The Broken Scale (The Dragon Riders of Arvain) (6 page)

Hayden stopped in his tracks and turned to face the old man. Fendrel just shrugged his shoulders at Hayden.
What am I going to do? The trials start tomorrow and I am not even in the city yet.

             
“Don’t worry, boy, if you aren’t ready tomorrow, then you would not have been ready in a week.”

             
“That’s not true, I could have learned something in a week that would help me get an egg,” Hayden responded.

             
“Well yes, you could have done that, but you don’t have a week, so let’s stop talking about who was wrong and let’s get you ready for this thing!” Fendrel took a few large paces up to Hayden and smacked him on the back a little harder than
Hayden was expecting. Hayden stumbled forward a little and caught himself before he fell. “Sorry.”

             
They continued walking with Hayden mumbling under his breath. Hayden wanted to start running and make sure he got to the city as soon as possible, but Fendrel kept telling him to slow down whenever he started going too fast. “We are almost there, calm down. We will see the River Savior soon and will be able to see Celestial City within an hour or two.” Fendrel had to repeat this statement three times because it wasn’t long after he said it that Hayden would speed down the road.

             
“How do I know that? How do I know you haven’t forgotten how far it is, huh? How do I know that we aren’t five days away or if we are even heading in the right direction?” As Hayden spoke, he turned around and walked backwards so he could face Fendrel and continue to walk to what he hoped was Celestial City.

             
“Turn around, boy, or you are going to fall into the river.”

             
“There is no river.” Hayden turned around and saw that up ahead, the road turned a hard left and there was a drop off at the turn, because he could not see what was directly after the road. They covered the remaining distance to the turn in silence. When they reached it, Hayden was right that there was a drop off, and some forty feet below them was a river. The river was almost a hundred feet across, but it moved silently and there were no rocks jutting out so there weren’t any rapids or white foam. “So you can remember where the river is but not when this year’s trials are?”

             
“I am old, some things I remember, and some things I can’t.” Fendrel just shrugged his shoulders and they began walking down the road as it followed the river. “Now when we get to the city, we are going to kind of stand out a little. It would also help us to blend in if you don’t gawk like you have never been there before.”

             
“But I haven’t been to the city before,” Hayden responded.

             
“I know that, but let’s not tell everyone that. Now, some big things that are going to be different about Celestial City and your home town are number one, the size. How many people lived in Erskine if you had to guess?” Hayden had calmed down a great deal since they found the river and he could tell Fendrel wanted to get him talking and keep him relaxed.

             
“Um, I don’t know, maybe two or three hundred adults. Why?”

             
“There are almost a thousand men who guard the walls to the city.”

             
“A thousand?!?” Hayden’s voice got a little squeaky and high pitched when he shouted out his question.

             
“That’s just who guard the walls mind you, that does not include the main ground army, and then the regular people that live there. The river we are following will fork at the city, one part will head into the forests of Eytherka and eventually into the sea, whereas the other part goes into the Bergelmir Mountains and flows into the dwarves’ underground irrigation system. It’s at this fork that they built the city. The walls completely surround the fork, which is no small task as you will see, and there are three walls that make up the city’s defenses. The walls make a giant triangle around the river, with the north corner lying in between the two forks and the western and eastern corners on either side of the main body of water we are following now. Everything in Celestial City is made of metal, everything. The walls were first made of stone to only about twenty feet high, but when they discovered all the rich minerals in the land and the city began to flourish, they decided it was time to upgrade their style of living. The walls are now close to fifty feet high and they look to be made of one giant sheet of metal, but don’t let that fool you, there are trap panels built along all three walls that will open up to reveal one of their many war machines.”

Hayden listened
, and tried to imagine what the city would look like, but with no success. He could not fathom what a city made out of metal with thousands of people would look like. The road began to rise at a steep incline and Hayden was starting to feel a burning sensation in his legs.

“They even made the houses out of metal so that they would not burn if they got attacked or if someone just had an accident while cooking or something of the sort.” Fendrel was walking with one hand pressed on his leg and it was very apparent that this hill was taking a lot out of him.

“I just can’t imagine what a metal city would look like.” Hayden topped the hill first and reached back to help Fendrel walk the last few feet.

“Don’t imagine, just look at it.”
Fendrel pointed and Hayden turned and was, for the second time, dumb struck by the sight.

Celestial C
ity’s walls shined as the sun hit them, and the city was enormous, much bigger then he thought it could have been. Outside the city were miles and miles of fields used for farming and he could even make out giant herds of cattle, some with thousands of head of cattle, making up huge spots in what looked like a giant green and brown quilt. Hayden’s attention was drawn back to the city and he just stared at it.

They had come up on the rear wall just as Fendrel had said they would. Hayden could see down the entire wall and into the city. The rear wall did look like one giant sheet of metal
, and he could see where the walls turned in and met, making a giant arrowhead shape. Each wall had a cover over it so the men on it would be protected from the weather and any projectiles that were hurled at them. There were three giant towers, each one almost twice the size of the walls, one at each of the three corners were two of the walls met.

On top of the towers sat what appeared to be giant statues. On the tower furthest away from them sat a golden dragon, on the one facing the east was a silver dragon
, and the tower on the west had a copper. None of the dragons had saddles of any kind and they weren’t moving; those were the only reason Hayden thought they were statues because they looked so real that at any second they would spread their wings and take to the sky.

From their vantage point it looked like
giant birds were circling above the city. There were dozens of dragons in the air with their riders. Some were flying in V shapes while most of them were just in an unorganized mess, but by some miracle no one even got close to hitting each other.

He noticed that the river separated the city into three different areas; the largest part of the city was on the far right side and it was made up of metal houses, all organized and in neat rows. Hayden was amazed to see that some of the houses seemed to be on top of other houses. The top section that was in between the two forks was just a bunch of buildings that Hayden couldn’t really make out from so far away. The last side on the left was the one that
amazed Hayden the most. It had a lot of smoke coming out of some of the buildings and it housed a few buildings that were thirty and forty feet tall, but the thing that caught Hayden’s eye was an enormous metal pyramid.

“What is that?” Hayden asked.

“The Metallic Pyramid? I mentioned that to you already. That is where the dragons and their riders stay when they are in the city. There is a side for each color of the metallic dragons to use. We are facing the corner between the coppers and silvers, they face the way their corresponding statues are. That whole side is the military side, those buildings you see the smoke coming out of are blacksmiths and those big ones, the ones that look like giant squares, those are barracks that they use to house the army and the guards.” Fendrel was pointing at the buildings as he spoke and Hayden was trying to see everything.

“The area to the far right looks like houses
, right?”

“Yes
, that’s where everyone else lives who’s not a rider or part of the army.” Fendrel nodded at Hayden’s correct guess.

             
“What’s the top section for?”

             
“That is where all the shops, store houses, taverns and all the stuff that goes along with trades are. They keep it all together to make it easier on the people. As you can see there are four main gates; one on each of the two other walls and there are two on this one, one on each side of the river. The roads leading out of the military side lead to large open encampment where the foot solders do most of their training, the roads going out of the top section just thin out and go to various towns and villages. The southern road, the one we are on now, thins out also but it goes all the way to the frozen mountains. It’s the same way they say our ancestors came when they founded this place.” Fendrel started walking down the road and had to tell Hayden to follow. He could have spent a few days just staring at the city from on top of the hill.

             
“This is amazing; this place looks so … so… amazing,” Hayden said as they began descending the hill.

             
“Good choice of words, boy.” Fendrel continued to tell him about the peoples dress and what kind of food they liked to eat. As they got closer to the city they had to cross a bridge to get over to the side where the gate that led to the houses was.

Hayden watched as a copper dragon came out of the sky and landed on t
he wall directly over the gate. They were still a mile away from the city but there were already more people on the road then Hayden had ever seen in his whole life. Everyone took notice of Hayden and Fendrel because they were dressed so different.

             
They wore earthen tone clothes that were meant to be worked in, both of their outfits were dirty and had holes starting to show through. While the people in the city wore much more elaborate colors, and every one wore capes and hats with large feathers in them. Hayden looked at the people with interest, but he could quickly tell that the people were looking down at him with disgust. Some even pulled their children away and turned their nose up to them. Hayden wanted to say something to Fendrel about it, or even say something to the people who were looking down at him, but Fendrel shook his head and pulled him along. As they passed under the gate Hayden looked into the eyes of the copper dragon and smiled.

             
“Boy, I would like to introduce you to the riders of Arvain.”

Chapter 4

            
 
Fendrel pulled Hayden through the river of people that were making their way up and down the busy streets in what Hayden had just learned was called The Housing District. The people still looked down on him and Fendrel, and few people moved out of their way as they tried to walk, but Fendrel did not slow down and just pushed his way through the crowd. Hayden kept trying to ask questions about the things he was seeing, but he never got more than a few words out before his voice was drowned out by someone else talking louder than him.

             
Hayden had lost all sense of direction only a few moments after entering The Housing District. His head was still swimming with everything he was trying to take in.
I have seen another dragon up close. A copper dragon actually looked at me. This is where I belong.
Hayden realized that he was having a hard time thinking with everything going on so he decided to stop asking questions and just try to follow Fendrel.

             
Fendrel kept weaving in and out between people and turning down one street just to go a few feet and turn down another road. Hayden noticed that when they had first come into district, the metal houses were two and three stories, but as they made it deeper into the district Hayden noticed that the houses were beginning to look less extravagant. The nicer houses had elaborate carvings and decorations on the outside of the houses. Some even had different kinds of metals used to add color to the constant shinny grey. The houses that Fendrel was leading him through had no such designs, no ornate decorations, just plain grey walls. These houses were just as tall as the other ones, but where one family would have all three stories in the richer part of the district, here they crammed multiple families into the homes.

             
Fendrel made an abrupt stop in front of an ordinary house compared to the corresponding metal homes, except it seemed to Hayden that it looked un-kept and a good bit dirtier
than all the other houses. Fendrel did not knock on the door but pulled out a metal key that had a lot more elaborate bends and points then Hayden had ever seen. Fendrel unlocked the door, which when he turned the key sounded like a large rock falling, and gave the door a slight push with his hand.