We decided to stop at the pub first, which in my experience was usually the best place to get information in any town. It was midafternoon, but the place was busy, the air humming with lively conversation as the inhabitants talked to each other in crisp, throaty Zallabarian. As we took our seats at one of the few empty tables and a server came to us, I felt a surge of gratitude for the language lessons I'd taken at the academy.
“A man with a group of mercenaries?” the server asked after Jallis had given her a description of who we were looking for. “I’m not sure, but I’ll ask around.”
She left to fetch tankards of ale and meat pies for us, and the three of us exchanged furtive glances. “I’m glad you two are doing the talking,” I muttered. “You two are practically fluent. If I didn’t know you, I’d assume you were natives.”
Rhia smiled. “I’m sure you’ll be up to speed in no time.”
The server brought us our food, and we ate and listened to the conversations swirling around us, hoping to overhear something useful or that the server would bring back information about Salcombe. As expected, the most prominent topic of discussion was the impending war between Zallabar and Elantia, and the natives seemed very confident about their chances.
“Damn Elantians,” a soldier grumbled, his thick mustache twitching with irritation. “They’re getting far too bold. Did you see those dragons hovering at the border?”
"They don't take us seriously at all," another soldier said with a smirk. "But that's all about to change. When we blow a few holes in those dragon wings with our new cannons, they'll think twice about testing our borders again."
Jallis and I winced at the same time. We had been seen already. Anxiety clawed at me, and I reached out to Lessie in the bond. “Is everything okay?”
“We are fine. Bored, but fine.”
“Stay on the ground,” I ordered her. “Someone has already seen the three of you. Don’t let anyone find you.”
“We’ve already moved to the bottom of the hill, out of sight,” Lessie assured me. “We will be on alert for any humans in the area.”
“Sir?” The sound of the server’s voice broke my concentration. “I believe I’ve found who you’re looking for. Two of the city guards were just telling me they arrested a man traveling with four large, scary-looking men. He said the man goes by Trentiano, and he claims to be a businessman from Warosia. They are being held at the garrison, pending an investigation.”
“Thank you,” Jallis said. “That’s very helpful.”
“You are welcome.” The server cocked her head. “May I ask why you are interested?”
“That man stole a priceless family heirloom from me,” Rhia said, drawing herself up imperiously. “I have hired these two to help me track this man down and recover it.” She turned to Jallis. “We should head down to the garrison immediately and speak to the guards before they set him loose.”
The server raised her eyebrows. “Good luck with that,” she said. “They are displaying the new cannons just outside, and there is quite a crowd.”
Well, that settled it. We definitely had to go. Paying for our meal with one of the Zallabarian coins in Jallis’s purse—apparently, he always carried a bit of currency from our neighboring countries in his purse just in case he found himself on a last-minute trip—we headed out of the pub and toward the garrison. There was no need to ask for directions—we simply followed the sound of the buzzing crowd, and quickly found ourselves in the center of town.
As the server had said, the new cannons were on full display—three of them, lined up neatly in a row, with a small group of soldiers guarding them. The local guards kept the crowd back at a safe distance to admire them, and it took a bit of time for the three of us to worm our way to the front to get a good look.
“They’re small,” Jallis said under his breath, careful to speak Zallabarian as we studied the artillery weapons in this crowd. “Three feet long, maybe?”
"Still too heavy to carry without cannon carriages," Rhia said, "but these are less than half the size of the cannons used in the last war. Do you really think they have enough firepower to shoot dragons out of the sky?"
One of the guards standing nearby must have overheard her, because he snorted and folded his arms. “These cannons might be smaller, but they’re even deadlier than the ones we used in the last war against Elantia. Because they’re so light and portable, it is much easier to maneuver them in any direction—important when fighting dragons when they’re slithering through the air like winged serpents.” His lips twisted in disgust, and I pressed my lips together as I felt a spark of indignation on my own dragon’s behalf. “They also fire shrapnel munitions, which explode on impact.”
I felt a distinct sense of derision from Lessie, who had been listening in. She scoffed at the idea of being taken down by shrapnel…but beneath her disbelief, I felt a heavy sense of unease. She was worried, and so was I.
“Ahhh.” Jallis pretended to sound impressed. “That way they can inflict multiple wounds on the dragons.”
“Exactly.” The guard grinned fiercely. “Perhaps some of the older dragons with their tougher hides can withstand them, but it will be all too easy to shoot the newer ones out of the sky. Elantia has no idea what’s coming.”
Rhia and Jallis thanked the guard for the information, and we lingered for a few more minutes before carefully sliding back out of the crowd. “We should get back to our dragons now and get out of here,” Jallis muttered.
I nodded in agreement. With all these guards and soldiers hanging around outside the garrison, there was no way we were getting to Salcombe. Hearts heavy, we trudged back up the valley to where our dragons were hidden. Dragon’s balls, this was worse than we’d thought. Just how many cannons did the Zallabarian army have? They’d shown off three cannons here, and this was just a tiny town, barely worthy of a spot on the map.
“Zara!” Jallis hissed, grabbing my arm. “Over here!”
He yanked me behind a rocky outcropping on the trail just as a patrol of mountain soldiers came thundering by. They wore dark green uniforms with shiny gold buttons and were armed to the teeth with spears and swords. I shuddered as we watched them pass, close enough to smell the sweat and horsehair from their mounts. If they had taken a different turn, and come across our dragons…
We waited until we could no longer hear the hoofbeats, then raced into the woods to where our dragons waited by the hill. “Time to go,” I said as I vaulted onto Lessie’s back.
“I know,” she said. “I saw the cannons through your eyes.”
Her words gave me pause, and I wondered if I was able to do the same thing—use our bond to see things through Lessie’s point of view. But there was no time to ask. “Let’s get out of here,” I told the others.
We braced ourselves, and our dragons shot into the sky at the same time, beating their wings hard to gain velocity and altitude. Gripping the reins, I leaned forward on Lessie to move with her rather than battle the wind screaming in my ears to stay upright, and out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Jallis and Rhia do the same.
The sound of a loud explosion had me sitting up again, and I twisted around in my saddle to look back at the town. The soldiers had mobilized the cannons and were shooting at us!
"Evasive maneuvers!" Jallis shouted. The three of us immediately shot off in three separate directions, heading for the border as fast as we could. Clinging to the saddle for dear life, I held my breath as Lessie rolled to the side, evading more cannon fire. The screech of the wind stifled some of the explosion, but it still hurt my ears, and I wished I could clap my hands over them.
Note to self—get earplugs.
Ykos's roar distracted me, and I lifted my head to see blood streaming from a wound in his side. Rhia's face paled, and my stomach dropped into my boots as the dragon faltered in the sky. Immediately, Lessie swerved close, dropping ten feet below in case we needed to snatch Rhia out of the air.
But Ykos managed to level out, and though he
slowed down, his wingbeats were still steady. Thankfully we seemed to be out of range of the cannons now, and Jallis and I kept close to the wounded dragon in case he needed assistance.
We didn’t stop until we were well beyond the border, back in Elantian territory. Exhausted, we touched down in a clearing a few miles away from Zallabar, Ykos landing with a heavy thud.
"Oh no," Rhia moaned as she scrambled down her mount to study the wound. It was a large gash on Ykos's left side, and he groaned as he rolled onto his uninjured side, allowing his rider to take a better look.
“It’s not very deep,” Jallis said, giving Rhia a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “He should be able to heal that in a day or two, especially if I put a poultice on it.”
He rummaged through his pack, but Lessie got to her feet and gently nudged both riders away with her snout. I could feel how exhausted she was as she approached, but she lay down on her belly next to Ykos anyway and gently licked the wound. The larger dragon made a rumbling sound that was half-pain, half-pleasure, and his entire body shuddered.
“I’d forgotten about the healing properties of dragon saliva,” Jallis said quietly. The three of us watched in amazement as Lessie used her saliva to close the wound and stop the bleeding. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on humans.”
Lessie lifted her head and met my gaze with her fiery orbs. "I'm only able to close the skin," she said, sounding apologetic. “He will still need another day to knit the torn flesh back together.”
I told Jallis what Lessie had said, and he nodded. “We’ll camp here tonight, then,” he decided. “We’re a bit closer to the border than I’d like, but there’s no sense in injuring Ykos further by making him travel with that wound. We can all head back to the academy tomorrow.”
Jallis strode off into the woods, unslinging his crossbow from his back so he could catch dinner for us. While we waited for him to return, Rhia and I built a fire, using a thin stream of flame from Lessie to light the pile of logs and kindling we’d found. We also set out the bedrolls they had brought—one for each of them, and Rhia had even brought an extra one for me.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I told her as we sat down on the small logs we’d dragged into the clearing to serve as benches. “You and Jallis saved my butt.”
“Of course we did.” Rhia smiled. “That’s what friends do. I have no doubt that if our positions had been reversed, you would have done the same, even if that meant having to blast through half the council to do it.”
I gave her a crooked smile. “True. I’ve never been much for the rules. I guess I’m just not used to people looking out for me much. I’ve always been the one who looked out for everyone else, because I was more fortunate.” My orphan friends helped me out when they could, but they’d had their own burdens to struggle with, and I wasn’t into the habit of dumping my problems on other people anyway. "The only person in my life aside from Carina who I could come to for help was Salcombe, and asking for help from him was always a double-edged sword."
Rhia’s smile melted into a sympathetic expression, and she scooted closer so she could hug me. “I’m sorry things have turned out this way, Zara,” she said. “I know it can’t be easy, making an enemy of the man who acted as your father figure for so long.”
I snorted. “I didn’t make an enemy out of him. He made an enemy out of me the moment he tried to have me killed.” I shook my head. “I’m an idiot for caring about him at all. He’s proven to me on more than one occasion that I’m just something for him to use and discard.”
“Just because Salcombe is a cold, unfeeling asshole doesn’t mean you have to be,” Jallis said as he strode back into the clearing. A large, turkey-like bird was slung across his shoulder—enough to feed all three of us, and then some. “You have a big heart, Zara, and that’s a strength, not a weakness.”
I smiled as Jallis’s words warmed my chest. “You two always seem to know just the right things to say,” I said as I got to my feet.
Jallis’s eyes twinkled. “That’s why we’re your friends.”
I knew from the tone in his voice and the way he looked at me that he wanted to be more than friends, and my lips tingled as I remembered the last time he’d kissed me. Only a few weeks ago, I realized with some surprise. I’d thought that it would be a lot longer until I saw him again, and part of me wanted to gravitate toward him, to wrap my arms around his neck and see if his lips were as soft as I remembered, if his touch would still fill me with that easy warmth that was so inviting. But Rhia was here, and somehow I doubted she’d be amused if Jallis and I engaged in a make-out session when there was cooking to be done.
The three of us got to work, plucking and dressing the bird, then sticking it on a makeshift spit to roast over the fire. It took a few hours to cook the bird, so while we took turns turning it over the flame, we talked about what we’d seen.
“I can’t believe they managed to hit Ykos from so far away,” Rhia said as she sat down next to Ykos. She stroked her hand over his scales, careful to keep away from his injury, and he let out a contented rumble not unlike a purring cat. “That soldier was right about the shrapnel bombs. They only had three cannons out there today, but what if we came up against more? If two or three of those had hit Ykos at the same time, or if even one of them had gotten his wings, we would have gone down."
“I know.” Jallis’s voice was low, his normally cheerful face somber. He ran a hand along the outside of Kadryn’s left wing, and the large dragon twitched. “I think they designed those cannons with that in mind. Wings are the most fragile part on their body—the membranes are thinner, and the tendons have less protection.”
“Then we’ll just have to be faster than the cannons,” Lessie huffed, tossing her head. “There is no point in sitting here, cowering in fear over what might happen. If these Zallabarians decide to take our country, we have to fight.”
Ykos rumbled in agreement, but Kadryn snorted, annoyed. “That’s all well and good,” I said aloud, “but I think it’s stupid of us to continue to use dragons to fight when the enemy has airships and long-range cannons now. We should be investing our gold into increasing our technology and weapons capabilities, as the other countries have been doing.”
“I agree,” Rhia said grimly. “With our dragon population dwindling, it is only a matter of time before the other countries are able to overwhelm us completely.”
Jallis looked torn. “I think dragons and their riders still bring a lot to the table during wartime,” he said, “but I don’t deny that relying on dragons alone is an outdated, and also harmful strategy. If Quoronis and Traggar do ally with Zallabar, and Zallabar gives them these new cannons, there’s no way we’ll survive. Cannons are a lot easier to make than dragons.”
“Not to mention that dragons are too precious to be used as disposable cannon fodder,” I pointed out. “Zallabar’s population is nearly double ours—they have no lack of soldiers to send into battle. But we can’t just send our dragons out to be blasted to bits in the sky. I won’t have it.” I wrapped my arm around Lessie’s neck and hugged her, my heart clenching. The idea of her being hurt or killed by some enemy cannon fire, over some stupid war…
“I wouldn’t say that our dragons are cannon fodder,” Rhia protested. “These days they are mostly just used for special occasions.”
“That’s because we haven’t gone to war in a long time,” I argued. “And now that we’re on the brink of it, we’re falling back into our old ways. Elantia needs to stop clinging to old traditions and move into the future.” I shook my head, bitterness seeping into my voice. “I never imagined I’d be sitting out in the middle of nowhere, talking about war and the fate of our country with two sky-dwellers. All I ever wanted was to be a treasure hunter.”
Jallis’s eyes flashed. “It’s impossible to escape the impact of war,” he said, a bit stiffly. “Even if you’d never become a dragon rider, you’d be affected. A war between Zallabar would affect trade and the ability of citizens
to travel between countries. It would certainly have put a crimp on your treasure hunting.”
I winced at Jallis’s sharp words and the hurt look on Rhia’s face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I know war affects everyone, and I want to do whatever I can to stop it from happening and protect our people. It’s just…frustrating. And I’m tired, and just coming off a kidnapping from the man who used to be my father figure.”
Jallis’s eyes softened and he stepped toward me. “It’s been a tough day for all of us, but especially for you.”
I allowed him to sweep me into a hug and sank into his embrace. Jallis was warm and comforting, his scent clean even beneath the sweat clinging to his skin. A large part of me wanted to burrow into him and never let go, but I allowed him to draw me back down to the logs so we could sit and finally eat some of the meat we'd been cooking. Lessie's stomach grumbled loudly as Jallis began to cut pieces off the carcass, and she and Kadryn got to their feet.
“We’re going hunting,” Lessie informed me. “We’ll bring back something for Ykos, too.”
“Okay.” I didn’t move from the log, but I reached out and gave her a mental stroke through the bond. “Stay safe.”
While the dragons hunted and we ate, Jallis and Rhia quizzed me about my time with Tavarian. Where had he taken me? What kind of training had we done? What was it like living alone with him for weeks on end? I laughed as I answered their incessant questions, telling them what I could, deflecting what I couldn’t. Now that we weren’t talking about war anymore, we fell back into that easy sense of camaraderie. This sensation of closeness, of belonging, was something I hadn’t felt much of before I became a rider, and now that I was back with my friends again, I realized I’d missed it.
“Lord Tavarian is going to lose his mind when he comes back from Quoronis and learns about everything that’s happened while he’s been gone,” Jallis said, shaking his head. “He never should have left you and Lessie alone.”
“He couldn’t have taken us with him, and there was no time for him to escort me back to the academy,” I said, feeling a bit defensive of Tavarian. The man had done so much for me; it didn’t feel right to let Jallis talk badly about him. “I’m sure that if he’d known Salcombe was able to track me, he would have made different arrangements, but as far as we knew, staying at the hidden location was the safest thing to do.”
Flight of the Dragon Page 7
