One of my guards is not so lucky. He screams and the stink of burning hair and flesh choke the hall. The dragon’s fire is fast, incinerating him in seconds, leaving ash floating on the air.
The flames last only a brief second, but already my arm aches from the force of the dragon’s breath. Maybe my brother and late father were right—how can any human live near such dangerous beasts, let alone build a city underneath their nests? This is the day that my brother, Prince Hacon Maddox, has decided to overthrow the rulers of Torvald and seize it for himself. May the storms guide me; I have sworn to help him.
“Up! Up and to the prince!” Lowering my shield, I stand and leap forward, knowing we have only a little time before the orange and red dragon will be able to breathe fire down on us again. I catch a glimpse of the charred armor of the soldier who has died, melted now into slag. I don’t even know his first name.
No time for misery or cold feet now. We run through the long hall, feet pounding and armor rattling. Above us, dragons pound at the roof and walls and roar. Luckily for us, but not so lucky for Torvald royalty, this palace has been designed to withstand rogue dragon attacks. Its many halls are reinforced stone, shot through with metal bars. The king and queen’s best protection will become their prison.
Turning a corner, we face the next phalanx of Torvald guards, all wearing the imperial red and purple of the Flamma-Torvald household. Scars show how many battles they have fought, and their stance is that of fighting men and women.
But Flamma-Torvald, for all of its might, for all of its fame throughout the Three Kingdoms, has grown soft. The Maddox clan hails from the furthest east some generations ago. We’ve fought every tribe, every bandit and every upstart warlord between here and the ends of creation. The people of the Middle Kingdom have no idea what we can do—or what strange and terrible things we have already done.
“Death to the traitors!” shouts one of Flamma-Torvald guards, throwing his longsword forward in a jab that would have skewered me were it not for my reflexes. I catch and turn the blow, spinning to step inside the man’s guard.
A kick to his solar plexus sends him back. He falls, sprawling onto the floor. My second-in-command dispatches him with a solid thrust of his blade. The battle is fast and hard. I spin and parry. I hack until my sword no longer connects with armor and tissue and bone. Half my guard has been slain by the time we’re done, but all the Flamma-Torvald troops have fallen under our blades. My men and women look as though they have been drenched in red by the time that we finish, and I lean on my sword, panting.
“Sir?”
Looking up, I see one of the women of my guard pointing to the brick dust and mortar raining down from above us. She is right. We don’t have time for even a breath.
Ahead of us is our goal—what looks to be the ornate, wooden double-doors of the throne room. All this carnage has been planned months in advance by Hacon, my brother by our late father—and by me as well. Hacon and the Iron Guard are to be inside the throne room, seizing the king and queen, while I lead a group of soldiers through the palace halls to deal with any Dragon Riders we might meet.
Hacon has said the people of Torvald have no chance against us. I’d thought that mostly bravado. It is only now, standing outside the doors of the throne room with blood dripping down my blades that I start to believe. How long have I heard him and father rail about the day we would take the city? I never truly believed it possible.
Even now, I can hear Hacon’s shouts. ‘They are abominations! Dragons are evil, vile creatures—and they have enslaved the entire Middle Kingdom through their control of House Flamma-Torvald!’ Our father never tired of repeating those same rants.
Why should I feel uneasy now?
The twin doors of the throne room open. Two of the Iron Guards step out, their full-plate suits looking like the scales of dragons and gleaming in the torch light. Behind them, I see the opulent throne room of House Flamma-Torvald. A ring of the Iron Guard surrounding King Mason and Queen Druella Roule.
The carpets of the throne room seem washed in blood. Bodies of the royal guards lay hacked apart. The stench is almost unbearable. Looking at the blood, my stomach clenches and turns. It wasn’t meant to be like this. It wasn’t meant that so many should die. What have we done?
From behind his prison of blades, King Mason shouts, “How could you? We welcomed you to the citadel! We gave you a home!” I hear tears in his voice as well as anger.
My brother, his black hair revealed with his helmet off, walks to the window. Outside, dragons swoop through the sky as the city burns. Just a scant few years ago, we came to this citadel with our Iron Guard as a fine gift for the ‘glory of the dragon-king.’ King Mason had been pleased then, giving us high places at court, installing our Iron Guard at every city gate and guard house. Little did he know this day would come, when our gifts would spring into action under our orders, seizing power and delivering the city to us.
Turning away from the window, Hacon smiles. His face seems sharper than ever, narrow and long. “Call off your dragons.” Hacon points his sword at the queen. “Or she will be the first to die.”
“Cowards!” King Mason snarls the word. “Try me first, man to man!”
He is brave, I’ll give him that. I stride to my brother’s side. “Hacon, let them live. We have seized the city, and with a word from this man, the dragons will retreat. There is no need to wallow in blood.”
“Silence, brother!” He slashes the air with his sword and turns to Mason again. “Call your beasts off, or your wife and child both die.”
“Hacon, this wasn’t part of the plan.” This is a holy mission—or so I’d thought. I knew it would be ugly, but I also thought this is the right thing. “We are here to liberate the city, not kill innocent babes. Imprison these two or exile them. We have broken their power. It is enough!”
“It is never enough,” Hacon hisses. “Exiles have a habit of returning, and babes grow up, brother!” With a motion and a thought, he orders the Iron Guard seize Roule, a queen no more. I knew my brother hid a cruel streak. I knew he sometimes used our family magic without wisdom or thought. But I had hoped he’d grown up over these past few months. That he had learned a little from our late father.
With a mournful call like the herons in autumn, the dragons call out. Glancing out the window, I see them disperse into the thunderclouds above the city, circling ever farther and farther. Sweat breaks out on Mason’s forehead. I know he is using his unholy connection to these beasts to send them far away. Every now and then, a dragon swoops to pick up a rider—another unhappy alliance. Those that can flee are doing so, snatching handfuls of humans in their claws. But the Iron Guard raise long spears to show them never to return.
“There. It is done.” Mason hangs his head and reaches out to take his wife’s hand. “Leave my child and my Roule. Let us flee. You have the citadel. Take our riches, the crown, but let my family live!” He looks up, his eyes red, but his voice is firm.
Hacon’s smile widens. “You really are all fools.” Hacon nods. The Iron Guards lift their blades and strike down the royal couple. I turn away, sickened by the waste of it. A battle is one thing—to bring down an enemy who will take your life if you do not take his is a glorious thing. But to slaughter a man and a woman as if they were pigs meant for a feast brings no honor and tests no skill.
Hacon’s voice calls me back to my duty. “The rest of you—go find the babe and destroy it.” The Iron Guard lacks the intelligence to question orders. They are things, soulless and mindless, made of magic and metal. They storm out, clanking, to find the royal chambers.
I turn and slam a fist into my brother’s shoulder, making him stagger. “A child? You mean murder. I don’t know what you have become, Hacon, but I want no part in slaughter.”
Turning, I stride from the throne room. Hacon’s plans and maps are in my head and I know some backstairs the servants use. I can reach the babe ahead of the Iron Guard.
The door stands open.
Bursting in, I find two Dragon Riders—man and a woman—standing between me and a crib that contains the royal babe. The man draws his sword. The woman bends over the babe.
I close and bar the door behind me. A shadow dims the light from the window. Then a flash of orange and red brightens the light. Storms protect us. Is that the same red and orange beast that attacked before? Has it bonded to the child? My throat dries, but the baby gives a gurgling laugh, and I know that allowing it to be murdered is something I cannot stomach.
Glancing at the riders, I tell them, “If you seek a glorious end, it follows just behind me! But if you seek to keep the baby alive, you must flee now! Forget the child’s true name! Never speak of the parents, and you may spare its life! But go–go now!” I must look—and smell—hideous, covered as I am with blood. I can only hope they will listen.
“But the king and queen?” The man’s voice shakes slightly. The woman seems to size me up with a look and seizes the baby to wrap it in her cloak. The man lifts his sword and his voice firms. “Where are they? We leave together.”
The heavy clank of iron boots is muffled by the door—the Iron Guards are coming. “There is no time! Just get that child somewhere safe and never, never come back, please!”
The woman nods to the other Dragon Rider.
My brother’s angry words echo outside. “Break open the door! Kill my brother if he stands in your way!”
The man glances at me, eyes side. “You are Vance Maddox?”
The door at my back shudders. A powerful fist rattles it again, shaking the hinges. It won’t take much for them to get through. “Does it matter? Now please. Go. Save what you can. I will hold them as long as possible.”
“Come on, this one is right. The flame must live on.” The woman gives me one final look and pulls on her friend’s sleeve, tugging him to the window. They flee to the waiting dragon. Its lands on the rock tower, clings there as they jump for its back. For an instant, I wonder at this horrible alliance—for an instant it almost seems an amazing thing. But I cannot think that—dragons are beasts and meant to live far from all humans.
Behind me, wood splinters. Just one more blow and they will be through. Metal hinges shriek. Turning, I step back and lift my blade. Outside, the rising mournful calls of the dragons that circled the citadel reverberate, unsure, and I wonder if they understand what is going on, or do they cry just to cry.
The door shatters, and Hacon steps through the splinters. He glances once around the room. “So, my brother—you would seek to undermine my rule?”
“It is done. You have won.”
“Done?” My brother swears and shakes his head. “It will never be done until these half-humans, half-dragons never walk the land again. I will work a magic so deep and so powerful no dragon will ever remember having a human rider, and no child will ever think of dragons as anything but nightmares.”
I give a shrug. “Fine. Work the magic. But the killing is done this day.”
The Iron Guard step into the room. I summon the tendrils of magic within me—the ancient Maddox storm-magic that speaks to us of wolves and thunder, of the wild and forgotten places.
My brother’s eyes narrow. He glances at the empty crib and back to me. “You were to be my right-hand man, my trusted adviser, my own blood who is all I can trust. Instead, you stab me in the back. You make your own plans instead of heeding mind. For this, I strip you of your name. I strip you of your family. No one shall befriend you wherever in my whole realm you go. I forbid any to feed you, to clothe you, or to shelter you. You shall be the scourge of all, and a curse I place upon your soul!”
He lifts a hand. The dark wave of his magic washes toward me. He is going to curse me into the grave, but I also have some power. I throw myself forward, the old storm magic clean and pure against his darkness. It may do me some good. But next to me, one of the Iron Guard swings a fist larger than my head. I have no time to duck the blow.
As I fall to pain and blackness, I know I have bought myself—and the Dragon Riders some time. The child survives. The flame still burns. And I can only mutter a prayer that the flame will one day purge Hacon’s black heart.
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Dragon Raider Page 25