Dragon Raider

by Ava Richardson

  “What is wrong?” I asked Danu as I settled.

  “Sym’s hatchlings. The newts that you tried to bond with on her island?” Danu’s face was worried.

  “I remember,” I said, smiling as I thought of the way that they had gamboled and pounced, completely ignoring my efforts to bond with them.

  “Two are missing.” Danu’s face was grim. “Presumed dead.”

  “What?” I burst out, gripping onto Crux’s scales in shock.

  “Sym sensed magic, so my best guess is—”

  I beat him to it. “Ohotto,” I snarled.

  “We must find out what happened to the little ones,” Crux said as the waters around us started to ripple. I could sense him kicking his great, tree-trunk like legs to power us through the water, faster and faster. I sat down quickly on the saddle, and attached my feet into the hoops.

  “But where is Ohotto? How will we find her?” I asked the dragon and Danu at the same time. All thought of the navy and of my father’s raiding party fled my mind when I thought of those innocent newts endangered.

  It was Danu who answered me. “There is only one place that I think she can be at the moment, Lila,” he whispered in a serious voice. “She wasn’t at Sebol, and she has been spending a lot of time at the court of your uncle, on Roskilde.”

  Roskilde. It looked like I was going to get a chance to see just what my uncle had done with my island country first hand.

  We had flown deep into the region known as the Free Islands and it was just past mid-morning when I told Danu about my foster-mother’s kind words, the words that had sent me into the sea toward Crux and Danu.

  “They must be so worried about Havick,” Danu said.

  “But there is only one way for the Raiders to be free – and that is to change,” I echoed Pela’s words to me.

  “Which might be a lot sooner than you think…” Danu said, nodding to the shapes amassing on the horizon ahead of us.

  They were Havick’s ships.

  We hurtled towards them, the shock of what I was seeing ahead of me stilling my mind. The navies of Roskilde had never travelled this far south before; crossing the doldrums of the Barren Seas to the far Free Islands of the southern end of the archipelago. Sure, there had been the lone patrol boat – even a galleon heading to patrol the lawless south – but my foster-father had once explained it to me thus; that it took so much effort to cross the Barren Seas (mostly oars, as the currents were so poor) that it wasn’t worth their while to transport a large fleet so far south. That was why us Sea Raiders lived there, after all, in a corner of the world where we could breathe a little free air.

  But what I was looking at now wasn’t just a fleet. It was an armada.

  “They must have been travelling for days. Weeks!” I said in stunned awe. What sort of a captain does that? I almost felt a sort of begrudging respect for the man, whether Lord Havick or an admiral under his command. The long hours of cajoling his sailors back to their oars, tiring themselves to the point of exhaustion every day… what reward did he promise was waiting for them, all the way down here?

  I could see at least twelve full-size galleons, each of which could easily dwarf our smaller Ariel. The Roskildean galleons were some five or six decks tall, with at least four or five masts sprouting an assortment of square and lateen sails. On their wooden-hulled bodies were the thick nests of gun ports, gaping like dark mouths.

  How many guns has each one of those got? I thought in alarm. Ten? Twenty each side of each galleon?

  But then came the smaller support vessels: the brigantines, the clippers, the caravels, and the carracks. There were enough to invade an entire country, let alone restore ‘low and order’ to the scattered southern islands. I knew that the Ariel could probably match any of the smaller vessels, and she would be faster than the cumbersome and slow-going galleons for sure – but against so many?

  “That doesn’t look good,” Danu said.

  “Isn’t that a bit obvious!?” I said irritably, my anxiety getting to me.

  “I smell magic,” Crux growled from the recesses of my mind, and from Danu’s flushing face, I could see that he had heard it too. Yet another dragon mystery I had yet to fathom, that dragons could sense magic.

  “Yes – I can feel it too…” Danu said from behind me. He pointed at the dark cloud that hung low over the fleet, just above the masts of the tallest ships. I had first assumed was a stormfront, until I realized that it was lower than the towering pillars of clouds of the skies.

  “Is that a fog?” I said uncertainly. But I already knew what Danu’s answer would be, and his pale and pinched face confirmed it. These clouds were darker than a sea fog, slate grey at their fronts, descending to pitch black in their bodies. It almost looked like lamp smoke, but I could see no burning anywhere.

  “That is no natural sea fog,” Danu said. “It’s a magical smoke. An ether, it is called. I was taught on Sebol that only the dark magicians used it, and that the original Darkening, hundreds of years ago, was made up of the same foul magic…”

  “Great,” I said, curling my lip in disgust. “And what does this magical ether do? Will it hurt us?”

  “Ohotto must have made it… Although I have no idea why,” Danu stated, before confessing, “I have no idea what she can make the ether do, or what dangers it hides.”

  “This Ohotto—she is the one who has stolen our young ones?” Crux’s voice was full of fire and fury in my mind, as he pulled at the currents of air, every tendon in his body eager to swoop down on the fleet to hunt out the witch who had so gruesomely attacked his kind.

  “Steady, Crux, I know… I share your pain.” I set my hands to his scales, letting him feel my own horror and anger. As soon as I touched him, it was like feeling a furnace – but one that was in my mind and heart, not under my hands. “We need to be careful, Crux, we need to wait for our chance to strike…”

  But that chance was taken from us, as I heard the harsh, braying call of a horn from the fleet below.

  “They’ve spotted us!” I shouted, as the lead galleon turned its nose in our direction, and its brother and sister ships followed suit. Up ahead, one of the smaller clippers of the fleet sped ahead, skipping along the waves towards us.

  But we were flying, many hundreds of feet high above the ocean, and with barely a flick of his wings, the mighty Crux sped up further into the skies, so that the entire armada was blanketed in the darkened smoke, only punctured by the odd crow’s nest. This high up, and we could see clear behind them where the ragged tails of the ether dissipated in their wake, and the sea plumes of their passage fragmented into widening ripples.

  Not only that–we could see the burning ruins of the Free Islands behind, as well.

  “Oh!” I gasped, knowing what I was looking at but even still feeling the horror. The Free Islands were an agglomeration of large and small islets, some which were barely shelves of rock and trees to others that had their own villages, even towns. They formed the southern end of the archipelago and they were usually a green and verdant place. But not any longer. A great swathe of destruction had been levied against them by the Roskildean fleet, which reminded me of the destroyed villages that we had seen earlier – but this tumult was near-total. Towers of smoke rose from the villages – and not one of the coastal villages stood standing. Those in the interiors of their islands, or those that were fortunate to be sheltered by cliff and peak, had been spared, but not so for any of the harbors or ports.

  “The monster – why?” I burst out. “I mean, he’s only ruining his own taxes and tithes with all of this…”

  “They’ll rebuild, they have to,” Danu commented sadly. “But he’s also destroying your livelihood as well.”

  I struck a palm to my face. Of course! Havick was making sure that the Sea Raiders would have no friendly port or village to visit or trade with.

  Pheet! Pheet! In our soaring, we had taken our eyes off of the cloud below, and now I heard the whistling and then saw the outlying blac
k bolts rising from the etheric cloud towards us.

  “Skreak!” Crux almost laughed at the gesture. We were still far too high to be hit by such paltry projectiles, and, one by one I saw them lose their speed and power, and fall harmlessly back towards the grey seas.

  “They dare attack us?” But just as quickly as the arrows were gone, Crux’s mirth gave way, as anger got the better of him. He tucked his head and neck downwards into a dive.

  “No – Crux!” I shouted, but it was already too late. “There are too many!”

  Heedless of my warnings, Crux dove like an angry falcon – straight towards the dark clouds, and the ships it sheltered.

  Chapter 31

  Danu, battle magics

  We screamed downward, the wind shrieking as we accelerated into the murk. “Crux!” I shouted, but the Phoenix dragon wasn’t going to listen to me – especially as he had also just disobeyed Lila, his bonded partner!

  I had a moment to gather my thoughts, reaching for that space inside of me where the magic dwelled – but then all of that was thrust aside as we vanished into the ether cloud.

  “The evilest of things always prefer the dark,” Afar had once told me, at the time that she had introduced me to the concept of the ether. “They say that, in the beginning, the fire and the light were one thing – and they drove away the evil darkness – but now darkness seeps back into our world, seeking to always extinguish the light.” The notion had terrified me as a younger adept, and I had lost many nights to wondering what it meant. Now, I thought I knew.

  All magicians and witches could summon that darkness – just as we could reach out to summon the weather, and light. But I knew instinctively that to do so would be to be inviting more of that darkness into the world; a sin, a heresy, a crime.

  It is no wonder, then, that the cloud that Ohotto had summoned was also laced with dark and evil magics.

  “Lost…”

  “So, hungry…”

  We were surrounded by voices, although they also sounded like the creaking and sighing of the wind. Crux roared in a muffled and distant way, as if the cloud itself was snatching at his voice.

  “Danu! Can you hear that?” I heard Lila shout in alarm.

  “Yes! Don’t listen!” I called back, but even this close to her, I had no idea if she could hear me or not. The murk was near total. It surrounded us, and I felt immediately cold, despite the fact that heat had been radiating from the dragon underneath me just a moment earlier. With the cold came not only the voices, but also the fear. An icy terror clutched at my heart, one I knew wasn’t natural, and yet I was almost powerless to stop myself from crying out.

  “Lila!” I put my hand out to her shoulder dimly visible as a deeper shadow ahead of me, not sure if I wanted to reassure her or myself – to find that she was hunched, her muscles tense.

  “Hold on,” she turned to say through gritted teeth, her face grown pale, but still courageous.

  “So very hungry…” the words rose around us, and I thought that I could even see forms in the dark – but what were they? We were hundreds of feet above the sea!

  They were phantasms, or apparitions. Ghostly forms just slightly paler than the frothing cloud that Crux was screaming his anger through. They appeared to be ragged and tearing, their edges indistinct, and yet I thought that I could see suggestions of heads, arms – even ghoulish dark spaces for eyes…

  “No!” I shouted, just a fraction of a second before Crux burst out of the bottom of the cloud, and into a volley of crossbow bolts.

  The galleons were thick around us as Crux flashed his leathery wings – but still I could hear the distinct thock noise of the many barbs hitting home on his belly. Most, I hoped and believed, would break harmlessly, unable to puncture his young and strong hide.

  “Skreyar!” Crux bellowed in pain and rage, bucking his neck to release a jet of his dragon fire out into the air as he wheeled around a crow’s nest. Everywhere I looked below, I could see the top decks and sails of the ships – it seemed to me like there was hardly any water at all, there were so many of them! And clustered on their decks were crossbowmen and spearmen, and half of them readying weapons at us.

  Thew! A much heavier, tearing sound came from off to my right as Crux once again grunted in pain.

  “Crux!” Lila shouted in alarm as I turned to see that something had punched a hole clean through his leathery wings! But they are as tough as armor! I thought, until I saw another of the culprits arching across the air towards us.

  “Arbalest!” Lila shouted, indicating the harpoon-sized bolt, fired from one of the heavy weapons on the decks of one of the galleons. The bolt alone was almost as tall as me, and probably thicker than one of my legs. Lila threw her weight to one side as, in tandem, Crux curled his lower wing underneath him and we cornered downwards, and the arbalest’s bolt passed meters over Crux’s back tines.

  “Ready cannons!” I heard one of the Roskildean captains shouting, and saw small gun shutters bang open on the nearest vessel.

  “Lila – we have to get out of here!” I called, knowing that she knew, but perhaps could not control the angered dragon beneath us. With a mighty tail swipe, Crux demolished one of the smaller masts of the nearest galleon, but every moment spent in the air only invited more crossbow bolts, and more time for the cannons and arbalests to reload their murderous weapons.

  Only use magic if you have no other choice. Wasn’t that what Afar and Chabon had taught me? Well, if there were any time in which I had no other choice – then it had to be now, right? Despite the rushing in my ears and the pounding of my heart, I closed my eyes and tried to find that space where the magic came from.

  “Hiyah!” I could hear snarls as Lila let loose arrows from her short bow down onto the decks of those below, and I was thrown first to one side and then another by Crux’s desperate aerial maneuvers – but I could feel the magic, there, waiting like a dark well.

  I dipped my mind into it, and came back glittering with power.

  “Light. Light to dispel the darkness!” I called, not knowing what I was saying or why, but the magic itself was strong and had taken a hold of me, pitching me forward in my seat and forcing me to place me hands on the dragon below.

  “SKRECH!” Crux roared in defiant joy, another shake of his head and this time the fire that belched from his mouth was an incandescent blue and green. It was much stronger than the previous dragon flame, and it engulfed the forecastle of the nearest galleon, making the entire boat rock and shake like it had been hit not only by fire, but by a great weight.

  I slumped back as the shouts and screams rose up amidst the storm of bolts, feeling exhausted. In front of me, Lila was still firing her bow, but Crux had now flared his wings to catch the breeze, and – with a crack, we were swooping low between the ships, flashing first one way and then another in our desperate race to get out from their murderous assaults.

  “Danu!” I heard a screech that chilled the blood, and, just as a patch of clearer blue skies opened up in front of us, I turned back to see a form emerging onto one of the decks behind us. It was too far away to be sure, but I could swear that it was a woman, dressed in white and with golden hair. I saw her raise her hands and spit, and I tried to remember the protection magics that I had been taught – but then we were skipping across the grey waters, out from the cloud and ahead of the boats, but the seas appeared to be boiling and frothing at our feet. Plumes of super-heated water were blasting their way into the sky, hitting Crux’s wings and legs, and making him snarl and try to lift himself higher.

  Ohotto. How could I face such a powerful witch? She was older than me, she had trained for far longer than me, and now she had the power of whatever dark magic she had summoned as well.

  But I was a dragon-friend. I had a power that she didn’t, I thought. My powers were stronger when around Crux – would it be enough?

  “Fly, Crux, fly!” Lila yelled, and the dragon snapped his burnt and searing wings in a rapid drumbeat, lifting us up i
nto higher and higher into the blue, and away from our enemy.

  We had survived – but only just.

  “We have to get to Malata.” Lila was gasping for breath as Crux turned south. “My father is due to take to the waves in the last, biggest raid of the season – or so he wanted to do last night – but the Raiders cannot stand against a fleet of so many, with such strangeness. We have to get to them, and we have to warn them.”

  I nodded, too weary from my spell casting to even say anything in return. I didn’t know how the Sea Raiders would survive such a force, just as I didn’t know how I could resist the magical ether and the trained witch Ohotto Zanna either.

  Chapter 32

  Lila’s plan

  We flew southwards at the head of the enemy fleet, moving faster and faster until they had become a dark shape on the horizon, and then a dot, and then were gone from view entirely. But not gone from the oceans, I knew.

  I felt my heart lift a little as I saw the old, wrecked galleon and the darker circlet of the Bonerock reef around Malata grow in our sight. There, already gliding ahead of them sat the three larger carracks of the Sea Raider fleet, and a host of smaller sailboats. My foster-father had been serious when he had wanted to go on a grand raid – and it looked like he had managed to roust out every ship that could be fought with to go and plunder.

  But now you will need every ship in order to keep your lives, I thought grimly, waving an arm at the Ariel as Crux swooped towards it.

  “It’s Lila!” someone was calling, but even so, the crew of the Ariel were still gathering bows and spears as we approached.

  “Lila!” It was my father, storming onto the deck in his high boots, gauntlets and armor. He looked serious as he called to us. “We have no time for any more of your adventures!”