Dragon Born Page 3

  In her delirium, a strange vision of a baby surrounded by dragons came to her. The dragons weren’t trying to kill the baby, no it was much stranger than that. The dragons were bowing to the baby as if they worshipped her.

  Or they bent to her power, the strange thought intruded on her burning mind. She couldn’t imagine anything much less a person being able to control the dragons. But the baby was strange—her hair was all the colors of the rainbow, and her eyes held an intelligence that Millie had only seen in the elderly close to death. Those eyes knew things no mortal could know.

  When the vision subsided, Millie knew only darkness and heat. At the end of her trial by fire she changed as well, but she didn’t turn into a pile of dust as Sasha had…she transformed into something else entirely.

  Eighteen Years Later

  Another town destroyed by dragon fire…another hope that Wylan Atwater and Cuthburt would find some dried goods to get them through another few weeks. Towns were getting farther away from their home. This one was a week sleigh ride from their home and had been burned out for a while. Sand and ashes had reclaimed much of the town, and as she stared at the drifts she worried that would mean there was nothing left for them to salvage.

  Ashes. There were so many ashes.

  Wylan grew up in a time of dragons. She’d not known the life before the dragon plague came—the plague that had infected people and turned them to ash. Some lived through the experience, but more often humans became like this…so much ash among the sand. The long desert was becoming the lonely desert. Wylan had been told of a time not long ago when towns and cities thrived among the dunes, but no longer.

  Not since the dragons returned.

  She looked to her hands. Just a week ago her own skin had been covered in…something. Her entire body had been covered, to be exact. A rough, scaly kind of skin. Cuthburt thought she was turning into a dragon, that their nickname for her, Little Dragon, might take on an entirely different meaning. Kethill and Cuthburt told her—when she woke from her fever—that she’d been completely covered in scales at one point. Her fever had been so intense they’d worried that she wouldn’t last the night, but she’d pulled through.

  Soon after Kethill had fallen ill, and they wouldn’t have left her at home alone if their food stores hadn’t been dangerously low. Kethill insisted that she’d been through worse, and that it was nothing more than the chills. She’d sent them away, but Wylan knew it was more…she knew Kethill had caught what she had.

  This trip couldn’t be short enough.

  Wylan’s golden eyes scanned the horizon. Dragons. She’d never seen a dragon up close, and the thought of meeting one thrilled her. She’d seen them winging through the dusk, but the Atwater farm was a secluded place and didn’t see much wildlife outside the animals they kept. In years past, Cuthburt had started collecting various lizards that could be used for food and kept them penned up, but that was the only life she saw outside of her adopted parents.

  But she still wondered about dragons. Her parents told her how dangerous they were; how deadly they could be. Wylan couldn’t help imagining that some of the dragons couldn’t all be bad. Dragons were so lovely on their own. At times she could see them dancing through the clouds with one another. Their trilling song echoing across the empty dunes, nearly lulling her into a trance. Their movements were so fluid, so graceful that she almost wished she could dance with them.

  But whenever she thought dragons might not all be bad, she saw another town like this and the image of what they’d done was burned into her mind.

  Still, it was something to think about. Maybe one day she’d live to see dragons and humans work together. She doubted that, but it was a great dream. It was probably for the best she’d never seen a dragon up close, not if this was the kind of destruction they left behind.

  Kethill was good at teaching Wylan all there was to fear about dragons. She knew the most common type, in stories, breathed fire, but there were others that could exhale poison, some that could cause storms, and others that could bring the cold of winter as was never felt in the Dar Desert. Their scales were like gemstones, light as feathers and harder than diamond. Kethill kept a blue scale mounted on the wall behind their dining room table and Wylan felt herself drawn to the scale whenever she passed by it. Sometimes, when she looked at the scale, she felt heat sweep over her body, heard screaming, and felt a sense of panic. She couldn’t be sure if the sensations were real or if it was her mind playing tricks on her. She knew it was a scale from the night she’d been abandoned, but the sensations felt too real to be just flights of fancy.

  “Load up whatever you find,” Cuthburt said, drawing Wylan back to the present. Cuthburt was no longer the strong, healthy man whom she’d grown up knowing. Years hadn’t been kind to him. His skin was dark and leathery, his once thick hair nearly gone, his body thin and wraith-like. Kethill wasn’t much better, though her thick hair refused to fall out.

  “Gotcha.” Wylan headed off in the opposite direction from Cuthburt, her foraging bag slung over her shoulder. Many times they’d gone home empty-handed, but this time Wylan wouldn’t let that happen. Kethill was sick and she needed more than what they had at home. Maybe she could find her mother something nice in the rubble like a gem, or a necklace.

  There wasn’t much left of the buildings. Most of them had been burned down to rubble that had blown away in the wind. Still, Wylan felt strange trudging through the destruction when she could tell what she was walking through was a house. The foundations were gone, but some of the houses still had semblance of rooms—a table tipped on its side, remnants of a straw bed where it hadn’t been burned away, a dresser. Most of the houses, however, had been reduced to ash in the heat of the dragon’s fire.

  Wylan didn’t like thinking about what she was searching through. It wasn’t just ash and sand…these had been lives—people. She let her mind drift to stories she’d read and reports she’d studied. Part of her day was made up of Kethill teaching her to read and making her study ancient legends about dragons and how the world had been when dragons ruled. They had ruled. In times before the dragons returned to the lowlands, it was easy for people to think those old reports were nothing more than legends. Now they knew they weren’t legends, they were so much more.

  Dragons were willful. Dragons were intelligent even if they acted like mindless lizards that needed to be put down like any pest. But she’d seen them dance, heard them sing with an intelligence that rivaled humans. Their songs and dances recalled to Wylan stories of ancient heroes. Where these dragons singing and dancing in a kind of communication to one another?

  She shook her head. The evidence of their pestilence was all around Wylan. Large claw marks on the wall beside her. She placed her hand to the deep furrows in the wall that still stood. Each rivet was easily as wide as her hand. She’d never seen a dragon up close, but she could only imagine the strength they must have possessed in a simple strike. It would have been enough to tear her in two.

  She turned to leave when the toe of her boot caught something in the sand. She crouched down and brushed the sand away. A length of braided leather came into sight. She pulled it from the sand to gaze at the necklace. Slipped around the leather thong was a green gem in the shape of a dragon claw. It was long and could easily have been the claw of a young dragon, but Wylan knew their claws were black. This was a replica. It was perfect for Kethill. She loved the beauty of dragons even if she knew they were ruthless murderers.

  Wylan slipped the necklace into her pocket and stood. She tried not to think about who the necklace had belonged to. Had she pulled it from the ashes of the woman who’d once worn it? She shivered and moved on to another house. There was blessed little left of any of the homes and even less loot. Still she wondered as she worked. What would life be without dragons? At one time Cuthburt and Kethill had carved out a nice life for themselves. They lived by a natural spring in the Dar Desert. There was a scattering of inedible plants around their home, and they
were able to plant minimal food. The water was their source of income, trading to other towns for whatever they needed to survive.

  One day I will see a world without dragons, she thought. Even as she thought it, however, Wylan knew that was impossible. She’d never see a land without dragons. But she could fight them. She knew it was possible because the old reports told her so. She could fight them and keep people safe. The imperial city had to have something like that, some sort of guard that kept the city safe. Maybe some kind of magic to drive the wyrms back, even if wizards had gone extinct just years after the dragons vanished. If only she could get Cuthburt and Kethill to agree, she could go and cast her lot in with those warriors that drove the dragons back. Maybe she could even convince them to go with her. Life wasn’t getting any easier, and if this town was any indication, they were running out of supplies they could scavenge.

  Wylan had also been told to bring back any books she found. But those seemed even scarcer than food. By the time she made her way back to the wagon to meet her father, she’d found two. Books seemed a bigger boon this time than food was.

  Cuthburt was waiting for her, sitting on the wagon, their tellik beast basking in the last, dying rays of the sun. Cheffik had seen many more years than Wylan had. She patted his rounded head as she passed, sure to massage the scales between his eyes. He trilled, nuzzling her hand. It always made her laugh.

  She tossed her bag into the back of the sleigh.

  “Very little food today,” Cuthuburt said.

  “Will it be enough?” Wylan stepped into the sleigh and sat down. Cuthburt snapped the reigns and steered Cheffik back the way they’d come.

  “Hard to say.” He sighed. “We will make-do.”

  “Towns are getting farther and farther away,” Wylan said. She knew it was hard to convince Cuthburt of anything that he didn’t want to be convinced of. She had to make her arguments to him before any kind of suggestion. And she had to make it seem less like she was arguing and more like she was planting seeds, making small talk.

  Cuthburt nodded.

  “And they’re getting older, the long desert is reclaiming…everything.”

  “What are you getting at?” Cuthburt asked.

  Damn, didn’t work.

  “I assume this is going somewhere?” Cuthburt looked to his daughter.

  Wylan sighed. “It’s hard out here, and you aren’t getting any younger—”

  “Thanks…”

  “I’m just saying that we could benefit from something more stable. Darubai, for instance.”

  Cuthburt snorted.

  “Hear me out,” Wylan argued.

  “This should be good,” he muttered, waving her on.

  “What if dragons return?” Wylan said. “I mean, we are the only place for miles that has any livestock, or anything living for that matter.”

  “Exactly. What makes you think that they would return for a tiny farm and old, grizzly meat like me?”

  “But is that a chance you want to take?” Wylan looked at her father.

  “A place as large as Durabai? The plague runs rampant.”

  “It’s been how many years now?” Wylan asked. “Do you still think the plague is an issue?”

  He didn’t say anything and it was hard for Wylan to be certain if Cuthburt was still listening to her at all or if he was considering her argument. Whatever the case, he didn’t speak the next couple hours while they rode.

  That night at camp was the first he’d spoken all day.

  “You know, it’s not like those legends you read,” Cuthburt told her.

  Wylan stirred from her jerky. “What isn’t?”

  “Fighting dragons. I don’t know of any town that’s survived a dragon attack. I haven’t heard of any people that have survived either.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” Wylan argued. “The reports mother has me read talk about slaying dragons, feasting on their meat for weeks and months later. There were hunters, and there was food.”

  “You will likely die,” Cuthburt said.

  “Die in a city, surrounded by people, food, help? Or die out here, hungry and alone. I think there’s more safety in numbers.”

  “And you’re sure about fighting dragons?” he asked.

  She looked back toward the ruined town. Though she couldn’t see it now, she could still remember the destroyed lives she’d picked through to further their suffering just a little longer. “Yes. But more importantly is making sure mom and you have a better life. Easier access to food you don’t have to fight for.”

  “That’s assuming the imperial city still stands and hasn’t turned into some ragtag group of cutthroats.”

  “Always looking on the bright side of things,” Wylan jeered.

  “All right,” Cuthburt said, gnawing on his ration of dried meat.

  Wylan looked at him across the small fire made of reeds. Cheffik dozed beside her, his snores huffing out in little trills. “All right?”

  “I will talk to Kethill. You’re right, we could benefit from the protection. Anything has to be easier than what we are doing now.”

  Wylan nearly flew across the fire and hugged Cuthburt tight. He yipped in surprise and then laughed, hugging her back.

  “Get some sleep now, it’s going to be a long ride home.”

  But it was nearly impossible for her to sleep. All she could think about was the guard the city must have, and how she’d enter. She had no training with any formal weapons. Would they accept her? They had to be desperate for people. She could learn to use a sword. She was a fast learner and she would dedicate herself to it like nothing she’d done before.

  Fighting dragons!

  It took them several days to get home. There had been little to find along the way, so unloading was quick. Wylan unharnessed Cheffik and took the mount around to the back of the small home where he burrowed down into the sand of his pen for a long sleep. Wylan watched the lizard with a smile on her face. In the distance, she heard the cry of a dragon and she turned to watch the shadow of the beast rise high in the air silhouetted by the Northern Mountains.

  One day, she promised herself. One day soon she would be in a place where she could fight them and help to make the long desert safe for humans once more.

  “Wylan,” Cuthburt called from the front of the house. She turned from her pondering of the dragon and trudged through the sand. It felt good to be home. She loved the adventure of being out among the dunes and seeing all the sights she only got to see in the pages of a book, but nothing could beat the familiarity of home.

  She wondered what she would feel in a couple months when she left home and ventured to Darubai. What would her home there be like? She was sure she’d be sad to leave their home, but all she could feel now was an exhilarating excitement in her stomach.

  Cuthburt stood at the top of the stairs the door propped open.

  “Your mother’s worse, burning up. She’s laying down and asked if you could get the beans ready for dinner while I butcher a librak.”

  “Is she okay?” Wylan asked.

  Cuthburt didn’t answer. His eyes were haunted, and he didn’t look directly at her. Worry gripped her stomach.

  “She will be.” He held the door open for Wylan and she jogged up the stairs and into the house. The sun was setting and the house was dark. Wylan could just make out the shadowy lump of Kethill on the couch at the back of the house. She didn’t like seeing her mother sick, so she went about her routine of washing up after the long ride and dressed in an airy rose-colored gown to help her cool down.

  Wylan busied herself with lighting lamps around the small kitchen, placing them on the table with a kettle and their jar of beans. The jar was despairingly light. They hadn’t found any more beans.

  She tried not to look at the lump on the couch. Seeing her parents sick only reminded her of how much they’d aged in the last few years. There was nothing Wylan could do for Kethill except make dinner and maybe help her mother overcome the fever.
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  And hope that Kethill wasn’t sick with the same thing she’d had.

  But all she could think about was how Kethill told her she had barely made it out of the fever. Wylan was young…Kethill wasn’t. The sickness would be worse on her mother. If she was young and barely made it, how could Kethill fight it off? She tried to remember that Kethill had survived nearly sixty years in the desert. This fever was nothing compared to what she’d faced in all her years.

  She pulled her attention away from thoughts of her mother and to the jug of beans before her. Wylan only measured out a small portion of its contents but it was still a quarter of what was left. She sifted through them to pick out any stones, humming as she worked.

  Wylan’s mind was elsewhere, on places and times that she hadn’t been part of outside the pages of a book. She tried to imagine the night the dragons came back. Her parents hadn’t hidden anything from her of that night, but they didn’t know much of the attack on Dulasan save what they’d heard coming from the small town. They told her she could go back there any time she wanted, but Wylan didn’t want to. All she got from thoughts of the place was a sense of being unwanted and unloved. No, her life was here, whatever had been in Dulasan could remain buried in the past.

  A shadow fell across the table, and Wylan looked up, wondering if a storm was blowing in. Funny, there hadn’t been a trace of clouds in the sky. The sun was low on the western horizon and she couldn’t see anything that would have caused the shadow. She bent low and looked out the window, but she still didn’t see anything that might have caused the shadow.

  Kethill moaned from the couch and Wylan glanced at her mother. Was it just her imagination, or was Kethill’s skin darker? She fought the urge to go look.

  The house shuddered and sand sifted down around her from the rafters. She frowned as the beans grew dirty.

  Kethill cried out again. Wylan forgot the beans and went to her mother’s side. There was a great heat coming from her skin and Wylan hesitated to touch her. As she reached down to her mother, Kethill gave a great moan and the couch began to smolder. Moments later it burst into flames with a roaring chorus of snaps and pops.