This time I seized the opportunity to touch a dragon. Going up to him wasn’t a problem, but a shiver of reverence wriggled my life-force when standing right next to such a remarkable presence. Not wanting Aranath or anyone else to comment on my stricken state, I willed my arm outward and stroked the broad leaf-shaped scales. As long as I moved my hand from head to tail, Aranath’s lukewarm scales felt slippery smooth, to the point that I thought he had just emerged from a hot spring. Conversely, sliding my hand the opposite way had me thinking the majestic beast had rolled around like a happy dog in a beach full of fine, dry sand.
Tapping the scales echoed back a glass-like hardness, but pressing harder demonstrated their surprising pliancy. Slightly lighter and softer scales grew on the underside of the neck, which continued down to his belly and the first third of his tail. I almost missed it, but the vaguest quiver mortal perception could sense danced on my skin. A steady cadence beat on my fingertips, giving me the idea that I was sensing the rapid pulses of Aranath’s heartbeats.
The end of Aranath’s neck was where the saddle first latched on to. This placed the rider on a forward leaning position and somewhat at the mercy of the dragon’s head turns. I wondered out loud why we couldn’t place the rider in a less precarious spot, but Quandell explained that a dragon would have a harder time discerning the commands of my legs from his back.
“Wait, can’t I just tell him where to fly?”
“You’ll be lucky if he can hear you when you’re flying faster than a horse’s gallop. A thelki is clever enough to follow a hundred vocal commands, but those commands become muffled when the wind is blowing your words behind you. Aranath himself will clarify which command method he prefers when you take to the skies for the first time. This rain should clear up soon.”
“I’m going on as soon as the saddle is ready. I don’t want to use up any more of the crystal’s power than I have to.”
The saddle was soon secured on the dragon. Unlike many of his kind, Aranath had a reasonably smooth ridge structure running down his back instead of growing spiny scales or a raised frill like Iterra’s, which was fortunate for his comfort. In fact, most dragons chosen to work with humans in the past shared this uncommon trait precisely to make flying as stress-free as possible. Otherwise, both rider and dragon would have to be at least a little uncomfortable while in flight.
Aranath helped me get up to the saddle by bringing his body low to the ground. I still had to send a burst of prana to my legs to get the hop needed to grab the edge of the saddle and pull myself up. I then clipped two hooks to my form. The main hook grabbed on to the belt holding my scabbard while its backup grappled with the slacked safety rope I tied around my waist.
Aranath next started to walk. Or was he technically crawling? Anyway, his strong back legs did most of the work, but his folded wingtips stabilized the front half of his body and controlled his direction. The ride was akin to a horse only moving by taking short jumps. I kept my balance by holding on to the saddle’s tall horn. The dragon walked toward the edge of the pillar, needing to bend a couple of smaller trees to do so. He stopped right before gravity took over.
“What is it?” I asked.
In my head, he said, “It’s been a long time since I flew with a human on my back. The last such flight did not end so for either of us.”
“Trying to discourage me?”
A leathery rustle had me looking behind me to see Aranath was unfurling his huge wings about half their length. At the same time, more of the wet forest canopy became visible as the dragon tilted more of his body over the cliff.
“If I were attempting to discourage you, boy, it’ll be like this…”
His entire mass fell over the edge at once, the force pushing all my organs towards my ass and pressing that ass against the cantle. Aranath propelled himself faster to the ground with a flap of his wings, making him fast enough for the raindrops to rain up. Then, jerking up my insides to the roof of my mouth, Aranath spread open the entirety of his vast wings all at once. A glance below showed that we flew mere feet above the forest canopy as the dragon gained a straighter flight path.
Two whirlwind flaps rose us back up over a thousand foot tall pillar. More flapping angled us almost completely vertical. His wings beat with a tremendous ferocity that must have come from the prana he used to help spur his already powerful muscles. Quandell also told me of the wind spells bigger dragons instinctually cast in order to fly with any grace. So with muscle, prana, and skill thrusting him upward, Aranath was quick to take us into the rain clouds themselves.
Seconds after that and I had to shield my eyes from the high afternoon sun, which never in my life never looked so damn clear and close. It was a brief glimpse. Another dive had us breaking through to the other side like a thunderclap. The world around me suddenly spun. Aranath only rolled over once, but from my view point, Orda had to have been the one to flip so drastically. Aranath slowed down and leveled out after the world returned to its regular alignment.
I knew I was going to vomit, but I wanted to hold it back until we landed. Luckily, Aranath did not speak and I didn’t need to. I prepared for the impending event by detaching both hooks as Aranath touched down on the eastern pillar. I jumped off him and opened my mouth to release what had been wanting to come out. That was the same instant the summoning spell was released.
“You okay?” asked Clarissa when I finished making my puke puddle.
As she supported my rising, I smirked and said, “I want to get you on Aranath as quickly as possible.”
“Ugh, I think I prefer your serious side.”
“Remarkable,” said Quandell with repressed wonder. “To think I’d live to witness such a sight. Any of us. Despite the, eh, far too risky aerial maneuvers you two endeavored, you have my compliments, my boy.”
“Thank you, Master Hermoon. And if it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure those risky maneuvers won’t be seen again until I can keep the summon myself.”
“And when I’m on the ground,” added Clarissa.
Two nights passed before I was informed the final knot keeping me on the spires had been undone. I was invited to the basement before breakfast. There I saw Everson holding up the dark blue cuirass with small shoulder plates attached. Another sage held the matching greaves and bracer. The armor’s texture looked to be made from large, leathery fish scales. Thankfully, they did not convey the same odor. Under the right light, the scales fleetingly reflected a speckled rainbow of other colors, which I assumed came from the enchantment placed upon them.
Stepping up to the cuirass, Quandell said, “Each scale is adhered to its neighbors and to a special lattice of cloth below it. The mesh of fabric has fine silver wires keeping it all together and a thin suede pads the innermost side of the armor. The same goes for the bracer and greaves.”
“Should I ask how many golden statues it’ll take to buy such craftsmanship?”
“The price a dragon knight pays for these marvelous items has never been with coin or statues, Master Eberwolf. They once pledged every drop of their blood for the good of Orda. Failure to live up to their promise meant condemning their souls to the gods of strife, who are said to use them as an errant child plays with their maltreated toys. Seeing as the gods have tossed you in themselves, you are exempt from that pledge for now. And Aranath knows full well that he needs to redeem his former deeds. Come now, let’s get this on you.”
A half hour later and I half-heartedly paraded my new attire in front of the other sages. As Quandell claimed, the armor pieces put together only weighed a couple of pounds more than my old leather cuirass, so no time was needed to adapt to it. Wearing it was comfortable, though I did have to overcome its initial stiffness. I also liked how the shoulder plates made me look a little broader.
Once everyone had their taste, I covered up the scales under a flimsy midnight blue shirt that hid the distinguishing armor better than the other options they presented me. My cloak would cover my scaled bracer most of
the time, and even if someone did see it, I figured they would assume the scales were fake or from another creature. A gaudy steel helmet and a pair of gloves were presented as well. I rejected the helmet.
With all gathered under the dining temple, Quandell informed the sages that his conscious had compelled him to tell me about the war in Alslana. The mood promptly became melancholy, which invaded my own temperament. The last time I felt guilty about leaving a domicile was when I left the Equine Manor. As we had agreed to beforehand, I would leave after resting one last day.
Clarissa prepared packs of food for Aranath to carry on his saddle while Ghevont mapped out the best sites to rest. I forced myself to get as much shut-eye as possible, hoping to gain the wakefulness to last for a long first flight.
The first obstacle in our way was going to be the southern stretch of a thousand long mountain range. Luckily, skirting the higher peaks should not take much of our time, and hiding a flying dragon over a mountain range promised to be easier than going over the plains that came afterward. I didn’t care if a bunch of farmers or villagers saw us, but if a garrison of soldiers caught sight of Aranath, they might take it upon themselves to chase us down to investigate.
Avoiding forts would be easier at sea, but finding places to rest was going to be a trickier prospect. Bigger isles were often separated by five hundred miles, which sounded like too much of a stretch for Aranath to cross in one go. Meanwhile, smaller islands would be difficult to find without many reference points in the vast Parsillion. I trusted Ghevont would come up with several flight paths to choose from before dawn.
If all went well, pushing Aranath out of his comfort zone every few days could get us to Alslana in less than two weeks. Two weeks cut it close crystal wise, but as long as Ghevont could recreate Iterra’s summoning rune, I figured I could summon the dragon and convince her to fill blank crystals with her prana.
When I woke up permanently in the middle of the night, I learned that three thelki and their riders would fly us out for as far as they thought safe. This way I could preserve a little of the crystals’ prana. Clarissa would ride with Ning, Ghevont with Dashay, and I with Everson. I ate my last meal in the dining temple as the three riders slept for another couple of hours, though I had an inkling Dashay and Ghevont were not exactly sleeping. The scholar was probably asking Dashay too many academic questions in the middle of it, but good for them anyway.
Every sage came out to say their final words to me as predawn light made the scattered gray clouds stand out against night’s backdrop. I gave them all my bow and sincere thanks for everything they’ve done for me and my friends. I think they expected me to make a speech, but the best I came up with was promising to return. We then hopped on our assigned thelki and flew westward.
The riders pushed their thelki harder than usual, though still far from making anyone but Clarissa uncomfortable. We stopped every hour or so to let the thelki catch their breath for a few minutes, and then it was back to the sky. The pattern repeated itself until the thelki touched down on a mountainside cliff somewhere between one and two in the afternoon. Here the riders decided to leave us so that they could make it back home before nightfall. Everyone gave their salutations with a bow except for Ghevont and Dashay, who embraced like two children doing such a thing for the first time.
The thelki riders stayed long enough to see me summon Aranath. Despite the dragon humming a reassuring growl at them, the thelki squawked nervously at his arrival. After a few last waves from their passengers, all the flying creatures fell off the cliff at the same time to initiate their respective journeys.
Chapter Twenty
Odet
“Princess,” said the talking sunflower. He sounded a lot like Gerard.
“When did you learn to speak?” I asked him. “Did Gerard teach you?”
“Odet, wake up.”
I opened my eyes to see Gerard sitting in front of me. He was being jostled in his mirrored green armor as the enclosed carriage rolled along. I lifted my head from Isabella’s shoulder and asked, “Are we almost there?”
“Take a look,” said Bell.
I pulled a corner of the curtain blocking the window to get a view of the palace’s outer wall. Strips of white stone reflected the bright afternoon light and hurt my eyes. We were already nearing the metal gates.
With a sigh, I said, “Gods, it’s good to be back home. I’ve never needed a bath worse than I do now.”
Gerard waved the concept away. “Nonsense, my love. Your very sweat can be condensed into a perfume every noble lady will pay through the nose for.”
I chuckled. “And yours, dearest, can make pigs scatter.”
He clutched his heart. “Ow! Insulting a man’s musk. You can surely stab at the most sensitive spots of a man’s ego. Say, if you are serious about the bath thing, I suppose I can come and aid your cleansing.”
“Hmm, another time. I have catching up to do and you need to visit your mother. I know how much she worries.”
“Every good mother does. You should have seen how upset she was after I came back from the Hadarii. She hadn’t seen me so emaciated in all my life, yet I barely lost five pounds.”
“It was more than that.”
“I did not feel it to be more than that, at any rate, but to her I was a walking, talking skeleton.” The carriage stopped to wait for the gates to open. He sighed. “I suppose I should go ease her mind.”
He leaned in. I instinctively did the same. Despite feeling quite myself around Bell, her presence still nipped my kiss with Gerard short. He next opened the door and stepped out to find a horse among the security force behind us.
“Do you wish to visit your brother, Bell?”
“He hasn’t worried about me since I could walk, Your Highness. Besides, as long as this war wages, I’ll be stuck to you more than usual.”
“Ah, so ending the war will have a negative effect. Perhaps I will not try ending it so quickly.”
“I’ll take the compliment, but you shouldn’t jest about the war.”
“That’s drivel. If anyone is allowed to jest about war, it’s those working to end them. Otherwise, I’d agree with you.”
A few minutes later and Bell and I were using our own feet to move deeper into the palace. We headed for the interior throne room after a maiden informed me that’s where the queen was seeing those who had been granted an audience. Unlike mother, Beatrice did not enjoy her hair and clothes always fluttering in the open-air throne hall. She preferred the cozier and older throne hall at the bottom of the tower bearing the palace’s famous spire. I passed by the guards and the already open wooden doors to get inside.
Three dozen High Guard knights kept the center of the hall clear of the few dozen nobles and townsmen mingling in the room, allowing me to go right up to my sister. She sat on the larger of two mahogany thrones cushioned by plush red velvet. Speaking to Beatrice was a plump woman with her gray her in a braided bun and wearing a lovely green gown. I recognized the back of this woman’s head anywhere, so I thought I could get away with a bit of interrupting.
As it turned out, it was Beatrice who did the interrupting when she noticed me coming.
“Forgive me, Lady Merriweather. It appears my sister is home.”
The noblewoman turned and squealed on spotting me. We embraced and kissed each other’s cheeks.
“Oh my!” said the lady. “Your mother would faint seeing you dressed for war!”
“This is hardly a warrior’s garb, Lady Iza. Only bits of leather under a maiden’s blouse and trousers. I find it charming myself.”
“Well, perhaps in a different humor I would agree, but it’s certainly not proper for someone of your station. Ah! Listen to me! Talking of dress when you are here on a matter of import, I’m sure.”
“Indeed.”
“Go, child! Speak with your sister-queen. I will dawdle with the others.”
I cared nothing for propriety after such a separation and ran right up to my ruling sibling
. She cared more for decorum than I, but knowing that rebuffing my attempt at an embrace would hurt me, she gathered the effort to stand up and wrap her arms around me. It was then she who had trouble letting go.
In my ear, the queen said, “Captain Savoy worries you’re stretching our ground forces too thin. You took more soldiers to Brey Stor than initially agreed.”
Separating from her, I replied with, “Just what every sister wants to hear on her return.”
“In here, in front of all, I require you regard me as a queen, Odet. Later I can help fix your unsightly hair, amend your sense of fashion, laugh at Gerard’s latest quips, and remember better days. For now, let’s sort out a little matter that is the war.”
I sighed. “Yes, yes, you’re right. As I’m certain you heard, a last minute report told of an Oclor army heading to Brey Stor’s southeastern border.”
“Yes, but you should leave some of the fighting to our ally.”
“If all goes well for us, then it will only be Brey Stor’s lands that burn and soak the blood of every fallen solider. We can’t let Oclor dare believe they have anything but a long, treacherous road to cross if they desire to hold any land from Brey Stor, much less take our own. The faster they realize that concept, the faster they’ll stop testing us.”
“Yes, I’m aware of the strategy you like, but if Etoc hears that we sent so much southward-”
“What was Caracasa’s response?”
“Well, of course they confirmed their alliance to us, but they’re as likely to join Etoc as intercept any army of theirs.”
“But you promised them the trade deal, right? The one we give them should Etoc declare war on us and they uphold the agreement?”
“I implied a lesser version of it. I promised nothing.”
Flight of the Dragon Knight Page 23