"Turn back," says a man with a purple pointed hat and a beard threaded with silver. He stands in the center of the blockade and the group defers to him. "Turn back before you desecrate the sacred light once more."
Landon scoffs. "Let us through, priest. Without Ashknights defending the wall, you and all your kind would be dead. All of us would. Killed by your precious gods."
The man frowns, but does not back down. "You know not of what you speak, but the gods forgive you. The truth comes to us all in due time."
Landon looks around nervously, wondering what he should do. It's the thought on everyone's mind.
Vane jumps down from his horse and walks toward the priests, his wolf, as always, at his heel.
They look frightened of Vane, but they don't abandon their positions. "Turn back, defiler, lest the wrath of the gods curse you and turn you to ash where you stand. We are prepared to die for our gods. Are you truly prepared to harm those who do not bare arms against you? Would you sacrifice the lives of unarmed men and women for our beliefs?"
Vane walks up to the old man and grabs him by his chains. "Move."
"No!" he screams.
The others begin chanting in an ancient language, their voices carrying far and wide. Somewhere beyond the wall I hear an inhuman screech. Was that a dragon? Umi crouches around my neck at the sound.
"I will stand strong," the priest says. "I will—"
Vane pulls on the chains, yanking the entire group to the side as if they were dolls strung together. A few collapse to the ground, but none seem seriously injured, and the Wall is no longer blocked from our passage.
"Just how strong is he?" I whisper.
"Some say he has the strength of ten men," Mabel says, her eyes glued to the muscular man, her lips parted slightly. "Others say a hundred."
Zev scoffs. "Unlikely."
Mabel doesn't seem to hear Zev, or the disdain in his voice. "They say Master Vane's not from this world, but came here once to train and now returns on occasion to teach. Mark my words, this is only a taste of what a Twin Spirit can accomplish." There's a glow to her eyes as she speaks, and I wonder if she's dreaming of power, or just dreaming of Master Vane's muscles. Probably both.
To the side of the Wall, the head priest struggles to stand with the support of two of his followers and then leads his people back to their protest position, but Vane steps on a link of the chain, holding him and the entire group back. "Ashlings, forward," he says, gesturing to the circle of stone.
Once we ride up to the gate, Vane catches up on horseback and motions to a man and woman positioned by the archway next to a giant stone wheel. They nod simultaneously and clasp handles on the wheel, then turn. The stone moves the chain that holds the purple crystal, and it begins to rise, pulling it so high that it disappears within the ring of stone and the light it casts out disappears with it. This has created an opening under the archway, allowing people to pass. As we ride through, I move my horse to the side, where Vane waits, watching us pass. "Can we touch the light?" I ask.
He nods. "Go ahead, Ashling."
I reach out my hand towards the glowing iridescent blue wall, and when my skin connects with it, it pushes back, like a wave of wind charged with static. My fingers feel weak and my head fuzzy as the energy of the Wall pulses through me.
Landon, who stopped to watch, grabs my arms and pulls it away. "You okay?"
I nod, feeling better now that I'm no longer touching it.
Vane glances at me. "The Wall of Light blocks Spirits as well as flesh from passing. That is why there are no Spirits, Pure or Corrupted, within these walls, save the ones we bring within us." He rides on and we follow.
Zev and Landon ride on either side of me and Zev shares more of his book knowledge. "Dragons who absorb Spirits grow in strength and Spirit. That is why the Wall keeps them weaker."
"It seems to make Twin Spirits like us weaker as well," I say. "At least while we're touching the light."
He nods.
Vane leads us deeper into the Ashlands. "When you become Ashknights, it will be your duty to defend this wall. Your entire training will be dedicated to preparing you for this task. Today you will watch and observe only. Mind the women and men you see today. They are what you are trying to become. Ask them any questions you may have, but do not waste their time with nonsense or distract them during critical moments."
There will be critical moments? The full weight of where we are hits me at once. We're in dragon territory now.
My palms sweat as we pass a stone tower with a pyre of wood at the top.
"That's one of the watchtowers," Vane says. "It is guarded at all times and lit if dragons are spotted near the wall, warning those at the gates."
The pyre of wood is burning an orange and red blaze high into the sky.
Dragons are near.
We ride on, traveling a dirt path that seems to be made from horses stomping over it time and time again.
We still have no sun by the time we reach our destination, and I wonder how early—or rather late—we left. We must not have gotten more than an hour or two of sleep. I see Zev yawn and Mabel's eyelids flutter from exhaustion.
But all signs of sleep depravation vanish quickly when Vane moves us forward to see what we've been brought here for. We have arrived at one of the outposts, and two large wagons sit, tethered to several massive Boxen.
One wagon carries supplies, and the other carries a ballista.
Three Ashknights sit on the wagons in dark cloaks with spears at their sides.
Vane leads us to a huge pit dug into the earth. We dismount our horses and lean in to see what is trapped there.
My breath catches in my throat and I can't stop staring at the creature below. It's the size of a small house, and is screeching so loud it's almost defining. It has reptilian wings and is clawing at the sides of the caves. Its body glows with scales that look like gemstones. More specifically, like dragonstone.
"This is a Hatchling," Vane says. "Or what you might know as a baby dragon."
Twenty-Seven
Hatchling
I stare, wide-eyed, and I can see I'm not the only one of my squad mates who are in awe. But it's Enzo and I who are most stunned by this. With everything that has happened… losing my baby, dying, getting a dragon Spirit, even seeing Kaden transform, I realize I still haven't fully processed that all this is real. That this is a world with dragons. I grew up on a world that doesn't have dragons. That doesn't believe they exist. Dragons were myth. Fairytales. Fantasies. But here, right here in front of my own eyes, is a dragon. A real, live, living, breathing dragon. Not a Spirit. Not a shape-shifting human. A full on fire-breathing dragon.
And if this giant beast is a baby, I don't know that I want to meet its mother.
"It's huge," Mabel says. "How'd you catch it?"
"And can't it fly out?" I ask.
"Dragons can't fly until they reach full maturity," Vane says. "The young ones are easier to hunt and harvest. We dig a large, deep pit, like this one, then build a patch over it out of thin wood that we cover with leaves. Then we toss some raw meat in the center of it and wait. When the hatchling goes for the meat, the wood can't support its weight, and it breaks. The hatchling falls into the pit, trapped. Then, we kill it."
I can see the dragon trample over bits of wood and leaves beneath its claws as it frantically tires to find a way out of the hole. I feel bad for it, and wonder how I will do this job, killing dragons. It feels… wrong.
Sad.
Like hunting puppies.
Giant man-killing puppies with claws and teeth the size of children. But still.
"Ready Cilia?" Vane calls.
One of the Ashknights, a woman with short, golden hair, nods. "Ready." She maneuvers the ballista and aims it down at the hatchling. Her comrades talk as she gets the dragon in her sights.
"Bet you twenty coppers she hits it the first time," a dark haired man says.
The tawny man next to him laughs. "Bet you th
irty she doesn't."
"Thirty. So be it." They shake and Cilia rolls her eyes. "Don't you two have anything better to do?" she asks.
"You mean other than watch you do all the hard work? Nah. Think we're good here," the dark haired man says with good humor.
She chuckles, then returns her focus to the hatchling, taking aim. She releases the bolt and it flies into the pit, striking the hatchling near the tail. The baby dragon hisses in fury and turns its head toward us, shrieking.
I shiver at the sound. It's haunting, like a child possessed and screaming into wind.
The tawny one laughs. "Missed. Pay up."
The other sighs and pulls out some coins from a pouch at his belt.
Celia takes aim again. This time, the bolt embeds itself in the hatchling's head, piercing its skull. I suck in my breath, holding it as I watch the life drain out of the poor beast. Its body jerks, its cry dies out in one final flare of agony, and then it collapses. It twitches a few times, then goes still.
"Good shot," says the Ashknight who lost the original bet. "Hope you weren't holding back the first time."
She shrugs, a small grin playing on her lips.
"Wait, you weren't holding back? Were you?"
The other man laughs with a loud guffaw and slaps the loser on the back. "Life lessons, my friend. Shouldn't have pissed her off last week in drills."
Celia doesn't reply to their banter, but instead tosses him a rope from one of the wagons. "Come. Let's pull it up before the day gets away from us."
Vane turns to us, and I remember to breathe again. "Watch carefully. This will be your job someday."
The Ashknights jump into the pit and tie ropes around the hatchling's body, then they jump out, using their Spirit power fluidly, as an extension of themselves. The ropes are tied to the two carts, and the Ashknights guide them forward, using the strength of the Boxen's pulling them to drag the hatchling out of the pit.
We get a closer look at the baby dragon now. It's dark blue, not black—as it had looked in the pit. And its body seems made of crystal, reflecting fractals of light in all directions as the sun hits it. Like my necklace.
The hatchling is beautiful. Majestic. And now, dead.
The Ashknights get to work like hunters skinning and gutting its kill. They remove the horns and spikes first, filling canvas bags with their loot.
"They collect the dragonstone," Vane says. "Which will be ground into powder and used to make powerful concoctions. The most famous one, of course, extends life. Bottles of it will be sold to the noble houses throughout Nirandel, and in exchange, Dragoncliff will receive the funds it needs for weapons, training and maintenance of the fort."
"So this is just a business transaction?" I ask, a bit appalled by this. Hunting for profit. Killing for greed.
Vane looks at me, but I can't read his expression. "These hunts serve many functions. They keep our Ashknights fight ready. They keep our organization funded so that we can continue to protect the worlds from Corrupted Spirits, and so that we can continue to train future Ashknights and Ashlords."
"If dragonstone is so valuable, why not breed the dragons in captivity to harvest them?"
"Some have tried," he says. "But dragons need room to grow. Put a small hatchling in a cage and it will never outgrow it. Thus, it will never reach maturity and you will never be able to breed more. Unfortunately, there is no material strong enough to hold a fully grown dragon. The Wall of Light is as close to a cage as we can get. It's dangerous within the Wall, and you can't take a living dragon out."
"Why not?" Enzo asks.
"A man tried it once," Vane says. "Felius the Fool they call him now. Took three dragons out for experimentation. Soon enough, they absorbed a Spirit that came close enough to them. They grew stronger in size and magic, and they broke free, destroying an entire village. It took six Ashlords to put them down, and one died in that fight."
Landon's hand curls into a fist. "But this… " He looks at the hatchling, who has had more of its parts removed as we talked. "This is slaughter. I thought I was leaving a corrupt world behind, where the strong fed off the weak, but I see this is the same. Always the same."
I glance at the blond by my side, my sympathies siding with him. This is hard to take in. Hard to stomach the thought that my life will be one of a dragon killer.
Vane moves closer to Landon, standing inches from his face. "You think this is dishonorable? Killing hatchlings? Would you rather leave them be until they are fully grown? Until they are the size of mountains? Until they come for the Wall and shatter the gates and destroy all you hold dear?"
Landon's face pales, and my heart thumps louder in my chest. Vane steps back to look at all of us. "Believe me. You will face a grown dragon soon enough. And on that day, you will wish you could have killed it as a hatchling."
He paces in front of us. "There are drakes who fly within these walls, behemoths who tower over hills, and ancient ones larger than any creature you can imagine. We must do what we can to curb their numbers. If not, another Sundering will come. Sooner than you think."
I crane my neck to whisper to Zev. "What's a Sundering?"
"A time when dragons attacked the Wall, attempting to breach it. The legends say there have been three Sunderings throughout history, and that another will come again. Some prophets say this will be soon, but they are ravings of madmen and are not taken seriously. But this is why Ashknights must defend the Wall. If the dragons ever broke free, they would consume all the Spirits and all the flesh in the world, and then move on to the next, and the next, until nothing is left."
My eyes widen. "Dragons can move between worlds?" I ask, my voice hushed as the Ashknights finish their task.
Zev nods. "When a dragon absorbs a Spirit, it gains powers no one fully understands. One of those powers is to travel between worlds. It's happened before. A dragon breaks through a gate, absorbs a Spirit, then ends up on Gai." He turns to look at me. "That's your world. That's where your stories of dragons come from. Ashlords quickly depart and put the beast down before it grows even more powerful. It is one reason Ashknights guard the Wall, while Ashlords travel the worlds. A dragon who has escaped and fed off a Spirit is the greatest threat humanity has ever seen."
I pause, soaking in that information. It's a lot to take in. I think of all the tales of valiant knights defeating dragons. Of all the lore and history that my world has about these creatures, even while believing it is fantasy. But this makes sense. Why else would so many cultures have stories like these? Shared images and symbols and myths about great winged beasts? Where else does fantasy and myth come from than some kind of hidden truth, buried by time and trickery?
"Why not have your strongest Ashlords manning the Wall?" I ask. "If the threat is that great."
"It used to be so, once," he says. "But the Sundering is more myth than history now, and the lords of the realms care more about Corrupted Spirits than dragons they never see. That threat isn't real to them, whereas family and friends getting taken by a Spirit… that is. To them, our true role is to control the Spirits. To them, the Wall is just an excuse to keep the gemstone trade to ourselves. If some had their way, the Ashlords would no longer even guard the Wall of Light—"
"Stop whispering and pay attention," Vane says, pointing to the Ashknights. "One day, this will be your duty, and you're going to wish you had learned all you can now."
"Yes, Master," Zev and I say in unison, as we turn our eyes to the bags of dragonstone being loaded into the cart. I look back at the dragon, and shudder to see what remains. It is a pile of meat. Nothing more. Even the bones have been harvested. "Is there no use for what is left?" I ask, my eyes glued to the macabre sight.
Vane follows my eyes, and his face is hard. Expressionless. As always. "The other dragons will feed on the remains. Dragon meat is considered tainted by many humans, unlucky or sacrilegious to eat by others."
"Sacrilegious? So they honor the old ways in this, but are fine harvesting the rest of body
and ingesting it for power?" I ask, my bias clearly showing.
"Humans are not consistent creatures," Vane says softly. "They cover their own sins with pretty lies and justifications. To attempt to find reason in that is a wasteful use of time."
"You speak as if you are not human," I say, studying the enigmatic master more closely.
He raises an eyebrow at me, but we are interrupted as Celia shouts from one of the wagons. "Everyone mount up. Let's get out of here."
Vane walks away, leading his wolf toward his horse, and I mount mine and follow as we ride for the gate, this time more slowly with the wagons carrying the weight of the harvested dragon's body.
"We travel by the ridge," Celia says, turning the cart to the right.
Vane frowns. "Not many places to maneuver there, should the need arise."
"But it provides cover from the skies," she says. "Gods willing, we'll pass through these lands unnoticed."
"Gods willing," Vane says, but he does not seem convinced of this plan, and I get a pit in my stomach. The kind of pit I would get when a fire was about to go sideways.
I learned to listen to this pit, but I have no power, influence or authority here. So I keep my wits about me, stay focused, and do as I'm told.
I stay close to Vane, while the rest trail behind us.
"These lands remind me of my realm," Vane says, surprising me. "It is a cold region, but wild and free, with tall trees and wide mountains. Good for hunting."
"So it's true you're not from this world?" I ask, pulling my horse closer to his so we can speak more freely.
"I am not. As you are not," he says, looking at me. "My wife, she is from your world. It was tough for her, at first, coming to a strange land. Giving up the modern conveniences Gai offers. She had to learn much the same way as you, to master a new power, to negotiate the politics, social norms and moralities of a place so foreign." He pauses, still looking closely at me. I try not to squirm under his scrutiny. "She'd like you. And you'd like her. You both have a great deal of compassion. Just do not let that get you killed."
Of Dreams and Dragons Page 22