by D K Drake
“We have four dragons with us, one of whom came from this territory. We’ll let them do the fighting while I cut off the dragon’s tail. We don’t need to be rested for that.”
“At least let us skirt west and go through the Rocky Way.”
“And lose several days traveling there? No.” Micah had to stick to his decision. He was the leader now, not the student. Galiron needed to understand he could not dictate travel plans to Micah the way he did in training sessions. “The most direct route is due north through Fury’s Pass.”
“The most dangerous route is due north through Fury’s Pass.”
“Afraid of a little danger?”
“I’m not afraid. I’m wise. That’s something that comes from centuries of experience. Which you don’t have.”
“Now you’re going to bash my age? I may be young, but I’ve already conquered a dragon. How many have you hunted in your long lifetime?”
“You know I’m not from the Hunter Bloodline.”
“That’s right. You can’t hunt dragons. You have to assist those of us who can.”
“I have devoted my life to assisting your father and you. Part of my duty includes keeping you out of death traps like Fury’s Pass.”
“One person dying while attempting to travel through the pass does not make it a death trap. We’ll be fine.” Micah had to show no fear, no weakness. He couldn’t back down from this course of action, even if walking through Fury’s Pass did make him a little nervous. “Now tell your men to eat and be prepared to move out as soon as Mertzer returns from feeding.”
Galiron stepped so close to Micah that the hairs from his beard tickled Micah’s cheeks. “This is a mistake, Micah.”
Micah pushed him away. “I don’t make mistakes, Galiron.”
Galiron shook his head and began walking away. He only made it a few steps before turning back and saying, “That kind of attitude is going to get us all killed.”
“Nonsense. Now gather your men. They’ve had enough time to eat and rest. Head north to Fury’s Pass. My unit and I will meet you there.”
Galiron tensed and looked like he wanted to argue. But rather than say anything, he simply nodded and left.
Micah had never doubted his decisions before, but now Galiron had him wondering if he was right to continue on this course.
Of course Micah was right. He was always right. Right?
◊◊◊
A blur. That’s the only word Javan could use to describe how his afternoon had passed riding on the back of Varjiek as they raced south toward Keckrick. He had spent hour after hour straddled at the base of the dragon’s neck clinging tightly to his triangular grey scales.
The land below him remained a steady streak of green all day. He had to close his eyes after a while to keep from getting airsick. Even with his eyes closed, he didn’t dare relax. Varjiek was flying too fast, and Javan didn’t want to risk falling off.
He wished he had a speedometer so he could clock the dragon’s speed. Javan recalled from his training time with Astor that Noon Stalkers could fly as fast as 350 miles per hour. That sounded like a ridiculous figure when Javan first heard it, but now that he was actually flying on a speeding dragon, he wondered if that figure underestimated Varjiek’s top speed.
One thing he learned that Astor hadn’t taught him was that dragons don’t like to chit chat when they are focused on flying fast. Varjiek’s thoughts had been mind-numbingly boring to listen to. The only three thoughts Javan could hear were, “Wing speed. Stay cloaked. Reach the desert.”
Then again, Javan was glad that the dragon talked to himself and didn’t want to carry on a conversation. Javan could hear Varjiek’s thoughts, but Varjiek couldn’t hear his. That meant Javan had to actually speak to communicate with the dragon. Talking was difficult with his face pressed against the dragon’s neck while traveling in the equivalent of an open cockpit at hundreds of miles an hour.
With the sun beginning to set in the east, Javan noticed a sudden drop in their cruising speed. Feel that?
“You slowing down? Yeah.”
No. The air. It’s changing. Warmer. Thicker. We’ve almost reached the desert.
“Great! I would like to make a pit stop before we go much further, though.”
A pit stop? I do not understand.
“I’m hungry. I want to eat.” He also needed to find a bathroom, but the dragon didn’t need to know all the aspects included in a pit stop. “Then we can fly over the desert at night when it is cool.”
I think we will need to rest a few days before carrying on.
“A few days? You’re the one who wouldn’t let me go after Micah and wanted to rush to Keckrick to collect a Dawn Stalker. Why take time to rest now? We should just keep going.”
I have never traveled across the desert before. By day or night, it is a dangerous place.
“I’ve got my stalker swords and stun balls, and you’re a dragon. Nothing is gonna mess with you.”
With all the flying I have done with you over the past few days, I am wearied. You are still injured. We both need rest. If we are not at full strength before carrying on, we may not survive the journey. Plus this is a good place to hide. I wanted to reach this point before stopping because there are not many humans around to run into.
Javan didn’t want to stop and rest. He wanted to be tough. To keep going. To show no sign of weakness. That’s what a leader did, right? It was his job to make and stick to his decisions, even if those he led disagreed.
Or should he listen to Varjiek? The dragon did make some good points. Javan could benefit from a little downtime. If he had to use his swords to fight whatever awaited them in the desert, he didn’t want to have to worry about his chest wound splitting open. It needed to heal, and that was going to take time.
“All right,” Javan said. “Let’s find a place to hide out for a few days.”
Chapter 5
Fury’s Pass
The sliver of light from the moon on the cloudy, starless night didn’t offer much assistance as the dragons marched their way up the steep mountainside. Micah felt Mertzer fumble his way over the rocks and boulders in the dark and let the dragon set his own pace. They were traveling slower than Micah preferred, but if Mertzer hurt himself by going too fast, they wouldn’t be going anywhere. Micah didn’t want that.
Besides, the slow pace helped them all adjust to the altitude without getting too sick. Micah had felt lightheaded since they passed the tree line hours ago, but he wasn’t sure if that was from the altitude or from fatigue.
He was glad he had sent the flying dragons on ahead. As long as they didn’t have a problem with altitude sickness, they would be a bit more rested and prepared to lead the way through Fury’s Pass.
More importantly, it gave Serenity a chance to eat without holding everyone else up. Judging by the position of the moon, midnight had already come and gone by the time Micah and the two units with him reached the pass.
He had never been here before and did his best to assess the terrain in the dark. The ground leveled out, but the path ahead was blocked by a rock wall that stretched so high and wide that he couldn’t see the top or the end on either side. Trying to climb or fly over the wall was impossible. The air grew too thin towards the top; neither man nor animal could breathe at that altitude.
Many had tried. None succeeded.
A few had survived the journey through Fury’s Pass, however. It was the fastest, most direct route into Midnight Territory, so that’s the route Micah was going to take, even if the howling winds and burning rocks made the trek a touch dangerous.
Spotting the entrance to the pass was easy. The dozens of soldiers and okties milling about carefully avoided an opening in the rock wall just wide enough for a dragon to walk through. The noise of the wind whipping through the gap in the wall also drew Micah’s attention to it. No wonder they called it Fury’s Pass. The wind sounded furious.
“It’s not too late.” Galiron approached Micah before
Micah even dismounted Mertzer. “We can still turn around and enter through Rocky Way.”
Micah shook his head. He wanted to retreat, but he wasn’t about to give Galiron the satisfaction of being right. “Not a chance. We’re here, and the wind is blowing. As long as the wind is blowing, we don’t have to worry about the rocks heating up and burning us.”
“Micah, my men are tired, and half of them are sick. Let us rest until daylight.”
“And have to wait for Dahlia to feed at dawn? The only food she’ll have to eat around here are okties. Or us. So no rest. We go. Now.” Micah urged Mertzer forward until he was positioned in the clearing the soldiers had created. He whistled, directing all eyes to him. Once he had everyone’s attention, he stood on Mertzer’s back and shouted his orders. “Mount up. Serenity is the biggest dragon, so she’ll go first to help block the wind for the rest of us. Then Vasilis, Dahlia, and Mertzer. The rest of you will fly low and follow us. Let’s move!”
Mumblings and grumblings accompanied the scrambling of the soldiers. He didn’t know what they were complaining about. This wasn’t a boring training exercise. They weren’t having to deal with people or punish lawbreakers.
They were on a dragon-hunting expedition. They finally had a chance to do something that mattered. The adventure of helping him catch a Midnight Stalker should trump any feelings of sickness or fatigue they might be experiencing. Maybe they would learn to appreciate the experience once they reached midnight territory.
Galiron glared at Micah as he marched by him on the back of Serenity. At twice the size of Mertzer, she was an imposing dragon with mean black eyes and generally nasty attitude. She was not going to be happy about taking the brunt of the wind through Fury’s Pass.
Having her angry would help in the hunt for another Midnight Stalker, though. She would relish the opportunity to fight a dragon her own size. It would be much easier to cut the tail of a dragon who had expended all his energy fighting one of his own kind as opposed to attempting the same feat on a fresh dragon.
Phalloz, the wiry captain riding Vasilis, stared straight ahead as he walked by on his Noon Stalker Vasilis. Typical. Phalloz hadn’t talked to Micah since Micah had beaten him in a boxing match a decade ago. That man sure could hold a grudge.
Vasilis, a good five feet taller and wider than Mertzer, seemed disinterested in the entire affair. He followed Serenity with a nonchalant air about him.
Dahlia, however, had her nose stuck up as high as it would go. With her white scales and wingless body, she was similar in size and appearance to Mertzer. But she was a prissy dragon who never liked to get her scales dirty. Shara, her captain, constantly had to take her to the lake for bath and reflection time. That dragon seemed happiest when she could gaze at herself in the water.
She didn’t have any water around right now, but Micah wasn’t all that concerned with nurturing the dragon’s vanity at the moment. All he wanted to do was get through Fury’s Pass.
Accomplishing that simple goal soon turned into a more difficult task than Micah ever anticipated.
◊◊◊
Micah leaned against the frozen scales on Mertzer’s neck and listened to the only thing he could hear: the wind. It blew above and around him. Relentless. Cold. Loud.
The okties had refused to fly into it. Fighting their fear wasn’t worth it, so Micah decided to leave half a dozen men to care for the okties and ordered the remaining soldiers to follow behind the dragons on foot.
He knew they were behind him, but he couldn’t hear their footsteps. He couldn’t see them, either. He couldn’t see anything. The darkness was too thick. It took away his ability to see as well as his sense of time. He had no idea how long they had been in this narrow pass.
He wanted out of this place. With no end in sight and the walls close enough for him to touch on either side, he felt trapped. “Move faster!” He belted out the command, but the wind blew it away before it reached the ears of the caravan in front of him.
At least he had three dragons ahead of him. The wind would be ten times worse at the front of the pack.
“Deep breaths, Micah,” he told himself. “Deep breaths. You’ll be out of here soon enough.”
After what seemed like hours, he finally noticed a break in the darkness ahead. “Ha! We’re almost through,” he said, keeping his eyes on the dot of grey at the end of the stone tunnel. “And Galiron thought this was a bad idea. I’ll be able to capture a Midnight Stalker and be back at the castle before we would have even made it to Midnight territory following his route.”
An aggressive gust of wind swooshed past Micah, nearly knocking him off of Mertzer. “Whoa!” Micah clutched the reigns and pulled himself back into an upright sitting position. The wind picked up speed, howling and swirling along the rocks.
Then silence. No wind. No nothing.
Until the rock walls started glowing, wiping out the darkness. Heat replaced the cold in an instant. If they didn’t get out of here in the next few minutes, they were going to be caught in the impending firestorm. “Run! Fast! Get out of here!”
Serenity and Vasilis zipped ahead and disappeared. He assumed they made it through the exit. Which meant he wasn’t far from freedom.
Only Dahlia couldn’t run as fast as the bigger dragons and blocked Micah’s progress. “Make her move, Mertzer!”
Mertzer snorted, put his head down and rammed Dahlia from behind. As he pushed her along, tiny sparks began shooting off the walls. Screams from the soldiers singed by the sparks pierced Micah’s ears.
That’s when Micah remembered the soldiers weren’t on okties. They were on foot. There was no way all ninety of them would escape before the pass burst into flames.
Should he leave them and escape, or pause to save as many as he could?
His training told him to protect himself.
An unfamiliar internal voice told him to stop and help those behind him.
Not sure why he was listening to the unfamiliar voice, he trusted his instincts, pulled on Mertzer’s reigns and yelled at Shara. “Shara! Stop!”
Shara stopped Dahlia and looked behind her. “Stopping is going to get me killed!”
More sparks began shooting off the walls.
One slapped Micah’s face. Another burned his leg.
“Just for a minute. We have to save as many soldiers as we can!” Micah turned and yelled at the men and women running toward him. “Hurry! Climb on Mertzer and Dahlia!”
A swarm of people rushed onto the dragons, clawing their way up the scaly bodies. When no more could fit, he nodded at Shara. “Go!” As he urged Mertzer forward, he tried not to think of the fear he saw on the faces of those who couldn’t reach him or listen to the sound of their screams.
Maybe he could still save them. Mertzer was the fastest dragon. Micah would get everyone on him and Dahlia out, then send Mertzer back in to rescue as many men as possible.
The exit was fifty feet away.
The heat intensified, making him feel like he was in a furnace.
Exploding rocks drowned out the screams of the people behind him.
“Faster, Mertzer!”
Twenty feet to freedom. Ten. Five. Free!
Micah breathed in the cool night air and turned Mertzer around. No one left on foot had made it out yet.
“Everyone off!” Micah pushed the soldiers off the dragon and dismounted. “Mertzer, you’ve got to go back in there. Save who you can.”
But he was too late.
Micah watched in horror as the pass burst into flames, incinerating everyone still stuck between the stone walls.
Chapter 6
Red Claws
The heat from the fire warmed Javan’s skin and helped dry his drenched black hair as he fried one of the three fish he caught earlier that day. The post-fishing swim in the lake not too far from his wooded campsite left him feeling cool, relaxed and clean.
After swimming, he had covered his eyes with the color contacts he retrieved from his room in Gri. He didn�
�t want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself in case he came across any people, and making his eyes brown rather than their natural glowing emerald green color would make him appear to be just another normal human being. Having someone identify him as the potential answer to the prophecy might jeopardize his dragon-collecting mission.
He still didn’t want to believe the prophecy referred to him, but the similarities were too uncanny too ignore. Ever since reading it for himself, those words had been burned into his memory:
A young Collector whose eyes shine like emeralds and whose ears can hear the thoughts of any dragon will enter the competition in the final months of a Battle for the Throne year. He will be the only one capable of dethroning the king and must collect all four Stalkers by sunset on the final day of the battle year. If he succeeds, however, collecting the four Stalkers will not be enough to defeat the king.
The dethroned king will use his dragons and loyal subjects to wage a war unlike any Zandador has ever seen. The Collector must therefore unite the four opposing Bloodlines for only the united front of the four Bloodlines led by the young Collector will be strong enough to win a war against this most powerful of men.
If such a war is fought, the outcome thereof will determine the fate of the dragons once and for all.
He shook his head to relieve the pressure of those haunting words and focused his attention on his present situation.
Fortunately his chest wound was healing nicely. Two full days of laying around doing next to nothing had helped. So did the ointment Varjiek had somehow acquired. The dragon had told him not to ask questions.
Javan didn’t need to. He had noticed several of Varjiek’s scales were missing on his back left leg. Varjiek must have snagged the ointment from a nearby town and left some of his scales in its place as payment.
