Another sharp and burning cut across my neck and warm blood seeped down into my tunic. Blood from my temple threatened to get into my eyes, and as I shook my head, another blow hit my outstretched hand, causing me to stumble backwards...
“You see you cannot even match me. You shouldn’t be here, Gypsy, you should just accept it. You are worthless. A worm. A nothing!” Greer advanced as I took a step backwards, the gale at my back, the stones wet underfoot. I had only enough time to register that my boot was slipping and then I was down, the Quartermaster’s savage grin of delight flashing as I slammed against the open window, and slid to the floor. My stomach lurched in fright as I clutched at the slick paving slabs, the Quartermaster raising the crop above me to strike me again across the face.
But there was something sticking into my back. Something heavy and angular. Feodor’s dagger! As Greer’s hand fell I dropped my guard, yanking at the handle at the small of my back and swung.
Greer shrieked in agony as blood fountained into the gale. The Quartermaster stood over me, one hand holding his other, where two fingers from his weapon-hand had been neatly severed.
“What did you do! What did you do to me?” Greer screeched as he tried to clamp his hand over the ruined one, staggering, but his feet slipped on rain and blood, and he tripped over my body, flailed once, and vanished through the broken window.
His scream was short-lived, and swallowed by the sounds of the storm and the battle outside, arrows were hailing down onto the tower, followed by more screams.
I lay there, my eyes wide, unable to truly understand what had happened. Had I just killed Greer? My eyes rested on the dagger in my hand, rain washing the Quartermaster’s blood from it.
But there wasn’t time to dwell on what I had done. There was more yet to do.
Chapter 27
A Dragon’s Wrath
How can I get these scrolls, and this ornament to my brothers? Will they even listen to my bargain? I wondered desperately, looking from my tower vantage point for some easy way out of the monastery.
My brothers’ troops now encircled the front half of the monastery and the barren slopes of the mountain. The front ranks hunkered down behind rocks and boulders to hide from the tornado, but they, along with the teams of archers hidden in the gullies, kept firing volley after volley. From the rear guard, long shapes were being brought up—iron-capped tree trunks. My brothers were going to drive a hole through the gates or the walls, wherever they could gain purchase. Even if my brothers didn’t manage to break down the gates, the sheer number of their archers would bring the monastery to its knees.
There was no good way out that I could see—if I could manage to get outside the monastery unharmed, I would more than likely be shot as soon as I tried to approach my brothers’ army.
“More power! Work harder!” The wind carried the enraged voice of the Abbot to me from the battlements below. He was still standing amidst his coterie, exhorting them to chant deeper, and stronger, and work whatever arcane techniques that they could. But the group surrounding him seemed to have thinned, and I saw that there were black-robed bodies lying about on the battlements. Some of them groaned and moved, others did nothing.
Have they been shot? Or are they overcome with exhaustion? From the state of Char and Maxal in the days leading up to the attack, the magic seemed to leave them tired and weak, like they had just run a marathon. Was it possible that the Abbot was using them up like steeds or cart horses, working them to collapse?
As I watched, another person buckled – a student, by the size of them—and then fell, a shock of white hair spilling from the hood of the black cloak. Char! I watched as she struggled to push herself up again.
“Char!” I shouted involuntarily, unable to silence my fear for her safety, but my voice was stolen by the wind.
No sooner had I opened my mouth to yell for Char again, but a dragon swooped down from where it must have been flying above the storm, circling us. It let loose a furious and panicked cry, and I knew it could only be Paxala, come to try and save her friend.
“Paxala!” I called out into the teeth of the storm, leaning out as far as I dared from the window ledge. I knew that the Crimson Red had no reason to listen to me, I was just a little human after all - but I was her friend. I wanted to tell her where Char was, to ask her to seize Char up in her talons and carry her away…
There was a sudden roar as the young Crimson Red sped like an arrow towards the monastery.
No sooner had she began her dive, then the dragon pipes sounded. Paxala suddenly wheeled away from her target as the high-pitched call of the pipes speared her sensitive ears.
She cawed loudly and in pain, flapping uncontrollably around the monastery, passing the tower where I was.
“Paxala!” I hollered again, but the Crimson Red appeared distracted, worried, and confused. It was then that I understood what the dragon pipes and their whistling shrieking noise were for. I had thought that they were to call the dragons towards the monastery, but they weren’t. Instead, the pipes drove the dragons away with their sharp blasts, painful to a dragons hearing.
“Pax, you must flee!” I shouted to her, but the dragon paid me no mind. She swooped low, as maneuverable as a hawk over a field, and then she was bearing straight towards me, down onto the Abbot’s Tower, her talons outstretched. As I leapt back there was a horrible crash, and her claws shattered through the last of the shuttered windows, seizing the windowsill with her gigantic talons.
There were screams and shouts from the monks below, and my brothers’ war drums even stuttered to a halt at the sight of the dragon hunched and huddled at the top of the tall tower, baying for blood and vengeance. Her front legs had smashed through two of the shuttered windows, clutching the room inside, while her back feet scrabbled and scored at the stone beneath.
She let out her most deafening call making the entire tower shake. Then she shoved her Crimson snout through the window, with an angry, gold-green eye gazing fiercely at mine. As I regarded her, her pupil flared and her head cocked to one side. There was a rasping sound as she scraped the stone with the young tines of her head.
“Paxala, you must flee this place, with Char,” I shouted, but Paxala instead bent her head once more, this time extending her neck below the window, and leaning in. To my mind, it almost looked as though she were offering me a walkway onto her back, but that was ridiculous.
“Please, my dragon friend, flee this place,” I shouted. If there was one life I could save, then at least let it be this noble creature’s, I thought.
The dragon made a chirruping sound, lowering her shoulder and extending her neck in front of me once more. Did she want me to climb onto her back, like a horse? I’d never heard of such a thing but I had no other option if we wanted to end this battle before more damage was done – I reached out with my hands to clasp her warm scales, and slid onto her strong shoulders. At my side were the collection of scrolls and the dragon ornament, now if only I could find a way to direct her to fly me towards my brothers’ forces.
Paxala made a soft chirruping call as she lifted her neck, and I found myself half-falling, half-climbing to the crook of her shoulders, just above her wings. There was a natural hollow there where her back tines wouldn’t grow, and it was surprisingly comfortable, as I leaned forward and grabbed her neck scales.
Remembering my riding lessons of the fierce, little mountain ponies that my father kept, I gripped with my knees, and could feel the strong muscles and the thud of her blood under my hands.
There was a lurch, as she detached from the wall and kicked out (demolishing more of the Abbot’s Tower as she did so). She made a deafening call as she flared her leathery wings, before turning to dart straight for the monastery’s battlements. It was all I could do to hang on, as she swooped past the Abbot in a flash of scales and claws, seemingly on a collision course with the ground outside, before she flared her giant wings once more and threw herself upward, out over the slopes of the mountain.<
br />
Why is she rescuing me? I thought wildly—not that I wasn’t thankful, or pleased! I hadn’t asked her to do it – it was clearly something that she had decided herself to do.
“Friend.” My head throbbed with the buzzing sensation, and I knew that the word did not come from me, or my imagination. I clutched at the warm creature, scared, and elated. She had spoken directly to my mind. Directly, to me. I was still amazed as she turned in the air and started to fly back down towards the monastery from the skies. All of a sudden, I didn’t care for what my father wanted, nor my brothers, nor Prince Vincent or even the Abbot. Their magic and their politics and their games meant nothing – only this did. Saving and being saved by the people (and dragons) that you love.
“Dragon!” My brothers’ soldiers shouted and screamed below us, “Dragon!” Squadrons of fierce warriors dropped their bows and their battering rams, deserting their posts in order to flee for their lives.
Paxala’s call was near deafening as she swooped back over the mountain, calling her defiance and her challenge at any who would endanger her friend, Char.
But the soldiers and the monks don’t know what she is doing, I thought, watching as more of my brother’s front lines collapsed, their faces pale and their eyes rolling. The Abbot Ansall on the walls above us was regarding us with a sort of horrified awe, and every time that Paxala soared near the gate house of the monastery, monks fell about themselves trying to scrabble away from her black, viciously sharp talons.
No one had ever ridden a dragon before, and it seemed that this dragon was angry.
“Paxala, please listen to me now,” I leaned forward and whispered urgently as I pointed down towards my brothers’ forces. “If we can drive those soldiers attacking the monastery away, then we can save everyone—Char and all of the others. We can stop all of this.”
Paxala roared as if in acknowledgment of my suggestion, landing just briefly on the gate house as she turned and swooped again, straight towards my brothers’ armies. I heard screams and shouts, as men leapt to the ground, or scrabbled over their fellows at the sight of such great teeth, and ferocious might.
“We’re winning! They’re fleeing!” I was giddied with excitement, watching my brothers’ army abandon their posts in terror, and pour like a tide back down the causeway of the Dragon Mountain.
“You’ve done it, Paxala. You saved us all!” I called out in glee, as the dragon roared her satisfaction, and swooped low over the hills once more to make sure that the humans had got her message, before turning to fly back to the monastery. She landed with a light thump onto the walls of the gate house. Her skin was steaming with heat, and her sides were bellowing with the effort of pumping air, but Paxala didn’t look fatigued or tired as she glared now at the humans inside the monastery.
Maybe I didn’t need to give these scrolls and ornament to my brothers now that the battle was lost, I thought, feeling giddy with elation. Why pander to their games anymore? I felt the reassuring weight in my tunic of what I carried – not sure if anything I held was powerful at all – but I didn’t have to deliver them now. I could keep hold of them until I knew what secrets they held – if any. My brothers had fled the battlefield, so I didn’t need to parley with them, and I could wait until I talked to my father about what my real findings here were: that there were hardly any dragon Mages, and that the dragons hardly listened to the monks anyway, without Zaxx.
The monks, although more used to the dragons, appeared terrified of her this close. Most of them hadn’t seen a Crimson Red since her parents had been alive, and none of them had even seen a dragon this close, out of the crater, and wild.
The dark and heavy clouds started to lift and break, allowing shafts of morning sunlight to pierce the grey air. The Abbot’s magic that had created the dark storm had halted, and it seemed without him controlling it, the storm had vanished back to the elements from which it had been born. Water and air.
“Pax?” said an astonished voice, as I looked down to see that Char was walking unsteadily towards her friend, one hand on the battlement, and another on her head.
“Char, are you okay?” I called down in alarm, but she appeared to be unhurt. How on earth was I going to get down from this thing?
“Neill?” she said with a stunned sort of laugh. “What are you doing on Paxala?”
Paxala chirruped softly, and, in front of all of the assembled monks and knights, she slowly leant down her head to sniff at Char’s raised hand, as tender as a cat with its kittens. What happened next was even more incredible – Paxala made the same motion that she had with me, lowering her neck and her shoulder, half-folding one of her wings out of the way so that Char could clamber up and onto her shoulders like me, and promptly dislodging me from my prominent position, and relegating me to a few spines back, between the wings.
“Char Nefrette, Neill Torvald, what are you doing on the back of that dragon?” the Abbot Ansall yelled, but Paxala was already extending her wings, and making a purring, joyous sort of noise.
“They saved the monastery!” I heard a voice shout, and saw, down below the weary, slumped shape of Monk Feodor. “That dragon, and those riders saved the monastery!” he called again, followed by a rising cheer from the other monks. Their previous terror and apprehension at seeing the apparently wild Crimson Red was replaced with awe and celebration. Something impossible, incredible, and miraculous had happened here, I could see on their faces.
The Crimson Red roared one last time, in defiant joy before she leapt into the air above the monastery, carrying Char Nefrette and me with her. We would fly from all of this blood and mayhem – not because we had to, but because we could. Paxala had already saved Jodreth, and the battle had been called off. I had my tunic full of scrolls and secrets, and so perhaps we could buy ourselves a little time to ourselves, to study and to learn how to fly together. I knew that the times ahead would be difficult, and that the prince would want vengeance against the Torvald Clan, and possibly me as well, but for now, the whole game had changed. The monks and the Abbot, the prince and even my brothers had seen me ride a dragon – and that would change things.
After all, who was going to argue with you when you had a dragon for a friend?
End of Dragon God
The First Dragon Rider Book One
Book Two, Dragon Dreams, will be out September 2017. To be notified of its release, please sign up to Ava’s mailing list!
Learn more about the kingdom of Torvald and its dragon riders in her epic fantasy series, The Return of the Darkening. Keep reading for an exclusive extract from book one in the series, Dragon Trials.
Thank you!
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BLURB
High-born Agathea Flamma intends to bring honor to her family by following in her brothers’ footsteps and taking her rightful place as a Dragon Rider. With her only other option being marriage, Thea will not accept failure. She’s not thrilled at her awkward, scruffy partner, Seb, but their dragon has chosen, and now the unlikely duo must learn to work as a team.
Seventeen-year-old Sebastian has long been ashamed of his drunken father and poor upbringing, but then he’s chosen to train as a Dragon Rider at the prestigious Dragon Academy. Thrust into a world where he doesn’t fit in, Seb finds a connection with his dragon that is even more powerful than he imagined. Soon, he’s doing all he can to succeed and not embarrass his new partner, Thea.
When Seb hears rumors that an old danger is
re-emerging, he and Thea begin to investigate. Armed only with their determination and the dragon they both ride, Thea and Seb may be the only defence against the Darkening that threatens to sweep over the land. Together, they will have to learn to work together to save their kingdom…or die trying.
Get your copy of Dragons of Wild at AvaRichardsonBooks.com
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT
I heard the Dragon Horns blowing on the morning of the Choosing, just like everyone else. However, unlike everyone else I was already up and awake, well into my fourth or fifth hour of the day.
That’s what it is like as a blacksmith’s boy. There’s always ingots to be hauled in, bellows to be primed, wood to be chopped and the foundries to be cleaned. My dad is the blacksmith for Mongers Lane, and I have to be up before the crack of dawn to make sure the forge is ready when he starts work.
Which probably won’t be until midday if he was out at the inn again last night. A twinge of embarrassment and shame warmed my face. My father liked his flagon of ale at the end of a working day. He also seemed to like it in the evening and halfway through the night as well.
Stop that, Sebastian, I chided myself. It’s not right to think ill of your father no matter how much he drinks! I didn’t mind the work. It felt good to be up early and to get everything ready for the other apprentices and junior smiths. I even made time to chop some wood for Old Widow Hu a few doors down. I always tried to do what I could for her because the poor woman was nearly blind, needing all the help she could get.
Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1) Page 25