Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1)

by Ava Richardson

  “I was right to visit this strange place,” my could-not-be-there uncle said, as I was laid gently on my back atop bundles of cloaks and blankets, and hands started massaging the life back into me. “When I tell him how they have treated his son, he will descend on the mountain like a storm, and the family Anar of Shaar will help him.”

  It sure sounds like my hot-blooded Uncle Lett, I thought, trying to blink my eyes to make them see clearer, but I could make out nothing. And of course, I remembered, I was not my father’s favorite son. I had never been anyone’s favorite, except my mother’s.

  “Look, he’s trying to talk,” Uncle Lett said, and I felt hands ease my head and shoulders up a little and bundle cloaks and rucksacks for a pillow underneath.

  “Easy, Torvald,” the monk said, spilling a bit of water across my face, and allowing it to dribble into my mouth. I spluttered, coughed, and blinked, to see it was indeed the young monk Jodreth sitting at my side, as well as the large man from distant Shaar, with the same darker coloring as I, and heavy ringleted hair and a full black beard. Gold and malachite shone at his ears and his eyes, usually alive with joy and passion, were now afire with anger.

  “Uncle? Jodreth? What are you doing here?” I stammered through chattering teeth.

  “The family of Shaar Anar travels throughout the Three Kingdoms, you know this,” Uncle Lett said. “When I passed through your father’s lands to pay our respect and see how my sister’s son was keeping, Malos told us that you had been sent here to the monastery – although for what reason I cannot fathom. I vowed to bring the family north anyway, and we decided to see how they are treating you, and it turns out not well at all.” He glowered at the towers and walls of the monastery below.

  Uncle Lett turned and looked down at me sternly, before breaking into a broad, encouraging smile. “Do not worry, little Neill, no one insults the family of Shaar and gets away with it!” Uncle thrust a fist into the air as if fighting off an invisible foe and, despite the deep ache in my bones and how tired I felt, I had to laugh. This was one of the many gifts of my mother’s family it seemed. They did not turn up very often, so busy were they with their travels – but when they did they would always welcome me as one of their own. Uncle Lett had a talent for making friends, and it seemed that he had done so now as well, with Jodreth Draconis.

  “You know me, Neill, I did not fancy knocking on the doors of the monastery and begging to see my sister’s son so I led the caravan north and around to the far side of the mountain, where there are some wonderful fishing lakes, with silver fish as big as your forearm!” he said excitedly. My uncle, like all true-blooded Gypsies, lived life simply. He had said that he would get vengeance on the Draconis Monastery and so he would, which meant no more would need to be said about it at all. Now that was decided, he could move on to talking about all of the other things that interested him. Like wine, fishing, and the life on the road.

  But how do I discourage my uncle from seeking vengeance? I thought in alarm. I had lived in that monastery. Its walls were high and strong, and if Greer was anything to go by, then the monks were fanatical. And, of course – they have dragons! My father’s people were very few in number, and whether in a fight against the Order alone or – stars forbid – encountering a dragon as they sought to attack the monastery, then they would be easily wiped out.

  “Anyway, so we were out by the lakes, meaning to come over the top the next day when we met your friend the monk here.” Uncle Lett waved a gracious hand in the direction of the younger monk, who was ignoring us as he worked to grind up some kind of ointment in a small clay bowl. “It was he who told us that he was on his way to reach you, but that we had to wait until the patrols of monks would finally lessen and go to bed. That took most of the night, it seems…” Uncle lowered his voice, casting a wary eye to Jodreth. “I think that he has strange powers, little Neill!” He whispered and nodded to me sagely. “Your grandmother had strange powers. She could sense the life in people nearby, whether they were ill or happy or evil.” Lett nodded like this was the most normal thing in the world.

  “And so Jodreth brought me here, to you – to find you being treated little better than a slave.” My uncle’s mood changed in an instant, his brows tangling and his eyes flaring with rage. “Wait until we get our hands on them! What was the man called again? Abet?”

  “Abbot,” Jodreth said, appearing over me with the compound which was now a thick porridge. “Here, eat this.” He proffered the foul-smelling mixture to me and spooned it into my mouth. At first it tasted quite nice, like honey and cinnamon, and then the fiery ginger and something floral like cardamom filled my mouth and I went to spit it out.

  “Oh – no, you don’t.” My uncle held me as Jodreth poured more water into my mouth, forcing me to swallow the fiery mixture or choke. I swallowed, and felt the wave of warmth spread down into my chest, and then my belly, and even my arms and legs.

  “Ugh! What are you trying to do, kill me?” I stammered, sitting up and pushing them away, already feeling less achy and stiff than I had before.

  “Well, it seems your potion is working, Master Monk.” Uncle Lett chuckled. “He is back to his usual surly-tempered self!”

  “Ha-ha, Uncle, very funny,” I said sarcastically as he helped me to my wobbling feet, and laid his own heavy cloak of fantastical designs and woven reds, blues, and deep greens over my shoulders.

  “Well, you are alive, and that makes me happy, and when we Gypsies of ancient and lost Shaar are happy, we tell jokes, yes?” uncle said, tapping me on the chest and getting a smirk even from the dour Jodreth. It seemed to me as though they had become fast friends in the short time that they had scoured the mountain for me. So close in fact, that the monk felt that he was able to contradict my passionate uncle.

  “If you think that you or the Torvald warlord will come here to exact vengeance then all I can ask is that you wait, and think, Master Lett Shaar Anar,” Jodreth said seriously, and I was relieved I didn’t have to be the one to suggest the idea of forbearance. There was too much at stake, too much information I still needed to gather, for my uncle to raise the Abbot’s—and Prince Vincent’s—ire against me further.

  “And why ever not? You saw what they did to my sister’s son here! This is an insult to my people!” Uncle Lett smacked a fist into his other open palm.

  In response, Jodreth just pointed out from the mountaintop, in the other direction of the monastery, over and down the ridge where the dragon crater could clearly be seen. The sun was just breaking through the heavy morning clouds, and shards of golden red light were spearing their way across the plains and up the sides of Mount Hammal. Where they touched rocks, we could see movement. Large shapes were struggling to shift their massive bulk onto them, to catch the first rays of the sun. The dragons of the Mount Hammal were rising, and with it started the chorus of chittering and calls of the dragon horde within.

  “Under the stars, moon, and sun,” Uncle Lett breathed in equal parts wonder and fear, as we watched the dragons wake up. Like me, I could see that he was a little afraid, but also excited by the sight. I knew, too, that the sight of them would change everything about how Uncle Lett viewed the world. Not that he hadn’t seen or heard a dragon before – but I was certain that no one out there in the world had seen so many dragons all at once, and so close. There was something special about this mountain, I thought now. Something that allowed so many dragons to live here, together, under the old bull Zaxx.

  One by one, the dragons positioned themselves on the prominent and up-standing rocks of the terraced crater, each pointing perfectly back towards the waking sun. It could not have been staged any better if it were a mummer’s show or a sacred ceremony. Some of them were long and sinuous like snakes, their snouts coming to a direct point in the direction of the sun. Others were so large as to raise their heads over the trees around them, whilst smaller Messenger dragons crowed and flapped onto their shoulders and heads and at the elbows, each pointing exactly towards th
e sun.

  A sound like the one in my dream came from the crater, but fuller, deeper, and louder - like the boiling of a thousand kettles all at once, or a war between colonies of rival cats. The hissing turned into a triumphant call as Zaxx the Golden emerged, raising his head last as he settled on his vast slab of rock, dislodging a whole cloud of Messenger dragons as he did so. The dawn chorus grew as both the larger and smaller dragons around joined in, until it became a ringing cry that deafened everything else.

  “SSSKREAYAAR!”

  When the dragon’s chorus started to fade, losing its urgency and intensity it left us all bathed in the now fully risen light of the morning sun.

  “You see, Master Lett Shaar Anar, although the Draconis Order cannot control the dragons of Mount Hammal, they feed these powerful creatures every day, and sometimes even ask them to perform simple tasks for them,” Jodreth said sadly. “Praise the skies that Zaxx the Golden, the largest and brood-father there hasn’t given over complete control to the Abbot Ansall or else the Middle Kingdom and the world would be doomed. Do you think that Malos Torvald and the Gypsy families of Shaar can fight against such an enemy?” Jodreth asked quietly.

  “I wasn’t thinking of asking anyone to fight a dragon,” Uncle Lett said hotly, but I could see that Jodreth’s words had nonetheless hit home. He glowered and looked stubbornly at the monastery below us for a moment, before sighing heavily. “But something has to be done. This is an insult to Shaar, and an insult to my sister Feeyah.”

  I felt my heart twinge at the sound of my mother’s name. Feeyah Shaar Anar, lover of Chief Warden Malos Torvald. She was many long years dead now, but it still hurt to remember her sometimes. But even still, I could not call down a war just for this. “Uncle, please no. It was no big slight. It was the Prince Vincent who was behind it anyway…” I said, remembering the events of last night clearly now. Maxal had performed magic, as had Char, and the Abbot seemed to want to impress the prince.

  “Then we will have revenge against the prince, then!” Uncle Lett said heroically, again raising his fist against the sky and the whole world for all the good that it would do him. Even to me, a boy of fifteen summers, it sounded an impossible goal for the leader of a small band of wandering Gypsies.

  “And revenge you shall have, Master Shaar Anar,” Jodreth counselled. “But first we must understand what connection there is between the Abbot, the prince, and the dragons here. Will they go into battle for him? Or will Zaxx not care who rules the monastery? And we must let Neill here return to do his father’s work.” Jodreth turned to incline his head towards me, and I found myself nodding.

  How did he know of my secret mission to the Draconis Monastery? I thought, looking at Uncle Lett in alarm, only to see him oblivious to whatever it was that Jodreth was talking about. Could Jodreth read my mind? Or was it obvious what I was sent here to do, to infiltrate the monastery and steal their secrets for the good of the clan?

  “Yes, I see.” My uncle bridled a bit, but nodded all the same. “I can also see why this one is your friend, young Neill. He is wise beyond his years. Caution before passion, for a time anyway.” My uncle then turned to set both of his hands on either side of my shoulder, and looked me in the eye. “But you are certain that you are okay, young Neill? You are healthy here, in this place?” he asked.

  “Yes, Uncle.” I nodded. I knew what he was going to offer next.

  “You can come with me now, if you like. We can travel back with our caravan along roads that few here in the Middle Kingdom remember, and I will show you the roads that your mother has walked, and danced barefoot under stars…”

  Don’t. As much as I wanted to, and I truly did, I had to refuse him. He could see how much I would want to throw it all away, but I had a promise to my father to fulfill as well. I could not abandon him. That would almost be like proving Rik and Rubin and Terrence and all the others right about me, that I was not fit to be a Torvald at all.

  “I know, Uncle. Thank you but not yet,” I said quietly. Besides, there were too many mysteries here that I wanted to unravel; where did the monks get their magic from? Was it from just learning and reading the right scrolls, like a Scribe learns? Or was it some special exercise, the way a Protector learns? Was there a magical object that the monks carried? I immediately thought of the Abbot’s cane, and reminded myself that I would have to get into the Abbott’s tower myself, as he was the only monk I had seen actually performing magic so far. Did the monks use the magic to make friends with the dragons? Where did the dragons fit into all of this? “I am fine,” I said to him, wondering if it was lie or not. I would be strong.

  Uncle Lett held my gaze for one long moment, and then he nodded. “I see. Yes. You have your mother’s stubbornness, young Neill.” He gave me a grin. “You may live with my sister’s husband but know this, Neill Shaar-Anar Torvald - you will always be one of us. You do not need to be anything other than what you are; not a warlord, not a fighter, not even a monk. We Gypsies may travel far and wide, but we will always keep an ear to the west for news of you, and come when you have need.”

  “Thank you, Uncle,” I said, feeling his words warm me more than any strange unguent or potion. But as comforting as it was, a sad part of me realized that it wasn’t enough. I wished it was. I really, truly wished that I could believe what my uncle had said to me just now: that I was enough, just be myself… But I needed to prove myself to my father. Just once, I thought. Just once, I want the great Chief Warden, Malos Torvald, to look at me with the same thunderous pride that his other sons get.

  “Take care, Torvald.” Jodreth winked at me as the two men took their leave. “And try not to stand out too much.”

  “I owe you for saving my life twice now, monk!” I even managed a little bow as I folded and tucked uncle’s multi-colored blanket under my own monastery-black cloak.

  “Are you keeping score, soldier?” Jodreth laughed, turning as he walked beside Uncle Lett. “Because if you are, I did this punishment on the mountain top twice!” They both laughed.

  “You did?” I asked in curiosity. I had been ordered here by the Abbot, but I thought that was only because the prince had been there as well. What could Jodreth have done? I saw that Jodreth was looking at me with a half-smile on his face, half-ironic, and half-sad as he guessed the questions on my mind.

  “Remember what I said to you on the slopes below the monastery, about how stubborn dragons and princes are? Well, let’s just say that the Abbot has never liked it when people disrespect him and question his views, and Prince Vincent likes it even less.” Jodreth shrugged like it was no big deal.

  “So, Prince Vincent comes here often then?” I asked. “And you went through the same thing that I did? Being tested on the mountain here for magic?” Did you succeed? I wanted to ask, but all of a sudden it felt rude to use the monk for information, after he had saved my life – twice – and had been nothing but kind to me.

  “Yes, I was tested for magic, young Neill, and yes, I insulted the Abbot, and would not obey his every command. That is why I was punished, and why I eventually left,” Jodreth said. “But enough of this, Master Torvald – there are some questions only you can answer. Not me, and not anyone else, either!”

  “You almost sound like a Gypsy, master monk,” Uncle laughed.

  But do you have the magic? The question was burning its way up through me, but before I could ask it, my uncle and the monk were already laughing and turning to go. Dawn was upon us, after all.

  I waved them off, my Uncle Lett’s booming laughter echoing over the mountaintop for a long time afterwards. I decided that my punishment was now over as I turned to walk back down the mountain trail to the back door of the monastery, there to be let in by a startled monk – clearly amazed to see me grinning and alive after a night on the freezing mountaintop.

  But I didn’t care what he thought. I had work to do. I will start with the Abbott’s belongings – his cane and his tower and his scrolls - and I will see if any of them unloc
k the secrets of their magic for me.

  Part II

  The Dragons

  Chapter 13

  The Library

  The next few days saw the other students looking at me with different expressions, although I couldn’t quite work out what it was. Wide, dark eyes. Like they thought me bewitched, or cursed. It wasn’t until I cornered Dorf as he slipped in and out of our shared dormitory room that I managed to get the answer out of him.

  “I’m on my way to the Library,” Dorf said, uneasily. “I agreed to meet Ganna there, and I have to study if I am ever going to be a good Scribe.”

  “Oh, I doubt very much you’ll be anything but an excellent Scribe, whether you study or not,” I said. “But I’ll come with you, I could do with practicing my letters.” And I could take a look around while I am there, I thought. Maybe there are scrolls or lore down there that will tell me how the Draconis Order can get to manipulate rocks and suits of armor…

  Our steps took us down from our dormitory tower, out across the freezing courtyard where a few bedraggled students had taken it upon themselves to do some training. Into the Main Hall building, where Dorf led me to one of the smaller antechambers off to one side.

  “This way.” He led the way to a wooden door, which led to a set of stairs that wound around and around, deep into the bones of the monastery, and hopefully to the Library beneath it.

  “I’ve never even seen this place – how did you find it?” I asked, stunned as Dorf juggled candle stubs in front of me.

  “Oh, Ganna showed me. It’s where the Scribes and the Mages are going to train next year, I think he said. His father was a big shot monk, so…” Dorf said.

  “So, it pays to have family.” I quoted the saying from my mother’s family.