The Summer Dragon

  The snick of blade on wood filled the following minutes.

  “I don’t suppose it’s really funny, is it,” he said, eventually.

  “Actually, it sort of is.” I smiled.

  “Interesting. Darian always wants to know about the tactics, the equipment, the war. But you asked me about my home. I like that about you, Maia.” He looked up. “You know, I could come to love a place like this, assuming Taben an’ I get to retire, that is. Wunt his fault he became a warrior. He deserves to live out his life this way—stud to future generations.” He chuckled again. “You might say the same thing about me.” He looked at me, his eyes lingering a moment. Then he looked quickly away, as if he’d embarrassed himself. It made me grin. “How is it that a pretty little thing like you doesn’t have suitors falling all over themselves for your hand, hey?”

  In answer, I indicated the bucket and mop, then pointed at the wet spot on my leg.

  Cairek laughed out loud. “No, I’m serious.”

  I shrugged, my turn to be embarrassed. “They’d have to get through Father first. And to be honest, I’m not that interested. There’s nothing around here but farmers and shopkeepers, and they’re really more interested in marrying into the family than anything else.”

  “Not one of them has caught your fancy? I find that hard to believe.” Again his eyes lingered on mine.

  “Well, maybe.” I felt myself blush. “But I’m busy most of the time, especially since you came—the lot of you, I mean. And what I really want to do is raise dragons.”

  Cairek smiled. “That I understand. So what do you think of my Taben? Good stock?”

  I considered the question. “Not bad. He’s strong, and he’s agile. A little bowlegged.”

  “Ha! He is that, aye. Always thought so myself. Luckily, he’s a dragon an’ not a horse.”

  I giggled.

  “Pretty little valley, this. Reminds me of home, when I was young an’ there were still trees aplenty. You’re a lucky young woman.”

  More silence followed as I watched Cairek put the final touches on his little wooden dragon. I knew he was right. The last few days I’d felt inordinately lucky. Sinfully lucky. I allowed his fantasy to mingle with mine—perhaps one day he would return and make a proposal to Father for my hand. I drew up my knees, rested my chin on them, feeling at once foolish and strangely at ease.

  “Here you go then, Maia,” he said, and handed his dragon to me. “Something to remember me by.”

  During the third day of rain the caravan of miners and engineers arrived, despite roads clogged with mud or riven by streams. Another talon of dragon-rider teams landed in the paddock, wet and hungry, with orders to report to Rov as their commander. Rov seemed to know many of them already, embracing them as old comrades. A passenger climbed down from one of the dragons, a tall, straight soldier with white hair and goatee. He wasn’t Dragonry. I could tell from his awkward dismount he was more accustomed to a horse. I sidled closer as he approached Father, so I could listen in.

  “Staelan,” he named himself. “I will be in command of the Barrage.”

  “What barrage?” said Father.

  “My Barrage. Ballistae. Boltcasters. Barricades.” I didn’t know what any of those things were. “As soon as the weather clears we’ll be mounting them on these paddock roofs. You need some palisades too, I’m afraid, but I see you have plenty of timber. Here are my orders.” Father glared with taut mouth at the papers Staelan thrust into his hands.

  On the fourth day, the rain dwindled to a slow drizzle, and the crack of wings drew me out of the stable. Cheien and one of the Torchbearers stretched above the storehouse roof. I crossed the bridge to the paddock but halted at the corner of the building when I heard Rov’s voice: “We’ve found everyone with health and skills. It’s time for the rest to go, as agreed.”

  “As agreed?” said Father. “The people of Cuuloda never agreed to leave. They only submitted to an order they couldn’t possibly defy.”

  “Broodmaster, there’s a reason civilians leave battle zones. They’re vulnerable, and protecting them occupies assets better assigned to other duties. They consume resources better spent—”

  I charged around the corner. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Sending refugees out into the wilderness in the heart of winter.”

  Rov looked at me in surprise. Beside him Addai stood with his hands clasped together. Though he raised his eyebrows, his face was unreadable beneath the intricate gravings. Were all the men with writing covering their bodies as arrogant as these two?

  “They’re all that’s left of Cuuloda,” I said. “This isn’t a battle zone. Not yet, anyway. Give them a chance.”

  “I found places for less than a third of them,” said Father.

  Addai turned to Father, his tiny eyes unblinking. “Borgomos himself is of no use to us. He is overweight, with skills only in the exchanging of coins. A service we hardly need.”

  “Bookkeeping is a valuable service. I offered him such work, but he wouldn’t take it unless he knew his people could stay.”

  “Bookkeeping is what determines his fate, I fear,” said Addai. “The harsh but simple arithmetic of mouths and resources.”

  “He has other qualities. Leadership—”

  “We have leaders enough, Broodmaster.”

  “He’s a man of rare courage and strength. He could have run far with his riches, but he didn’t.”

  Addai’s mouth stretched into a thin, taut line.

  “I thought the Juza were part of the Temple,” I said. “I expected that to mean they were taught compassion, maybe. Or charity.”

  Addai’s eyes snapped to mine, and his face twitched once before he spoke. “It’s not an easy decision we make, young woman. But the Empire must keep its aeries safe.” He looked at Father again. “You can’t lose sight of that, Broodmaster. We’re here to protect your dragons, your aeries, at all costs. That’s our duty now. At all costs, do you understand? You should be more grateful.”

  On the fifth day we harnessed in for our second flight, which stood in stark contrast to the first in almost every way. Keirr and Aru struggled with dead air below torn clouds. Only their eagerness fueled them against the cold. The village streets were empty. And our mission was somber; Father insisted on escorting Borgomos and his ragtag survivors as far as we could.

  Addai insisted on providing a winged guard. He and three of his Juza shadowed us all day.

  On the way to find Borgomos, east of Riat, we flew over the war machines that the newcomer, Staelan, referred to as his “Barrage.” Everything was covered with tarps, surrounded by tents and cookfires where soldiers waited for the weather to break. They’d be all over the paddock soon, unavoidably close all the time. More depressing than the massive intrusion was the cold necessity of all this war machinery. Borgomos’s sad retreat was evidence enough of that.

  We found him by following the singing of his people, accompanied by the basso rumble of their wagon wheels, a chorus that lifted sadly above the monotone of slow rain. Thirty or so carts and wagons threaded along the Wilding river road, intermingled with goats and the occasional pig, or bedraggled dogs and men on foot. People from the outlying farms met them as they passed, with baskets of food or parcels of goods like candles or firewood. Borgomos walked at the head with the aid of his stripped Staff of Office. He turned and waved at us when he heard our wings.

  I raised my hand in response, but couldn’t match his enthusiasm. I felt awful for them—so many able-bodied people who might contribute in Riat somehow but were obligated to leave with their sick and disabled and elderly. Which meant their children came too, huddled against the cold and wet. The small towns along the way to Taskis wouldn’t be able to absorb so many lost souls; they had little choice but to make the entire long journey. My blood pounded in my ears. It made me so angry. We weren’t in control of our own aeries, and it
seemed that things would only get worse.

  We followed them until the day grew thin. Father landed briefly to speak with Borgomos but didn’t want to risk Aru or Keirr being unable to climb back into such a dead sky, against sinking air. So he ordered us to stay aloft until he returned.

  When he rejoined us, I saw that they’d given him something. At first glance he seemed to tuck a shield under his arm, but I quickly realized it was two or more kites lashed together.

  We parted with Cuuloda’s last survivors below the first and shortest set of falls beyond the farms. When at last we returned to the aeries, snow swirled in the air.

  Rutting fever takes adult dragons in the heart of winter. We shut the broodparents in the broodhouse for a week or more of privacy. They wouldn’t eat or drink until they were finished, so there was little to do but check in on them from time to time. They lay intertwined in their nests, barely moving, nuzzling and rumbling softly. In the wild, dragons found a quiet cave and hibernated for as long as a month, engaged only in this surprisingly tender act.

  But for Darian, Aru, Keirr, and I, the sun returned. We took to the skies as often as we could. Rov couldn’t stop us; this was our job now. Imagine.

  When Father, Tauman, or Jhem accompanied us, we went further afield to stretch our dragons’ range, and Father gave us lessons at every opportunity. The first few days we practiced barrel rolls, pulling tight to our mounts’ necks to minimize our gravity. “Tuck your head next to her neck or risk blacking out.” Within the third week we practiced the deep, dizzying dives that made our leggings necessary. In between lessons, we ran up mountain ridges with wings as thrusters, leapt into updrafts for spinning rides to dizzying heights. We saw timber felled for the new barracks, visited high cols and frozen mountain lakes. Fren cut ice for the ice vaults and waved when we shouted hellos. Our dragons grew stronger and so did we, and it was all play. It felt like freedom—at first.

  We watched from the air as Staelan’s barrage was hauled up on the winch platform and assembled on the roofs of broodhouse and storehouse. Darian always circled in for a closer look at the war machines, whizzing barely over the heads of Staelan’s men within earshot of his angry shouts. I wanted no part of the ugly things. Like giant crossbows on gimbals, some designed to loose as many as twelve enormous arrows at once, others like catapults that hurled no missile, but rather snapped upward and stabbed simultaneously with many sharp spears. The perimeter of the paddock sprouted log cages pinned to the stone paving, with spikes pointing outward—Staelan’s “palisades.” Men could move in and out of them easily but dragons could not.

  It all represented the end of life as I knew it. My home had become a military installation.

  Work began in the Cinvat valley too. The engineers cleared huge swaths of forest off the ridge, right up to the edge of the ruins, and began work on a road along the path to the caves. A road hadn’t occurred to me. Of course they would need a road. But did it need to be so wide, if all they planned to do was seal the caves? It angered me that the statue of Menog and Dahak stood exposed, its forest enclosure shorn away to make room for an ugly dirt road.

  When Father or the others couldn’t accompany us, Cairek appointed two of his teams to tail us and two others to fly patrol beyond them. The Juza took turns as well. Their mission, it seemed, was to hem us in, keep us close. We understood that it was necessary, but we knew also that young wildings yearn to test the greatest heights early. Keirr wanted it, I knew. It was clear in the direction of her gaze, the language of her shrugs and nudges. I wanted it, too.

  Our games with Darian and Aru turned quickly from sparring with each other to losing our escorts. We dodged through trees and narrow canyons. They always found ways to drop into our paths and warn us back. The exercise made Keirr and Aru nimble. Their strength and confidence grew. Keirr and I learned each other’s inaudible language. If I leaned forward, she knew I wanted more speed. If I tightened into my laces we would dive. The hitch of her shoulder indicated a turn to come, a change in the set of her wings meant a change of speed. We learned the currents and channels of our mountain very well in the bargain.

  One morning Darian cocked an eyebrow at me. “You’ve got an eye on him, haven’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Cairek.”

  “What? He’s nice, I suppose, but no, I don’t.” I felt the heat of a blush on my cheeks and hoped Darian couldn’t see it. Cairek spoke to me often, complimenting my progress or making small talk.

  “You’ve got that little dragon he carved for you on your nightstand.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “He talks about you all the time.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Yes. He does.”

  My stomach knotted. I’d let his fantasy mingle with mine once, but it was just a fantasy. Wasn’t it? This brought it a little too close to the brink of reality. I liked him. He made me feel comfortable. I liked his tawny hair, his freckles, his blond stubble. But I really didn’t want attention, much less romance. Not with everything else going on. Please.

  Cairek and three of his teams accompanied us the day we finally ditched our escorts for the first and only time. Glimpses of blue and sunlight pierced the ragged winter sky. Addai and his Juza had been gone on some patrol since the day before, so we felt unhindered. The spring-like mix of sun and showers alone might have tempted us, but when Bellua decided to join the escort as well, I’m not sure Darian or I were rational. We wanted nothing more than to lose him and find some solitude.

  A low-hanging cloud allowed us to slip through to a higher outcrop, where we knew of a hidden ledge. After several minutes of silence, Darian said, “Ha! We lost them.”

  The ledge looked over a dark and untamed valley north of Mt. Zurvaan, swimming in and out of view as low clouds scudded between the peaks below. We dismounted to stretch our legs. I held my gloved hands over my cheeks to warm them up.

  Out of Zurvaan’s arm above us and left thrust the Crag, a jagged spire taller from base to tip than the pinnacle the aeries were built on. Beyond it, the peak of Mt. Zurvaan rose above swirling mist, close enough to see clouds pulled from its stony point like spider silk.

  “Look at that updraft, Maia. Imagine how high that could take you. Higher even than the Morningtide.”

  “You’d pass out from air starvation.”

  He smiled. “Eventually. But what a view you’d get first. And from that height, you could glide a long, long way without effort, to places we’ve never seen. And probably never will.”

  I studied him in the silence that followed. He looked unsettled, lost. We had grown closer in recent weeks but somehow further apart at the same time. We were together almost every day, but we rarely talked. When we were flying, we didn’t have to think about nightmares or expectations, but on the ground, Darian was stuck in my shadow, still. And every time it seemed like he might break through and be his own familiar self, someone like Borgomos would show up with praise for me—“Getig’s Maia.” Or Addai would build his schedule around my flights.

  “Imagine it, Maia,” he continued. “True freedom, alone, with four horizons to choose from. No one dogging you. That’s what launching off the top of Zurvaan would feel like. Don’t you ever wish that nothing had been decided for you, that all you had to do was imagine what you wanted and it could be yours?” He clenched his jaw and looked at me. “What am I saying? You’ve already done that. You plucked Keirr out of the wilderness with nothing but your determination, when everyone told you no.”

  Unsure where he was going or how to respond, I only listened. Wind moaned around the corners of our ledge. Darian looked out at the tortured cloudscape. “Can I make a true confession, Maia? I’m envious of the way you went after Keirr.” His gaze shifted to the blade-like spire of Zurvaan, disappearing then reappearing through the whorl of clouds. “I know you were driven to it, but still, it must be libera
ting to decide what you want and just go after it, as if nothing else mattered.” He looked at me. “How did it feel? Was it exhilarating?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not at all. It was terrifying.”

  “But isn’t it good, looking back, to know that you had to make a choice, and so you simply”—he shook his head—“made it?”

  “Darian, you have no idea what I went through. There was no choice to make. I explained it to you in the caves; how can you still not get it? Bellua threatened to take me to Avigal, to be interrogated by Korruzon Himself—assuming that wasn’t a plate of shit. I had. No. Choice. It was either acquire a qit, die trying, or be a slave to Bellua’s ambitions. Probably raped, possibly killed to quiet some assumed heresy. It was the only way I had of getting out from under Bellua’s boot heel. I was desperate.”

  “But you did it. You took the spread of the sky and made the only choice you could make, right?”

  “What else could I have done?”

  He stared at his knees for a long time, nodding. “Freedom is a lie, isn’t it,” he said at last. “Desire is a trap, unless you do something insane.”

  “What are you talking about?” I bit my lip, not sure what to say next.

  He studied the northern horizon for a minute, and I followed his gaze. Jhem once told me that on a clear day you could see all the way to Cuuloda from the limbs of Zurvaan. What did Darian see? What was he looking for?

  “After the caves, did you have bad dreams?” he asked.

  I looked up at him, surprised. His face was drawn and dark.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still?”

  I nodded.

  He met my gaze. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “But we’re still here, aren’t we. We’re tougher now.”

  He smiled, but shook his head. “Maia, when that Horror grabbed me, I thought my life was over. I thought it was going to eat me. The only thing that stopped it was you. They used me to draw you out. But instead, you rescued me. Then I got shot, but you led me to safety. You tamed the wilding father.”