“Are you sad, Master Torvald? You look it,” Jodreth said. Our steps had taken us further north and up the mountain, the trees beginning to grow smaller and thinner on either side of us as they clutched to the boulders with roots like fingers. The path switched across and back on itself, turning into interconnecting shelves of rock that led up to the bare and cold escarpment above.
“I, well…” I hadn’t been expecting this question. “I didn’t want to come here, you see, begging your pardon that is.” I nodded to his robes. “I don’t mean that it is not a nice place…”
“It isn’t a nice place,” Jodreth surprised me again by saying. “It’s a monastery on top of the world. It’s cold, and it’s dedicated itself to learning and to living with some of the most fearsome creatures to ever walk the land.” The monk went silent for a pause. “The Draconis Order studies strength, and power, the beings that have it, and how to use it,” he said softly, before adding, “so, you’re right to be wary, at least.” Jodreth paused as we climbed, nodding up to where the stone walls and towers of the Draconis Monastery cut into the cold grey clouds above.
It was big this close, bigger and more impressive than even I had originally thought from the drawings and tapestries my father had kept. It stood like a stone crown on top of the mountain, its towers rimed with ice and frost instead of jewels.
“Just be careful when you’re up there, and on the mountain, young Master Torvald,” Jodreth said, and I knew that he wasn’t going to accompany me any further up the path. “Already you have foiled one attempt on your life, and the sons of powerful warlords can probably expect more.”
“You think someone was trying to kill me, on purpose?” I asked, the words of the dead Mr. Hatchet-man coming back to me. ‘We got a message, little worm…a message written in your blood…’
“Bandits do come to Mount Hammal, but not often, and not likely,” Jodreth said seriously, before his tone softened once more and he looked at me earnestly. “But even more important than that, Neill, is that you look after yourself. You are not just your father’s son, a pawn sent here on the whim of powerful warlords and princes and monks. You are powerful yourself – and you have to decide what sort of man Neill of Torvald will become. What you will fight for. And what you will endure.”
You’re right, I almost said, despite the creeping feeling that either Jodreth the monk was a little cracked, or he knew something that he wasn’t going to tell me. Probably both. Regardless, I had little choice in my current situation. I did actually have to be here. I couldn’t stay at home in the Eastern Marches. My father had commanded I come here. Rik had already made it quite clear what I could expect if I didn’t obey. And this was my opportunity to prove to my father who I was, and that I could be a worthy Torvald heir when the time came, if he’d only just let me.
I looked up to say all of this to the monk only to find that, in my moment of musing, he had already taken his leave and was heading back down the way we had come.
“But Jodreth Draconis,” I called back out to him, my voice carried on the wind that whipped over the mountain, “I still haven’t paid you the debt for saving my life!”
“Pay me with your friendship, Neill Torvald,” the young man called back, raising his staff once into the air in farewell, before turning and disappearing back under the crooked trees and stunted forest of the upper slopes. I raised my hand in farewell anyway.
Oh well, I sighed, the cold making me feel even more achy and tired. At least the path ahead was well marked with stone cairns that rose in spires on either side. As soon as I had stepped past the first set, there was a shout and rumble echoed from the clearly visible gates of the Draconis Monastery itself, the walls within which I would be living for next few years.
Chapter 3
Welcome, to the Order of Dragons
“Torvald, is it? You’re late!” the man barked as he hurriedly limped out of the large gates of the Draconis Monastery moving just as fast as the retinue of servants that surrounded him. The others carried spears and staves, but none of them bore the same sorts of staffs that Jodreth had.
“I-I’m sorry, sir,” I said though I was unable to find fault with my actions. As far as I’d been told, as long as I arrived by the start of the term, that was fine. “I was attacked on my journey. By four bandits,” I added, feeling a little lame as I said it. I hadn’t even fought them off myself, not really – and I was supposed to be one of the feared ‘Sons of Torvald’ – the best clan fighters in the Middle Kingdom. But there was nothing new there, was there? I might be okay with a sword or a staff compared to others of my age, but I was still the smallest and youngest son. Being a ‘not-bad’ fighter compared to any other teenaged boy wasn’t good enough for a son of Malos Torvald.
The man was thin but not very tall, and wore the heavy black cloaks of the Draconis Order, cinched at the waist with a thick leather belt upon which many utility clips and pouches hung. From one of these he drew forth a stub writing chalk, and a small notebook. He grimaced at the pages he flicked through, his face sunken and lined with age.
“Hmm…” The man made marks in his little book, before nodding. “I’m Greer, the Quartermaster for this noble and fine institution you are about to enter.” The man looked me up and down, as if I were a prime hunting dog, but clearly, he found something in me lacking. “Bandits you say? On the Mountain of Dragons?” He used the Middle Kingdom term for Mount Hammal.
“He’s not lying, sir,” said a woman with hair the color of dirty straw, and freckles scattering her cheeks. She wore the signature black cloak of the Order over a deep blue shift, and carried a basket from which she drew forth blankets, fruit, and bandages. “Here lad,” she said (although, she could only be a hand-span of years older than me) and pressed a fresh apple into my hand. “I’m Nan Barrow, and I’m the House Mistress of the monastery. Don’t you mind about old Greer,” she whispered as she turned my arm over to look at the tears and mud splatters all up and down my tunic. “He’s just sore that nothing’s keeping to his schedule.” The woman gave me a wink before turning to examine the bruises and scrapes on my forehead. “Yes, sir,” she said in a louder voice, “he’s got a nasty scrape on him there, and looks like he took a beating.”
“Well, it wasn’t a total beating,” I said. “I did break one man’s foot.”
“Hmm. I’m sure you did, young master,” Quartermaster Greer drawled, clearly uninterested in whatever I had to say. He was already turning to nod to the other servants. “Check the avenue, see that his horse is stabled, and prepare a room for him with the others.” Greer squinted a look out into the horizon, before shaking his head sullenly. “No time, no time.”
“Others?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” Nan answered, as she finished wrapping the bandage around my forehead and laying a heavier cloak about my shoulders. “You’re not the only one to be sent to us. Children from north, middle and south and all over have been turning up this moon.” She tutted as she inspected my muddy clothes. “Well, I can do my best to fix them, but to be honest, I think they’re done for, lad.”
“Neill,” I said with a smile. “Don’t worry about it, I can fix them.” My father may have been one of the most famous warlords of the Middle Kingdom, but that didn’t mean that the Torvald fort was a palace. My father encouraged all of us to be able to mend our own gear, and look after ourselves. ‘We’re Wardens, little Neill,’ I could hear his gruff voice telling me. ‘Wardens first and foremost, here to fight for our people.’
“But thank you for your kindness,” I added to Nan.
“Huh, a little lord who darns his own hose and has manners? Well, I never heard of such!” She laughed, an earthy cackle that drew a further scowl from Quartermaster Greer. Nan rolled her eyes and nudged me in the ribs, the pain of which made me wince. “Go on! You’d better follow the Quartermaster, he likes to get the measure of the new recruits before you meet Ansall.”
Abbot Ansall, my brain supplied. I’d heard about him from fat
her, but only as some sort of adviser to the old Queen Delia before she had died. “The head of the monastery?” I asked.
“The sacred link between dragon and humanity,” Quartermaster Greer said as his bony, withered fingers clasped my shoulder, forcefully escorting me away from the House Mistress. “Yes, that Abbot Andros Ansall.” With a none-too-gentle shove, he pushed me over the threshold and into the Monastery of Dragons itself.
Never would I have thought a place so big and so well-defended was a monastery at all. Its main double-doors were made of triple-planked wood, with iron braces, and its walls were made of thick stone blocks studded with gate houses, towers, and ramparts.
“Stop gawking there, boy.” The Quartermaster shoved behind me again, and there was a loud clunk from the doors as the servants came back in. “We haven’t got all day, and you don’t want to keep His Holiness waiting!”
His Holiness…? I thought with a rising sense of unease. That was not the way that father and my brothers referred to the Draconis Order. I had thought the members were like hobbyists, or like one of the smaller guilds we had in the Eastern Marches. Here, the monks of the Draconis Order appeared different. They were quiet and contained. Even Jodreth had been like that, in his own way, and they greeted each other with a nod or gestures with their hands, like it was a cult.
Greer pushed me away from the main stone pathway, past a large stone hall with many arched windows and separate ‘wings’ leading to join other buildings - what looked like storerooms, warehouses, and armories.
“Up the stairs, boy.” Greer pushed, and in my amazement, I let him. We climbed a flight of external stone stairs to the high walls of the monastery, and the sharp winds whipped and tore around us. I had never seen stonework this finely wrought.
“Mind out!” Quartermaster Greer shouted, as, in my gawking at the monastery, I had not seen the dark, striding shape of a monk coming down the steps towards us. The taller man did not stop, and I was suddenly pulled back by the Quartermaster and soundly boxed on the side of the ears.
“Ow – Hey,” I said, holding a hand to the ringing side of my head which was already sporting a bandage. I couldn’t believe what this jumped up servant had done, as I turned to hiss at the much older man. “I am the son of Malos Torvald, Chosen Warden of the Eastern Marches,” I reminded him.
“Bastard son,” said the figure that I had almost bumped into, who had stopped a few steps above, and was looking down at me with a calculating glare.
My cheeks burned. It was true. It was the reason why my father had chosen me to come here and do his bidding, after all, and not his true-blooded sons like Rubin or Rik. I knew that I had been given a supposedly special mission from my father, but that was scant relief compared to the nagging doubts I had: that my brothers might have convinced my father to send me here for their benefit-- to get me out of their way, or that my own father had lost faith in me and believed my brothers would make better Chief Wardens than I could.
“Neill Torvald: bastard son of Warden Malos Torvald and Feeyah Shaar Anar, a Gypsy from the hot lands of distant Shaar of the Far South, and not the same Middle Kingdom noblewoman as your brothers,” the monk above me intoned. Only one monk would have knowledge such as this man’s. And then I realized who it must be. This was the man I must befriend, the man I must impress if I wanted to get the information my father sought.
His Holiness the Abbot Andros Ansall appeared to be of an age with my father, I guessed, in his later years but still spry. He had a long off-white beard through which he spoke in clipped, Middle-Kingdom tones. He was bald save for a small black skullcap but apart from the silver stylized dragon’s head atop his staff, and the simple gold chain of office set with a black gemstone that he wore over black tunics and shirts – I would never have guessed he was the ‘most sacred link between dragons and humanity’ here or anywhere.
“I’m sorry, your Holiness,” the Quartermaster Greer said, his voice instantly making my skin crawl as it dripped appeasement. “I will try to make sure the boy pays more attention in the future.”
“That is my job, isn’t it, Quartermaster?” The Abbot inflicted his precise judgement on the Quartermaster himself; a subtle punishment, I saw, for ‘allowing’ me to almost knock over the head and founder of the Draconis Order. To his credit, the Quartermaster didn’t answer nor correct the Abbot, but merely hung his head.
“No matter, Quartermaster. I have the boy now,” came a dry voice, followed by an equally dry chuckle from above. I had missed a step somewhere in the dark, and had landed in a foreign land – which was the truth. How could the son of the great Malos Torvald, Victor of the Longest-Day battle, destroyer of the Blood-Duke’s rebellion, be treated like this? But I found that when I looked up at the Abbot above me, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. He was looking at me with the same sort of eyes that Jodreth had – like they could see right into my very soul and hear my innermost thoughts.
“Come, master Neill,” the Abbot indicated that we would continue up the stairs. “Here at the Order we do not care who your parents are, or what were the circumstances of your birth,” he said as Quartermaster Greer loped back down the stairs and we made our way up. “You may find this difficult to believe, but I myself was not born to any powerful family, or even a loving one, I have to admit.” He made a chuckling sound as he continued. “I grew up amongst many older siblings who fought me for everything I had, which made me strong and self-reliant.” The Abbot paused at the top of the wall as I joined him.
His harsh and strict words made me think of Rik’s accusing laughter, the shoves and pinches he would give when he thought father wasn’t looking. I didn’t want to like this man, but I found that I could in part understand him. Maybe our similarities would prove useful.
We climbed up more stairs than I could keep count of, until we were climbing a tower which straddled the rocks underneath it, and stood higher than all the rest. To my right the mountain sloped down and away to the distant hills and plains below, dotted with small glints of light from the village huts.
“They are fearful of us, but good people,” the Abbot said, following my gaze. “Many of our servants come from the village down there, and are glad for the work. But it is not peasant’s hovels that I wanted to show you, Master Torvald. Did your father tell you much of what we do here?”
“Uh, not much, sir,” I stammered. Actually, my father had told me that this monastery was where old monks sat around reading scrolls to each other and concocting ever more devious ways to wring money out of the palace purse, but I hardly thought that it was appropriate for me to say that to the Abbot himself.
“Yes,” the bald man chuckled, and again I felt as though he could see right through into my very soul. “Few understand who we are, it is true.” He drew out a large ring of iron keys, each one as long as my entire hand. He selected one key that had a small chip of obsidian set into it, and with a click-thump he unlocked the wooden door, and gestured for me to go inside.
I felt a moment of hesitation as I peered into the dark to see more stairs, and to smell the sharp tang of ozone.
“Come on, come on, Neill – no need to be afraid, up you go!” The Abbot laughed. I might be an illegitimate bastard, but I was still the son of a warlord after all, I knew that I shouldn’t show fear.
“Flamos,” the old man whispered behind me and I gasped as he summoned a small bright spark out of nowhere and it leapt from his hands to kindle the torch set into the wall sconce. I had of course heard of the magic that the Draconis Order had, but I had never seen it. I thought back to when Jodreth the monk had saved me, and I had heard a sound like breaking thunder and one of the bandits had been struck down. It was true – the dragon monks could control magic
“How… How did you do that?” I said, looking at the Abbot in the new light. He did not appear to be an aging scholar anymore to me, but strange, less human and more something else.
“There are many such powers and abilities that we learn here a
t the Order,” Abbot Ansall said. “Which you too might learn if you have the proficiency.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t the sort of person who could summon magic, as we passed first one window, and then another, before we finally reached the top.
It was cold, but the Abbot didn’t even notice it. We stood in a room with a high, vaulted ceiling and open windows on all sides through which blew the icy mountain wind.
“Master Torvald, you may be asking yourself why I brought you up here, and the answer is through the western window over there,” the Abbot intoned, and, knowing that it was also an order, I walked to the opening (almost as tall as my entire body), and peered down into a vast crater—all that was left of Mount Hammal’s twin peak.
Dragons.
Chapter 4
Zaxx the Mighty
Dragons.
The dragons of the Middle Kingdom were large and strong, with long necks, barrel chests, and stout legs, and they also came in many colors--green, blue, or orange. They were draped over the warm rocky outcroppings or sitting on the sandy banks of the steaming pools scattered here and there throughout the natural amphitheater the mountain-crater made. There wasn’t much movement from the large forms, except perhaps a lazy tail flick or the shiver of a wing that from here looked no bigger than one of my father’s banners, but I knew must be the size of a ship’s sail.
“Sssss,” came a rumbling sound as one of the shapes walked out onto a ledge and sniffed at the darkening gloom of the setting sun. It was a White, one of the largest breeds of dragons, and as large as the Great House of the monastery. It moved slowly, sending its long, forked tongue to lick and taste at the air around it.
Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1) Page 3
