The Cumerian Unraveling Trilogy (Scars of Ambition, Vendetta Clause, Cycles of Power)

by Jason Letts

  “This is your last chance to keep your lives, or we’ll take those too,” the captain said, undeterred. The threat of the smaller dragons hadn’t been enough, and Sierra wondered how best to call the larger ones to action when one of the fishing vessels rose under a great swelling wave and came down with a crash.

  Everyone watched in shock as the panicked crew scrambled around the deck, while bits of the hull dispersed into the surrounding water. The vessel took on water and began to shift to one side, doubtlessly on its way to the bottom of the sea.

  Sierra raced to the edge to look at the water, wondering why the swimming dragon had taken such a bold move, but to her surprise the dragon flapped and slapped at the water’s surface on the other side to climb into the air. The large black dragon seemed to hiss at the water on the way up.

  “Saurus! Saurus!”

  The sound of the men’s desperate outbursts hit Sierra at the same time as the waves rippling from the wrecked vessel, which rocked the galleon back and forth. She didn’t think much of it that they’d referred to the dragon as a saurus until she realized that wasn’t what they were shouting about. When Sierra steadied herself against the railing, she caught a glimpse of a massive dark shadow gliding underneath the water toward the sinking ship.

  The sea saurus breached momentarily as it lunged at the remains, cracking boards and leaving bloody bodies face down in the water as it destroyed the rest of the boat. The creature had sleek fins, a smooth body, and a huge mouth full of vicious-looking teeth. Its size and speed were dizzying, and Sierra knew they were in real danger.

  “Tommack, you have to get my mother up here,” Sierra called. If something happened to the galleon when anyone was below deck, it would be certain doom.

  The clipper and the other fishing vessel fired at the shadow in the water, but the saurus dove out of sight, leading to an uncomfortable silence. When Sierra saw the other ships turning tail to flee, she had Razi and Maglum pull the sail to propel them out of the area as well. There wasn’t a speck of land in sight, and it would be a long time before they were out of range of the sea saurus hiding in the depths.

  Tommack and Tris emerged from below deck to find them all staring into the depths. Tris had a shawl over her clothes and looked exhausted.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Get some place where you can’t be knocked around and nothing’ll fall on you,” Sierra said, glancing over her shoulder.

  “What? Why?”

  The sound of splashing hit their ears in time to look ahead, where the massive sea saurus launched out of the water and above the hull of the ship. Its mass and weight were enough to crack the deck and shake the boat, sending most of the crew into the water. That mouth and its gnashing teeth were incessantly chomping at anything in sight, and finally the creature slid forward off the other side and returned to the water, where it reduced the swimming sailors to red splotches in the water.

  “Help, please!” Sierra screamed at the top of her lungs to the clipper, which was pulling away. Her galleon was about a third bigger than the vanquished fishing boats, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep the sea saurus at bay. The steel clipper seemed the safest place to be, but the captain there couldn’t be bothered to even spend a breath responding.

  Sierra cringed when it became obvious they were on their own. A dorsal fin that sliced through the water’s surface like a sword darted back and forth but crept ever closer to their vessel.

  Swooping down, one of the larger dragons nicked the fin with its hind claw, provoking the angry beast to rear its head above water.

  “Slice it up!” Tommack cheered on the dragon. “That thing’ll make a fine burger!”

  Sierra looked up to see the other dragons descending as well, but before they could make it to the surface the saurus dove out of their reach. The dragons flapped their colossal wings a short distance above the water, their keen eyes peering down as far as light would penetrate. But soon they were looking around in as much confusion as the galleon’s crew, perhaps because the saurus’s coloration made it difficult to detect.

  All three of the dragons were caught off guard when the armored fish launched out of the water from behind them in a bold, fearless attack. The dragons scrambled to gain altitude while one bore the brunt of the aerial assault, getting slammed in the back by a hefty tail fin.

  “Now I’ve seen everything,” Tris whispered.

  She’d apparently ignored Sierra’s direction, but it was too late for her to hide. Moments after the saurus landed in the water, the galleon rocked back and forth to the sound of snapping boards. Her heart leaping into her chest, Sierra realized the creature had breached the hull and was trying to get at them from underneath.

  “Hold on!” Sierra wailed as the ship tipped, threatening to spill them into the ocean. She gritted her teeth and fought against the reality of it. They had been so close to getting home.

  The sounds of snapping jaws and cracking wood below deck grew louder and louder. The ship began to sag into the sea, and Sierra thought the saurus would burst straight through from underneath the deck and swallow them all whole. The agitated dragons, large and small, fluttered about in the vicinity. Sierra waved to them for help; they were the only way out of this mess.

  Only one managed to notice her gesture, but it didn’t hesitate to come to the rescue, gingerly hovering beside the deck.

  “You’ve got to get on,” Tommack urged her, but that wasn’t what Sierra had in mind.

  “My mother first, then Razi. They’d be harder to help later,” she said, glancing over the side at the rising water. Soon it would be spilling onto the decks. The sound of the saurus conspicuously stopped, leaving them to wonder when it would come back to finish the job. The deck was low enough for the giant fish to leap all the way over it, and the thought of getting in the water with that monster around was viscerally repulsive.

  Maglum managed to climb onto the dragon after Tris and Razi did, leaving Sierra, Tommack, and a few terrified ship hands on board. The dragon flapped a few times to get them into the air while the other two waited to pick the rest of them up, but the sea saurus wasn’t about to let them get away that easily. The entire rear of the ship exploded when the rampaging fish collided with it head on.

  Suddenly Sierra found herself submerged and holding her breath. She opened her stinging eyes and tried to get her bearings as she floated helplessly. Something had knocked her over the edge. Tommack was in the water nearby. She wanted to reach him, but she needed to breathe more. Flailing, she struggled to get back to the surface.

  That’s when she saw it coming for her.

  The monstrosity of teeth expanded in her field of vision. It was coming at her and coming quickly. Its mouth opened, revealing a black hole of death. The water seemed so thick. She couldn’t move.

  Something plunged through the surface, the long and black neck of the dragon, which opened its own jaws and sunk them into the sea saurus’s back. The other dragon dove through right next to it, and suddenly they were fighting off the monstrous fish underwater.

  Through the flurry of bubbles, whipping tales, and flicking fins, Sierra nearly forgot she needed to breathe. The dragons were tearing huge chunks from the saurus’s hide, mercilessly biting and hitting it with whatever appendage they could.

  Suddenly Sierra’s head broke the surface, and she gasped for air through sputtering coughs. The fight in front of her rose as well, and soon the sea swelled and rippled as the two dragons lifted the bloody saurus by their claws and carried it into the air, where they continued to batter it.

  Sierra’s mouth hung open, entranced. The saurus seemed to have such a strong bloodlust that it curled around and bit at its own ravaged tail fins. Soon it lost the will to fight and hung straight down toward the water, lifeless. As if to revel in their triumph, each of the dragons plucked out one of the fish’s eyes.

  Buzzing in Sierra’s ears caught her attention, and she found Nemi getting in position to land on her hea
d. As harrowing as the situation had been, a euphoric sense of relief swept over to her. She caught eyes with Tommack and the ship’s hands and laughed.

  The dragons dropped the lifeless saurus into the water and plucked her and the others out of it. Though the water had been uncomfortably cold, the warm sun did wonders to shake off the chill. They rose into the air above the destroyed galleon, which sunk along with more than a few items that would’ve been handy to have, but at least now the dragons could carry them far beyond shore to their home in the ClawLands.

  At least when they got there they’d have quite a story to tell.

  Nearly seven hours in the air clutching the protruding spine of the dragon gave Sierra plenty of time to imagine what she’d find when she returned to the ClawLands. As they passed from the arid west to the central mountains and on to the rocky east, she became increasingly certain that the Wozniaks or the Illiams were in control of her homeland and needed to be expelled.

  As they started their descent through the clouds, the reality was much worse than she thought. Instead of her people being oppressed, she could see from the sky that much of the town had been destroyed. Wreckage was everywhere, and the people had either fled or died. The attack had virtually wiped the Brackens off the map.

  A few buildings remained, however, and some were under reconstruction in an arbitrarily located cluster. The dragons shrieked and swooped, putting mortal fear into the hearts of anyone down below. Sierra felt terrible about it. The last thing they needed was another scare.

  She heard shouts as the townfolk took cover, leaving behind a large cooking fire and some work stations. The dragons landed and Sierra immediately slid off. She was anxious to calm them and even more hungry to right the wrongs that had been done here. As painful as the broken town was to her, what she felt couldn’t compare to those who had to endure the presence of such loss every day.

  “You have nothing to fear,” she called as loudly as she could. “The Brackens have returned.”

  Reluctant heads appeared with inquisitive expressions, which soon gave way to delight and wonder. Sierra couldn’t deny that it felt good to be the cause of their newfound optimism, and soon there were dozens and then hundreds of people around to welcome her home. In the thick crowd, Sierra happened to catch eyes with Razi, who was receiving a good share of the attention for her unusual armored garb and ease with the dragons.

  “You wanted to see Cumeria. This is it,” she said. The warmth of her people meant far more than the state of the buildings. Sierra recognized a surprising number of the survivors and did her best to cheer those she didn’t directly know.

  Once the frenzy abated and the crowd began to thin, Sierra recognized one of the town councilors, a Mr. Grent, waiting for her attention. The older man had a weak smile on his face, as if afraid to discover everything in front of him was a trick. Sierra sought him out.

  “You’re not the first Bracken to return to the ClawLands,” he said. Sierra noticed her mother and Tommack were at her side. Sierra was in shock. She’d scanned the entire crowd and didn’t catch one glimpse of any other family members.

  “Are you saying my brothers returned? My father? Where are they?” she asked, taking steps towards some of the standing buildings. Were they waiting to speak to her in private? Mr. Grent stopped her from continuing on.

  “Randall was here briefly some time ago, shortly before his campaign for the chancellorship got under way in earnest,” he said, pausing abruptly to peer at Sierra. Hearing that Randall’s part had gone according to plan and he’d forced the election was a revelation. “But you didn’t know about that, did you? Have you not heard about the results of the election, what happened to the chancellor, or what befell your father?”

  Sierra bit her lip and braced herself. From the councilors somber expression she knew to expect the worst. He hadn’t been wary of a trick for his own sake but for hers. The optimism and enthusiasm she felt shriveled into dust. Tris wilted and could barely stand.

  “He’s gone,” Sierra said. Lowell Bracken’s plan had come to completion exactly as they knew it would. Only the details of how it happened remained hidden.

  “He was shot by the Wozniaks, who were filming him giving a speech when they did it. There are rumors he did it on purpose to try to boost Randall’s chances in the election, which was set to occur the following cycle.”

  “That sounds exactly like what he’d do,” Sierra said. Her tears were welling up and she wanted to sit down. She remembered all of the times he’d told her to be ready. Her time was coming, and she had thought she could save the family, but without him she felt less ready than ever.

  “But that didn’t work out either. The election was lost, but no sooner did it end than the chancellor’s body was found dead. The bloody knife was in Randall’s hand. Now Cumeria has no government to speak of, nothing to stop anybody from exercising their muscle.”

  “Randall killed the chancellor?” Sierra was in disbelief, imagining her scrawny brother and the gargantuan chancellor. It was never supposed to happen like that. “What happened to Taylor?”

  Mr. Grent glanced at the other townfolk who hung around for the conversation.

  “No one’s seen him since the battle,” he answered.

  Sierra hung her head and ran her hand through her hair. Her scalp felt like it was burning up. She was sure something happened along the way to cost her dear youngest brother his life. He had been the strongest among them, the one most likely to make it through anything, but her father’s plan had taken him as well. The compounding miseries were too much to take.

  “Can we go somewhere a little more comfortable? I…‌I have to chart a course back for us, but I need time to absorb this. You have to tell me everything,” Sierra said. She still had her father’s sword at her side, making her a leader who didn’t have the luxury of grieving in private. Time continued to slip away, and with it went any chance that the Brackens could secure themselves and stabilize the country.

  Wrapped in a blanket on a bench in the old town hall, Sierra listened to accounts of what was happening across the country. It’d been a long time since any of them had turned on a television to see the news, but they knew that Randall was still in the capital. Beyond that, the losses in her family were just the beginning. The ClawLands were part of a string of townships that had been resisting the chancellor, drawing flak from the Guard. The premier families were still withholding their goods from the open market, resulting in severe shortages throughout the country. The availability of electricity and running water was spotty at best.

  But the townsfolk had little information about what was currently happening or how the major players were positioning themselves for a power grab. Sierra peered over a map, looking at the proximity of the OrePlains to the capital of Toine. They had dragons and the ability to make attacks anywhere around the country with impunity, but there was no telling if getting revenge on the Wozniaks would ultimately lead to the best outcome for them.

  “These pieces on a map and deciding whom to attack, this isn’t the job for a CEO. What we’re plotting is a war strategy, not a corporate restructuring, and only a general would know the best targets to go after.”

  The hours dragged on and the group labored over the details until Sierra could barely think straight. There were no easy answers, no clear path to superiority against rivals who were better equipped and had legions of supporters. Starting to feel sore from being on the bench for so long, Sierra’s frustration began to show.

  “What are we supposed to do, wipe them all off the map? I don’t think the dragons would do that even if I pushed them to. At some point we’ve got to accept that we need to live with our enemies because we’re all in Cumeria, and killing them all just isn’t an option,” Sierra said.

  “Are you sure about that?” Grent mused, glancing out the window at the devastation outside. His point was hard to miss. “Perhaps if we had a more capable leader making a decision wouldn’t be so hard.”

&nbs
p; Over the course of the conversation, Sierra began to get the sense that Grent had views that different from her own and wasn’t content to just let her come in and start running everything, but this was the first hint of an open challenge.

  “Is there something you’d like to say, Councilman Grent? What would you have us do? Give up the element of surprise with the dragons and head to the Spiral, where all of our enemies can converge upon us at once? If you’ve got a better proposal, I’d be happy to hear it,” she said.

  Grent was a cautious man by nature, not given to rushing into conflict. White stubble partially covered dry skin on his cheeks. He had chapped lips as well and generally seemed in need of a dose of moisture. He leaned back and raised his hands to shrug in deference.

  “Far be it from me to dictate to a Bracken—the city council has always known its place—but it’s hard to deny that we’ve been doing just fine by any reasonable standard without your family. We’ve been here finding a way to make do all this time since the attack, and many people are starting to think we would be better off without one of the premier families lording over us.”

  His mild tone belied inflammatory statements that cut straight to Sierra’s core. She stood up to speak, but her mother found her words first.

  “My husband would be rolling in his grave to hear such an ungrateful thing. He gave his life fighting for the people here, and you forget about him as soon as he can’t do anything more for you. It’s unconscionable!” she said. Sierra couldn’t remember a time before Tris left for Madora that she ever yelled, but now she had it in her to be so much more forceful. Still, it had little effect on Grent.

  “Most would say he gave his life for his family. It’s not a thing I could blame him for, but it doesn’t command any extra allegiance from me,” Grent said in the same calm tone.

  “He helped make you a city councilor!” Sierra said louder than she probably needed to. Unable to deal with what she saw as glaring insubordination, she pushed through the door and turned down an empty stretch of street. She needed to clear her head, sleep, do anything to make herself feel like they’d accomplished something. The loss of her father ached inside of her.