Valandra: The Dragon Blade Cycle (Book 2)

by Tristan Vick

  Some of the slaves look up at me. Others, ignoring my cries, fetch their tools and head back to work.

  “But you’re free,” I whisper, feeling utterly and completely dejected.

  “I kept my part of the bargain,” Daeris states. “Now it’s time you kept yours.”

  Daeris throws out her hands and I watch in astonishment as her black fingernails double their length. Reaching up, she clutches the armor on her chest and begins to pry it apart at the center.

  I catch a glimpse her bare white breasts underneath as she pries open the armor, but that’s not what catches my attention. In the middle of her chest, embedded just above her sternum and resting between both breasts, is a shard of dragon’s eye crystal growing a brilliant hot pink.

  Reaching inside, she plucks out the crystal and then, holding it in her hand, she looks at me. As the same time, her armor magically shifts back into place, as though it were self-healing.

  She holds the crystal out toward me and says, “Here, take this.”

  I reach up to take it. She grabs me by the wrist and pulls me into her. Wrenching my arm, she forces the palm of my left hand upward and swipes my wrist open at the tendons with her clawed hand. Then, she jams the dragon’s eye crystal into my flesh and presses it into me. It feels like hot glass searing through me as she presses it tightly into me. But soon enough the pain subsides and the crystal burrows in with no further aggravation.

  Perplexed, I hold up my wrist and examine the glowing gem that sits just underneath the skin. Daeris hands me a leather wristband and says, “Cover it with this. And whatever you do, guard that crystal with your life. It’s your one and only key.”

  “Key?” I ask, strapping on the wristband. “Key for what, exactly?”

  Daeris looks up at the sky. She peers at the billowing clouds that waft by in the cerulean veil stretching in every direction above us. “You shall soon see,” she answers cryptically.

  I look up to see what it is she is referring to when suddenly something cuts through one of the clouds. It spirals as it turns about, leaving a twisty, billowing trail of cloud vapor in its wake.

  It stretches out its giant dragon-like wings, then catches on the air and turns right toward us. Tucking in its wings, it starts to dive. It rapidly closes in on us. I turn to Daeris and shoot her a nervous glance. She just watches in amusement, undaunted by the falling object.

  Abruptly, and with ground-shaking force, it crashes down in front of us, kicking up a blast of sandy debris. I throw up my arms to deflect the sudden dirt fragments that kick up around us in a cloud of dust.

  Daeris Darkthorne’s closes her eyes but stands firm, her cape flapping in the billowy blast of wind. Once all has settled back down into a thin shroud of sparkling silica, I look up to see a giant black and green Juggernaut towering before us.

  “A Juggernaut,” I gasp in shock. It’s much larger than Guerriero. By about two or three feet. Unlike Guerriero, its wings, which are nearly twice as long, do not fold up neatly inside the unit. Instead, they reform themselves into a long, flowing cape.

  “It’s yours now,” Daeris Darkthorne says, gesturing toward the giant Juggernaut. “Now, take him and convince your friends to join me and unite against Demos Nun before he grows too powerful to stop.” Daeris places both hands upon my shoulders and looks me right in the eye. “You must convince them, no matter what it takes. The fate of all Valandra depends on it, Arianna. It depends on you.”

  30

  Master Kel taught me two things that I constantly reflect on. First, that an enemy will always try to gain your trust. They will keep you close. And when you least expect it, they will stab you in the back.

  The second thing he taught me was never to believe my eyes. That is, he wanted to trust my instincts, rely on my training and discipline to gauge a situation. And what my instincts are telling me is that Daeris Darkthorne is not to be trusted.

  My plan is simple. I will regroup with my friends. I will tell them everything, and, together, we will decide the best course of action. Darkthorne does not get to call the shots. I, for one, am done being the pawn in everyone else’s chess game.

  I raise my wrist up to the Juggernaut as though it could sense the crystal implant. It does. With the hum of tiny motors, gears, and workings, the armor begins to unfold. Plates of armor scrape and slide as they double up onto one another, until the armor reveals a chamber for me to climb into.

  Before entering the machine, I turn to Daeris Darkthorne and give her a look of confirmation. I nod goodbye, then I place both my swords in the side-mounted sheaths and hoist myself up into the battle armor.

  Once I’m inside, the plating slides back into place and seals me in. Inside, all around me, everything shifts and adjusts to the contours of my body. After a bit of sculpting, the armor fits as snugly as a glove. I tap the side of the helmet and the faceguard opens. I look down at Darkthorne, who stands before me in her black and green battle armor, looking up with a confident gaze.

  “I’ll see you in five days,” she says. “Now, go!”

  I turn around and face the open rock quarry. As with Guerriero, I merely need to think the thoughts and the armor responds. I spread my wings and then, with a powerful leap, I shoot out over the quarry.

  My wings catch the air and I dip down to pick up some speed. I dive toward the gathering onlookers, most of them slaves and miners. Many begin to grow nervous and start to duck, but I pull back up at the last minute. I fly over the heads of the workers and soar so closely that their hair swirls about in my wake.

  Wind rushes past me. I look over my shoulder behind me to see many of the crowd throw up their arms in elation and start to cheer as I peel away and angle up toward the sky. It almost seems as though they worship the armor I am flying. The armor of Daeris Darkthorne.

  Clad in my flying battle armor, with the flap of the Juggernaut’s mighty wings, I climb upward and shoot out of the quarry as swiftly as an archer’s arrow ascending skyward.

  Once I breach the first layer of thin wispy clouds, I adjust the wings so that I can glide on the air currents. “Juggernaut unit, what is your name?” I ask, speaking out loud as though I were speaking to myself.

  After a short silence, a voice responds.「Do you mean my battle designation?」The living armor’s voice is monotonous, what I would consider to be ominously emotionless. Unlike Guerriero, who is all heart, this Juggernaut seems to be only about carrying out its mission.

  “You are sentient, are you not? Daeris must have christened you with a proper name.”

  「The master calls me “Sliver” since there is nothing I cannot pierce.」

  “Sliver, eh? It’s a bit prosaic. A little on the nose, don’t you think?”

  「I wouldn’t know. I have no nose.」

  “Right. So, anyway, do you mind if I rename you to something a little bit, I don’t know, more noble?”

  「You are my current navigator. You are free to rechristen me as you see fit.」

  “I shall call you ‘Vanguardian’. Is that all right with you?”

  「Yes, navigator. Vanguardian is fine.」

  “I’m a knight, so you may call me Mistress Arianna.”

  「Yes, of course. As you wish, Mistress Arianna.」

  In moments, we are soaring above the clouds, high over the landscape. I can see the outline of the quarry bellow. In the distance, there is a patchwork of farm fields, and just beyond that I can see the white-capped mountains of the shard set upon the horizon. To the northwest is Koroth. And although I cannot see the city directly, I can sense my friends waiting for me there.

  “All right, Vanguardian. Set course for Koroth.”

  「Yes, Mistress Arianna.」

  “Out of curiosity, Vanguardian, just how fast is a Juggernaut such as yourself?”

  「Do you wish for me to reach my top speed, Mistress Arianna?」

  After giving it some deliberation, I respond with an eager, “Yes.”

  Vanguardian merely responds with a
straight forward, andrather down to business answer.「Engaging Dragon thrusters.」

  “What’s a thrus—?”

  Before I can even finish the question, Vanguardian suddenly jolts forward by some unseen force. It feels as though we are being shot from a slingshot, not that I know what being shot out of a slingshot feels like. In the blink of the eye we go from gliding on the air like an eagle to accelerating so fast that my body feels as though it is crushing itself under its own weight.

  The pressure of the abrupt acceleration pushes me back into the armor. I can feel the armor shuddering all around me, and I must flex every muscle in my body to keep myself from being crushed into mush like a bug.

  More importantly, I must focus my thoughts so as not to black out. There is an unfamiliar pressure pushing on my head from every angle. It is similar the feeling you get when you dive deep beneath the ocean surface. The deeper you dive, the more pressure. It’s like that, but we’re not in the ocean. We’re flying through the sky.

  Also, there is a horrendous noise. The thrusters, whatever they are, roar like a rolling avalanche that doesn’t ever stop. It’s deafening.

  “That’s quite enough, Vanguardian! Thank you.” I need to shout just to hear my own voice above the whine and the roar of the thrusters.

  With precision timing, Vanguardian responds to my commands. The thrusters turn off and everything slows back down to a natural pace. My mind comes back into focus as the blood rushes back to my head.

  “What a rush!” I shout. “Can all Juggernauts do that?”

  「The flying ones, yes. But it’s a massive drain on the Dragon crystal’s energies. I would not recommend doing it often, lest you expend too much energy, fall out of the sky, and plummet to your death.」

  “Thanks for the warning,” I say.

  I don’t expect an answer, but Vanguardian replies with his straightforward, no frills, response. “You’re welcome.”

  Before me I can already see the spires of Koroth reaching up through the cloud cover. I can hardly believe how fast air travel is compared to ground travel. What would have been a full day’s ride only took me thirty minutes.

  Out of nowhere, orange flames shoot by, singeing my right arm. It burns through the armor and I scream. “What in the realms was that?”

  「It appears we’re under attack, Mistress Arianna. Shall I take evasive action?」

  “No. I’ll handle this,” I reply. “Just follow my lead.”

  I roll across the cloud tops as another massive fireball blazes past me. It misses me, but not by much. Looking upward, I see another fireball heading straight toward me. “Nice try,” I say to myself.

  Drawing out the Moon Blade, I aim at the blazing fireball and whip up a vortex. The spinning whirlwind catches the fireball and lifts it away. Then, swiping the sword to my left, I redirect the spiraling vortex and send it and the fireball reeling toward the ocean.

  The orange ball of flame sails through the air and then crashes down on a giant blue swath of ocean to be doused by the endless supply of cool blue sea.

  Once that’s out of the way, I return to my previous course. However, just as soon as soon as I turn back toward Koroth, the entire sky lights up with a thousand flaming fireballs. All of them headed straight for me.

  31

  Burning balls of flame Fill the sky like sky lanterns during the Valandrian New Year’s festival. For a second, they just seem to linger in front of me, dappling the dark and dusty skyline of Koroth with orange speckled pin points. It’s quite beautiful and serene. That is, until they grow into roaring suns.

  In a flash, one of the fireballs blazes by me, scorching my armor and nearly searing off my right wing. Evading them, I swoop down and undercut the tens of hundreds of fireballs that rise into the sky. Obviously, Koroth has perceived me as a threat.

  The only thing that explains this unprovoked attack is that they think I’m Daeris Darkthorne. But since there’s no way to signal them to let them know I’m not her, all I can do is take evasive action and pray to the goddess that I don’t get shot down.

  Another blazing fireball almost takes me out, but I manage to roll out of the way. But just as soon as I dodge it, another one is there to take its place. Suddenly something collides with my shoulder armor, jarring me hard as it knocks me off course, and explodes. A spray of sparks momentarily blocks my vision as a flash of flame blinds me.

  By the looks of it, I surmise they are using clay pots coated in slow burning tar and filled with a combustible mixture of quicklime and other incendiary ingredients. Each one is a slow-burning bomb. An ingenious thermal weapon developed during the Great War. These bombs were commonly referred to as “dragon spits.”

  As I dart through a series of exploding clay pots, twisting and swerving to avoid getting blown to smithereens, I realize that even just split-second difference in timing could prove fatal. But with no end in sight to the volley of dragon spits, I swipe the Moon Blade in a forward arc and let loose a wind-wave that blasts a path through the wall of fireballs.

  The blast of wind sends them hissing and sparking as they spiral off in different directions, thereby opening a clearing for me to pass through without getting blasted out of the sky.

  Just as soon as I make it through the opening, however, a second volley of fiery hot-orange dragon spits rises out of the gray clouds to meet me. With several powerful flaps of the Juggernaut’s wings, I rapidly climb into the sky. Higher and higher, I sweep past blazing fireballs until I reach the zenith of their arc, where the fireballs begin their downward descent. I roll onto my back and begin to dive, missing the second volley entirely by simply circumventing their trajectory.

  “Enough of this!” I shout into my mask. I turn Vanguardian toward the sky and climb and climb until I reach the flight ceiling. I need to get higher, I think.

  「Engaging Dragon thrusters…」Vanguardian says in response to my need to gain more altitude.

  I hear the murmur of the thrusters winding up as the low rumble grows louder and louder until it’s a roar. I brace myself for the sudden jolt when, unexpectedly, the Dragon thrusters cut out.

  “What just happened?” I ask.

  「Collision warning!」Vanguardian responds.

  Just then the clouds part above me and a massive airship comes into view. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Bigger than any sailing vessel or war frigate, but unlike a sailing ship it has the general shape of a great blue whale. Instead of fin-like wings to hold it aloft, extending from its port and starboard sides are two massive levitating lodestones.

  Each stone is the size of a small mountain, which protrudes out to either side like two giant frosty mugs of foam-covered beer being carried in either palm of an overly thirsty dwarf. They are tethered to the airship by a host of cables and ropes.

  Wrapped around the levitation stones are giant steel rings, which are bolted to each of the mammoth stones. And dotting the circumference of the steel rings, like a pink sapphire wedding band, are at least a dozen Dragon’s eye crystals the size of a grown man’s fist.

  Startled by the flying vessel’s sudden appearance, I barely have time to react and roll out of the airship’s way. Racing past its elongated hull, I whisk by the port windows and try to catch a glimpse of what’s inside. But my speed is too great and everything is just a blur of motions and colors, all of them blending seamlessly together into a vague repetition of patterns.

  Overshooting the airship, I throw out my wings, using them as giant air-brakes. I catch like a leaf on the wind. Not wasting any time, I turn around and race to catch back up to the front of the ship, where it appears the wheelhouse is perched above the sloping nose of the vessel.

  The wheelhouse is a protuberant half-circle with many glass panes which stand twice as tall as any man. They resemble, in my mind, a garden greenhouse. Inside I can see figures dressed as sailors manning cables and ropes and attending to levers and wheels of all sorts.

  “You have unlawfully breached the borde
rs of the Korothian kingdom. In the name of the High Priestess of Koroth, surrender your vessel to us or risk being destroyed,” a voice booms from somewhere within the airship.

  I bring myself alongside the massive air vessel and notice a round hatch on the upper deck opens. Suddenly a figure rises out of the opening of the hatch. I can see that it is Guerriero.

  Excited to see my friend, I cautiously inch toward the upper deck of the ship and the platform where Guerriero stands, careful not to make any sudden moves that might be interpreted as an ambush. Once I’m within range, Guerriero raises his arm-mounted Gatling crossbow and aims it right at me.

  Lined up with the upper deck, I slowly make my final approach. With a loud clangor, my metal feet touch down. I take a couple steps forward to help slow my landing and quickly retract my wings so I don’t blow off the top of the vessel.

  「Lay down your weapons,」demands Guerriero in a commanding voice that’s every bit as big as he is.

  I raise my arms to signal my surrender and take on step forward. This seems to agitate Guerriero, who spools up his spinning Gatling crossbow and stiffens his posture.

  「Stay where you are or I will open fire.」Guerriero’s voice booms.

  Very slowly I raise my hand up to my helmet and touch the release button. With a hiss, my faceguard opens and reveals my face.

  “Don’t shoot! It’s me. Arianna,” I shout.

  I can’t help but wonder if he can even hear me above the rushing wind. As soon as I respond, my words quickly get swept up on the winds at this altitude.

  「Arianna?」asks Guerriero in a puzzled voice. Without hesitation, he lowers his crossbow-coupled arm and begins to walk over to me. His large metallic feet clank and bang upon the deck as he shuffles over to me. I honestly don’t know if he’s moving in to apprehend me or hug me.

  Coming to a stop no more than twelve feet from me, he touches his faceplate release button. With a steamy hiss, the mask slides up, revealing Lisette. She gazes across the empty space at me, her eyes welling up with tears.