Dragon of Ash & Stars: The Autobiography of a Night Dragon

by H. Leighton Dickson

  He smiled at me. I could burn him to ash with the fire of my breath.

  “You’re a clever one, aren’t you?” he said. “But look, Flight Dragons have no band. They can eat what they want, when they want. Ironwing could kill me if he wanted to, couldn’t you, Ironwing?”

  The silver drake grumbled but did not take his shiny eyes off me for an instant.

  “And so, here, I offer you this skoat. It is very tasty and you need the strength.”

  He stepped forward once again. The skoat looked good, smelled even better.

  I pushed myself to my feet. They were shaky but still.

  The silver drake growled again.

  Stormfall and Rue, Flight Dragons and Riders. Working together for a common purpose. I had been happy once. I had been Stormfall.

  I looked around at the sunny mountainside. Trees, rocks, slopes, white cliffs. Above me, clouds and blue. Beneath me, valleys and rivers.

  There was no comparison.

  I stretched out my wings and leapt into the sky, soaring out and away from this rocky ledge, the stick and his silver dragon with barely a second thought.

  And to my relief, they did not follow.

  ***

  Life in the Crescent Mountains was at once different from and similar to my early life at the Anquar Cliffs. Instead of fish, I hunted white ghorns and shaggy noxen and shared with no one. I hunted at night as well, perfecting the arts of soundless flight and killing with a single blow. Instead of a nest on a mountain ledge, I made a lair in a cave I’d found along a cliff face. It smelled of old dragons and I wondered if it was an ancient aerie of some sort. It gave me a sense of belonging, one I hadn’t had in some time.

  But above all I was free and felt like I did when I was a fledgling. Wild and proud and strong and vain. I had stood up to the dragon rider and his silver drake and had no master now but the wind. It was a good feeling, much needed after so long a slave. I staked my claim on a large tract of land, spitting acid on every rock and tree that I could find. Although dragon acid burned like fire, it cooled to a sticky wad and was the way dragons marked their territory, so I patrolled my borders every night, spitting acid and checking for signs of sticks or dragons.

  I was very far from the sea however, and sometimes I could feel the earth force calling me home. I would go one day, I promised, but when I did, I would have to cross the Pit lands and Bangarden, the Corolanus Markets and then Venitus. Even the thought of living with another band filled me with dread.

  Dragon Flights were common in this area. Sometimes at dawn or twilight, I would see them travelling in their signature arrowheads across the Crescent Mountains and I watched with interest until they disappeared from view. Of all things in this world, the Dragon Flights confounded me the most – dragon and stick working together without banding. The dragons were harnessed but I wondered if it was more for the sake of the sticks. They were a fragile people, physically – easy to kill, easier to wound. It was a puzzling alliance, a complex one, and sometimes I’d allow myself to think about Rue and our days on the sea, or Tacita and our songs in the aviary. Some nights my dreams replayed these memories. More than once I was back in Bangarden, with a burning carriage on my tail and a brown rider on my back.

  There had been a Flight Rider on my back.

  Still the thought captivated me. The sensations captivated me – his legs pressing into my shoulders, his hands gripping the spines on my neck. His weight foreign but not wrong and I found my mind turning it over and over, fighting the leap of my spirit every time that arrowhead crossed the sky.

  This too I tried to chase from my mind. I was a wild dragon now, only needing to remember the taste of cold mash in order to appreciate the shaggy noxen that were happy to feed me day and night with their warm, bloody bodies.

  One morning, as I was flying home with a full belly, I smelled a dragon.

  A drakina actually and the scent grew stronger as I neared the aerie. It occurred to me that perhaps my den had history, with dragons returning to nest year after year. It didn’t matter now. The den was mine. I had earned it and I would keep it, defending it against any who tried to take it back.

  The sun was breaking the dark skies as I landed on the ledge. Her scent was very strong along with the scent of blood and I wondered if she had brought me a gift. I had never bred a drakina in the wild so I didn’t know if that’s how it was done. It would certainly go a long way to appeasing me, and I must admit that the thought of a willing drakina waiting for my return was a heady thing. It was with great bravado, then, that I lumbered into the small cavern, only to be greeted by a blast of flame.

  I shrank back but only for a moment before meeting with a blast of my own and the cavern was illuminated in furious light. Then silence, save the crackling of the stone and the growling of a displaced female. Dim beams sliced the darkness as the sun struggled to rise and I could see her, coiled upon herself, prepared to fight.

  She was a beauty, a golden drakina that reminded me of Summerday. A dark sheen on her wings told me she was injured and had sought my den for refuge. The memories of drakinas in the Dome threatened to ambush my reason but still, it was my cave, my nest, my home and she was the intruder.

  I pushed my head into the cavern and bellowed at her. She bellowed back, wings held wide, tail lashing. Glorious, like Summerday. Grating like Ruby.

  I was larger, could easily kill her had I the desire, but I had hunted all night and my belly was full and I wanted nothing more than to sleep in peace. I pushed my way into the cavern, head ducked low, smoke billowing from my jaws. The tips of my wings scraped the rock, raining bits of shale to the stony floor. She hissed but stepped aside as I hopped up onto my bed of sticks. It was already warmed from her body and I turned several times to settle, curling my long tail around me and laying my head on my claws. I snarled at her.

  She hissed again, wings still wide. Looked to the cave’s mouth and the rising sun, then back at me. I closed my eyes, not caring. She was no threat to me. I could hear her grumble, could hear her confusion and upset until she grew quiet. After a while, I opened one eye to see she had curled up near the mouth of the cave, her golden back to me, ribs rising and falling with her breath.

  She smelled good.

  Satisfied, I closed my eyes again and fell into a deep satisfied sleep.

  I woke to find her lying against me, her back to mine and I had to admit the warmth was most pleasant. I could smell dried blood and I wondered briefly what had wounded her. It didn’t seem fatal, only limiting but that, for a dragon, could be the same.

  When I rose to my feet, she awoke, hissing and coiling away from me. I saw how she was holding her wing. Awkward and tender, the leather darkened, the membrane clear. I didn’t care. She wasn’t my drakina nor was she in season. I’d learned from Ruby and Summerday to keep my distance until she was.

  The cave was cold with evening air and when I yawned, my breath frosted as it left my tongue. I stretched and finally pushed past her as I lumbered toward the cavern opening. She hissed but I ignored her, leaping into the darkening sky and forgetting her in a heartbeat.

  I was a creature of the night. I was a master of the stars and I soared high, higher toward my father, Draco Stellorum. Some nights it seemed as though I could almost catch him and I wondered what that might be like, to finally become one with the moons. It was so cold the higher I flew, the air so thin, and it made me wonder how he could live the way he did so high above all other dragons. Did he have a lair in the clouds? Did he chase Selisanae, the Golden Dragon of the Sun, into the sea every night?? Did he have a kingdom or territory or lands that he ruled or was he merely an illusion, a smattering of lights that had somehow become real in my imagination?

  At night, I was free to think of such things and I would fly for the sheer glory of flying, feeling the cold bite my eyes and the frost burn the ring in my nose until the hunger in my belly brought me back to the earth.

  I did think of the drakina once or twice that night.
I expected to find her gone by morning so I pushed her out of my mind to focus on the hunt.

  That night, I took down two shaghorns – a buck and a doe in one strike and I ate the buck on the edge of the mountain, enjoying the warmth as the blood ran down my throat. As usual, I ate the organs first, then spent the rest of the night tearing and swallowing whole large slices of flesh. I took my time with the bones. I loved long bones as they cracked beneath my teeth and the marrow spilled out over my tongue. There was nothing like it and I marvelled how any dragon could live on mash. Even fish was a sad substitute for nox, unless it was lemonwhite.

  Next, I rolled in the snow to clean the blood from my beak and claws. There is nothing like fresh mountain snow for cleaning dragonskin and I realized I was so very content. The only thing I could possibly need might be already in my den. I snorted, shaking the snow from my mane and I gazed down at the dead doe. It would be a good gift, I thought to myself. If she was still there. If not, it would be breakfast. Either way would end well for me.

  I snatched the doe in my talons and took to the sky.

  Chapter 14

  THE DRAKINA

  Once again, I was greeted by a blast of flame.

  Drakinas, I thought. They were a puzzle. What could possibly motivate them?

  I bellowed at her as I landed on the ledge and she bellowed back, flame licking at the edges of the cavern’s opening. It was an orange flame however, not white or yellow hot and I gauged her protest as feeble and unworthy. I ducked my head and pushed inside, dragging the shaghorn carcass across the stone with my teeth. She watched me with wary eyes, wings wide, tail lashing and I could see fresh blood glistening on her wing leather. She had been cleaning it; a natural instinct, I knew. Best to let it scab over and harden. I’d learned that from life in the Pits.

  I settled onto the stone and tore into the shaghorn, bolting down great slabs of flesh with relish. I wasn’t hungry but I also wasn’t overly sympathetic. This was my den and my kill. She was being allowed to stay only by my good will. Best she learn that early on if she was to become my mate.

  I looked up at her, licking the blood from my teeth and she hissed at me. Once again, I saw the frost cloud up from her breath and marvelled at the coldness of these mountain winters. So different from the winters in the Under Weathers when the worst that fell was a temperate rain. I remembered the rain well. It had been as much a part of my working life as the dragons. Stonecrop and Stumptail, Ruby and her indigo drake. Dragons moulded and shaped by actions of men. Towndrell was the same, whipped, beaten and left for dead at the side of a road. I thought of Summerday, beautiful and proud and blind now also because of men.

  And here, a beautiful wildling, waiting on me for food.

  I left her the carcass in an icy puddle of blood.

  She was on it before I reached my nest and I must admit there was some satisfaction as I listened to her tear and crunch. I wondered when she had eaten last, when suddenly she spat a mouthful of flames and the carcass sizzled under the heat. The cave filled with the smells of roasting meat before she tore into it again. Odd, I thought. Wild dragons did not cook their food. It was not something we did, in and of ourselves. At least, I had never seen in during my early days in the Anquar Cliffs. No, we relished the wild taste and stringy flesh, the blood and the tang of raw. This was a learned behaviour and instantly thought of Cassien Cirrus and his roasted stoat. I narrowed my eyes, studied her all the more closely now as I wondered where she had come from and why.

  Perhaps she was like me, returned to the wild from some form of servitude.

  There was dried blood on the sticks of my nest so I climbed over them and with my back feet, scratched them off the pile. With one breath I torched them before turning in circles and settling down upon the rest. I laid my head on my claws as the first rays of dawn reached into the cave. My belly was full, my eyes were heavy, and soon I was asleep, flying with my father, Draco Stellorum, in my dreams.

  I awoke later that day with the frost settling over my scales but once again, my back was warm. I remained still, watching the rise and fall of her scales as she breathed; the twitch of an eyelid, the curl of a golden claw. She was so much like Summerday and I fell back to sleep, lost in the glorious colour of her.

  I awoke later to the feeling of tiny teeth nibbling on my scales.

  It took me a long moment to realize she was grooming me, cleaning bits of blood and dried flesh that the snow had not reached and I stayed completely still as her nibbles traced their way along my neck to my cheek, jaw and finally beak. Her hot breath fell across my face and I opened one eye to see her studying the silver ring in my nose. She nipped it with her tiny front teeth and I snarled a warning. She shrank back, startled.

  Slowly, I rose to my feet, shaking the frost off my scales and lumbered over to the shaghorn. I pawed at it, searching for anything left that might be raw or wild but it was truly cooked and crumbled beneath my talons. She snaked in, snagging a roasted haunch and dragged it out from under me. I didn’t care. I was a wild dragon now, not a slave anymore to leather or wood or steel or cooking.

  As she ate, I moved to the cavern’s edge, perched at the lip and folded my wings across my back. It was twilight, my favourite time of the day, and I searched for the eyes of my father, Draco Stellorum. There, I saw them. Both blinking as if ready for sleep, pale orbs merely crescents hanging in the skies. The stars glittered as they appeared through the falling darkness and I imagined his wings, covering me the way my mother’s did when I was young. Odd. I rarely thought of my mother now. As I swept my gaze over the peaks and valleys of the Crescent Mountains, I felt the earth force tug in my chest, calling me home.

  I could follow it, I knew. I could let it lead me back over the Crown and the Dome, over Bangarden and Corolanus and Venitus, out past the Udan Shores to the wild cliffs of Anquar and my people – fishers and free.

  I realized that, at some point, the drakina had joined me. She perched on the ledge, wings also folded across her back and I yearned for the language of the sticks. They had words that had the power to change things, while all we could do was trill and bark, warble and bellow. No wonder they considered us beasts. It stirred those coals of anger once again and I lifted my head to the sky and raised my voice in the song of dragons, a song of skies and clouds and waters and stars and solitude and longing. The cold valley beneath me echoed for a moment as the song carried far and away.

  Unexpectedly, the drakina also threw back her head and sang, her voice high and musical and rich and moving and I joined, adding my deeper voice and the valley rippled with dragonsong. We sang and sang and sang until the Blinking Eyes moved across the sky and we fell silent to hear the song of the night. Perhaps we didn’t need words like the sticks needed words, I wondered. Perhaps our songs were language enough.

  My belly rumbled and so when the night had fallen over us, I leapt into the sky to hunt. I caught and killed a large antlered vemison drake and did not eat it. It wasn’t because their hides are so very tough. Rather, I relented my opinion on sharing and carried it back to the den whole.

  When I arrived at the ledge that morning, she was gone.

  ***

  I have said on many occasions that dragons are not a sentimental people and for the most part, that is true. We don’t dwell on the past, we don’t dream of the future; we live for the now. For the sunrise and the sunset. For the skies, for the waters, for the hunt and for the next mate. But that morning, finding her gone left me like a stone sinking in the ocean.

  But I realized there were other scents in the air.

  I dropped the carcass and breathed deeply, tasting the air with my tongue. There was the drakina but there were others – two drakes, no three, and another drakina. There was no blood on the wind so there had been no violence. Her flight, I wondered? And if so, why had she left them? How had she come here? I had marked my territory and the thought of three drakes moving in fanned coals of a very different sort.

  I wheeled and l
eapt into the air, not caring as the carcass plummeted from the ledge to the valley far below. I was intrigued and challenged and more than a little angry. It was past sunrise now and I was as exposed as a night dragon could be. Still, I followed their scent for hours. It was midday when I passed the edge of my territory, later still when I reached a ridge and the smells converged like a wall. I landed, discovered a series of acid wads all along the crest. These were the markers of many, many drakes and as I lifted my head to survey the mountains and deep valley below me, I was astounded.

  Dozens of dragons streaking through the air, soaring and wheeling and circling like fledglings. Drakinas in nests lining the cliffs, trumpeting to wayward chicks, cooing to obedient ones. Young drakes in mock battles, preening for the females, jousting with wing and beak. The scents of old eggs mixed with fresh shat floated up along with that of dragon breath and fire. My heart soared at the sight. It was fascinating and glorious and I all but forgot the golden drakina. I had never seen an aerie save as a chick, and now that I was mature, I saw how utterly majestic it was. With one wing tucked over my back and the other gripping the ledge, I leaned forward to get a better view.

  Perhaps three dozen dragons, mostly young, some older, confined to this particular valley. It was wheeling, tumbling chaos, and I swept my eyes over the craggy landscape. It was a large aerie, but not as large as the Anquar Cliffs. White-capped peaks carried on to the horizon and in the distance, sunlight danced across an unnaturally curved surface. I narrowed my eyes, leaned forward even more. It was a dome and next to it, a spire of shimmering, snow-covered gold.

  Suddenly, a shadow fell over me and with the thunder of Hell Down, a great drake landed on the ridge, his brown wings held wide in warning. He roared and hot breath sprayed across my face, bringing with it the smells of noxen and skoat and shaghorn. I held my ground and bellowed back, noticing distant dragons circle in for a better view. The brown lowered his head and lashed his tail, the posture of intimidation. I realized that he was almost twice my size, if not more and he would try to kill me in a heartbeat if I dared strike a threat.