Dragon Trials (Return of the Darkening Book 1) (17 page)

Kalax curled protectively around Seb. She didn’t look as though she was going to budge at any time soon—her eyes closed along with Seb’s. I was up when Kalax had moved and had stepped away. Now, I stared at the two of them, worried. Seb was white—I could see that even in the dim moonlight. Sweat plastered his brow.

He had never had a problem when he lived right next to the dragon enclosure, but we didn’t have this many dragons at the Academy. And then again, a lot of things had happened in the last couple of days—magical stones seemed to be emerging out of the past and mythical enemies were turning up from nowhere.

I was hoping Seb’s skill might actually prove to be of some value if we ended up fighting the black dragons. But it wouldn’t be any help if it left Seb like this. Could he learn to control it and not let it overwhelm him like this?

From far off I could hear snatches of voices coming from the nearest part of the Dragon Rider camp. We had landed a short distance away and I could smell the food cooking on their fires.

I nodded, as much to myself as to Kalax, who opened one eye halfway. I felt stupid, but I said, “Kalax, I’m going into camp to find out what the situation is. I’ll be back soon.”

Kalax breathed a deep, rasping chirrup in the back of her throat. I had no idea if that meant she understood me or just that she was going to go to sleep. I knew we all needed rest—we’d flown north twice this day and my legs, arms and back ached. I could wish myself back in bed, but I was not leaving this to others. We were stepping into legend. Nodding to myself, I adjusted my bow and set off for the nearest campfire.

The Dragon Riders were camped in the traditional groupings, with each squadron circled around a fire. It was easy to spot the banners fluttering over the fires, but I wanted to work out a way into the nearest camp without being questioned by any guards.

The last thing I wanted to do was to get shot by my own side. I skirted the edge of the camp and found an overly sleepy guard, leaning against a sleeping dragon. I strode past him, keeping my steps light and quick.

The camp had one main fire burning in the center of the circle of dragons. Beside this, tents had been put up and smaller cooking fires lit. A pot of meat sat over one fire, and my stomach growled. I’d missed dinner. The camps were all far enough from roads or open spaces that the trees would provide some protection. Glancing around, I could see flickering lights glimmering through the trees, each campfire spaced twenty or thirty meters apart, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The Dragon Riders hadn’t been deployed like this—in full force—for decades. Ever since the Academy had been formed, Torvald had only engaged in a few minor skirmishes. Often as not, the Dragon Riders went after pirates and a few marauding vagabonds from the wilderness.

I walked through the camp, my head lowered so my borrowed Dragon Rider armor and horned helmet would hide my face. I pulled my cloak firmly around me.

“Hey,” a harsh male voice called out.

Oh, dragon crap!
I turned so it would look like I had stopped to listen to him, but I kept my face down. There weren’t any women in the Dragon Riders that I knew of just now. If anyone saw my face, or my hair, they’d figure out right away who I was and that I was still a cadet.

“You Dragon Riders gonna do something about them over there?” I glanced over and saw one of the foot soldiers who made up the ground army. He must have been stationed nearby in order to get here as quickly as the Dragon Riders—perhaps he had even been with those who had called for help.

I nodded, not saying anything.

“Well, you’d better hurry up about it. Go back and tell the rest of your lot to get on with it.”

I nodded again, turned and hurried off in the opposite direction.

I headed into the next camp. This one had the bigger command tents set up. This was where Commander Hegarty would be. A rising sense of panic lifted in my chest. He would see through my disguise with ease—he knew all the cadets too well. But then I saw something that made my heart swell—the flame of House Flamma emblazoned on a banner hung before one of the big tents. That had to be Reynalt’s tent. As head of a squadron, he would be near the command tents. I split off from the main track, pulled the tent flap aside and ducked in.

My shoulders eased down. With a vast sense of relief, I saw the tent was empty. I had planned to plead with him to take us on in his squadron, but this was far better.

His tent was large, with sleeping rugs, a folding table, and a weapons rack. I edged over to the table. Maps and scrolls of paper littered it. Red lines indicated options for attack and defense, but a strange sigil, like an X, stood out on the map. The mark indicated a spot further up the bluff along the river cliffs, a distance away from the village.

I’d seen that mark before—Seb had talked to me about it when we’d been training and going over map marks. He’d called it a mark for a mine, and had told me the circle around the mark was for a mine that produced the ore needed to make Dragon Rider armor.

Staring at the map, I suddenly knew what all this meant. It was as if everything suddenly fit—the commander’s warning that even knowing about the stones was a danger, the gypsy stories about the stones being used, but how no one now seemed to know about them. The villages vanishing—Seb’s talk about maps and mines and danger. It all made sense to me.

The stones must have been hidden—long, long ago. They were thought a danger, and so they’d been put away and had become a secret. And now…now the Darkening was looking for them. Which meant this attack on the villages was a distraction. The real aim had to be the mines—that’s where I would have hidden the stones: with more stones, where the magical ones would be hard to find. And that was why the old man had talked about the people of his village being made to move rocks—they’d been looking for more of the powerful stones.

I sucked in a breath. Hadn’t the story been that there was one special Dragon Stone that could control everything—or let one person use all the stones at once? Was that what the Darkening wanted? With it, could it destroy all Dragon Riders?

Stepping forward, I took up a quill out of the red-ink pot and drew a large circle around the mine. I also drew in the word, Darkening. Reynalt would notice the change in the map and at least want to know what was up—he was even more curious than I.

Grabbing a flagon of wine and one of water, I headed back to Seb and Kalax.

“Seb…Seb, you have to wake.” A hand shook my shoulder. I blinked my eyes open. Faint sunlight flashed in my eyes, as well as moisture off the slightly damp snout of Kalax. I spluttered, coughed and realized I had been asleep for most of the night. The pale dawn warmed the eastern sky and the stars were winking out.

“Huh? It’s okay. What’s happened?” I reached up to pat Kalax’s horned snout, reassuring her that I was indeed alive and well, and that yes, I was getting up now. My muscles had stiffened from sleeping on hard ground, but the warm belly of our dragon felt good against my back.

Thea sat down close to me and offered a skin of water.

I drank it back. I had vague, painful memories of last night—of collapsing in the woods, of my mind confusing Kalax, of nearly crashing.

A snort from Kalax had me turning to look at her. She thought it was funny how I thought I could control her every move.
I landed fine
, she thought at me.

“Oh, right,” I told her.

“Right what?” Thea asked. She looked at me, eyes narrowed. “You’re not still funny in the head are you?”

I rubbed my forehead. “The headache…it’s almost gone now, just in the very back of my mind.” Beyond Kalax, I could hear the dull murmur of other dragon’s minds, like the buzz of distant rain. It was just like at the Academy now. “I…I don’t know what happened. It was like something kind of sharpened my dragon affinity somehow. I don’t really understand it.” I said, reaching out to pat Kalax’s hide reassuringly.

Thea stood and started pacing in front of me. “I need to tell you a few things.” Hands waving wildly, she told me about what she had discovered in camp—the map and its marks—and what she suspected.

“We have to tell the commander,” I said, staggering to my feet.

Thea shook her head. “Do you know how long that will take—assuming we can even get close to the commander? Look.” She pointed to the camps. I could see dragons stirring, lifting into the air to go hunt breakfast before they were saddled. “The camps are going to be full of riders—and everyone’s going to want to know who we are, why we’re here, and my bet is they’ll stuff us into a tent to wait for punishment.”

I glanced at Thea. “For disobeying orders. We’re not supposed to be here.”

Thea nodded. “Maybe we can make that work for us. And I think I know why your affinity with dragons suddenly went off the scale—what if that means the Dragon Stone is here?”

Shaking my head, I told her. “We’re taking a huge risk.”

She nodded. “Yes, we are. But isn’t that what Dragon Riders are supposed to do. Now, here’s what I had in mind.” Squatting down, she started to draw in the dirt with a stick.

*

Within the hour we were flying over the trees, keeping the river on our left as we sped up the valley. Looking behind us, I could see a cloud of dragons like seagulls, circling, landing and slowly ascending into the air over the camp. The Dragon Riders were amassing and maybe the battle would start today.

Spookily, there was no sign or action from the town, but I sensed a dark menace coming from within the walls. I looked away.

The mine was further than Thea had thought from looking at the map. It was well toward afternoon when we spotted the pronounced holes and stone pillars that marked the mines.

“There,” I said and asked Kalax to land near the river and the base of the cliff.

A roar, loaded with intense anger, filled my ears. Pain flashed into me, cutting off all thought. A savage hunger filled me, leaving me dizzy and sick.

“Seb!” Thea shouted. I glanced back to see her holding onto the saddle with one hand while she reached for her bow with the other.

A black shape flashed past us then rose to blot out the sun. I could feel its hatred like a blow, falling onto us. Kalax roared in distress.

Looking up, I saw a black dragon, much larger than Kalax and probably bigger than Heclaxia even. It fanned out its wings, hovering for a moment before it dove toward us.

I had no doubt who it was—one black rider sat on the dragon’s back. I shivered and knew this had to be the leader of the Darkening. I threw Kalax into a dive, barely meters away from the black dragon’s outstretched claws. Wisps of smoke rose from the behemoth’s jaws.

From behind me, I heard the twang of Thea’s arrows being released. I saw her arrow bounce off the dragon’s armored scales. Her shots would do no good on unless she managed to hit it in the eye.

The black was gaining on us. It was as fast as Kalax and so much bigger that it was clear that she was no match. My head hurt again, the headache growing until it wrapped around my temples and I wanted to rip off my helmet.

“More coming! East and west!” Thea shouted, aiming at the smaller, black dragons rising from the river.

How can we fight off a horde of dragons?
I thought. I decided we could only do what we knew how to best.

We would fly.

Kalax responded to my commands, winnowing down close to the river, then rolling over the canopy of the trees, zig-zagging, changing this way and that in mid-air. Her wings stretched out as rigid as they could go, holding for a second then flicking. The big black dragon was gaining, and I could feel pain and madness in his mind—he might have once been a kind dragon, but something had made him into a beast who thought only of killing. There was only one thing left to do—Kalax would be faster with just me on her, and on the ground Thea might escape.

“Seb? What? Wait,” Thea was shouting. Trees rushed past us, leaves exploding around us. “You have to jump,” I shouted back at her. Two of the smaller black dragons tried to cut us off. Kalax rolled and turned. “Thea, Kalax is faster with only one human on board. And…and you might even be able to shoot the dragons from the ground.” I knew she had to think she was doing this to help Kalax and me or she’d never leave us.

It took Thea a moment to slip out of her harness. She grabbed her bow and her quiver of arrows. I could only guess how terrified she must be with the ground a blur as it rushed past us.

Stay alive.
I didn’t say it, but thought the words at her. Kalax turned, and Thea tumbled into the trees. I glanced back to see her rolling up to her feet and run for the deeper woods.

Now you. Me. Stay alive.
Kalax’s worry broke into my mind.

Yes,
I thought.
We need to
. Asking her to head up into the sky, I was determined to lose our pursuers so we could come back and rescue Thea. But first we had to stay alive—and the black dragons were closing on us again.

I was angry with Seb. He wouldn’t be able to defend himself without a protector. But he wasn’t wrong. Kalax would be faster if it was just Seb on her back. But how could he out-fly them all? My shoulders ached from hitting a tree branch. I’d scraped my cheek, but I’d kept myself loose, just the way I had been taught at the Academy for when falling off a dragon. I’d never thought I’d have to use that skill.

I could hear screeching cries overhead, but I was far under the cover of thick, tall trees.

I’d lost my bow in the fall and without it my arrows weren’t much use. I did have a sword in a scabbard at my side—it had banged against me as I fell. But bruises didn’t matter. I jogged through the forest, following the keening of the enemy dragons. The tree cover faded as the sound of the dragons grew more distant. Stepping out of the forest, I saw the dragons—the blacks and our red—had dwindled to mere specks in the clouds.

I was alone. Far from the camp or anyone’s help.

How could I find my way back? Or should I wait for Seb—but what if he didn’t return? My mind swirled around and around, dark thoughts of being lost, of being overrun by black dragons or enemy warriors filled me. For the first time in what seemed like my entire life, I had no one to stand by my side—not my family, not my fellow cadets, and not even Seb.

A chill wind swept down from the north, rattling the leaves in the trees and making me aware of just how ill-equipped I really was to be out here on my own. I could hear the river not far from me and I started in that direction. At least the river would keep me from getting lost. The forest didn’t really make any sense to me. I was no navigator, and I hadn’t studied the different types of tree, or rocks or how to make emergency shelters. I was in enemy territory.

Searching for my bow I thought how always someone had been with me. My strong brothers or my father, and even Seb had been there for me. I’d taken them all for granted.

My family’s expectations had felt like a prison, but now I realized it was in fact a safety-net.

What am I doing, thinking I can retrieve the dragon stones?
“Maybe I am just a foolish child,” I said, hearing the echo of my father’s words on the wind.

No.

Despite my aches, I straightened. I wasn’t a child. I wasn’t foolish. I wore the armor of a Dragon Rider and I was a Flamma. I would not fail as a Rider, and would not fail my family, my city, or my king.

Gritting my teeth, I knew I had to keep going. Searching, I found my bow. It wasn’t broken, and I took that as a good omen. Now, I needed to get back into the sky. Seb had told me I could shoot from the ground, but both of us forgot to figure in that the black dragons would fly off after him. Well, it was time he came back, and that was that. So, how did I get Kalax and Seb back?

I tried to remember the feeling of how I had connected with the dragon. We had touched minds once, and since I was Seb’s partner, if anyone could share that affinity with Kalax, it would be me. She had chosen me, too.

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember the feeling of the wind through my hair, the warm pulse of Kalax’s heartbeat steady through my body. A sense of peace descended on me. I could almost feel the lurch in my stomach as gravity dropped away—

Thea?

My name was as loud in my mind as if someone standing beside me had said it. I knew it was Kalax. I could feel her joy at hearing from me.

Kalax, I need help—I’m near the river.

Wait. Kalax and Seb come for you.
I could sense her, weaving through cliffs and caverns—she was losing the last of the black dragons that had been after her. She wheeled and started back to me, and I caught a hint of an argument between her and Seb—how danger was still close.

Which is why you need me
, I told Kalax.

It seemed to take forever before her shadow fell over the rocky banks of the river. I looked up and stepped from the woods where I’d been hiding. The day was growing long and the sun was already nearing the horizon by the time I remounted and we were on our way to the mines in the river’s cliff.

I thumped Seb on the back of his head, my hand clanking on his helmet. “Don’t ever dump me like that again.”

He glanced back at me. “It worked.”

I looked around. I didn’t like that the black dragons were gone—did that mean they’d headed off to fight the Dragon Riders? My brothers would be in the middle of that fight. But I couldn’t worry about that right now. The cliffs were rising in front of us.

Kalax landed on a sandy ledge in front of the main mine workings. Tall pillars of stone rose up around a dark hold. The entrance was too small for her to fit. Seb took some time with her, quietly communing with Kalax and reassuring her that we would be well. I wasn’t entirely sure that was going to be the case, but I smiled at Kalax just the same. I could tell she didn’t believe us because she made a low, threatening grumble in the back of her throat. She took herself over to a tall outcropping of reddish rock that perfectly disguised her and settled down to keep watch.

I caught a warning to be careful from Kalax, and then Seb turned to me, his eyes wide and dark with either fear or excitement, or maybe both. “You ready?” he asked, pulling out his sword.

“I am,” I said and hefted the sword in my hand. Which, in a weird way, I realized I did actually feel ready. Not in the sense that I was prepared to beat every opponent, but I was going to go inside this mine, and I was going to do my best to put a stop to the terror that was besieging the realm. I’d left my bow and arrows on my saddle—they wouldn’t be much good inside the narrow tunnels of the mine.

We stepped inside. The main shaft seemed huge, but as we walked, it narrowed. Light from the outside drifted in for a ways, but the farther we went, the darker it got. Soon, we had to edge forward with one hand on the smooth side of the wall to feel our way. The mine smelled like damp rock and something vaguely salt-like. The ground underfoot was smooth, and I could hear the trickle and drip of water seeping in.

Near the entrance I’d seen braces of iron or old timbers to hold up the walls and ceiling. Terrible thoughts of what would happen if the supports gave way filled my mind until I bit my lip so the pain would make me focus. The mine wasn’t that cold, but my face still felt chilled and I was glad of my cloak and armor. And then we came to a tunnel that was lit by a torch and which branched off in two different directions.

“Which way?” I said, instinctively turning to my navigator.

Seb paused, cocked his head and then sniffed, breathing out through his mouth.

“What are you doing?” I hissed at him.

“Something we were taught in navigator lessons. When blinded, you can use your mouth and nose to detect scents on the air.” He did it again, beside each opening, then pulled a face. “Hmm. Something fresher this way, like clean water,” he nodded in one direction. “But this direction. There’s something bitter. Like burning ash. ”

“You sure you’re not smelling these torches?”

He glanced at me. “They smell like wood smoke.” He took the lead, heading toward the bitter smell.

Fire would mean people, which also could mean enemies.

We stepped back into dark tunnels. The ground changed from smooth surface into a rocky surface and we had to watch our step. Whomever had dug out this section of the tunnels must have been in a hurry, since they had not been properly finished. The place had a feel of age to it—and something else. Something that left my skin tingling.

I caught a faint worry from Kalax and then Seb caught my wrist to halt me and whispered, “I hear something.”

I froze. I didn’t even want to breathe lest I give our position away. I could hear my heart thumping in my chest, so loud I thought everyone must be able to hear it. Seb crouched low, and then I heard what he had.

The sound of booted feet was coming closer.

A circle of radiance started to grow larger. My heart thumped harder. The smell of burning wood grew stronger along with another, bitter smell. I could hear only one set of boots approaching. I could handle that. I tugged on Seb’s sleeve, and then pushed him back, up against the tunnel wall.

The light brightened. I held up a warning hand to Seb, and then a figure appeared before us. I stuck out my leg in a sweep-kick, connecting with the side of the man’s knee in a sickening crack. He fell to the floor with a loud thump. Before he could move, I lifted my sword and hit him on the head with the hilt.

Breathing hard, I straightened.

“Thea, I think you’ve killed him,” Seb hissed at me. I glanced at the man on the tunnel floor.

A wave of nausea lifted in my stomach.
Is this what it is like to kill someone? This quick?

But the man wasn’t dead. I saw his chest lift and fall with breath. He didn’t look like a Dragon Rider, or even a foot soldier in the king army. He wore studded, black leather breeches, heavy black boots, and a mix of hide and leather vests, tied to each other. His long, fair hair was tied into two braids, and he looked a lot bigger than either of my brothers.

“He’s a Wildman,” Seb said.

I gave a snort. Wildmen was a term used for any of the roaming tribes that occupied the mountains and beyond. They moved with the seasons, fighting each other and against others. They raided more than they traded, and I wondered why such a man would be here. Then I thought of the black dragons.

“Seb, black dragons are wild dragons. Untamable. But someone was riding them. Do you think the Darkening found a way to make them do its bidding—with the stones? Is it doing the same to the Wildmen as well as to villagers?

Seb glanced at me. The torch the Wildman had been carrying cast shadows over Seb’s face. “An alliance of the enemies of King Durance? That would be bad. But it would explain why I feel—the black dragons all seem to be in pain. They’re half mad with it.”

I swallowed. Seb looked at me and nodded down the tunnel. “This way. We should keep going.”

The light dwindled as we left the glimmer of the unconscious guard’s torch. I gave a thought to picking it up, but if we carried it with us, anyone else down here would also be able to see our
approach, just as we had seen the guard’s. We were better off without it. Seb led us deeper into the mine. I didn’t know what senses he was following, but he was certain. Several times I saw him stop and put a hand to his head, as if something was pounding at him. I put a hand on his shoulder, but he just touched my fingers with his and then moved on.

The walls around us grew slick with some type of moss. It didn’t make sense to me that something could be living down here, so far from the light—and then I saw there was light. In the rock, wandering veins of something that gave off a very gentle light. Stepping closer, I could see the rocks glowed with a faint, bluish-white haze.

“Catch-crystals,” Seb whispered to me. “We were told about them in navigator class. They’re rare. They can catch light, sound and energy, and return it as this glow.”

I looked at my friend, his face bathed in an ethereal blue, and thought he looked like a ghost. I hoped we weren’t about to become that.

We trudged on. We weren’t in the main mine anymore. I could see that from how the walls changed from straight, carved and held up by wood, and shifted into raw caves. This didn’t look like it was fashioned by any human hand. Every now and again, I saw something like a whorl or a circle on the rock that looked as if it might be an ancient carving.

Seb stepped out into a wider cavern and put a hand out to halt me next to him. The floor looked to be of soft, silver-grey sand that caught the light of the crystals. The walls were smoothed into ripples of rock. It looked as though water had flowed through here for a long time, years and years ago. The whole place was veined with the lines of catch-crystals, giving the room an eerie glow.

Pointing at the walls, Seb nudged me with his other hand. Between the glowing crystals, I glimpsed designs carved into the rock. Deep stone-cut ridges of lines and circles, unmistakably made by human artisans. One design, curved into whorls and circles, was certainly a dragon.

Seb gestured to the other side of the cavern, where a storm of the whirling, carved dragons played across the walls. Some looked like long-necked blues, others were squat greens, and some were long-tailed reds like Kalax.

“But what is that?” Seb whispered.

I turned and looked. The drawings all seemed to converge or point to a design on the largest wall of the chamber. It showed three, rounded egg shapes. Above them, a larger egg shape gave off rays that fell down on the other three shapes.

“The stones—and the one that controls them all,” Seb whispered with wonder in his voice.

Across from us, I spotted a narrow tunnel. The sound of gentle hissing came from it. I lifted my sword and whispered, “Dragon?”

Seb shook his head. “Underground water.” He stepped across the sand and headed toward the tunnel. I followed. The hissing grew louder to a rush. The catch-crystals around us flared brighter, almost as if they knew we were here, or were reacting to our movement.

Stopping again, Seb pointed. Ahead of us, I could see the yellowish burn of torchlight and I could hear voices.

Seb eased forward. I came after him, my sword slick in my sweating hand. We stepped into the narrow tunnel, but it widened again out into another cavern. Instead of the floor being covered with sand, this one had a pool of water that stretched over half the cavern floor. Yellow torches cast fitful light over the stale water and illuminated two men who faced each other.