Heart of Steel

by Samantha M. Derr

  "Eleven soldiers? They never come this far east," she cursed.

  The first volley of cannon fire echoed through the mountain valley, and Aria startled unintentionally.

  Her mother tapped her on the shoulder, and Aria's attention was pulled towards the three wyrms with three soldiers on their backs, arching gracefully and menacingly through the sky over her little town. Aria's stomach sank at the sight. They had occasionally needed to fend off little scouting parties or a lone rider, but three right in their valley was unheard of. For a terrifying moment, Aria realized she didn't know what was going to happen.

  "Aria!" her mother snapped, and Aria jolted out of her stupor. "Aria, bring these cannonballs to the gunners. They'll need extras." She looked up as one of the dragons dove towards the watchtower. "Gods below. Three."

  Aria's chest clenched. Just five years earlier, when peace talks had broken down again, a single wyrm burned down a quarter of the homes in the valley. This occurred after slipping in at night, past the gaze of a sleeping guard. She shoved a couple boxes in the wheelbarrow as Aria's eyes stayed fixed skywards, adding, "Aria, I need to tend the forge. Please," there was a quiver of begging in her voice, "please be careful out there."

  "I will, Mama. I promise." Aria picked up the enormous arms of the handcart. Careful to avoid any obstacles that would send the wheelbarrow—cannonballs and all—spinning to the ground, she started down the paved road that wound through their town.

  Aria arrived at the first watchtower just as a dragon sprayed a blanket of flaming spit onto the stones. The dwarves had fought dragon riders before, so the insulation likely offered the gunners good protection. Aria still recoiled from the heat as she ducked into the waiting, open door and was rushed inwards by a woman in the militia.

  Aria climbed a long set of stairs, a box of munitions in hand and two militia members with matching boxes behind her as another roar reverberated in the stone walls of the watchtower. The sound shook Aria under her breast. It was distinctive and dangerous—and only one kind of beast roared like that.

  A dragon? She didn't know how her little town would withstand three wyrms—a dragon on top of that felt like doom.

  She steeled herself and finished the climb up the watchtower. When she arrived, it was like stepping into the midst of a war story. During the previous attack, she'd barely been out of childhood, and her uncle was the one to run weapons to the militia. She saw the aftermath, but not the devastation. Every dwarf gunner was coated with soot from the gunpowder, and there were two men and one woman stretched out on cots in a far corner of the room, each with nasty-looking burns of various degrees of depth and length.

  Odwald was in charge when she arrived, and he regarded her with a careful eye, not turning away from the dragons outside.

  "These poor folks got too close to the window," he announced it grimly because everyone knew there wasn't a true dwarven healer for days in either direction. He nodded towards the new cannonballs. "Well? Go on. Load 'em up. We're short on time."

  Aria nodded, again—able to swallow her fear as she moved towards the cannon mounted at the top of the watchtower. The strict orders meant that she wasn't able to stay in her head for long. It was good, too, cause it gave her something to focus on. Moving quickly, she grabbed a heavy cannonball, which hung heavily in her hand. When she moved to the front of the cannon, she positioned the lump of lead and a gunner shoved it down the barrel.

  Aria took a deep breath and held her ears as Odwald shouted, "READY. AIM…"

  Aria looked out the window and saw the fourth rider for the first time. Where the riders of the Eleven had wyrms toned in bronze and green, the newcomer's dragon was a deep red, with an orange belly and an endless reserve of fire. It was at least three times the size of the others. Aria watched—completely dazzled by the way the blazing light from the battle glinted off the rider's steel armor and the dragon's red scales. Aria gasped. She almost didn't hear the captain call out:

  "DO NOT FIRE. An agent of Queen Leona is among us."

  Aria gasped and watched as the red dragon moved as easily as another beast half its weight. The dragon's maneuverability, it seemed, was unsurpassed, and it ducked and dodged in response to each attack. His human rider was just as attentive—long arms outstretched with a glaive at the end. Aria watched as they drove skyward, and—when followed, struck like the wrath of the gods on the Eleven rider who followed them and tried to catch them off guard.

  I wish I could be like that knight.

  It was a fleeting thought, a moment in the heat of a deadly aerial battle. Aria's breath hitched as the dragon in red curved downwards in a perfect arc—like a snake, and rendered his claws down the belly of his enemy.

  The screams that filled the air were profound and unlike anything Aria had ever heard. It was like a thousand other animals crying out at the same time, and her blood went cold.

  There was a smattering of blood as the Eleven army's dragon rider fell—complete with his dragon. Aria didn't see where he landed; he disappeared on the shoulder of the mountain, and she knew that she and her village would be charged with the appropriate burial procedure after the fighting was done.

  The dragon and rider arched up and around again. Already, Aria could tell that the rider was tall and thin, with a glaive to match. The dragon in red ducked around, wicking around the watchtower. Aria had a hard time following their movements. Even without the courtesy of a mirror, Aria could imagine her own face—the look of absolute awe at the sight she was witnessing had to make her look like a field mouse visiting a market. Already, two riders of the Eleven had been bested by a single human rider and their dragon, and Aria's throat was welling. Not just because her town could be saved, but in admiration for the power she was witnessing.

  Aria felt like the minutes of the dragon rider fight had lasted an eternity, and her heart was in her throat for every moment. The two remaining riders turned on each other, beasts circling the town like large, dark brushes gently gliding over a canvas.

  The duelists charged at each other. Aria wasn't sure, but she thought she heard both the dragons and their riders shouting as they swooped towards each other.

  There was a gush of flame on both sides, and when the two dragons emerged—

  The human one, the blonde one in steel armor—was limp on the red dragon's back. Gods. Are they dead?

  Behind Aria, Odwald breathed a deep, heavy breath before giving his order. The village could defend against the one remaining rider of the Eleven, in any case.

  "Open fire." He said it sadly as the dragon set down on the field near the forge. There was a silence, and the Eleven rider started flying in the direction of the downed human rider. Odwald glanced around when nobody immediately moved. "I said, fire."

  The gunner nodded, adjusted, and fired.

  The last remaining Eleven wyrm and rider went down. The cannonball scored a rare—but powerful—direct hit, spreading ichor and mortal blood into the air as the rider disappeared completely and the wyrm lost a large chunk of its spine. It, too, dropped to the ground.

  Aria practically felt the thump when it did. She wiped her cheek and told herself it was the soot rather than tears.

  "Well," Odwald said, "we'd best go recover the human rider."

  They marched across town. Aria joined up with the militia partly because she didn't have anywhere else to go—the downed human rider was in the direction of the forge—and partly because she was curious. A part of her wanted to go over that hill and see the rider alive, as much as she doubted that was the case.

  They rounded one hill to find a red, scaly one instead. Their way was blocked by a large, smoldering lizard with smoke coming out of his nostrils, who was wrapped around something and staring them down with glistening, yellow eyes. A few of those around her recoiled, but Aria didn't. She faced the hissing beast down and registered some surprise at the fact that the dragon could even move when the rider was down. The way the stories told it, a dragon and a rider usually died wi
thin moments of each other.

  "Please." Aria didn't know where the strength in her voice came from, where she found the conviction to approach the little lump of metal the dragon was protecting. "Please. I'm here to help."

  The dragon regarded her with ancient eyes. It felt as though they were boring into her soul, and she had a moment to remember it could light her on fire without a second thought before it slowly, carefully moved aside, dragged one last claw over the rider as he did so. Aria and two of the militia members went running over.

  "The Gods have saved her breath. The rider is still alive!" one of them shouted.

  "Take her to the forge!" Aria yelled without thinking. "We can keep her warm there."

  As they turned the rider over, Aria noticed two things. First of all—the rider was still breathing. It was a shallow, painful-sounding process, since the plate over her chest was concaved. Second, she saw that the rider was a woman with a long thin face, short blonde hair, and a pointed nose that looked as though it had been broken before. She was tall. Aria felt her breath catch again for an entirely different reason.

  This was her—the rider that her dragon had trusted Aria to care for, and who had saved Aria's home. She silently vowed that she wouldn't let either one of them down.

  *~*~*

  Wake up, Tessandra.

  Tess noticed two things as she came back into the waking world. The first was her state of not yet being with the gods—but that her chest hurt terribly. It was a deep, full body ache that seemed to go from her right breast, through to her shoulder, and down her arm.

  The second thing she noticed was the faintest sound of—

  CRACK.

  There it was again—like ice breaking. Tess opened her eyes, finally, and she was staring at a ceiling of stone and deep, dark wood. She could breathe again, so someone had taken her breastplate off and she was resting in a bed where her feet hung off the end.

  Next she saw a dwarf girl standing by the fireplace—

  —with the dragon egg in her hands.

  She stared back at Tess with wide, clear eyes. She had hair that brushed her shoulders but was pulled apart in two messy pony tales, and her mouth was open as she stared back at Tess.

  I tried to warn you…

  Tess didn't have the frame of mind right then to get Merryn to leave her mind. Her thoughts already flopped between realization and dawning horror at what she was seeing.

  "You…" she started, and her voice broke off hoarsely.

  "I'm sorry!" The dwarven girl stammered out. "I was just moving it closer to the fireplace to keep it warm. I didn't—I don't know how it could have broken."

  "It's not broken," Tess said finally, voice grim. Her first mission for the queen, and she had already managed to severely cock it up.

  In the dwarven girl's hands, the egg shook again, and she startled. Tess was afraid she'd drop it that time. "Quick, put it on the table." The dwarven girl nodded and placed the egg in a nearby bowl, doing her best to stabilize it as Tess lifted off the sheets and tried to get out of bed. Another wave of pain shot through her, and she realized she was only wearing her thin undershirt. Already she could look down and see an ugly yellow and purple bruise forming.

  Well, that would hurt. For a while. "Hello, there," she rasped as she got out of bed, although her voice was growing stronger. The dwarven girl turned to her when Tess asked, "What's your name?"

  "Aria," she responded. "My name is Aria."

  Tess wondered if it was the influence of whatever they'd treated her with, but the first thing she wanted to say was, Pretty name for a pretty girl. She managed not to. "Aria, that's a pretty name. I'm Tess." She hobbled over, and Aria made a move to try and help her, but Tess raised a hand. "No! No. Stay with the egg."

  "Is it broken?" Aria asked.

  "I already told you it's not broken." Tess tried to keep her voice level through the pain, tried not to sound impatient. "It's hatching."

  Aria looked up at her with wise, hazel eyes. Then down at the egg, which continued to stir. A single platelet of white started pushing up, revealing a sticky membrane beneath it. A nose, a foot, an arm, and a scaly head all slowly appeared and unwound. Aria and Tess both watched in silent amazement.

  The hatchling made a tiny clicking, creaking noise, and a little joust of smoke shot from its nostrils. It was gazing up at Aria, eyes slit like a cat's and bright-emerald green.

  "Why were you carrying a dragon egg from the human kingdom over the Principalities?" Aria asked.

  "It was a gift from Queen Leona to the princes," Tess said, still never taking her eyes off the hatchling. She'd been told how to handle a birth but had never seen one first hand.

  Aria froze as the nature of her situation settled on her shoulders. She had just bonded with a dragon. A dragon intended for the Dwarven princes, who famously were not forgiving to thieves, and no doubt had hoped one of them would bond with the dragon instead of an aboveground peasant girl. "Uh oh."

  "Yes," Tess affirmed. "For both of us."

  Aria sank into a chair by the table that held the hatchling, and stared at it. Its full adult color wouldn't emerge for months, but it sported large bronze scales—segmented and sticking outwards a little bit like the desert lizards Tess's cousins always told her about. It was so unlike Merryn's smooth, snake-like hide. Tess caught herself watching Aria's cheeks go pale with fear. The hatchling had to represent a complete change to her life. She had to be devastated. Even if the princes didn't take vengeance on her for their stolen prize, the only riders who could train her lived in the human kingdom. She would have to leave everything behind to become a scale-tender. Tess sighed. She knew what that was like. "Lady Aria…"

  "Yes." Aria's reverie seemed to be broken, and she turned her attention to Tess, who tried to kneel, but given the pain in her shoulder and chest, was only able to limp over to the chair next to Aria's.

  "I am a knight of Queen Leona, and I swear to you on my shield and my word that if you come with me to the Dwarven princes to sort this out, no harm shall come to you without me laying down my life to keep yours safe first."

  *~*~*

  Aria listened to the human—Tess—talk, pledge to protect her and she felt her cheeks heating up. As afraid as she was, as new as this was, she still felt the deep, secret notion of freedom falling on its heels.

  She imagined riding the sky. A lot of Dwarves, especially those born under the mountains instead of on top of them, feared the sky, but Aria finally understood why she had spent so many days looking not just at the peaks around her, but the clouds that touched them and what she had actually been dreaming of as the lands that lay beyond them. It finally made sense. As terrified as she was to learn that she'd taken a prize from the Dwarven princes, she also thought, dangerously, Yes. This is my way out. A path away from her mother and from the forge; although she was only happy about one of those things.

  And she'd never been called a lady before. 'Miss', or sometimes 'ma'am', by visiting humans who thought she was already a spinster, but never 'lady'. And here was this tall human, with the long face and blonde hair dusting her brow, with shoulders as wide as a dwarf's, telling Aria that she would lay down her sword to defend a simple mountain blacksmith's apprentice.

  "I trust you," Aria managed, at last, and Tess looked taken aback, green eyes going wide. Aria hadn't noticed that before, when Tess was unconscious. "I mean…"

  Tess's face fell. "I hope it's not misplaced, Lady Aria." She hesitated. "Is it okay if I call you that?"

  There was a stutter to Tess's voice that Aria couldn't quite place, an odd little sort of hesitation even as she couldn't stop looking at her. She'd had humans stare before. That wasn't new, but there was always the little element of a sideshow to it—the hushed whispers to others on the trading party because Aria's town was the first out of the Rockwood, so she was sometimes the first dwarven woman they'd ever seen. It was usually young men, and those whispers she couldn't quite hear stung as much as the shouted jabs of childre
n.

  But not this human. This human was looking at her like she was more than a curiosity, and like when she said she would protect a dwarven peasant with her life, she meant it.

  She looked at Aria like she was interested.

  Aria cast those thoughts from her mind and looked at the hatchling instead. "How do I feed it?"

  There was a pause, and Tess's eyes dilated, her face faraway, as if she had an entire conversation in seconds. "Raw meat as soon as they're born if you have any. Insects will do if you don't."

  Aria nodded, amazed. She'd heard the stories for years of the strange link between dragons and riders, but this was her first time seeing it in action. Will that happen to me, too? She wondered, silently, suspiciously looking to the little hatchling on the table, who continued not making a sound as it licked the traces of its own afterbirth away.

  As if she was the one reading Aria's mind, Tess said, "They don't speak to you until they're much older." She paused. "Or so I'm told."

  "Why's that?" Aria's own enthusiasm got the better of her. "Didn't you raise yours as a hatchling?"

  Tess looked away, huffed slightly, which caused her to wince in pain as she moved her shoulder in exasperation. "Merryn is different. He survived his last rider's death. This is unheard of. In any case, he chose me as an adult." She took a deep breath. "At least when they claim you as eggs, you know to avoid eggs."

  Aria felt her cheeks heating up again, and not from delight this time. "I didn't know."

  Tess went still, then started fidgeting with an empty plate on the table. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. In the human kingdom, we're raised around the damned—pardon my language—things. I forget that it's different elsewhere sometimes."

  Aria relented at how crestfallen and genuinely ashamed Tess appeared and nodded solemnly. "I'll go fetch some meat. But what comes after that?"

  "After that," Tess said, "we need to talk to your mother and ask her for permission for you to come with me."

  Aria cringed involuntarily. Oh, good.

  From the table, the hatchling chattered again, and Aria and Tess both turned to look at it.