The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga

by Josh VanBrakle

  When Iren’s blank stare conveyed that he, in fact, knew nothing about Yokai, Rondel interjected, “It doesn’t shock me that you don’t know. In Haldessa, only Castle Guard members are told of their existence. Azuluu’s predecessors ordered all books on Yokai burned centuries ago.”

  “What are Yokai then,” Iren asked, “and why keep their existence secret?”

  “They’re a sentient race,” Rondel answered, “though they do the word a disservice. Thousands of years ago, they dwelt in the Eregos Mountains on Lodia’s southern border. The Tengu pushed them out in a great war, and the Yokai tribes, quarreling over who to blame for their defeat, separated. Most went south and disappeared into lands beyond the knowledge of humans. But one tribe settled in Akaku, hoping to take advantage of Lodia’s northern settlements. Over the centuries, places like Veliaf have had no choice but to defend themselves, hence Veliaf’s wall. Caardit, in northwest Lodia, has a similar construction.”

  “Besides Veliaf and Caardit, no Lodian settlements lie within sight of Akaku,” Balear added. “Once those towns built walls, the Yokai lost their easy prey and went into hiding in the forest. King Azuluu’s ancestors didn’t want the public panicking over the fact that Yokai dwelt on Lodia’s borders, so they decreed the subject forbidden. They hoped that, as generations passed, the Yokai would fade from memory, and so they have.”

  Amroth spoke for the first time in quite a while. “So Yokai killed all those men in the square? Yokai looted your homes?”

  Dirio shook his head. “No, the Yokai swarmed our village, killing many, but our militia rallied and pushed the beasts back into the mines. We then dragged a heavy stone over the mine’s entrance and sealed it shut. Doing so cut off our source of livelihood, but what option did we have? With the mine compromised, we had to seal it for the good of the village. We took the dead outside the walls and buried them the next day, as is our custom.”

  “But your troubles had only just begun, correct?” Amroth fixed his gaze on Dirio. With each question, the captain looked more and more like a cat stalking a mouse.

  The foreman nodded. “Two nights later, the gatekeeper on duty was slain and the gate opened. Quodivar poured into Veliaf. Our militia engaged them, but the Quodivar butchered them all and stacked their remains in the square. The village has since decayed into what you saw today. Those devils took nearly all the remaining residents as slaves. As one of the few people left uncaptured, I tried to sneak out and flee to Haldessa to alert the Castle Guard. Unfortunately, the Quodivar noticed me. I thought they would beat me to death.” The poor man shuddered.

  Amroth ignored Dirio’s pained gesture. “Where did the Quodivar take the villagers they captured?”

  The question set the foreman in a panic. He covered his head in his hands and slid down the wall, howling in despair, “Into the mines! Those fools opened up the sealed mine and went in, taking the villagers with them!”

  Again Amroth didn’t react to Dirio’s outburst. Instead, he replied evenly, “I’m sure the Yokai came back into the village at that point, killing Quodivar and residents alike.”

  Dirio looked up from the floor, wiping his face on his sleeve. “No, that’s the strange part,” he admitted. “The Yokai have left us alone ever since the Quodivar reopened the mine. I don’t know if the Quodivar killed them or merely pushed them from the cavern, but I haven’t seen a single Yokai since the bandits arrived.”

  Amroth nodded, clearly unsurprised that Dirio disagreed with him. “I expected as much. The Quodivar have always had better weapons and armor than mere thieves should own. I knew they couldn’t be acting alone; they needed some other force arming them. The Yokai provide the only logical possibility.”

  Dirio gave him a shocked look. “So the Quodivar didn’t drive the Yokai from the cave?”

  “Quite the contrary. The Yokai must permit the Quodivar to use the cave as their base. I would venture that on the day the Yokai came swarming through the mine, one or two Quodivar snuck in with them. They hid in the village until they could open the gate from the inside. Because you were so preoccupied with the Yokai, you failed to notice the human enemy in your midst.”

  Iren cocked an eyebrow. “But why would the Yokai help the Quodivar?”

  “Because the Quodivar and Yokai have the same desire: the complete overthrow of Lodia,” Amroth replied. “But neither group can manage it alone. The Yokai don’t have the numbers to conquer even a small town like Veliaf, and without the Yokai supplying them with armor and weapons, the Quodivar are little more than thugs. Joined together, however, they could conquer even Haldessa.”

  “Surely they couldn’t become that powerful!” Balear cried. “We must go back immediately and warn the king!”

  Amroth shook his head. “No, we have neither the time nor the manpower to do that. Rondel gave us a narrow opening today, and we’ll need everyone here to take advantage of it.”

  Balear nervously asked, “What do we do?”

  To everyone’s surprise, Amroth smirked. “Simple. I suspected the Quodivar had their base in Akaku, but I couldn’t figure out how to reach it. Aimlessly wandering that forest would kill us for sure. Now, thanks to Rondel, we have a clear line of attack. Both the Yokai and Quodivar believe the men Rondel killed today guard Veliaf’s mine. If we strike before they realize those men have died, we can catch them by surprise. We’ll sneak into their base from the one direction they consider themselves invulnerable: below.” The captain turned to Dirio. “You’ll have to come too. You know the mines better than any of us.”

  The foreman initially looked ill at Amroth’s request, but then his expression hardened. “If it frees my fellow citizens, I’ll do as you say.”

  Amroth nodded. “All right, we’ll leave at dawn. Let’s get what sleep we can. We’ll need it.”

  Everyone except Iren rose and headed to the door. As they did, Iren said, “Wait, Rondel. Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”

  The others exited the room, Amroth last of all. He gave Rondel an interrogative look, but the old hag simply smiled innocently, shut the door in his face, and took a seat in the chair beside Iren’s bed. Apparently remembering her bottle for the first time since they’d started speaking about the Yokai, she raised it to her lips and took a long draught.

  Iren didn’t wait for her to finish. “Why did I pass out today?” he asked.

  Rondel kept drinking until she drained the bottle. Wiping her mouth, she replied, “First of all, while I commend you for healing Dirio, you need to understand the severity of your actions. Remember how I told you that you drew on Divinion’s power to heal yourself? You did that today too. However, you can’t draw on his magic without also drawing some of his spirit, his will, out of the gemstone prison and into your body. Using magic is essentially a contest of wills between dragon and knight. If you draw small amounts of magic, little of the dragon’s will comes with it, and you easily triumph. But the more spells you cast, the more the dragon’s will seeps into you. If you draw more power from Divinion than you yourself possess, his spirit will break yours.”

  “What does that mean? What would happen to me?”

  Rondel shivered. “In Maantec history, a few arrogant Dragon Knights attempted to use too much of their dragon’s power with disastrous results. They foolishly believed their minds strong enough to win the contest of wills, no matter how much magic they used. None succeeded. In every case, the knight’s body transformed into that of a dragon, losing control and going on a rampage.”

  Iren became ashen at the thought of turning into a dragon. “Maybe I shouldn’t use magic at all,” he mumbled.

  “Not if you can help it,” Rondel agreed. “Fortunately, a dragon’s will can only exist outside its gem for a limited time. Even though you pushed your magic to the brink today, you can use it during the battle tomorrow.”

  Iren gulped. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. If Amroth had guessed correctly about the cavern being the Quodivar’s base, they could very well end up meeting
the bandits’ leader, his parents’ murderer, down there.

  Trying to distract himself from that possibility, he changed the subject and asked, “Rondel, you used magic to kill those thieves today, didn’t you? You also know a lot about the dragons. Are you a Dragon Knight?”

  She smiled and drew her dagger, holding it up for Iren’s inspection. The hilt, hand guard, and pommel were all perfectly round and made of dark wood. Staring closely at the hilt, Iren looked for what he knew should be there: three concentric rings of kanji symbols identical to those on his own blade.

  After a moment, he snorted. The hilt looked perfectly smooth. “Guess not.”

  Rondel rolled her eyes. “You really are hopeless, aren’t you? That close and you still couldn’t notice?”

  “Notice what, you dried up crone?”

  “Ignorant child! I’m trying to teach you here.”

  “Oh, is that what you call this?”

  The two turned away from each other a moment before Rondel, shaking her head and sighing, said, “I learned long ago that advertising yourself as a Dragon Knight is a good way to die. Fools challenge you constantly, wanting the dragon for themselves. Sooner or later, one of them will succeed. Better to hide your power and never let anyone know your true abilities. After today, though, I can’t hide anymore.” She pointed directly at the center of the hilt, and at last Iren saw it, barely visible. The wood had been stained a beautiful red, but on top of that someone had applied a second stain with a thin brush, just a hair darker. With it, they had penned the ring sequence, all but invisibly.

  “This is the Liryometa, the Storm Dragon Dagger, and in its hilt rests Okthora. Like you, I can use magic, although I must admit, mine looks a little flashier. Thanks to Okthora, I can manipulate lightning.”

  “Whoa,” Iren couldn’t help saying. He imagined Rondel summoning bolts of lightning from the sky, obliterating all in her path.

  Rondel must have detected Iren’s worry, because she laughed and said, “Don’t expect me to call up a thunderstorm any time soon. Remember how you passed out healing Dirio? You used too much magic. The same can happen to me. Instead, I prefer a simpler tactic. Rather than use the lightning outside, I rely on the lightning within myself.”

  Iren scoffed. Rondel had told him a lot of crazy things in the past few days, but he was pretty sure people didn’t have lightning inside them. At least, he hoped not.

  Unflustered by Iren’s disbelieving retort, Rondel explained, “When you want to flex your arm, do you know how your brain tells your muscles to move? It uses an electrical signal. The muscles also generate signals when they contract. Each signal has only the most miniscule charge, so controlling them requires little magic. But even small changes to them can have fascinating results. For example, by increasing the amount of voltage flowing to my muscles, I can move extremely rapidly.”

  “That’s how you crossed the square so quickly,” Iren realized. “What about your eyes, though? They had sparks in them!”

  Rondel beamed with pride. She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, blue bolts were dancing across her irises. “This is my best magical invention, a technique I’m proud to say no other Maantec can do. I call it Lightning Sight.”

  “Lightning Sight?” Iren asked, mystified.

  “You see, not only does the brain use electrical charges to communicate to your muscles, but the senses use them to signal what they encounter to the brain. Increasing those signals boosts my senses. In the case of Lightning Sight, the enhanced vision lets me pinpoint every detail of a scene, observe an object over long distances, and even see in total darkness.”

  Iren thought about his previous experiences with Rondel. Lightning Sight explained how she easily dodged all the Quodivar’s arrows. She could perceive the tiny motions of the thieves’ bodies and use them to predict what they were going to do. Also, once they fired their arrows, she could track the projectiles’ flights with perfect detail. Lightning Sight effectively gave the crone an instantaneous reaction time, and when combined with her increased speed, hitting her would become almost impossible.

  Rondel stretched, stood, and headed for the door. “Well, if that’s all, both of us should get some rest.”

  Iren almost let her leave when he felt a strange urge, and he burst out, “Rondel, have you ever met your dragon, Okthora?”

  The aged Maantec had a hand on the door. She stood silently for a long time before responding carefully, “Why do you ask?”

  “When I passed out, I saw Divinion. He talked to me.”

  Rondel turned in the darkness, her expression inscrutable. “No, I haven’t,” she replied, “and if you want my advice, you’ll refrain from ever speaking with yours again.” With that, she exited the room.

  For a long time Iren lay awake, pondering Rondel’s words. At last, exhausted from the events of the day and the promise of battle tomorrow, he fell into a deep and, thankfully, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Descent into Darkness

  After a hasty breakfast at dawn, Balear and the others headed to the entrance to Veliaf’s mine. Hardly an elegant structure, the mine’s opening was nothing more than a large hole in the ground covered with a pair of hinged wooden doors that swung to either side. Next to the doors sat a gargantuan chunk of blue stone with heavy ropes and pulleys wrapped around it. Dirio explained that it had come from a slag pile near the mine’s entrance. Balear wondered how many villagers it had taken to haul the boulder over the entrance.

  Captain Angustion motioned for Dirio to take the lead alongside him. Rondel came next, still grinning in that way that made Balear want to punch her in the face. The Castle Guard’s code forbade him to strike a woman, in particular an old woman, but Rondel really, really pushed him. After her display yesterday, though, Balear was in no mood to challenge her.

  The captain had ordered Balear and Iren to serve as rear guard. They hadn’t seen any more Quodivar in the village, but that didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there. Moreover, even if the bandits Rondel had killed yesterday were the only Quodivar left in Veliaf, the spiderweb of mine passages could hide any number of them.

  Balear cast a surreptitious glance at Iren. Admittedly, his opinion of the Left had changed a little in the past twenty-four hours. Healing Dirio, even though Balear didn’t understand how on Raa that could happen, had at least proved Iren capable of good deeds. For this particular assignment, however, Iren still made him deeply uncomfortable. The Left had barely survived his first skirmish. The heart of the Quodivar and Yokai’s territory wasn’t the place for basic training, whatever devil magic Iren might have. Making matters worse, Captain Angustion kept heaping praise on the boy. He never made such glowing remarks to other soldiers.

  All the same, Balear knew his superior must have his reasons. If Captain Angustion considered Iren’s talents acceptable, Balear would just have to keep his own feelings in check and obey.

  The group slipped into the dank mine, shadows enveloping them the moment they crossed the threshold. Leaning down, Dirio located a large box just inside the mine entrance. A shower of sparks erupted, and a torch flared to life in Dirio’s hand.

  Putting away his striker, Dirio retrieved enough torches from the box and gave one to each of them. The light did little more than cast a pale glow on their path, but even so, Balear took in the mine with awe. The tunnels had square cross sections large enough to allow even the tallest workers to walk around comfortably. Sturdy wooden cants, some so thick Balear doubted he could have wrapped his arms around them, supported the ceiling. Dirio tapped one and turned to the group. “Spruce timbers from Akaku,” he whispered. “Nowhere else around grows them this big.”

  Balear marveled not only at the mine itself, but also at the incredible work that had gone into making it. Aside from the constant threat of death by cave-in, he knew the workers had risked their lives by entering Akaku to cut trees. The flat walls bore the occasional divot signifying where crews had carved their way t
hrough the solid earth, deeper and deeper until finally reaching the stone they wanted.

  With each step, Balear’s muscles tightened. Thus far, no one had approached them, whether from the front or from behind, but the mine’s emptiness only set him more on edge. It was full of blind corners, and every turn could reveal an enemy. Worse, while their torches helped light their path, they also gave away their approach to anyone lurking around a bend.

  Eventually, Dirio called them to a halt with a silent wave. Balear looked ahead and beheld the breach in the mine that led into the cavern beyond. Peering into the opening, he saw that the cave’s walls curved up and away from him, far higher than the mine’s ceiling.

  Captain Angustion doused his torch, and the others quickly did the same. They’d needed the torches so Dirio could navigate them to the cavern, but they couldn’t risk using them any longer. Now they had truly entered Quodivar territory, and stealth could make the difference between victory and death.

  For a moment Balear fumbled in the total darkness, unable to see even an inch in front of his face. Cold mist from the cavern swirled around him, dampening his clothes as well as his spirits. Gulping, he stretched out a hand and grasped the shoulder of the person in front of him. The height told him it belonged to Iren. He instinctively recoiled, but focusing on the mission, he reluctantly took hold and let the freak guide him.

  They walked in a line, each person with a hand on the one in front of them. Rondel led the way. Balear could barely perceive the faintest glow coming from around her head. She must be doing that crazy thing with her eyes again. More devil magic, he knew. Still, she managed to weave her way through the black tunnel without difficulty, and Balear doubted an approaching Quodivar would consider the tiny light her eyes created anything out of the ordinary.

  More likely, they would notice the noise the group made. Deprived of his sight, every sound felt magnified a dozen times over. Every crunch of his boots on the gravel floor, every drop of water from the ceiling, every hissed breath became more deafening than Haldessa’s great hall during an evening meal.