Dragonforge

by James Maxey

  He closed his eyes, feeling lost and alone. What was he doing out here in the darkness, pushing himself beyond all safety and sanity on such a hopeless mission?

  “Nadala,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

  He listened to the night, as if expecting a reply.

  There was a crunching sound from the nearby brush. Someone was moving. Several someones. Humans? They sounded like human males as they spoke in soft hisses. Graxen could only catch ever other word: Dead? Fell. Spy? Kill?

  Realizing there was the very real possibility that he was the subject of their conversation, Graxen opened his eyes. Why would gleaners be worried about anyone spying on them? Was there some especially valuable chunk of rust left unclaimed this close to Dragon Forge?

  Graxen rolled over, his body stiff and protesting. He tried to rise, and found sudden motivation as the nearby whispers turned to shouts.

  “Get him!” a man commanded. Footsteps slapped against the ground all around him. In the darkness, Graxen counted two-three-four-five shadows rushing toward him.

  Graxen instinctively whipped his tail toward the men. The gambit worked, tripping the man who led the charging quintet. The second human stumbled over the first, dropping a jagged sword as he fell. The third man leapt over his brothers, looking quite athletic and heroic as he sailed though the air, brandishing a pitchfork overhead, preparing to drive the sharp prongs into Graxen’s brain.

  Graxen jumped forward, leaning toward the man, allowing the pitchfork to pass over his head. The prongs scraped along the scales of his back as he sank his teeth into the man’s stomach. The man gave a gurgling howl as Graxen pushed him aside in time to see his fourth assailant swinging a club in a swift arc toward his snout. Graxen jerked backward, the wind from the blow filling his nostrils. He jumped up and flapped his wings, kicking out with his hind-claws, tearing a long and messy strip of flesh from the clubber’s rib cage.

  The fifth man never reached him, wheeling in the space of a single step to dart back toward the woods shouting, “Spy! A blue one! We need bows!”

  The two humans he had tripped were almost back on their feet, though one was still unarmed. Graxen skipped backwards, getting clear, before tilting his head up and jumping toward the stars. He wanted to be well out of range before the archers were ready. The adrenaline that surged through him from the brief stint of combat proved a perfect remedy for his exhaustion.

  A blue one? thought Graxen, climbing higher. In the dark, all sky-dragons must look alike. He took a deep breath, the oxygen clearing his mind and renewing his spirit. He decided on a new destination. He would no longer try to reach the Nest. But he would find the abandoned tower and rest for the night. When morning came, he would write Nadala her letter.

  The night turned crisp and cold by the time he located the tower. The structure wasn’t terribly imposing: four vine-draped walls of ancient red brick, perhaps forty feet high. Back at the palace there were single rooms in which this “tower” could have fit. The walls looked as if a hard wind could topple them. Graxen picked the most solid-looking point on the walls and glided to a landing. His muscles had stopped burning—they’d stopped feeling anything at all. He was numb with weariness.

  The tower was built on a square floor plan, about half as wide as it was tall. The roof of the structure had long since caved in. Peering down, he could see in the tangled darkness faint hints of what had once been stairs and wooden floors long succumbed to rot. Dim light seeped through windows lined with jagged shards of glass. Graxen guessed the tower was the handiwork of humans, but what purpose the building had served he couldn’t deduce. The landscape surrounding the structure was nothing but wilderness. It was as if the building had wandered off from a more developed setting and gone feral.

  As Nadala had described, at the southwestern corner of the building a single stone gargoyle was perched, staring down at the weeds below. Its jaws were opened to reveal lichen-covered fangs, with just enough of a gap between them to allow a folded note to be tucked into the mouth where it would be protected from the elements.

  The gargoyle looked like large cat with a mane, with wings sprouting from its back in a way that made no sense to Graxen. Did this sculpture depict an actual animal? Sky-dragons usually engaged in representational art, depicting creatures and events found in reality. It seemed unsettling to think that someone had deliberately carved an animal that so obviously had no place in the physical world. What kind of mind would be moved to construct such an impractical hybrid?

  However, the longer he studied the sculpture, the more he felt a sense that it wasn’t so alien after all. This thing should not have existed; it was the product of unknown creators that had long since abandoned it to a world that cared nothing of its existence. Graxen placed a fore-talon on the creature’s stony mane, suddenly feeling a sense of kinship.

  He reached into his satchel and produced a small bound book. Like most biologians, he never traveled without a notebook. He opened it, seeking a sheet of fresh parchment. He produced a jar of ink and a quill made from one of his own feather scales and used the gargoyle’s back to form an impromptu desk.

  He uncapped the ink, releasing the pleasing aroma of walnut and vinegar. He dipped the quill into the jar, and then placed the tip against the parchment.

  He stood there without moving a muscle, the seconds passing into minutes, the minutes building into what must surely have been an hour, unable to scribble the first letter. His mind became a maze that not even the simplest thought could navigate.

  Dearest Nadala? Dear? Was “dear” a presumptuous greeting for a soldier who was still in so many ways a stranger? Perhaps just start with her name. Nadala? Was Nadala spelled n-a-d-a-l-a? It sounded like it should be spelled that way. But Graxen sounded like it should be spelled g-r-a-k-s-i-n, and it wasn’t.

  Part of him wanted to toss aside all caution and fear. Beloved Nadala? No, that bordered on insanity. Love was an emotion of sun-dragons and humans; as a verb it was normally employed by sky-dragons only when discussing books. What was he doing here? This was an exercise in futility. A sane dragon would go to sleep and reconsider this whole matter in the morning. Of course a sane dragon wouldn’t have flown so far in the darkness, beyond all exhaustion and hope. He’d already established his lack of sanity. My darling Nadala? Perhaps he should let her see the madness that consumed him. If she became frightened, so be it. Better she should know the truth.

  He noticed, as the night grew ever colder, that he was shivering.

  He remembered the first words he’d said to her.

  He wrote, in shaky, uneven letters, “It’s chilly tonight.”

  A moment later, he ripped the page from the book and crumpled it, before tossing it away. He watched the white ball of paper fall. In the first second of its flight, he realized how much the wad of paper served as an adequate representation of himself—a thing filled with meaningless words, falling through the air toward the litter of the forest floor. If words were written and never read did the words ever exist?

  The paper fell in a slight arc away from the wall for a few more seconds. Inches from the ground, a large dark shape swooped in and snatched the paper from its fall. The leaves on the forest floor swirled as the winged creature pulled up from its dive. Graxen’s heart skipped as the dark shape took on recognizable form, a beat of long blue wings pushing it higher, up above the roof of the building. The stars were suddenly blotted by the distinctive profile of a sky-dragon passing overhead.

  The dragon swerved and spun, dropping down to a landing crouch on the opposite corner of the building. Even in the darkness, he recognized her scale patterns, her sleek and symmetrical musculature. She had shed all her armor and carried only a small leather pouch hanging from a cord around her neck.

  “Nadala?” he asked, feeling as if he might have slipped into a dream.

  Nadala didn’t answer. She unfolded the crumpled ball of paper and studied it. Her brow wrinkled.

  “It’s chilly tonight?
” she said. “Perhaps, in your future letters, you can write of more significant topics than the weather?”

  “I… in all fairness, I had discarded that,” he said. “I’ve yet to write your true letter.”

  “You’ve flown all this way without bothering to write the letter first?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know you would be here,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you would be here,” she said, “but I wrote you a proper letter before I arrived.” She patted the leather pouch with her fore-talon.

  “I was hoping to catch your party before you made it to the Nest,” he explained. “I gave chase, wanting to convince Zorasta to return.”

  “She’ll go back eventually,” said Nadala. “Our leaving will throw the talks into chaos. Shandrazel will expend much of his diplomatic capital convincing Zorasta to take part. Then, just as he gives up and proceeds without her, Zorasta will return to the talks and once more obstruct the process. She can delay progress for months, even years with this tactic.”

  “Why?” Graxen asked. “Why obstruct Shandrazel’s reforms?”

  “The matriarchy has an interest in maintaining the status quo. Zorasta will not permit radical changes to the world order.”

  “How strange,” said Graxen. “All my life, I’ve craved change. I honestly don’t care what the consequences will be if Shandrazel succeeds in creating a new form of government. I simply welcome a tomorrow that I know will be different than today. I welcome a world where nothing can be truly thought of as permanent.”

  Nadala flapped her wings and hopped to the same wall Graxen stood on, though still keeping her distance. “Would you truly embrace that?” she asked. “A world where nothing is permanent?”

  “Some things must be permanent, I suppose,” he said. “The sun will continue to rise and fall for all eternity; the moon will forever wax and wane among the stars. Ten thousand years from now, the ocean waves will still beat against the sand, and crickets will still chirp through summer nights. But I won’t be here to see these things, and all the books of the biologians will have long since crumbled to dust. We already live in a world in which we’re not permanent; to believe otherwise seems to require the willing embrace of an obvious untruth.”

  “Ah,” said Nadala. “You have a flair for poetry after all. These are the sorts of words you should put in your letters.”

  “Wouldn’t reflections on our impermanence be a depressing topic for a love letter?” asked Graxen.

  “Oh,” she said, with a coy tilt of her head. “Are they love letters now?”

  Graxen was too tired to be flustered. The word had slipped out; there was no point in pretending otherwise.

  “From the moment I saw you, it’s been love,” he said, looking at her directly.

  “You’re lying,” she said, hopping closer. “The first moment you saw me you wondered if I was going to kill you.”

  “True,” he said, still meeting her gaze. His exhaustion and her presence had left him feeling slightly drunk. Words that he couldn’t have imagined uttering earlier now spilled out of him. “But I felt love from the moment you chased after me to return my satchel. Your kindness was more than I expected or deserved. The grace of your act made the world a more hopeful place.”

  “It’s a lucky thing I missed when I tried to skewer you, then.”

  “If you had killed me, you would only have been doing your duty.”

  “If my sisters discovered me here with you, they would kill us both. Would you still be so forgiving in the name of duty?”

  “I know you’re taking a risk in coming here,” he said. “Yet, you did come. Why?”

  “Because I too crave change,” she said, looking down into the tangled darkness in the tower’s interior. “What you said about impermanence, about how we won’t be here in ten thousand years… these words resonate with me. What does a valkyrie’s pledge to duty matter when the years will eventually wash away even her memory? The only slim thread of immortality in this world is to produce offspring, and hope that they will produce offspring. Perhaps some small echo of the self will endure through the ages.”

  “I’ll never produce offspring,” said Graxen. “Perhaps this is why I’ve come to my views on impermanence.”

  Nadala flapped her wings once more, hopping directly beside him. She was close enough he could smell her, a soapy scent, sandlewood and rosewater. She’d apparently had the opportunity to bathe after her return to the Nest. Graxen suddenly felt unclean, his skin sticky and musky.

  She leaned her head close to his, her nostrils wide as she breathed in his scent.

  “I like the way you smell,” she said, closing her eyes, her voice sounding dreamy. “There’s something primitive about it. Bestial. Beneath the veneer of culture, we are, in truth, only animals.”

  “There’s nothing bestial about the way you smell,” Graxen said, his nostrils hovering over her scales. “It’s the scent of a civilized being, a smell like architecture and music.”

  “Oh, that must definitely go in your letter.”

  She opened her eyes and their gazes locked. Their nostrils were so close together they were breathing each other’s breath. They stood facing for a long silent moment, he inhaling as she exhaled, she reciprocating an instant later. The air passing between them was hot and humid. They were sharing the very essence of life itself.

  She leaned her snout against his and pushed. Their cheeks rubbed against each other with a slow, firm pressure. Her smooth scales were the perfect surface for his own scales to rub against, the most satisfying thing that had ever touched his hide. She continued to slide along him, her cheek slipping along his neck, until their shoulders met and each had their head nestled against the other’s spine. Her aroma left him dizzy; the warmth of her skin and the firm yet yielding texture of her muscles beneath caused a thousand tiny storms to erupt within him. He felt full of lightning—energized, but also on the verge of being torn apart.

  At the thought of being torn apart, he pictured Nadala’s fate if they were discovered by other valkyries.

  “We can’t do this,” he whispered. “I don’t care if your sisters rip me to shreds; if they harmed even a scale on you I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “We can’t do this,” she whispered back. “But not because I fear death. I don’t. I’ve always been willing to die for a cause. Now I’m willing to die for you.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling the storms within him raging even stronger. “Then I guess we can do this.”

  “No,” she said, pulling back, stepping away from him. The sudden absence of her warmth left him shivering. “We can’t do this because I don’t know how.”

  Graxen was confused. “You don’t know how to love?”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I believe I know how to love. Perhaps. I don’t know what love is; it’s more the domain of poets than warriors. I only know that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

  Graxen was now even more confused. “Then, what, exactly, is it that you don’t know how to do?”

  Nadala looked away demurely. She said, in a low voice. “I mean, I haven’t had training. In reproduction.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Those initiated in the process are under strict vows of secrecy,” she explained. “But perhaps the biologians…?”

  “No,” Graxen sighed. “I’ve heard… whispers. But I’ve never received an education in these matters either.”

  “Then we’re shackled by our ignorance,” she said, sounding bitter. “That veneer of culture I mentioned has separated us from our animal natures.

  Graxen nodded. “Perhaps we could simply proceed and let our instincts guide us?”

  Nadala shook her head. “It may be just stories meant to frighten us, but I’ve been told that mating without the proper training can lead to injury. I want you, Graxen. I just don’t know what to do with you.”

  “I, um, am very good at research,” Graxen said, thinking of the Grand Libra
ry back at the palace. Certainly some biologian had recorded the technical details of reproduction among those countless tomes. “I’ll return once I learn the details.”

  “How long will this take?” she said.

  “A few days, perhaps?” he said. “That should be time enough…”

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long,” she said. “I feel as if I’m going to be torn apart by the desires within me.”

  “I understand better than you think,” he said, though the storms within him were fading now that he had put his mind to the thought of research. “I promise to read as quickly as I can.”

  She wrapped her wings around him, still facing him. It wasn’t a correct fitting somehow; their bodies felt pleasant pressed against one another, but somehow mismatched. Whatever the actual reproductive act entailed, Graxen suspected they wouldn’t be facing one another.

  Wordlessly, she pulled away. Her eyes glistened as she studied him for a long moment, then leapt, straight up, climbing toward the sky.

  He thought of the beaded belt in his satchel; the gift could wait for another time. A moment later, a small leather pouch fell from the stars. He caught it in his fore-talon. The satchel smelled like she smelled. He opened it to find a neatly folded square of translucent paper, the black outlines of letters visible through the surface. He didn’t open it. He felt so full of Nadala’s presence that he wasn’t yet prepared to replace the words she’d spoken with the words she’d written. The melody of her voice was still fresh; he would hold onto it as long as he could.

  Soon, her dark form vanished into the night. He watched the stars for a long time before spreading his wings and drifting off into the sky, light as hope.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Broken Sky

  Jandra kept a soft, even glow around them as they traveled. They rode in silence through long and twisting tunnels of black rock. Bitterwood sat astride the long-wyrm behind Adam, while Jandra rode Hex. The journey had taken place so far in an uncomfortable silence. Bitterwood and Adam had barely spoken. Jandra was herself an orphan; if she ever met a surviving family member, she couldn’t imagine remaining silent. Vendevorex had informed her that her parents had died in a fire while she was an infant, conveniently leaving out for fifteen years the detail that he had been the one who ignited the blaze. Beyond this, she knew nothing of her family. She didn’t even know if Jandra was a name she’d been given by her parents or a name Vendevorex had chosen for her. He had told her that the name meant “God is gracious” in some old human tongue, which hinted that he hadn’t chosen it. Vendevorex didn’t believe in gods. Indeed, he was openly scornful of religions and the supernatural in general.