Dragonstorm

by Mirren Hogan

  Daven's head was spinning. It was the most horrific thing he'd ever heard. More than a small part of him didn't want to believe it. Of course, the reasoners weren't perfect, but this—this was something else entirely.

  "How do you know all of this?" he asked, hoping she'd laugh and tell him she'd read it in one of the novels. Or made it up. Or—anything.

  "Because one of those children was my father," she replied. "He was born amongst the reasoners. He witnessed all the things they did, and how they treated his mother and the others. They trained him to fight, to kill, to hate. If anyone is to blame for all of this, it's them. They created him. Their mistake was not trying harder to break him."

  Daven nodded. Bakel was many things, but a broken man wasn't one. Or if he was, he hid it well. Or— "Is it possible he was healed somehow?"

  Evidently, she'd considered this as well, because she simply shrugged in response. "If that's the case, he's never told me. But then, he doesn't talk about it much. It's in the past."

  "Not for him," Daven said, "or he wouldn't be so driven." At last he was coming to understand the man. He must have seen horrendous things and had them done to him. It didn't justify the killing, nothing ever would, but his eyes were open a bit more.

  "I suppose you're right. He only talks about it when we're alone, and he's drunk, but things he says would give you nightmares. I suspect even then he holds back on the worst of it."

  "But he escaped," Daven said.

  "Yes, when he was about our age. He said I was one or two at the time. I'd just shown signs of magic. He couldn't bear to think of me growing up there, and having things done to me. The first time he killed anyone was then, to protect me and get me away from there."

  "You don't remember any of it?"

  She shrugged. "Not really, but sometimes I think I can hear people screaming and calling out. When I think back, it doesn't fit with anything else that's happened to me. Well, before we started striking back at the reasoners."

  "Do the governors know?"

  "They run the reasoners, don't they?"

  "I suppose so," he agreed. "But I don't see how attacking anyone now will make up for anything which happened then."

  "You don't?" She looked at him as though he was being obtuse.

  He thought, then shook his head slowly. "You said yourself that the past is the past."

  "It's not just in the past," she replied, her expression making his heart skip with sympathy. "It's still going on now. The reasoners are holding magin, training them to fight us. Magin against magin. If you think it's been bloody already, think again."

  He swallowed. From what he'd read, the Dragonwar had all but ripped Dargyn apart. So many people had died. Whole families had been wiped out by the magin and their allies.

  "Haze," he cursed. "Bakel wants to start a war on that scale?" His head started throbbing lightly with the magnitude of the situation. For once, he didn't bother to try to heal himself. The discomfort was easier to manage than the reality.

  "That's the thing, " she replied, "it never really ended, not for us. Its felt quiet in the hundred years since the last battle, but it's still raging."

  He sat back, his stomach turning. Now he knew he had no choice. He had to stay, and fight if necessary. An army of magin could destroy Dargyn and everyone in it if they had permission.

  Something occurred to him and he hesitated before asking, "Emmin, what about your mother?"

  She blinked at him before turning away, her silence answering the question in a way that left chills up and down his spine.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Emmin told me everything," Daven said. He pulled a chair out from under the table and sat.

  Bakel raised his eyebrows. "Everything? I sincerely doubt that. However, I'm sure you know more than you did before. I gave her permission to be as candid as she wished."

  "You knew I'd speak to her?" Daven should have realised. "Did you know I planned to ask her to leave with me?"

  Bakel smiled. "I didn't need foresight to know you would. Your fear is so strong I can almost smell it." He sniffed the air and smiled; broad but laced with sarcasm. "You're one of us, at least for a while longer."

  "I know I am," Daven said, "now I know why you're doing what you're doing. But I think you're going about it the wrong way."

  Bakel sat back, looking bemused. "Do you now? Well, I'm sure you're not going to make a statement like that and then not tell me what I should be doing. Out with it then."

  "It's simple, stop killing innocent people."

  "Ah, but it makes the government listen," Bakel replied, "how else are we to get their attention?"

  "If you murder innocent people, you'll make them hate you," Daven pointed out. "Then when the war comes—the real war, that everyone can see—they'll take the side of the reasoners."

  Bakel gave a derisive laugh. "They will anyway. Do you think for a moment the reasoners will give them a choice?"

  "Probably not, but you could."

  The look of confusion on Bakel's face was brief, but gratifying. Daven went on, "Instead of attacking people who aren't involved, you could give the people someone to follow. Not everyone likes the governors or the reasoners."

  "Of course they don't, but asking the people to forget a hundred years of peace for a few more liberties isn't something they'd do lightly. They won't simply rise up."

  "No, they'd need a cause to follow."

  "My cause isn't their cause," Bakel pointed out.

  "Isn't it? How many of them are really magin? How many have children, or parents, relatives, friends who got taken away? And then there's afterwards. You want to live amongst these people?"

  "Not me. Personally, I'm quite happy here in Hoza."

  "Others, then. Those children out there, are you expecting them to hide all their lives?"

  "If need be. At least here they're free. They don't have to go through what I endured." Bakel leaned forward. "I spent half my life a prisoner of the reasoners. The only thing they ever asked for was absolute obedience." His eyes looked haunted. "You don't want to know what that entailed. Then one day I'd had enough. No, that's not right. I'd foreseen the day I'd leave for a year before it came. I waited and planned, putting everything in place to make it happen how I'd seen.

  "My mother helped, but I had to leave her behind." He looked regretful. "Many times I've changed the visions with my actions, but nothing changed that. We didn't even talk about it, she already knew. Maybe before I did. She understood and made plans of her own."

  Daven frowned. "What did she do?"

  Bakel blinked. "Hmmm? Oh, before I left she pushed a girl into my arms. Just a skinny little thing with big eyes, who already knew not to trust anyone. I wasn't going to take her, but I had another vision, one of Emmin as a grown woman. If I left her there, they'd break and kill her. I couldn't let that happen to a child. She deserved better."

  "So she's not really your daughter?"

  "Oh no. Well, not by blood. We're family in every other way that counts."

  "Does she know?" Somehow knowing she wasn't related to this man was heartening.

  "I expect so," Bakel said, "we've never talked about it. Besides which, I'm not sure she wants to know the truth of how she came about. I know I don't."

  "Emmin said—"

  "She's right, but no one wants to think they exist because of force. It's an ugly beginning."

  "Did you know her mother?" Daven asked. He pictured an older version of Emmin, alone in a dark room, scared and broken, wondering where her child had gone. Maybe she thought Emmin was dead. It was possible that she was long gone herself.

  "No, I have no idea who she was. One of the wretched ones, no doubt, forced to breed like a brood mare." Bakel's face turned pink with undisguised fury.

  Daven hesitated for a moment, trying to frame the right response. "You know what I think?" he said, "I know what the reasoners have done, and still do, is terrible, but I think you are a bitter man who is happy to drag people i
nto his private war. I'm not sure you'll be happy until everyone is dead, and you along with them."

  "Everyone might be exaggerating the matter somewhat," Bakel replied, "but the rest is more or less accurate. I want the reasoners brought to their knees, and I want them to stop torturing and brainwashing magin."

  "And you don't care how you do it?"

  Bakel sighed. "Of course I care."

  Daven gave him a sidelong look. "You already know, don't you? You've seen how everything ends? You're trying to change it, but it still ends badly for you. You're trying to kill the very people who will kill you." He clicked his fingers. "That's why we stayed in Paryos. You wanted to make sure the right people are dead. But they're not, are they? You failed."

  "For now," Bakel agreed, "the wave went as I knew it would, but the result wasn't as I hoped. It should have swamped the reasoner headquarters. Cut off the head of the dragon—pardon the expression—and the rest falls in a heap at your feet. We did cut its voice out though."

  "The bards," Daven stated, "but those aren't the only ones in Dargyn."

  "No, but their leader declared their opposition to us, and killing her slows down the rest." Bakel sighed. "If only Daris Targra hadn't been murdered. When he was alive, the vision was different. Every time I met with him, it was altered slightly. He didn't agree with our methods, but he was willing to be a liaison between us and the reasoners." His regret seemed genuine.

  "Did you kill him?" Daven asked, in spite of the impression the man gave.

  "Haze, no," Bakel replied, "I think his second in command did, but we'll never know now."

  "Why would she do it?" Daven asked.

  "She was a staunch ally of the reasoners," Bakel said, "and rumour suggests she was General Russkan Zand's lover. She wanted the testing reinstated. That idea would have come from him. No doubt he'd have wanted her to make the bards write songs about magin to bring the people to their way of thinking. Nothing but hazing fear-mongers." He looked ready to spit in anger.

  "You did try another way?” Daven said, surprised. "You asked Daris Targra to have his bards write songs in support of the magin?”

  "Not specifically." Bakel scratched the side of his head for a moment. "Just to encourage people to be nice to each other, and start thinking for themselves. He wanted to do it too. But he wouldn't have them speak out against the reasoners. Or perhaps he tried, but we know where that got him."

  "He must have known the risks."

  "Of course, but I think he trusted the wrong people. Well of course he did, or Hailyn Marse wouldn't have been hall second. That woman was more slippery than a Durza river eel. I'm surprised she didn't swim through the wave and walk out the other side."

  Daven gave a half smile. If she'd been as bad as Bakel believed, then he'd not waste time on sympathy. That thought took him by surprise. When had he begun to accept death as anything apart from terrible? The answer was simple—when Emmin told him about the magin being treated like animals. He knew then that this whole situation was far from simple. This wasn't just about bad versus good. This was about a group of scared people, who had suffered terribly, getting retribution and trying to prevent the same from happening to another generation of Dargyn folk. He might not agree with their methods, but the reasoning was sound.

  "Can you see the future for other people?" Daven asked.

  "It might not be what you want to hear." Bakel put a hand on Daven's, his eyes unfocused for a few moments. He blinked and frowned.

  "I'd still like to know," Daven said, assuming he'd seen something like a bloody death in the very near future.

  "So would I." Bakel drew his hand back. "I don't see anything."

  "Nothing?"

  "No, just a fog."

  "Is that normal?" Daven wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

  "No, it's a first for me." Bakel shrugged, "I'm sure it just means that you haven't made up your mind about your path in life."

  That much was true, it didn't take foresight to see it.

  "Maybe it means I have no immediate future." Daven looked at him pointedly.

  Bakel chuckled. "If that's the case, it has nothing to do with me. I have no plans that end up with you dead. Besides, Emmin wouldn't allow it."

  "Thank reason for that," Daven muttered.

  "You do need to decide though," Bakel went on. "You understand what's at stake now. Join with us and help us to free the rest of the magin. We can make Dargyn a better place for everyone."

  He might believe that but Daven wasn't sold. The idea of people held against their will went against everything he believed. If his mother was here, she'd agree. He could almost hear her saying, 'Risper didn't fight in the Dragonwars so people could treat others so badly.'

  "Fine, I'm in, but on one condition. We don't kill any more innocent people."

  "Unless it's by accident, or necessary," Bakel replied.

  Daven fixed him with a firm look, but the man didn't flinch. "Only if it's absolutely unavoidable," he said.

  "Of course, we're not monsters. Well, most of us aren't." Bakel grinned.

  "If you say so." Daven smirked. He looked into Bakel's eyes and understood. He couldn't promise people wouldn't die, because he knew they would, and he knew when and how.

  "How many times do you see a vision?" he asked.

  "Over and over," Bakel replied, his smile fading. "I've seen people I don't even know die again and again, before, during and after the fact. I've given warnings and still watched it unfold. There are times when I wish Emmin really was my blood, but then I think about this curse and I'm glad she's not. She may not have inherited it, but I wouldn't want to take the chance, and burden another mind with it." He looked down toward the table, then back up.

  "My mother had it, and it drove her mad. Sometimes I think it's done the same to me," His broad grin was back. "I'm sure you think I'm quite insane."

  "Probably," Daven agreed, "but at least now I know why."

  Bakel chuckled. "Good, because I think we might all be a little more mad before this is over."

  "Is that a part of your vision?" Daven asked.

  "Oh no, just a guess. It seems likely though, don't you think?"

  Daven nodded. If they lived for much longer that was. There were no guarantees of that.

  "Welcome aboard." Bakel offered his hand. Daven looked down at it before giving it a shake. He wasn't sure he was a noble warrior now, or just a mist-headed fool. Either way, there was no going back. He was in this for better or worse. He just hoped it wasn't the latter, for all their sakes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tiny dragons danced around Dashka's belly. "Are you certain about this?" she asked. "Surely there's someone more suited than I am." Haze, she'd been at the Dragonhall for such a short time. There were draakin whose names she didn't even know. She'd seen the dragons lying on the roof in the sun, but their riders were more elusive.

  Sarev smiled in the warm, fatherly way that reminded her of Uncle Huberth. He was half the size of her uncle in girth, but just as sweet.

  "Of course we're sure," he told her, "Nehko needs you. And we want you to stay, too."

  By we, she assumed he meant Kaida. The two had spent a lot of time together since Gallanor died, and Dashka, for one, was glad. She liked them both and thought them well-matched. He certainly lacked the bad temper of her former husband. She shivered, remembering how Del had yelled at Kaida after Daven went missing, as though it was her fault. She'd found him disconcerting and unlikeable. How he'd married someone as warm and giving as Kaida, Dashka couldn't fathom.

  Sarev, on the other hand, was clearly smitten. Dashka saw his eyes light up and didn't have to look around to know Kaida was coming.

  "I have something for you." The draakin stepped into view and smiled at Sarev like there was no other person in the world in that moment. She looked away and held out her arms. Draped across was a robe in a deep blue. The fabric looked old, but well cared-for.

  "It's tradition for a person to wear this whe
n they bond a dragon. Every draakin has worn it since—oh, the last two hundred years."

  Dashka accepted the robe as though it might fall apart in her fingers. It was surprisingly thick, which was likely why it had survived so long. The stitching looked firm, but as Dashka looked closely, she saw thread in a different shade. The robe might be old, but someone had repaired it, maybe more than once.

  "Thank you. It's …" She had no words for what it was. The implications of what was being asked of her hit hard. It wasn't just about bonding a dragon; the draakin were an ancient tradition dating back hundreds of years. The dragons had seen wars, empires rise and fall, the magin's influence waxing and waning, the birth of the republic. They'd likely live to see the republic fall and something else rise to take its place. And something after that. She'd never felt more overwhelmed by the honour they wanted to bestow on her.

  "Incredible," she whispered.

  Kaida gave a soft laugh. "I thought the same thing. Imagine, Ara Lucretia herself wore that same robe."

  Dashka almost dropped it. How could she be worthy of wearing the same clothing, and bonding the same dragon as the woman who had, with the help of the dragons and other draakin, turned the tide of the war? If not for her, the magin and Cult of Euru would have won. What would Dargyn be like had that happened? Certainly not clasped in the fists of the reasoners.

  Kaida grabbed her arm at the last moment. "Careful, that robe is a little bit precious."

  "I'm sorry." Dashka blushed. "Is … is Nehko all right with this? I mean—"

  "Yes, he is." Kaida assured her. "Risper said he's looking forward to it." Her body jerked, and her eyes glazed in the way they did when her dragon spoke through her.

  "What he said was, he is looking forward to bonding a woman. It has been too long. He has seen your mind, and knows you are strong. He knows you are a singer, and he is intrigued by this. He has never bonded a singer before. He knows you'll be safer with him."

  Dashka glanced at Sarev, eyes wide. He looked mildly surprised, but unperturbed. He certainly didn't look like he'd run off and tell the officials at the first opportunity. Of course, if he did, they'd have to find someone else to bond Nehko.