Drakhana's Claim
Page 9
“But that would mean we might have to revert to being in our dragon form just to survive,” says the second adviser. “That will mean many deaths among our clan if we do go further north.”
“I can see that we are not reaching a consensus about this situation,” the king finally says. “Ivy, maintain the perimeter that you have already built around us. Logan, continue what you are doing in the city to aid us.”
“Father—”
He raises a hand to cut her off. “The queen and I will need time to decide what we will do. We must consider this situation carefully.”
Nineteen
Ivy
I wake up early the next day in order to get some training in before I go check on the frontline. Basil is still there, holding down the fort. He’ll be glad for me to return and relieve him of his leadership responsibilities.
I splash some water on my face then gather my hair into a tight braid. I put on my fighting leathers and pull on my boots. Once I’m ready, I make my way to the training facility.
Even if many of the troops are on the frontline I set up at the foothills, we still have quite a few warriors in the fortress and within Star Peak itself. They are assigned for the security of the nobles and the royal household. I’m pretty sure I have a few with them to train with today.
When I reach the training facility, I can already hear dragons sparring. I enter the building that is detached from the fortress. It sits near the garrison for easy access of the warriors.
It’s a wide pace with wooden floors with a spring to them to ensure the avoidance of knee and leg injuries while running, jumping, and flipping in the air. The large windows let in natural light. Different types of weapons and exercise equipment line the walls.
There’s a wide space in the middle for calisthenics and several rings off to the side for sparring sessions. It’s easily my favorite space within the fortress grounds. I spent most of my formative years in this place.
My eyes immediately land on Logan. I barely hold in a gasp. This is the first time I’ve seen him in fighting leathers since before he left. And damn if he doesn’t make the uniform look good.
He has already worked up a good amount of sweat. He’s sparring with another dragon. They are using the ancient hand to hand combat techniques that has been taught to us since we were fledglings. They mostly involve grappling and the use of the legs.
I’m tempted to cut in and finish the sparring session with Logan, but it seems like he’s got everything handled. He grabs the other soldier behind the neck and brings his knee up several times against his abdomen in a series of punishing blows.
The soldier drops to the ground as Logan steps back. Applause breaks out. Even I’m clapping my hands.
“Ivy,” he says when he sees me. He runs the back of his arm over his forehead.
“I’m impressed,” I say in return. “I’ve never seen you train this hard before.”
“You never know when you need it.” He grins. “Isn’t that what you always say?”
I mirror his grin. “Feel like flying with me? I want to show the younger soldiers a thing or two about complicated areal maneuvers. What do you say?”
“Lead the way.” He gestures toward the ledge that extends from the training facility.
I gather the warriors and ask them to watch. Then I call upon my dragon. Logan does the same.
We make a running start for the ledge and jump off, letting ourselves plummet. Then we open our wings with a snap. We use the rising air currents to lift us up, moving in a spiral formation.
I circle Logan as he circles me. Then we break and breathe out a plume of ice. The move is designed to catch dragons from all sides.
Then we circle the peak with breakneck speed. Logan allows the tip of his wing to catch some snow, which he flicks playfully at the soldiers watching us. They all groan when the snow lands on them then breaks out into laughter.
I give Logan a signal to land on one of the farthest ledges. It’s a place we used to go to when we wanted some alone time. It has the best view on the peak since you can see from miles away. It’s a sea of clouds.
I shed my dragon and sit on the edge of the ledge, dangling my legs over. Logan does the same, taking a seat beside me. We stay that way for a long moment.
“Tell me,” I say. “Why did you want to go into business?”
He looks out into the distance when he speaks. “I guess, if you really look at it, being in business is still like being a warrior. You fight with money instead of swords, claws, and teeth.”
“You can take the soldier out of the strike force but the soldier still remains within the dragon.” I breathe in deeply. “You must enjoy it a lot if you’ve stayed away this long.”
“It’s more than enjoyment, Ivy.” He shrugs. “Yes, I will admit that I do find pleasure in going in for the kill. When I was edging out the fire clan in Las Vegas, I felt a sense of pride in that accomplishment.”
“Yet, because of what I did, you lost all your foothold here.”
“That’s the nature of business. You win some. You lose some.”
“But, if I hadn’t attacked the fire clan, they wouldn’t have bought out those businesses that we own?”
“It might have aggravated them, sure, but you can’t really tell if that’s what prompted them to retaliate.” He bumps his shoulder with mine. “Don’t worry about it too much. I’m handling it. We will come out of this stronger and far richer.”
“This just makes me see that the fire clan’s invasion of the financial and the physical territory isn’t two separate problems.” One side of my lips lifts up. “It’s actually just one. An attack on any front is still an attack on us.”
“It makes me happy that you can finally see where I’m coming from.” He faces me and looks me in the eyes. For a moment, I feel shy, and I’m not really the shy type. Then he says, “This is a good first step in what I know is a long road.”
I drop my gaze and recall what I saw yesterday. “I can’t help but think about the dragons at the factories. I feel sad about the fact that they can’t shift anymore.”
“I think for some of them, it’s no longer a necessity. Yes, they are still dragons in spirit, but they no longer need to be dragons to survive. They are finding their own ways.”
“But being a dragon is what makes us special.”
“Being a dragon is a part of who we are, yes. But it’s far from what makes us special.”
I give him a sidelong glance. “What do you mean?”
His face grew serious. “Max once told me that we are individuals. With our own characteristics. No two dragons are the same.”
“He’s right.”
“That’s what makes us special. The fact that no two of us are alike.”
“Max was a wonderful dragon as well as a skilled soldier. We feel his loss every day,” I say in a reverent tone.
“That he was.” Logan nods. “I didn’t know how to function when he died. All I knew was I didn’t want to be in the place that holds so many memories of him.”
I reach out and squeeze his hand. He turns his hand over so that our palms touch and our fingers entwine. I relish the contact as he takes the comfort that I’m willing to share.
“When this all began, I thought I knew what to do,” I say as I look out into the endless stretch of swirling clouds. “To fight is all I know.”
“I’m not saying that you have to stop fighting. I just want you to see that there are other ways to fight. One that doesn’t involve bloodshed.”
“It’s not going to be easy. Especially now that we have the fire clan breathing down our necks.”
“I get it. We need to face them head on.”
“I hate that our clan has been reduced to this,” I say, feeling the sting on my wounded pride.
“I know that we may be facing tough times ahead, but we are ice clan.” He tightens his hold on my hand. “We are powerful. We cannot easily be defeated.”
“I wish that were true.
You should have seen what the fire clan is capable of.”
“We will think of a way. We always find something that will help us succeed.” He turns to face me and I look up at him, searching his face for the answers that I crave. “We don’t need to change things in a day, Ivy.”
“I hope you’re right.”
His words do little to assuage my building doubts. I just wish I have an idea of what’s about to happen. That way I can better prepare myself for the fight that is to come.
Twenty
Logan
One of the things I had forgotten about training? It clears my mind. With my body engaged in workouts, my mind is able to concentrate on other things.
I train with the troops in the morning then afterward I’m on the phone with my assistant and business managers. We’re conferencing almost on a daily basis. Our mission? To bring down the fire clan through overthrowing their business ventures while protecting our own.
The dragon-kata or the calisthenics especially designed by the ancients for dragons helps bring together the man and beast. Keep your muscles limber and it will make it easier to call on your dragon and shift forms. A strong body fosters a strong mind as well.
Since returning to the Floe Fortress, I have been training with the troops. It’s as if I never left. One day we do leg workouts. The next day we concentrate on sword dancing. The day after that we work on our back muscles.
In just a few days, I’ve regained all my muscle mass and more. My arms are more defined as well as my abdominal muscles. I no longer need to flex. Everything is high and tight.
The troops welcome me back as if I never left. There are even friends that I haven’t seen in years who I’ve happily reconnected with. I may not admit this to anyone out loud, but I did miss the camaraderie. The brotherhood of being in the dragon army.
The fly days have to be my favorite. We form a squadron and execute maneuvers as if we were one unit. That’s not an easy task when you have at least fifty dragons in the air during one time.
It’s all predicated on trusting one another. Feeling the dragon next to you without having to turn your head and look. When you all act as one, no collisions happen. You all become a lethal force that’s unstoppable to any enemy.
The most basic of the maneuvers is what is called a combat spread. This happens prior to engagement. A pair of attacking dragons will separate. The dragon with the lower altitude becomes the defender, while the dragon flies above in a perch position. The defender will then attempt to lure their opponents into a good position to be attacked by the other dragon.
Of all the maneuvers, my favorite will have to be the wingover. It’s a fast, 180 degree turn with a very small turn radius. It consists of a quarter loop into a vertical climb, letting the speed fall as altitude increases, and then a flat-turn over the top, diving to complete a quarter loop at the original altitude, but going in the opposite direction.
This is special to the ice dragons because we tend to be sleeker than the other clans. It’s difficult to accomplish, but when you master it, you’re able to perform an attack without the other dragon knowing. The best sneak attack there is when in the air.
Being back at Verglas strengthens my dragon the longer I stay. It’s like plugging your phone to its charger but a million times more powerful. I’ve returned to the heart of our power and it’s feeding me. It wakes my dragon more than I expected it to.
When I arrived in LA, there were days when I’d call on my dragon just to remain in touch with that side of me. But the busier I became with work, the less and less I had time to call on my dragon. In the back of my mind, I knew that my dragon resented me for it.
Which is why, now that I’m home, I’m transforming more and more. Which is to my dragon’s delight. I think he’d want to be out all the time if he had his way. I can’t blame him. Being with our kind is always a comfort that’s unparalleled.
I notice that when I’m in my dragon form, many of the warriors do their best to match my skill. What some of them don’t know since they were too young to remember is that I used to be Ivy’s second in command. Meaning, at one time, I held one of the highest positions in Strike Force Alpha.
I had control of the most powerful dragons in the clan. The best warriors looked up to me for guidance. I thought I’d lost my touch since leaving, but it’s apparently like riding a bike. I returned back into the role of commander without much effort.
I dispense advice freely when asked. We are all in this together. Whatever they might learn from me that could save their lives I will give them without hesitation.
At the end of the day, after dinner with the court and a dip in one of the hot springs found in one of the deep caves in the mountain, I go to the meditation room that’s adjacent to my rooms. I pick the furthest corner, fold my legs under me, rest my palms on my knees, and close my eyes. I call on my dragon.
It’s a silent journey at first. You enter the deepest recesses of your mind. For me, it’s entering a cave. Inside, resting on a mound of gold coins is my dragon.
Tonight, he’s curled into a ball with his tail to me. I saunter up to a stone thrown and sit down. I lean back and sigh.
Are you mad at me again? I ask him.
He only gets this way when he’s having a tantrum. Usually, he faces me when I arrive. He’d either be seated or lying on his belly, with his front legs crossed, head held high.
Come on now, I encourage. What did I do this time?
A rusting happens. The hissing of scales rubbing together as he shifts. Still, he doesn’t face me.
I raise an eyebrow. You know I’m not going anywhere. You might as well speak to me.
There’s a snort. It’s actually loud enough to loosen some of the gold coins piled up on the mound. They tumble to the stone floor in a clatter.
I thought we had a good day today, I say. If it wasn’t good for you them maybe I shouldn’t be bothering you too much and let you lie dormant like you like.
That’s what gets his attention.
No! He turns around and faces me.
No, you don’t want me to disturb you? It takes everything in my power not to grin.
I don’t want you to leave me dormant. He shakes his massive head. You neglected me for so many years.
Instant guilt floods my insides. I know, and for that I apologize.
He leans his head closer to me. I reach out and touch his nose. Then he snorts and I’m covered in ice crystals for a brief moment. I laugh.
I want us to fight, Logan, he says, returning to his usual position of resting on his belly.
What do you mean by fight? I ask him, rubbing away the ice crystals clinging to my clothing.
I want to help Ivy in this fight against the fire dragons.
I frown. And why would you want to do that? I thought we were doing very well for ourselves in LA.
Very well for you, maybe.
Look, I know that I haven’t been letting you out as much and I’m sorry about that. My lips turn into a hard line. But that’s not an excuse to jump onto this fight. Aren’t you happy that we get to train with the troops? Isn’t that enough?
When he shakes his head, it feels like the entire room trembles. No more covert movements against the fire clan in the business world. Don’t you want to sink our claws into them? Taste their blood in your mouth?
He licks his maw and grins.
What are you doing? You know that we are not that type of dragon. Bloodlust is beyond us.
For you, maybe. He opens and closes his claws as if he is imagining singing them into the soft underbelly of another dragon.
I can actually feel the sensation without myself. It’s a hunger that I’ve been suppressing in my gut for years. I cannot allow my dragon to take over. I cannot lose myself.
But I know you want to, he says in the most tempting voice. Just one battle, Logan. One kill. Is that too much to ask?
You know as well as I do that it’s not just one kill. It’s never that simple.
/> If you don’t want to do it for us, let’s do it for Max. He deserves to be avenged.
I push up from my throne and point at him. Don’t bring Max into this.
Then, without looking back, I leave the cave and return to myself in the meditation room. No way will I allow my dragon to take over. No way will I be a slave to the kind of bloodlust that courses through the veins of others.
Twenty-One
Ivy
The last time I saw Logan, he had been performing aerial maneuvers with the Beta Squadron. I think he was teaching the younger dragons a thing or two. What they don’t remember is that he used to be our best flyer.
He’s fast. He’s sleek. And he’s nimble when he’s in the air. I pity the enemy who tries to go wing to wing with him in the sky.
As I watched him, I could see that he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He’s neglected his dragon for so long that now that he’s back he’s reveling in being in his alternate form. Verglas has brought him back to life.
For a moment, I wonder if bringing back the dragons from the factories will do the same. Will the heart of the mountain be able to help them reconnect with their dormant dragons? It certainly calls to each and every one of us.
But who am I to uproot them from the lives they have already settled in? If they are happy without their dragons then it would be selfish of me to force them to do otherwise. They made their choices in life and I need to learn to respect that.
After dinner, I see Logan slip out of the dining hall. He must be on his way to the hot springs as I’m told he often does after a long day of training. I’m about to follow him when a group of my commanders come forward. Before I know it, I’m pulled into a briefing I didn’t ask for nor needed.
I guess everyone’s just feeling antsy. It’s been quiet on the horizon for now and the fire dragons have ceased their attack. I ask my commanders to stay vigilant. The last thing we need is to become complacent during this time and be caught unaware when they do finally attack.