DRAGONSGATE: Preludes & Omens (Bitterwood Series Book 6)

by James Maxey

  “My father would disagree,” said Anza. “He says the stars above are distant suns, so far away many have already burned out, but only now is the light reaching us. He says the only useful purpose of the stars it measuring time and marking latitude. Beyond this, they only serve to remind us of how insignificant we are in the vastness of time and space.”

  “Your father’s not one for poetry or art, I take it,” said Stonewall.

  “Ah, but you’re wrong,” she said, fixing hard eyes upon him. “I am his sculpture. I am his song of death.”

  And with that, she zoomed off. Any human weakness inside her was squelched into nothingness as the clockwork of her mind and muscles took over, turning her once more into a finely tuned battle engine.

  She flashed from the sky like lightning, holding the tomahawk in her right hand. Below her the dragons flew much as she’d guessed, in a diamond formation, with four at the outer points of the diamond, four balanced at the midpoints of the edges of the diamond, and two protected in the center. Her instinct said to attack the rear one, so she slowed her dive mere feet above her target and dropped onto the dragon’s back like a wildcat. The dragon had no time to call out in alarm before Anza leaned forward and used the razor edge of the tomahawk to cut the creature’s throat. Instantly the dragon fell away, tumbling, her spear falling beside her. She searched for any sign of the grenade or powder pouch, and frown as she realized she’d picked the wrong target.

  At that second, Stonewall hit the lead dragon, driving his spear deep into her spine. The dragon fell away, tearing the embedded spear from Stonewall’s grasp, leaving him unarmed. Instantly, the two dragons on either side of the diamond point veered toward him. The one to his right threw her spear and he darted from its path, but with his swollen eye he failed to see the one approach from his left and hurl her spear.

  Anza raced forward, hand outstretched, and caught the spear mere inches from his side. She instantly spun around and threw the spear back at the valkyrie who’d attacked. The sky-dragon was rising in the aftermath of her throw, wearing the traditional light armor that protected her torso, but no armor yet designed could protect her wings. The spear tore into the left wing and dangled there. The valkyrie squawked as she went into a rapid spiral toward the trees below.

  Anza had no time to see if the dragon survived her fall, since she and Stonewall were now the targets of a barrage of spears. The heat of combat had speeded her perceptions and she tracked each spear with ease, flitting above the barrage and targeting the nearest valkyrie with one of her throwing knives. The blade sank into the dragon’s shoulder and the valkyrie dropped, one wing useless, the other spread to turn her into a whirling pinwheel as she fell.

  Behind her, Stonewall cried out in pain. She turned to find a dragon on his back, her toothy jaws clamped onto his throat, her hind-talons raking and tearing the silver disk that secured his wings. There was a sudden flash of light and a loud crackle and the dragon fell away, smoke pouring from her nostrils, as the silver disk peeled from Stonewall’s back, spraying a shower of bright sparks.

  Stonewall dropped, limp and seemingly lifeless, blood spurting from the wound to his neck. Anza spun once more, searching among the converging valkyries for one not attacking, and finally spotted the one peeling away from the action. This would be the gunpowder carrier. With all her strength, she hurled her tomahawk, aiming at the dragon’s chest. Without waiting to see if the blow connected she dove, moving so fast the wind tore her leather vest at the seams. Arms outstretched, she shot toward Stonewall, catching him mere inches above the canopy. Before she could decide what to do next, a spear flashed past her right wing, missing by less than a yard. She glanced back to find that the dragon who carried the stolen powder sack was unharmed. The tomahawk tumbled uselessly as it fell, apparently having struck one of the armored plates covering her breast.

  Everywhere Anza looked, dragons converged upon her. Stonewall was still breathing, but he was bleeding fast from his neck, blood pulsing out with each heartbeat. With a thought, she dropped toward the trees below, folding in her wings at the last second as she crashed through the canopy of leaves. She wrapped her thighs around Stonewall’s torso as she grabbed at tree limbs, snapping them, but not before she swung him toward the fork of a large branch. As he landed, she opened her wings once more and dropped to his level. She grabbed him by the neck and pressed his wound shut with as much pressure as she could manage without crushing his windpipe.

  She scanned the leaves above her. She heard the flapping of large wings coming closer, passing overhead, then veering off. Sky-dragons couldn’t fly beneath the trees, and it wasn’t their mission to kill her. They cared only about returning to the Nest with the stolen gunpowder.

  Her only mission was to stop that. But if she removed her hand from Stonewall’s neck, he’d be dead within minutes. She knew what her father would tell her to do. She knew the stakes of letting the valkyries get away. But her hand would not move. She waited, wondering when it would be time to let him go. The part of her that had always done everything her father asked of her without complaint or hesitation began to fret, worried about the distance the valkyries gained with each second. She was a cog in her father’s machinery of war, and the gears of circumstance that pushed against her told her to fly, to fight, to obey her father and save mankind from the grim fate of dragons armed with gunpowder.

  But something else, not a voice, not even truly a thought, told her that saving this one man was more important than saving her world.

  She waited in the dark forest for hours, knowing that by now the dragons were long escaped, the gunpowder vanished into the impenetrable vaults beneath the Nest. Stonewall was still alive, though he showed no signs of waking. His pulse was weak and irregular. He shuddered with each breath, but she felt certain that the worst of the bleeding had stopped. She peeled her hand away, slowly, carefully, for her skin was glued to his by blood. She studied him closely as her hand came free. No fresh blood appeared. She cut a strip from his pants leg to wrap around his wounds to keep them from reopening, then, with a great deal of effort utterly lacking in grace, she pulled him from the fork of the tree and hugged him tightly to her, rising slowly, pushing through limbs and leaves, until she found herself in a brightening sky. The forest all around was full of birdsong as every living thing around her stirred to greet the dawn.

  She flew slowly, barely faster than she could run, to avoid buffeting him with winds. It took over an hour to reach Dragon Forge. She could hear men shouting as she approached. She coughed as she descended through layers of smoke, landing in front of the ramshackle building off the main square that had been converted into a hospital.

  A hundred men, maybe more, ran toward her. She heard her name shouted, along with cries of, “Stonewall! It’s Stonewall!”

  She was in a daze as someone took Stonewall from her arms to lay him on the ground. A half dozen men were needed to place him on a blanket and carry him into the hospital. She thought, perhaps, she’d said, “Thank you,” to one of the men, but couldn’t remember. Her thoughts seemed to vanish as quickly as they formed.

  She felt feverish, the world a dream. The foundry smoke painted the world around her in shades of red as the morning sun sifted through the plumes. She felt as if she was floating, and realized, slowly, that she was. She’d never closed her wings. She should do that. She should fall, and let men come and carry her, to take her into the hospital, to save her leg, if it could be saved.

  But she didn’t fall. She was waiting. Again, her action was thoughtless, free of conscious intention or will. She knew only that she was waiting. And, at last, she understood who she was waiting for.

  The crowd around her parted as a deep voice shouted, “Out of my way, damn you. Get out of my way! Let me through!”

  As the last man stepped aside, she saw him, her father, limping toward her. She could hear the gears and springs in his false leg click and twang as he moved forward in haste. He wore the same clothes he’d worn
when she’d departed on her mission. He looked haggard and drawn, no doubt having been awake all night. At the thought, an involuntary smile played at the edges of her mouth. Of course he’d been worried for her. She was, after all, his finest machine, and her loss would hurt him dearly.

  “What happened?” he demanded as he reached her.

  “Thorny’s dead,” she said, softly.

  Burke’s face went slack. “Did the dragons find out the truth about him?”

  “He detonated a grenade. He killed himself, killed several dragons, and saved my life. The dragons know the truth about him.”

  “People are saying Stonewall’s hurt. What happened? What went wrong?”

  “I’m hurt,” she said.

  Burke’s brow furrowed. “Your leg. How bad—”

  “More than my leg,” she said. “I think… something inside me… has broken. My… my gears have stopped turning. I couldn’t finish the mission.”

  “You couldn’t… the guns are still missing?”

  “I believe the guns are destroyed. But valkyries escaped with gunpowder and a grenade. We gave chase and caught them and Stonewall nearly died. He… he would have bled out if I’d abandoned him. So I… I saved him. I let the valkyries escape.”

  “You what?” said Burke, his face turning red. “Don’t you understand what you’ve done? The importance of this mission? Everything depended on you!”

  “I know,” said Anza.

  “But faced with a choice between saving Stonewall or finishing the mission, you chose to save him?” asked Burke, running a hand through his hair, no longer looking straight at her.

  “It wasn’t truly a choice,” said Anza. “I did what I did. I can’t explain why.”

  Burke nodded. “I can. I know exactly why.”

  She stared at him numbly, waiting for his rebuke.

  Instead, he stepped forward and closed his arms around her. With his lips next to her ear, he whispered, his voice nearly a sob, “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry. You’ve got a good heart, Anza. A better heart than I ever had. I wish so much the world was different. I want so much to never send you into danger again.”

  “But you will,” she whispered back.

  “I will,” he answered. “Not because I want to. But because I want to make a world where no father need ever wait up all night wondering what the dragons have done to his child. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “I will always be your song of death,” she murmured, her voice dreamy and distant.

  “No,” he said, his voice choking. “You’ll always be my daughter.”

  Then her wings folded musically and she collapsed into her father’s arms, overcome by exhaustion, and overwhelmed by the realization that, in truth, he loved her.

  The adventure continues in DRAGONSGATE.

  A Bitterwood Bestiary

  DRAGON RACES

  SUN-DRAGONS

  Sun-dragons are the lords of the realm, possessing forty-foot wingspans and long, toothy jaws that can bite a man in half. Sun-dragons are adorned with crimson scales tipped with highlights of orange and yellow that give them a fiery appearance. Wispy feathers around their snouts give the illusion that they breathe smoke. Though gifted with natural weaponry and a tough, scaly hide, sun-dragons are intelligent tool-users who recognize the value of using spears and armor to enhance their already formidable combat skills. Politically, sun-dragons are traditionally organized under an all-powerful king, who, by rights, owns all property within the kingdom. A close network of other sun-dragons, often related to the king, manage individual abodes within the kingdom. The current “king” is Hex, the only surviving son of the old king Albekizan. Hex is a political radical with anarchist leanings, and as a result of his refusal to perform the duties of a king, the sun-dragon political structures are currently in great disarray.

  SKY-DRAGONS

  Half the size of sun-dragons, sky-dragons are a race devoted to scholarship. Most male sky-dragons dwell at colleges built around large libraries. Their leaders are known as biologians, a position that is part priest, part librarian, and part scientist. Most male sky-dragons distain combat, but a few are selected to either serve in the king’s elite aerial guard, or if they show a talent for brutality, become part of the ranks of slave-catchers than keep human slaves compliant. Sky-dragons practice strict segregation of the sexes. The females of the species dwell on an island fortress known as the Nest, defended by fierce warriors known as valkyries. The scholars among the females tend to focus on more practical disciplines than their male counterparts, and are particularly well known for their talents as engineers.

  EARTH-DRAGONS

  Wingless creatures, earth-dragons are humanoids with turtle-beaked faces and broad, muscular bodies. They are much stronger than men, but also much slower. As a race, they have few valuable skills beyond their enthusiasm for hitting things. This makes them excellent soldiers and decent blacksmiths. Except for the rare periods of time when earth-dragons are in heat, it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between the two sexes of earth-dragon. They are the only dragon species to lay eggs instead of producing live birth. Very rarely, some earth-dragons are born with a chameleon mutation that allows them to blend into their surroundings. These mutant dragons are also smarter and faster than their brethren and are usually recruited to become assassins for the dragon king, serving in a greatly feared unit known as the Black Silence.

  LESSER SPECIES

  HUMANS

  Humans live in the margins of dragon society as slaves, pets, and prey. The sun-dragons tolerate their existence primarily because of mankind’s natural talent for farming; the labor of humans keeps the bellies of dragons full. Humans are generally peaceful and harmless in small, isolated groups, but quick to war with other tribes. Recently, a prophet named Ragnar united many of the men in the kingdom into a rebel army. The rebellion successfully seized the town of Dragon Forge, and a man named Burke is using the town’s foundries to create new weapons that may forever alter the balance of power between man and dragon… assuming the humans can resist their natural urges to go to war with themselves.

  LONG-WYRMS

  Fifty-foot long copper colored serpents with fourteen pairs of legs, long-wyrms are ferocious carnivores, and, fortunately, exceedingly rare.

  GREAT-LIZARDS

  Often used as beasts of burden, great-lizards are twenty food long reptiles that closely resemble giant iguanas with a more upright stance.

  OX-DOGS

  The product of centuries of careful breeding, ox-dogs are the largest canine species ever to exist, standing nearly six feet high at the shoulder. Despite their fearsome build, most are docile in temperament, though earth-dragons often train them for hunting and have taught some to have an appetite for human flesh.

  About the author

  James Maxey’s mother warned him if he read too many comic books they’d warp his mind. She was right. Now an adult who can’t stop daydreaming, James is unsuited for decent work and ekes out a pittance writing down demented fantasies about masked women, fiery dragons, and monkeys.

  Traditionally, this is where we list all the books he’s written but at this point it’s a pretty long list, and honestly, I don’t feel like typing them all out. He’s also won some award and honors, like being named Piedmont Laureate. If you really want to know, just google him.

  James lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with his lovely and patient wife Cheryl and too many cats. For additional information about James and his writing, visit jamesmaxey.net. There’s probably something on there about signing up for his newsletter and getting free stuff, like pizza. Well, probably not pizza. Short stories maybe? I bet he gives away free short stories. Writers are kind of cheap.

 

 

 
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