Dragon Forged: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 3)

by Travis Simmons

  Again, the rune glowed a soft light, this time red.

  She closed the bottle, and reached into the velvet pouch that contained the ground carbon stone. Leaghan let her mind drift to the energy stored within the stone, as she made the pattern of the rune yet again. The carbon stone glowed with its own light before it even reached the staff. She could feel the warmth of the stone, as if she’d just pulled it from where it had rested for hours in the midday sun.

  When the last of the carbon stone graced the rune, there was another flare of light, this time brighter than all the others, as if she were looking straight into the sun. She closed her eyes and looked away, only opening them when the light faded.

  The rune was no longer a carving of blood and sparkling dust, but instead a single engraving made of shimmering metal.

  “What happened?” she asked, looking up to Marcone.

  He rested in a chair, watching her, a smile on his face. The sun had set some time ago, if the light of the moon could be trusted as any indication.

  “What happened was your first spell. Remember that flare of light you felt; the heat of it, the way your mind traced the rune. Whenever you need the spell, let your mind feel that same rush, see that same flare of light, and the rune will respond.”

  “It will just release the spell, without any real work on my end?” Leaghan asked.

  Marcone nodded. “Now,” he said. “On to your homework. Study this circle,” he said, pointing to it again. “Tomorrow, find a robe, thread, and gather some of the dragon scales we’ve powdered. You will need enough blood to make a paste. It’s important that you soak the thread in the mixture of blood and scales to get it right. Let it soak for a long time, several hours.”

  “What color thread?” she wondered, gathering up her spell components, and placing them back in the bag.

  “Doesn’t matter, it will all come out looking like blood.” And without another word, the white film faded from Marcella’s eyes, and the gurgle lifted from her chest.

  Wylan had lost track of the day. She couldn’t remember how many days they’d been away from Darubai. The days and the nights were becoming one and the same. She’d go out with the drake, walk around, and then return too soon to the cell where Aariac was getting worse by the minute.

  Whereas before he’d made slight noises and grunts in his sleep, now he lay still. If it hadn’t been for his ragged breathing and the heat radiating from his skin, Wylan would fear he was dead. His fever hadn’t gotten any worse, but it also hadn’t lessened. There were times when Aariac irritated Wylan beyond words. When she’d first been paired with him, she hated it. He’d been the one in her class who’d been loudest, rudest, and the most annoying.

  As they got to know one another, she’d realized what she took for annoying was his ability to ask questions she didn’t like answering. Like before, when he’d asked her the real reason she didn’t want to marry Josef. He hadn’t even needed the answer, he just wanted her to say it; to admit that the idea of being the plague bearer wasn’t something she was willing to let slide. If she really was the reason for the plague, then that changed everything.

  She could almost hear Aariac asking her why it changed everything.

  It was another question she didn’t want to answer.

  “How would it make a difference?” she asked herself, more for the noise and the distraction than anything else.

  “It would make a lot of difference,” she said.

  “Not to Josef.”

  “But that doesn’t matter.” She pushed away from the wall, and started hammering the cuffs against the cell bars. It was night, and the normal screaming and hooting was creating enough of a racket outside that she didn’t think the noise would be heard.

  “What Josef thinks doesn’t matter? What really doesn’t matter is if you are the plague bearer. How would it change anything?”

  She growled in frustration. She’d been spending too much time with Aariac if she could so easily frustrate herself with questions he’d ask.

  “I shouldn’t be focusing on this right now,” she thought aloud. “Not with Aariac the way he is.”

  Even as she said it, she knew what Aariac would say: how is avoiding the question going to help me? There’s nothing you can do now.

  “Fine,” she said. “It won’t change anything. The plague has already come, the plague has done its worst, and the world is pretty much destroyed.”

  “All because of you. Damn you.” She didn’t make it sound comical the way Aariac would.

  “Yes. My parents are dead because of me,” she said.

  “If that was the case, then why did you go after the blue dragon?”

  “Well, that was before I knew I was the cause of the plague.”

  “Again, how can worrying about being the plague bearer going to change anything that’s happened?”

  She shook her head. This was crazy. She could argue herself in circles over this. Just as Aariac would. She leaned her head against the cool bars and watched the moon. Ghostly wisps of clouds drifted over the surface, causing shadows to skitter across the ground.

  The roar of the yellow wyvern sounded again and Wylan growled.

  “How can he keep us chained in here if he knows what I am?”

  She shook the bars, hoping to find a loose one that she could use to get them out of there…somehow. The thought of the loose bar made her think of how she’d set Aariac’s leg, and she hoped she’d done it right. The problem was, by now his leg was already healing, or was already mending. If she hadn’t set it right, it’d have to be broken it again, and that would be bad. He was already suffering from the first break. Breaking it again to set it would allow whatever infection was plaguing him to seep into the bone…if it hadn’t already.

  She needed to get him home.

  Wylan sat by the cell door, watching the moon, and though she didn’t want to sleep, she drifted off anyway.

  She woke startled when a shadow fell across her face. Lissandra could sense the presence of another wyvern, and it was her stirring mind more than anything that woke Wylan.

  “You’re from Darubai,” the voice was strange, but it was in the common tongue. Wylan scrubbed the sleep from her eyes, and looked up. It was the husky wyvern she’d seen on the throne.

  Wylan rushed to her feet, her hands clasping the bars of the cell door, her mind racing through the haze of sleep trying to remember where she’d placed the blade of the spear. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

  “I’m Adam,” the wyvern said. He reached for her wrists. As if by memory, his hands worked their way around the shackles, and they fell away. Instantly Lissandra filled her mind, and with the wyvern, came the familiar rush of her fire magic.

  The shackles clanged to the ground.

  “How did you do that?” Wylan asked, rubbing at her chaffed wrists, already calling the fire to her if she needed to use it against him.

  “It can’t be opened by the wearer. They are a magic block for prisoners. The drakes have taken a liking to you as they did with me.”

  “Why are you here?” Wylan asked again. “Are you still a prisoner?”

  “I was, like you, until they realized what I was. Then I became…more.”

  “What?” Wylan wondered.

  Aariac moaned in his sleep and Wylan glanced nervously at him even as her heart thrilled that he was able to make that noise.

  “Your friend needs tending, and that won’t happen here.”

  “It won’t,” Wylan agreed.

  “When I was captured I heard of a city to the west of here.” Adam looked behind him, as if he was worried about being overheard. “I don’t know if it’s more than legend or not, but it’s closer than Darubai, and if it exists, your friend could get the help he needs.”

  “I’ve heard of no other cities,” Wylan said, skeptically.

  “Neither had I. I was going to investigate when I was captured.” Adam shook his head. “These drakes think I’m a god or something. They worship m
e, take my counsel, but they won’t budge on you. They think you’re another god, and they want to put you on a throne next to me.”

  “You need to escape,” Wylan said. “Drakes are dangerous.”

  Adam shook his head. “No, I’m close to a break through. They aren’t dangerous, just misunderstood and in many ways primitive. If I can bring them around, they could be a valuable ally to us. If nothing else, they would stop hunting us and fighting with us.”

  Wylan stared at him for several moments, unsure what to say.

  “I know what I’m doing here, but there’s no need for Darubai to lose two wyverns to the drakes. Your friend needs help, and I strongly believe the other city exists, unharmed by dragons. Go dew west, and you will find it.”

  “What do I do to escape?” Wylan wondered.

  “In the morning hours, the drakes aren’t able to see as well. Just like dragons, their eyesight is nearly nothing during dawn and dusk. Break out then, and take your friend to the other city. I fear he doesn’t have much time left.”

  Wylan glanced back at Aariac. She feared touching him because his skin was as feverish as her mother’s had been moments before she burst into flame. She worried that he’d caught the plague from her, but at the same time she knew that was silly. If the elves could catch the plague, they would’ve already been infected.

  Wylan nodded. “All right.”

  “Here,” Adam said, and slipped a key into her palm. “No need to make more noise than is needed. I would tell you to leave now, but most of the drakes sleep during dawn and dusk, leaving the other hours when they can see best for waking hours. I will shift when the time comes, but for my own safety, and the safety of my mission, I can’t follow you.”

  Wylan nodded her understanding.

  “When you get home, tell them Adam Wincrest is fine, and he’s working to secure the drakes for the empire.” And with that, he turned from her and left.

  Wylan had nothing to bind Aariac to her back, so flying would be difficult. She channeled strength from Lissandra, and lifted the elf easily, being mindful of his leg. When he rested on a rock, his back propped against the wall, she turned to stare at the cell door, waiting for Adam to shift and show her it was time to leave.

  She fidgeted with the key, and decided to open the lock to make escape faster. The lock clicked open with a sharp clang, and she worried for several moments that it would bring a guard to check on her. When none came, she relaxed and waited.

  When she saw the sky start to brighten from blue to violet, she went back to Aariac. Her main worry was how she was going to transport him without dropping him. After a few moment’s thought, she stripped her shirt off, and bound his hands together with enough shirt left between his wrists that her neck could expand into wyvern shape without endangering his tethers. She quickly shucked her pants.

  Then she summoned a bit more of Lissandra’s strength and knelt before Aariac. She slipped his bound arms around her neck, and leaned forward until all of his strength rested on her back. She shifted a couple times to get his weight even, and waited for Adam’s call.

  She didn’t have to wait long. Moments later, his call rang out, a trumpet of dragon song that was fainter than a real dragon’s. She pushed to her feet, and made her way to the door. Throwing it open, she called to Lissandra, and the wyvern answered.

  Her skin prickled and her bones snapped. Wylan sank to her knees, trying to stifle the cries of pain as her bones broke and then reformed into the wyvern’s shape. The hair along her arms elongated, grew thicker, and then blossomed into scarlet scales.

  Wings burst from her arms, joining with her hands, and moments later, she was the wyvern. She leapt from the edge of the cell, her wings spreading wide.

  But the drakes seemed ready for that…somehow. Had Adam betrayed her? She wasn’t sure. What Wylan could be sure of were the nets flying straight for her, fired from some contraption on the ground, and weighted with stones.

  Wylan didn’t fight when Lissandra pressed her consciousness to the farthest recesses of their shared mind, and took over. The wyvern folded her wings, and dipped beneath the net’s trajectory and swung to the right, away from another net that launched immediately after the first. Wylan was aware that no drakes maned the net weapons, but a cry went up through the caldera.

  The drakes knew she was out.

  They stumbled blindly from their huts, their heads turning here and there, heads cocked up so they could hear.

  Lissandra let loose a blast of fire.

  :Don’t hurt them!: Wylan called.

  :Not going to, but we need a distraction,: the wyvern told her.

  It was true. Even know, the mostly blind drakes were swarming three large structures on wheels, turning them toward the sound of wings. The structures were armed with large spears, and the entire weapon reminded Wylan of a cross between catapult, and a crossbow.

  :Yes, distract them!: Wylan agreed wholeheartedly.

  Lissandra let out another burst of fire, and the tops of the green trees withered in the flame. The giant leaves tumbled from the trees to burst into sparks upon the ground. Flame sizzled along the grass, catching the brittle tinder in a rushing inferno, and soon more drakes were swarming the fire, using water and wind magic to damper the flames.

  Lissandra climbed higher as the first of the giant spears shuttled from the catapult arrow launcher. The wind of the spear’s passing was so close to her belly that Wylan waited to feel the pain of the blade slicing into her. The pain didn’t come. It had been a close call.

  Lissandra dipped to the side, shifting to keep Aariac on her back. The elf screamed out in his sleep, but there was nothing for it—they couldn’t keep him from pain and fight their way out of the caldera.

  Another roar sounded behind them, and Wylan felt the power of Adam bloom behind them as he shifted once more to human. He called out to the drakes, and a murmur ran through their ranks. Wylan hoped he wasn’t getting himself into trouble with his new home, but she couldn’t stay around.

  Another twang, and another giant spear flew for them. Lissandra dipped low, and the arrow whizzed by her tail. This time Wylan did feel the sting of the blade as it sliced away scales. The arrow rebounded off the tough hide, and flipped end over end, away from them, but not before it knocked into her tail, and sent Lissandra spinning.

  Aariac tumbled from their back, the shirt holding him around her neck, dangling beneath them.

  The elf’s eyes opened, and he looked down. A scream of fear and pain sounded from his throat, moments before the final spear launched.

  Lissandra wheeled high, her talons gripping hold of Aariac’s chest, carrying him with them. The arrow sliced into the back of her neck, and Wylan and Lissandra screamed out as one, flame gushing from their mouths.

  Lissandra tumbled, her wings folding inward in pain. Moments before they crashed into the ground, the wyvern snapped her wings open, and used the momentum of their fall to whisk them up the path that led out of the caldera.

  As they gained altitude, and the caldera began to fade behind them, Lissandra retreated, and let Wylan take command of their flight. The pain in her tail and in her neck was manageable, but the areas were weakened now. If they were attacked again, there were two points on their body where they were vulnerable, and the neck was a huge target for dragon attacks.

  Fear that they were going to capture her again fueled her flight. She wasn’t sure how many miles she flew before she realized the greenery of the caldera was behind her, and so was the threat of the drakes.

  As an elf, Leaghan had heard very little of the human legends. What she had heard of Andraal told of a great wizard, who when all other wizards were dying around him, had single-handedly fought back the dragons and rid the long desert of their insidious race. But what she was learning of the arch-mage painted a completely different picture.

  Murder. That was the main point that she’d found. Andraal wasn’t any normal murderer, either. While she knew he’d done what needed to be do
ne to stop the dragons, it seemed—to her—that he took great pride in his work. She wasn’t completely convinced that Andraal couldn’t have found another way to stop the dragons. She was certain if all the wizards had come together, they could have ended the threat. But he’d had other notions.

  And a manifest of the murders he’d committed and how he’d committed them.

  Leaghan shivered, and it had nothing to do with the slight thrum of magic that whispered through her arms, down her fingers and into the needle that punctured the gray robe she worked on.

  “Focus,” Marcone barked, his voice more than half phlegm. Whenever he spoke, it was enough to make Leaghan want to clear her throat, hoping it would also clear his. “There’s no room for magic when your mind is on other affairs. Whatever you’ve stitched in the last couple moments, before your thoughts turned to other things, is nearly useless. Good job, now there’s a point in your shields where fire can break through and burn you.”

  “Enough to kill me?” Leaghan asked, looking up.

  Marcone raised an eyebrow. “If you keep thinking of other things, yes.”

  She frowned, tried to clear her mind, and focused on the magic once more. This was the final day of stitching on the bottom hem. She still had the neck and the arms to go. It had been tiring work, but the end was in sight. She had three more runes to go, and then she’d be done.

  The robe was dark gray, nearly the color of coal. The thread had once been white, before she’d mixed it with dragon blood and ground dragon scales. Now it was blacker than the darkest black she’d ever seen. So black that it seemed to bend the mind around it when she looked directly at the stitching. It was almost as if the stitching wasn’t even there, which made it even harder to continue since she could only see the last little bit she’d stitched.