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

by N. A. Davenport

  “My name is Tumi,” the man said. “I’m the flapling instructor here at Fire Mountain Dragonhold. We’ll be working closely together for the next year or so until you and your dragons are ready to fly long distances.”

  The other kids brightened up. Several of them started asking questions, speaking over one another so Will could barely understand what they were saying.

  “Where are the barracks?”

  “When do we learn to—?”

  “—hunt on their own?”

  “Is it true our dragons can—?”

  “—our bunkmates?”

  “When does training—?”

  With so much sudden commotion going on, Will’s dragon snorted and blinked his eyes open to look around. Will held a little piece of sausage in front of his beak, but the dragon didn’t take it. He just yawned and went back to sleep.

  “Why won’t my dragon eat?” Will asked worriedly. “He’s done almost nothing but sleep since he hatched.”

  Tumi turned from answering the others' questions and smiled at him. “That’s normal. Hatchlings don’t get hungry until they’re a few days old. Don’t worry, soon enough you’ll be feeding him every couple of hours day and night and asking me when he’ll stop eating so much.”

  Tumi fielded a few more questions from the other kids before raising his hands to silence them all. “I hope you’ve all settled on names for your dragons, because the stage is set and the time has come for the naming ceremony.”

  “I’m so nervous,” the girl with the blue whispered, hugging her dragon tighter to her chest.

  “Oh, but I’m not ready!” the boy with the red complained. “Can I whisper one of my ideas in your ear so you can tell me if it’s any good?” he asked Tumi.

  Tumi shook his head. “The name has to be something special to you. Other people’s opinions should have nothing to do with it.”

  Will swallowed the last of his food and stood. With his heart pounding in his chest, he hurried across the courtyard where he found Anri and Rin on their way to the stage with everyone else. They smiled at him and he smiled nervously back, trying to swallow his nerves.

  The crowd in the concourse had gathered shoulder to shoulder around the stage in anticipation, but everyone parted as the new dragon riders marched through.

  “Do you know what you’re going to name your dragons?” Will asked in a trembling whisper as they lined up next to the stage.

  Rin’s tiny red dragon was awake and watching the crowd with delighted chirps. Rin kissed the little horn nubs on his head and nodded.

  Anri nodded, too, and smiled down at her tiny sleeping green dragon.

  Will took a deep breath that didn’t help him feel better at all. What could he name his dragon? His mind shuffled through everything in his experience, looking for something that reminded him of his perfect little white dragon. Nothing seemed good enough. He thought maybe he’d name the dragon Lightning, since lightning was powerful and bright white, but that seemed like a name for an electric yellow dragon. That wouldn’t work.

  Kids marched onto the stage one by one. He watched as they introduced themselves and announced the names of their dragons. The crowd cheered after each one.

  Trembling, Will thought harder. Frantically. What other cool things were white and precious? Clouds? Moonlight? Stars? That seemed like he was thinking in the right direction, but none of those things fit. He started thinking of his favorite superheroes. Wolverine? No. Gambit? No. Green Lantern? Obviously not.

  In front of them, Rin marched out and announced to the crowd that her dragon’s name was Ember.

  Then it was Anri’s turn. When she walked out, Will saw that she smiled and waved to the elegantly dressed woman in a blue bard’s gown in the corner.

  Anri turned to the crowd, held up her green dragon, and said her name was Jade.

  It was Will’s turn.

  His palms sweated as he walked to the middle of the stage. His heart pounded. His throat felt dry as he turned to face the crowd.

  Sensing his nervousness, the little white dragon woke up and stared into his face.

  Why? the dragon asked softly, giving a little croon. Why are you afraid?

  I have to give you a name, Will thought. He’d never tried speaking silently to his dragon’s mind before. He hoped it worked. I’m worried that you won’t like the name I give you. I’m worried it won’t be good enough.

  The dragon tilted his head curiously. He didn’t understand Will’s explanation. He couldn’t comprehend what was scaring him. I love you, he said. Don’t be afraid.

  Will laughed shakily. But what if I named you something weird like Dragon McDragonface? You wouldn’t like that.

  The dragon shuffled his wings and blinked his eyes. If you are happy, so am I.

  Will smiled down at the precious creature in his arms. The dragon made him feel both calm and excited at the same time. Calm, the way he used to feel cuddling on the couch with his mom, eating popcorn, and watching Doctor Who. Excited, the way he used to feel riding his mountain bike over a gnarly trail, or on an extreme roller coaster. It was like everything in the universe was drawing him in to revolve around this miniature white dragon.

  Finally, Will lifted his dragon to present him to the gathered crowd.

  Murmurs of astonishment drifted through them as the little dragon flapped his pale wings to keep his balance and gazed around with his clear golden eyes. Apparently, not everyone had heard about the white hatchling yet. Or maybe not everyone had believed it.

  Will took a deep breath. In a ringing voice, he announced, “My name is Will Goodwin. And this is my dragon, Vortex!”

  Thank you for reading Secret of the Dragon Egg

  Turn the page for a sample of the prequel: Anri and the Dragon Quest

  If you enjoyed this adventure, a review would be greatly appreciated as it helps others discover the story as well.

  Follow author N. A. Davenport on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

  Anri and the Dragon Quest

  Chapter 1

  The door opened with a soft creak, letting a beam of golden light pierce the dim family room. Anri closed it quietly behind her as she stepped out, careful not to wake her little brother who was snoring softly on a pile of wool blankets in the corner.

  Jaze would be hungry when he woke, Anri knew, but all they had left to eat was half a pot of cold, watery porridge. The coins tucked in the inner pocket of Anri’s bag clinked together as she walked, money enough to get a piece of fish, perhaps, or maybe a small bag of kaffa seeds, but not enough to fill her family’s bellies.

  Anri frowned and hugged herself against the early morning chill. Dew clung to the tall stalks of grass and dandelion fluff, sparkling faintly in the pale light.

  Heavy clanking echoed toward her from the shop up the hill. Her older brother, Jamero, was working metal already, and probably waking up some of their neighbors. Anri shook her head in amusement and turned to see what he was up to. As she neared the open door of the shop, Jamero looked up, his face red from the heat, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “Getting an early start today?” she asked, cocking a half-smile.

  He chuckled wearily. “I need to get these hames ready. I was supposed to have them done yesterday, but I just can’t seem to get them to match the way Father used to.” He lowered his eyes to the metal band he’d been beating into submission on the anvil.

  Anri bit her lip. Their father had been a skilled master smith, the best in Silverlake. Jamero had become his apprentice as soon as he was old enough to wield a hammer, but he hadn’t had time to master his skills before their father died from a sudden sickness a few years ago.

  Some of their customers voiced their disappointment in the lower quality work. Others simply took their business elsewhere. With every customer that never came back, their family’s situation became more desperate, until first their mother, and then Anri, was forced to take jobs to help.

  “What are hames, anyway?” she asked, tryi
ng to change the subject.

  Jamero wiped the dusty sweat from his forehead with a rag and held up the curved metal bar with a pair of tongs. Then he took another from the nearby bench, holding them side by side for her to see. They looked like mirror images to her eyes, except the finished one in his bare hand was smoother and had metal rings attached.

  “They’re part of a cormant harness,” he said. “They go over their shoulders to carry the weight of the cart. See the loops here?” He pointed to metal rings on the finished one. “That’s where the tracers attach.”

  She folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “And tracers are . . .”

  He laughed. “The ropes that attach them to the cart. Honestly, you see cormant carts every day, and you don’t know these things?”

  She snorted. “I don’t work on them like you do.”

  Jamero shook his head with a half-grin. “Speaking of which, I’d better finish this soon or . . .” He didn’t finish that thought. Instead, he turned away as though to examine his work in a better light.

  Anri had never been good at giving moral support. She cast around in her mind, trying to find something appropriate to say. When she failed to think of anything encouraging to offer, she asked, “So where’s Mother?”

  “There was an accident in the silk mine. She had to go to the healing house last night.”

  “Really? What happened?” she asked, keenly and morbidly curious. Silk mining was a dangerous job. People slipped on the slick wet caverns in the dark, or cut themselves on broken shale, or fell into hidden black ravines. There were also the legends of killer cave monsters hiding in the dark. They were the creatures that supposedly made the valuable silk. Legend had it that they were huge and blind, with legs like spears and massive scissor-like mouths that could snip off limbs as easily as biting into a steam bun.

  “I didn’t hear what happened,” Jamero said with a shrug. “You’ll have to ask her when she gets home.”

  Mildly unsatisfied, Anri left Jamero to his work and made her way through town, past shops opening for business, children carrying deliveries, and carts of goods rolling down the road.

  She left the city behind as she made her way downriver and out to the open grassy fields south of town. Here, farms dotted the hills for miles, most of them raising shufflos for meat, milk, and wool. It was to one of these farms that Anri was heading, the largest dairy farm in Silverlake.

  A group of children was already gathering around the shufflo enclosure when she arrived, all of them waiting to milk the shufflos and earn a few extra bits for their work. A musty, earthy smell wafted from the trampled muddy ground on the other side of the gate. Workers behind the fence were leading shaggy female shufflos into their milking stalls while black flies buzzed in the surrounding air.

  “Wasn’t Darvin coming this morning?” one boy nearby asked a girl who was leaning against a fence post.

  The girl shrugged, watching the shufflos with a bored expression. “He joined up with Marlo and Quin to go egg hunting.”

  “What? I didn’t know Darvin wanted to be a rider!”

  “Well, you know Quin. He can talk you into anything if he wants to.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being a dragon rider,” a small boy next to them chimed in. He looked about ten years old. “Don’t you think it would be fun to fly everywhere on a dragon?”

  A woman was approaching the gate in front of them, dressed in clean, bright clothes too fine to be working with shufflos. The children all turned to face her, respectfully. This was Lady Dara, the owner of the shufflo farm.

  Her silver eyebrows raised at the young boy who’d spoken of wanting to be a dragon rider. “And you’d let it eat our animals, too, no doubt, letting it take half of our herd because you’re too lazy to grow your own food?”

  All the kids shrank back at the sharpness of her tone.

  The young boy cringed. “But, all the songs say that dragon riders protect us,” he said meekly.

  The woman scoffed. She slid the latch aside and pushed the gate open for the children to enter the pen. “There have been no swarms in hundreds of years. They’re never coming back. And still, those flying menaces come in to take our breeding stock and milk beasts.”

  The boy’s face fell, and Anri quietly passed him to enter the pen. A row of huge hairy shufflos was waiting in narrow stalls for the children to milk them, flicking their tails and chewing their cud.

  Anri found an empty stool and sat down next to a shaggy, smelly shufflo with full udders. The beast turned to regard her with one huge brown eye, then shook its head to dislodge a swarm of flies and continued chewing its cud with a bored expression.

  Positioning her pail under the beast, Anri began her work. Creamy milk filled her pail in rhythmic streams. She was lucky this time. Occasionally she would get a shufflo that didn’t like being milked, and she would have to dodge sharp kicks from their back hooves while she worked.

  “Do you think it’s true, what Lady Dara said about the dragons?” someone whispered behind her.

  Anri glanced back to the gate where Lady Dara waited on a stool next to wooden barrels, waiting to collect the milk and pay the children. Then she turned to see who had spoken, a familiar girl with short brown hair. The girl was leaning to the side to look at Anri from behind her shufflo’s back legs.

  Anri shrugged. “I see the dragons flying out to hunt in the feeding fields. But isn’t that what those fields are for? The animals that aren’t good for breeding go out there for the dragons to eat.”

  The brown-haired girl wrinkled her brow in thought.

  Anri turned her attention back to milking her shufflo. The first two udders were just about empty, so she shook out her aching fingers and switched to the next two.

  “Well, Lady Dara isn’t the only one who complains about the dragonholds,” the boy in the stall in front of Anri said. “My father says they should learn to grow their own food and raise their own animals to feed their dragons.”

  “But the green dragonhold is in the Poison Plains,” the girl behind her said. “Only green dragons and their riders can survive out there. They can’t raise shufflos for food.” Anri suddenly remembered the girl’s name: Rin. Her parents lived near the river and dyed wool into colorful yarn for cloth-making.

  “Then maybe they should earn money for the things they need,” the boy argued. “My father says all they train their dragons to do is play games. Why should we feed them when they never do real work?”

  “Well, when I become a dragon rider, I’ll find out what they do all the time. I’m sure it isn’t just playing games. And”—Rin’s voice lowered like she was telling a dangerous secret—“I heard rumors that some northern cities see swarmers still. So what if they come back? We’ll need the dragons then, won’t we?”

  “I don’t believe it.” The boy snorted mockingly. “But wait, you actually want to be a dragon rider?” He turned to stare at Rin. “Hatching day is coming next season. Have you joined an egg-hunting team?”

  Anri turned to regard her as well. She knew a lot of kids were teaming up to search for eggs, hoping that they’d find one and earn a place on the hatching ground, but she hadn’t known that Rin was planning to hunt for an egg. If she was here, milking shufflos in the morning with the rest of them, didn’t that mean her family needed her working? How would she be able to leave them if her team found an egg?

  “Of course. Joining a team is my best chance of finding an egg and making it to the hatching ground.”

  “But . . . why?” Anri blurted. In her distraction, she forgot to keep milking. Her shufflo grunted and stomped a back hoof threateningly. Anri turned back to her work before Lady Dara could notice her slacking.

  “Who wouldn’t want to be a dragon rider?” Rin said with a sigh. “Just imagine being able to fly all over Avria, to join in the dragon games—not that that’s all they do, I’m sure—and to have a dragon friend for the rest of your life!”

  “But . . . doesn’t your family need you here?�
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  “Well, if I go to the hatching ground, they won’t have to feed me anymore.”

  The boy in front of them snorted. “Except the dragonholds get all their food from the villages.”

  Rin narrowed her eyes at him. “And when I get chosen by a dragon, the hold will give them money every season. Didn’t you know that?”

  “What?” Anri asked, turning back again. “The dragonholds give money to the families of riders? Really?”

  “Really, Anri! If you started talking to people more, you’d learn so much!” Rin rolled her eyes and stood with her full milk pail. “Remember Nader? His family lives in the house next to ours. He bonded with a red dragon last Hatching Day, and his family gets ten silver marks every season now that he’s a rider. I’ve seen him bring it to them.”

  “He does?” Anri whispered, trying to imagine so much money.

  “That’s right. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some egg hunting to do!” Rin hauled her pail of milk out of the pen and took it to Lady Dara to collect the copper bits for her work, leaving Anri sitting in stunned silence.

  Ten silver marks! That would more than cover all the money she made. It would even make up for their lost customers since Father died. Then Jamero could focus on learning his craft without worrying about losing customers.

  Why had she never heard of this before? In thoughtful silence, Anri finished milking her shufflo. When the pail was full and the shufflo’s udders were empty, she carried the milk to the gate to collect her copper bits.

  With her mind circling around the ten silver marks, Anri made her way to Elder Ronard’s cormant farm at the bottom of the hill just outside the city. The enormous birds had to be housed downwind of residences because the stench of their droppings reeked so badly most people would rather not breathe at all than have to smell them all the time.

  The young birds Anri cared for were too small to stay in the fields with the adults, so it was her job to feed them, water them, and rake the soiled straw out of their stall.