Dragon Mage (The First Dragon Rider Book 3)

by Ava Richardson

  “Zenema?” I wondered out loud. I didn’t remember Pax ever mentioning that dragon name to me before.

  “A young Giant White dragon who already has stopped half of the younger newts from fighting each other. She will make a good brood mother, one day,” Paxala said approvingly and I shrugged. It was good to hear that Paxala’s influence on the dragon crater was starting to pay off, and without the tyrannical golden bull, the dragons could in fact live peacefully together. Just as long as it works, I thought.

  Yeah, we were doing the right thing for the dragons and the students, I thought as Neill signaled Paxala to lower her flight to skim under the cold grey clouds as we surveyed the terrain.

  The smoke was thick and dark, obscuring the village of Rampart at times as the wind whistled and whined its awkward way through the valleys. I could even see the sharper manmade lines of walls and buildings now, and what I saw didn’t look good.

  Rampart was little more than a thick defensive wall from this high up, a few hundred feet high across two ridges of hills, with the buildings clustered or built directly into the wooden structure. I could see why it had earned its name. Over the peaceful years, however, a larger collection of village huts, storehouses, and small stockyards had extended out along the bottom of the river valley floor in front of the wall, and around that was another, much, much smaller palisade.

  And it was down. Down and burning, as well as most of the outer valley buildings. Clearly something had attacked Rampart, and had flowed through the defenseless town with fury and fire before they had washed up against the high walls of Rampart itself.

  “That must be where the townsfolk holed up,” Neill shouted, using the stirrup-loops to guide us slowly in a curving arc down lower around the town. “But that is a strong defense, I’m not sure why Prince Vincent would want a phalanx of Dragon Riders here…” he sounded worried, before we flew over the crest of a hill and saw the other side of the mighty wall of Rampart.

  “Oh no,” I managed to gasp, before the first arrows started to fly.

  Chapter 17

  Neill, and Rampart

  The narrow lands on the other side of Rampart, hedged by higher hills were a black, teeming sea of fighters. We had thought that they had attacked from the southern side of the strange town, where the river village huts had been destroyed – but that must have only been a diversion, as the main body of their armies sat here, on the northern side.

  “There’s thousands of them!” Char said, her eyes wide.

  I nodded. I didn’t even know that my brothers had access to that many soldiers, before I realized that of course they didn’t – these weren’t just Torvald forces, even though many of the soldiers and clansmen on the other side were undeniably flying banners of the Torvald purple and green, with their individual captaincy flags below. I recognized the Bloodied Bear, Fennec’s Dagger— some of the fiercest and strongest of the clans that had once fought under my father.

  But there were a lot more warriors there too – many dressed in black, and a large number who didn’t seem to ride under any banner or flag at all. Bandits? Mercenaries? I thought.

  “Those are the Northern Lances!” Char cried out in horror, pointing to a large corral of mounted troops on one of the gentler sides of a hill under the banner of a grey lance in front of a blue field. “They Northlanders! Supposed to be loyal to my father…” I saw her frown and clench her teeth.

  This wasn’t just the Sons of Torvald, then, I thought in grim alarm. We weren’t looking at one irritant clan, as large and as martial as us Torvalds were. No, this was some sort of coalition of clans and rebellious lords and who knows who else.

  This was a civil war, I thought in horror as the air between us shimmered and grew indistinct, as if from a passing cloud or flock of birds. But no—it was no flock of birds, but rather arrows whistling as they shot toward us.

  “Turn, dive!” I shouted at the same time as I kicked out the stirrups, working them to drop Paxala’s right shoulder and raise her left so that she turned on a wingtip in a quick half-circle, all the while losing altitude.

  No time to think, just act – I slipped a foot out of the lower right stirrup, and pushed down with the other, letting the dragon know that I wanted her to dive and then flip up, to catch the thermals and—

  “Skreeayar!” Paxala roared joyously as our quick turn and dive gave us the speed to shoot up and out of the way of the oncoming projectiles like, well, a speeding arrow ourselves.

  “Good flying!” Char shouted at me, and I shared with her a brief, savage grin before concentrating on controlling the dragon. Easing on the reins and leaning to my left caused Paxala to wheel in a large circle around the encamped army. We were moving far too fast now for the archers below to catch us, but they had seen us. I saw smaller, brighter flags being waved in our direction, and brash, angry-sounding war horns calling up to challenge us.

  “Sckreach!” The Crimson Red roared her own challenge to the small humans, and trailing from her mouth came wisps of heavy smoke. She was eager to fight those that had dared to attack her, her whole body underneath me thrumming with excitement and energy.

  “Not yet, brave Pax, not yet…” I murmured to her, and wondered if her frustrated growl was in response to me or not. Instead, I guided her toward the hills at the southern end of Rampart, hoping to take her out of sight of the army below. “We have to get news back to the academy!” I shouted to Char, the wind whipping my words from me as we flew. I didn’t know how long the fortified wall of Rampart would hold out against such a foe, and then the army would be free to march straight down the soft Middle Kingdom lands to the monastery itself.

  “Neill! Look – down there,” Char was pointing back, over our shoulder towards the vast edifice that was the Rampart wall. Turning my head, I could see a tiny patch of color on the heights flashing and flaring in the daylight.

  “What is it?” I asked, trying to make it out.

  “It’s a flag, a flag from one of the top windows,” Char said. “There’s still people trapped in there, and we have to help them!”

  “But Char, there’s a few thousand archers and spear throwers and catapults and sky knows what else down there…” I said, before just one stern look from her made me see that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I kicked down on the stirrup-loops, and Pax was once again wheeling in the sky, heading towards the wall with the clouds of arrow bolts rising towards her.

  The other side, I thought, changing foot positions to let the dragon know what I was thinking. She responded immediately, flaring her wings and – with one powerful beat that made my stomach lurch where I sat, we flipped over the high Rampart walls and to the other side, where the burned and unoccupied river-village was. I encouraged her to wheel around the still smoking houses, before bringing her down before one of the many gatehouses that stood at the wall’s feet.

  Thud. The dragon’s feet caught the cobbles and decking of what must have once been a large market square, her claws tearing up earth and stone alike as we made a fast landing.

  “I’ll get to the doors,” Char shouted to me, before pressing her forehead to the dragon’s neck below and sharing a brief moment, before unclipping her harness and sliding down the scaled shoulder and leg, to land with a plume of dust onto the floor below. From where I sat, I looked around warily over Pax’s shoulders, seeing on either side of us burnt and smoldering thatch, demolished houses, and the rising haze of the fires. This side of Rampart is trashed, I thought. The armies must have attacked here first…

  Char hammered on the doors on the other side as I turned to look at the wall of Rampart itself.

  It was made of wood, for the most part, with stone foundations and stone fittings for the many windows that spotted its height. Strong built, it must have taken decades to finish.

  It doesn’t make sense, the warlord’s son in me thought. Why on earth would Rubin and Rik attack here? Rampart was about as well-defended as any place in the Middle Kingdom, easily as defensib
le as Prince Vincent’s palace, and more than even Mount Hammal and the monastery itself. Even though the rebel army outside was vast, and would win through sheer numbers eventually, the siege might take weeks or even months.

  Why here? Why attack a strong position, when there are so many weaker targets available?

  There was the sound of scraping and grating from the door in front of Char, as various internal barricades had to be moved out of the way to free those trapped inside.

  “But hang on a minute…” I frowned, rising a little from my seat to peer closer at the boarded windows of Rampart’s walls. “If the rebel army moved to attack the other side of the wall, why didn’t those inside just flee out this side? I thought. Once again, it didn’t make sense.

  Paxala clearly sensed my suspicion and started to hiss, lashing her tail so that it demolished what remained of a small wagon on one side of us.

  “Char, be careful…” I said, just as the double doors cracked open—

  “Thank the heavens you’ve come!” said a terrified-looking middle-aged woman in a belted dress and head covering. I was already figuring out a way we could get the Rampartians to safety. We couldn’t carry all of them on Paxala’s back—not if there were any more than a couple–but we might be able to escort them to the river, and maybe there would be a barge or a boat or something that we could get to carry them downstream…

  Again, I wondered why those terrified villagers inside hadn’t thought of this before. I mean, look at how much damage there is out here! I thought, scanning the ruined houses, the gouges in the streets, the great blackened marks up the wall of Rampart itself.

  “Come in, we have many inside who need help,” the woman said, her voice pleading.

  “We don’t have any great medicine, but we have a few supplies that might…” my friend was saying.

  Actually, that is an awful lot of burning, I thought, inspecting a scorch mark that was taller than three buildings stood piled high, one continuous plume of fire—

  Oh no. Fear washed down my spine. There’s only one terrible machine in the world that can do that kind of damage, and I’m standing on it.

  “Char!” I shouted. “Char, we need to get airborne!” I shouted as Paxala huffed and bristled the scales around her head and neck. She had caught wind of what I had realized, and was clearly upset. Zaxx had been here. That is the remains of dragon fire – but why couldn’t Paxala sense it earlier?

  Thock. The sound that broke through my rising panic was solid and heavy, but muffled, like what you might imagine a rock dropped onto a bed might make. Only it was no rock that was thrown, and it was no feather duvet that it hit. A taller man stepped out from around the other side of the terrified woman, grabbing her around the neck and pulling her out the way as another stepped out from the shadows inside, and fired the small bow he had in his hands – straight into Char’s flinching form.

  “Char!” I shouted, terrified and furious, as Paxala reared up on her hind legs and bellowed in shared anguish.

  “SKREAYARCH!”

  The villager woman was thrust to one side, and I saw that this must have been some kind of a ruse, that the women here was a prisoner in her own home, along with however many others, and that the armies had already conquered the walls of Rampart. The man tried to jump forward to seize Char’s fallen body by the ankles, but Paxala was faster. All I could do was hang on for dear life as she lunged, her feet splaying to grab her dragon friend and human sister in one claw, as the other scraped across the gatehouse, splintering wood and fabric.

  “Char? Please be all right, please!” I found myself saying, as Paxala roared once more, turning in a fierce hopping jump to spread her wings, and bounded into the smoke-filled skies over the burned village, bearing both me and Char with her.

  I had never felt so absolutely useless in all of my life. Even when I was the youngest and most ignored son of my father, never asked for my advice or opinion, I had never felt like I did now. How much was she bleeding? Fast or slow? Some of my father’s battle training rattled in my mind as I tried to both fly as fast as I could and see what state my Char was in at the same time. It was impossible to see anything from where I sat apart from blood on Pax’s claws, and the ashen-like glimpse of skin…

  My Char, I thought again, my heart lurching. Don’t let her die… Don’t let her die…

  We flew as fast as Paxala could carrying the injured Char, heading southwest, back to Mount Hammal and the monastery. I tried to aid in the Crimson Red’s flight, but every effort I made to control her via the stirrup-loops only made her flying even more erratic and clumsy. After a fourth angered “Skrech!” from the dragon, I relaxed all of my reins and let her have her head, flying whichever way she wanted to – and she flew faster and smoother.

  The greens and browns of the ridges and hills below us blurred and changed, but it was still agonizingly slow how the horizon started to change and shift, and distant landmarks come slowly towards us. Faster, Paxala, please, faster, I was thinking, sparing a look behind us to the blackened smoke to Rampart, still visible.

  There were many terrible mysteries eating at my mind. Why hadn’t Paxala been able to sense the recent appearance of Zaxx the Mighty? Or whatever dragon had been there (if on the slim chance it hadn’t been the golden bull). Had this been a trap set by Prince Vincent, meaning to kill the two main spokespeople of the Dragon Monastery?

  Perhaps not, I shook my head. He had wanted us all to go, all of the Dragon Riders of the Academy. He hadn’t known that it would have just been me and Char who would take him up on his offer. But that didn’t mean that it was impossible – the prince might have been in league with this army perhaps?

  Could the Dark Prince be in league with the green and the purple, the Sons of Torvald? I didn’t know what was more incredible – the idea that my brothers would ever, ever work with Prince Vincent, or that they could decide to ally with the Abbot Ansall and Zaxx.

  “They would respect Zaxx’s might,” I murmured worriedly, biting at one of my nails as I hunched over Paxala’s neck, before looking over her shoulder to the arm that the dragon held curled up under her chest, holding the body of Char to the space where one of the dragon’s hearts should be. It was hard to make out anything, with the wind whipping at Char’s hair and cloak, but I could see red spotting the dragon’s claws.

  “Pax?” I said desperately, knowing the great beast would be able to hear me, but not sure whether she would want to right now. “Pax, please – we need to land. I need to take a look at Char and see if there is anything I can do.”

  There was a tense moment as the dragon trembled and shivered within herself, as if she was afraid that this might have to happen, and then, strangely, I felt that pressurized buzzing around my ears once more.

  “Neill’s no healer. Char goes home.” The words were spoken in my head, and undeniably by the Crimson dragon beneath me. It was a feminine voice, although, if pushed I wouldn’t be able to say how I knew. I had heard Pax’s voice before, of course, but it was a very, very rare thing for the Crimson Red to ever speak to me. Not that I thought that this was because she didn’t want to, but because it seemed difficult for a dragon to share minds with just about any human. This difficulty in communication made her words appear stilted and awkward to me, although I was sure Char had never complained of that.

  “You’re right, Pax, I am no healer like Dorf, or Maxal can be – but I have battle healing. I know how to stick a wound, how to stop bleeding, how to set a bone.” I tried to argue with the dragon. How could I explain to the Crimson Red the dangers of human blood loss, or of falling into shock? “Please, Pax, I have to look at her – she is my friend too…” I ended plaintively, knowing that this was the real reason I wanted Pax to land. I couldn’t bear not knowing whether my friend was dead or alive.

  My friend…? I had never felt this deeply hurt, even when Monk Feodor had been killed. But… do I care for Feodor, or Dorf, or Sigrid any the less?

  No – I cared for C
har more, I realized. And I was about to lose her.

  “Dragon-sister’s not dead,” Paxala snapped at the wind in rebuke, but amazingly, the Crimson Red shifted her wings and angled them downwards, heading for a sliver of blue that was getting larger and larger before us. A smallish lake stretched out around the bottom of a hill, with arable fields and spotted copses on either side. We were far from the more northerly edges of the Middle Kingdom, and too far for any of my brother’s scouts or outriders to have given chase from Rampart.

  Not too far for Zaxx to find us, though, I thought darkly as we spiraled and spiraled down, before the dragon was hopping and stepping awkwardly across the brown stubble of the field, her landing awkward as she clutched protectively at Char.

  “There, there now, thank you, Pax, thank you,” I said when we had finally slowed to a stop at the end of the field where, on the other side of a line of straggly trees glittered the waters of the lake. The dragon had barely stopped moving as I scrambled down to her claw, gently teasing at the large talons to open and reveal my friend inside.

  “Oh, Char!” I murmured in shock, as Paxala carefully laid her open claws on the ground and allowed me to carefully lift my friend out and onto my spread waxed cloak. She was deathly pale – even more so than usual – and her lips had a distinct bluish cast. From her shoulder, just under her collarbone, there extended the squat and ugly shaft of a black arrow, already broken off.

  “Urh…” Char groaned weakly, trying to shift from her position but suddenly moaning in pain.

  “She’s alive. Thank the stars she’s alive!” I said, although the dragon had already told me so. It meant all the difference to see it with my own eyes.

  Right. Arrows. Arrow wounds. My mind raced. This was definitely something that I had been taught by my father, as it was something that he himself had been hit with on more than one occasion. But what was I to do? I didn’t remember anything, my mind as blank as a cloudless sky.