Cannonfire.
I sprang into the sky, furious and wheeling to see a huge fleet of ships moving northward. Lamoan ships. I could tell from the cannons and the great glaring eyes. But Remoan ships as well, with their golden drakina sails, outfitted with Lamoan cannons. It made no sense, but as I coursed toward them, my wings beating faster than my rage, I realized that I had caused it. Me, the Night Dragon of the Crown. I had ravaged the Lamoan docks and freed their golden drakina. I had called the dragons of Remus and they had come. I had shat on the house of the Emperor and united two warring peoples under the banner of fear.
This was me. All me. Nameless, riderless, limitless, free. Dragons were a threat to both brothers, and they had followed us here to destroy us all.
I barked to the Thunder, I bellowed to the Wild. They followed me and we dove toward them like a hailstorm. Boom and flash of cannonfire. Breath and crash of dragonfire. Almost two hundred dragons bore down on the fleet and soon, the sky was filled with black.
Smoke and fire, the smell of iron and arcstone. This was why they mined the arcstone, to out-breathe dragons and I felt it burn in my throat as I carried the fire to them, eager to torch every one of their pathetic skiffs. The balls whipped like leaden arrows and next to me, a brown drake was struck. I tucked my wings and dove, spraying flame all across the lead vessel. I didn’t care that it had a golden drakina sail, that it was Remoan not Lamoan. It was stick and it would burn.
Up into the dragon-dark sky, wheeling and plummeting again, the fire pouring like rain from our mouths. The cannons boomed like many mouths, coughing flame and lead and iron. Dragons were like schools of silverfins. Too many to miss, and one after another, they splashed into the sea. They did not go quietly, however, and their thrashings crippled as many ships as our flame.
I’d lost sight of Summerday and Aryss. I hoped they’d stay well out of the fray but I knew otherwise. Aryss was a Flight Dragon, her skills unrivaled but Summerday? How could a blind drakina who had only known captivity survive such a battle? A ball tore past my head and thoughts of drakinas went with it.
The ships had reached the Fang of Wyvern. The cliff face was pitted as both dragons and iron balls slammed into it, and I must admit I despaired of ever claiming it as my nesting site. The fact saddened me, then angered me and I bore down once more, raining fire across the eye of a Lamoan warship. Aflame, it carried on to crash into the Fang, shattering and scattering wood and men across the surf.
It was then that I saw the eye.
Larger than anything painted on the ships, a great yellow eye opened beneath the waters.
And it roared.
It was not the roar of cannonfire. It was not the roar of Hell Down. It was the roar of an earthstorm, of the very Cliffs and the rocks and slowly, just like an earthstorm, the Fang of Wyvern began to move.
Thunder and Wild fell away as the sea began to churn and boil, and the cliff rose up beneath me. All along the archipelago, cliffs that had been homes to dragons for hundreds of years shuddered and sank, while the Fang rose higher and higher. The warships pitched on the churning seas, sucking inward as a massive shape pushed out of the ocean, spray and foam roiling like a cauldron. It was the largest dragon I had ever seen and with a flash like Hallow Fire, I realized it was Anquarus of the Sea. The Cliffs were his spines, the Fang one of his horns and his tail carried on as far as the horizon. As he rose, winds surged and sucked all around him and dragons were sent spinning through the air, some crashing into the water, others into the iron scales of his body. When he spread wide his wings, they lifted water and weeds and fish and silt with them, only to rain back down to the waves like a waterfall. With a roar that was like the heart of Hell Down, he turned his great yellow eyes to the ships.
They shattered under his claws, were sucked into his jaws, crushed between his iron teeth. He flung his great body onto the fleet, sending giant waves crashing on both sides, capsizing the others. He thrashed and gnashed and when he finally blew his ocean-blue flame across the remaining ships, they instantly turned to ash and blew away on the hurricane wind of his breath.
After many hours, all that was left was the sound of sea snakes and hissing water.
He was the size of many mountains, had to be hundreds of years old. He gazed up at us, past us, to the gleaming gold of Selisanae above and with a roar that split the earth in two, he brought his great wings down, forcing both dragons and water out from under them. A second and then a third and I wondered if such a weight could be carried but his wings were as wide as the sea and soon, he thundered into the sky, blackening the clouds and obliterating the sun with his bulk.
It was noon before he was out of sight and the roar of his passing finally died away into wind and silence.
It was longer before any dragon was able to breathe, longer still before any of us could move.
A pitiful warble echoed across the water. I looked to see Summerday resting on the surface, wings wide, eyes unseeing. I flew over to settle next to her, nudged her throat with my beak. She exhaled deeply, then again, and I realized that there was no way I could tell her what we’d seen. There was no song, there was no comfort, but there was life and there was freedom, and I nipped her spines to calm her. She hissed at me, but she settled once Aryss lit on the water beside her.
Eventually, the Wild swept back over their former home but there was nothing, merely white sand and blue waters made brown with silt. We lost many dragons that day and I must admit that their bodies fed the sea creatures for weeks afterward. Those remaining settled back onto the waves but Anquarus had destroyed the greatest natural aerie I’d ever known. In truth, Anquarus had been the greatest natural aerie I’d ever known.
All of us, both Thunder and Wild were united in one common plight. We had no home.
I could see the golden strip on the horizon. It was land of some sort. Perhaps there were dragons. Perhaps there were men. Either way, it was a place we needed to go, for neither Thunder nor Wild would last long floating on the waves like debris.
With a bellow, I spread wide my wings to capture the winds. Aryss and Summerday did likewise and together we rose into the sky with all of the Thunder at our backs. We soared toward the Wild. They were circling over the emptiness where the Cliffs been, and hissed and barked as we streaked past. I ignored them, focusing now on the strip of land in the distance.
Gold before me. Gold on either side. The sky above was gold as well, under the gaze of Selisanae of the Sun and you know how dragons love their gold. I was free, a night dragon of ash and stars, fire and smoke and pride.
But most of all, fire.
***
Now, I am old.
I am the oldest of all the dragons. I do not breed anymore. I do not hunt nor do I fly, for even moving disturbs the trees and the rocks and the young dragons all around me. I’m rarely hungry, rarely thirsty and I have roots growing under my belly and moss beneath my wings. Perhaps it’s trying to make me a part of the earth, much like Anquarus was a part of the sea. It doesn’t matter. I won’t be here for much longer.
We called the land Nerisanos, after Nerisanae the First Drakina of the Earth. It was a good name, an ancient name befitting this ancient place. There were no sticks, no cities, no civilization of any sort. There were mountains as high as the Cliffs of Anquar. There was fresh water and forests and plains and beaches. There was fish and shaghorns and coarse shearers and goswyrms. There were few sea snakes and I must admit, I didn’t miss them at all.
Our dragons stretched out across this land and soon, there was no distinction between Thunder and Wild. All were Wild because all were free. We bred and nested and built our homes up on the tallest peaks and in the deepest valleys. I bred both Aryss and Summerday and our young were alternately sunny gold or starry black or striped both, and soon, a night dragon was not a rare sight. We sang each night, telling the stories of our lives around fire pits like the sticks used to do. I rarely thought of Rue, but when I did, my song was all the sweeter.
&
nbsp; I don’t sing anymore either.
I lie across the flat, mesa-topped peak of a mountain for there is no nest or ledge, lair or den big enough to hold me. I sleep during the day, enjoying the warmth of the sun all along my sides. My horns are so long that they touch my back, twisting like roots in the ground. Young dragons fly over me, play in my spines, nest in my scales. My skin is like stone, my eyes like silverstone, my claws like flint. I’m not as large as Anquarus but it doesn’t matter. As I said, I won’t be here for long.
I’m going to my father, Draco Stellorum. I know now that he is one of the Veternum and his name not Draco Stellorum but Stellorus of the Stars. He is real and I will find him.
I’m not sure when, but one night I will rise. I will shake the moss and the trees and the rocks from my body and when I spread my wings, no one will know that the sky has disappeared, for the stars will be my stars, my scales will be the night. I will crack the mountain when I leap into the air, each beat of my wings will create a hurricane. I will brace my eyes against the cold as I rise higher and higher and I know I will see not just all of Nerisanos, but Remus and Lamos as well. I will see what it is that a map is based on, and I wonder if it will be long and flat or curved and round. I suspect curved, but I am a dragon given to great imaginings.
I imagine flying with my father, Draco Stellorum, through the stars; soaring through the night sky as if it were water and chasing Selisanae of the Sun. I long to sing once again with the moons, the Eyes, my dear golden drakinas Aryss and Summerday who met my father far earlier than I. When I think of them, my entire chest aches and the mesa-topped mountain trembles with the grief.
I am a vain dragon, a proud dragon, and now an old dragon. I have lived with vice and with vigour and while I could go on, I am eager to see where the stars will take me and how high I will fly before the cold turns me to ice.
And sometimes I wonder if I might meet Ruminor, the harsh father of sticks and cruel breaker of bargains. I would scorch him with my breath until he is ash and I will blow him on the wings of the wind so he could never steal souls from young boys again. I will set the heavens on fire with the flames of my breath and perhaps the stars will burn for me as I light them. Selisanae would burn, I know this to be true. I wonder if my father, Draco Stellorum, would join me or if he would watch, as he always watches, while I battle a god and win. Perhaps that will appease him. And then again, perhaps not.
As you can tell, I have much time for thinking.
And perhaps when I burn the heavens, I will burn my father too, perhaps I will take his place. Draco Stellorum Cinisi. Dragon of Ash and Stars. Then, the young drakes will gaze up at me and wonder what I think and make songs about the moons, my Eyes Aryss and Summerday. I will not be too proud to hear them.
And so until the day that I rise, I stay. My breathing shakes the treetops, my heartbeat moves the tides. I have lived a good life but even now as I gaze up at the stars, I grow restless.
Listen for the wind. Turn your ear to the roar of distant Hell Down.
I move.
Finis
If you enjoyed this novel, I would be honoured if you would leave a review somewhere. Unlike Stormfall, I am not too proud.
Other Books by H. Leighton Dickson
To Journey in the Year of the Tiger
To Walk in the Way of Lions
Songs in the Year of the Cat
Swallowtail & Sword
Cold Stone & Ivy
Coming Soon
Snow in the Year of the Dragon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
H. Leighton Dickson grew up in the wilds of the Canadian Shield, where her neighbours were wolves, moose, deer and lynx. She studied Zoology at the University of Guelph and worked in the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens in Scotland, where she was chased by lions, wrestled deaf tigers and fed antibiotics to Polar Bears by baby bottle! She has been writing since she was thirteen and pencilled her way through university with the help of DC Comics. She has three dogs, three cats, three kids, one horse and one husband. She has managed to keep all of them alive so far.
A Hybrid author, Heather has the celebrated Upper Kingdom series
along with the Gothic thriller series, COLD STONE & IVY published by Tyche Books. She also writes for Bayview Magazine and is a photoshop wizard when it comes to book covers.
Come join the conversation at
www.hleightondickson.com
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facebook.com/HLeightonDickson
Dragon of Ash & Stars: The Autobiography of a Night Dragon Page 27
