Once there, Benet pulled a rope that was near the door and in just a few seconds a Karon appeared and Benet sent him running again to bring them food and drink. Hayden took a quick glance around and noticed two things right away; one was that Benet’s room was much nicer and much bigger than their rooms; the second was that Benet’s copper dragon was one of the giant ones even though it was a copper.
Hayden was overwhelmed by the smell of ash, and the heat within the room was like almost being in a fire. Hayden started to sweat the further he went in. Hayden looked at the copper goliath, but he saw no proof that he had been in battle, no wounds of any kind.
He was about to comment on that when he noticed on the far right wall, where Benet had his own cleaning supplies just like in their stalls, all the tools where covered in blood and gore. There had been a battle, but before Benet had done anything when they had returned, he had taken the time to clean his dragon.
Benet went through a door to the left of the massive room and closed the door behind him. This gave Hayden time to look at the room more closely. Hayden noticed that the walls were much smother to the touch and had decorations carved around the base and ceiling. It had two soft seats that could fit two or three people each.
The seats were placed so that they faced a fire place that was not lit at the moment. Benet’s cleaning wall had every tool that their stalls had, but some were much bigger and seemed to be made better. There was no bed or sleeping area so Hayden figured it was in the room that Benet had gone to. He wanted to look around some more but Benet returned before he could make it around the dragon.
“Don’t worry about waking her, she will be out until morning, I couldn’t wake her up even if I wanted to.” He had changed into the normal grays that everyone seemed to enjoy wearing. He sat down heavily one on the seats and stretched out so that he took up the whole thing. Hayden and Shane sat down on the other one and waited for Benet to speak. The Karon returned with a tray full off food and three large cups of water.
Benet quickly drank down two of the cups of water and then leisurely tore into the food they had brought him. He never took his eyes off his plate until he had cleared it and drank the last of the third cup of water.
“So you boys are probably wondering what happened today.” He did not give them a chance to answer but continued to speak. “And I believe I would be correct to guess that you would not believe me if I told you all that it was … was a training exercise?” This time he looked at them; Hayden could tell he was half hoping that they would say yes, but neither of them said anything, neither of them even moved.
“Didn’t think so; well I guess everyone will know by tomorrow any ways, so there is no harm in telling you guys what has happened. There was a battle tonight; we fought a large dwarf clan that was moving south out of the mountains. They appeared to be moving out of their lands and into one of the bigger clan’s lands, but our local dragon riders captured a dwarf from their group and he told our rider that they clan would turn south at the main road that leads to Celestial City.”
Hayden was shocked to hear this but, he had been expecting it but when he looked at Shane he could tell that the news affected him much more than it had him.
“There is no way they would try that; no one has ever even made it close enough to see the city before. What could they have expected to gain from this?” Shane asked.
Benet lowered his gaze and shook his head. “I have no idea; there were a lot of them, and when we got close I thought we were going to turn around until their red dragons took to the sky. At first it was just three or four, but once they got level with us the mountains behind them seemed to break off chunks as their dragons came to meet us.” Hayden and Shane were leaning forward on their seats, lost in Benet’s words.
“We split up into our formations, gave each other some wing space, when they closed in on us. I think they wanted to intimidate us because they kept far away from each other to take up more of the sky. They were not ready for us, not for trained dragon fighters.” Benet took another break to take a sip from his empty cup; once he remembered it was empty he went to the rope again and asked for more, a lot more.
“They never really had a chance, and the worst part was that they didn’t know it. Their distance between each other didn’t allow them to see what was happening to their other riders. We were able to use the same maneuvers on them, and by the time they realized they were losing it was too late.
“Some of them were able to hide back in the mountains, but not many made it. The dwarfs that were on the ground knew the second we broke into our formations that their riders were doomed. They broke and scattered into the mountains before the first dragon fell.” The Karon had came with a cup that matched the one Benet had just emptied, but he also carried a heavy pitcher filled with water. Hayden heard the Karon tell Benet that a lot of other riders were asking for pitchers so he thought he would like one to. Benet thanked him and downed another cup before he continued.
“Their dragons fell out of the sky as if we dropped them from our saddles. After only a few seconds they started to flee; all except for one. Their clan chief was a rider and his dragon was almost twice the size of the other reds. He stayed while the others ran and he fought harder than anyone I have ever seen when faced against an army of dragons. He downed a copper and he wounded two other coppers and a silver before we were able to force him to land.” Benet started rubbing the sides of his head as his eyes rested on his sleeping copper dragon.
“He was strong and well minded, he kept telling us that they didn’t want to fight and that it was us who started the fight. He tried to lie to us and tell us that they were just moving to more fertile ground, that they weren’t on a war march. He begged us to not hunt down his clan, to let them go and keep him instead.” Benet started to mumble and make less sense as he finished another two cups of his drink. He finally passed out on the cushioned chair he had been sitting on.
Shane and Hayden decided not to leave him there, so they carried him into the room that he had changed in. Hayden was glad to see that he had been right to guess that the bed was in here but there wasn’t much of anything else in there.
The bed wasn’t just a mattress on the floor like it was in Hayden’s room, it was a nicer mattress that was razed off the floor and was setting on a metal frame. When they laid Benet down on it Hayden realized the mattress was full of soft feathers instead of straw.
There was a large dresser near the fireplace; it was on both sides of the wall, and the only other piece of furniture was a rack that held his armor, shield and sword. Shane moved close to the dragon rider’s gear and admired it. Hayden had to almost pull him away from the stand.
He pushed Shane out of the Benet’s rooms and back into the corridor; he turned around to close the door, and Benet’s copper dragon had woken up and was looking at him with its giant copper eye. Hayden bowed slightly, and was shocked to see the dragon bow his head, and then the dragon lay back down and went back to sleep.
They made their way back to their rooms and said their goodbyes; Hayden knew that in just a few short hours their trainer would be waking them up to start their second day of training. He went and lay next to Draek, who still hadn’t moved since Hayden had left, and succumbed to sleep.
Hayden woke up to find Draek stretching; the torches in the room were still burning because he had forgotten to put them out. Draek nudged him with his head to make sure he was awake.
I am up, what is it? he asked the yawing silver dragon.
Your trainer’s dragon has told me to wake you up and tell you to get ready and meet him at the gate. He said the last one there gets a surprise, so you might want to hurry. Draek yawned one more time and Hayden rubbed his eyes, and when he opened them he was staring at a large jaw full of perfectly placed sharp teeth.
Hayden jumped back, and that was enough to wake him up; he tried to jump up like he normally would have, but he was even more sore than he had been the previous day. The cold du
ring the night had stiffened his muscles and he had to warm up and loosen his hurting body.
When he got dressed, into his last clean pair of training grays, he decided to use to large exit out of his room. Draek walked with him for a while, but once they made it to the gate Draek told him this was not where he was to wait and the silver dragon continued to walk towards the river.
Hayden was the first one at the gate, at least that’s what he thought because there was no one else there. He only had to wait five minutes before Giles and Sebastian made their way to where he stood.
They did not talk to Hayden or acknowledge him in any way; they appeared to be content with ignoring his existence and Hayden was ok with that. Shane was the last one to make it there, he had even been jogging and was out of breath, but they had waited another ten minutes on him. Moments after Shane made it their trainer came walking out of the woods and made his way to the group.
“So who was last, which one of you gets the surprise?” he asked as soon as they were in ear shot of him. Before Giles or Sebastian could say any kind of crude remark Shane spoke up.
“I was, sir; I was the last one here.” The other three riders turned to face Shane, who was still fighting to catch his breath, but he was standing tall. Their trainer nodded his head with a slight grin on his face.
“I like a man who admits to his faults before someone else can tell on him.” He continued to nod his head and Hayden guessed that he was deep in thought because he quit speaking for a few seconds. “But I said that last one here would get a surprise, so here it is.” He had been wearing a strange leather harness that Hayden hadn’t noticed until he started taking it off.
On the back of the harness were what appeared to be many over lapping metal rings. Their trainer handed it to Shane, and once the harness fell into his hands it almost pulled him to the floor.
“This is a weighted harness that you will wear while doing my training today, and once you go to Tynan’s battle class then you may remove it. Now who knows why we did this whole ordeal this morning?” He asked the four; Shane was staring to put the harness on with much difficulty.
“To see who was the fastest and who was the slowest.” Sebastian answered.
“No! I had you all do this because I wanted you to learn a lesson; we can be called on at any time and while we are in any condition. I had you get ready fast and get up here while you were tired and sore. Yesterday a dwarf clan was trying to attack us. We went to meet them and ask them for truce when they attacked us. We tried to reason with them, but they had gone mad with the desire for battle. Most of the wings were up in the air in less time than it took you to get ready and get down here.”
Hayden listened to the man speak and he could tell that he was lying; he did not even try to cover up that he was lying. He just made it very clear that this was the official story that they were going to be told so they had better get used to it.
“Now before we get started today, I wanted to inform you that from now on this is how our days will start. Your dragons will randomly wake you up when I tell them too, and then you will have to get here as soon as you can, whoever is late each day gets the harness.” He turned around and started to jog into the woods, taking the same path they had taken the day before.
Hayden started to jog after him, but his sore body limited how fast he could go. Giles and Sebastian stayed at a speed that was close to his, but Shane quickly fell behind with the extra added weight. They made it to the first clearing and did the same strange stretches, but this time they worked out different muscles so that the ones that weren’t sore now were.
They finished early because half way through they could no longer make a real attempt at the different challenges that their trainer threw at them. He decided to lead them to a clearing on the other side of the woods. As they got closer they heard a lot of grunting and yelling; the same sounds that they had made but much louder, coming out of many more throats.
They walked through the last few trees and found themselves looking down at a valley full of young men and women in their working grays doing the same work outs that they had been doing.
“When these youngsters finish the same training you all are doing, they will become part of the ground army.” Their trainer stood admiring the crowd of people below. Hayden could not count them all because they were moving around like unorganized ants. He guessed that there had to be a couple hundred of them though.
“You will train with them once every couple of weeks to see how you rank up with them. In case you were wondering, you should be doing better than them, in everything. They are foot soldiers, nothing more. You all are riders, you all are everything. We would sacrifice every one of them twice over just to save a dragon and his rider. You might not feel like you are worth more than them, and really you’re not, but your dragon is. One day you will be worth it too, but not yet, not by a long shot.”
Their trainer thought that they had seen enough, so he turned them around and had them jog back to the city gates. Hayden thought it was funny how they all started off at a decent speed but it wasn’t long till their trainer was walking past them. They finally got back to the city and found Tynan waiting by the fountain again. He told them to rest by the fountain while he spoke to their trainer. Tynan walked towards the door in front of his barracks.
Draek was concentrating on his training, so Hayden just relaxed against the cold metal and just felt his dragonet’s emotions and focused on what Draek was doing. He felt Draek’s different muscles flex and work and Draek’s adrenalin pump. Hayden knew that Draek loved the challenge and was giving it his all and it was showing; Hayden felt Draek’s pride that he had done better in every challenge than the other three dragons.
Hayden continued to just feel Draek’s emotions and thoughts until Tynan came back and lead them into his barracks. Their trainer left in a hurry as soon as Tynan walked in; Tynan then repeated the process of locking all the locks. He then turned to face the four riders.
“Which weapon do you think we will start you off with?” he asked as he made his way down the walls covered in weapons. He looked at them all and pointed at some, waiting for someone to answer.
“Well you said that dragonauts where a dragon riders main weapons, I am going to say them,” Hayden said, not worried that he had been the first to speak.
“The way you think is logical, you try to look for reason, but no, you are wrong; anyone else?” The other answers were sword, bow, and Sebastian had pointed at some weapon he had never seen or heard of outside of the barracks. Tynan had told each of them no in turn.
“You have all guessed wrong, you have forgotten the most important weapon of any fighter; whether they be a common soldier or even a dragon rider. What good would it do if I taught you how to use any of these weapons, but you could not control your own body? Or what would happen if you had no weapons and had to fight for your lives, what good would the spinning furry move that you saw yesterday do you?” he asked, none of them having an answer, and Shane even lowered his head.
“Never lower your head in here, Shane The Copper, never. No matter what any of you do or do not do right in here you always hold your head up with pride. Now I know you are tired and worn out, but that is how you will feel for the next year, so we must get started now. Hayden, you answered first so you will try to hit me first. Please come and stand in front of me. The rest of you please have a seat against that wall, but don’t get to comfortable, your turns are coming.” The others, Giles and Sebastian, looked at each other while Shane continued an unemotional gaze into the center of the open room.
Hayden stood calmly in front of Tynan and tried to control his breathing. His muscles were sore and begging him to allow them to rest, but he wanted to stay where he was. Tynan’s face showed no emotion, Hayden wondered if he even saw Hayden or if he was only looking at another opponent, weighing his strengths and weaknesses.
“You will attack me, using only your fists. Hit me as hard as you can, as fast as
you can, if you can.” Tynan smiled, but still did not move.
Hayden made fists and held them awkwardly in front of his chest. Tynan shook his head and held his fists closer to his face so Hayden could barely see his eyes. Hayden copied his stance and then slowly moved forward; once he had made it almost half way to Tynan he ran as fast as he could and punched as hard as he could with his right hand aimed at the side of Tynan’s head.
If Tynan was surprised he did not show it as Hayden clumsily ran at him. Hayden saw his fist flying at Tynan, and at the last second Tynan leaned back and clear out of the way. Hayden could not slow down after he had thrown his whole body into the punch, so he stumbled and fell onto the floor. Hayden heard Giles and Sebastian laugh, and he was expecting Tynan to laugh also, but instead Tynan helped Hayden up to his feet.
“That was a good try, you gave it all you had and tried to surprise me. If you had been fighting someone who was not trained we would be trying to wake them up right now.” They continued to move around each other; Hayden punching only air and Tynan instructing him on how to better his stance. Hayden was panting and having trouble holding his fists up after a few minutes.
“You are doing well, you have natural instinct, and we just have to refine your skill. A big reason why people loose fights, whether in battle or in the streets, is fear. Fear can be your best friend or the thing that cripples you. You must learn how to instill it in your foes and keep it out of your heart. No fear, no fear.” He shouted the last words out and Hayden heard them echoed back from people who must have been outside the barracks.
“Do you know what your fear is, Hayden The Silver?” Tynan asked him as he leaned in closer. Hayden did not respond, but continued breathing heavily with his hands down by his sides. “You have many fears, but there is one that has been in the front of your mind since you started sparring with me. You are afraid to be hit, are you not?”
The Broken Scale (The Dragon Riders of Arvain) Page 18