Dragonbound: Blue Dragon
Page 3
Kanvar tried not to think about his old home on the coast of Varna as he limped along behind Chandran. The buildings of the Maran colony were darker and sturdier than the sun-baked bricks of Daro. Rock to build the colony had been quarried from the cliffs along the shore. The black rock had sprung from an ancient volcano and, birthed as such, was resistant to fire. The Great Blues' flames, which could have melted Daro's buildings, flashed uselessly against the volcanic rock of the colony.
Sure, it could get hot inside during a dragon attack, but the buildings stayed standing unless the dragons got their claws into them.
Chandran led Kanvar past the army barracks to the camdor stables where a piercing camdor shriek filled the air, followed by the sound of wood splintering and a horrible scraping of claws against stone. The camdor keeper, his two assistants, and Samdrasen's second in command, Pachai, raced out of the stone building and slammed the door. From inside came more clawing and the scream of a very angry camdor.
"Still can't calm him?" Chandran said as he walked up to the shaken group. Pachai's face contorted into a grimace. "I don't understand it. He's been my best mount. I trained him up from a hatchling myself. It's like he's suddenly gone mad."
Chandran put a hand on Kanvar's shoulder and propelled him forward to stand in front of Sadiq, the camdor keeper. "Kanvar has a way with the critters. Why don't you let him take a look?"
Pachai sneered at Kanvar in disbelief.
"That camdor would kill him in half a heart beat," Sadiq protested.
Kanvar had made friends with Chandran's camdor, Trilok, within moments of meeting it. Kanvar preferred to sleep in the stall with Trilok, but seldom did. He couldn't risk anyone thinking he had some special affinity with dragons, even lesser ones. He'd befriended Pachai's camdor along with many of the others when he'd first come to the colony.
Chandran laughed. "I'm telling you, the boy's a natural with them. Let him try to calm it."
Kanvar swallowed hard and shook his head. He couldn't do this with so many people watching, they might figure out what he was.
Chandran's grip tightened on his shoulder like dragon talons digging into his flesh. "You will do it," Chandran said in a terrifyingly angry voice. He'd never talked to Kanvar like that before.
Still, Kanvar shook his head.
"You listen to me, boy. You're mine for the rest of the day, and you will calm Pachai's camdor. Because if you don't, we'll have to shoot it. That beast is worth a lot of money. Money I'll hold to your account if you fail. Understand?"
Kanvar gasped. That amount of money would put him in servitude for three more years.
Ignoring the protests of the other men, Chandran opened the stone door a crack and thrust Kanvar inside. The door slammed shut behind Kanvar, leaving him in semi-darkness. Gray daylight shone in from the upper window slits. The windows were small to keep the Great Blues from reaching in and having a meal of the camdors.
The stable was a long low building that housed over one hundred camdors in sections of ten. The sections were separated by stone walls, but the stalls themselves were wooden since camdors did not breathe fire.
Kanvar peered into the darkness while waiting for his eyes to adjust. He relied instead on a different sense, one he never talked about. Somehow deep inside he felt the presence of the angry camdor as well as the fact that the other stalls were empty. Ever so faintly he sensed the camdors in the next section over.
A loud shriek rent the air, and the camdor burst out of a stall on Kanvar's left, tearing through the wood with its short front claws and slamming its long tail against the stone wall. The front claws were chipped from the creature tearing at the stone walls and blood oozed around the nails. Condensation glistened on the camdor's mottled tan and green scales. The creature heaved in short angry breaths. Scales along a section of its tail were mangled as if it had slapped the stone walls repeatedly, and a big round lump swelled on its left side above its ribs.
The camdor caught sight of Kanvar and dove at him, its short claws raking the air. Kanvar dodged out of its way, and the creature hit the stone door.
Screaming piteously, the camdor rubbed its left side back and forth against the door before twisting its head around and snapping deadly teeth at Kanvar.
Kanvar ducked and scuttled away. The keeper was right Pachai's camdor had gone crazy. Waves of pain and fury lashed at Kanvar's mind. But he could not tell what had brought the animal to this state without touching a part of his own mind that he'd only touched once and avoided all the years since then, though the sound of his father's voice in his mind still haunted him. Kanvar, run!
Kanvar wasn't ready to face that part of himself, but if he did not, the crazed camdor would kill him.
Kanvar limped along the row of broken stalls, trying to get more space between himself and the camdor. The camdor bellowed and charged after him. Kanvar ducked behind a splintered wall.
No choice, Kanvar had to do it. It shouldn't be hard without his mother holding the singing stone with its painful voices. Kanvar touched the spot in his mind where he'd heard his father's last message.
Once when Kanvar was young, his parents had taken him to see Grandfather Raza's triumphant return from raiding a Great Red dragon's lair. He'd killed the dragon and paraded through the streets of Daro, holding the flashing red dragonstone high above his head while thousands of adoring people thronged him, shouting their admiration. So many voices raised in a jumble that Kanvar could not make out the words. So many people crowded around that little Kanvar had been pressed up against his father and smothered. He might have died if his father hadn't lifted him up onto his strong shoulders.
The same sensation of indecipherable voices and a pressing throng leapt into Kanvar's mind now. Not the press of human bodies and voices, but those of dragons, all the camdors in the stable, the kitrats that ran along through the sewage ditches, the jewel dragonflies in the fields, the serpents that slithered along the jungle floor, the black monkey's that swung from tree to tree, and lesser green dragons, hungry, cunning and hunting. And beyond them a press of minds ancient and thoughtful. A flash of something that reminded Kanvar of the feeling of sitting at home by the fireplace on his father's lap. And then, shattering all the rest of the thoughts, those of the crazed camdor that reared up in front of Kanvar, screaming and clawing. Kanvar felt the searing pain in the camdor's side and the poison that maddened it.
"It's all right," Kanvar whispered, holding a soothing hand out to the Camdor. From the creature's tortured mind, Kanvar knew it didn't understand his words, but his intent to help it trickled through. That's what it wanted, help. Why wouldn't the humans help it?
"I'm going to help you," Kanvar said. "Just stay calm. Stay right there."
The camdor sank down on its haunches, whimpering. Kanvar eased around it and went to the tack room where the grooming equipment and saddles were kept. His side hurt like someone had shot a crossbow dart into him. No, not his side, the camdor's. Poor creature. Kanvar opened Chandran's tack box and pulled out a pair of long-nosed tweezers.
He limped back over to the trembling camdor and rubbed his hand down the creature's smooth scales. "I'm going to help you, but you have to hold still. Hold still and let me help."
The camdor let out a piteous wail but remained sitting.
Kanvar stuck the nose of the tweezers up under the scales near the lump on the creatures left side. He squeezed the tweezers closed and gave a sharp tug.
The camdor shrieked and bolted away, leaving Kanvar holding an engorged razor beetle that had somehow worked its way up under the camdor's scales and latched on, pinching, sucking, and spreading its poison through the camdor.
The camdor moaned, staggered into the remains of a stall, and lay down on a pile of straw.
Kanvar pulled his mind away from it. The sudden silence in his head was deafening, and a feeling of lonely emptiness swept over him. Kanvar shuddered and fell to his knees, shaking, still holding the ghastly beetle in the tip of the tweezers.
"A razor beetle," Sadiq exclaimed. "No wonder."
"My poor camdor," Pachai said. "He'll need medicine to counteract the poison."
Sadiq rushed to the tack room and came back with a thick paste to put over the wound. The camdor lay still and let him apply it now that the razor-sharp pain in his side was gone.
"I guess you were right, Chandran," Sadiq said. "The boy is a natural. I'll take him as my apprentice as we agreed. Good work, lad."
Kanvar dragged himself to his feet. "I-I don't understand."
Chandran gave him a wide smile. "I know you like working with the camdors. I just apprenticed you to Sadiq. It's an honorable position, much better than someone like you could ever hope to attain."
"But I . . . at sunset, my indenture is over. I'm going to—"
"No. You are not going out into that jungle. I could never live with myself if I let you do that. The papers are already signed. You are now Sadiq's apprentice. It's all fixed and legal. Come on, let's go get your things."
Pachai took the tweezers with the beetle from Kanvar's hand and squashed the beetle with a loud splat between the sole of his boot and the stable wall.
Chapter Three
Back in Chandran's room, Kanvar laid his sleep shirt across his blanket, tossed his sandals on top, and rolled up the bundle. Except for his crossbow, and the clothes and armor he wore, that was all he owned. Not much to show for his fifteen years. Nothing at all compared to the possessions he'd once had back in Daro. But he'd traded all of that willingly for his most precious and precarious possession, his own life. A possession that Chandran in trying to save had surely forfeited for Kanvar.
Kanvar had read over the contract. As Kanvar's legal guardian for the term of his indenture, Chandran had the right to apprentice him. A right Kanvar had never considered when he'd agreed to the indenture. The bitterness of his lost freedom stabbed his heart. He now had five years apprenticed to Sadiq. He doubted he'd survive that long. After his experience with the crazed camdor, Kanvar could not longer pretend the fever would never take him. It had been a painful reminder that he had been born a Naga. That he would die very soon, if he could not leave the colony and find the Great dragons.
Not the blues. By the fountain, he swore, not the blues. They'd kill him before they ever discovered he was a Naga. With as ferociously as they fought against the humans, odds were they considered Nagas traitors to the dragons just as much as the humans considered them traitors to the humans.
Somewhere out there lived other Great dragons. Reds in the living volcanoes, though the reds might kill him as fast as a blue. A Great Green was Kanvar's best chance. They lived in the densest parts of the jungle, lurking out of sight in the trees. The greens would paralyze their victims with poison secreted from beneath their scales and then take them back to their lair to eat them. Kanvar might be able to convince one of the Great Greens to bond with him. If he could find one. If he could get out into the jungle.
"I know what you're thinking," Chandran said from the cot where he sat sharpening his sword. "Don't try to run away. It won't work. I've already told all the soldiers to make sure you don't leave the colony."
An involuntary moan escaped Kanvar.
Chandran lowered the sword. His face softened. An earnest kindness came into his eyes. "Kanvar, please. You'll die out there."
Kanvar shook his head. "I know what I'm doing." He longed to boast that his grandfather had been Kamar Raza, and as a member of the Varna dragon hunter jati, Kanvar had learned every dragon hunting secret possible. But Kanvar couldn't do that without revealing his true identity as a Varnan as well as Amar's son and a Naga.
"No, you don't!" Chandran's face turned red. He shook his sword at Kanvar. "I had two sons. Two. And I lost both of them to the dragons. I will not lose you as well."
The great gong of the warning bell drowned out Kanvar's weak response.
Chandran sheathed his sword and raced outside. Kanvar followed. Afternoon clouds blocked the sun. In the subdued light Kanvar saw the spread of a Great Gold dragon's wings as it swooped from the mountains down toward the colony. A human rode just behind its massive head.
"I don't believe it," Chandran said in wonder. "A Great Gold and a Naga. They never attack the colony. Stay here," he told Kanvar as he joined the rush of soldiers to the defense of the city.
Kanvar clutched his rolled blanket to his chest but couldn't still his racing heart. His father? But it couldn't be. His mother had shot Amar, twice. The bell continued to toll. And Kanvar stayed frozen in place. Gold dragons weren't fighters like the blues. A single gold wouldn't have a chance against the whole Maran army. And the Maranies hated Nagas even more viciously than the Varnans. His father coming here would be suicide.
A shout went up from the wall. "They've caught him!"
That shocked Kanvar into action. He headed for the gate, still clutching his bedroll. Other colonists converged in the street, all eager to see the captured Naga. The sudden press of people made progress impossible for Kanvar. He fell to his knees in the crowd and was almost trampled before he could crawl to the closest building and drag himself back up.
No use trying to get to the gate. Kanvar headed in the opposite direction. If they'd caught the Naga they would most likely take him to the town square below the watch tower. Kanvar limped toward the center of town and climbed the stairs to the bottom platform of the tower. Above him, he heard the chatter of the soldiers who manned the spy glasses.
"Don't see the Great Gold now. Wonder where it went."
"It's still cloudy, so we should see it if it flies up out of the jungle canopy. Just keep your eyes open for it."
The throng of people made its way down the main street toward the square. Kanvar shuddered. He hated crowds. There in the center of the shouting angry mob a group of soldiers surrounded a single man with wild blond hair. They'd bound his hands behind his back and tied a singing stone against his forehead with a leather thong but left the fine sword hanging at his side as if it were accursed and no one wished to touch it. Kanvar winced at the thought of how painful the singing stone must be for the captured Naga. But the Naga strode confidently amid the soldiers, head held high, his eyes scanning the crowd as if looking for someone.
They brought him into the square amid the shouting crowd. "Burn him! Burn the Naga!" The closer the singing stone came, the more its wail drowned out the cries of the angry humans. Kanvar reeled in pain and dropped his bedroll onto the platform so he could use his good arm and hand to grip the stanchion to keep himself from falling.
General Samdrasen met the soldiers just below the watch tower. The soldiers savagely forced the Naga to his knees in front of Samdrasen. The Naga glanced up as his knees slammed against the rough volcanic stone. His eyes locked with Kanvar's for a split second before the soldiers forced his head down into submission at Samdrasen's feet.
"Devaj," Kanvar cried, but his small voice was lost in the shouts from the crowd. He couldn't believe it. His brother had changed some as he grew older, but there was no doubt, the Naga was Devaj. Joy spread through Kanvar's heart and was smothered by a blanket of fear. Devaj would not survive the day.
Samdrasen held a hand up, and the shouts died down to angry mutters.
"Why have you come here?" Samdrasen demanded. "You know your life is forfeit."
"I've come seeking peace. This land is big. There is room for all. Dragons and humans once lived side by side. We could do so again," Devaj said.
Kanvar didn't know how Devaj could even talk instead of just writhing in pain from the singing stone. His announcement must have taken all Devaj's force of will to make.
Samdrasen spat in Devaj's face. "Tell that to the blues."
Devaj swallowed and looked up into Samdrasen's face.
"Don't you dare look at me." Samdrasen kicked Devaj in the jaw, sending him reeling backwards. The soldier
s caught him and forced him down flat on the ground in front of Samdrasen.
"I've come to act as an emissary between you and the blues," Devaj said through gritted teeth. Kanvar could barely hear him beneath the scream of the singing stone. "I believe if both sides would just listen to each other, we could bring this war to a close."
"Never," Samdrasen said. He kicked Devaj again and ordered his soldiers to burn him.
During the brief exchange between Samdrasen and Devaj, more soldiers had erected a wooden pillar in the center of the square. The colonists brought armloads of dry straw, sticks, and logs to pile around the pillar.
The soldiers dragged Devaj over to the pillar.
"No!" Devaj shouted above the roar of approval from the crowd. "Don't do this. We can have peace. Please!"
And Kanvar stood frozen, clinging to the tower support with his good arm. He told himself to do something, to move, to save his brother. But his body remained rooted to the spot.
Devaj glanced up at him with a thin smile as the pile of wood grew at Devaj's feet and oil poured over it. Samdrasen himself carried the torch to light the fire.
A terrible roar split the air, and the bell started a wild tolling. "The blues!" the watchmen screamed. "The Great Blues!"
Kanvar snapped his eyes up from the square and saw a wave of Great Blue dragons appear around the closest mountain peak and skim across the trees toward the colony. They had to have been flying low and behind the ridges to keep from sight until the final length from the mountain to the colony. And at the head, their leader, a grizzled old blue dragon who dwarfed the younger ones by far. Kanvar had seen the Great Blue leader before. He led all the blues' attacks on the colony. He was colossal and relentless and had the scars to prove it. The soldiers said he was blind in his left eye from a ballista bolt he'd taken back when the Maranies had first come to these shores. No matter how many times the Maran army wounded him and beat the blue dragons back, the colossal blue always returned to attack again.