TRAVELLER (Book 1 in the Brass Pendant Trilogy)

by Amanda May Bell

  We had to leave for out challenge at rise nine, straight after the morning meal, and when Marko collected our stack of empty bowls, I just had time to run up to my room and change into a warmer jacket. We’d changed back into our quester clothes after our run and Evangeline followed me upstairs to get herself a warmer jacket too. Dragon territory was usually in the mountains and the temperature would likely be cool. I waited for Evangeline at the door to our room and, when we entered the room together, I glanced at her.

  “Evangeline, make sure you take a speckled egg. Don’t take a white one because they’re impossible to return,” I said quietly, and Evangeline nodded as she did up the clasps on her warmest jacket.

  “Thanks Livia,” she said quietly and I nodded too before we rushed out of the room together and headed downstairs to the locker room.

  We needed our bows and a quiver of arrows, and Morgan emptied his pack too and took it with him to carry our egg. I put my emergency cylinder into my inside jacket pocket and I quickly fastened the metal clasps. We were to leave together from the rising marker in the back courtyard, but, for this particular challenge, we could return at any time before sundown at the quest house, which was around set six at this time of the year. We were going to a marker at Centaurus1433 set 59º so we obviously wouldn’t be able to leave until after midday, but I doubted any of us would have an egg before then.

  As the air patterns began, I took an arrow and loaded it into my bow, and Morgan did the same. Dominic rolled his eyes at us and shook his head but we ignored him. Ancient Era dragon territories were usually wild, uninhabited places where ancient animals roamed in large numbers, and there was no guarantee that our marker was going to be clear of such animals when we arrived.

  The temperature dropped and there was a roaring in my ears before the courtyard disappeared suddenly. The pain in my bones was excruciating, and when the deep blue blackness became colours, the first thing I saw was a flash of yellow. I could hear powerful limbs too as they slid through dirt and, all around me, I heard muffled growls. Even before the pain had faded from within me, I was knocked to the ground by something warm and powerful, and I heard a yelp as a slashing sound was followed by the sound of a scuffle. There was another growl that sounded like it was right behind me and, as the colours merged, it took me a moment to realise our entry had dropped us right into the middle of a tiger fight. The two large males tore at each other almost beside me and they weren’t tawny skinned tigers……they were much, much worse.

  I scrambled to my feet and Morgan was already pulling me backwards by the arm when the two giant sabre tooth tigers saw us……….The next moment was slow in my memory, but Seth assured me later it took only a second in real time.

  The two tigers rolled apart and rounded on us instead, and blood glistened in the wounds which marred their yellow fur as they looked at us with their golden, yellow eyes. I stood very still and lined up my bow and, when the first tiger leant forward in a crouch, I was ready long before it leapt. I hit it through the heart in mid-air and it fell heavily before the second tiger fell awkwardly and slid along the ground towards the first. It had an arrow through its throat and it was dying just as quickly……and I took a step backwards at almost the same time……as Morgan lowered his bow.

  Time sped up again and I saw Dominic standing beside us in shock as he stared at the two giant beasts. Evangeline was right in front of the second tiger and she stared at them too while she breathed deeply and put her hands over her heart.

  “You can thank us later,” said Morgan cheerfully, and he patted Dominic on the back as he took my hand. We headed towards a patch of cypress trees and left the others standing silently in the middle of the marker.

  We were in a mountainous region and we walked across a flat, bare section of ground. The steep slopes around us were covered in a mixture of bare ground and patches of cypress forest. Some of the patches of trees were completely shredded, and everywhere we looked, branches hung loosely from torn trunks. The ground was littered in pieces of cypress branch too and some patches were covered in shavings of wood. It was cold here, and cloudy, and smaller, thinner clouds of dragon smoke rose here and there from the edges of the tree patches. Herd dragons stayed close together, hence the name. They were different to the more solitary, smaller flight dragons of the far north, and they were different to the nasty water dragons known for their aggression in the south. Herd dragons ate wide paths through cypress forests in spring and summer and they were known to be good for fire control. The females nested quite close to one another at the end of summer and, while they were nesting, the males moved on and found a good place to spend the winter. The males then waited there for the females and, once all their eggs had hatched, the females followed their trails and arrived some time during winter to present the herd with their next batch of young.

  The breeze was cold here too and it smelt strongly of cypress smoke. I was glad I’d had time to fetch my jacket. We walked without speaking. Dragon’s had good hearing and, if a female dragon heard our voices, she’d be alerted to unfamiliar sounds. She’d never leave her nest if she suspected danger. I heard a grating screech from somewhere to the east and it echoed shrilly in the thin, mountain air.

  We could see a number of smoke puffs rising from the other side of the patch of trees we were approaching and, when we neared it, Morgan let go of my hand and pointed to the top of a tree which wasn’t quite as shredded as the others. I knew he intended to climb it and I watched him as he climbed up the trunk before swinging himself onto the lowest branch. He climbed steadily then and the tree swayed as he climbed closer to the top. I frowned as he climbed a few branches higher than I thought he should have, and I folded my arms as he grinned down at me. He looked about him then, in every direction, and I was beginning to wonder whether he was going to come down before the end of autumn, when he finally began his descent.

  “All the dragons here have full nests and a few hatchlings as well. I don’t think they’re going to need more branches anytime soon. We need a nest with eggs only, and not too many branches. That mother will need to add to her nest branches before her babies are born,” whispered Morgan. “There’s a lot of smoke rising to the west. We should head that way,” he added in a whisper, and I nodded as he took my hand again.

  We found a suitable nest eventually but it had taken us almost three clock turns to find one with eggs in it only. This nest had four speckled eggs and three white eggs in it and it wasn’t as full of branches as the other nests we’d spotted. Dragons made their nests on soft ground and they were usually against the edge of a tree patch. Mother dragons laid anywhere from five to ten eggs and this nest was situated against the edge of a patch of trees with a rocky rise just downwind of it. The rise was a perfect place for Morgan and I to wait in relative safety and comfort until the mother dragon decided to gather more cypress branches for her nest.

  We leant against the rocks and ate bread Morgan had brought with him, courtesy of his good friend Marko in the kitchen. I looked up as the mother dragon shifted her weight, but she didn’t get up and I glanced impatiently at the time on my pendant.

  Herd dragons were wide and cumbersome with short, squat legs and leathery wings. The wings were thin, but coated with soft down on the underside, and the dragons could stretch them right out in a similar fashion to a bat. They weren’t made for flying though. The herd dragon’s necks were short with thin, leathery growths that sometimes folded over to either side as they moved. The head was similar in shape to a horse’s head, but the snout on the end was large and the jaws could open wide like a crocodile’s. Dragon eyes were large, and pearly black, and adult dragon eyes glowed green in the dark. The most spectacular thing about herd dragons were their scales. Female dragons were covered in turquoise, luminescent scales that overlapped each other over their whole body. They were particularly luminescent at the moment because, in summer, the clear layer over the top of the scales was shed and a new one grew over the next three seasons.
Questers collected the clear scales that littered dragon territories and these scales were then melted down and used for many things, including the small circle of glass which covered the needles in the centre of our pendants.

  The sun came out from behind the clouds suddenly and the female dragon’s scales glistened. Male dragons were covered in gold and silver scales, and their wings were smaller.

  We waited another clock turn and the female dragon slept. We watched her impatiently and Morgan stood up to stretch his legs. When she woke, the dragon shuffled about in her nest and she moved a few of the branches before she settled down again. Morgan rolled his eyes and I asked him if he thought we should try another nest. He shook his head. Mirren had given him the instructions for choosing a nest and he trusted her. He thought we should stay with this dragon.

  “I’m glad you thought to send that message to Mirren,” I whispered, and Morgan nodded.

  “It was worth the money it cost me,” he said quietly, as he watched the mother dragon move a few branches around in her nest. I looked at Morgan thoughtfully before I spoke softly.

  “Where do you keep all these coins you have and how did you get them in the first place?” I asked him curiously.

  “It’s not difficult to bring things you’re not supposed to into the Quest house,” he said softly, deftly avoiding both my questions.

  “I know that,” I said quietly, and I grinned. Morgan narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.

  “What did you bring into the house that you weren’t supposed to?” he asked me suddenly, and he grinned as he looked impressed.

  “I have a music cartridge. Josh gave it to me,” I said quietly, and Morgan’s smile faded abruptly.

  “Josh gave you a music cartridge,” he repeated, and I nodded.

  “I listen to the songs at night after lights out,” I confessed, and Morgan frowned.

  “Can I hear this music?” he demanded, and I frowned too. If he didn’t keep his voice down the dragon would hear him and then we’d be in trouble.

  “If you want to,” I whispered, but I continued to frown.

  “I want to,” Morgan muttered quietly and I wondered what that was all about just as our mother dragon finally lifted herself awkwardly from her nest. She moved her thick legs over her eggs and shuffled inelegantly away from them towards the trees. She moved slowly and we leant forward and watched her as she tore a branch from a shredded tree and ate it slowly with her sharp, saw like teeth. It was another half clock turn before she moved out of sight of her nest and we climbed quickly, but cautiously, down the rise.

  Morgan held his pack open and I lifted a speckled egg carefully from the nest. It fitted in my arms easily and it wasn’t that heavy. Baby dragons were only small when they were born, although they grew rapidly. The egg had a greenish tinge and brown speckles and it was slightly textured. The shell felt dry and cool rather than warm and I eased it gently into Morgan’s pack. Dragon eggs weren’t kept warm. Only the hatchlings needed warmth. The fluid which was inside the eggs acted as insulation to keep the dragon warm until it was born.

  Morgan eased his pack carefully onto his back and I loaded an arrow into my bow as we followed the blue crystal arrows on our pendants back to our marker. It had taken us until well into the afternoon, but we now had the perfect egg to match our perfect hatching plan.

  When we arrived back at the marker, we found that scavengers had already completely removed the bodies of the two sabre tooth tigers from the sight. Some dried blood on the ground and some drag marks in the dirt were all that remained. The Ancient Era was a thriving animal world. The earth in its prime was truly a place where nothing went to waste.

  “I told Evangeline to take a speckled egg,” I confessed, as we set our pendants to the quest house marker. Morgan grinned.

  “You needn’t have bothered, I told Caz to take a speckled egg too,” he confessed, and I smiled as we walked into the centre of the marker to take our precious cargo on the dark and painful journey through time…….

  Everything went smoothly when we arrived back at the Quest house. We were last to arrive and Zurina marked our egg with a vegetable dye cross before we placed it in the dining room. We placed it beside two other speckled eggs and one white one. Unfortunately, Imogen and Erin hadn’t taken the right coloured egg and I felt guilty for not sharing our information with them. I felt guilty, that is, until Imogen made a remark at the evening meal about servant questers. When she said she’d heard servant questers were used for the mundane quests while only noble questers were able to join the quests that required any skill, I was almost glad she’d picked up the wrong egg. Dominic and Seth found her comment amusing and I was sorry they hadn’t picked up a white egg too.

  After the meal, I took bow practice with Morgan. The practice room was lit a little more brightly than the rest of the house at night, but it was soft lighting. It was good practice to shoot arrows in low light conditions and, as we collected our arrows, Morgan told me we’d have to get branches from the cypress forest behind the house to feed our dragon in the morning. I smiled and reminded him I could do that instead of going for a run. When we went back to the Quest house and climbed the stairs, Morgan glanced back at the house control panel and I tried not to laugh as I entered my dorm room to retire for the night. Our plan was perfect and, when I lay in my bed, I closed my eyes……and dreamt of not having to go for a run…….

  CHAPTER 14:

  I was woken from a deep sleep by a shrill screech.

  It echoed in my ears and goose bumps rose instantly on the back of my neck. I winced and my teeth were set on edge as the shrill pitch of the sound hurt the inside of my ears. I sat up and shook my head as I picked up my pendant and shivered. It was cold in our room. Erin and Evangeline were stirring and the glow from the blue crystal needle in the centre of my pendant was enough light for me to read the time. It was almost a half turn after set eleven. Set eleven? I jumped out of bed and fumbled for my clothes in the dark, but as I pulled on my pants, another grating screech pierced the silence of the house. This screech was joined by another shrill screech and I swore softly as I quickly buttoned my shirt. Why were the eggs hatching now? I pulled on my jacket and wrenched open the bedroom door only to find Morgan was already outside in the hall…..and he wasn’t happy. The hallway was lit dimly by soft cavity lighting and the same lighting glowed downstairs as well.

  “I don’t know who touched the house control panel because I set it just before lights out,” Morgan fumed, as we ran down the stairs together. I could already tell it was much too cold down here. Dominic, Seth and Caspian were right behind us and Morgan stopped at the bottom of the stairs to confront them.

  “Did you adjust the temperature of this house?” he demanded, and all three of them looked at him blankly. It was obvious they had no idea what he was talking about and Morgan let out his breath and looked up the stairs. Erin, Evangeline and Imogen ran towards us now too but they looked at Morgan just as blankly when he accused them of touching the house control panel. He let out his breath in frustration.

  I looked at Morgan and shook my head, and Morgan gritted his teeth.

  “Zurina,” we said together, just as another piercing screech grated against our ears. We followed the others into the dining room and, sure enough, three moist, ugly baby dragon heads looked out at us from three cracked and broken eggs. I put my fingers in my ears and winced again as our presence in the room caused more of the shrill, unbearable screeching.

  “Go and get a blanket to wrap the thing. I’ll take a sword from the locker room and cut some branches from the forest to feed it.” Morgan spoke to me loudly as one of the babies gave another extra-long screech. I winced and nodded, and when Evangeline followed me upstairs, I knew she and Caspian would do whatever we did. There were extra blankets in the closet in our dorm room and I grabbed one and threw another one to Evangeline.

  “Bad luck for you all, I guess,” said Imogen smugly. We met her on the staircase on our way back downst
airs, but I ignored her and so did Evangeline. We knew she and Erin were going back to bed, but right now, we didn’t care. They’d have to do this sooner or later when they had to repeat this particular challenge.

  By the time I was back in the dining room, the dragons were literally falling out of their broken shells. I picked up the baby that rolled from the shell with our mark and I used the blanket to scoop it out of a mess of egg fluid and speckled shell fragments. Immediately, the warm bundle wriggled in my arms and I looked down into an ugly, little face. Baby herd dragons were known for their unfortunate looks, as well as for their demanding neediness. While the parent dragons were covered in dazzling scales, the babies, in contrast, were covered in course brown hair. The hair protected their scales and warmed their fragile bodies throughout the winter until it finally fell in clumps from their rapidly growing bodies at the beginning of spring. Their eyes were large, and black, and their snout was a mottled grey and pink where it protruded out of the course covering of hair. Baby dragons had no claws or wings. These grew later, but they did have small, yellow teeth and I turned the wriggling dragon away from me as it tried to gnaw on my jacket. Even baby dragon teeth could give you a nasty, jagged bite.

  Of course, Dominic and Seth had both gone to collect branches and their dragon lumbered and rolled awkwardly around the dining room as Evangeline and I tried to keep it away from the table legs without much success. Our arms were full of our own wriggling dragons, and when Dominic and Seth’s dragon managed to gnaw on the table leg after almost latching onto my leg, the baby dragon in my arms started its unbearable screeching again. I looked at Evangeline just as her dragon screeched too, and we both gave up on the other little dragon and left it to make itself sick on oak wood while we held our dragons tightly and looked hopefully at the back door instead.

  Morgan and Dominic were first through the door and it was lucky for Caspian that he was only a few steps behind them. Evangeline and I couldn’t take the screeching anymore, and when Morgan put a small cypress twig into our dragon’s open mouth, I closed my eyes with relief.