Fire Rider

by T M Miller

  One afternoon, he had stepped out to walk beyond his cave tunnel as usual. There was no mucking out nor duties as he had been used to with the kelpra and Jaron felt staid without this exercise. His thigh had healed but he still needed to keep his scarred hip moving. As he walked past the next cave door the latch lifted and it opened. The smile that was already on his lips for his mother faded when he saw it was Lord Carna standing on the threshold.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ the lord said. ‘I thought I might keep you company today.’ He turned to close the door behind him. When he turned back Jaron had managed to clear the disappointment from his face.

  The lord fell into step beside Jaron, shortening his normal long stride to match. ‘Your leg is better?’

  ‘Yes, healed, thank you.’

  They walked on in silence, Jaron desperately thinking of something to say. Carna seemed to have been doing much the same.

  ‘I hear your lessons are going well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Parl is very pleased with your progress – you have already surpassed others who have been there longer.’

  Jaron stole a glance up at the lord. The smooth chiselled face was looking ahead at two riders coming the other way. They stood aside to let them pass and saluted Carna. He merely nodded in return. As they left them behind, Jaron mustered his courage; this was the perfect opportunity to talk about Tiara.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the grain situation,’ he began. The lord’s flint eyes switched to him and Jaron rushed on before he faltered under that sharp gaze. ‘I thought I could visit Tiara, help get Caliber back, then Lord Bell might give the Raken people more food. I mean, I could just spend a week there…’ Carna didn’t reply and he rushed on. ‘I’m well now, and I could see my friends. I’m sure they’ve been wondering how I am.’

  ‘You’ve made new friends here,’ the lord said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know if I have really.’

  ‘I hear you get on well with the students and Flick speaks very highly of you.’

  He was missing the point, deliberately of course. Jaron tried again. ‘I mean, I miss my old friends. I have been here six weeks.’

  ‘Exactly why you should give it more time.’

  Jaron huffed with impatience and looked away to glance over the walkway railing. The hall far below the walkway was empty of diners but Jaron could see the staff setting out the tables for dinner.

  ‘I suppose you haven’t seen much of Flick lately,’ he heard Carna muse. ‘I sent him on sentry duty to Tiara a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Flick’s gone to Tiara? Why?’

  ‘The Ernots raided the grain barns twice in as many days and Lord Bell asked for our help again.’ His eyes found Jaron’s. ‘It is what I have been waiting for. So much better than issuing threats.’

  Jaron stopped walking. ‘So, the Raken will have more grain?’

  ‘Yes.’ Carna turned to face him.

  Yet he had let Jaron ramble on without telling him at first. He tried again. ‘If Tiara is on better terms with Rakenar, surely there is even less of an obstacle in me going to see my friends?’

  He saw Carna’s lips press together. ‘You have obligations here, Jaron.’

  ‘I’m sure Mum won’t mind me visiting Tiara.’ He was aware his voice had risen a notch and noticed a slight tic start up in the lord’s jaw; an indication of Carna’s thinning patience.

  ‘I didn’t mean Rella. You are my nephew, I am sure you can see how that might change things.’

  Jaron stared. ‘Because you have no heir.’ It was rude of him and he regretted it as soon as the words were out.

  ‘Quite so.’ Carna folded his arms, watching him

  The mountain’s weight seemed to suddenly be pressing down on Jaron’s head. ‘There must be someone else,’ his voice came out in a whisper and when Carna slowly shook his head he found his hands were clenching into fists of their own accord. ‘It’s not fair,’ he muttered. ‘I’m grateful of course, for you saving me. But now I find I’m your sole heir. It’s impossible!’

  ‘Anything is possible. I count my blessings to have found you both when I thought all was lost.’ Carna put a hand on his shoulder and gave him an awkward pat. He kept it there, and Jaron resisted the urge to step back out of reach.

  ‘But what about the council?’

  ‘What about them?’ Carna’s hand fell away and now he didn’t bother to hide his feelings; his look was hard

  ‘Can’t the council rule?’ Jaron saw the eyes flare and he swallowed; he had gone too far, but Carna’s voice was calm when he answered.

  ‘That is a possibility, if I had no heir, but I have you and that is infinitely more preferable to the people. The council advise, we are their spearhead.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Enough!’ Carna roared. ‘I see Rella has spoiled you. It is time to grow up and face your responsibilities.’

  ‘I didn’t know I had any a week ago!’ Jaron shot back, lord or no. ‘What do I owe the Raken? If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have–’ here he flapped his hand at himself, ‘–all this, I would still be living in our village with Teel, the man who was a father to me, and we would still be a family.’ His voice had risen of its own accord and beyond Carna he could see the two riders they had passed earlier were now turned back and staring at them. Jaron ignored them. ‘I heard of Torrit’s firedrake being banished,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Not death, as Torrit and his beast really deserved.’

  A flash of pain darted across Carna’s face for a fleeting moment, then the lord’s face might have been made from stone. His silence only served to fuel Jaron’s anger even more. ‘You don’t have any claim on us,’ he dared to say, glaring up at the man before drawing in a shuddering breath to calm himself. ‘May I be excused?’

  A muscle spasmed in Carna’s jaw. ‘If you wish it.’

  ‘I do.’ Jaron gave a short, dismissive half-bow before taking his leave of the lord.

  As he neared the two staring riders, they parted for him as he limped quickly past, avoiding their eyes with his head down and his heart still hammering from his outburst. He had been rude to a lord. Shouted at him. Let him do his worst, I don’t care.

  His dinner that evening was delivered to his room by a serving boy with Rella and Carna nowhere to be seen. Jaron suspected Lord Carna had forbidden his mother to go to him.

  It didn’t help his mood at all.

  He slept badly that night. Tossing and turning in his crumpled bed until the early hours. At least there was no flying school, he thought as he punched his pillow into submission, for Parl had reminded all the students yesterday it was a day off.

  It seemed he had hardly fallen asleep when Jaron woke with a head filled with sawdust. He squinted into the gloom of the cave, wondering what had woken him.

  Suddenly, he heard an unearthly shriek from outside, a firedrake’s call but unlike anything Jaron had heard before. It came again, distant but powerful enough not to lose its message; a call of distress. He threw back the blankets and hopped across the cave in his socks. Yanking open the door, Jaron looked out and scanned the sky. The light was thin in the early morning, the mountains shrouded and the sky empty. He stepped through and looked down into the valley. The sight there startled him.

  Eight firedrake flew low over the floor of the valley in a ragged line, feinting now and then as though they were driving something. They rose up then down, travelling up the valley and all the time moving closer to Mount Scarf. As they drew nearer Jaron realised not one of the beasts had a rider on its back. Just then, the firedrake broke the line and seemed to wheel up into the air like a flock of angry birds before arching their backs and folding their wings. They dived in unison, an impressive sight, and flashed below his eye level. Jaron moved further out onto his ledge, wondering what on earth they were doing. The distress call came again, louder this time, tearing through the air and rising up to where he stood, instilling in him a sudden sense of urgency. He cautiously moved to the edge,
and peered over.

  The firedrake below were massing in a body of flapping wings and lashing tails. Snarls and roars punched the air. Riders, alerted by the noise, were now standing outside their caves and adding their own clamour as they shouted. Those with firedrake standing with them were quick to order them to stay put. If any of those standing alone were trying to call their firedrake back, the beasts took no notice. Their sinuous necks were writhing and twisting amongst the hovering wings, trying to get at something that was so far in against the mountain below him Jaron still couldn’t see. Frustrated, he got down on his hands and knees and lay on his stomach to peer over the edge. A couple on the ledge below were watching the battling firedrakes just as he was. The man was urgently calling, probably trying to get his firedrake back.

  Just then there came a loud squeal and a blue flash hurtled past the snapping jaws. Flying straight up, the beast hit an outcropping of rock and unbalanced, flipped in towards the face. Jaron gasped as the people on the ledge below dived back into their cave just in time as the beast fell onto it, momentum rolling it over with wings caught against its body. A pale underbelly was exposed until it scrabbled with its neck and front legs to right itself, flapping madly for balance. It looked up – and straight at Jaron who was still in his prone position, his head sticking out over the edge. For a moment they stared at each other, the blue firedrake and the boy. The firedrake’s eyes were a startling purple. Beyond the beast Jaron saw the green firedrake coming at him from underneath, their heads nearly at the ledge. Jaron could see the bared teeth, the glinting green eyes fixed up at the blue.

  Suddenly, he was shouting down at the blue. ‘Get away!’ Its eyes narrowed. ‘Fly!’ Jaron urgently flapped both arms then clutched at the ledge in alarm as his legs came up, threatening to unbalance him and tip him over the edge. The blue, meanwhile, had looked down just in time as a firedrake reached the ledge and lunged at him. It squealed and leapt straight up into the air, escaping the green’s teeth by inches. Jaron had no time to pull back as the beast flashed past his head, one claw just missing his face. The boy rolled away from the edge and ended up prone on his back.

  He froze in surprise.

  From far up in the air the blue was hovering, looking down at him. Just then, the green firedrake flashed past in a dense flock, causing Jaron to throw up a protective arm against the wind and dust they generated. When he lowered it, the blue was gone.

  Jaron raised himself up on his arms and twisted in time to see the blue flashing across the sky, leaving his pursuers far behind. The strange firedrake lifted over the mountain rim and was gone from sight.

  Jaron let out an explosive breath and sat up, hugging his knees. He watched the green firedrake wheel back towards the valley, for they did not pursue the intruder over the mountains. Flapping down, grumbling noises emitted from their throats as they sought out their riders who waited for them on ledges. One who landed nearest to Jaron’s mountain got a telling off, while others were petted and praised; either way the firedrake looked pretty pleased with themselves.

  Jaron picked himself up. It must be the wild bluey the dinner talk had been about. Carna had called it a ‘throwback.’ He remembered the beast’s eyes, a deep purple and not the normal green of the firedrake nor the yellow of Madrag. There had been intelligence in that look and as Jaron went back in he vowed to ask Carna more about it.

  ‘I say kill it,’ Thorel insisted at dinner that evening. ‘It’s a wild firedrake and of no use to us.’

  Minderman nodded. ‘Rarely am I in agreement with my friend here.’ Thorel glowered at him. ‘But it’s unpredictable and for all we know could be a man-eater.’

  ‘Man-eater?’ the words were out before Jaron could stop them. He flushed.

  ‘We cannot know that for sure,’ Oran murmured. Sometimes he joined them at the table in the evenings and Jaron was always pleased to see him. ‘It might just be looking for its pod and is a bit lost at the moment.’

  Rella backed up the master carpenter. ‘Yes, let’s not overreact, it might well just move on in the next couple of days.’ She was sitting next to Jaron and he wondered, not for the first time, how his mother so easily spoke up at the council table. She caught him looking and smiled at him.

  ‘It’s had enough chances and now it’s got into the valley.’ Carna was shaking his head. ‘Something is drawing it in and I doubt if today will scare it off. Didn’t you say you nearly singed it two days ago, Nave?’

  The wing commander nodded. ‘Ratch surprised it coming over the mountain range. We came up from underneath. It did a lot of squealing and shouting when Ratch went for it.’

  ‘Yet still it comes.’ Carna frowned while the table watched him. ‘All morning we searched for it immediately after it was driven from the valley. No sighting. It travels too fast.’ He sighed. ‘We are going to have to hunt and kill it.’

  Jaron started at these words, remembering the intelligence in its gaze. It felt wrong.

  ‘Did you want to say something, Jaron?’ The grey eyes were challenging him.

  The boy swallowed. ‘Maybe it’s lonely and just needs to find a home.’

  ‘But not here. I know it seems harsh but I have the Raken people to think about. Supposing it starts to eat the animals or burn the crops? Or, even worse, the villages?’

  Jaron frowned.

  Leraine put her elbows on the table. ‘The young female who has come into season has been escorted away to the female pod two days ago, and the bluey hasn’t followed. It doesn’t seem to be her that’s the attraction. She smiled at Jaron, ‘I think Jaron’s right, it’s just a loner and wanting to find its place.’

  ‘Let us all remember that a bluey is a rare creature these days,’ Oran said. ‘Do we have the right to take the life of our firedrake ancestor? One of whom our whole way of life was built on?’ A murmur of agreement went around the table.

  Nave was frowning into his tankard. ‘The drakel will be here in two days. We will want it out of the area by then. Flick is stationed in Tiara and takes Tarp to hunt in the Nidera Pass.’ Jaron started at the city’s name and cast a sneaky glance at Carna, but the lord was listening and didn’t look at him. ‘He’s seen it taking off twice from the valley,’ Nave continued, ‘and thinks it uses that as its base. It’s proving predictable and mostly tries to get into our valley at dawn before the watches change over.’

  ‘Good,’ Carna nodded. He turned his tankard absently in his hands. The table watched him and kept silent. At last, he sighed. ‘Nave, be ready tomorrow and if it doesn’t appear here take a pod and hunt it down at first light.’ Now he did look at Jaron. ‘And after tomorrow I want that to be the end of it.’

  Oran shook his head. ‘Such a shame,’ he murmured. ‘I have always wanted to do a painting of a bluey and capture that translucent colour. The old tapestries and paintings have faded so much.’

  Carna drained his tankard and stood up. ‘Maybe after tomorrow the hunters can bring you its scales, Oran, if that helps.’ The table was silent as the lord pushed back his chair, turned, and stalked out of the hall with long strides.

  Rella watched him go, sighed, and stood up. ‘Goodnight to you all.’ There was a scraping of chairs as the men at the table stood. ‘Come along, Jaron.’

  ‘Why does he have to kill it?’ Jaron asked as they walked back.

  ‘You heard why, Jaron, it could be dangerous and he has the people’s safety to think about.’

  ‘But surely if they try hard enough it can be driven away.’

  He could see Madrag waiting for them and Carna standing with his back to their approach, stroking the big red’s nose. Jaron pressed his lips together. ‘I think he’s cruel.’

  At these words Rella stopped and pulled him round to face her. He was struck how he was nearly at eye level with her now.

  ‘Do you think he took it lightly? That he wants to kill a rare blue? He has to do it for the good of the city, Jaron. Tonight, he will think of nothing else; he is not the heartless man you think
he is.’

  Jaron started to protest. ‘I don’t…’ But he hesitated. What exactly did he think of Carna?

  ‘It’s hard for you,’ Rella said. ‘I see that. This man comes into our lives and everything has changed for you.’ Jaron stared at her. ‘Oh yes, I heard about yesterday. He is not the enemy, Jaron. I really wish you would give him a chance because he happens to think a lot of you.’

  Jaron frowned.

  Rella’s face softened as she watched him. ‘We come as a package, you and I, but I think it was more than he dared hope that he would have an heir to the lordship.’ Jaron didn’t reply. He saw then Oran had followed them, close enough to hear.

  ‘I see you are upset, Jaron,’ Oran said as he came and stood at Rella’s shoulder. ‘It does seem a harsh order to kill the blue.’

  ‘I was just explaining to Jaron that Carna has no choice, Oran.’ Her voice had a slight bite to it.

  Oran smiled. ‘Ah, lovely Rella, it is upsetting but far be it for me to disagree with you.’ His stepped closer and his arm went around her waist. ‘I am sure you are right.’

  Jaron stared at Oran, surprised at his familiarity. He saw his mother’s eyebrows rise and she twisted slightly away from the master carpenter. ‘Oran…’ she began but trailed off as Carna approached them.

  The lord’s eyes were hard as they looked at the other man. ‘Did you want something, Oran?’ His voice was cold, his flint gaze aimed at the carpenter’s arm still about Rella’s waist.

  Oran immediately uncurled his arm and stepped away. His smile was contrite. ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he gave a florid bow. ‘I was merely concerned that young Jaron seemed upset.’

  Carna didn’t deign to reply. Taking Rella’s arm, he turned his back on Oran and escorted her towards Madrag. Jaron made to follow them but, looking up at the carpenter, he saw the man was staring after the lord, his painted lips pressed into a thin line. Seeing Jaron, he swiftly composed himself and, smiling broadly, gave a little bow.