The Dragoneer: Book 1: The Bonding

by Vickie Knestaut

  Horror exploded in her, left her numb for the briefest second.

  By all that was wild! She not only experienced what her dragons felt, but she felt what those of the enemy horde experienced as well.

  And then she was out of time.

  With a yank back on the saddle, Elevera spread her wings wide. Pain ripped across Trysten’s arm as a hole in Elevera’s wing widened slightly under the sudden punch of wind. She let out a roar as they slid beneath the Western horde.

  Several arrows flew past them, but with her horde coming behind her, the Western horde didn’t have enough time to bank their dragons enough to take a clear aim at what flew underneath them. A rash of roars exploded behind her as the Aerona horde clashed with the Western horde.

  Trysten gasped, shut her eyes a moment, and then pushed it all down, blocked it all out as if taking every blow of an arrow and blast of fire into a leather bag that she cinched tight and dropped from the heights. Now was not the time to lose herself in the sensations of the dragons. Was this why her father had told her of the Dragon Lords before she went into battle? Did he know that she would experience this? Then why not flat-out say so!

  There wasn’t time to wonder about that either. With a flick of her heels and a tug of the saddle, Elevera banked hard to the left and began to flap in great, downward thrusts as she climbed back up to meet the Western horde.

  The Aerona horde passed by behind her. They flew out and banked to the right as well, struggling to curtail their momentum and fall in behind Trysten and Elevera as a final few arrows chased them.

  The Western Dragoneer gathered his horde as well and flew in the opposite direction before banking to the left. He was turning to challenge them.

  Trysten peered at the second horde. Why weren’t they flying out to meet them? That would have been her tactic if she had been in their position.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were coming about for another pass. She notched another arrow as she watched the Western hordesmen do the same. Her teeth gritted. She had to end this now. They didn’t have time to fly back and forth exchanging arrows and swipes with claws and tails. The second horde would be on them soon, and if Trysten wasn’t ready for them, they’d be overwhelmed within minutes.

  Trysten pulled back on her arrow. She flicked her heels against Elevera’s side, but the dragon already knew to aim for the dark gray alpha dragon with the fiery plume of feathers sweeping back from the crown of its hood. Upon its back, a man in a matching headdress took aim at Trysten with his own arrow.

  They rushed at each other. As they approached, Trysten thought of Issod, of the arrow in his throat. Rage flew through her. The arrow leaped from her aching fingers. As it did so, fire erupted from Elevera’s maw as if chasing it. The arrow flew right over the top of the Dragoneer’s head. He released his own, but not before the Western alpha folded its wings and dropped as if ordered to ground. The arrow flew away, uselessly spent as Elevera slid right over the top of the Western alpha, carried by gliding momentum. Trysten clenched the edge of the saddle with her free hand and braced herself as she sensed what was coming. Elevera jerked slightly as her claws grasped the saddle on the Western alpha’s back.

  The leather straps snapped.

  Pain ripped through Trysten. She arched her back and sucked in a tight breath as Elevera’s claws dug through the Western alpha’s scales.

  Elevera loosened her claws. A man screamed. His scream fell away to the stones and heather below.

  Trysten collapsed forward and clutched the edge of the saddle with one hand while the other drew the bow close to her body. Several arrows whizzed past them. One struck Elevera in the flank. Her scales held and deflected the blow. They cleared the horde, and then Elevera banked hard to the the left. The Western alpha spiraled downward towards her fallen rider. Great red rents stood out among the ripped-away scales along her back.

  A shudder wracked Trysten. The Western Dragoneer was dead. The Western alpha’s spell over her horde was as broken as the fallen master she chased after.

  Mere minutes remained before the Western beta and commander established command over the Western horde, and then a minute perhaps beyond that, the second horde would be upon them.

  Chapter 43

  Trysten peered over the battle and tried to pick out which dragon was the beta. The Aerona horde had passed through the Western horde behind Trysten and was continuing to shadow her as she came about. One of her dragons struggled to keep formation and had already fallen to the back of the horde. Something was terribly wrong with her wing.

  Beyond, the Western dragons should be falling behind the beta, drifting into place for the beta to establish her new rule. Instead, the dragons flew about in disarray, left and right, forming more of a disorderly cloud than a fighting regiment. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong with their horde.

  It was imperative to know which was the beta, where to focus their attack. Trysten closed her eyes and clutched the side of Elevera’s neck. Pain flicked her side, her legs as her mind picked up on all the injuries taken by the dragons in either horde. Most keenly felt was the ache in Elevera’s belly and wing where she had taken a few arrows. Still, Trysten took a deep breath, opened herself up, and tried to imagine the currents between the dragons, the series of subtle cues oblivious to humans that the dragons used to communicate. Which Western dragon was the beta? If they could get the beta, the rest of the horde would abscond and flee. She rubbed her palm over the rough scales of Elevera’s neck and tried to feel, to know, to be but a silkweed seed on the wind of the dragons’ thoughts and feelings.

  The neck beneath Trysten’s palms tensed.

  Her eyes flicked open wide as Elevera let out a great roar. A roar that shook Trysten, quaked her. She clutched the edge of the saddle and glanced about. The Western dragons, in unison, dropped and slid down through the air and approached Elevera. Their riders shouted at each other in their strange, barking language. They gestured wildly. A few drew back their bows and took aim at Elevera’s exposed belly, but the moment Trysten saw them, their mounts twisted over, flipping the riders upside-down before diving out of their bows range.

  A gasp escaped Trysten.

  Never. Never had anyone spoken of a dragoneer taking command of an enemy horde before. It was impossible as far as Trysten knew or understood. Defeated hordes absconded and fled, as the Hollin horde had. Yet, with the exception of the wounded alpha, the Western dragons were taking up a position behind and beneath Elevera. It was clear that the size of the Aerona horde had suddenly expanded greatly. Just how far did her powers as a Dragon Lord extend?

  Around her, the dragons from Aerona and Hollin fell in behind Elevera. Most of them banked slightly as the riders peered over the sides of their dragons at the scene below. The two dragons that remained steady, level, betrayed the severity of their rider’s injuries. Trysten’s heart tightened as she thought of the fallen riders slumped over their saddles.

  There was no time to mourn those who had bravely fought with her and gave their lives for the village and kingdom. Their sacrifices would be in vain if they didn’t prevail over the second horde, which would be upon them in a moment’s time. There, in battle, she would honor their sacrifices, and hopefully find just how far she could push her powers.

  With a thought, Trysten ordered the Western dragons out and ahead. The astonished riders continued to shout back and forth in their foreign tongue. They fought to wrest back control of their dragons, but they were no longer their dragons to control.

  As the Western horde flew out to meet the second horde, Trysten pulled up on the edge of the saddle and flicked her heels in an upward motion. Elevera climbed into the sky. The Aerona horde followed, except for one dragon, the one with an injured wing. It tried, but then fell back and circled downward to seek safety among the stones.

  As they flew out to meet the second horde, Trysten ordered her own to fan out and form a straight line. The second horde needed to see exactly what they were dealing
with, and how many dragons. As they approached, Trysten gave an order to prepare for an attack on a dive. The captured horde would fly straight at the second horde and force the second horde into a dive to avoid collision. Once they flew out from underneath the captured horde, the Aerona horde would greet them with a hail of arrows.

  Trysten patted Elevera on the neck. The ache in her stomach grew. It grew with that of several other dragons that had taken arrows in the softer scales of their bellies as well. Off in the distance, she sensed the ache in a shoulder of one of the captured dragons.

  A bevy of shouts erupted from the captured horde as they shouted warnings to the second horde. Trysten lifted her arm and signaled for all to be ready. She unslung her own bow and pulled an arrow from her quiver. Her legs tightened with tension, waiting to give the order to dive. She drew in a deep breath, held it, then wished for the captured horde to spread their wings and make a screen of themselves.

  As they responded to her wishes, the second horde flew up and over the screen formed by the captured horde. Trysten’s trap lay empty. Worse yet, the second horde opened up with a hail of their own arrows.

  The line held for a brief second as the Aerona horde answered with their arrows. As soon as Trysten released her bowstring, a punch of pain struck her in the left side of her belly. Unlike the pain broadcasted from the dragons, this hit her a hundred times harder. She glanced down long enough to see an arrow lodged in the leather of her armor. Though the armor had done its job, the tip of the arrow was buried far enough to know that it had broken skin.

  As she batted the arrow away with gritted teeth, the second horde drew into a U and headed straight for her. As she peered at the hooded faces of the dragons bearing down on her and Elevera, she could not only sense the dragons, but sense the Dragoneer as well. It was a distant feeling, like knowing that someone else was in a cottage with her, even though she couldn’t say why she knew.

  This was the horde that had taken out Hollin weyr. This was a horde commanded by a Dragon Lord.

  Before she could issue the command, Elevera drew her wings in close to her body and plummeted out of range of the arrows. Without having to look up, Trysten knew the other Dragon Lord had ordered pursuit. The entire second horde fell through the sky behind her. As the stone-broken and heather-strewn ground raced and spun towards her, Trysten recalled Nillard’s story of how the Western horde had taken out the Hollin Dragoneer so quickly. They would crush her. They would drive their own dragons straight into her in order to kill her. And if she could sense the presence of a Dragon Lord… Her throat tightened at the thought that he could sense her as well. What would he not sacrifice to stop a Dragon Lord who took control of an enemy horde while their riders remained on their backs.

  Arrows dropped past Trysten and Elevera. The two of them fell with such speed that the velocity of the arrows looked unreal, almost as if they were light as feathers, born on a stiff wind rather than propelled violently from bowstrings.

  As the ground spread out and appeared ready to swat them from the sky, Elevera’s wings snapped open.

  A groan of agony ripped itself from Trysten’s throat. She clutched her left arm as the wound in Elevera’s wing widened under the sudden change in air pressure.

  With a flap of her wings, Elevera recovered and zoomed along over a set of stone cairns heaped over the landscape. There were dozens of them, perhaps more. The amount of growth indicated that the burial ground was old, ancient.

  Trysten hunkered down over Elevera’s neck to minimize the air’s drag on them. She glanced back. The entire second horde swooped down in pursuit. Their dragons were in better shape, were not as tired and not as beaten as Elevera with several arrows still lodged in her belly along with a growing rent in her wing. The other dragons gained upon them.

  Far above, the Aerona horde twisted in a wide, steep spiral. Instead of pursuit, they appeared to be trying to come down where they expected the second horde to be. Trysten imagined a half-moon flight pattern as she and Elevera led the pursuing second horde back around and into the path of the Aerona horde. Immediately, the Aerona horde responded, shifted their spiral to bring them down where Trysten wanted to meet them.

  Without waiting for orders, Elevera began to bank slightly to the left as well, working her way around in a large circle to meet the falling horde. Trysten patted the side of Elevera’s neck with her right hand. They hugged hills of stone and heather and swooped down through a shallow valley in an effort to shield themselves from any arrows, should the second horde come close enough.

  Once they emerged from the shallow valley and streaked over a rubble-strewn plain, she glanced back again. The second horde was no longer in pursuit of her. They had shifted off to the left. They were heading straight for the point that Trysten had told her dragons to descend upon. Her teeth ground together. By all the wilds! Why hadn’t she thought of that? If she could sense what the other dragons were doing, then the other Dragon Lord would know what her dragons were doing as well. He was going to cut the Aerona horde off when they leveled out of their dive, when the riders would be gripping their saddles instead of pulling their bowstrings.

  With few options ahead of her, Trysten ordered Elevera to make a sharp left. At the same time, she thought of the Aerona horde swooping down at full speed.

  Trysten held her breath. She looked up and saw the Aerona dragons falling. To her relief, the riders were pulling back on bowstrings and taking up aim, ready to get a few arrows off to cover themselves before breaking their dive. To her left, the second horde readied arrows of their own. But every one of their arrows pointed at her atop Elevera.

  As soon as the thought popped into her head, Trysten ordered Elevera to tilt her wings up as hard as she could. The dragon peeled upward into the sky before the other Dragon Lord and his horde could react. Up Elevera went, straight into the sky before twisting back and over. From her position upside down, Trysten watched the Aerona horde snap its wings open and soar across the landscape, barely clearing the ground. The two hordes collided as if approaching at the angle of the arms of a Y. Arrows flew. Pain seared across Trysten’s body. Gouts of fire erupted as the two hordes clashed. Screams escaped the men. The world nearly shattered as she watched Paege’s mount, Leya, fly into the copper-colored alpha of the other Dragon Lord.

  Both dragons tangled for a second. Wings and necks and tails intertwined before they bounced apart. The collision took out another of the Aerona dragons, a bright green, medium-sized female, which twisted hard to avoid the collision, but managed to clip it with her wing. Leya and the copper alpha each fell to the ground as the green dragon dipped down and collided with the stone and heather and began to roll end-over-end, broken wings flapping as the rider was crushed over and over until the dragon came to a stop on her side.

  Trysten cried out. She clenched her eyes shut and fought to put it all away, the pain of the two hordes colliding and exchanging blows. She pulled a deep breath in, then snapped her eyes open and forced her focus on the scene below. Elevera executed a quarter barrel roll and banked around. Trysten clutched her own belly. Sticky blood seeped from the hole in her armor. Below, the two hordes scramble to regroup.

  The copper alpha lay upon her side on the ground. Her head lashed at the air. A roar escaped her throat as the Dragon Lord stumbled away. He slid his bow off his shoulders and pulled an arrow from his quiver as he turned towards Leya and Paege. Leya struggled to rise to her feet. Paege lay several feet away, still tied to his saddle, which had broken free of his mount. He struggled to right himself, but appeared to have problems with the straps meant to secure him to the saddle during aeronautic maneuvers.

  The Dragon Lord lifted his bow and took aim at Paege.

  Trysten pushed hard on the saddle and dug into Elevera’s side with her heels. Elevera dove hard. Another great roar escaped her throat as they swooped down.

  The Dragon Lord glanced over his shoulder, then spun around and took aim at them. Trysten crouched over Elevera’s neck.
Her hand drifted to the hilt of the village sword.

  As they swept down upon the Dragon Lord, he released his arrow. Elevera answered with a great stream of fire as Trysten pulled the sword from its scabbard. Flames engulfed the arrow, which then whizzed past Trysten’s ear. The rushing gas and fire of Elevera’s flame had offset the arrow’s course the tiniest bit, enough to spare her.

  The Dragon Lord dropped into a crouch, but it was too late for him. Trysten swung the sword down and forward as if trying to strike a ball on the ground. On instinct alone, she missed nicking Elevera’s wing, and then tensed when the blade found its home.

  She tightened her grasp on both the hilt and the edge of the saddle as a great yank tugged at the sword. The sword slid free as Elevera swung up into the air.

  Behind them, the Western Dragon Lord lay crumpled on the ground. Further back, the two hordes circled around to take another pass at each other, arrows drawn and ready.

  “Stop!” she called, screaming back behind herself. It was too late. The momentum of each horde was about to take one across the path of the other. If she ordered the dragons of the Aerona horde off, it would only upset the aim of the riders and open them to attack.

  To her absolute horror, Trysten knew she must open herself to all that was happening around her. It was the only way to take the second horde as her own and stop the bloodshed. She forced the muscles in her body to relax, her mind and heart to drift open, to embrace the onslaught of pain and suffering about to hit her on behalf of all the dragons. Nothing could be done about it. A shudder ran through her. She gasped and a yelp escaped her as she saw in her mind’s eye what was about to happen. The dragons of the second horde knew what was coming.