Fledgling (The Dragonrider Chronicles)

by Nicole Conway

  We all waited, and I held my breath. But no one came. The guards hadn’t heard us. Felix started reeling in the rope as fast as he could, giving it a few hard tugs before finally leaning his weight into it. When it held fast, he turned around and gave us a quick thumb’s up. So far, so good.

  He started to climb, using the side of the wall as leverage while he scaled the rope. Just as the last few inches of his boots disappeared up into the dark, the next guard came strolling by on patrol. I held my breath again, waiting to see if the guard would notice anything suspicious.

  The guard walked past without even stopping, and all of a sudden it was my turn to climb. My heart was hammering. My hands were sweaty. I was petrified. But I set my jaw, balled my fists, and didn’t give myself a single second to hesitate.

  I bolted toward the wall, feeling around in the darkness for the rope. When I found it, I gave a tug. From somewhere above me in the dark, I felt Felix tug back. The coast was clear, so I started to climb.

  I didn’t dare look back to see if the next guard was coming. I just tried not to think about that. The climb was a lot further up than I’d thought. From the ground, it had looked pretty high, but by the time I got to the top of the wall, I was sweating and heaving for breath. Felix grabbed my arms when I got within reach, and hauled me up the last few feet. The top of the wall was slathered in tar mixed with shards of glass, but Felix had spread out his cloak to keep us from getting cut up. He made sure I was steady before he gave me a pat on the back.

  Next, it was Lyon’s turn. Felix got himself braced, holding the end of the rope that was hooked to the top of the wall, just for good measure. And we waited.

  Minutes passed. Two guards walked by down below, and I held my breath each time, expecting to see Lyon come sprinting up to the wall to start his own climb. Maybe it was just taking him longer to work up the nerve. But he didn’t come, and it was too dark to see where we’d been hiding in the grass before.

  A few more minutes passed, then another guard, and Felix cursed. “That little worm! He ditched us!”

  I was stunned. Lyon hadn’t exactly been a friend of ours—more like an enemy that was stuck with us for survival purposes—but this? This was twice he’d betrayed the dragonriders, twice he’d proven to be nothing but a lying coward. I cursed, too. Lyon was supposed to be the one who opened the gate to let us out once Beckah and the dragons stirred things up as a distraction. Now we were short one set of hands.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” Felix growled under his breath as he reeled the rope in. “We’ll just have to find some other way to escape. Maybe we can climb back down.”

  Felix had dismissed that idea originally because of the arrows that were sure to be flying in the chaos. One of us could get shot. I knew if he was considering that as our best option now, then we were in real trouble.

  “You go,” I told him. “Go get ready to open the gate. I’ll get Sile.”

  His eyes got wide. “Jae, you can’t go by yourself. What if something happens? What if you need me?”

  “You said yourself that I’ve got the better shot at finding him. I’m the only one who can speak elven and talk to the prisoners.” I held out my hand for him to shake. Something in my gut told me this might be the last time we ever saw each other. “You know this is the only way.”

  I could barely see Felix under the starlight as he looked down at my hand, and instead of shaking it, he took the big hunting knife he’d stolen from the barn and put it in my palm. “Yeah, I know. Just . . . try not to get killed.” He clapped a hand against my shoulder roughly. “And remember, once the fire starts we only have a few minutes. Don’t be late.”

  While Felix fixed the rope and makeshift hook so we could climb down the other side of the wall, I tucked the knife into my belt, making sure it was hidden under my scratchy burlap tunic. He let me climb down first. My head was spinning with fear as I repelled over the steep, jagged black stone. I prayed over and over that the guards wouldn’t see me. And none of them did.

  When my feet hit the ground, I looked around to get my bearings. It was dark, but the torches burning the watchtowers gave off just enough light that I could see the faint silhouettes of the buildings all around. They weren’t really buildings, though. More like shacks made out of pieces of garbage for prisoners to live in.

  Everything was eerily quiet and still, except for Felix’s boots scraping off the stone from over head. He climbed down quickly, left the rope where it was, and hurried over to crouch down with me in the shadow of a nearby shack. My heart was pounding in my ears as I strained to see through the gloom. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out how all the garbage-made shacks surrounded the big crater in the middle of the prison camp. There were carved dirt stairwells leading down into the crater, and huge wheelbarrows that would take four or five people to move parked along the rim.

  The inside of the prison camp smelled disgusting. It was like a mixture of filth, rotting flesh, and smoke that reeked like burning hair. There was also something in the air that left a mineral taste in my mouth. It was bitter, and made me want to spit.

  “It’s a salt mine,” Felix whispered. “Can you taste it?”

  “Yeah, but what’s that smell?” I whispered back.

  He just frowned darkly and pointed at the crater. “I’m not sure, but it’s coming from in there. I don’t like it, Jae. Something’s not right.”

  Suddenly there was a metallic-sounding boom from the gate, and Felix and I tripped all over each other as we scrambled to hide. We ducked into a narrow crevice between two shacks, huddling in the dark and watching as the gate began to open.

  The gate really was enormous, it was as tall as the walls, and made out of wood and iron. The only way to open it was by operating a crank in the heavily guarded tower. Just looking at it, I wondered if we really could pull this off. Strong as he was, I wasn’t sure Felix could even open it by himself.

  The massive gate creaked and groaned as it opened. Horse hooves clattered in the dark. Out of the gloom, a wagon appeared and came to a halt inside the prison camp. It looked just like the slave wagon we’d been trapped in before, made out of solid metal, and pulled by a team of black horses. My breath caught in my lungs, and it felt like I had swallowed something hard that was stuck in my throat. Sitting on the driving seat, still wearing those white masks, were two of the elite guards from the king.

  My hand went to the knife hidden under my tunic, and I gripped the hilt tightly. Even though I couldn’t see him, I knew that Sile was in that wagon. He just had to be. That is, if Lyon had been telling us the truth. A wave of nausea hit me when I realized just how much was riding on our assumption that Lyon hadn’t been playing us the entire time.

  As I watched the gate begin to roll closed again, it felt like someone was slowly choking me. It was like watching my freedom slip through my fingers, leaving Felix and me trapped in this horrible place. I wondered if that would be my last glimpse of the outside world beyond these prison walls.

  Then, something else distracted me completely.

  From overhead, I heard another sound like the deep, thunderous concussion of wing beats. But I knew this sound right away—it was the drumming of dragon wing beats in the air. Only this time, they sounded larger than any dragon I’d ever heard flying before.

  The dragon was as black as the dark side of the moon, so the only way I knew it had landed was because I felt the earth flinch under my boots with the impact. I could see the shadows cast over its gleaming scales by the torchlight and the faint silver glow of the moon. It was a monster that looked like something from a nightmare. It was twice the size of Mavrik, with two red eyes that gleamed against the night like smoldering coals.

  “Gods and Fates,” Felix gasped. I saw his eyes look up as an enormous dark shape descended from the night sky. “It’s Icarus.”

  “Who?” I didn’t recognize the name, but I could see the horror and fear on his face.

  “He’s the Lord General’s dragon. A ki
ng drake,” Felix answered, and I could hear his voice quivering with fear. “When a dragon lives to be over a hundred years old, it becomes a king drake or grand queen. They’re the largest and most powerful dragons alive. There’s rarely ever more than one in existence at a time.”

  “Great.” I groaned. There was only one king drake in the whole world, and it was crouched between Sile and me. As if the king’s elite guards weren’t enough. We hadn’t planned to do battle with a dragon like this.

  Felix nudged me with his elbow. “Look!”

  Icarus was crouching down to let his rider off, and a man wearing golden armor dismounted. The Lord General was a tall man, as tall as my father. He wore a helmet topped with a long red mane of horsehair, and a red cape that swept the ground at his heels as he moved. The Lord General walked around his enormous dragon toward where the wagon was waiting.

  The elite guards driving the wagon had gotten down and unlocked the back door, and I found myself gripping the hilt of my knife again. When the door opened, the Lord General stepped in and blocked our view. I saw people getting out, and I clenched my teeth. I couldn’t see who it was, and it was making me furious.

  Then the Lord General stepped aside, and I saw him. Lieutenant Sile Derrick staggered in front of all four of the king’s elite guards. They pushed him on, making him trip and fall. He couldn’t even catch himself because his hands were still tied behind his back, so he hit the dirt face-first. They had tied a gag in his mouth and there was blood on his tunic. But he was alive.

  I couldn’t even be proud that I’d been right again about something happening to Sile because things were looking more hopeless than ever. We had come here to save him, to set him free, but not only were we trapped in a prison camp, but we were also facing the Lord General, his king drake, and four of the king’s most accomplished private guards—not to mention all the regular prison guards who were standing watch with bows and arrows in the towers, ready to make us look like pincushions. It looked impossible.

  “All right.” Felix took in a deep breath and I saw his shoulders flex. “We don’t have much time. I’ve got the gate; you follow them and when you think you’ve got the chance, give Beckah the signal and get Sile out of there.”

  I nodded, but my whole body was starting to feel numb.

  “We’re about to die aren’t we?” he asked me suddenly, glancing back and catching me off guard with that question. He was usually so confident.

  I gave a small shrug, and tried to smile. “Maybe. But remember, you were the one who wanted to see what amazing, unexpected thing I’d do next.”

  Felix didn’t answer, but I saw his cheek turn up in a smirk as he started slinking out of our hiding place. I watched him slip from shadow to shadow, making his way carefully toward the gate.

  Now it was up to me. I couldn’t turn back; too much was at stake. Alone in the dark, I watched them drag Sile back to his feet and lead him deeper into the prison camp. I took a deep breath to steady myself, and balled my fists.

  It was time to shake off my fear. I had to be brave. Sile was counting on me.

  twenty

  The elite guards were leading Sile deeper into the prison camp, pushing him whenever he stopped, and keeping a knife at his back. He wasn’t fighting them as much anymore. As I crept in closer, I saw that one of his arms looked wrong. From the elbow down it was bloody, and there were pieces of white bone sticking up through the skin. Somehow, they had broken it, and I didn’t want to think about how much that must have hurt.

  They forced him down the stairs that led into the mining pit and disappeared. I hesitated. If I followed, I might get caught out in the open. I didn’t know if there was anywhere to hide down there. I waited, looking back at the prison guards who were milling around the wagon still. They weren’t looking my way. My only worry was the dragon, but with that horrible stench in the air, maybe he wouldn’t smell me.

  I made a dash for the nearest stairwell. As soon as I got a few steps down, I dropped into a crouch and hunkered down, trying to duck against the shadows. None of the men working below seemed to notice me. The Lord General had his back turned, saying something to Sile that I couldn’t hear from so far away. All the elite guards were standing nearby, watching. But as my eyes tracked over the inside of the crater, I started to get a bad feeling.

  The smell hit me like a kick to the stomach, and when I saw where it was coming from, I started to gag. The crater went down at an angle, with those dirt-carved stairwells on all sides, leading down to where the prisoners had been mining the salt out of the ground and loading those oversized wheelbarrows with it. In the very middle was a big pile of smoldering ash and debris. The embers were still burning bright red and putting off an eerie glow that made it easier to see what was going on. I didn’t think much of it at first. I mean, I assumed maybe they’d just been burning trash or waste. But as my eyes adjusted to the change in light, I started noticing the white shapes in the ash.

  Bones. They were bones.

  There were hundreds of them, piled up like a big pyre. They had been burning the bodies of the prisoners there. The horrible stench in the air was the smell of burning flesh. As soon as I realized that, my skin got clammy and I felt like I was going to throw up.

  Suddenly, I got that strange feeling that someone was watching me. Then a big hand grabbed a fistful of my hair. “What have we here?” Someone spoke over me in a rough, grumbling voice. “Out after dark, are we? Looking for a good show?”

  I heard a chorus of laughs as I kicked and fought, managing to turn around and get a glimpse of the man who had me by the hair. He was a big, pear-shaped man with narrow shoulders and a belly that was being mashed into a chest plate two sizes too small. He had a trimmed beard, dark eyes, and a big scar that ran down the side of his face onto his neck. The crest on his armor was the king’s eagle, but I knew he wasn’t a dragonrider. Except for that crest, his armor looked like the other prison guards.

  “Well, why don’t we just give you a front row seat?” He grinned down at me, and his teeth were covered in yellow tobacco stains. I could just feel the evil aura coming off him like smog. He started dragging me the rest of the way down the stairs, and I fought him every step of the way. When we got close to the big pile of charred bones, I fought even harder.

  The Lord General turned around to see what the commotion was. He scowled down at me, curled his lip, and sent the guard a disapproving frown. To him, I must have looked like just another prisoner here. I wasn’t wearing my Fledgling’s tunic and cape anymore.

  “What is that, Warden?” the Lord General asked.

  “A halfbreed,” the man holding me by the hair chuckled. “Haven’t you ever seen one before? Sneaky little rats. Some of them could about pass for human, but I can smell that elf blood in their veins a mile away. They can’t fool me. And this one’s decided to test my rules. Looks like he’ll be meeting his ancestors sooner than scheduled!”

  The Lord General just rolled his eyes, and didn’t even give me a second glance as he started removing his riding gauntlets. “Do what you want, but only after the ritual is complete. I don’t want you botching it. You have no idea what a chore this has been.” He moved away, angrily muttering under his breath something about small favors.

  When he stepped aside, I saw Sile up close for the first time since the officer’s ball. He was lying on his side, his mouth bloody like someone had hit him across the face really hard. Our eyes met, and I saw something in his face I hadn’t expected. Oh sure, I had expected surprise, confusion, maybe even a little anger . . . but Sile looked at me with absolute terror.

  He tried to speak, but his voice cracked. He just lay there, staring at me with a look that drove an ice-cold spike of panic into the center of my chest. Something was wrong. I just didn’t know what it was, yet. It was as though he wanted to tell me something—something important.

  The warden threw me down onto the ground only a few feet away from Sile. He put a foot on my chest to keep me from g
etting up, and stood there with his arms crossed. He was so big and fat I couldn’t get his foot off me no matter how I tried. He smirked down at me, and ground his heel into my ribs. It hurt, but I clenched my teeth and refused to give him the satisfaction of crying out in pain.

  I knew I had one choice now, just one chance. Maybe things weren’t exactly going according to plan, but our plan had been pretty much ruined the moment Lyon abandoned us. I was playing this by ear, and now it was time for a diversion.

  I tried to relax, to let my mind get quiet. It was easier this time, which was strange considering the last time I was in a situation like this, I’d accidentally called out a giant man-eating turtle. Something trickled down the back of my brain like a warm shiver, making my skin prickle and my whole body shudder at once. It grew more intense, until I was shivering like I was cold.

  “Put it down over there,” I heard the Lord General say.

  I opened my eyes to see the king’s elite guards carrying what looked like a big, gold-plated box. It must have been heavy, because even with four of them helping, they were still having a hard time managing it. They set it down near the smoldering pit of bones, and the Lord General stepped forward to run his hands over it thoughtfully. He stroked the intricate carvings on the lid, and a strange look of pleasure flickered across his face. He glanced up, like he was looking at someone for approval. But the only people there to look at were the elite guards, and their masked faces hid their expressions, and none of them moved an inch.

  “Open it,” he commanded again. “Let us begin the ritual.”

  My head was starting to feel uncomfortably hot. That intense shivering heat in my mind spread all over my body, and made it feel like my muscles were tingling. It definitely seemed to be coming from whatever was inside that big golden box. My heart started to pound in my ears. My body shivered, and I tried to clear my mind again.