Dragon Black, Dragon White

by Macy Babineaux

  He looked across at Myrian as he flew, now balanced, steady, and strong. Who was he to question ancient prophecy or the guidance of the most powerful mage in the world? On the other hand, he felt like a carved wooden game piece, being moved from square to square by some unseen hand. And he didn't like that feeling at all.

  He may have grown up a peasant, and only just found out who he really was, but that didn’t mean he was some puppet, dancing to the pull of prophecy’s strings. If he simply did as he was told, he might very well die in a few days’ time, before he’d even gotten a chance to fully become whoever he was supposed to be.

  He’d never been with a woman, and even though she drove him half-mad, Myrian moved something deep within him. He wondered where, if at all, those feelings might take him.

  Nowhere, if I’m dead, he thought. Part of him wanted to just abandon this insane quest, or whatever it was. He was a dragon now. He could fly wherever he wanted. Maybe he could convince Myrian that this was all foolhardy as well. She wanted to return to her homeland badly anyway. Perhaps he could return there with her.

  And then what? Wait for the sun to grow dark again? For the mindless hordes of the demon’s army to come sweeping across the plains?

  He had no desire to be a hero. He certainly had few role models in his life to encourage him. But he felt as if, deep down, he might be capable of much more than he ever thought possible. The idea scared him, but it also gave him hope.

  And looking at Myrian, he wondered if perhaps when this was all over, if they were both still alive, whether he might show a different kind of courage and tell her how he felt about her. Not just the parts about how she sometimes made him want to tear his hair out, but the other ones as well. How sometimes, like now, when he looked at her, the sun glinting off the white scales of her body, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  She turned her head to catch him looking at her, and he jerked his head forward, trying to act as if he hadn’t been staring. As he did so, he wobbled, catching himself. He thought he saw her smirk as she turned her head forward again, but she was so difficult to read, especially as a dragon.

  They flew like that, side by side, as the sun followed its arc along with them, dipping lower in the sky. Zak knew hours had passed, but he was still exhilarated by the novelty and joy of flight so that the time slipped away like nothing.

  He trusted that Myrian knew where she was going. Growing up in a royal house, she was probably given formal lessons on the geography of the land, whereas he only had a vague idea of how the five kingdoms fit together relative to one another. And he certainly couldn’t have said where each seat of power within those kingdoms lay.

  He half expected to see a trail of smoke rising up in the sky as they grew close. After all, the blue dragons had turned on one another, freezing hundreds to death with their icy breath. In some cases, the attacks had been so brutally violent, the blasts had nearly ripped the flesh from their bodies.

  So why wouldn’t the red dragons have done the same, only with fire instead of ice? He expected to find the place still in flames, the palace littered with the charred bodies of the dead. He just hoped this Kal Wildfire wasn’t among them.

  But with the sun starting to set, he saw Myrian tilt forward to descend. There was no trail of tell-tale smoke. He thought at first she might be stopping to rest. They had flown for a long time, after all. But as he began to descend as well, he squinted to see a huge building ahead, or at least the remnants of one.

  That must be the Sandstone Palace, he thought, and his stomach tightened. The sands all around the buildings were white, just like the rolling dunes they had flown over for the past few hours. As they flew towards the ground, he could see black streaks across many of the walls, even though the structures themselves seemed mostly intact.

  Perhaps that was a good sign, even though he saw no one moving about outside or within the walls. They might just be wary, he thought. Who wouldn’t be after a day like yesterday?

  Myrian landed first, her back claws sinking into the white sands just in front of the tall iron gates. Zak flew in to land near her, feeling his own claws sink into the warm white sand. He was determined to not repeat his clumsy crash into the snow like the last time he had landed.

  And perhaps he was so focused on landing well that he wasn’t paying close enough attention to anything else. Because Myrian didn’t fully lower herself to the sand for a complete landing. Before she let all her weight settle on her rear legs, she must have seen or heard something, because she began to beat her wings as if meaning to take back to the air.

  On the other hand, Zak’s rear claws had already made a satisfying landing, and he let the front half of his body fall forward. As his front claws sunk into the sand, he noticed the urgent flutter of Myrian’s wings out of the corner of his eye.

  “Stop!” Myrian yelled at him, starting to rise again. “Don’t land!”

  He turned his head to see what was wrong when he heard a loud snap. A puff of sand flew up into his face and a blinding pain erupted just above his right claw.

  He roared, the agony so sharp and terrible that it filled every corner of his mind. He looked down to see the iron jaws of a trap, the jagged teeth clenched around his front leg, puncturing his scales.

  His first instinct was to do as Myrian had, to take back to the air. And stupidly he did so, beating his wings frantically and trying to pull up. That only made the searing pain flare, tearing at the flesh in his leg.

  He threw back his head and roared again before stopping the beat of his wings and lowering back down.

  He saw figures rising up out of the sand around them. He saw dark green scales, which didn’t make any sense. The dragons that lived here were supposed to be red, weren’t they? But he couldn’t make much sense of anything with the pain screaming up through his leg.

  They looked more like snakes, at least a dozen of them, transforming as the sand spilled from their bodies, becoming men.

  This is bad. This was the only coherent thought his pain-riddled mind could produce.

  He tried to yell at Myrian to get away, but of course she had seen the threat before he had. She was just off the ground, ready to take flight again when the nets flew over her. The snake-men flung them up high, tangling her wings.

  She let out a thin roar as she fell back down to the sand with a dull crash. The men worked quickly, driving long stakes down to secure the ends of the nets. The iron gates of the palace opened, and more men spilled out, carrying spears and crossbows.

  My breath, he thought. I can fight back. I have to fight back.

  He breathed in deeply, not sure how to spray the black breath, but feeling a dark liquid gather at the base of his throat. As he did, he saw a bald man step through the open gate. He was taller than the others, with dark swirling tattoos covering his face and neck.

  He looked at Zak, then quickly snatched a crossbow out of the hands of the man next to him. He walked swiftly to where Myrian lay pinned to the sand by the nets and pointed the hooked tip of the bolt at her eye. She had been flailing and struggling against the netting, but she stopped when he trained the weapon on her.

  The man looked up at Zak and smiled, his finger on the trigger.

  “No, no, no,” the man said, like a teasing child. “You try to spray that black shit on me or my boys and I will put this right through your little friend’s eye.”

  Zak held his breath. He could feel the corrosive oil inside him, bursting to be let out. How good it would feel to spray it across these bastards, especially the tall one grinning at him, to see their faces melt as they screamed. But if he let it out, he risked the man doing what he promised. He risked Myrian’s life.

  “You dragons are tough and scaly just about everywhere,” he said. “But your eyes are still soft, no? I bet this would go straight into her brain. Do you want to see?” The man tucked the butt of the crossbow tightly against his shoulder and Zak could see his finger squeezing slowly on the trigger.
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  Zak let the bubbling blackness inside him subside, breathing out air through his nostrils. He shook his head.

  The man smiled wider than ever, his huge white teeth gleaming. “Good!” he said, letting his trigger finger relax. “And now you will make yourself not a dragon, see? And so will your friend. Then we will take you inside and talk. I think we have much to talk about.”

  16

  MYRIAN

  The snake-men left them wrapped in nets as they dragged them through the iron gates, up the sandy steps and through the halls of the palace to the throne room.

  Myrian winced every time Zak let out a cry of pain when he bumped on the stairs or hit a wall. The bastards had left the trap clamped to his leg even after he’d shifted back.

  Once in the throne room, the tall man, obviously their leader, introduced himself as Fareek. That was just before he ordered his men to pin them both to the wall with the netting they were bound in. After his men were done, Myrian and Zak both hung flat on the wall, arms and legs spread, the webbing of the net biting into their flesh. She felt like a fly caught by a spider, which wasn’t far from the truth. But the spider hadn’t killed them yet. He’d said he wanted to talk. Perhaps he just wanted to toy with them before he ended their lives, but at least that gave them a window of hope.

  Zak groaned. She looked over to see the massive jaws of iron hanging from his leg, tugging at the flesh of his calf. Blood ran down the contraption, dripping to the floor.

  “Can’t you at least take that off?” she asked.

  Fareek walked slowly to the throne to take his seat. He snapped his fingers at his men, and for a moment Myrian thought he might be about to show a bit of mercy. But instead of loosening the jaws of the trap, two men with crossbows took up positions next to her and Zak, raising the deadly tips to each of their faces.

  “The second you show mercy to a dragon is the second you die,” Fareek said. “Dragons heal quickly and strike even more so. That was a lesson my brother learned, sadly too late to do him much good.”

  Myrian started to ask who his brother was, but decided it probably wouldn’t help. Better to say nothing and wait to see if he let his guard down, though he seemed unlikely to do so. Her heart thumped against the white armor of her chest.

  They had fallen into some sort of trap, one that she had no idea would be waiting. Why would she? She had seen the trap, the glint of metal beneath the sand, just before she had landed. And she had seen the shapes shifting under the ground. And she had pulled up at the last second. But it had been too late.

  She looked across at Zak, his face pale and wan from pain. He was in no immediate danger of dying from his wound. But he was in agony. The snakes could keep them like this for a very long time if they chose to.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  His brow furrowed, his face growing serious for a brief moment. “Isn’t that obvious?” he asked. “No, maybe not. I seek revenge. Ah, and I also seek favor with the new ruler of this land. And with one act, I was hoping to accomplish both. Two dragons, one stone, if you will.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about, though his reference to a new ruler was likely the demon. Fareek’s eyes were clear, though. No trace of the black madness.

  “Why are you here?” she asked, knowing the question wasn’t much different from her first, but also hoping that if he talked enough he might reveal a weakness or give her time to think of a way out of this mess. And he did seem to like talking.

  He laughed, waving a hand at the throne he sat upon. “I was keeping this warm,” he said. “For its owner to return. And then the two of you showed up. Not the dragons I was expecting, but an interesting treat nonetheless. You make a cute couple, the two of you. A mismatched pair of fledgling lizards.”

  Myrian couldn’t remember ever wanting to hurt anyone in her life before now, but this man made her want to rake his face off with her claws. She tried to keep calm, though. There was nothing she could do, not yet, except try to keep him talking.

  “We seek the same dragon, then,” she said. “Kaladon Wildfire.”

  His eyes widened at the name. “Do you know where he is?” he asked eagerly.

  Of course she didn’t. If she did, she obviously wouldn’t have come here and fallen into this foul man’s trap. But this might be the opening she was looking for.

  “No,” she said, watching the hope drain a little out of Fareek’s eyes. “But I know where he will be.”

  She saw Zak turn his head out of the corner of her eye. She hoped that even though he was in great pain, he would keep his mouth shut and play along.

  Fareek leaned forward on the throne, though he looked skeptical now, alert to any lies. “And where would that be?”

  “We were to meet him here, of course,” Myrian said. “But he sent word that if we did not find him here, we should meet him at a camp to the south and west, in the Scorched Mountains. We have an important task to carry out.”

  Fareek’s eyes were narrowed. “What task?”

  “To kill the demon,” she said. Her sister had given her the valuable lesson of learning how to lie well. You always mixed a little of the truth in with the false. That gave the lie the shine of the believable.

  Fareek threw back his head and laughed. “You would kill the dark master?” he said. “Who? You and the boy in black and the coward who killed my brother? That is the finest jest I have heard in a long while. I was going to keep you both hanging on the wall as decoration, but now I think perhaps you make even better entertainment.”

  “Laugh if you will,” Myrian said. “But he will die at our hands.”

  Fareek shook his head. “I fell under the master’s spell when the sun turned black,” he said. “And do you know what? He spoke to me. He whispered inside my mind. He told me I had been chosen, that I was to be a general in his army, to help remake the world. And he showed me a glimpse of that world as well. You are but an insect. You cannot stop him. No one can.”

  Myrian felt the sour taste of despair as she listened to him. His words stoked her doubts, and she thought he was probably right. If they couldn’t best a band of snake shifters, how were they supposed to handle a demon, especially one with an army behind him?

  He saw the doubt on her face and laughed again. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. My master may have some use for you in the world yet to come. Perhaps you would make a nice slave for someone.” The greedy look in his eyes gave a hint as to who that someone might be.

  “If you touch her I’ll kill you.” The voice was weak, strained from pain. Myrian turned her head to see Zak staring at Fareek with a look of utter contempt.

  Fareek stood up from the throne, amused as ever. “You’ll be doing nothing but decorating my wall, swamp boy.” Then he snapped his fingers at the guards not aiming crossbows. “Reset the traps,” he said. Then to Myrian: “If Kal Wildfire does not return by the morning, you will take us to this supposed mountain camp. And if nothing is there, I will let my men take turns with you as they like. It gets lonely out here in the desert.”

  He headed for the door, then paused and turned. “Oh,” he said. “And then I will personally skin your friend here as you watch. I’ve always wanted a pair of dragonskin boots. And black suits me.”

  17

  ZAK

  Gods, his leg hurt. He hung on the wall, wondering which was worse, the agony in his leg or the humiliation of being pinned by the net like a tapestry. He looked down, seeing the teeth of the iron jaws buried in the meat of his thigh, the flesh sagging with the weight.

  No, it was definitely the pain in his leg that was greater. The guards grew tired hefting their crossbows. He could see the one trained on him, his bare arms trembling. But he never lowered the point of the bolt. Still, Zak wondered if their fatigue and boredom might present an opening for some kind of escape. He had no idea how that might happen, since they were both pinned and helpless, and his leg was badly wounded. But he had to try to hold
out some kind of hope, if not for him, then at least for Myrian.

  The words of the snake leader had boiled up some dark anger inside him he didn’t even know was there. The thought of these creatures putting their hands on Myrian turned something within him, making him feel incapable of rational thought. It surprised him, these feelings of protectiveness. He’d only known her for a couple of days, and so far they had barely been able to tolerate one another’s presence. So why did he feel black murder at the thought of someone harming her?

  “Zak?” a soft voice said beside him. He struggled against the netting to turn his head. The throne chamber was growing dark as the sun was finally setting. One of the guards had lit a pair of torches near the door, but the room was still filled more with shadows than light.

  He could see her face clearly, though, as if she carried her own source of light around inside her. She had a sad look in her eyes that made her seem even more beautiful than usual. He tried to mask the pain he was feeling on his face and in his voice. He hated her seeing him like this.

  “What is it?” he asked, trying to sound relaxed and confident. They were in a bad spot and were probably going to die. But if he broke down in front of her then a part of him would already feel dead.

  Her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  One of the guards stepped closer, raising up his weapon. “Quiet,” he said.

  Myrian looked at him with revulsion and anger. “Your master said to kill us if we tried to escape,” she said. “He didn’t say anything about us talking.”

  A confused look came over the guards face. He didn’t seem very bright, and had no response. Then a dark glint came into his eye. “I don’t need to kill you to shut you up,” he said. The guard walked over to where Zak hung and took one hand off his weapon to curl it around the iron trap. “I could just give this a little pull.”