Dragon Raider

by Ava Richardson

  No, I don’t think that Havick would ever say sorry. I had never met the usurper of Roskilde, of course, but I had heard the tales. Every now and again a boat from a poor family would dare approach the shores of the Haunted Isle, begging for aid from the witches. Although the West Witches always tied to remain impartial, they would allow the fisherfolk to land and take food and water, and heal any physical complaint they had. They would tell of high tithes and taxes, or cruel prison terms and harsh guards roaming the main island in search of any who broke Havick’s decrees. The island realm of Roskilde was suffocating under his rule.

  “Tung? You want to try with me first?” Lila said to the portly boy, dark hair, with purple sashed shirt. He was a little shy, but he smiled and nodded.

  “Hello…?” I watched Tung say to Crux, and the dragon turned his great head to regard him steadily. A gentle huff of Crux’s nose, and the acceptance was granted – so long as Lila comes as well, I thought.

  Lila climbed Crux’s foreleg to ruck up the blankets and create a more comfortable saddle for herself, before reaching down to help up Tung. Crux didn’t appear to mind his boot-scraping and clumsy climb, or his shifting about as he settled in behind Lila.

  “Okay, are you ready? Remember to hold on to-owoooh!” Before Lila had a chance to say anything, Crux had stood up and shaken his neck, causing Tung to screech a little and seize a back tine as Lila flattened herself toward Crux’s neck.

  Tung’s going to fall off! I thought as Crux bounded to the lip of the hill, wings snapping open as he jumped into the air and soared.

  “Skreyar!” The dragon roared as he swept over the harbor – sending burly Raiders leaping into the drink in fright – before flapping his wings to pull up and up into a circle around the island.

  “Look at him go!” I heard Adair say, and I couldn’t help but grin, too. How could anyone not instantly fall in love with dragons?

  The dragon grew smaller around the back of the island, before turning, sweeping his wings once more to return, this time low and fast over the land.

  “Hit the deck!” Adair shouted, as the dragon shot over us to turn in mid-air, chittering in reptilian laughter before daintily landing on the ground once more.

  “Tung? Tung, you lucky beast – how was it?” Adair was running forward, shouting, with his sister Senga only a few steps behind him.

  “Urk.” The youth managed to slide down the scales to the floor, looking distinctly pale. “Great,” he managed to say, before collapsing to his knees.

  Oh dear. I thought, as Adair and Senga started to laugh. “Us next! Us!” The siblings were shouting, but Lila shook her head.

  “One each, with me… Neither of you have ridden a horse before, let alone a dragon,” she said.

  “No, we fly together!” Senga said fiercely, earning a turn of the head from Crux, and a narrowing of his eyes. “I’m not going to fly with you anyway, Lila. When I get my dragon, I’ll be flying with my brother – or alone!” she said haughtily, before adding in a mutter. “It doesn’t look that hard anyway… Just sitting and holding on…”

  “Let them try,” Crux whispered into my mind and I guess Lila’s mind as well, as she looked suddenly distraught at being overruled. I felt a tremor of fear as I looked over the large Phoenix dragon, his strong claws, his ripples of muscle. Was this safe?

  “Okay. The Phoenix says you both can ride together – but be careful. Don’t get overexcited. Let him do the flying…” Lila was saying as she clambered down.

  Adair and Senga couldn’t wait to scramble up the forelegs of the dragon. Both being good climbers they swung from scales and elbow horns to the spine tines in no time, with Crux this time shifting his weight a little in response to their urgent grabbing.

  “Settle, settle you two. On the saddle…” Lila was saying, but once again, Crux was impatient to get into the air. He stood up with a shake (Adair tumbled backwards, before clinging onto the tines), bounding forward and once again, leaping into the air. I heard a loud, lusty whoop from the siblings as he took off, and, apparently goaded by the attention, the Phoenix dragon only flew all the faster, beating his wings to spiral up into the air.

  “Too high… Too high” Lila was saying at my side, but the dragon – now a speck – turned on an arrowhead to swoop downwards suddenly toward the land.

  “Lila – they’ll fall!” I gasped.

  “Crux knows what he is doing,” Lila said through gritted teeth. She looked fierce, angry even as the Phoenix flared his wings to pull out of the dive, just as, suddenly, he jolted in the air, temporarily losing his precise flying, turning and spinning—

  “Crux!” Lila screamed.

  I raised my hand, trying to find that quiet space inside where the magic was. Could I do something to save them - all of them?

  But before I could, Crux pulled out of the dive and flew in an erratic way, swinging side to side past us. “What is wrong with him?” I breathed, before I saw.

  It was Adair and Senga. They were clinging onto his tines, not sitting down, pushing, leaping, or jumping from one side of his spine to the other as they attempted to direct his flight.

  “No! Not like that – you have to think at him!” Lila shouted.

  “No, Lila – it doesn’t work that way. Not everyone can hear dragons in their minds, only those that are dragon friends, or those bonded with a dragon, like you,” I pointed out.

  “What?” Lila looked at me, appalled. “But, can Crux hear anyone’s thoughts, or just yours and mine?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I think… I think that it’s harder for him to reach humans who have no dragon connection, like Senga and Adair, but I don’t know. I haven’t read everything in the Scroll Libraries of Sebol.”

  “Sebol,” Lila echoed, looking glum as Crux managed to turn lower, claws outstretched to catch the ground and run along it, sending up great gouts of earth behind her as he slowed down.

  “What on earth were you thinking?” Lila shouted at Senga and Adair as soon as they got off the dragon, looking shaky and sick.

  “He was going too fast!” Senga said from the floor. “He wouldn’t go where I wanted him to go. I wanted to fly over our house, show Mother…”

  “Senga!” Lila snapped. “It was meant to be a training lesson just to get used to flying dragons, not to start directing them!”

  “But what’s the use of hanging on for the ride? What if we need the dragon to go and do something, like attack one of Havick’s boats?” Senga frowned as Adair stumbled past to collapse on the floor.

  He groaned. “That was fun, but…” He didn’t need to complete the sentence, as it was obvious from the color of him what he meant.

  Crux, for his part, stalked away from the two young Raiders, further up the hill to where the rocks and boulders were wilder. There, he selected a sheltered patch between the rocks and draped himself over them, flicking his tail. He, too, was clearly annoyed with how the flight had gone, and didn’t want anything to do with humans right at the moment, and I for one couldn’t blame him.

  “Right. Great. Well – that’s day one done,” I heard Lila say miserably as she turned to walk back down the path. Before she got a few steps, she paused, turning to me. “Danu – If we’re going to make this work, then I think that we’re going to need to get to Sebol. Sooner or later.”

  I felt a curious mixture of elation, surprise, and distress at her words as I watched her striding away. Wasn’t that what I had wanted her to offer? To come with me to the island of the witches to learn the rest of the prophecy? To accept her true destiny?

  But not like this, I thought, seeing how Lila walked with her shoulders slumped down the path. It was like she was already accepting defeat, and grasping at straws.

  Chapter 20

  Lila, the raid

  Wake up! Wake up!” someone was shouting. “The Ariel has been sighted – and she’s listing in the water!” I shook myself awake from where I lay against Crux’s scales, looking at my little campsite
in the rocks—what had become more or less my permanent home.

  I had a fire pit dug and lined with stones, an awning of old sail cloth, and a stack of blankets. I still went down every morning just after dawn to Pela’s house to wash and occasionally eat breakfast with her – but it wasn’t my home any more. My home was up here, with Crux.

  “What is it now?” The Phoenix dragon raised his head to regard the Raider who had come running up the path from the harbor. It was a couple of days after the incident with Senga and Adair, and each of the flying lessons had gone passably bad. Little Tung might make a good flier, Crux told me – if he could get over his fear. But Senga and Adair had been banned from getting on the dragon’s back again – by the dragon himself, no less.

  “I don’t want those two endangering their lives and mine!” Crux had said irritably to me the night of ‘the incident,’ and I had agreed. Danu thought that they might need to bond with their own dragon if they were ever to fly, but I just shrugged. If they wanted to travel to the dragon atoll and try to bargain with that den mother, then they were fully capable of trying– except that thought made me feel even worse. Why was I being so uncharitable? Why wasn’t I inspiring more Raiders to do what I had done, to go and try to prove themselves to the dragons, to dare them to bond?

  Because there were hardly any Raiders even interested in dragons. That was why. Danu had been right – I had three Raiders, two of whom were too wild even for Crux, and the other whose ability was suspect, according to Crux. I had even seen the way the Raiders looked at me when I went down to the harbor, as if I were some kind of witch myself. Something strange and foreign.

  Why is this all so hard! I thought, childishly I knew, as the messenger Raider ran up to us.

  “It’s your father, Lila – out there on the Ariel, look!” The man pointed out to sea, where I could make out the shape of the proud Ariel, her swan-like hull always so recognizable to one who had grown up on her. But she was listing slightly to one side in the water, and one of her sails was down.

  Oh no. “What happened?” I asked the messenger, who shook his head that he didn’t know. He’s been attacked. I started to move to Crux, intending to fly out there right away. But he didn’t want me sailing with him. I was stopped by the thought. He wanted to be a true Raider, not have a dragon helping him. Would I make matters worse if I scared the crew with a dragon? Instead, I grabbed my things and ran after the messenger down the path.

  The Ariel limped into the harbor by early morning, having had four smaller row boats working to guide her in through the reef. As she eased into harbor and was steadied with poles, it was clear to see that she had been in a fight, but she wasn’t badly damaged.

  “She’s been taking in water on her port side all night, but we couldn’t get enough caulk on it out there in the open drink,” Kasian said as he stumbled over the plank to the dock. He looked terrible, as though he hadn’t slept in over a week.

  “What happened, Father?” I asked, forgetting that Pela had insisted I no longer call him Father.

  “Ah, my little Lila,” he said with a ghost of a smile, as around him sailors disembarked slowly, looking just as dejected as the chief was. “Get some rest and food in you, hearties!” he shouted, clapping a few on the shoulders before turning to me. “Havick,” he growled, his tiredness replaced with a fierce hatred. “You were right, he had three galleons out there – but he was waiting for us, I swear it. We saw smoke on the horizon and went out to investigate, only to find two war-galleons heading our way in full wind.” The chief shook his head. “If I didn’t think that Havick was as thick as a cow, I would have said that he had even laid a trap for us!”

  “But why send three galleons out just for us?” I murmured. “All he has to do is guard his shipping lanes…”

  “I don’t know, but the two boats chased us, almost all the way back to the Free Isles, but I detoured through the archipelago. One of them got a lucky shot against our port side – not enough to get through the hull – but enough to spring a leak.” The man looked sorrowful. “Now we’re just down to two boats until the Ariel is fixed, and still no successful raids…” The Chief of the Raiders looked distraught. He looked up at me. “How about that great big beastie of yours? The dragon? How is it going getting the other Raiders interested in your scheme?”

  “Ah,” I said, feeling downhearted. It wasn’t going at all.

  “Just get it working, Lila, I beg you,” the man who had been my father said. “We need something to give the Raiders before the season’s out. Something!”

  The chief stalked away from me, his head bowed. He never begged or asked for anything in his life. It was the Raider way – for him to say that must have cost him a lot of pride.

  And what did I have to give him in return? I thought. Nothing. One Raider who was still too young and too scared to be any good on a dragon, and another two who were too wild. I could take those three to the dragon atoll to see if any dragons would want them – but I didn’t think that would work. What if I just got them killed? The Raiders needed something now, some sign of hope.

  I was the only person here who could be a Dragon Raider. Me and – as much as I didn’t want to admit it – Danu.

  It was all entirely up to the two of us to provide something for the Raiders; some sign that they could survive the terrors of Havick. And, if I managed to capture something valuable for the Raiders, then wouldn’t they all start looking a little kindlier at Crux and the prospect of riding dragons for themselves?

  That is what I would do. I would take Crux, and we would do a little bit of Raiding all on our own.

  “Lila?” Crux was already aware of my coming, before I had even sighted him, draped over the warm rocks of the highland. Around his makeshift home were the recent bones, as clean as ivory, of goats and sheep.

  “You’ve been at the herds again, I see?” I said, feeling a rush of pride at my fierce dragon friend, despite the fact that I knew the Raiders must be sorely put out by his feasting. “Why don’t you go fish instead?”

  “I don’t get to eat much lamb and mutton,” Crux said philosophically. “The wild ones usually run away – but these fat ones can’t run!” Crux snickered, licking his lips.

  “Well, you’re fed. Good.” I reached into the awning I had erected, pulling out my cloak, my sabre and scabbard, and the hasty saddle that I had constructed.

  “Not that thing again.” Crux lashed his tail. “I can carry you, Lila, no need for constricting ropes!”

  “Crux, my friend – I’ve told you, I need something just a little more comfortable, and these loops help hold my bag and any equipment I need,” I said, rolling my eyes. If I had ever thought having a working relationship with a dragon would be easy, then I had been sorely mistaken. But I had to agree—I would have to get a proper saddle made of shaped leather and flat straps, one that was comfortable for the dragon as well.

  “Well, I suppose you humans aren’t lucky enough to have the claws and the scales that we dragons do,” Crux considered. I pulled a face, and the Phoenix dragon let his thick crimson and forked tongue loll into the air as if laughing at me.

  The dragon still let me affix my makeshift saddle to his back, and attach my belongings. I had only a fraction of the things that I could take on a Raiding mission: rope and grappling hook, armor, shield, spare provisions, star charts, bandages. My hands uncovered the scrap of cloth that Pela had found with my name and the crown upon it. I looked at it for a moment, wondering why I had it with me at all.

  It’s the only link I have to where I began, I thought as I stuffed it into my pack along with the spare cloak, and climbed Crux’s leg.

  “Where are we going, air-rider?” Crux looked up at me with his bright eyes.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” I said. “I’ll need your nose and your ears to guide me to prey.”

  “We’re going hunting? Yes!” Crux rippled his slabs of muscles and stepped down daintily from the rocks, with me snugged at the base of his neck.
I immediately felt safe, as if nothing could hurt me ever again.

  “Lila!? Lila – where are you going?” someone shouted from the path down to the harbor. It was Danu, running toward us, waving one hand as the other clutched his cloak. He still wore a thin tunic and short-legged trousers.

  “Not now, Danu – I have work to do,” I called down, feeling a flash of superiority over him now that I was on the dragon. I didn’t have to do anything for anyone else, not the adept, not my foster parents. I would show them all what I could do on my own!

  “Lila, wait – take me with you!” Danu shouted, panting as he reached the top.

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want to take Danu. I have to prove that my scheme works to Kasian, to Pela, to all the other Raiders. I had to do it, me, and I didn’t want anyone looking at my achievement and say it was anything to do with witches and prophesies and magic. That would only further alienate the dragon from the Raiders, I thought, pushing in with my heels to spur Crux to leap into the sky – but he did not. “Crux?” I asked. “Why aren’t we flying?”

  “We should take that one too. He is a dragon friend, and we might need his magics,” Crux said sagely.

  “What? NO, Crux, we don’t need him – I need to do this myself, to prove to the Raiders what I can do!”

  “What WE can do, air-rider.” Crux turned his sinuous neck to look back at me. “You asked me to join you, and I will gladly – but it is not your burden alone. It is ours.” The multi-colored dragon turned back his head to regard Danu, looking hopeless and frantic below. “Yours, mine, and the adept’s. We are meant to hunt together.”

  There was nothing I could do to convince him, and irritatingly, the dragon stepped forward and lowered his head, neck and shoulder so that Danu could scrabble up to his spot behind him.

  “Thank you, great Crux,” I heard him breath, settling himself and grabbing the spine ridges as Crux took a deep breath, trotted forward, and then – flew.