Dragon Raider

by Ava Richardson

  “Your father pretty much told me exactly the same thing this morning about you,” my mother said, before letting out a shout. “Hyugh!” My mother spun. She wasn’t a thin woman, but when she was out with her practice swords on her mounted dummies, she was faster than my father.

  Thump. A good, solid hit against the body of one of the stuffed-straw dummies, and then the counterweight bale of hessian-stuffed-with straw swung around –

  “Yagh!” My mother barged into it with her shoulder, sending the counterweighted dummy that sat on the other end towards her this time, straight into her sword swing.

  Thwack! An explosion of straw and hessian and the creaking sound of the wooden beams, suddenly free of their luggage as my mother stepped back.

  “These ones are getting too easy,” she complained, but she was still sweating and flushed.

  “Why does my father think I’m not being serious?” I said, appalled at what my mother had confided in me. “Dragons are a whole lot more important than raiding merchant ships!”

  “Oh, Lila…” my mother was already wiping her face with a flannel to get rid of the worst of the straw and dust. “You know that your father won’t hear that. For him, being a Raider is going after merchant ships. It is tending to rigging and re-stitching sails and varnishing hulls. That is what makes us, well, us.”

  I could have growled in frustration. “I know that, Mother, but I’m not talking about what we do, I’m talking about our future. A Raider future. One which means we don’t have to worry about Havick anymore, ever.”

  My mother paused to sigh at the oaken cask that served as the water butt. It was a sigh that I had heard many times over the years, and one that would be followed by a brusque acceptance of the way things were. My mother, if anything, was more practical than my father. I had seen her digest his tales of woe and ships sunk to the Roskildean fleet. She would always accept my father’s command at sea, but back here on land, it was she who would have the long, quiet talks with my father about the future of our people. It was my mother who I had to convince of my plan.

  “Mother, please, just hear me out,” I began.

  “Lila, I am sorry, but your father might be right. If we don’t manage to get a good take this season…” my mother let the rest of her words drift into silence. We all knew the price for a Raider who couldn’t raid. You either died at sea, or you had to bow the knee to the Roskildeans, and become just another client-island for their rule. At the moment, the Sea Raiders were the only collection of wild islands left in the Western Isles still free from Havick’s rule.

  “That is what I am talking about, Mother…” I tried again. “I know that Havick is dangerous, I’ve lost friends on those boats too.” My mother’s eyes were dark and unreadable. She didn’t stop me this time. “I had my hands on them, Mother, the dragon eggs. I touched one, and I came so close to taking it, if it hadn’t been for the brood mother turning up.” Brood mother, that was what crazy fish-boy had called the mother dragon. An odd term, and one that I hadn’t heard before.

  “But what the fishermen’s tales say are true, there is a brood of eggs on that atoll, and I know how to navigate to it. If we can get some of those eggs, tame them, train them, then we don’t have to be Sea Raiders anymore, dodging the Roskilde fleet. We can be Dragon Mercenaries,” I said, feeling the flush of excitement as I said the words.

  “Och, Lila…” my practical mother shook her head.

  “Think about it – Torvald has just recovered from a war. They’re in bits. The Northern Clans are still riled up and control the north, and the south – our closest neighbors? They’ve been involved in infighting between one princeling and some other fat merchant for generations. There’s a lot of coin about for a mercenary outfit. And who knows raiding better than we do? Just think of the money we could make!” I said.

  My mother was silent for a moment longer, before she muttered, “Think of the damage we could inflict on Havick.”

  “Yes,” I grinned fiercely, and saw that grin echo on my mother’s face.

  “I’ll talk to your father, tonight, before dinner. But wait, Lila,” she raised her hands to calm down my obvious excitement. “That doesn’t mean that I agree with you, or that I am pleased about my daughter running off to steal dragon’s eggs. A mother dragon is a very protective beast. You may have to find another way.”

  Another way? What other way? I thought in dismay, but the discussion was done. She was happy to talk with father about the possibility of stealing dragon eggs, but she also thought that I couldn’t steal dragon’s eggs? I knew that our future – my future – hung in the balance of how much faith my parents had in me.

  “Now, go get yourself washed and changed for dinner, Lila,” she said, not unkindly as she packed up her things and I turned back into the house I had grown up in.

  Chapter 6

  Danu, the offer

  It was an easy thing to track the girl, now that I had met her. Maybe it was just the fact I had more faith that I had followed the prophecy correctly, allowing me to use my magic with more confidence. Or maybe it was as Chabon sometimes mysteriously suggested, that magic works better when you have close contact, and worst over events and people who are far away and unknown to you. The best and strongest of magics occur, or so she had told me, between friends.

  The compass this time was able to hold a steady course as I asked it to find the island of Malata, far to the south of the dragon atoll. Even the winds were favorable as I let them catch the boat I had commandeered from the tiny Sebol harbor and flew across the oceans. The only real fear I had was one of running into one of the many patrol boats of the Roskildeans, but, as luck – or fate – would have it, my journey was trouble free.

  I arrived at the splintered islands of the Western Archipelago a little after sundown, before stowing the sail and resorting to the oars to pull my way in. It was hard work that made my shoulders and back ache – but it was a good ache. I knew that my mother and father, far away on our little home island of Tamm, would be proud of their son. They were fisherfolk, going out in the predawn light to tend to their crab pots and near-coast nets before the tithing day, when the patrol boats of Roskilde would come and take a portion of their catch for the royal coffers. Life wasn’t bad, under the protection of the Island of Roskilde – they hadn’t been raided in their lifetime, but it was quiet.

  Boring.

  Thank goodness I had shown some talent in magic, I thought as I rowed, picking my way between the reef and the hulks that spread out around the parent island like a barricade. My life with the West Witches had been anything if boring. A lot of hard work to be fair, but never dull.

  The hull of the boat suddenly made a horrible juddering, scraping sound as it hit some ridge of rock or coral. Pay more attention, Danu! I thought, wondering if I might even need to try and summon up a bit of magic to get through the last, torturous bit of the maze. These Raiders had protected their home well, I could see. There was no way a larger boat carrying soldiers would make its way through here.

  “If you don’t have to, you shouldn’t.” I repeated Chabon’s stern advice to myself over the dark waters. Magic came with a heavy price, even in the short term – aches and nausea, headaches and sickness. Some of the witches claimed that magic itself sucked the life out of you, but still left you strangely alive. The stars alone knew that Chabon looked more like a sea turtle than a living person, and she could barely move from her bed these last few years. But how old was the leader of the West Witches? She said she remembered the time of Hacon Maddox – that was hundreds of years ago, wasn’t it?

  “Danu! Pay more attention!” My mentor Afar’s voice sounded in my head, as if she were here to scold me right now. I bowed my head to the task, alternating between rowing and using the oars to pole in front of me, testing the depths of the rocks. As the light slid from the sky, leaving just the glow of the occasional fish and the strange waters, I slid past the reef and found myself looking at a stone-walled harbor.

/>   There were lights on at the ends of the pier and boats anchored all about. The sounds of loud, joyous singing as sailors did what sailors do when they are not expected anywhere in the morning.

  Probably best I don’t just sail in there… I thought, angling the boat around the back of the harbor to where the land was rockier and broken. I would have to sneak into the Raider island and find the Raider girl by stealth.

  This counted as what I have to do, doesn’t it? I thought, letting the currents slowly wash me away from the light and the noise, and pull me towards the rocks behind the small harbor town. It took a long time, but eventually I was rocked towards the large boulders, and I put out an oar to steady myself from the coast. With the slap and crash of the waves everywhere I had no fear of being spotted as I searched for a place I could at least bring the boat up a little way, before starting to scramble and pick my way through the rocks.

  The wind was picking up a bit, and on it I could hear brief snatches of song, or the chopping of wood, the crying of a baby as I ghosted towards the buildings and small enclosed farms at the back of the town. A goat snorted her annoyance at my passing, a dog started up savage barking.

  I could use magic to mask my presence, I sweated nervously, wishing that I had more training at this. But no one had ever trained a mage before, not the West Witches nor anyone else as far as I knew. Afar had done her best. But should I use magic now? Would Afar approve? Would Chabon?

  I thought of the way that I had seen the girl burst from the waves of the atoll like a cork released from under water, the water spraying around her in a circle – like a crown. I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been not to even notice it the first time around! The prophecy that Chabon had dreamed was of the Sea Crown of Roskilde rising from the waves. I had entrusted myself to the power of that prophecy, and allowed myself to be guided straight here, to that island and that fierce, strong Raider girl.

  Who was seventeen. And it was seventeen years ago that the island of Roskilde had its most devastating Raider attack, and had lost the royal family and heir. I didn’t know how it turned out that she had then been taken up by the Raiders as one of their own, but I knew that it had to be so. The prophecy had led me straight to her.

  “Who’s that? Is that you, Olander?” shouted a voice as a light blared on from one of the smaller wooden houses that I ghosted around.

  That was it. I did have to use magic.

  Closing my eyes, I crouched down in the dark and tried to find that quiet and calm place in my heart that Afar had showed me was always there.

  “The centre of all things. It is always inside of you. Always patient. Always calm. It is in you and in me, and in the rocks and the air…” Afar had said in a reverential voice.

  My breathing slowed, deepened. One of the many skills that the witches had tried to drill into me was trances and meditation.

  “In that centre-place, you can reach out. With your feelings. Find how you connect to the wind, to the earth beneath your feet. Feel the high winds above you…” My mentor’s voice was soothing in my mind as I felt the whisper of wind on my cheek, the snuffle and huffle of a horse in its paddock.

  “This isn’t magic,” I had argued.

  “And what do you think magic is, but connection? That which connects us all to each other. That which keeps the fire burning, and the world breathing, in and out…” Afar had laughed. “Reach out, Adept Danu, reach with your heart, not your mind…”

  Feeling quieter, I reached out to the soft, huffling night around me. I reached out to the quiet and the hiddenness of those sleepy creatures and plants. I drew to myself a cloak of their natural don’t-see-me, don’t-see-me and stood up.

  “Olander? Is that you?” There was a ruddy-skinned, dark haired woman on the other side of the hedge of goat willow, a lantern in one hand, and a wicked-looking scimitar in the other. I gasped a little in shock, and she swung around towards me, hissing like a cat – but her eyes slid off me, protected as I was by the magic that I had summoned.

  It’s working! It’s working! I thought, my heart thumping faster. The Raider woman turned slowly back, pausing in front of me as she squinted at the dark shadows where I was, almost seeing something, before shaking her head irritably.

  “Bah. Probably just a rat,” she scoffed, trudging back to her little house and banging the door behind her. I waited for a few more breaths before taking out the compass, and concentrating on the prophecy. It would lead me to Lila.

  Lila the Raider, it turned out, had some very important parents. Either that or the Raiders were very relaxed about where teenagers could and couldn’t go in their society. I ghosted through the harbor town, following the compass needle as it swung first this way and that at each new avenue. Eventually, however, even I had to admit that it was leading me straight for the grandest and largest house on the rise above the harbor. It was painted white and built of stone like a mayor’s or a governor’s house, and it even had formal gardens – once, but now long overgrown. I walked past gigantic spreads of lavender and under magnolia trees that needed pruning, to where lights were on and the sound of someone playing a fiddle wafted on the sea breeze.

  I wondered at the lack of guards, pausing at the open front doors before I stepped in. But of course, everyone here was a Raider – why would they steal from each other?

  The first room from the hallway contained chairs and benches where those I guessed to be captains and senior hands relaxed, playing their small sailor’s flutes and one or another of them singing. There was a warm and cheery fire in the hearth, and bowls of stew on the table. I felt a stab of jealousy. I never had this sense of camaraderie growing up.

  The compass drew me further into the building, towards the smells of spice and pickles and rich-roasted meat. There was a half-open door, and a long room where a small family ate at a table drawn before a large, roaring hearth-fire.

  The youngest of that family was Lila.

  “This is our only chance, I know it, Father…” Lila was saying, stabbing at the air with her fork. Gone were the Raiders’ leathers and belt hoops, to be replaced with a simple, light green dress with yellow trim. Her hair had been re-braided, and her skin fairly shone in the reflected firelight.

  She is the heir to the throne! I thought as soon as I saw her. It was in her bearing, her looks, the shape of her brow. I swear that I had seen similar in the old paintings and books that the West Witches hoarded. I let myself imagine her sitting on the throne. Stern-faced, but still beautiful. She would make a good queen, I thought as she argued with her parents.

  “Our only chance to what? Get my daughter killed by a broody dragon?” Kasian, the Chief of the Raiders, said gruffly.

  “No, our only chance to survive, as a people!” she pointed out. “Mother? Did you tell him my plan?”

  The woman that the girl called mother nodded, but with a shrug, like it was no good.

  “She did tell me, and, while I love the idea of Dragon Mercenaries…” a smile flickered and vanished on the chief’s face.

  So that was what you were up to! I thought, in both awe and alarm. It was a brave, audacious plan – but also a stupid one. Everyone knew that you had to bond with dragons. They couldn’t be tamed like a sheepdog.

  “But it is crazy. We need to do what my father did, and what his father did before him, all the way back to when we Raiders were the most feared thing on the seas!” The chief pounded the table with one mighty fist. “We do it by hard work, Lila. By judging the winds right, by getting some salt under our nails…”

  “By being chased by much larger, better equipped ships and troops?” Lila said pointedly. “Don’t tell me that you’re not excited by the idea, Father. What sort of Raiders we would be! Airborne! Able to strike anywhere along the coast, not just the south or the Western Isles. We could even round the southern cape and see what fortunes await to the far east!” Lila had stood up, looking to the far corners of the room as if she could see the future there. “Dragon Mercenaries!” she a
nnounced. “The whole world is our oyster. Roaming the seas and the airs, unceasing, for glory and adventure!”

  Even the corners of my mouth twitched into a smile at the idea. It was audacious and wild – but it was not the path of the rightful queen. No. I cannot let this happen, I thought as I stepped out from the shadows into the room, and let the magic fall from me.

  “I can talk to dragons,” I had a chance to say, just as two things happened.

  One, Chief Kasian of Malata swore and fell backwards in his chair as his family gasped at my sudden appearance.

  Two, a headache erupted in my head like a localized thunderstorm. “Ach!” I winced, staggering to one side. All magic has a cost, I remembered. Why didn’t I think to take the magical concealment down before I announced myself? Now I must look like an idiot in front of them! I thought as I my hands clutched and clattered to the nearest table for a pitcher of fresh water, to suddenly throw into my mouth.

  “Raiders! To me!” the chief shouted as he jumped to his feet and ran to where his scimitar was hanging on the wall. “Stand back, Lila, wife!” He roared–but his wife was quicker, sliding out of her chair and not bothering to wrestle a heavy scimitar from the wall. Instead, she seized one of the butchering knives from their table as she passed her husband to stick it under my nose.

  Oh no, I thought, my vision doubling under the pain. I didn’t have the skills to fight my way out of here, and I now didn’t have the concentration to make any defensive spells.

  “I’ll show you what we do to spies on Malata!” the chief bellowed as shouts came from behind me, from the room of captains and seniors.