Legacy of Dragons- Emergence

by T D Raufson

Each stroke made her feel better. She could feel the agitation ease as she worked out the neglected muscles. Charles was just worried about her safety, but his preference that she not fly around the estate was hurting her. An adult dragon had to fly to keep fluid from building up in their lungs. There was a cost to being a large flying creature, but she would pay that cost any day. She stroked her wings to climb higher into the cool morning air.

  That is more like home.

  Melissa instinctively flinched but there was no pain from the thought. Home was not here, and wherever home was it was cooler. The odd memory without pain made her think that there might be a way around the pain.

  So where is home?

  In an attempt to tease the answer from her mind, she asked herself a question, and her head protested as it had in the past. She whimpered softly to the air in frustration.

  At a thousand feet above the ground, she leveled. There was no need to fly any higher for the trip across the top of the mountain to the estate that looked into the valley on the other side. The view on that side was urban and would have more traffic at this hour, but none of them would be looking up for dragons. Her mother often talked about how she loved to look out from her back patio into the lights of the quiet city below her. The streets were visible below her as she circled around the mountain peak and turned toward the house sitting out on the edge. As she circled to align her approach with the estate’s sloping back yard, the city lights were replaced with the darkness of the forested mountaintop of Walden’s Ridge, where all types of people looking for a secluded place to live bought property. Some kept farms because they loved the lifestyle and wanted nothing to do with the city below them. Others used the relative seclusion of their farms to hide what they didn’t want their neighbors to know about. Charles had organized, at a high cost, a supply of livestock to feed them from several of the farms on this ridge and the pastoral Sequatchie Valley beyond it.

  Nickliad liked to hunt too.

  “Yes, he did, but he is not Nickliad anymore. He’s something far worse.”

  Perhaps.

  Melissa felt the trickle of sadness in the voice in her head. She could not distinguish if it was at their inability to hunt without attracting too much attention or if it was for her one time mate who now hated her. She chose to believe it was for the lost hunting. It was another of the instinctive needs of a dragon that had to be set aside, for the moment.

  Believe what you like.

  Melissa smiled at the comforting agitation her internal thought caused. She was not sure if it was keeping her sane or making her mad. Either way, if she could figure out what she was supposed to do, she might be able to get dragons back some of their ancient freedoms, but first she had to discover what had really happened.

  All of the lights were on at her parents’ estate. Her mother, who liked to sleep late, was pacing back and forth on the brick and stone back patio. That alone validated her morning flight, but the erratic pattern her wings made as they twitched on her back made Melissa consider turning around.

  Before she could change her mind, she folded her wings back to release air and sacrifice all lift, committing herself to the visit. She needed to get down. Twenty feet above the house, she flared and stopped her descent. With powerful backstrokes, she settled onto the edge of the patio where her mother made room for her.

  Kaliastrid’s spines were up and rigid, and her foreclaws were cycling like scissors.

  “What’s wrong?” Melissa asked as she landed. “Something felt off, and I came here. Why?”

  “The females and children have disappeared. They’re gone without telling me or anyone. I’ve tried to contact them, and I get fearful returns and images of imprisonment. There are two dead half-dragons on the floor of my living room.”

  “Why? Why would they attack us overtly? There’s no way for them to know who’s a dragon and who isn’t, is there?”

  We can sense them, but they can’t sense us without training.

  Kaliastrid roared into the brightening morning light. The pain of her mental search dulled her eyes, and she shook her head. “This is not right. I knew last night that something was wrong, something in how Valdiest was talking.”

  Melissa turned her head to look at her mother and raised her tail into the air.

  “No. I don’t think he had anything to do with this; not directly. Perhaps by inaction, but he would never act against other dragons this way.”

  “You think Nethliast is involved?”

  She shook her head violently. “I don’t know. As soon as I killed those things,” she pointed into the house, “I knew my concern was warranted, but I never expected they would attack the others. I’m his mate. I’m always a target. But the others are innocents in all of this. What gain does it bring to take them hostage?”

  “None of this makes sense. We’re dragons. We don’t take hostages. We kill anyone who threatens us, our clutches, or our hoards,” Melissa answered.

  “That’s how we used to be, true, but generations of being human, the crazy overlapping memories, and jigsaw-puzzle history has us confused about what we are,” Kaliastrid said as she shifted across the stones again. “I’ve already contacted Valdiest this morning. It’s been a busy morning over there.”

  Her look struck Melissa. There was fear in her eyes, and that was most terrifying on the face of a dragon.

  “Nethliast removed him as head of the conclave. He overthrew your father.”

  “What? That’s not like him. He’s always worshiped father. I know he saw the throne as his someday, but he wouldn’t usurp the throne. He respects the royal lineage too much.”

  “It seems we really can’t trust what we remember about ourselves.”

  Melissa dropped her head toward her chest and sat back onto her tail. She thought through all of the events since they had emerged before she spoke again.

  “Do you think the half-dragons are connected, or is it just a coincidence? Is Nethliast aligned with the abominations?”

  You can’t believe that!

  Melissa shook her head at the conflict from her own mind.

  “I don’t know.”

  Her mother’s answer silenced the conflict.

  “It all seems too curious,” she continued. “Valdiest said the meeting changed this morning. He said the South Americans didn’t come back, and groups that had been on the fence yesterday, after Nethliast’s rant, came back ready to vote for his proposal without further conversation.”

  What? Unlikely. Melissa’s inner voice cried with incredulity.

  Someone less familiar with dragon politics would think very little of that comment, but male dragons never abandoned the opportunity to analyze something to the bone before deciding something. An individual dragon would act out of anger or spite instinctively. As dragon civilization had developed from their angry, greedy history that much human legend was based on, the males had learned how to debate, and rarely did two males come to a decision quickly without some external motivation.

  “Power has shifted somehow. Nethliast did not have enough support from other dragons to accomplish this.”

  “So, Nethliast used half-dragons to take hostages and shifted power among the dragons.”

  “Perceived power, yes. True dragon power is never invested in the male, but this has perverted that somehow. Something has allowed him to wrest control not only from the civilized government we respect but also from a far more ancient and underlying structure… Ahhh!”

  Melissa turned to look at Kaliastrid. Her foreclaws were on either side of her head, and her eyes looked tortured with pain. The memory had cost her mother a lot.

  “The males will never stand for this. They’ll kill him.”

  “A thousand years ago, this would never have happened. The talisman is missing.” Kaliastrid turned to look at Melissa with a dawning realization showing on her face. “Yes, that’s it. There’s no power to control the males, and they don’t recognize the power when they see it.”

 
; Kaliastrid nodded at Melissa, who was confused and trying to follow her mother’s line of thinking, which had suddenly changed directions.

  “They, like us, have memories of human lives. That has changed the way they look at things. Where before, they would have frenzied and killed Nethliast immediately, independent of the danger to their young or mate; now they might wait to see if they can save them. Valdiest warned me that Nethliast was up to something. Valdiest doesn’t know what, but he was out all night last night and he’s having private meetings.”

  “So he’s made a deal with the half-dragons.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He hates humans. Why would he?”

  “Because he’s more like a dragon than any of us.”

  “Is he? Really? Is that what you think, mother? Where we really that bad before?”

  “I don’t know.” Her claws clashed in front of her eyes and she shook her head. “I know that the one thing that keeps us together is missing. I know that, any time I try to figure out what’s happened, my head feels like someone’s stoking a fire in it. This is not the way we were, but it’s the way we can be.”

  “Is that why we cast the spell? Was it because we couldn’t live alongside humans?” Melissa shook her head to try to relieve the sudden pressure that filled it with her attempt to remember.

  “I can’t answer that, but Nethliast makes me wonder.”

  “Is father going to stay there?” The question she wanted to ask was, ‘is father still helping Nethliast?’ Kaliastrid’s eyes told her the answer; he wasn’t coming home yet.

  “Come home with me. It’s not safe here.”

  “It’s as safe here as it is anywhere.”

  “I know, but I would rather know you were safe with me. Power in numbers and all.”

  “I’ll be over later. I need to get rid of those things.”

  “Don’t be long. I don’t like the way this feels. No matter how much my honorable and ancient dragon mind cares about Nethliast, I don’t trust his motivation. If he was behind this, we’re his enemy.”

  This is not like Nickliad at all. Perhaps you are right about his being different.

  The concession surprised Melissa, and she nearly missed her mother’s next comment.

  “You’re worse. He sees you as a sympathizer.”

  “What…? Yes. In a way, I am. The humans don’t deserve this, they have done nothing to us. We don’t attack humans without cause. I know that in my bones without thinking about it. He’s reacting to his human emotions, and now he’s using human tactics that normally would not work against dragons.” She swished her tail across the tile patio.

  “But now he has cause to rally the males behind him even without their captured families.”

  Melissa thought about that. What had happened? Kaliastrid had another surprise for her in this morning of surprises. She was not ready for another. She waited for the answer.

  “He was attacked over Germany,” Kaliastrid answered. “He says it was unprovoked. He says they attacked him. The news only reports the incident. The video is horrible quality, but it is clear to anyone who can see what it shows. Humans will believe what they’re told, much like dragon males. The surviving pilot reported what he saw. Added to the sightings since we emerged and the news has no problem saying it was a dragon”

  “And he survived?”

  Kaliastrid nodded

  “So, what does this mean?”

  “You know what it means. He has everything he needs now—Doubt about the human’s intentions; leverage to get control; and an attack that he can say was unprovoked.” She paused. “When he came back to the conclave he was glowing and telling them that he was attacked. Two holes in his shoulder and the news going crazy was all he needed. Most of the dragons were convinced immediately, whether he was holding hostages or not.”

  Melissa growled. He was going to get them all hunted to extinction. He had ripped the veil. What had been assumptions and possibilities was now known.

  “Enough of that.” Kaliastrid yanked her out of her reverie. “Nothing we can do about it here. How’s Elaine?”

  “I’m not sure, really. Heliantra invited her to visit and told her we needed her help. She didn’t tell her anything specific. She has those pages of a novel and she’s reading them, but it is too soon to know what all of this means. Charles and I believe she may be the only way we can figure out what happened.”

  Kaliastrid looked at Melissa closely.

  “You know she’s enchanted, somehow, and she really understands all of Heliantra’s stories. I think we should tell her the truth and see if she can help us.”

  Kaliastrid nodded but her tail was rigid behind her head. “You need to solve this soon, before it gets out of hand. Based on this morning’s events, we’re running out of time, and we’ve made very little progress. Things are going to get worse and rapidly. We have no allies. Trust Heliantra.”

  “You’ve stopped wondering, then?”

  The change in Kaliastrid was dynamic. She moved toward the door to the house and transformed.

  “We’re out of time,” she said in answer to Melissa’s question. “Time to act. You need to get that girl started, now. I need to get this cleaned up. We have to marshal what we have. Mel, have her focus on finding the talisman. We need it to solve this problem.” Kaliastrid stopped and looked back at her. The look on her face asked why Melissa was still standing there.

  “Why didn’t she pick you?”

  “Who, Heliantra?”

  A smile formed on Kaliastrid’s face. She laughed.

  “She never trusted me. I was too reckless, and, as soon as you were born, any hope for me was lost in her eyes. She loved you from the first crack of your shell.”

  Melissa felt sorry for her mother for a moment and then realized it was her human emotions playing with her.

  “A wise leader must know how to use her assets, however they’re best applied. Think of me as an adviser, if you must, but I’ve always been better at breaking than fixing.”

  Melissa nodded and accepted that her mother was not hurt by the place she held and was, in fact quite comfortable with it.

  “Then you’ll be over as soon as you’re done?”

  “Yes, I can’t deny the wisdom of closing ranks. We need to find our answer now more than ever.”

  Melissa smiled.

  “I’ll see you then. Be careful.”

  Melissa flapped into a hover and turned toward home. Nethliast was underestimating the humans. Even she knew they had weapons a dragon could never resist. The picture of the basilisk lying in a pool of blood in a London street came back to her, and she suddenly saw her mother laying there. Her agitation made her speed up to get home, but, as she dropped toward the estate a few minutes later, the ominous sound of a helicopter rushed up behind her. The sound alone was not troubling as there were enough of them around during the day, but in her rush and excitement to leave she had broken her own rule. She was out and exposed during the day. She dropped toward the ground to hide among the ground clutter and hope they had not seen her. After a few moments of hope that she had not been seen, the speed and location of the helicopter told her she was wrong.

  She turned to look. Maybe it was a TVA chopper running the river power lines, she hoped. The military markings on the side of the olive-drab body told her it was trouble. Her actions were predestined. She had no intentions of fighting them and becoming the next dragon on the news. She was almost home. The cave was her only option, and with effort she could reach it before they saw her. Dipping her wings and aiming directly for the dark hole in the cliff side, she flapped harder for the ledge.

  In an instant, she was plunging from the air toward the hole and drawing her wings back. She stretched her body out and arrowed straight at the hole, but it had not been soon enough. The change in the air told her they were coming after her. No chance they hadn’t seen her. How long would they wait before firing on her? The cave was not far away, but she could not outrun their mac
hine guns if they chose to attack. She had no idea what Nethliast’s flight had caused, but the presence of a military helicopter in the valley was unusual. Just before she slammed into the stone landing, she threw out her wings and flapped back to try to hover. She failed but was able to slow down enough that she only slid across the floor inside rather than slamming into the rock wall.

  She hopped on into the cave and settled onto the floor with her forelegs spread out at wide angles to stop her forward slide. They could have killed her. She panted at the exertion and trembled. What were they going to do now?

  Apparently Nethliast’s actions had more than hunt squads out looking for dragons, and her morning flight had attracted their attention. With one action, dragons were hunted again and this time with more than metal swords and lances. Modern men had never hunted dragons. Dragons had never stood against modern weapons. They could resist magic because they were magical, but the powerful weapons of the modern world would rip through the armor that had protected them from older weapons. Rifles and pistols would not hurt them, but there were weapons that were more powerful in the human arsenal.

  “Mother, you can’t fly here. The humans are looking for us. I attracted their attention by flying out to meet you this morning. If you fly, they’ll kill you. We can’t outrun them, and there are more of them than there are of us.”

  She hadn’t been able to keep the panic from her message.

  “Understood.”

  Again Kaliastrid proved that she was the calm one. Melissa needed her alive, not risking her neck flying around.

  The helicopter was circling. She could hear them outside the cave, but she didn’t dare look out. Charles would know how long they would search. If she could get up to the house without them seeing her, she could figure out what to do. Transforming into her human form, she charged up the stairs. At the top, she paused to breathe. She knew there was no way to avoid being seen when she opened the secret door, but she couldn’t stay hidden down here either.

  You’re a magical being.

  The thought caused her to pause, and she realized slowly what her mind was trying to tell her. With the slightest movement of her hand and a breath of concentration, she disappeared. The door would open and close—she couldn’t help that—but they wouldn’t see anything come out. Maybe they wouldn’t be looking. Maybe they were focused on the cave entrance below.