The Summer Dragon

by Todd Lockwood

  “Then go home.”

  “I can’t. Something about Harodhi, I think?”

  I groaned in frustration. “We can’t stand here and argue. They’re coming.”

  The cave receded into darkness. I took a few tentative steps in.

  “Gods, Maia. These tunnels could be full of dragons.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Tauman told me about these; he said the whole south end of this plateau is honeycombed with little holes like this. That hard shelf makes a roof and the dragons have been digging out dens for eons.”

  “Then it’s a perfect place to hide.”

  “Not if a dragon or three or twelve are living here!” He grabbed my pack straps and pulled me back. I spun about angrily and wrenched his hands away. “Darian, listen: the Harodhi have been poaching dragons. I haven’t seen any wild dragons in weeks, have you?”

  His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  Sand and stones suddenly chattered down from overhead, and a shadow moved on the far wall of the crevice, cast by something on the clifftop above us. I slapped a hand over Darian’s mouth, and we froze in place, watching as the shadow moved slowly eastward. It paused once, clearly the shape of a man outlined by the lowering sun.

  Darian’s hand was a vice bruising my arm. Slowly I pried his thumb loose, and he let go. Then I signaled into the tunnel and he nodded, eyes wide. Carefully, quietly, we inched back into deeper darkness.

  Soon a tangle of branches and bones blocked our retreat—the nest of a dragon. Ten or twelve feet across, it spanned the small cavern. We couldn’t possibly cross over it without making noise. We were trapped. Darian gasped. We looked fearfully back toward the entrance to the tunnel. I held my breath.

  The shadow was unmoving for several long minutes, then it squatted and I heard a scuffling. It disappeared as the figure that had cast it dropped onto the ledge outside our hiding place, not more than forty feet away.

  Swathed in loose clothing, pale eyes peering out between the folds engulfing his head, a Harodhi warrior struggled against darkness to see into our tunnel. Darian was deathly quiet as the man knelt and took a crossbow off his shoulder, then pulled the lever that cocked it. He removed a bolt from a quiver on his belt and placed it in the groove, set the trigger, then slowly pointed it in our direction—and did nothing as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. My heart pounded out a short eternity in my ears. My lungs screamed for air, but I dared not breathe.

  A voice somewhere else on the clifftop called, and the warrior answered sharply, his foreign tongue cracking like a whip against the silence. I almost bolted but kept my wits long enough to remain rooted to my spot. Darian made no sound.

  The man raised his crossbow and loosed into the tunnel. The bolt passed between us and clattered into the dragon’s nest, startling me again, but the Harodhi warrior gave no sign of following it in. He seemed fearful, and listened for another minute or so before he stood and backed cautiously out the way he had come. A new shadow appeared, and the man looked up. A low conversation followed, until finally the warrior gave an irritated outburst. The second shadow hunkered down. Was he going to join his fellow? But then the first man reached up to take an arm offered from above. He scrambled up out of the crevice, back onto the clifftop, and both departed.

  Darian let his breath out, then hissed, “By the High Ones, Maia, if Father doesn’t kill you, I will. What do you think you’re doing?”

  I wanted to hit him, but I flopped down onto my knees, laying my bows down and pulling the knapsack off my shoulders. “You know why I’m here. You did the math. Two plus two remember?”

  “Yeah, you’re crazy. How did you end up with an arrow in your back?” He hunkered down next to me, leaning closer. “Are you hurt?”

  “Only a little bit.”

  “Let me see. Show me.”

  “It’s too dark in here. I’m fine.”

  “I can see. Turn toward the light.”

  I turned toward him, pulling my shirt up to show him the cut below my shoulder blade. He touched it, making me flinch. Maybe I wasn’t so fine.

  “It’s still bleeding,” he said. “We have to bind that up. What have you got in here to work with?” He grabbed my knapsack but paused, looking at the arrow still imbedded in the haunch of venison. “Korruzon’s ass, Maia. What happened to you?”

  I wiped my cheeks on my sleeve. “There’s a cave where the plateau meets the mountain, a big one . . .”

  “Tauman told me about it. It’s a dragon’s lair.”

  “Well, now it’s a poacher’s hideout, except the poachers are Harodhi. You saw: white skin, white hair, pale eyes.”

  “Wait a minute. You went in there?”

  “They’re blooding and skinning dragons in the cave and leaving the carcasses for the hawks and ants to clean. Wheel tracks go back deeper into the cave. I don’t know what else they’re up to, but one of them—one of them surprised me. He shot me in the back, but the venison stopped his arrow.”

  He took my shoulders in his hands. “Where is he now?” There was desperate concern in his voice.

  I looked him in the eyes. “I . . . shot him. With Kaisi’s bow.” I held it up, as if that would prove the tale.

  Darian crouched in stunned silence, staring at the bow. Then, to my surprise, he pulled me close and put his arms around my shoulders, hugging me. He said nothing as I hugged him in return.

  Eventually he spoke. “We have to tell Father. And Rov. We have to get out of here. We can’t hide forever. As soon as it’s dark, we’re going back.”

  “I can’t.”

  “We have to, Maia! They’ve shot you once already, and you were lucky. We can’t—”

  “No, Dare. I can’t go back. Not without a qit.”

  “You most certainly can. This is insanity, Maia, even without poach—”

  “You don’t understand, Darian. If I go back without a qit—”

  “Even without poachers to complicate things, how did you think you would steal a qit from a wild dr—”

  “You aren’t listening to me. I can’t go back without—”

  “Maia, Maia, think. We can’t do this. We have to be reasonable—”

  I twisted out of his grasp, grabbed my knapsack and my bows, and stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  I walked back toward the opening of the tunnel, heart racing, my mind barely keeping pace. “I have to find a qit.”

  Darian grabbed my elbow, but I yanked it out of his hand. “Don’t try to stop me, Darian. Please.” I turned away from him, suddenly overwhelmed with conflicting doubt, need, fear, and resolve. “I have to do this, Darian. I have to have a qit, or . . .”

  “Or what? You’re willing to die out here rather than go back? Is that it? You’re way out of your depth here, Maia.”

  “You were there when Getig landed on the ruins. And you put two and two together. You even said that Getig had come for me. I know you understand. You’re just scared.”

  His mouth was shaping a response when new sounds came up from the valley below.

  “Shhh!”

  Darian caught his breath and listened with me. Shouts. The braying of donkeys. And the terrified bleating of a small dragon.

  “Avar, Dare. There it is.”

  From the mouth of the tunnel, we could see down through the crevice. Scree filled the gap, making a coarse stair of jumbled rock leading down to a slivered view of the valley floor below. Another contingent of Harodhi warriors worked their way up the slope toward the main cave, possibly two dozen men. In their midst was another cart drawn by a second pair of donkeys, but on this cart was a rectangular cage made of metal straps, large enough to hold a dozen qitlings or even a bear-sized juvenile. But in it was a single baby, bleating in fear.

  My heart leapt, then sank. Then leapt again. I’d alrea
dy lost one baby, but Getig had led me here. Hadn’t he? “That’s the baby,” I whispered.

  Darian shook his head. “Oh, no. Oh no, Maia. Oh no no no . . .”

  I jumped across the gap to the next ledge for a better view. The rock shelf ran to the far opening of the crevice, giving me an expanded view of the scene below. Darian came up behind me but stalled his protests as he looked over my shoulder.

  The qit raced back and forth in the cage, squealing in terror. A tan-and-silver baby—classic mountain coloration. The donkeys brayed with discontent but struggled against the slope with determination. The warriors all looked backward, down the hill, toward something out of our sight.

  “Gods, Maia, there are so many—”

  “Something else is happening, Darian.”

  The shouts of the Harodhi warriors increased in volume, and they formed a line across the trail with crossbows raised. Then a roar shattered the late-day stillness, the unmistakable bellow of an angry adult dragon.

  The pitch of the warriors’ cries changed. A couple of them broke and fled in panic as a fully grown dragon galloped into view from the right. He was tan and silver, like the baby, a magnificent specimen of the Gadia mountain breed, like Audax or Coluver. Clearly male, with a tall top frill and muscular build, smaller than Shuja, but scrappier, leaner, hardened by a life in the wild. He seemed to be wounded, most notably because he did not attempt to fly at all. He clung to the ground as he charged, roaring defiance, and the qit in the cage screamed in answer.

  Crossbows snapped at his charge. Bolts struck his natural armor with zings and thuds, and a great many bounced off entirely. He fought his way to the nearest line of archers and weighed in with claws and teeth. There were screams of pain, cries of anger, dragon bellows, and terrified bleating. Two of the Harodhi were flung spinning into the nearby trees, but the crossbows continued to sing in a furious, staccato chorus. The dragon crossed wings in front of himself to deflect some of the barrage, but he snarled in pain and anger and backed away.

  My heart went out to him—the proud father defending his baby. Was the dragon I’d found in the forest two days ago his mate? Or was it three days already? He hesitated only an instant before charging again, his wings crossed before him as a shield. Two more Harodhi warriors were launched into ruin before he retreated from another onslaught of crossbow bolts.

  It hurt to watch. The little dragon in the cage screamed with terror unlike anything I’d ever heard—not even as our brood was lowered into the clutches of the Ministry. The father dragon circled briefly, then made one more assault on the line of archers. Bows snapped, arrows cracked, and the dragon sire fell back from the withering onslaught.

  There came a sudden, croaking roar above and to our left. We both squatted down instinctively as a shadow swept over us from the west. A dragon glided past in stark silhouette against the bright sky.

  Darian jumped up. “It’s Father!” he cried, and began waving his arms.

  But I grabbed Darian around the waist and dragged him back against the crevice wall. It wasn’t Shuja, and it wasn’t Father. It wasn’t any dragon I recognized, not even one of the Ministry contingent. It was lanky and brown, with a pale, greenish underbelly and dappled skin above. I’d never seen such a pattern before. Billowing cloaks enveloped the rider, like the soldiers on the ground, but with a red sash around his waist. To my relief, neither dragon nor rider noticed us. They glided down to circle above the combat below. The dragon sire backed off, and the soldiers used the respite to reload their bows.

  “By Korruzon! Since when do poachers have dragons?” Darian whispered.

  “I told you; they’re Harodhi.”

  Darian shrank against the stone wall. “Let’s get out of sight.”

  I nodded, inching back toward the tunnel.

  Suddenly another dragon and rider swept overhead from our left, a bigger blot against the sky. I recoiled, stunned by what I saw.

  It was wrong. Its skin was black—not glossy and smooth like Shuja’s, but with a texture and sheen like charred wood, pitted and cracked. The wings were tattered along the edges and riddled with holes. Light shining down through the membranes revealed not the reddish veins of a healthy animal, but a network of black lines. It had no top frill at all. Dark metal armor covered its neck and chest, and a helmet of black covered even the eyes. The rider was swathed in black robes, with a large black sword slung across his back.

  A stench followed it—foul and corrupt, like burnt flesh.

  Darian was past me in a shot, leaping into the tunnel out of sight. I lingered a moment longer, unable to get the image of mutilated baby dragons out of my head—of qits with their top frills removed. Was this what was intended for them? Transformation into whatever this was? A shadowy ruin, fetid and dark? Intense cold gripped me. I knew its name. Horror.

  The rider of the first dragon, still circling above the skirmish, shouted something and the black monster dived straight for the father dragon. He keened unhappily, but folded his wings and fled into the trees, where the Horror could not follow without giving up the advantage of flight.

  Smart father, I thought, but my heart ached for him.

  The qit in the cage wailed in terror as its parent disappeared. Soldiers whipped the donkeys, but they didn’t need encouragement to pull hard toward the cave. The contingent of men paused only long enough to gather their dead and wounded. Then the Harodhi dragon rider and his winged, black thrall followed them out of sight to the left.

  A chill shook me, and I ran to the tunnel after Darian.

  SIXTEEN

  “MAIA, THAT WAS a Horror.”

  Darian mouthed the word, as if there were danger in saying it aloud.

  I sat beside him, shaking.

  “Are you ready to go home now?” he whispered, derisively. “Do you think the odds against your little adventure are stacked high enough yet?”

  I said nothing, but shrugged out of my knapsack again. My wound was starting to throb. I groaned and clutched my ribs, leaning back against the dragons’ nest.

  Darian moved closer. “We have to dress that, Maia. What have you got in here?”

  “Food mostly. And a blanket.”

  “You’ve got half a deer in here. What were you going to do with that?”

  “I have to feed the baby—”

  “We have to stay hidden until Father and the others come looking for us. It’s only a matter of time.”

  He pushed the arrow through the haunch of venison, studied it for a moment, and set it aside. Then he pulled a chunk of meat out of the pack and handed it to me. “Eat this.”

  “I’m saving that.”

  “Just eat it. You’ve lost blood. You need your strength.” He tore off another chunk and bit into it hungrily, then set it on the knapsack as he chewed. “Give me your knife,” he said.

  “Where’s yours?”

  “I didn’t bring it. I didn’t think I would be gone so long. Now we need to bind that wound with something, and all we have that isn’t soaked with meat juice is our clothing. We’re going to use your sleeves. Hurry up, we’re losing the light, and we don’t dare make a fire.”

  I handed him my knife, and he used it to cut the laces holding my sleeves to my shirt. In silence, he used the sleeves to make a wound pad and bandage, tied together with the laces. Then we ate without speaking.

  From the forest below, a dragon keened mournfully—a long, sustained, desperate moan. It had to be the dragon sire—mourning his baby trapped in what was a literal den of Horrors. I pictured him pacing back and forth in the forest, fearful and uncertain.

  I raised my chin and looked Darian in the eye. “I can’t abandon them.”

  “Forget it, Maia.”

  “Please, Darian.”

  “No.”

  “I can’t do this alone.”

  “Face reality, Maia, that qit is doomed. And
even if it wasn’t, it has a parent still. And even if you could get it, which you can’t, it’s a wild dragon, not a newly hatched qit from an aerie full of humans. It might well chew your arm off.”

  Tears pooled in my eyes, and I wiped at them angrily. I was sick of crying, even in the dark, unseen. “Weren’t you paying attention? Bellua still isn’t happy. It’s personal with him for some reason. The Summer Dragon scared him to his bones. He needs to prove something. Getig is a threat to him somehow, and he won’t be content until he has buried the story of Getig forever.”

  “But why does that mean you have to—”

  “Because we need another qit! Your little sire needs a dam. Then the aeries will be back in balance, and Father will have leverage to stop Bellua from taking me to Avigal and who knows what fate. I’m just like every qit we ever sold: slave to the Ministry. Unless I do something about it.”

  “He can’t keep you there, or marry you off to—”

  “Bellua practically accused me of bringing a curse to the aeries. A curse. Mabir freed you from his snare, so that leaves me as the target of his scheming.”

  Darian was silent for a moment before saying, “Bellua doesn’t know you. He’s wrong.”

  “How good that will make me feel when I’m married to some fat old merihem somewhere. Or maybe even Bellua himself.”

  He fell silent, and for several minutes we listened only to the moaning of the breeze at the corners of the cliff, in the mouths of the crevices.

  “And what if they’re right?” I said quietly. “I was shirking my duties in the forest that day.”

  “We both were.”

  I buried my face in my hands. “I keep thinking about Mother’s fall.”

  “This again? What has that got to do with anything?”

  “Listen to me. Please. I’m not sure how to say it, so please just listen. Ever since Mother’s fall, I’ve been afraid. It’s as if somehow Mother’s last words to me were . . .” I couldn’t finish.