Aryss was agitated for much of the night, grumbling and lashing her golden tail behind her. It was annoying, especially since she was next to me and would frequently lean over and nip my shoulder or neck. I didn’t understand, nor did I care to. A heaviness had settled onto my chest and I knew it was because of Rue.
Galla had built a small altar of stones and had not moved from it, rocking back and forth on her knees as she prayed. Rue watched her, propped up on his elbows, resting yet not at rest. At the first light of dawn, the tall woman pulled her sword and lifted it to her neck, slicing her long dark braid clean off. She laid it across the altar.
“Why did you do that?” asked Rue. His voice was strong but I could hear a catch in it.
“I asked Ruminor to accept my sacrifice,” she said.
“You sacrificed your hair?” said Rue.
“The braid is a token,” she said. She rose to her feet, touched her forehead with the flat of the blade and slid it into her belt. “If he spares you, he may have me.”
“That’s a stupid bargain,” said Rue. “I’m not dying.”
She moved toward us, knelt before him. Beside me, Aryss began to nibble my mane.
“It’s the only one I can give,” she said. “I have only two things of worth – my dragon and my hair. I will never sacrifice my dragon.”
Aryss’ nibbles quickly turned to bites and I growled, lashed my tail this time.
“Your life is worthy,” said Rue. “And you are a skilled dragoneer.”
She took his hand in hers, spread her fingers in between his. Golden and dark, like stripes along a dragon’s back.
“I’m sorry, Rue.”
“It’s my own fault,” he said. “I’m not a rider. Not really.”
“No, I mean…” She leaned down, kissed his forehead. “For Aryss. For me. All I ever had was the Flight, until you.”
“Did you ever love me?”
“From the moment we first met,” she said. “It wasn’t strategic.”
“I know.” And he blinked slowly.
Aryss trilled in my ear, nipped again. I grumbled but she leaned into me, rubbing her cheek along my neck. Her purrs quickened my blood like a pulse. She was acting as though she was in season and I wondered if it had anything to do with her rider.
“You’re the only one who ever made me feel beautiful,” said Galla and she straddled him, pulled at the fabric of her leggings.
“You’re the only one who looked at me as anything other than a soul-boy,” Rue said, helping her.
“Has your soul come back yet?”
“Maybe it never will,” he said.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
“Really?” She grinned sadly. “Prove it.”
And he reached up with his hand, pulling her face down to meet his.
Their behavior was curious. I had never seen sticks mating. Had never really let my mind consider the thought but now with Aryss writhing against me, it was all I could do to ignore them. It was almost beat for beat, blood for blood, the passion of dragon and rider. I remembered the old man Plinius and how he reached into my mind like a wave upon the shore and made my legs buckle in response. Sometimes when we were flying, I just knew where Rue wanted me to go, how he wanted me to fly, without a single cue from rein or leg. I hated that sensation, resisted with every scale on my night-black body. Just another of the ways sticks controlled us dragons, with the power of their thoughts. I wanted to observe more but when Aryss arched her back to welcome me, all my observations quickly turned to ash and stars.
Sometimes I think too much.
Regardless, while the sticks mated quietly, the dragons did not. I believe we may have altered the rock formations of this particular island, perhaps caused a small landslide that killed a few more shaghorns. There was a distant boom that sounded like cannonfire but we were occupied with the entanglement of tails and limbs. It was the first time I had mated with a drakina that was not banded and I’m convinced that because of our fire, there is one patch on the peak where still nothing will grow.
As I’ve said before, the mating of dragons takes much time and it was noon before we flew back up to the peak. We had snagged two other shaghorns and shared them with our riders. Mating for sticks seemed to be as consuming as it was for dragons and they ate their fill on the meat we roasted. Or perhaps, Rue did not eat as much. I stretched out in the warm coastal sun and slept until the air grew cool and the Eyes rose over the waters.
By nightfall, neither Cirrus nor Ironwing returned and the sticks talked in terse, low whispers. Finally, Rue rose to his fee and approached on unsteady legs.
“Stormfall,” he said and he held out the map.
I breathed it in – the scent of ink and leather and Ironwing. I knew the silver dragon’s scent well by now but I opened my mouth, closed my jaws over the map, tasting it, inhaling it again and again, imprinting it in my very scales.
“But be careful,” he added. “Because you must return before morning. No matter what, if you don’t find them by first light, you must come back. We must go on, otherwise it’s all in vain.”
It was all in vain, I thought. Remus, Lamos, Ruminor, sticks, me. We were all vain. I don’t know who was worse.
With a powerful stroke of my wings, was up in the dark sky above the peak. It was comforting to know that Aryss watched me go.
***
I followed the route we had taken back along the island chain – over the waters and craggy peaks and distant villages. It all looked the same, I thought. The same as Remus from the sky and I cursed the sticks’ need for nations and boundaries. They were possessive. They lived to possess. Lands, noxen, barns, even other sticks. Dragons possessed nothing but territory and even then, could share as long as there was enough food and drakinas to go around. And with our great wings, we could easily find new territory for aeries and nesting and hunting. The sticks had carts and carriages and ships – surely they could move as easily as dragons.
I wondered if pride were somehow involved.
And so it was with such philosophizing that I followed the scent of the silver dragon until the distant flickering spokes of Atha Lamos came into view. However, I also smelled fresh water and my tongue suddenly reminded me of its existence by sticking to the roof of my mouth.
It was late, it was dark and I was thirsty so I followed the scent down, sweeping over the clay rooftops as I never had done in Bangarden or Venitus or Terra Remus. This was remarkably similar to those cities however, even to the smells and sounds of a city at night. Soon, I found myself circling above a public fountain in a town square, surrounded by mud-brick homes and lit only by the Wide Moons.
Silently, I landed on the cobbled street, listened to the waters as they splashed and bubbled in the fountain’s pool. Ocean water was drinkable for dragons but fresh, ah, the smell of this was sheer bliss. It was both fountain and well, and I lumbered forward, dropping my jaws into it, drinking deeply and enjoying the cool, refreshing streams as they ran down my throat.
A new scent met my nostrils and slowly, I lifted my head. A woman stood mere paces from me, wrapped in tattered linen and holding an amphora in both arms. She had not seen me in the darkness and was clearly terrified at finding a dragon in the city square.
She was not a Laomoan monster. She was not at all like what I had been led to believe by Rue and the others. In fact, she reminded me of Avea, Allum’s wife from Bangarden. I reached out my beak. Her eyes widened, the clay pot trembled in her arms, but she did not scream or run or faint. I breathed in the scent of her clothing, her hair, her skin, reasoned that she was a mother of children from the milk on her robes. Breathed out on her face to gift her the scent of dragons.
The amphora slipped from her arms, shattering on the stone of the road.
I snorted and gathered myself to launch into the night sky, careful not to flick her with my tail as I went.
I followed the smell of the silver dragon into the c
ity and I felt my heart sink. This was not good. Surely there were brine clams along the shores closer to the Mating Peak and I vaguely remembered the boom of cannonfire almost hidden by the chaos of mating dragons. I soared now over the vast dockyards and the scent of iron filled my nostrils. There was also the salt and the fish and the wood oil and the smoke. Other than the iron, it was the smell of my youth.
One pier was brightly lit, a beacon of activity in an otherwise quiet night so I angled toward it, hearing the sounds of a crowd echoing across the water. From the deck of a large ship, a treadwheel crane lifted a large net over the dock. Sticks waved torches beneath it, and between the netting a great mass gleamed like silverfins.
My heart stopped its beating as I winged my way towards the net. It was what I had feared, what I had know, deep in my deepest heart of darkness, for I was a creature of the night and the ash and the stars.
Blackness in my wings and death at my claws.
The silver in the net wasn’t fish.
I swept down over the crowd, raining fire across their murderous heads. They bolted, screaming in all directions and I torched them as they ran, burning the people, the dock and its wooden treadwheel. Up I circled into the night sky, watching the flames races across the oily pier before I bore down once again, this time scorching the ship and all its crew in this pass.
I was the night. I was the nightmare.
I was Nameless, primal dragon of the night and the ash and the stars. I roared in fury as I sprayed both docks and ships with white fire, the purest and hottest of all the fires we can breathe. Cables snapped and canvas raged under the heat. As I flew, I sprayed my white fire along the netted body of Ironwing, the most majestic of dragons, so that he would suffer no more from sticks. I heard the boom of a cannon and in a heartbeat I whirled, the iron ball streaking past my belly. I followed it to its source, sending a blast of white fire into the black mouth of the Lamoan warship before wheeling back into the sky. It burst into flames with one, two, three explosions behind me and I rode the blast of heat and light up high above the dockyards into the coolness of the night.
Other cannons fired now from other ships but I was far out of reach and their iron destruction whipped beneath me to rain down on other far parts of the city. Below me, fires raged along the docks and ships blazed as they rocked on the waters but it was nothing. Nothing compared to what they had done, to how carelessly and thoughtlessly they had slaughtered the most majestic of dragons. As if he were a sea snake. As if he were a wyrm.
And in that moment, I hated them all, more than I hated the Remoans. I vowed to Ironwing that I would kill this traitor drakina and her master and all the sticks that dared defend them. I would smash her eggs and devour her fledglings and fly with Aryss to the Fang of Wyvern where I would sing the dragonsong every night and burn every ship that ever dared pass.
The sun was stretching her fingers of pink into the dawn sky when I returned to the Mating Peak. I was not a stick. I had no words. I had no language but I lowered my head as Rue and Galla rushed toward me and they knew what I knew. And I sang for him, for noble Ironwing, elegant and proud, majestic and regal leader of the Shadow Flight of Remus. Aryss sang too and together we let Lamos know that if they dared court dragons, dragons would come.
And we would deliver the fire.
Chapter 24
THE FOUR HILLS
Those next days, we made our way to the Four Hills of Nathens. We flew all day, all night, all day and all night again, following the mountains as they followed the map. We stayed just below the clouds and while it was very cold at such an altitude, it served to keep our riders awake even at night. One of the moons was waning and it was more difficult for Aryss to see in the dark. She flew just beneath and slightly behind me, our wings beating the same rhythm, catching the same winds. While we saw many towns with many flickering torches, they were for the most part distant and that eased my mind. I had announced the presence of dragons loud and clear to the people of Lamos and in doing so, lost the element of surprise. For a night dragon, it was a bad strategy.
Nathens was the capital city of Lamos and I remember Cirrus speaking of how it had originally been built between the Four Hills as a tribute to Fulcanor, the god of forges and fire. Back then, the mountains had breathed fire, frequently spewing flame and molten rock out the top. Lamos, brother of Remus, refused to move his settlement and ultimately sacrificed his daughter, Nathena, to appease his god. Apparently, it was an acceptable sacrifice, for the mountains ceased their eruptions and the liquid flame quietly turned to arcstone. The Four had been quiet for decades, if not longer.
I thought about Galla’s sacrifice – her token and her bargain – and wondered if my father, Draco Stellorum, was waiting for a similar gift from me. How many dragons would die to appease him? Would I die to secure peace for my people? Should I?
I have said before, dragons are not a sentimental people. Perhaps, it was just me.
As we approached Nathens, it was easy to see the Four Hills from the glow of the city surrounding them. In fact, it reminded me very much of Terra Remus for there was a large body of water in the distance. I tried to remember the map, if it was a part of the Nameless Sea or new water entirely. What was distracting, however, was the smell of arcstone rising on the wind. It made sense. If the Hills had once coughed fire, then the sticks could easily mine arcstone from the earth for their cannons.
My heart tightened at the memory – the warships and the crowds and the high net of silver.
I never knew what happened to Cirrus. This was one time when I cursed the imagination of dragons.
Lights from the city stretched on and on and we were quickly losing the cover of night. One of the Hills was very near and looked to be unpeopled and wild. There were four very tall columns on the peak and as we winged closer, I could see that they were statues, one facing each direction and as tall as a dragon from beak to tip of tail. I could feel Rue tense on my back as I swept through the darkness toward them. It was blacker than black under the Winking Eyes of my father, Draco Stellorum – one miscalculation would mean a broken wing or shattered skull or worse. He held his breath as we bore down.
Like the dragon arches of the Celarus’ Landing, I sliced between the columns just as easily as we had that night. Immediately, my wings snapped to stop my forward motion and I was pleased that Rue did not jerk forward at the force. I dropped silently to the warm, dry stone and the drakina circled once more before landing beside me, her golden claws touching the ground moments after mine.
No one had heard us. Certainly no one had seen. Our position from this first Hill gave us a perfect vantage point – I could see the city of Nathens spread out like a wheel, lanterns and torches flickering like stars. Just like stars, I thought, as we settled down for our first sleep in two days. I spread my inky wings over dragon and riders as my father, Draco Stellorum, slipped away under the skirts of the dawn.
I wondered where he went, that great starry dragon I called my father. To his lair under the sea? Perhaps he was devoured by the Selisanae, Golden Drakina of the Sun, only to return again each night, reborn or regurgitated. And not for the first time, I thought of my mother.
I closed my eyes, hoping that thoughts of the aerie, the sea snakes and the Fang of Wyvern would carry me off to sleep but a fleeting scent drifted through the night, and after that, I could not sleep because of my racing heart.
It was the scent of a dragon.
***
A wall of dark cloud was moving in from the east and I could smell a storm on the wind.
It was difficult to wake Rue that evening. His breathing had grown worse and now, as the sun dipped behind us and the sky grew red, Galla knelt beside him, rubbing his shoulders and calling his name. It was not the first time I’d thought he might die. The first time was after the Lamoan pirate attack, when Serkus had beaten him and I’d not seen him for years. The second time was after his fall from the net of dragons, when I’d caught him in midair. They were so
fragile, these sticks. A sip of black water could kill them as easily as a whiptail. As I watched Galla try to rouse him, I realized that I didn’t want that to happen. He was my stick. I needed him.
More.
I needed him more than I needed the sky. More than I needed the sea or the stars or my pride. He couldn’t die.
She ground her knuckles into his chest and he opened his eyes with a gasp.
I had seen many dragons die in my short lifetime. Sticks were different. I remembered Gavius and his children; the way they had hugged me and kissed my face after the plow on the hillside. Their loud screams and louder silence as the little house collapsed under the indigo dragon. The smell of death from Bangarden and the wailing of the people as they poured from the walls. The shrieks of the soldiers as they burned in the Crown. So fragile and yet they ruled the world.
The net of silver moved me to fury but what of noble Cassien Cirrus, First Wing of the Eastern Quarter Dragoneers and leader of the Shadow Flight? Surely he was dead as well. Why didn’t I mourn for him? Why were some sticks enemies and others, idols? Did the hard, cruel stone of life shape them as it shaped dragons? Were they as helpless as we?
Galla helped Rue sit up, passed him a skin of fresh water. He gulped it greedily as she put a hand to his forehead. I could feel heat coming from him. He was earth and sea, now he was becoming fire. If ever a stick turned into a dragon, it would be Rue.
I looked over at Aryss. Between the large statues on the peak of the hill, she was watching the city, her gaze intent and fixed. She was magnificent, I realized, the setting sun causing her scales to gleam like molten fire. I thought of Summerday, glorious, wicked and blind. I thought of the drakina and her seven chicks in the Anquar Cliffs. This was the gold that dragons loved, not jewels or trinkets or crowns or treasures. The gold of a fiery soul, pure as anything in the sea or the sky or the stars.
Dragon of Ash & Stars: The Autobiography of a Night Dragon Page 23