by Wesley King
Marcus smiled. “Initiate flight test.”
Baby Hybrid took off, still moving a bit unsteadily through the air. The engines under each wing hadn’t been designed to be apart, and it was clearly trying to balance itself. But the neck straightened like it was supposed to, the legs tucked themselves in, and Baby Hybrid took off into the open sky.
Dree felt her eyes water unexpectedly. It was as if they had just created life.
The hybrid soared around for a little while, its wings shifting ever so slightly to gain height or send it into sharp turns and spirals. Marcus had programmed the drone to test itself on its first flight, and it was clearly doing that. It wasn’t perfect, but it was functional.
“How do we get it to come back?” Dree asked suddenly.
Marcus grinned. “It has limited intelligence. It knows who we are and will find us when the testing is done. The drones had infrared and sensors, so it can see. Instead of taking commands remotely, it will always return to us for new instructions.”
“Brilliant,” Dree said.
Marcus beamed. “Thank you.”
As they watched the hybrid soar around, they heard something approach from behind them. The three of them turned to find Erdath scowling.
“It works,” he said, smoke billowing out of his mouth. “Sort of.”
“What do you mean?” Dree asked, a little offended.
Erdath stared at the hybrid, watching it stream across the sky. “It flies, but not well. It looks like a dragon, but it is not. You have done a decent job, I admit. But you have not done enough.”
Marcus slumped. “I thought it was pretty good—”
“Tell me, boy, do you think that will destroy the drones?”
Marcus turned and looked up at the hybrid. “I . . . I don’t know,” he admitted.
Baby Hybrid was impressive, and the fact that it was flying was almost beyond hope. But it was still a bit clunky, a bit slow, and its weaponry was a match for one of the Trackers and nothing more. Against a group of drones, it didn’t have a chance.
“No, it won’t,” Erdath said. “While you two have been building this . . . thing, the world has been burning. Yesterday the drones killed thirty Outliers. Four drones against thirty dragons, and it was a slaughter. The countryside is aflame, and the people in your city huddle together in the downtown area, forgotten for the moment. Now the dragons are the targets.”
“What are you saying?” Dree asked.
“I want your hybrid to work,” Erdath said. “But this thing you have created will not destroy them. I have seen them fight—the one I killed was from luck alone. To beat them, you need something greater. You need the Egg.”
Lourdvang started. “We can’t—”
“You must,” Erdath said. “With it you might just give that thing real dragon magic. You give it a chance.”
“The dragon relic?” Marcus asked, confused. “How would that help?”
“It may help,” Lourdvang explained, eyeing Erdath. “It is said to give great power and to be the source of a dragon’s fire. Some call it the heart of the dragons. It can endow any dragon—or perhaps anything—with the power of our forebears. For the hybrid, that may mean true fire . . . something like life.”
Marcus watched the hybrid slowly turn around and zoom in the other direction. “Where is it?”
“That’s the problem,” Lourdvang said quietly.
Erdath nodded. “It is the source of all dragon power, so of course there is only one place in Dracone it could be. You must go to the Teeth. It is with Helvath, the Flames’ chieftain.”
Chapter
18
“You don’t understand,” Dree said, shaking her head. “They’ll kill us on sight.”
“Maybe not,” Lourdvang reasoned.
She looked at him in exasperation. “You were there. They tried to kill us before we attacked them and escaped the Teeth. What do you think they’ll do now?”
Marcus looked between the two of them. “You did what?”
They were gathered together in the main cavern, Baby Hybrid powered down beside them. Dree was resolute that it wasn’t worth going after the Egg, but Marcus and Lourdvang were all for it. Marcus thought it might just be the missing piece they needed, and Lourdvang agreed, though he was at least a bit hesitant about returning to the Teeth.
“Never mind that,” Dree snarled. “What would the Egg do anyway?”
Lourdvang was curled up beside them, still eyeing the hybrid thoughtfully. The other dragons in the cavern were watching it as well, though they just looked discomfited. Marcus could understand that: If a mechanical human being was walking around, he’d probably find it unsettling as well.
“It was legend when I heard of it,” Lourdvang said. “But Erdath says it exists. He has seen it. It’s not a real egg; it’s a relic the Flames found in the earth, deep in the caverns of Arncrag. It is said to be what gave the Flames their power. They were not always the greatest of dragons. It gave them their fire.”
“And it would work on a machine?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But if it did, the hybrid would be incredibly powerful.”
“We need it,” Marcus said immediately, turning to Dree.
She hesitated. “How are we going to get it?”
“We’ll go to the Teeth and ask them to borrow it,” Marcus said, shrugging.
Dree just laughed and shook her head. “You’re nuts.”
“I’m motivated.”
Dree hesitated. She definitely didn’t like it, but they didn’t have a lot of options. She could keep improving the overall design of the hybrid, but they would eventually be limited by simple mechanics. If there was a chance, however slim, of giving the hybrid real dragon magic, they had to take it. With that, it might be able to destroy the drones.
“We should bring Baby Hybrid to show them,” Dree said reluctantly.
“I agree,” Marcus replied. “Who’s going to ride it?”
Dree sighed. “I guess that would be me.”
Dree sat perched on the back of the hybrid, wrapping her hands around the steel plate where the neck protruded up to a dragon’s head, its unblinking eyes locked ahead.
Marcus was next to her on Lourdvang, watching. Dree had been the natural choice as the more experienced rider, but they were all worried that the hybrid might drop out of the sky halfway to the Teeth. They needed to test it with a rider though, which is what it was made for: it had limited intelligence, but as a skilled rider, Dree could do the thinking for it. That was the theory, anyway.
“Baby Hybrid,” she said tentatively. “Fly.”
She felt the strange humming course beneath her legs as the hybrid lifted off the ground. It rose straight up, floating like a dandelion wisp. Dree held on tightly, terrified that the power would short out at any moment and hoping it at least conked out before they got too high. But Baby Hybrid kept climbing, and when she was about ten feet over the exposed ledge, she decided to give it a real test.
“Forward,” she said, and the hybrid suddenly rocketed off the ledge.
Dree could barely hold on to the steel plate as it shot across the sky, and she screamed with fear and excitement—it was even faster than Lourdvang. She risked a glance back and saw him trying to catch up. Marcus was pumping his fist and shouting something.
“All right,” Dree said, grinning, “you can move fast. Let’s dive.”
The wings adjusted slightly, and the hybrid rocketed downward.
“Right!” she shouted.
The wings tilted, taking a few seconds again, and then Baby Hybrid shot to the right, accelerating quickly. It was far from graceful, but the potential was there. She just needed to test one more important thing. She had a feeling they were going to need it.
“Fire machine guns!”
The machines
guns were already exposed beneath each wing, and they immediately loosed a volley of bullets at a nearby mountain slope. A plume of dust leapt out where the rocks were incinerated, and Dree laughed and slapped the hybrid.
“Perfect! Stop firing.”
The machine guns went silent.
“Slow down.”
Baby Hybrid slowed, allowing Marcus and Lourdvang to catch up. The hybrid was fast—maybe even faster than the drones.
“Amazing!” Marcus called, his hands buried into Lourdvang’s scales. “But—”
“It was slow on the turns and dive,” Dree admitted. “I know.”
“So we go for the Egg.”
“Might as well,” she said. “Our lives are at stake regardless.”
“You’re so cheery,” Marcus replied, laughing as Lourdvang swept onto another current. Being the only rider on the dragon was an entirely different experience—Marcus almost felt joined with Lourdvang. Of course the dragon clearly still didn’t like him, but when they were flying, they settled into an unspoken truce. A small part of him wondered again if he even wanted to go back to Arlington after all this. What was he there? A social pariah that looked at scattered news clippings and played vids with Brian? Here he was a dragon rider. An inventor. How could he go back now?
That was a question for another time. For now, he had to take out the drones, and then he had to find his father. Everything else could wait. But the thought lingered as they turned toward the Teeth.
Dree raced ahead, trying to test the hybrid to its limits. Marcus watched her, shaking his head as she dove into valleys and skimmed treetops, shouting and laughing.
“She’s nuts.”
“She’s reckless,” Lourdvang said disapprovingly. “Always has been.”
“Because of her brother?”
He grunted. “I think so. She blames herself. But she has a gift, as do you.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You may.”
Marcus paused. “Why do I feel like I belong up here?”
Lourdvang turned to look at him. “I suspect it’s because you do.” He turned back, watching Dree soar just beneath the clouds. “You both do.”
They reached the Teeth, and Marcus gazed down with building fear at the jagged, unfriendly landscape. It looked like the mountains had been scorched with fire. There was no sign of life except scraggly clumps of thickets and brambles that bordered the cold stream below, winding through the valley.
“Are we going to be eaten?” he asked, staring at a huge mountain in the distance.
“You may be,” Lourdvang replied. “Dragons don’t eat other dragons.”
“That’s comforting.”
As they approached Arncrag, two crimson dragons—sentries for the lair—leapt off of the peak of a small mountain. They raced toward the trespassers and fell in line beside Lourdvang, clearly unsure of what Baby Hybrid was. They began to rumble and hiss and growl in their language, and Marcus just sat there uneasily while Dree flew a little behind them. The Flames couldn’t have known it, but Dree probably had the machine guns trained on their wings. According to Lourdvang, Flames had much tougher wings, but the dual machine guns could still be able to cut through them.
Finally, Lourdvang turned to Marcus. “They will see us.”
“That’s a start.”
“Apparently they have seen the drones, and they are curious. They want answers.”
“Did they say they would let us leave after?”
Lourdvang paused. “No.”
“Super,” Marcus muttered.
They followed the two Flames to Arncrag, bordered by slow-moving clouds catching the sunlight. It looked like the entire mountain was on fire. Dree felt her stomach twisting as she floated beside Marcus and Lourdvang, approaching the dark opening. The last time they had been here, things hadn’t gone so well. She fully expected this to go even worse. Their only chance was either Flame mercy or Baby Hybrid’s guns.
The odds weren’t great either way.
Both Dree and Marcus stayed on their respective mounts as they walked into the cavern. Once again, Helvath sat imperiously on his skull-and-bone dais, a massive, half-eaten carcass below him. It looked like an elk. Vero sat to his right, but the other spot was empty. Dree was happy for that at least. She hadn’t liked the eyes of that other dragon.
When he saw them, Helvath started to laugh. It wasn’t a pleasant noise. It shook the entire mountain, deep and cold like thunder. His eyes were gleaming.
“You do have a death wish, don’t you?” he asked. “You attack me in my own kingdom, flee like rabbits, and then return but a few weeks later to mock me? Not very wise.”
“We are not here to mock you,” Lourdvang said. “We are here to ask for your help.”
“Even stupider,” Helvath said. “But I am curious what the lamb asks of the wolf.”
“We need the Egg,” Dree cut in. “And your warriors.”
Helvath turned to her, baring rows of foot-long teeth. Marcus was frozen with fear; Helvath was twice the size of Lourdvang and looked malicious. He suddenly wished he hadn’t voted to come here. They would be lucky to leave this mountain alive.
“Really,” Helvath said. “What is that . . . thing?”
“Baby Hybrid,” Dree said. “Created from one of the drones we destroyed.”
Helvath seemed to consider this. “Drones, you call them? Those are the metal objects that fly around the sky like sparrows?”
“Yes. We have to stop them.”
“We?” Helvath asked. “They kill humans and lesser dragons. They do my work.”
Marcus finally spoke up. “They will turn on you eventually as well.”
His voice sounded meek and lonely in the cavern. Helvath turned to him.
“Then we’ll destroy them,” he growled, narrowing his eyes.
“There will be more,” Marcus said. “Now that the drones are here, they may find a way to reopen the portal. If we don’t destroy the four left and find a way to close the portal permanently, you may have fifty to deal with. Hundreds, eventually. Even the Flames would perish.”
“The machines are deadly,” Vero agreed. “I have seen them fight.”
Dree wondered if Helvath would just kill them on the spot. His eyes certainly hinted at that very possibility, flicking between them like he couldn’t decide who to eat first. She prepared to give Baby Hybrid the order to fire, knowing it would be too late. If Helvath launched a fireball at Lourdvang and Marcus, they would both die instantly.
The silence was heavy as he stared at them. Dree waited for the end.
Instead, he laughed again, shaking the mountain.
“I admire your courage,” he said thoughtfully. “I would have thought you would not return here for the rest of your lives. That would have been the wiser choice. And yet you stroll in here again and ask me for help. It is the kind of foolhardy bravery that I have not seen in an age. For that, I will let you live. It is too rare that I see courage in this world these days.”
Dree and Marcus exchanged a relieved smile.
“But I will not help you either.”
Vero turned to him. “Perhaps we should—”
“I will not send my dragons into a battle to save locusts and worms,” Helvath said. “And I would never give them the Egg either. What would you do with it if I did?”
Dree hesitated. “We were going to use it to give this hybrid dragon magic.”
Helvath straightened, eyeing the hybrid dangerously. “That seals it, then. You would use our magic on a weapon? My father would return from the ground to burn us all to nothing. I have half a mind to destroy that thing, but I suppose you intend to use it to defeat the drones?”
“Yes,” Marcus replied.
“Then go, and if you fail, we will be ready. Hurry before I change my mind and kill
the lot of you. Your courage can only go so far before my ceaseless hunger returns.”
Marcus, Dree, and Lourdvang slowly exited the cavern. Marcus was disappointed, but Dree was just happy to be alive. They would have to think of something else.
“What now?” Marcus asked.
“We keep working on the hybrid,” Dree said. “What else can we do?”
Marcus shook his head. “It’s not enough.”
“No,” a calm voice said. “It’s not.”
They all looked back in surprise to see Vero following them outside, moving like a stalking cat. She was still bigger than Lourdvang, but sleek and muscled, with the same deadly claws and teeth as Helvath. She also seemed agitated, and they heard Helvath shouting something in the background. Obviously she was not there with his consent.
“He doesn’t like when I disobey him,” she said, guessing at their thoughts. “But I must speak to you alone. Quickly, before he really does change his mind and decide to attack.”
She turned to Lourdvang.
“Do you know of a dragon named Nolong? He is a Sage.”
Lourdvang paused. “I don’t know the name. I have heard that some Sages have escaped from the dragon hunters and live in secret in these mountains, but I don’t know where.”
Vero seemed to consider this. “If you ever see him, can you tell him I asked?”
Dree and Marcus looked at each other, confused.
“We . . . knew each other long ago,” Vero explained. “In different times. I was forbidden from seeing him—Flames cannot be with other clans. It is considered unseemly. When I heard about the attacks, I wondered if he was among the dead.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Lourdvang said. “If I see him, I will tell him.”
“Thank you,” Vero said, nodding her head. “Helvath will never help you. He truly believes the machines are clearing out the countryside of pests, and he will not interrupt their work. He has grown idle and crueler with age, as heartless as the mountain we stand on. But I believe you when you say they will come for us. I have seen them work.”
She leaned in, lowering her voice to a rumbling whisper.
