The Broken Scale (The Dragon Riders of Arvain) (34 page)

Chapter 17

The next day Hayden spent his time with Draek, high above the land. They only landed when they needed to rest, or in Draek’s case to eat a deer or two. They tried different maneuvers in the air, but before they had flown off early in the morning Hayden had placed a saddle on Draek to see if made flying easier.

Elizabeth had been right about word getting out about his part in the events the day before. By the time the sun rose
, Shane had woken
Hayden up before he went to do his training for the day.

“You flew Draek again
and you fought a dwarf rider?” he asked as he barreled through the door. Hayden sat up and was forced to explain to him what had really happened. Shane had listened to everything he had said with growing hunger in his eyes; Hayden could tell he wanted an adventure of his own.

Hayden decided not to tell him about the dwarfs being friendly and where they were hiding at the moment. He was sure he could trust Shane not to tell on him
, but it just did not seem to be worth the risk to him.

Shane stayed as long as he could, asking questions at every possible chance. He was very interested in the red dragon, Hayden definitely did not tell him that he knew the dragons name or had seen him up close. The more he described the red dragon the more he started wondering about the differences between all the dragons.

Draek had not yet blown fire, but they said that their dragons grew faster but took longer to fully generate their fire bladder. He had been told in one of Estraken’s lessons that some of the different kinds of dragons actually had different kinds of fire, some not having fire at all. He had begged Estraken to elaborate but the man
had refused, saying that it wasn’t yet time to learn that information; they still had more important things to learn before that.

Hayden made
up his mind that the next time he was in Estraken’s class he would ask again about the details of the other kinds of dragons and races of Arvain. After Shane left to head to the day’s training ground, Shane informed Hayden that they would start flying on their dragons today but just to cover short distances, nothing as intense as flying after dwarfs, Hayden got up and let Draek sleep in a while. He wanted his dragon to have a good day of rest before they went back into their own training.

He decided to walk the halls of the Metallic Pyramid and slowly take his time as he made his way to dining hall. Along the way servants and even other riders constantly asked him questions about his flight with the dwarf and red dragon. They all told him the many rumors that they had heard, some got so crazy Hayden was amazed that people even believed them.

“I heard that you chased the dwarf down, and while your dragon ate the red dragon you ate the dwarf. Is it true, is it true?” one young person asked while he was eating his breakfast. Hayden was so shocked that he just stood up and left, leaving his half uneaten food still steaming on the plate. 

It was that comment, and others like it, which led Hayden to decide to spend the day in the air and away from Celestial City. He did not like being treated like a hero, especially if the reasons that they were treating him like one were completely false, it made him more uncomfortable than anything.

Over the next few weeks things slowly went back to normal, as normal as they could be. The Orchard of Souls had been replanted and the search parties that had been sent to find the dwarfs had dwindled down and no one searched anymore.

Their training had started again after their day off and they did not take it easy on him or Draek. Their trainers made no mention to what had happened, which Hayden liked. The only ones who continued to bring up the event were Sebastian and Giles.

Every time the trainers called on him, or if he did good during a particular exercise they would say that it was because he was the local hero. They would mock him and say how could the local hero do anything but good.

Hayden went and saw Fendrel at least once a week, leaving as soon as his training was done and heading straight to his house. He told Fendrel about all that had happened so far, always giving him updates on his training and life.

Fendrel wasn’t happy when Hayden had to tell him about revealing to Lirand that Fendrel had been the one who told him about the dragons being able to fly. Fendrel was upset, but he said he understood that Hayden had only done it because there was no other way around it.

Their meetings became shorter, but never went away, as they neared the Festival of Games. Hayden was just too exhausted to stay out late anymore. Fendrel told Hayden that after the festival he planned to leave Celestial City for a while, he claimed he had a few more things to see in his life.

Hayden did not like the idea, but could do nothing about it; who was he to tell the man he could not go off and follow his own dream when the same man had helped him achieve his own.

“How soon after the festival do you plan to leave?” Hayden had asked near the end of his latest visit. He had only been with Fendrel an hour but he needed his sleep
, and if he stayed any longer he risked falling asleep in the streets some were.

“Well that depends on how good you do. If you win something than I will stay till after they reward you and I will stay to congratulate you. Then I will head out immediately after that. If you do horrible and lose everything I will leave before the award ceremony.” Hayden nodded his head, missing the sly grin that crept onto Fendrel’s face, showing that he had been messing with Hayden. Fendrel liked Hayden
, but he did not want the good natured boy to get run over in the world.

Lots of people want to take advantage of him
, and as he grows so will that number, and sooner or later they will come and try to hurt him
.
There is no place for an honest person like him in their world, I just wonder what they will do when the realize that. I wonder what he will do,
Fendrel thought to himself before speaking again.

“Look boy, I know you don’t like it
, but I was planning to leave soon anyways, there isn’t anything for me to do here. I want to be helpful, and I want to see things that I have never seen before. Plus the riders don’t like me running around and spilling their dirty little secrets. They have been tolerant of it so far, but their good grace might end soon, and when it does I want to be long gone.”

Hayden still felt bad about telling on Fendrel; he knew that Fendrel did not bring it up to hurt him
, but just to show the reasoning behind him leaving. Hayden still felt that deep down inside Fendrel’s leaving was his fault. He had forced the man out of his own home.

Before Hayden left he handed Fendrel the dagger he had made, he had since made a decent leather sheath and belt for it. Fendrel knew what it was and what it meant to Hayden, he had been forced to listen to him brag about it for many an hour.

“You will need a good dagger on the road,” Hayden told him, tears threatening to leave his eyes. Fendrel took the dagger carefully in his hands, there was no need to pull it out since he had seen it countless times before. Anytime something needs to be cut Hayden used the dagger, even if it wasn’t necessary.

“So t
hen, I can trade this one for a good one?” he asked. Hayden nodded once, not realizing what had been said. His eyebrows came together and he was about to protest loudly about the comment when he realized that Fendrel was only joking with him. The old man had tears already streaking down his face.

With the dagger given Hayden began to make his way back to the pyramid. He needed his rest because there
were only a few weeks till the Festival of Games, and now he was determined to win the whole thing, every event he competed in he would win.

The Festival of games was coming up fast; their training had started to veer away
from the traditional as they began practicing the different events. Hayden was good with the long range weapons; he had no problem hitting any of the targets even if they were moving.

Shane was the b
est with the heavy weapons, two-handed broad swords and heavy axes. He could even use his shield as a weapon as well as use it for defense. Hayden enjoined practicing with weapons, trying different ones till he found the ones he was best at.

Hayden couldn’t get used to battle axes or the giant broad swords like Shane did, he preferred to use lighter blades that only required one hand to use. They all practiced in Tynan’s hall and the archery range outside of it.

Hayden noticed that both Giles and Sebastian were neither good nor bad at the different weapons. They were both talented, but they did not have the skill like Shane did with close combat or Hayden was with ranged weapons.

Cass still did not participate with them
, but she often talked about how her battle training was going, so Hayden knew she would not enter the games untrained and unprepared. As the day of the festival grew closer Hayden was told that he would have another day off soon but he would have to spend it with a blacksmith.

He had to clean Draek first thing though, not because they had instructed him to but because as soon as he woke up that morning Draek was scratching himself against the walls. He complained of being itchy and that he needed to be scrubbed down immediately. When your dragon demands something it is usually in your best interest to do it quickly; that was lesson one of having a dragon.

He was supposed to head straight to the blacksmith as soon as he had finished cleaning Draek thoroughly. Draek was getting more off-days than Hayden was, he had all but mastered flying and the amount of food he needed to support himself required him to hunt every other day.

Hayden had help with cleaning Draek today; it would have taken a long time for him to do it by himself. Hayden noticed that as he cleaned
, Draek kept complaining about how itchy he was and no matter what Hayden did he could not relieve the itching.

“Draek keeps complaining of being itchy, is there anything else we can do?” Hayden asked as he watched Draek push his body into the scrubbing to try
to relieve the itching. Hayden had been focusing on oiling the sensitive skin on Draek’s face that he hadn’t noticed what the servants cleaning Draek were doing.

He turned to see if they had heard him speak and was shocked to find each of them with a bucket full
of silver scales at their feet. He realized that Draek was feeling less itchy around the areas were the scales had already come up.

Draek, you’re shedding!
He knew that this was supposed to happen soon, but he wasn’t sure when. When a dragon has its first shed it means that the main growth spurt is over, Draek will continue to grow but at a much slower rate now.

I know it itches so much.
Hayden was nervous as he pulled an old silver scale off of Draek’s front shoulder. The scale came off with a tug and Hayden was afraid that he was going to hurt Draek, but underneath he found a perfectly hard and fully formed scale.

Two more servants came in
to help, but it still took a long time to remove all the scales off of Draek, none of them breaking, and they kept each one of them. When they were finished Hayden stretched out his stiff back and looked at Draek to make sure that they had not missed a spot.

Draek looked like a dog that had just had its winter coat combed out. He looked thinner and sleeker. The scales were larger
, and where Hayden could push and feel the older ones give slightly under the pressure, the new scales felt like solid steel covering his body.

Hayden was impressed
, and when Draek snaked his head back to view their work Hayden could tell that he was too. The servants made sure that all the scales were picked up, even the smallest ones that had been around Draek’s eyes, and made sure they all found their way into one of their buckets.

Hayden assumed that they were throwing them away because they picked all the buckets and hauled them off without so much of a glance back in his direction. Draek was ready to get outside and into the air to see if there would be any difference in his flying now that he had new scales.

Hayden led him to the large opening and watched him jump into the air and quickly climb into the sky. Hayden knew that Draek was going hunting today so he did not bother asking him where he was going. Hayden and Draek never said goodbye because they were always in each other’s mind; most of the time Hayden felt they were the same person, just in two different bodies at the same time.

             
Hayden made the walk to the blacksmith; they had instructed him that he was to go to the same one he had already trained with earlier. Along the way to the blacksmith Hayden met up with Shane and greeted him warmly.

             
“Hello, Shane, you going to the blacksmith too?” he asked. Hayden liked Shane, but he always felt like there was something in the way of them becoming true friends. He enjoyed spending time with him and they got along great, but something just wasn’t right. “Shane nodded his head vigorously; he could not help but stare at Hayden with a big smile on his face.