Secret of the Dragon Egg (Dragon Riders of Avria Book 1)

by N. A. Davenport

  “Do you see the egg?” Anri asked, sounding exasperated, but he could tell that she was tense with anxiety.

  “I think it’s in Slash’s saddlebag.” He took a deep breath and shook out his hands, trying to relax. “How about this? You wait for me on the trail at the other side of the camp. I’ll take the egg from the bag and meet you when I’m done.”

  “You don’t want my help?” She looked at him doubtfully.

  “If you try to help, Slash might get spooked. He doesn’t know you, and he’s not as well trained as Brightfeather. He won’t freak out if I go up to him, though.”

  She nodded.

  “All right. Let’s do it,” Will said.

  Anri quietly made her way through the camp to the trail on the other side. Will wound his way around Slash to approach the cormant from the side, taking care to be visible as soon as possible so he wouldn’t startle the bird.

  When Slash saw Will, however, he pulled against his tether and ruffled his wing feathers, giving a soft croon. He clearly recognized Will and was happy to see him.

  “Shh. Quiet, Slash. You can’t wake up Tavin,” Will whispered, laying a hand on the cormant’s neck.

  Slash nudged Will with his head and crooned as Will untied the saddlebag and set it on the ground, wrestling it open to search inside.

  Apparently frustrated that Will wasn’t paying attention to him, Slash started nipping at his ear and hair and clothes, crooning a little louder.

  There was the egg! It was buried under a messy assortment of smelly clothes, crumbs of old food, and cluttered supplies. Will lifted it out of the bag and brushed the dirt and crumbs off it, feeling his heart squeeze at the sight of the glimmering shell. He wrapped his arms around the dragon egg and held it to his chest. It felt warmer than before. If he’d found it on the side of the trail just now, he never would have said it was a cold egg.

  Slash snapped his beak impatiently and squawked at Will.

  “Shh! Quiet, Slash. Quiet.” Will stood and stroked the cormant’s neck feathers, holding his egg in one arm. “I’m sorry I don’t have any grain for you right now. You’re a good bird, okay?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Will’s back stiffened. He turned slowly to see Tavin, awake and standing on the other side of the fire, glaring at him.

  They stood facing one another in furious silence for several moments. Finally, Tavin waved his hands toward Will. “Well? What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m taking my egg back,” Will said evenly.

  Tavin laughed. “That dud? It’s mine now! You can’t have it.”

  Will curled his fingers around the egg in suppressed rage. “If it’s a dud, why do you want it so bad?”

  Tavin started strolling around the fire, closing the space between himself and Will. “Even if the egg is dead, at least I’ll get a chance on the hatching ground with it. One of the other dragons will bond with me.” He reached for the egg and his expression darkened. “Now give it to me.”

  Will drew back. “No.”

  Tavin raised his eyebrows. “Who do you think you are, off-lander?”

  Will stepped back, moving toward the trail behind him. “I’m the one who found the egg. It’s mine. Just because you stole it doesn’t make it yours.”

  “You filthy stable boy!” Tavin spat. “I’m the son of an elder. If I say I want that egg, it’s mine!”

  “Just because you’re a spoiled brat doesn’t mean you can get whatever you want,” Will retorted. “Now goodbye. I’m talking it to the hatching ground.”

  He took another step back, so he was out of Tavin’s reach, and walked to the trail.

  “I said give it to me!” Tavin snarled.

  Will felt the other boy’s body slam into him from behind. Tavin pulled at his arm, reaching around him, trying to snatch the egg out of his grasp.

  “No!” Will roared back. He curled his body protectively over the egg, trying to fight Tavin off at the same time.

  Tavin pulled at Will’s arms and yanked on the egg so hard Will was afraid he would break it.

  Then—it seemed like it happened in slow motion—the egg slipped out of Will’s grasp, but Tavin didn’t have a grip on it either. They both fumbled for it as it toppled through the air. Will saw the glint in its shell as it landed in a patch of dead pine needles, then it rolled out of sight.

  “NO!” both boys screamed. Together they scrambled to the edge of the firelight and looked down over the ledge of the gorge.

  Far below, the river was barely visible in the blue evening light. Everything else was pure darkness. The egg was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Will stared into the void below, listening to the soft crashing sounds as his egg tumbled through bushes and tree branches and over dry pine needles on its way down the mountain. He felt like his heart was falling with it, sinking farther and farther away into emptiness.

  “You stupid, stinging off-lander! Now see what you’ve done!” Tavin shrieked.

  Will barely noticed him.

  “Will! What happened?” Anri’s voice seemed to come faintly from far away. Then he felt her hand on his arm and he looked up into her worried face.

  “The egg is gone,” he choked out. “It fell.”

  “It’s your fault!” Tavin snapped. “If you just minded your own business, that wouldn’t have happened!”

  Anri shot Tavin a look, but Will didn’t see what her expression was. He was still staring down into the inky blackness, listening to the silence for any sign of his egg.

  “Hey, Will, come on. We should get out of here,” she said, gently tugging his arm.

  Will stood abruptly and started pacing. “Maybe . . . maybe it didn’t break. Maybe it’s down there still.” He ran his hands through his hair. “If we hurry, maybe we can find it and save it!”

  He wasn’t paying attention to Tavin or Anri, so he barely noticed when Tavin shifted his weight and pulled his fist back.

  Tavin’s fist collided squarely with Will’s jaw.

  Will staggered back.

  “Are you listening to me?” Tavin yelled. He threw another punch.

  Will raised his arms to block it, still dazed and reeling with pain.

  Tavin’s knuckles crashed into the side of his head. “You cost me my dragon egg!”

  “It wasn’t your egg!” Anri yelled at him.

  Will stumbled and backed away, scarcely able to see the other boy in the dim firelight.

  Tavin swung his fist again. Will tried to dodge, but Tavin’s aim was off this time. He missed, but Will’s injured foot landed hard on a stone poking out of the ground. He stumbled back and doubled up in pain.

  Seeing Will in a weak position, Tavin moved in to take advantage of it.

  Will was already crouched down, so he rolled away, hoping to avoid Tavin’s next punch.

  Only . . . the ground wasn’t there anymore.

  Will’s stomach flipped as he dropped over the edge and into the darkness below.

  For a moment, he seemed to be floating in a windy black void. Somewhere in his mind, he could hear Anri scream. He was certain he was about to die, but instead of feeling frightened, he only managed to wonder whether he would hit a tree or the ground first.

  He crashed into something hard and prickly. It knocked the wind out of him, but he reached out to grasp onto whatever he could.

  His body swung around, gravity pulling him down through one branch then another, smacking into wood and pine needles back and forth on his way to the ground. Through his delirious confusion, Will thought of the carnival game where you drop a coin at the top of a pegboard and guess where it’s going to land as it bounces its way to the bottom.

  Then there was a longer drop, farther than the others, and he landed with a thud on something cold, hard, and immovable.

  Will tried to groan, but he couldn’t breathe yet. He choked out a cough instead.

  “Will! Can you hear me? Say something, please!” Anri’s p
anicked voice sounded cold and thin far above him.

  Will sucked in a weak breath as he started regaining control over his lungs. His chest and head throbbed with pain.

  “I’m here!” he called up to Anri. “I don’t recommend coming down this way.” He chuckled weakly and rubbed his face with his hand. He probably shouldn’t be making jokes at a time like this, but he felt like he needed to. If he laughed about it, things couldn’t be so bad, right?

  “Are you hurt? Do you think you can climb back up?” She sounded doubtful.

  Will shifted to a sitting position. He couldn’t see much of anything in the faint light, but it seemed like he was on the uphill side of a large tree, sitting on a boulder.

  As he shifted, he felt a stabbing pain in his side and winced. “No, I don’t think I can climb up. It’s too steep. And I might have broken a rib.”

  “Stinging swarms!”

  “Wait! Anri, is Tavin still up there? Be careful!” It had just occurred to him that, after arguably attempting to murder Will, Tavin might try to eliminate any witnesses by getting rid of Anri, too.

  “No! That slimy little weasel took his cormant and ran off as soon as he could.”

  Will breathed a small sigh of relief at that and pushed with his feet to scoot his back farther up the tree. The motion made an array of injuries all over his body twinge, ache, and throb with pain.

  How had it come to this? Trapped at the bottom of a cliff. His dragon egg lost. Hurt and cold with no way to get back on the trail. His eyes clouded and stung with tears of self-pity and regret.

  “Anri, I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “You would have been there by now if it wasn’t for me. You should go on ahead. Don’t miss your last chance to be a dragon rider because of me.” His voice tightened and he started shivering. The warmth they’d found on the trail didn’t seem to exist where he was now. Icy wind bit through his clothes.

  Anri was quiet for a moment. “Will, you aren’t thinking clearly. Just wait there, okay? Stay safe. I’m going to find some help for you.”

  Will let his head fall back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes. “Okay.”

  Then Anri was gone, too. Will was alone, hurting all over, and shivering in the darkness.

  In the silence, he could hear the river rushing and bubbling somewhere behind him. Wind whistled through the branches above.

  One of the straps of his bag dug into his neck. He shifted it around, trying to be grateful that he still had his bag at all. At least that was something. How long would it take for Anri to find help? When she did, how long would it take for them to come for him?

  He tried not to think about his egg, but he couldn’t help re-living that last moment, seeing the glint of the shell right before it tumbled over the cliff to certain doom. If Anri hadn’t been here with him to go for help, he would have shared his egg’s fate.

  In the sky overhead, the clouds parted, letting cold silver moonlight bathe the surrounding forest. For the first time, Will could see how precariously he was perched against his tree. If he had landed an inch or two to either side, he would have continued tumbling down a near-vertical cliff to the river. There’s no way he would have survived.

  Then something else caught his attention. Farther down, stuck in a tangle of bushes, a metallic glint peeked out of the leaves.

  Will held his breath and sat up straight to get a better view.

  It was his egg. There was no question about it. From what Will could see, it had survived the fall without any damage.

  He choked out a delirious laugh and pointed at it, looking around for anyone to share his joy with. But, of course, he was all alone now.

  He sighed and rubbed his face with his sticky, sap-covered hands. Falling down the cliff might have rattled his nerves, and maybe his brain a bit, but if he was going to rescue his egg, he had to be thinking clearly.

  He took a deep breath and examined his situation.

  Getting to the egg would be tricky. The cliffside he was stranded on looked difficult to climb, even for a healthy person who wasn’t exhausted and didn’t have an injured foot. For Will, if he tried making it out to those bushes, he would be cheating death the whole way.

  The sensible thing would be to leave the egg alone, stay put like Anri had told him to, and be alive when she returned with help. It would be stupid to risk throwing his life away just so he could have a chance on the hatching ground. He didn’t need a lottery ticket for fame, freedom, and fun.

  Only that’s not what a dragon egg was. Not to Will. Not anymore. As he watched the dim glint in the tangled branches, Will realized he hadn’t been thinking about the egg that way at all. It wasn’t an object that belonged to him, or a ticket out of working in Elder Madoc’s stable forever, or even a way to find help for his family. Maybe it had started out that way, but that wasn’t what it had felt like for a long time now.

  It wasn’t his egg. He had found it, and it was his job to bring it to the hatching ground, but inside that shining shell might be an intelligent, sensitive creature. A creature that would hatch and choose a partner, someone who might not even be Will.

  The egg wasn’t a ticket to fame and fortune. It wasn’t a trinket to show off. It was a life that he was responsible for. He couldn’t leave it here. He had to finish what he started. He had to take it to the hatching ground so the baby dragon inside could pick someone, whoever it chose, to bond with.

  Will tightened the straps on his bag and slowly started climbing toward the egg.

  It seemed to take forever as he picked his way across the cliffside to reach it. Several times, he was sure he was stuck with nowhere to go until he found a good handhold or foothold.

  When he finally made it to the bushes where the egg was nestled, the first thing he did was check the shell all over to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the fall. It was scuffed up a bit, and there was sticky tree sap smeared over it, but, miraculously, it seemed to have survived without cracking.

  He sighed in relief and set the egg down between his feet. When he tried shifting his bag around so he could open it and put the egg in, it wouldn’t budge. The leather straps were too tight. He groaned and yanked on the straps to work them loose. As he grumbled and tugged with numb fingers, the earth under him shifted.

  Will barely clutched the egg in time before he lost his balance and slid down the cliff toward the river below.

  “Oh, come on! Not again!” he wailed.

  The first thought that flashed through his mind was, Anri is going to be mad that I didn’t stay put.

  As he rolled over rocky dirt and bounced through thorny bushes, he kept the dragon egg tucked close to his chest, hoping to shield it from the fall.

  The next thing he knew, his body crashed into rushing water so shockingly cold his whole body went numb on contact. He screamed in shock, but all that came out was a stream of bubbles.

  When he surfaced, still cradling the dragon egg, Will gasped for breath before the water dragged him back down. He surfaced again a few moments later, but he only had a split second before the current sucked him under again. It was everything he could do to just keep coming back up for air. He couldn’t even think about trying to swim for shore.

  Then he struck something. The water was no longer carrying him with the current. It was pressing him against something hard.

  Will pushed against it with a hand, bringing his face above the water and gasping for breath as the current gushed against his head.

  It was a tree. A large fallen pine tree lay half on the bank and half in the water. The branches had caught him.

  With numb limbs and icy water choking him and burning in his nose, Will barely managed to drag himself and the egg onto the gravelly shore.

  Staggering and weak, Will lay the egg on the bank. Then he immediately peeled off his drenched and dripping clothes. He’d gone camping with his uncle enough to know that hypothermia was no joke. Wearing wet clothes in the cold was a terrible idea. So even
though he felt completely exhausted and wanted nothing more than to lie down on the ground and never get up again, Will forced himself to hop and jog in place while he tried to wring the freezing water out of his shirt and pants. His numb, trembling hands didn’t have much strength left, making it difficult to get the water out.

  He wrapped his bare body in his wool blanket and looked around for some way to get warm. Behind the root ball of the fallen tree, the enormous hole it had left behind made a sort of enclosed cave, sheltered from the biting wind.

  Will hung his clothes from the knobby roots and set about starting a fire in the sheltered space. Fortunately, the bank surrounding the fallen tree was littered with branches, dry needles, and pinecones. He made a pile of kindling in his little alcove and, after several attempts with his firesteel, got it lit.

  He brought the egg into the alcove and sat by the fire, adding sticks until it blazed scorchingly hot on his face and hands. The rest of him was still freezing, though, so he stayed close, letting the heat seep into him until his trembling died down and he could once again feel the aching pains all over his body.

  In the orange glow of firelight, Will took a moment to examine the egg again. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw no damage to the shell, but his sigh quickly turned sad. Hatching Day was tomorrow. There was no way that he would make it now. Anri would bring help to the cliff, but when they got there, they wouldn’t find him. He would have to find his way back to a road or trail when the sun rose and return to his parents on Elder Madoc’s estate. Maybe he could find a dragon rider on the way to tell him what to do with the egg, since he was too late.

  As the night grew darker and colder, Will pulled his mostly dry clothes back on. Then he wrapped the wool blanket around himself, lay with his back to the fire, and let exhaustion take him.

  He was still asleep, with the remnants of his fire sending a thread of smoke into the air, when a gust of wind swept through his cave. Following the wind came a heavy thump on the ground and the crunching of something moving through the gravel.