Dragon Count

by Kendal Davis

  In our winged formation of all the colors of my Guard, we flew as fast as we could. The light was fading into the slow but inevitable end of day. When the sun set, every dragon in my house would know that we were no longer upholding the law of Elter.

  There would be no sacrifice; on that point I was firmly decided.

  There would be another way.

  When we reached the spiked mountain range that was the territory of House Rubellus, I could sense Olivia’s trepidation. It was indeed a more rugged landscape than my own home. There was no sense of the pride of generations here, no care given to the upkeep of the town. All we could see was the harsh stone of their stronghold, and the bare, plain rows of houses that made up the village. Merely being here was a trespass worthy of attack.

  I braced myself for the aggression I knew would come, yet there was nothing. No red dragons flew at us, no flames arced through the air to sear the delicate human I carried on my back. It was desolate. There was no sign of movement at all.

  The dragons behind me slowed as I settled on the rocks adjacent to the House Rubellus landing stones. I was not quite on the property of the castle, but the nicety was wasted, as of course I was already on their mountain. Whatever. I mentally shrugged off the point.

  Other dragons settled around me, finding their balance on the sharp peaks. Cobalt huffed in the dry desert air next to me. He was ready for a fight.

  When I saw the tall, blonde off-worlder running toward us on the landing plateau, I saw that we might have a battle thrust on us whether we wanted it or not. No red dragon would allow us to carry this woman from their stronghold without trying to stop us. How was it that she had even gotten this far outside on her own?

  She raced across the flat stones, waving her arms and shouting something that I could not make out.

  Before she reached the edge of the landing area, at which a steep cliff cut downwards for what would seem to her like miles as she fell, her pursuers appeared. Three men of House Rubellus, still in two-legged form, still clad in their red cloaks, chased her. None of them was Brick.

  It was odd that he would be anywhere but here. I had been sure that he would meet us, relishing the chance to try to thwart our rescue attempt.

  Cobalt leaned forward, stretching his long blue neck toward Kat. She had run out of space, yet she was not near enough to us to climb onto his wing. Her face was flushed with agitation.

  “Stop!” Kat shouted at all of us. The other dragons waited for my signal. I could feel the unease in Olivia’s mind. Something about this was very wrong.

  Olivia called out to her friend. “Are you all right? Have they hurt you?”

  Kat brushed off the question with an impatient gesture. “No, I’m fine. That’s not the problem. You have to go! You don’t understand!”

  As she struggled to get out the words to tell us what she meant, the three men from House Rubellus reached a clear enough space that they could transform safely into their dragons. They disrobed first, as we had, but I noticed that they did not bother to leave their clothes in neat piles.

  Were they so far gone that they had abandoned the ways that kept us from descending into animal madness?

  I had heard Brick’s contempt for the practice; he had said that I wasted my time in upholding tidiness like an old peasant woman. But these red dragons were dangerously close to disregarding the balance that allowed for peace on Elter.

  Perhaps the truth was that they did not value peace.

  The three red dragons flung themselves into the air, ready to battle with us. Our numbers were so much greater as to make it a fool’s stunt. I listened to Olivia as the same thought crossed her mind.

  Kat shouted to us, ducking from the red dragon that was flying dangerously close to her. “It’s a trap! This is nothing but a diversion!”

  Cobalt turned his blue head to me, and I saw the worry for the blonde woman in his eyes. More than that, though, I could see his understanding that we needed to be careful. Her safety was at risk here, and the red dragons would do nothing to save her if she tripped and fell.

  Olivia called over to her friend, her words riding on the currents of the wind. “Kat! Where are the rest of them?”

  That was the question that we all needed to focus on right now. This place was all but deserted. Why?

  Kat shook her head. “All I know is that they are massed for war. I don’t know where they went. But they are counting on the fact that you would be here.”

  As she spoke, she ducked even lower against the stone plateau, holding her arms above her head to try to shield herself. The largest of the three red dragons in the air above her was diving at her.

  It wouldn’t matter how many we were up against, if they used hostage techniques to threaten Kat. I could not trade my dragons in battle for her safety. The equation didn’t work. The dragons were all immortal, but she was not. One misstep, and she could perish forever.

  And if that happened, I would lose my honor, and my House.

  And Olivia.

  Cobalt leaned even farther forward, so that the rocks he stood on began to crumble. He could not use flame; there was not enough space to do so without risking hurting Kat. However, he was able to stretch close enough to the red dragon harassing her that he grazed it with his teeth. It was not enough.

  I called out to my Guards. They were to fly in formation against the lower parts of the stronghold, flaming it until the red dragons stood down.

  No, not the town. I forestalled Olivia’s question and sent her the answer with my mind.

  Cobalt and I waited where we were, ready to pick up Kat when we could reach her safely. After long moments in which it seemed that the sky was growing brighter with flame rather than darker with the close of day, the three red dragons wheeled away from her.

  As the last one flew away from her, he bared his teeth at us. His sharp spines and bright red scales were a warning. Violence was, and would always be, the answer to any problem for the dragons of House Rubellus.

  He flicked his tail, almost so smoothly as to appear accidental. But it was a finely calculated movement, providing precisely the right push to send Kat over the edge of the stones. She reached out to grapple for a handhold, but there was none to be had.

  Just as Olivia had noted about the rocky landing area atop my own stronghold, these spaces were built for dragons. There were no railings, no walls to prevent falls. Any dragon who fell would change his shape instantly and fly away, glad to have the moment to soar through the air.

  For a human, though, the drop was calamitous.

  Kat fell, still holding her hands out to reach for something to stop her fall. Nothing helped.

  In the back of my mind, I was frantically sorting through what I knew about what was happening here at House Rubellus. A trap.

  Brick had brought the off-worlders here to throw my Countship off balance. He had taken Kat from us for the same reason. But what did he stand to gain from that?

  It was a trap within a trap.

  She plummeted.

  Chapter 19: Olivia

  Through my panic, I remembered that Indigo had told me once that he would always catch me. I felt my mind slowing down, gumming up with the fear that after all this, we’d finally met a problem we couldn’t solve.

  He and I were finally on the same side, and it would be for nothing.

  My friends and I had managed to survive transport from our own world to this land of dragons. Interdimensional transport. Fire-breathing dragons, each one so large that most of them still struck terror in my heart when I saw them up close.

  And they had a political system that relied on sacrificing humans.

  My group of four unwilling travelers had lived through all that. So far, at least. But now we would lose one of our number to something no more complicated than a fall from a steep edge.

  “Help! Indigo, help her!” I was screaming now, no longer frozen and no longer the fearless observer that I knew my dragon perceived me to be. Terror stole my b
reath. It made my heart lodge in my throat.

  But we were already moving. Indigo’s broad wings were taking us almost straight down, as we sped to the desert below us. Cobalt was on the wing, as well. Something gold shone in his powerful dragon claw.

  The Captain of the Guards reached Kat before we did. I could feel Indigo’s indignation at being beaten by his cousin’s speed as I watched Cobalt gather Kat within his wing.

  I sent Indigo a tart reminder that it was my friend’s life at stake. That was what was important here, not a competition between two dragons who wanted to show off.

  Can’t it be both?

  I snorted at him, but a smile came to my lips in answer as I saw that Kat was now perched securely on the blue ridges that ran along Cobalt’s back. “All right. If she’s safe, then it can be both.” I leaned against him in a semblance of an embrace as I sought to calm my nerves.

  We were flying low now, too near to the hot sand outside the town. Even the smallest glimpse of the landscape here was jarring to my peace of mind. This place was dreadful. It was so forbidding, emanating human unhappiness, that I suddenly understood why Indigo had appeared to take pride in the home comforts that were available to his peasants.

  It was all relative.

  Indigo had, on some level, been right. His townspeople led lives that were exponentially more comfortable than those of House Rubellus.

  “They are ruthless, aren’t they?” I spoke aloud to Indigo, even though I did not need to. He would hear me either way. At one time, I had felt invaded by his comprehension of my thoughts. Now it was a part of me that I welcomed. We flew as one.

  And we landed in the last place I’d thought we would. With the other dragons circling above us, waiting, Indigo and Cobalt slowed and came to rest within the town. As they landed, they dropped quickly into their human forms, so that in the blink of an eye, there were four of us together, standing on two legs and speaking normally to each other.

  As normally as was possible when our company was made up of two human women and two naked shifter men. Their bodies were slick with sweat from flying, and their muscles rippled with strength.

  Don’t look, don’t look, I instructed myself silently. I tried my hardest to keep my eyes on Indigo’s. He knew what I was thinking, though, and he also knew when I stole a glance downwards.

  My dragon Count barked a laugh. “Steady on. We aren’t finished yet.”

  He faced Kat, whose own aplomb was slightly crushed from her fall. She had more than I did to start with, though. I remembered her confidence at the beachside bar on Roatán the last night we’d spent there. She didn’t lack for positivity; she never had.

  Kat drew a long breath, then exhaled it as she gathered her wits. She spoke as quickly as she could. “We have to find them, and we have to do it now. The red dragons were preparing for war. I know it. It wasn’t with your rescue party, so where have they gone?”

  “Were they going to House Caeruleus?” Cobalt spoke intently. “That would make sense, given the plan to get us away from there. We’ve left it unprotected. Are they intending to invade our town?”

  “No, that’s not it.” Indigo spoke thoughtfully. “Look around. Their peasants have so little in their lives that they hide, even in the daylight. There is nothing here but fear, and they are mostly deadened to that. There is no happiness here, no fulfillment. This town has no emotion in it. There has been nothing here to use for dragon magic for a long time. Brick needs more than what he’ll find back at House Caeruleus. The magnitude of what’s missing here is astounding.”

  I swept my gaze around the streets that connected to the courtyard that we occupied. He was right. This town had none of the lively movement or daily purpose that we’d seen back at House Caeruleus. All the people here were hidden indoors, most of them not even bothering to peer out at us from behind their curtains The few faces I saw were expressionless, sagging in resignation or apathy.

  Again, I felt a wave of sympathy for what Indigo had tried to accomplish in the town that was his responsibility. He had nurtured a sense of order that most people would say was akin to happiness. It was not freedom, but it was something. Even treating the peasants as pets, as I thought he did, was better than what was happening here.

  He cleared his throat, ending in a dragon’s growl. Although I trusted him, the sound made me shake with nervousness. Who could stop a dragon as angry as this?

  Indigo frowned at me. All trace of laughter had left his eyes for the first time since I had met him. The arrogant Count who had brushed aside my ideals, then romanced me, perhaps coming to a new understanding of my worldview was gone. Those human feelings were gone, tucked away now.

  Now he was filled with the fire of an outraged dragon.

  He looked at Cobalt and said, “We can get there. We have to.” To me and Kat, he explained in a curt voice. “They have massed for war, but they do not plan to wage it in this world. I know where they have gone. I can see now what all this has been building toward.”

  I opened my mouth to ask, but understanding flooded into me before I could speak. “Their portal between the worlds,” I gasped.

  He nodded. “They are going to your dimension. They will take your people and wring the emotions from them as they destroy them. Only that will generate enough power to revive what has gone wrong here.”

  “How do they know they will succeed in building magic from the people of my world? Are you all so sure that our kind of people will even work for this?”

  Indigo’s eyes blazed, as magic that he was perhaps unaware that he was generating spiraled in the sky above him. “It will work because it has been done before. In our age of chaos, we visited your world many times. We rained terror among your people. We destroyed entire civilizations without noticing or caring.”

  I stared, not knowing how to answer.

  Indigo nodded at me wearily. “I wanted to tell you this, but I hoped you already knew. Our peasants are your relatives. Their bloodlines are from your world, from long ago. Did you think we called you visitors peasants merely because you lack wings?”

  Kat and I were both still, mesmerized by what he was saying.

  “Your world would be far less backward now, if it had not been devastated by Elterian dragons so long ago.” Indigo went on, not sparing our feelings.

  “Hey now,” I protested limply. “We are proud of our world’s progress. We love where we come from.”

  “I know,” Indigo said. “I feel every emotion that flits across your mind. It is breathtaking and wonderful.”

  Cobalt completed the thought. “And that is what House Rubellus will take from your world if we don’t get there in time to stop them.” He held out his tanned, manly hand, opening his fingers to reveal the gold knot brooch that Laurel had made. It had been the key to Brick’s plot to sideline Cobalt and prevent him from helping Indigo. Before that, though it had been the vessel that Laurel had made for her honest, human magic.

  He passed it to me. I did not know why, or what I might do with it.

  But the brooch, cool and smooth against my palm in the heat of the desert town, felt utterly right. Somehow, I would find the way to use Laurel’s magic to close the portal of House Rubellus.

  If I did not, the marauding red dragons would destroy the home world that I loved.

  Chapter 20: Indigo

  My cousin and I sprang into the air, transforming into blue dragons as we did. We paused only briefly to scoop up our human riders on wingtips and then deposit them on our backs. It required a great deal of strength to fly upward from that sort of beginning, but we were equal to the task. Cobalt and I had been best friends for our entire lives, growing up together as the scions of our House.

  My parents had been proud of both of us when they left for their retirement in House Argentum. When my father had decided it was time to relinquish his duties as Count, he had admonished me to keep Cobalt at my side as my chief advisor. I had never doubted the wisdom of that. More, I had never had a friend in
whom I put more trust.

  Together, we flew, sweeping across the wide, bright desert to the location of the portal of House Rubellus. All the Guardsmen that had come with us from my House followed behind, creating a trail of colors through the air. I could feel Olivia’s urgent wish that we could teleport within the territory of another House, and for once I heartily agreed with that idea. Any other day, I would have said that flying was a pure joy for me, that stretching my wings across a distance like this was a pleasure.

  Today, though, we were racing against the clock. The fate of Olivia’s world depended on our reaching the army of red dragons in time. I would not know their number until we reached them, but I had an inkling of how many dragons of that House might be there, and it was daunting.

  How would our small band of my Guardsmen be able to defeat a dragon army that was intended for invasion? And if real battle loomed, rather than the simple rescue mission we had come on, shouldn’t we leave Olivia and Kat behind?

  She read my mind, without even needing a dragon’s telepathic abilities to do so. Somehow, she was always more attuned to my thoughts than she ought to be, as a mere human. She leaned forward and slapped the scales that graced my lower neck.

  “No, you will not leave us behind,” she shouted into the wind. “Don’t even consider it, you...dragon.”

  I laughed with the pure enjoyment that knowing her gave me. Our relationship would have to go on. My need for her presence was increasing the longer I knew her. Olivia was my future, if only she could embrace that idea as I did.

  When we reached the spot we intended to, however, my mirth left me. All four of us looked in despair at the scene below. The army of red dragons had landed on the sand, spread out as far as we could see in battle formation. The sand was dangerously hot for humans, but was no trouble at all for the heat-loving scales and strong feet of a dragon.