Dragon School: Dragon Piper
Dragon School, Volume 16
Sarah K. L. Wilson
Published by Sarah K. L. Wilson, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
DRAGON SCHOOL: DRAGON PIPER
First edition. August 3, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Sarah K. L. Wilson.
Written by Sarah K. L. Wilson.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Behind the Scenes:
For every reader who has ever done something they deeply regret.
Chapter One
Light painted my eyelids red and I let them flutter open, blinking at the brightness of the light. I felt hot – feverish, perhaps.
It’s just me. You’re lying propped up against me. That way I can keep an eye on you. You gave us a scare, spider.
Gave who a scare? I couldn’t see anything from here. Just light and tree branches waving in beams of golden sunlight, their edges blurring in a golden haze.
“You are awake! I thought we’d lost you there for a moment.” Ephretti’s face swam into view and she smiled – actually smiled! – at me before turning to the side to cough into a handkerchief.
I tried to sit up, but she pushed my shoulder back down.
“None of that. You’ve been feverish for days. You need your rest.” She looked awful – pale and drawn.
“I’m not dead yet,” I said wryly, trying to sit again.
“Here, let me help you, at least.” Ephretti reached out to help me shuffle up to a sitting position. With embarrassment, I realized I probably couldn’t have done it without her. Why was she so keen to help me? This concerned, motherly Ephretti was a surprise.
Without her, you’d be dead. She has stayed by your side since you collapsed on the stones, refusing to let anyone else care for you except for a White who Lenora sent here from the Ruby Isles. She’s done all the planning and ordering and dressing people down from right here.
What was he talking about?
Ephretti finished fussing with my positioning. “I’ll get you some water.”
“The water I brought from Baojang?” She gave me a curious look and shook her head.
“Renn took that with him. Don’t ask me why it mattered so much to him. There’s a natural spring here with all the water we could need.”
I wasn’t hooked again on the Silla. Good. I could just imagine Renn desperately negotiating for my water. Doubtless, Jalla had dosed him, too.
She moved to go get the water, letting me see what was in front of us for the first time. I was surprised to see that we were still at the Healing Arches, on the hill above the rolling forest glen. I felt like I was holding my breath as my eyes widened to take in the scene below.
The dragons were still here. Hundreds of them, scales gleaming in the sun, were moving stones, or clearing trees, or clustered in groups together. My eyes widened at the sight and also at all the people – almost a thousand, if my guess was correct. They filled the watchtowers and worked with the dragons repairing the stone structure, building bridges over the gash in the earth and constructing crude buildings.
What in the skies and stars was this?
It started when Lenora sent the White.
I needed a lot more information than that.
After you called the dragons and they defeated our enemies in dragon-like fashion.
In other words, with a lot of gratuitous flaming and the arrogant belief that no one else could get the job done.
You passed out from your wound. No surprise there. Fortunately, Ephretti was there. She freed the prisoners and they cleared this place of our enemies. Unfortunately, she only has battlefield healing skills, so when Renn arrived the next morning looking for you, she sent Lenora back with him instead, making them promise to stop at the Ruby Isles and send one of the White Dragon Riders back to us. How she thought they would convince him, I don’t know, but they did.
Renn was quite the talker. It seemed I owed him a debt.
And after the Dragon Rider arrived, the people started to come, too. Apparently, the north is full of refugees. People who were just trying to survive and keep their families away from the war were hiding in every valley and forest and cave in this area. Fortunately, Ephretti sees everyone as a block in a wall – she just wants to know where to fit them in. She had no problem putting them to work building a stronghold here. Even the dragons, who she technically can’t speak to-
Let me guess. You helped there.
There was a feeling of chagrin mixed with pride through our connection. What makes you say that?
You love arrogant women.
I also like people who know who they are. Who have a cause and a purpose.
I felt a sinking feeling as I glanced at Ephretti. What if Leng felt the same way about her when he saw her again?
Your jealousy is both misplaced and unbecoming.
Well, that was harsh.
Not really. Think, Amel. What happened to Bellrued and Tyalmae?
They’d been killed by the Magikas. But I’d seen Tyalmae reunited with Ephretti!
Just Tyalmae. Not all of those killed or injured in the arches were healed. Only a few. And Bellrued was not one of them.
Ephretti coughed again into her handkerchief before sitting down beside me and offering me a cup of water. I swallowed hard, my eyes misting as I accepted it.
“Thank you, Ephretti.”
“It’s my pleasure. Drink it, your body desperately needs the healing.”
I obeyed, but my heart was sinking as I came to grips with the thought that I’d been nursed lovingly back to health by a rival who would likely die before the next moon.
Chapter Two
“How long has it been since that night?” I asked Ephretti.
She sipped her own water before answering. “Five days. Based on what Renn Woelran said to us, the armies of Baojang are only days from here by now. I sent Lenora with him to fulfill our bargain. She will work for Jalla, the Winged Prince, but she’ll be faithful to the Dominion.”
“You didn’t go?”
“My time is ... limited.” She coughed again, but her expression was firm. Ephretti wouldn’t die quietly. “I’d like to spend it in a meaningful way.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. ‘Sorry that you’re dying’ didn’t seem like nearly enough. Should I even mention it?
“And you didn’t think undermining Jalla was meaningful?”
“I decided that helping you was more meaningful.”
It was hard not to keep my eyebrows from lifting. Ephretti didn’t like me – or so I thought.
You don’t know her as well as you think you do.
“I think that if we took your dragons west, we could retake Vanika. It would be a big win for the Dominion and good for all the people in the area. If we can take back their territory a bit at a time, we can start to rebuild. It’s something worth giving everything for.”
I glanced at her. She looked intense – like a woman dividing out the last few days of her life.<
br />
Which she is. I think her goal makes sense.
“If we bring fighting to a place currently at peace, aren’t we the ones who will hurt innocent people?”
“Would you want to live under the rule of the Dusk Covenant? Freedom sometimes can only be bought with blood. Better to die for truth and freedom than live under the weight of lies and evil.”
I wasn’t convinced, but there were more things to consider. “Why Vanika when Cabradis is closer? I’d rather head south, to be honest. Maybe even to Dragon School. We need to get moving towards the conflict, not away from it.”
“Vanika is-”
“Plotting for the future already?” A male voice spoke, and I twisted my head to see a man about the age of my father emerge from around Raolcan.
I hadn’t noticed before, but someone had set up a pavilion over my dragon friend and I. There were more like it set up behind. I couldn’t see them well and straining to look exhausted me.
The man was dressed in Dragon Rider leathers with a white scarf tied around his head, holding his braids back. White scarves with writing all over them were tied around his waist and at his left knee and a wide satchel hung from a strap across his body. He carried a wooden bowl that steamed even in the warm air.
“You need to eat,” he said to me, smiling in a way that made his whole face fill with tiny lines. His eyes were warm and gentle.
“What’s written on your scarves?” I asked weakly, noticing for the first time in a long time that he had writing on his leathers, too, just like Ephretti and every dragon rider I’d ever met.
He leaned in close and laughed. “No distracting me, eat this soup! Here, Ephretti, you can feed her.”
“I-” Ephretti began to protest but he raised an eyebrow and she frowned reluctantly and offered me a spoonful. I ate obediently as the mysterious man sat down beside me.
“I’m Dax Cloudspinner, Dragon Rider of the White. You’ve been through a lot.” Dax had a parental feeling about him. “No, no, Ephretti, gently. She’s not a barn you’re shoveling hay into, she’s a human.”
Ephretti rolled her eyes. “I know, Dax.”
“Well, you didn’t know when you almost drowned her last night, giving her water, or when you patched her up so badly that I barely saved her life from infection. I thought you said it was important that she doesn’t die.”
“I’d rather not die,” I said, spluttering, as Ephretti took my open mouth as a sign to jam more soup in.
“You’re not going to die, but you shouldn’t go running off to Vanika with Ephretti, either.”
“I don’t have much time,” Ephretti said with a grim look on her face.
“We don’t know that either,” Dax said.
Didn’t we? I thought it was obvious. Her dragon was dead. She was coughing. The Ifrit was already out of the ground.
Whites. Typical.
There was a snort from over my shoulder.
“Despite grumpy dragons snorting at me,” Dax gave Raolcan a pointed look. “We really don’t know that, Ephretti. There have been very, very, few pairs of dragons that were bound to a human. I remember noting only one other pair in the records. There may have been more – the records get more inaccurate the further back you go – but there is nothing listed about the deaths of that group.”
How did Ephretti even get two dragons?
They’re twins. In Dragon culture, it means they have the right to do everything together. We wouldn’t ask them to split, even if one was appointed to the humans.
So, they both adopted her?
That’s a way to think about it.
I wondered what they’d thought about that when the pair had come to Dragon School.
They were surprised, but don’t you think it sounds just like Ephretti to grab two dragons while she could? I think we should help her do this ‘big thing’ before she dies. We owe her.
Ephretti coughed, a little louder than last time as if to emphasize her condition. “I have all the signs, Dax. And I don’t want to die coughing. I want to die doing something.”
Dax made a suppressing motion with his hand. “We don’t know. Maybe your connection with Tyallmae will counteract the effects of Bellrued’s death. Maybe not. We need to wait and see.”
“You can’t do anything else for her?” I asked, fending off another spoonful of soup. I did feel better after the few mouthfuls I’d eaten.
“We have studied this carefully. If things are progressing as normal, I can only help ease Ephretti’s pain. If this is different, then I will carefully record it for our records so that we know what to expect next time.”
“Don’t record this” Ephretti said horrified. “Promise me!”
“Calm down,” Dax said.
“Promise!”
“Fine, fine,” he soothed.
Ephretti looked upset as she stood, clutching the empty bowl. “I need to clean this.”
When she was gone I turned to Dax. My head was still too weak to hold it up easily and I had to lean into Raolcan to stay upright.
“Are you really going to stop recording her condition?”
“Of course not.” He already had a small book and stub of pencil pulled out of his satchel. “But she doesn’t need to know that.”
“And how long will it be until I can move again?”
“You should have recovered your strength by tomorrow if you eat your soup and rest. You need a lot of rest.”
I watched him scribbling furiously in his book.
“You never told me what the writing is.”
He looked up and smiled. “Oh. Well, the writing on the leathers is like all Dragon Rider writing – prophecies, portents, signs and well wishes inscribed on the leathers by those who blessed you on your raising day. The scarves are different. I’m always afraid of losing my books.” He tapped the notebook he was writing in. “I keep the most important healing formulas on the scarves, too. You know, just in case.”
He went back to writing and I let the seconds draw out into minutes as I gathered the courage to ask the final question.
“And my leg? Will it work again?”
“We’ll see.” His smile was not enough for me. I needed facts. “Just rest for now.”
Resting was a terrible burden when all I wanted to do was to test my leg, but Dax kept his eagle eye on me and eventually I had no option but to drift back to sleep.
Chapter Three
The next few days were some of the worst of my life. I didn’t like waiting. I hated all the fears that couldn’t be dispelled because I had no way of knowing if they were true. Visions of my friends came fast and furious but combined with my nausea and aches they were too short to discern what anyone was doing beyond marching, sneaking or fighting. Being waited on by Ephretti was both embarrassing and infantilizing.
“Hold still while I comb it out,” she said, jerking a comb roughly through my hair.
“I’m fine!” I protested, but Ephretti ignored me as usual.
“Dax says we can try your leg tomorrow and when it turns out to be healed, I don’t want anything delaying us from the journey to Vanika. A surprise attack would be best, I think.”
I still hadn’t agreed to her plans, but she took my agreement for granted.
“You still haven’t explained why it needs to be Vanika,” I said.
“First things first, Ephretti,” Dax said indulgently. It was his constant presence that kept me from trying out the leg. He slept only feet away from me, sitting up even in the night if I so much as stirred. He was like a prison warden, nurse, and mother all rolled into one, and Ephretti was his chosen apprentice.
See why I don’t like Whites? They live for you. It’s smothering and embarrassing.
“We’ve waited all we can, Dax. If she’s crippled, then we’ll need to deal with that. She’s the only one who can play the Pipe.”
I eased the Pipe out of the saddlebag Ephretti had placed beside me. I’d taken to examining it frequently. I didn’t want to touch the positio
ning of the arm – I suspected it was set to dragons right now and I didn’t want to forget where that was – but I did draw a sketch of the exact position in Talsan’s book. Dax lent me a pencil for the job.
It would be better if I knew how to play it, that was for sure. I turned it over gently in my hands, placing my fingers on the holes along the shaft of the Pipe.
“Don’t blow that Amel, it took us ages to bring the dragons you called out of their thrall last time,” Ephretti chided.
“I wasn’t planning on blowing it. I just wish I knew how to play a tune.”
“Here.” She snatched it from my hands and my heart did a flip for a second until I saw her bring it to her lips. The arm hadn’t been bumped. At least it was still set correctly. “It won’t work for anyone else, right?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, watch. Ephretti raised it her lips, picking out a clumsy melody. I watched her carefully, trying to remember every note.”
“Don’t it play that like that,” Dax said without looking up. “It sounds awful.”
“If you can do better, go ahead,” Ephretti challenged. “We’re going to need her to play it, so we can conquer Vanika and set the people there free. You haven’t said yet whether you are coming with us, Dax.”
“Who says that the people of Vanika want to be ‘free?’” Dax looked up from his work. “Here, let me show you.”
He took the Pipe in his hands and blew a light, lilting tune. It made me think of butterflies skipping over clover and light bursting through clouds.
“My mother taught me that,” he said with a smile.
“Could you teach me?”
He laughed. “Only if you guarantee that you don’t call up a cloud of mosquitos. Have you thought that there might be a neutral setting on the pipe?”
I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps, if I thought back to when it had been in the Kah’deem ...
“If you can find a way to make it neutral, I’ll help you learn to play – after I finish my work here.”
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