Dragon Trials (Return of the Darkening Book 1) (10 page)

“Where in the heavens were you?” I glared at Seb. He’d walked back through the gates of the Academy looking like he’d been on some kind of hike. Not only was he over an hour and a half late, but he wasn’t even dressed for flight practice. He only had on his tunic, breeches and boots. His hair stood up as if he hadn’t bothered to brush it.

I’d been waiting for Seb up on the platform when Beris and Shakasta had come by and told me no one had seen Seb this morning. Beris said that he’d heard a rumor that Seb had walked down to the poor districts of Torvald, to where the taverns flowed with cheap and strong liquor and people stayed up all through the night, making fools of themselves.

I glared at Seb. He shook his head and tried to wave me off, and I could see he was already coming up with excuses.

“Are you just ignoring everything I’m trying to teach you? What—you don’t really care for me, for us? Or the Academy! Everything that’s been done for you, and you still…still act like this!” My face heated and I bit down on the rest of my words. The other cadets had been allowed to go up into the skies above the city where they were practicing formation flying—the very essence of a dragon-attack squadron!

“I thought you had really turned a corner at the selection trials. I thought that maybe, despite your low birth, there was a real Dragon Rider in there somewhere underneath all the dirt. But now you go and do something like this!”

Shaking my head, I looked away. The worst part of it was that last night Beris had told me that it was well known that Sebastian’s dad was a drunkard. “The drunkard smith of Mongers Lane,” Beris called him. Shakasta had said it was a marvel that anyone got any work out of the man, although his work was good when he was sober.

And I am stuck with that kind of man for a partner?

Seb stopped in front me, his shoulders slumping. “No, Thea, you don’t understand. It wasn’t me, it was Beris. He told me that you were at the lake.”

“What?” I snapped. I narrowed my eyes, sure that must be a lie and a weak one at that. “By the first dragon, why would I be down the lake at this time in the morning, especially as we have flight practice first thing?”

Seb stiffened. “As if you haven’t been down by the lake, swimming on the coldest morning before. Or haven’t been out running before dawn has even lightened the sky. Or haven’t been up before everyone, at archery practice, or even. Oh, never mind. You just go on thinking whatever you want. Go hang out with Beris and Shakasta—you want to be their friend! I’ve got a stolen pony to find.”

“Would that be
this
pony, cadet?
”
said a nasal, accusing voice getting louder.

Oh no—Instructor Mordecai
.

Mordecai was the sort of man you never would expect to have ever been a Dragon Rider. Large and hunched over from shoulders that twisted his whole frame inwards, he looked more like a giant bug. His face was sallow and heavily wrinkled. His nose was a sharp hooked blade. Stringy grey hair fell from the sides of his head, wild in the morning breeze. Every cadet almost universally disliked him. The legend went that Mordecai had been a Dragon Rider some fifty years ago, but his dragon had become ill and died. His partner, unable take the loss of his dragon, had thrown himself off the observation tower, leaving Mordecai to grow bitter.

“Now you’ve really done it, Seb,” I hissed at him. I turned to face the instructor who was stalking toward us, leading a mountain pony who was sweaty and caked with mud on his legs.

“You found him!” Seb blurted out, and then frowned.

I groaned inwardly.

“Found him, cadet?” Mordecai’s eyes flashed. “He was outside the stables, unsaddled, unbrushed, unfed and un-looked after!” Mordecai’s nostril’s flared. “You know the rules, cadet. You tend to your animals, you tend to your duties. Anyone who cannot follow even the simplest of discipline and care does not deserve to be here!”

“But, sir—” Seb straightened and stuttered the words. I rammed an elbow into his side. There was no reasoning with Instructor Mordecai, and excuses just made him worse.

“Don’t give me a story, cadet! There may come a time, if we are all incomparably unlucky, that you and your partner here are charged with defending Torvald, and during that time there may be many foes trying to deceive or trick you. Does that mean you will believe any tale? Or that you will just leave your dragon untended? Or abandon your partner?” He threw the horse brush that he held in his hand at Seb, who caught it awkwardly. “You and your partner rider share in the blame and share in the punishment. You will both tend to this poor beast, and then you will clean out the stables, and brush down every pony we have. When you are finished, then you may resume your flight practice!” he snapped.

“Thank you, Instructor Mordecai, we promise it won’t happen again,” I said quickly, before Sebastian could let out the frustration and anger I could see heating his skin.

Mordecai raised sharp eyes to look at me. He gave a dismissive, snorting sound, then turned back to Seb. “Be thankful your partner understands the value of loyalty and duty, cadet. Learn from her.” Mordecai stalked off, leaving the pony with us.

“Thanks,” Seb said, his voice quiet as if he was too tired to argue.

Mouth pressed tight, I shook my head. I was still furious, but I wasn’t sure if I was furious with him or just at the situation he had gotten us into. I didn’t know if I should believe him when he said that Beris and the others had played a trick on him—but even if they had, what kind of idiot did that make him if they had?

“Come on,” I said, trudging toward the stables. Seb picked up the pony’s lead. I waved a hand at him. “You know we’ll probably get marked down for this, don’t you? That’s one mark against us, and it means that we’ll be stuck performing slow fly-bys over the city for the rest of our lives, or carrying post from one end of the city to another. That is, if we’re lucky enough to graduate and not be sent down. We only get three chances to screw up—don’t use up the other two!”

I turned away from him. A part of me was still frightened. What if the instructors began to think we couldn’t care for our dragon? Would they even let us ride out on patrol? It wasn’t unheard of for cadets to be dismissed from the Academy—their dragon would be retired to the enclosure for breeding, and all of us would never fly together again. I couldn’t think about that, but I knew that I’d better keep a closer eye on Sebastian. He wasn’t going to mess this up for me!

Disappointing Thea wasn’t the worst of what I’d done—I was in trouble, and Thea was right about one thing. If either of us messed up more than three times, we’d both be thrown out. We’d lose Kalax, and Kalax would also lose her chance to fly. I knew this was a mark against me—the instructors wouldn’t be happy that another cadet had played a trick, but I was even more at fault for having been caught by the lie. And I hated that.

Lying awake in my narrow bed and listening to the snores of the other boys in my room made me wary and sad. I couldn’t trust anyone—not even Thea. Beris and Shakasta and Syl—they wanted me to fail. They would probably even be happy to see Thea have to leave with me since that just left more room for them to be the best.

I turned over and closed my eyes. It didn’t help. Nothing did. Even flying with Kalax today—the first time we’d been in the air for days—had only managed to cheer me up a little bit.

I kept thinking about Thea, too. She was trying really hard to be the best Dragon Rider—I could see she was desperate to prove something to somebody, and I was just getting in the way. But I couldn’t quit—if I failed, she did. No wonder she was so mad with me, still. She trained hard with me, but she wasn’t smiling very much these days. It was all work and training and every now and then I would turn and see her watching me—as if she was afraid I was going to fail both her and Kalax.

Earlier today, I had heard Beris and the others sniggering about the drunkard of Mongers Lane. I’d tried to ignore them, but maybe that was what this was all about. Maybe I really didn’t have any right to be here—maybe I was going to prove to be too like my da. If I went home, I could look after my step-mother and my sister, and I might be able to take over my da’s smithy before he drank up all the profits.

But then Thea would never be a rider—and Kalax would never fly again with us.

Thumping my pillow, I tried to get to sleep, but I just couldn’t. The look on Thea’s face that I’d seen today, as if I had let her down again
,
kept haunting me. How could I even go out flying with her if she had no trust in me? Maybe it was already too late for us to make this work out.

I slipped from my bed, unable to sleep, and put on my old clothes—the ones I’d been wearing when Kalax had chosen me. The worn tunic and trousers felt comfortable— like I was wearing them instead of my cadet uniform which always left me feeling like the clothes were important but I wasn’t.

I needed to get outside to where I could see the stars. I’d done this often enough back home, heading out into the hills and away from my da and the drinking and the stink of Mongers Lane. I could do some wandering and thinking—maybe this was what I’d been missing, being out under the stars where the sky seemed open and I could lay on the grass and watch the world spin.

It was easy to slip out of the Academy. As cadets we weren’t under as many rules as we had been as just trainees. And, in these long times of peace, there were hardly any guards kept on duty. Those few who walked the top of the stone walls liked to stay close to the fire in the braziers, warming their hands and talking softly to each other. I headed down the stone steps and out into the training yard. The world seemed quiet—even the chickens kept for the kitchen were asleep in their coop. I managed to sneak through the main gate, which stood open and unguarded. I headed down the lane without anyone even raising a word or turning a head toward the gate.

As soon as I got to the mountain lane, I stepped off the worn path and behind a boulder. A narrow track ran around the back of the city, wandering out past the craggy vineyards and the high meadows where sheep grazed. I didn’t feel like climbing up to the ridge tonight, or of going down into the city itself. I felt curiously caught between the Academy and the city, in a sort of no-man’s-land, like I didn’t belong to either anymore. I was a cadet, but maybe I’d fail at that. I was a smithy’s son, but I wasn’t that really, not anymore. So what was I?

The stars glittered overhead sharp as bits of glass, and the night animals called, hooted or barked as I walked the paths that wended past shepherds’ huts and craggy orchards. The apples trees would be in blossom soon, and the chill in the night spoke of winter coming. From the hillside, I could look down into the broad, ornate gardens of the noble’s houses below and see lanterns sparkling. I turned away from that and kept walking.

The feeling soon stole over me that I wasn’t alone. I slowed my step. Snippets of laughter drifted to me, and the smell of meat sizzling on a spit left my stomach growling. I hadn’t been eating well these past few days.

The sound of a voice lifted up in song, accompanied by a fiddle. “…but by the long river, I will find my true love wa-i-ting!”

That’s no noble’s music,
I thought. This was something much earthier. I followed the music to behind the orchards, where the high meadows opened out and the trees rose up around them, wild and untamable.

The rutted track led to a clearing underneath a rock face. The rock and the grass nearby glowed bright in the firelight. Edging closer, I saw a painted caravan with a curved roof and a pair of black and white draft horses tied to a line. Two men, a woman and two children stood or sat around the crackling fire that wove a pleasant smell of roast meat and wood smoke into the night. They dressed—women and men and children—in bright, embroidered vests, black pants and boots, white shirts of a coarse weave, and slouch hats with tassels on the end.

Gypsies!
I froze my steps. The traveling folk roamed the realms, not heeding any border and only rarely visiting any city. I hadn’t thought they would ever camp this near to Mount Hammal and Torvald.

I’d met a few of the travelling folk over the years in Mongers Lane. The families would come up from the south every summer. The women of Mongers Lane bought herbs and spices from them, and they would trade for repairs to their wagons. Larger caravans sometimes came to the area to join in the autumn wood-chopping season, working away through winter with the foresters before moving on again in spring.

I thought about turning around to head back to the Academy, but there was something so inviting about their fire, the easy laughter and the smell of food roasting that made me stay a moment longer. The two men stood near the fire and were singing some folk tale by the sound of it. The woman sat on the step of the caravan, looking as though she was re-painting or finishing off a bowl ready to be sold. A younger girl sat at the fire on a thick log, a fiddle in her hands and tucked to her shoulder, and a boy half my age was turning a spit with what looked like a lamb roast from a sheep that would not have belonged to these travelers. A small family, I thought, looking for a quiet place to stay perhaps.

The woman looked up suddenly, her eyes and ears quicker in the night than I had given her credit for. She stood. “Hey, show yourself!”

The men stopped their singing and the fiddle stilled. All turned quickly, warily, to where I stood in the shadows. I recognized their apprehension and felt a sort of kindred spirit to them.
Outsiders. Unwanted.
That was how I felt.

I stepped from the shadows of the trees. “I’m on my own. My name’s Seb. I saw your fire.”

“And smelled our meat, no doubt in it,” the woman said, pointing her fine paintbrush in my direction. I stammered an apology. She gave a sudden grin. “We’ll not begrudge a boy something to eat on a cold night. Come and warm your bones, lad.” She pointed to the fire.

I came forward, and the bigger of the two men—a man with black hair and a long, drooping mustache, clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Too cold watching the flocks is it?”

I realized that in my current garb, they wouldn’t recognize me as a cadet Dragon Rider. I was about to say something, but he gave a laugh, clapping me on the shoulder again and guiding me to a warm spot near the fire.

“Never mind, lad, we won’t tell if you won’t. I’ve spent a lot of nights standing on hillsides, hoping I don’t get chased by wolves or eaten by bears! Roluz, cut a slice of meat for our new friend!”

The boy—Roluz by the name of him—stuck his tongue out me, but did as his father bade.

The man waved a hand. “I am Arkady, and this is my family. My daughter Afiyah, my son Roluz, my brother Turri, and my beautiful wife Sansha.” He wheeled his big arms in the air again, encompassing his whole family and most of the night. “We are from Shaar, a land far, far to the west and far, far to the south.”

“What are you doing so near Torvald?” I asked, feeling the warmth already creeping into my feet and grateful for it. The meat was good, hot in my fingers and tasty. I wolfed it down as if I’d had no meal in days.

“Ha, you northerners! Very blunt. I like it!” Arkady slapped his knee. “Your dragons bring us here, of course. Everywhere we go, we are told about the Dragon Riders of the mountain-city, and I swore that before I got too old I would take my family to see them.” He leaned closer. “It is also a good time to be near to dragons—for the stories we have heard tell of trouble brewing.”

I frowned at those words, but Arkady’s brother swatted him with a brightly colored handkerchief. “You see trouble in every shadow. It might have been better if you had waited for spring, no?”

“No,” Arkady said. He shook his head and smoothed his mustache.

“Don’t scare the boy.” Sansha looked up from the bowl she had painted. She put it down and came to the fire. “There’s enough trouble in the world without bringing it to our door by speaking of it.”

Arkady shook his head. “Oh, trouble comes if we talk of it or not.” He pulled a pipe from a pocket inside his vest and began to tap down tobacco into the white bowl of the pipe. Leaning down, he pulled a split of wood from the fire. When he had smoke curling from his pipe, he turned to me. “Do you want to hear a story? A story they probably have not told you, living behind those high walls of your city?”

“Arkady Bismollah Shaar,” Sansha said. She tugged a black woolen shawl closer about her. “Do not scare the lad.”

“And what of his right to know the truth—of the old troubles stirring?” Arkady sounded defiant, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his story would end with his hand out so he might lift whatever curse might stain my life. The gypsies were known to both be light of hand and light of tongue, but I was curious now. The men in town had talked of war brewing—of trouble. And now this gypsy was saying the same. Did he know of something that had gone unnoticed by Dragon Rider patrols?

“Tell me, please,” I asked. Sansha shook her head and stood. “Come Afiyah and Roluz. Your bed calls for you two.”

Roulz put up a fuss and dragged his heels, but Afiyah took her fiddle with her and followed her mother to the caravan.

I looked from Arkady to Turri. “What tales do you hear?”

The two men swapped a look that left me uneasy—there was real fear in these men’s eyes, and gypsies did not scare easily.

Turri put another log on the fire so it flamed up high, and Arkady leaned close. “The tales of Dragon Riders flying over the skies, ah, we all hear these. Why, in past times, it’s said so many dragons took to the air that the skies turned black with their wings, and even the coldest night was warmed with their fiery breath. But these were the old days, when Torvald was but a small town, and riders it is said had barely learned to live with dragons. In those times, whole mountain ranges were torn apart by their epic fights, and some of the largest dragons were almost the size of the city itself beneath us.”

I leaned forward and wondered how much of this could be true. I’d never heard the tales of old—my father didn’t hold with stories, and so I’d only caught snatches of the old stories, overheard from other boys.

Arkady puffed on his pipe and stared into the fire as if seeing the olden times. “They fought each other, these riders and dragons of old. And they fought different tribes, but then a greater evil rose.” He looked at Turri, who stood with his arms tight across his chest, and then Arkady looked at me. He leaned closer and his voice dropped low. “It was then that the Darkening rose.”

I sat with my mouth open as I heard bits and pieces about some old enemy—the Darkening. I whispered the word, and Arkady nodded. “Do you know why it’s was called that? It was because it was like forgetfulness…a black stain that spread across the land. People vanished or disappeared inside darkness that came over them, never to be seen again. Realms started to shrink. The people forgot the paths to their villages, and even forgot the people they loved…their homes seemed more like something remembered in a dream than a real place that was lost. It was like there was a power slowly stealing the world, one village at a time.”

My frown tightened. “How do you know this if everyone forgets?”

Turri gave a snort, but Arkady puffed on his pipe and nodded. “A good question—and one that can be answered in the story. For while the Darkening was a power that brought grave evil, it was pushed back and defeated.”

“How?” I breathed out the word, feeling how cold the dark night really was beyond the fire.

Arkady smiled. “With dragon fire—and magic. The Darkening bonded the riders together, made them one force. That and the magical jewels they found. It was only the wisest of the Dragon Riders who knew of these precious stones—rare, special jewels shaped like a dragon’s egg that they learned of from their dragons. With fire and magic, the riders drove back the Darkening. But it took many years and many lives. For it took the riders years of following clues and riddles and rumors until riders found them all. When the riders returned, riding on their dragons with those magical jewels, well—there was hardly any kingdom left. People couldn’t remember who the king was or where the roads led to.” Arkady pulled on his pipe, but it had gone out. He tapped it against his palm. “The dragons and their stones overcame the Darkening.”