Dragon Fate

by J. D. Hallowell

  “Oh, yes,” she replied, “Brock’s son, Connor. Bit of an upset about all of that.”

  “Brock’s son!?” he had nearly shouted that out loud. “Brock didn’t tell me the boy was his son!”

  “Then I hope I haven’t done wrong by telling you. Leera didn’t seem to think it was any kind of secret. I thought you knew.”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “He mentioned that he was looking for the boy, and that he hadn’t approved of the methods the lad’s teacher had been using to train him, but he never mentioned the lad’s name or that he was his father.”

  “Perhaps then,” she responded, “you shouldn’t ask him about it then. If he wanted you to know, he would most likely have told you.”

  “Perhaps,” he agreed, “for now, anyway.”

  They continued talking until the water in the tub got cold, and Delno was distracted by drying himself and getting ready for the day. He told her that they would see each other later as he met Brock and they headed to the garrison for breakfast and physical training.

  Once on the pitch, they practiced with the men and officers for a time, and Sergeant Smith then asked Delno to teach him the move he had used when they first sparred. All practice stopped as Delno demonstrated the move several times. Brock was fascinated and insisted that he be taught as well. Soon the men were paired up, and Delno walked around correcting peoples’ technique as they took turns throwing and disarming each other.

  After about two hours, he and Brock again squared off. This time, however, Brock announced that they would only work on their technique and reflexes today. This would not be a sparring match. Even though this wasn’t a pitched battle like the day before, they still had quite an audience since they were each demonstrating techniques that were foreign to the troops of the garrison as well as each other. They found themselves easily trading off roles as both teacher and student.

  When the older Rider called a halt to sword practice, he decided that this morning they would take time to do a bit of archery.

  When Brock saw Delno’s bow, he asked, “Where did you get this?” He seemed quite impressed.

  “I bought it in Larimar just before I left.”

  “Well then, my young student, you are simply full of surprises.” Brock replied. “This bow was made by a member of the Archery Guild in Horne. They only sell a very limited number of these bows each year. This must have cost you a fortune.”

  “The man I bought it from in Larimar said he got it as part of a shipment he bought trading with a caravan some time back. No one he had shown it to could comfortably draw it, so he had discounted it. Even with the discount it was still very expensive; I almost didn’t spend the money.”

  Brock looked the bow over carefully again and then tested the draw. Then he asked for an arrow and took a practice shot that flew straight and true right to the bull’s eye. He handed the bow back to Delno and said, “Keep that safe; it’s worth a good deal more than that merchant charged you for it, and it will serve you well in the years to come.”

  They practiced archery for over an hour. It was just past noon when they reached the city gates. They were surprised to find a small crowd gathered there. The crowd had gathered because the dragons had anticipated them coming earlier and were lounging just outside the gate. Apparently, curiosity had overcome the people’s fear of the dragons, though the onlookers were keeping a respectful distance.

  As they approached, the crowd started babbling to themselves. Then someone asked, “Are you going to fly on them today?” The question came from a boy of about twelve.

  “Yes,’ Brock responded. “We are going to fly today. You can stay and watch, but there won’t be much to see.”

  A young girl of about nine, probably the boy’s younger sister judging by the resemblance, asked Delno, “What’s it like to fly on a dragon?”

  Delno chuckled and said, “Well, I guess it’s like flying on a bird, only bigger.”

  He turned to walk away toward Geneva, but the little girl grabbed his sleeve and said with a giggle, “No one can fly on a bird.”

  Delno smiled and replied, “You’re right, of course, no one can fly on a bird.”

  The girl, still holding his sleeve and giggling, started to say something else, but a young woman, too young to be her mother but still bearing a resemblance, said, “Enough Julia, let the Rider go, you’re bothering him.”

  “I am not!” the girl insisted, “He’s a nice man, and I like him.”

  Delno looked into the young woman’s eyes and said, “She’s no bother.” Then he smiled at the little girl and said softly, “But I really do have to get to work now.”

  The young woman took Julia’s hand, and the girl reluctantly let go of Delno’s sleeve. Then Julia said, “Can’t we stay and watch them fly, Jennie? Please!?”

  Delno smiled at Jennie and said, “It will only take us a few minutes to rig up, and then we’ll be off. We won’t be back until late this afternoon, so she’ll be easier to manage once we’re gone.”

  The young woman returned his smile, and still looking at Delno, said to the girl, “All right Jules, we’ll stay until they’re in the air, then we have to go.”

  Julia looked at Delno and said, “Oh, thank you!”

  Delno smiled at her and winked, then turned to Geneva and began rigging the improvised saddle.

  One of the older boys in the crowd said in a belligerent voice, “How come you don’t got a saddle like the other fella? You poor or smumthin’?”

  Delno found the question and the tone of voice annoying and started to respond that if the boy thought he could make a saddle faster then Brandon at the garrison, he was welcome to try. Instead, he simply shook his head and said, “Yes, boy, I’m poor or something,” enunciating his words very carefully.

  Another of the older boys slapped the offensive youngster in the back of the head, and while Delno didn’t think violence was a good idea, he couldn’t help but want to thank the other lad.

  Julia’s brother asked Delno, “Why are you wearing a coat and gloves? Aren’t you hot?”

  Delno turned to him and said, “Here on the ground, yes, but up there,” he pointed to the sky, “it’s pretty darn cold.” Then, seeing Julia watching wide-eyed, he made a bit of a show of putting his knit cap on his head and pulling it over his ears.

  They were soon in the air, and the crowd got smaller as they got higher. Once they had put several miles between them and the city, Brock and Leera again put them through the same series of maneuvers as the day before.

  After they had successfully completed them, Geneva said, “Brace yourself, Love, Leera says we are to do the dive she taught me yesterday. Just lay low and hang on!”

  Geneva pulled her wings in much closer to her body and pointed her head downward. As she picked up speed, the angle of her dive increased. Delno watched with growing concern as they moved faster and faster towards the ground below them. Then, when he was certain that they would crash and be killed, she extended her wings a little and turned herself upward, pulling out of the dive about a hundred and fifty feet off the ground. She was absolutely elated with the maneuver and roared her pleasure.

  “Wasn’t that fun!?” she asked.

  “Oh yes, Dear Heart, that was a lot of fun,” he said. “Could you just do me one small favor, though?”

  “Of course, Dear One, anything you need.”

  “Well, the next time we fly over that particular piece of ground, do you think you could fly lower and slower? I’m sure I left my stomach back there somewhere, and I’d like to look for it.”

  She laughed out loud and said, “Don’t worry, Love, you’ll get used to this eventually.”

  They spent over an hour flying until Brock signaled them, and Leera relayed the message to land. This time they landed on another hill that was covered with rocks. As Geneva went to hunt, he and Brock began another magic lesson.

  Brock had him review shielding for nearly an hour before he was ready to move on.

 
; “This time,” Brock said, “you will work on magical attacks. Hopefully, you will never need to use one, but it’s a good idea to know how, just in case. Now then, since you will be using enough energy to kill another human being, you will aim at rocks.”

  At Brock’s instruction, Delno gathered energy and then released it with the intention of stopping a beating heart. The first attempt was extremely weak: they couldn’t even see the energy hit, and there was no mark on the rock.

  “What are you holding back for?” Brock demanded. “Is this more of your not wanting to kill unnecessarily?”

  “No,” Delno responded, annoyed, “It is a little hard to gauge how much energy it takes to stop the heart of a rock.”

  “That may be, but why are you trying to gauge it so closely? Your intention here is to kill your opponent; don’t be afraid to put some energy into the effort.”

  This time, Delno let his annoyance fuel his magic, and drew much more energy. Then he concentrated on the spot on the rock for only a second and, pointing his finger for focus, he released the energy with the word, “KILL.”

  There was a flash of light, and the energy struck the rock like a lightning bolt. The specific point on the rock exploded, blasting a hole in it about the size of a man’s fist, and little shards went flying. The boulder itself, about four feet in diameter, split into three large pieces.

  Delno looked at Brock, and asked innocently, “Was that enough energy?”

  “Yes,” Brock answered, “if you wanted to kill an entire herd of oxen. Now, do it again, and this time tone it down somewhere in between the first two attempts.”

  They practiced for another hour before Brock was satisfied. Then they had a light lunch and sat for a while.

  “So,” Brock said, “You looked a bit uncomfortable with the crowd this afternoon.”

  “I don’t like hero worship when it’s merited, and I certainly don’t like it when it’s for something that is totally outside of my control. Those people think we’re special because we’re Dragon Riders. To me that’s like thinking we’re special because we eat and breathe.”

  “Well, I can see your point on the one hand, but I can see their point on the other.”

  Delno raised his eyebrow.

  “You have to remember, Delno, that to those people we are special. There are only about a hundred bonded female dragons alive in the world at any one time. We were chosen by those dragons because we are special. We have the magic within us to make the connection.”

  “Are you saying that there aren’t others who have enough connection to the magic? That we are the only ones?” He looked at the older man incredulously.

  “No, of course not.” Brock answered, annoyed. “There was also a large bit of luck involved. If we hadn’t been where we were at the time that our dragons hatched, they would have chosen someone else. But fate put us there and not someone else. Fate has singled us out to be special.”

  “So, what does that mean then?’ Delno asked. “Does that mean we have to like scenes like that one in front of the gates today?”

  “What it means, young Rider,” Brock explained, “is that what happened in front of the gates today is part of our lives. As I’ve told you, being a Dragon Rider is a big responsibility.”

  “It’s our responsibility to accept that type of nonsense?”

  Brock snorted and said, “Of course it is. Didn’t you see those people? Most of them were commoners; their lives are set, the chance that they can improve their situation is slim. They need heroes to worship; it gives them some hope in their lives. If they can, even for a moment, get us to notice them and acknowledge their right to be people, then they are elevated in their own eyes. It isn’t much when you take a moment to talk to people like that, but to them, it’s everything. It helps them to feel some self-worth and dignity, and those are two things that everyone deserves to feel.”

  Delno was thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I really hadn’t thought about it from their point of view. I guess you’re right. I just grew up as one of them, and then had all of the rest thrust upon me. I never liked having people back in Larimar worship me for being a hero, but when I think back on it now, from their point of view, I see that buying me a pint of beer and drinking with me elevated them because the ‘hero’ had joined them. They needed to borrow a bit of my fame to raise themselves because they had no other options.”

  “That’s right,” Brock said, “only the vain, shallow people like it, but the rest learn to accept it when they learn to look at it from the other point of view.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes and finally Delno, though he wasn’t sure why, asked, “So, care to tell me a bit more about the boy you were looking for?”

  Brock just looked at him so long that he thought the man wasn’t going to answer. Then the older Rider said, “Well, I guess Geneva told you then, huh?”

  “One of the few things I have managed to learn about dragons is that you have to be really specific about what is a secret and what isn’t,” Delno replied.

  “Well, it wasn’t so much a secret as me not wanting to burden others with my problems. The boy was born out of wedlock to a woman I had known. He was my son. Besides the fact that he looks enough like me to remove doubt, Leera said he has my scent, and the dragons aren’t wrong about such things. His mother couldn’t keep him, and I couldn’t drag him all over the world with me, so we fostered him. I saw him whenever I could, and when he came of age, he was presented as a candidate at a hatching. I wanted to train him, but his foster parents thought that would be a bad idea, and the rider who took the job helped them persuade me. I guess the boy was a bit hurt that his own father wouldn’t be his teacher, but he did all right in the beginning from the reports I got.”

  “You said that you didn’t think much of the Rider who was training him. In fact, you hinted that the man might even be abusive.”

  “Well, I didn’t really mean abusive, at least not in a malicious sense. That Rider is a bit harsh, as much on himself as on anyone else. He wouldn’t beat the boy physically as a punishment, but his training methods are much harsher than mine.” He thought for a moment and then said, “He’s a good man, basically. He never takes what isn’t due and serves whatever community he stays in well, only asking food and lodging for his troubles. He lives a pretty austere lifestyle.” He paused again before continuing, “Oh hell, his heart’s in the right place, but I sometimes think he keeps his brain in the wrong end of his body.”

  Delno chuckled and said, “I don’t know the individual, but I’m familiar with the breed.”

  Brock nodded and continued, “I should have insisted on training the lad myself, as his father, it’s my right; but I let those who had actually raised him make the decision. I guess in the end I did the same thing I did in the beginning; I left my responsibilities to others.”

  Delno shook his head and said, “I don’t believe that; you are a responsible man. After all, look what you’re doing here; you’ve taken on the responsibility of helping me.”

  “Didn’t stop to consider all the angles before assuming again, I see,” Brock responded.

  “How so?” Delno asked.

  “Well, by stopping my search and taking on the responsibility of teaching you, I might just be avoiding the responsibility of finding my son.”

  “If you feel the need to move on, Geneva and I can take care of ourselves. You’ve taught us much already.”

  “Aye, I’ve taught you much, and you’ve taught me a thing or two also. I think this time has been good for both of us. I also think that, right now, you still need me more, and it most likely isn’t hurting Connor to have a bit more time to cool off before he’s found.”

  “I have a feeling that when you’re ready to find him it won’t be a problem for us,” Delno said. When Brock asked for an explanation of that comment, he only smiled and said, “I have my ways, when you’re sure you’re ready.”

  Chapter 34

  The two Riders and their dra
gons settled into a routine over the next few days: breakfast and physical training at the garrison, followed by flight training and magic practice in the afternoons.

  On the ninth day of their training, they were sitting in the dining hall with Winston, and Delno said, “You know, my friend, we should pay for the meals we’ve eaten here.”

  “Nonsense,” Winston retorted, “it is the custom of this kingdom that Dragon Riders are afforded every courtesy that can be spared. Food, and lodging if needed, is included in that custom. We can afford the small amount of food the two of you eat here. Besides, now that it has become common knowledge that there are two Dragon Riders staying in Orlean, bandit attacks have dropped off sharply.” Then he laughed and added, “I’d go so far as to say that there hasn’t even been a pick-pocket operating around here in a week or so. We should probably get you a voucher for services rendered.”

  Delno laughed and said, “We’ll call it even then.”

  After working out with the men for about two hours, Delno and Brock squared off with each other. This time, Brock gave no orders not to spar, and told Delno to defend himself. Then he started circling until he was ready, before he once again made a series of quick attacks. They quickly settled into the pattern that they had settled into on the first day. This time Delno wasn’t going for the bait; he had something to show his teacher today. When Brock dropped his guard this time, Delno moved in to attack, but that was just bait of his own. As he got close, he used the energy he had stored up, and, using the modified shield, he pushed hard enough that Brock was knocked off his feet. The move was totally unexpected, and the older man was splayed out before him. He quickly stepped on his opponent’s right wrist and placed his practice saber at the other Rider’s throat.

  Brock’s look of startled surprise quickly turned to a smile, and he said, “You’ve been practicing some new things when I wasn’t looking.”

  “As you’ve said, I’m full of surprises,” Delno replied, as he reached down to help the other man to his feet.