And to think that once upon a time he was scared of flying, I thought. As the last of the riders mounted their dragons, I swung myself onto Jaydra’s back, my hands clasping the smooth spines and scales with practiced ease as I clambered to my seat at the base of her long neck, and settled in. I didn’t need any harness or saddle, seeing as I had been clambering all over Jaydra since I was but a toddler, but Bower had made sure I had one anyway. “We’re going into the heat of battle,” he had said. “I can’t take any chances that you might be knocked off.”
Neither can I! Jaydra said, and I rolled my eyes and clipped myself in.
“As if you could ever drop me” I said warmly, placing my hands on the side of her large neck, and feeling it swell with every breath and thump with every powerful heartbeat.
And then the final of the three dragon’s horn calls. This was it.
“Dragons and Dragon Riders of the Middle Kingdom!” Bower shouted from behind me, using not only his voice, but also his dragon ability to send his words into the minds of every dragon present. “Now is the day of our liberation. Now is the day we seize the justice that has been so long denied us. Fly! Fly!”
With a surge of movement, pounding clawed feet and the snap of leathery wings like sails, we charged the sky, soaring eastwards towards the tyrant king.
As soon as we left the safety of the foothills and had emerged into the lower lands of the Middle Kingdom proper, half of our flight of dragons peeled away and headed northwards, following the curve of hills and gullies.
It had taken an hour or so of hand gestures and shouted orders, but Bower and I had conveyed our intention to split the force into two, with the most experienced fliers leading the second flight. Even if the warriors got lost, the island and mountain dragons would be able to find each other again—their brothers, sisters, and friends. The group peeled away a little awkwardly, it wasn’t the smooth and practiced V of migrating birds I had hoped for, but there were no near misses this time, and no startled squawks from any dragons, at least.
“They’ll be fine,” Bower called at me. Though judging from his expression, he may have been trying to convince himself instead of me.
Never mind, I breathed deeply, remembering Dol Agur’s words of advice. Try to concentrate on what is ahead of me and in front of me right now, I reminded myself. Not on what might happen. Not on tomorrow, or yesterday. Just now.
“Do not let yourself become afraid, Saffron!” the Stone Tooth wise woman had counseled me. “It is when we are scared that we are most prone to uncontrollable anger, to lashing out and not being able to stop ourselves from doing or saying something that we regret.” This had been the older woman’s idea to answer my anxieties about using my magic today. If I remained as calm and focused as possible, then when the rising fury came, I might be able to direct it.
I closed my eyes, focusing on this moment, here, now, as Jaydra took her position at Ysix’s shoulder. The queen had insisted upon flying in her rightful place at the apex of our formation, and Bower had decided it prudent not to argue. Jaydra knew what she was doing, and she slipped into the airflow easily just behind and below Ysix, her wings matching her sister’s as if they were one creature.
I inhaled deeply as Dol Agur had suggested and let my nostrils fill with the scent of oiled harness leather, soot, and the cinnamon smell of the dragons. The sharply cold air rushed over us and my shoulders unknotted just a little. Even flying into battle, I could not help thinking that flying was the cure to all of the world’s ills; the grace, the sense of balance, strength, poise, and power always made me feel like I was right where I should be in the world.
Yes, Jaydra affirmed, and, through her link I felt another as Queen Ysix agreed with me. Like all queen dragons, and Kings of Dragon Mountain like Bower, Ysix had the ability to project her mind into any linked with her brood.
Breathe, I told myself, opening my eyes to the patchwork blanket of greens, yellows, oranges, and browns below us as we soared high over plains and settlements. Woods stood like dark green clusters, contained between the rivers and the occasional homesteads of the outer regions of the Middle Kingdom.
We have made no attempt to hide ourselves. A shiver of fear rose through me, as smaller birds—starlings, crows, and hawks—flew erratically away from us, shrieking in fear. We were near our rendezvous and still a long way off from the center of the Middle Kingdom. I turned to look at Bower, wondering what he might be thinking about seeing his homeland once more.
Bower’s jaw was set, and his mouth a grim line as he scowled at the land below. For a moment, I wondered what he was looking at, but then I saw it—there, in the distance: the wide, looping river we had found just days ago. The sky around it was still, surprisingly, a murk of smoke and shadows, as the fires set by our escaping dragons still smoldered to their last cinders. The ground was difficult to see, but it appeared darker, burned, and blackened.
Bower turned to see me staring at him, and raised a palm—pointing straight into the murk.
Mighty Queen Ysix? I reached out with my thoughts, gently reminding her of our rendezvous.
Do not worry, child. Queen Ysix remembers well, the dragon said, her wings, if anything, increasing in tempo to reach the point ever faster.
Dragon Riders! I heard and felt Bower’s king-voice in my ears and mind. Whatever comes, be ready, and follow us! Follow your king! He quickly unfurled the brightly dyed orange and crimson pennants he had affixed to Jaydra’s harness just this morning. The idea was that the other Dragon Riders would have something to see and follow into battle. “Just like the flags the old Dragon Riders used to use!” Bower had told me excitedly.
But won’t it make us a target for the king? I thought, my heart beating a little faster. I had to trust the fact that Bower knew what he was doing. He had studied ancient battles and tactics, and apart from King Enric and Dol Agur, Bower was one of the few learned people left in the entire Middle Kingdom when it came to the wars of the past.
Ysix slowed her wingbeats, allowing us to take the lead point as we headed straight for the smoke and murk from our last battle.
“Those aren’t natural fires,” I called out to Bower. He nodded that he had heard, and kept his hand held out straight ahead. We had to rendezvous with the other dragon flight here, right here, to do battle.
But what if they are late? I wondered. What if they were ambushed themselves? But no one, not even Tan, knew that they were taking that more northern route: how could the evil king have anticipated that? Sweat slicked my palms and dripped from inside my helmet, while my stomach knotted with worry and my muscles jittered and shook.
Suddenly, the smoke was lit from within by a whooshing plume of flame, casting a ruddy, ugly glow as it shot from below us, from beneath the haze of smoke.
“It’s the king!” Bower shouted. “He stole our tactic!”
As we flew lower, I saw now a pool of black tar burning violently, exuding thick, noxious smoke. Bower was right. The king, or whomever was in charge here, had done as we had, covering their movements with the thick, greasy layer of smoke from their tars and oils. When the smokescreen broke, suddenly before us were four of the fighting balloon-platforms.
“Bank right! Bank!” I called to Jaydra and Bower, pitching my weight to the right, and kicking out with my left foot on the levers and harnesses attached. Jaydra reacted quickly and expertly, turning on her side with her wings almost vertical and swooping past the four fighting balloons.
I see them, sister! Ysix shouted, unable to contain herself as she shot a jet of her molten dragon fire at the line of balloons, and flew straight towards them.
“No, Ysix!” Bower shouted, looking back at the queen as we sliced through the shadows. “Avoid them!” But Ysix, ever the most cantankerous of all of the island dragons swooped underneath, flipping her bulk to score her claws under their hulls as she slid past, roaring in her jubilation at finding her enemy, a call that was echoed
by some of the other island dragons
“Damn it,” Bower shouted, as most of the wild mountain dragons and their riders followed us in curving around the enemy, and out of the smokes onto the other side of the battle. As soon as we had broken clear of the sickly fog, we could see the other northern-heading flight of dragons approaching.
Hold, Jaydra, I urged, feeling her eagerness to join her sister Ysix in the attack. But she did as I asked, turning her wings to catch the air in a slowing, grand circle so that the other flight could see us. Behind me, Bower released another orange and red pennant and waved it at the other group, and a chorus of cheers and dragon-calls rose in answer.
From inside the murk behind us, flashes of flame and cannon-shot flared and the air shook with thumps and thuds. I could only hope from missed cannon shot, rather than island dragons, my den brothers and sisters, hitting the ground inside.
Saffron! We must fight! Jaydra’s hot temper bubbled through my mind, and the worried knot inside my chest unraveled, releasing with it a thrum of energy into my body. It was the uncurling Maddox magic, awakening within me once again.
I found myself leaning forward, eager to fly back into the murk, split by the sound of warfare.
“Hold, Saffron, please—hold!” Bower called, waiting for the other flight to get nearer.
The air rocked with an explosion, and through the smoke a column of pure fire rose. In the flash of flame, I saw the danger wasn’t only coming from behind. Below us there were soldiers, contingents of humans with tin hats and blackened cloaks emerging from the trees and fields, armed with crossbows.
There must be thousands of them! I thought as I watched the archers scurrying like beetles, swarming like ants, taking aim. So many against our few hundred dragons!
“Dragon Riders! Hold, hold, hold!” Bower screamed at the other flight, and, miraculously the warriors did as they were bid, despite the pitched battle that was raging as Ysix and her fleet continued their assault.
Whenever the murk was lit by cannon-fire, we could see the sudden silhouettes of dragon shapes, grappling with the fighting balloon-platform.
Sister Ysix, please! I called out to her, hoping that she would hear me. It was clear that our plan had worked only too well—much better than we had hoped. We had let it be known before Tan that we were flying back to this point, and here the king had been waiting for us again, this time meaning to blind us with oil smokes, and pour thousands and thousands of black bolts at us until we could no longer fly.
Beyond the archers, thin columns of soldiers bore pikes, heading towards the river edge and the smoke. There had to be thousands of them too.
We’ve been ambushed again, only this time we knew that it was coming, I thought in alarm, as my hands rose of their own accord, and the air around me started to shimmer, as if in a heat haze.
“Mmm…MADDOX-sss!” The words came from below, and my heart chilled. It was the hollow words of the Iron Guard, the sound of the king calling through them. “MmMADDOXX…. SSSAFFRON MADDOX-!”
His call churned in my chest somehow, a feeling like I had eaten something sickly and terrible that was working its way down my gullet, poisoning me as it did so.
Suddenly, the clouds split as the shape of the blue Queen Ysix and her brood escaped from the smoke. Ysix was bloodied, but she was crowing triumphantly as she soared into the skies over us.
And then the archers released their arrows.
“FLY! FLY, DRAGON RIDERS, FLY!” Bower called, and I wheeled Jaydra around and we dove, away from the smoke and the archers and the pikemen, and up to the high strong winds.
This high and with this much wind, the bolts that reached us had lost most of their force, but still Jaydra winced as a few hit home. My anger flared, but not as badly as when I’d heard the king’s spectral voice. No one had died; we hadn’t lost any riders or dragons, and so that at least, counted as a success.
“Sire!” The closest Dragon Rider hollered, pointing back towards the thick blanket of the king’s armies behind us. “Do we attack?”
Bower shook his head and arms emphatically, his pennants streaming as Jaydra raced eastward.
“Riders! Follow us!” he called, as we swept up through the high, cold winds and out of the range, headed straight to the unguarded heart of the Middle Kingdom and the citadel of Torvald itself.
24
Bower, Homecoming
Up here, the wind was fiercely cold and my teeth chattered. But I felt sick too, and not just from the altitude. We were following the plan and it had worked, but that meant we were being thrown headlong into what might be the bloodiest battle of our lives. I looked up to where Saffron was hunched ahead of me, her long hair streaming out from underneath her horned helmet as she turned to look back at me.
“We did it!” I called, trying to muster up some courage, and from her pale face, I could see that she shared my fear. She nodded all the same, and set her chin down against the cold of the high winds.
The scene of the smoke-filled ambush was behind us, and it was disappearing fast, shrinking in size until we could no longer see the soldiers on the ground, or make out the burst of flames from just a dull glow in the distance. We had found the high western wind current, and we were using it to speed eastwards at a rate no dragon usually could, traveling at such an incredible speed that the land below was rapidly changing as well. There were fewer forests now, and fewer wild and open plains. Instead, there were settlements; small and scattered at first, and then bigger and grander, with the winding lines of roads connecting them becoming broader and straighter, the established highways of the Middle Kingdom itself.
As I sat and shivered in the freezing high current, I saw below us were more places where the land looked blackened and diseased somehow.
“What’s that?” Saffron called back, pointing to one of the patches of black and grey landscape.
“I’m not sure!” I confessed in a shout, peering down at the spaces, to try and figure out just what had been happening to my kingdom.
“My kingdom,” I repeated to myself. The words sounded strange even to my ears. My home, I thought instead, and felt the rightness of it. It was what my father had brought me up to believe, after all. That the Middle Kingdom was my home, and always would be. That I should study its borders and its regions, and the people who lived there, even if such studying was deemed illegal by King Enric.
For all of my father’s good intentions, however, one thing he could not have done—and that was to physically take me out of the city on a tour of the Middle Kingdom. As a leader of the underground movement known as the Salamanders, as well as leading a public life as Nev Daris, lord of an ancient family, he had to do as little as possible to draw attention to himself or to me.
Added to that difficulty, was the fact the books that I had studied must have already been out of date by at least fifty years by the time I ever cracked one open.
But still, I thought. Does that really explain what I am seeing? That the land itself is not the prosperous, munificent garden which the king has always been telling us it is, but instead much of it is a poisoned wasteland, stripped of its resources in service to the king’s evil devices.
How dare the king do that to my home? How dare he use the land’s resources, its strengths and its beauty just for his own ends?
“Bower—look!” Saffron called, and there, up ahead, was a tall, pyramidal shape on the horizon, rushing closer to us.
Torvald.
I didn’t know that I was going to be struck so powerfully by the sight of the citadel. I had been away for so long, it seemed as though I was seeing it for the first time.
The citadel sat in tiers, progressing up the side of Dragon Mountain. The lowest and widest tiers of the city were occupied by the poorer folk and the warehouses, with every tier that ascended up occupied by ever richer and wealthier nobles, the royal palace being at the top.
The Dragon Mountain itself pierced the sky, with a saddle of ridges connecting the citadel to the heights where the Dragon Acade
my had once stood. I knew that up there also lay the great Dragon Enclosure: the hollow crater of an ancient volcano where once all of the dragons of the middle Kingdom had lived.
“One of the three great dragon homes,” Dol Agur had said, with all of the dragons of the Middle Kingdom migrating between the northern mountain where the Stone Tooth people lived, Home Mountain where Saffron had been raised, and here, the heart of the kingdom and its sacred center. The Great Zenema had told me that it was because I was the rightful heir of Torvald, lord of this dragon home itself that the dragons would listen to me; I was its warden and protector.
But now, the citadel and the mountain looked very far from their sacred roots. The fast-approaching walls were stained and there were none of the long, trailing crimson pennants that the citadel used to display, and the tallest spires, bell towers and watch houses were no longer gilded with shining gold.
The king has succeeded in seizing all of the city’s wealth, I thought. The only place in the city that still had shining white walls and windows sparkling with the sun was the palace itself.
“Bower?” Saffron called loudly, as we started to dip downward from the highest air currents, aiming straight for the city itself. “What’s the plan?”
I paused, temporarily frozen by the enormity of what we had to do.
“We have to hit the enemy hard and fast,” I said. “Surprise is all we’ve got. But we have to be careful of the people inside.”
I raised my voice, calling on the dragon ability which lay latent within me. “Attack the soldiers of the king! No civilians!”
One by one, the flight leaders waved their own personal emblems and flags to tell us that they understood, and just as I was to announce our first manoeuver, a rumbling sound came from the ramparts of the city and broke my concentration.
Dragons of Dark (Upon Dragons Breath Trilogy Book 3) Page 18