesis
Dragonfire
Last Light
Kindred Spirits
Hidden Agendas
Moving Forward
Huon & the Southern Osterlands
Prologue
Nev Anderson crashed hard into the tree, collapsing against it and fighting to catch her breath, chest heaving as she gasped at the sudden pain in her shoulder. Years of athletics training and martial arts had left her exceptionally fit for her age, yet even the strongest young body had its limits and she could tell she was reaching the hers after ten minutes of sprinting, falling, stumbling and staggering lost and terrified through dense bushland in almost total darkness.
Her long, auburn hair had fallen loose and now hung wild and tangled about a face that was scratched and grimy from crashing through endless layers of thick underbrush. Her muscles ached, and her elbows and knees were bruised and scraped from numerous trips and falls. A thick layer of low cloud had reduced night-time visibility to almost nil, the situation not helped at all by the heavy, misting rain falling directly into her face through the forest canopy overhead. That she was terrified and also fighting back tears of shock and betrayal wasn’t helping her blurred eyesight either.
There was a rather over-dramatic flash of lightning above followed closely by an earth-shaking clap of thunder, and as the sound faded she also heard the frightened neighing of a horse somewhere behind her. It still sounded distant but was nevertheless far closer than the cries of her pursuers had been a few minutes earlier, and Nev realised in horror that they were gaining on her. An initial whimper of fear morphed quickly into a grunt of angry exertion as her survival instincts took over, forcing herself to push away from the tree and run on desperately on into the night.
Her large, black duffel bag dug hard into her back, dragging at her as she ran, yet she refused to leave it behind. Her rational mind screamed at her to ditch it – that she’d
run faster and further without such a burden – yet she clung to it tenaciously, some instinct deep within her soul certain its contents would be of far more value than any benefit gained by casting it aside.
She paused again a few hundred metres on, resting against another tree, and took a moment to drag her phone from her jacket pocket. The dim light of the screen was vaguely comforting as it flared into life, but the complete lack of any signal whatsoever still shook the very foundations of her world, just as it had every other time she’d checked in the last few minutes with the same lack of success.
Had there been just one or two men chasing her, she might’ve considered turning to face them: her youthful appearance hid great strength and quick reflexes, and the wooden practice sword inside her bag could be a dangerous weapon in well-trained hands. Nev considered herself reasonably brave, however she certainly wasn’t stupid: there were a lot more than just two of them out there, at least one of them was carrying a gun, and it was likely the rest were armed with real swords made from real steel that was certain to be real sharp.
It should have been a nice, sunny afternoon according to the radio forecast she’d heard that morning, although the black clouds and the rain had certainly proven that wrong. It should have been a fun afternoon, snacking in front of the TV, watching Game of Thrones on cable at Percy’s house and fangirling over Jon Snow. Both of them should have been at school… but that hadn’t happened that afternoon either…
All things considered, Nev Anderson had had better birthdays…
I
A Day in The Life
The day had started just fine, her father knocking on her open bedroom door and calling out his usual greeting from the doorway in the minutes before he left for work.
“Time to get up, Lazybones!”
Nev heard that most mornings at six as Drake Anderson bade her a combined good morning/goodbye and headed out the front door for work, although that morning he’d at least added a “and Happy birthday, by the way…” in recognition of her having officially turned seventeen overnight.
“Thanks, Dad,” she mumbled sleepily, dragging herself into a half-seated position and spilling pillows onto the floor as he entered the room and headed over to her side of the bed.
“Got your present ready for tonight, yeah?” He asked with awkward concern, leaning in and planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Is that okay?”
“It’s all good, Dad,” she smiled back, trying not to sound too disappointed. It meant having to wait all day to see what it was, but she knew he wanted to be there so he could see her reaction when she opened her gift, and she couldn’t blame him for that: his work schedule meant they spent little enough time together during the week as it was.
“Gotta go, okay?” He announced apologetically, already halfway to her bedroom door as his face contorted into a badly-hidden frown. “I s’pose you’re going to training as usual…?”
“You know I am, Dad…” she answered with a frown of her own, holding back the comment she wanted to add that would’ve started them fighting.
“Doesn’t he have people of his own age to hang around with?”
“We don't ‘hang around’, Dad: he’s my sensei, not my friend…!”
“He’s an old man…” Drake persisted, not happy that she always used the Japanese title for her martial arts instructor, but the disappointment he saw in his daughter’s eyes in that moment forced him to rein in his remarks.
Although still technically not quite an adult, Nev had been forced to grow up faster than an average teen and her father was well aware of how smart and tough his only child was. He knew that in her eyes at least, questioning her instructor also questioned her judgement. He also knew that at least some of his misgivings were based on his own racial prejudices, something he sensibly kept to himself, as neither of them needed an argument on his daughter’s birthday… particularly one he knew he’d never win. He also knew that Nev knew how he felt about it, and he wasn’t particularly proud of that fact either.
“Just… not too long, okay…?” He added finally with a sigh, once again deciding to concede defeat for the time being.
“Okay, Dad,” she sighed in return, but he was already heading up the hallway for the front door, not wanting to cause any more trouble or be late for work.
“Love you…” floated back from the front of the house as he left, as usual carrying the cooler bag she’d prepared for him the night before, packed with a chilled litre-bottle of supermarket-brand water, three small muesli bars and two sandwiches with plain fillings (which was exactly how he liked it). It’d taken two years of constant nagging just to get multi-grain bread onto the menu, and Nev knew there was a harder battle still ahead before something as healthy as salads or vegetables would be permitted to join his preferred staple of sliced deli meat and cheese. She was up for the fight, though… he was starting to put on weight as he got older, and exercise was hard to come by for a man who spent most of his working day at the wheel of a truck.
Her dad hauled coal over at Yallourn, back and forth between the mine and the power station for eight hours a day, five days a week, and that wasn’t even counting the frequent ‘voluntary’ overtime, or the three-hour round-trip between work and home. He often griped that most of it seemed to go on the mortgage, but she knew he didn’t mind really: they had a home of their own and even if money was tight sometimes, they lived well enough for all that. It mightn’t have been this year’s model, but he’d given her an iPhone for her last birthday, and at Christmas she’d received a mid-range MacBook that was a far better unit than her school’s standard-issue. Nev never complained: she knew how much overtime he’d worked to pay for it all.
Releasing a frustrated groan that was a reaction both to family issues and the fact that she now had to get out of a warm and perfectly good bed, she rolled over twice, buried her head in the covers and toyed with the idea of staying in bed for at least another five hours. She got up anyway, threw on her woollen robe and stomped grumpily down to the laundry to stuff a load of washing into the machine and set it running. Realising she’d forgotten to put on her necklace, Nev then returned to her room and took it from the bedside table.
A gift from her paternal grandfather, it was comprised of a chain of finely-made dark links from which hung a single pendant of similar, blackened steel. No more than two centimetres long, the pendant was roughly circular and carried a design of Nordic runes and symbols in a circular pattern, enclosed on both sides by the rearing heads of two dragons, each a representation of the figurehead of a Viking drekar longboat. The only small sparks of colour in the entire design were a pinkish colouring for the dragons’ tongues and two tiny rubies set into their eyes (which Nev assumed were synthetic).
An old man in his seventies who’d been passionate about his Icelandic heritage, Anders Gunnarson had given it to her for her eleventh birthday, just a few months before he’d passed in his sleep without warning. Her father’s names had been anglicised at the time of his birth – at his mother’s insistence – but in true Icelandic tradition, he’d always been Dreki Andersson to his father regardless of what his birth certificate said.
Her father had never shown any great love for his Nordic ancestry. Nev had tried to learn at least a little out of respect for a grandfather she remembered with great fondness, but it had seemed difficult to separate myth from history as she’d tried to read up on such subjects as Norse gods and the Sagas of Snorri Sturluson, and a lot of it had been very heavy reading, even for an exceptionally-bright pre-teen. Interest in her Scandinavian heritage waned as high school arrived on the scene, bringing with it an exponential increase in homework, but Nev at least still honoured the memory of Grandpa Anders in the wearing of his parting gift.
It was the one piece of jewellery she felt any connection to and she always wore it everywhere, no matter the occasion or situation. Smiling faintly, she stared at it for a moment in her hands then reached back to fasten it behind her head and let the pe
ndant fall down inside the neck of her pyjama top. She felt immediately better with its familiar, reassuring weight resting just below her throat, as if she were finally ready to take on the world and its obstacles for another day.
Heading back to the kitchen for a quick cup of coffee and a light breakfast, she found two opened envelopes on the kitchen table with bills inside for the electricity (quarterly) and a bundled monthly charge for the internet and both their mobile phones combined. Nev wasn’t worried about the latter one – she’d already paid that one online the week before – but she did make a mental note to call the power company later and ask for an extension until Dad’s payday at the end of the month.
As she looked up, Nev was surprised to find a gift waiting for her on the bench near the sink: a small, flat box that had clearly been awkwardly ‘man-wrapped’ using far too much sticky tape and a mortifying choice of decorative paper that would never be spoken of again (Pink teddy bears and rainbow unicorns, no less!). The box itself seemed intriguingly small: perhaps large enough to hold one of the ‘plus-sized’ smart phones that had become popular in the last year or two.
“No way…” she thought silently, knowing already there really was no chance of it being a new phone just a year after she’d received her beloved iPhone-6. It definitely wouldn’t be another phone, so… what, then…? She withdrew her phone from her robe pocket almost by reflex, halfway through Instagramming the scene before she remembered how not cool the wrapping was and instantly lowered the phone again with a whispered “…oh, God, no…!”
The note atop the small gift was helpful, at least:
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