Rise of the Dragons Read online

  “The Grand has already left for muster,” Harry replied stonily.

  Shocked at how fast the time had flown, Joss glanced at his watch: 7:53. If he ran now he would just about make it on time. But something told Joss that if he didn’t go into the chamber right now, he would never find the courage again. “Take me up to the lookout,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

  Harry slowly got up and pushed open the small door that led to the stairs to the lookout chamber that doubled as the refuge. “Follow me,” he said.

  And so Joss walked slowly up the cold spiral stairs, with a feeling of dread settling into his stomach. He was, he told himself, going to say good-bye to his sister. Forever.

  The Lennix watches flicked over to 8:00. Up on the landing yard, the Lennix family were minus their newest member.

  Muster was an old tradition in Fortress Lennix, and no Raptor was considered to have made it until they were part of the muster. It consisted of forty-nine of the fiercest, fastest, and most loyal dragons, all of whom had proved their bravery and resolve. As ever, they were lined up in ranks of Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow in order of size—the tallest standing over fifteen feet high to the top of the head and twenty-five feet long to the tip of their tail. No Raptor could be called small, for there was not one who was less than three times the size of Lysander. The only Raptors not in size order were those in the very first rank, which consisted of the elite twelve members of the coveted First Flight. In the center of the first rank stood Valkea, tall and proud, no longer trying to conceal her height difference from Decimus.

  But Decimus was still in charge. He stood facing the Raptors, watching the clouds of steam rising from the dragons’ nostrils with approval; not one was out of time. He had drilled them so well that the Flight even breathed in unison. The morning sun, which had just cleared the mountain peak behind the fortress, shone upon the mass of glistening scales below, glinting with a fierceness that made it seem as though the dragons were made of metal. The crests running down their spines were honed Raptor-fashion into dagger points, and the barbs on their tails, held high in the attention stance, were as sharp as a sword. They are, Decimus, thought, the best they have ever been.

  While Edward joined his Lock to congratulate him, D’Mara cast her gaze around for Joss, who, to her extreme annoyance, was nowhere to be seen. D’Mara frowned. This was not a good start. Today was the first chance she would have to try out the boy and the Silver together. She was planning to send them up to find a portal and take Mirra and Tamra on Trixtan along too. She’d instructed the twins to bring back indisputable proof of the other world. Preferably human proof. A baby would be best, she had told Tamra. “Where is that wretched boy?” D’Mara fumed. “We must have all the family here.”

  “He’s not family,” Kaan muttered under his breath.

  “We’ll get him, Ma,” Mirra offered.

  “Yeah. We’ll teach him to respect the family,” Tamra added gleefully.

  D’Mara looked at her daughters—sometimes their viciousness worried even her. “Thank you, Tamra. However, you will leave the teaching of your new brother to me. But yes, go and get him at once. I suppose he’s sleeping in late, the lazy little tyke.”

  Eagerly, Tamra and Mirra hurried away.

  Annoyed at finding Joss’s room empty, Mirra and Tamra rifled through his desk. “You don’t think he’s run away, do you?” Mirra asked.

  “More likely to have flown away,” Tamra said, throwing open the door to Lysander’s chamber with a bang.

  To their surprise, Lysander lay on the cushions, deeply asleep. The twins gazed at the silver dragon, once again taken aback by how beautiful he was. “He’s so shiny,” Mirra whispered. “I’m glad Kaan didn’t have him. He would have messed him up.”

  “Yeah,” said Tamra gloomily. “But now Kaan’s got Valkea.”

  “And she’ll mess him up.” Mirra smirked.

  Tamra looked at her twin with interest. Most of the time Tamra thought Mirra was a waste of space. But there were times when Mirra actually said something interesting, and this was one of them. “Yeah,” Tamra said thoughtfully. “Maybe she will.”

  They left Lysander sleeping. Back in Joss’s room, the twins turned his bedding upside down and did their best to trash the place while they looked for clues to where he might be. Neither of them wanted to go back to their mother empty-handed. A scrap of paper with Allie written all over it fluttered out from under the pillow and Tamra picked it up. “You know what?” she said. “I think the kid’s gone up to Bellacrux. He probably wants to go and see if there’s anything left of her. And then sob all over it.”

  Mirra giggled. “He’ll be crying over a pile of dragon poop, then.”

  The twins set off up to Level One, laughing.

  Meanwhile Joss was following Harry up the spiral stairs to the lookout. At the top, Harry unlocked a narrow door.

  “You will leave now,” Joss told him.

  “All spectators are to be accompanied,” Harry said stonily.

  “A Lennix is never a spectator,” Joss said, a little shocked at how easily pretending to be a Lennix came to him. “Now get out.”

  Harry did not trouble to disguise his look of contempt. “Very well. Have it your own way.”

  Joss listened to Harry’s footsteps retreating down the stairs until at last they were gone. Then he took a deep breath and walked into the lookout. It was a brick-built circular turret with a small green door on the far side labeled EXIT TO THE CHAMBER OF THE GRAND. Joss pushed open the door and stepped onto the same walkway upon which Allie had so recently crawled in terror. Joss looked up at the magnificent green tiled vault of the roof with its fine gold and red curlicues and then, using all the courage he could muster, he peered over the railings down at the rug-and-cushion-strewn space far below. He was surprised to see a bed of cushions with the tip of a large green egg poking out, but apart from that there was nothing else. He scanned the chamber, trying to take comfort from the fact that there was no blood anywhere; indeed, there was no sign of a struggle at all. The place felt calm and quiet. It felt, Joss thought miserably, as though Allie had never even existed.

  Joss sank to the floor and leaned his head against the railings. “Allie,” he whispered. “Oh, Allie …” The echo took up his question with enthusiasm: Allie oh Allie oh Allie oh Allie … mocking Joss until he could bear it no more. “Allie!” Joss yelled in despair. Allieeeeee!

  Gleefully, the echo took up the refrain: Al … leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee …

  Joss put his hands over his ears—it felt like the whole world was taunting him. And then, very faintly, he heard something. And it sounded like Allie.

  “Joss? Joss, is that you?”

  Joss shook his head and groaned. Now he really was going crazy.

  Allie’s voice cut through the mocking echoes of groans. “Joss! It’s me! Joss, I’m down here. Down here, you dingbat!”

  It was the “dingbat” that did it: Joss knew he would never imagine that. He leapt up, looked down over the rails, and there he saw Allie’s face, wreathed in smiles, miraculously appearing from beside the egg.

  Joss hurtled along the viewing platform, clattered down the ladder, and flew into Allie’s arms. She pulled him down with her into the nest. “Shh,” she whispered before he could say any more. “No one must know I’m here.”

  Surrounded by cushions, squashed against the leathery dragon egg, Joss’s face shone with happiness. “Oh, Allie. Allie. I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “You’re here, you’re alive!”

  “I am,” Allie agreed happily. “I’m alive.”

  “But how?” he asked. “Isn’t Bellacrux dangerous?”

  Allie grinned. “Not to her Lock.”

  Joss’s mouth fell open in amazement. “Lock!”

  “Shh,” hissed Allie. “Yes, we Locked. She’s … she’s just amazing.”

  Joss looked suddenly serious. “Locked! Oh, Allie. Don’t you remember what happened to Ettie?”

  Allie smile left
her. “Of course I do. But it was the Lennixes who killed Ettie, not Bellacrux. They killed her because she Locked with their Grand.”

  Joss was not reassured. “And they’ll do the same to you too,” he said.

  Allie put her finger to her lips. “Which is why no one must know I’m here,” she whispered.

  Joss sank down deeper into the nest of cushion, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’ve gone and Locked with the Lennix Grand.”

  “Neither can I really,” Allie said. “But it feels so right, Joss. And Bellacrux is on our side. She hates the Lennixes too.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Joss whispered. “Can you really trust her?”

  Uneasily, Allie remembered her desolation of the previous night, when Bellacrux had been so cruel to Herlenna. When Bellacrux had returned she had explained why she had had to do it, but even though the memory still unsettled Allie, in her heart she knew Bellacrux was trustworthy. “Yes, I can trust her. Okay, so sometimes Bellacrux has to do horrible things so that the Lennixes don’t get suspicious, but that’s what she has to do to survive, Joss. In fact, that’s what lots of people in this awful place have to do. Look at Harry. Look at some of the guards too. They all do it.”

  Joss was not convinced. “But Bellacrux kills people, Allie.”

  Allie leapt to her Lock’s defense. “Who are you to talk, Joss?” she countered. “Look at you, wearing that nasty Lennix uniform. You’re doing just the same as Bellacrux.”

  Joss scowled. “I’m not a Lennix anymore,” he said.

  “Really?” asked Allie.

  “Yeah. I’m done with that, Allie, after what they did to you. It’s us against them now.” Joss squeezed Allie’s hand. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Allie agreed.

  Outside came the sound of footsteps hurrying across the atrium. Joss leapt up. “I’ve got to go.”

  Allie caught hold of his arm. “You have to trust Bellacrux. She has a plan to get us all out of here. With Lysander,” she whispered. “Can you come back when she’s here? Please?”

  Joss had no idea how he would manage it, but there was no way he would let Allie down ever again. “Okay.” He nodded. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.” He hurried back up the ladder, and when he looked down from the walkway he saw no sign of Allie—just a green egg lying quiet in its nest.

  When he got back to the hide, Joss was shocked to find Harry waiting for him. “Oh!” he gasped. He searched Harry’s face for a sign that Harry had seen him with Allie, but Harry was inscrutable. “Misses Mirra and Tamra are waiting for you in the guardroom,” Harry said. “I believe your attendance is required at the muster.”

  Silently, Joss followed Harry down the steps, gathering his courage to face the Lennix nightmare that surely awaited him.

  “Ah,” said D’Mara, “here’s the boy at last.” She watched Joss being frog-marched across the yard by the twins. He looked very disheveled, and as he got closer, D’Mara could see the beginnings of a bruise on his forehead. She decided to ignore it.

  “We found him in the Grand’s chamber, Ma,” Mirra announced triumphantly.

  “What on earth were you doing in there, Joshua?” D’Mara demanded angrily.

  Joss told himself that it didn’t matter how angry D’Mara was. It didn’t even matter that the twins had slammed his head against the wall and he was still seeing stars; all that mattered was that Allie was alive. “I … I just wanted to see the Grand,” he said lamely.

  D’Mara looked exasperated. “Well, you went to the wrong place. She’s here. Watching the muster, as she always does.” She pointed over to the loggia, where Bellacrux and Krane were watching the proceedings, although for very different reasons. Krane missed being part of the muster and had come to soak up the atmosphere. Bellacrux was, as Allie had observed, keeping her enemies close. “Our Grand is proud of the flights,” D’Mara told Joss. “And so should you be. In the future, Joshua, you will abide by your timetable or there will be trouble. You are a Lennix now, and we Lennixes live according to the rules. Do you understand?”

  Joss squared his shoulders and looked D’Mara in the eye. “I understand.”

  Mirra looked sulky: How come the kid was getting off so easily? He was just some low-down farm kid who had stolen their Silver and their mother was letting him get away with being late for muster. None of them got off so lightly. It wasn’t fair. Tamra eyed Joss angrily. The kid was up to something, she could tell. Why didn’t her mother see it?

  Edward Lennix gave Joss an irritated glance. “So, D’Mara, now that he’s here, can we get on with it?”

  D’Mara nodded curtly.

  As Edward stepped forward to address the muster, Tamra moved over to Joss and got in a quick kick to his ankle. Joss stared straight ahead, determined not to react. “I’m watching you, Sheep-boy,” Tamra whispered. “I know you’re up to something. I’m going to find out what, and when I do I’ll …” But Edward’s booming voice drowned out her threats.

  “Raptor flights, I greet you!” Edward Lennix was answered with a fearsome roar that echoed off the mountains and seemed to shake the very foundations of the fortress.

  “Two nights ago we broke the Green defenses and demolished their nest. The free Greens are finished. But the free Reds, Yellows, and Blues remain. These are, as you know, a little trickier than the Greens. They keep their secrets close and we have yet to find all their eggs. And so now begins the next stage of our campaign—hit and run. Raptors, tonight we shall go in for the kill. We go to the Islands of the Blues where they hold their eggs deep in caves beneath the ocean. From them we shall take a tribute: a living infant that we shall tear to shreds before their eyes, and then we shall leave them in their grief. We shall return again and again and again until the Blues show us the hiding places of their clutches and beg us to take them. And when we have cleaned them out, we shall do the same with the Mountain Reds. And then the Desert Yellows. We shall take every last one of them! Raptors, you are our heroes, you are our hope, you are our future. Raptors, we salute you!”

  Another roar, baying for blood, whirled through the air like a tornado, and Joss had to shove his hands deep into the pockets of his Lennix tunic to stop himself from clamping his hands over his ears. He stared down at the open mouths of the dragons below, glistening red caverns bordered their long, curved yellow incisors, and Joss began to understand the titanic power of the Lennixes.

  The Lennix family gave the clenched-fist salute—Joss forced himself to do the same—and forty-nine valedictory streams of dragonfire shot into the air, the flight gave its ritual foot stamp, and then all was done. The dragons headed toward the arches of the loggia, where their Grand watched quietly. They filed respectfully past Bellacrux, each giving her a quick bow of their head as they headed down into the Roost, where teams of prisoners were already delivering freshly slaughtered sheep and tubs of pure spring water to every chamber. The Raptors would eat now and then sleep all day to prepare for the first of the night hit-and-runs.

  When all the Raptors were gone, Joss watched Bellacrux walk out into the yard, head along the runway, and slowly take off. He still found it hard to believe what Allie had told him—that she had actually Locked with Bellacrux. Joss gazed at Bellacrux as she rose seemingly effortlessly up into the air, her huge wings outstretched, dark against the bright morning sky. She flew a wide, elegant circle and then began to descend into the deep valley below, where the open door to her chamber awaited her. Joss smiled at the extraordinary thought that this terrifying dragon, so revered by Lennixes and Raptors alike, was now Locked with his sister.

  D’Mara’s voice made him start. “Joshua!” Terrified that D’Mara could somehow read his thoughts, Joss pushed Allie from his mind. D’Mara gave him an unusually animated smile. “It’s a great day for flying, Joss. I think it’s time you took Lysander out. He’ll be needing the exercise.”

  “Oh!” Joss sounded surprised. “I thought you said he was too young for me to fly safely?”
r />   “Did I?” D’Mara was momentarily wrong-footed. “Ah, yes. Well, he’s grown a good deal since then. He is strong enough now.” To Joss’s discomfort, D’Mara looped her arm over his shoulders and walked him away from the rest of the family. “You do know, Joshua, your Silver has a special talent?” she asked.

  Unsure what to say, Joss decided to play dumb. A look of puzzlement settled onto his features.

  D’Mara resisted a loud sigh. She really hoped the kid wasn’t as stupid as he sometimes appeared. Speaking very slowly and clearly, she said, “Joshua. Your Silver, your beautiful Lysander, can go through a kind of invisible gateway in the sky and fly into another world.”

  Joss stared at D’Mara in dismay. How did she know that?

  D’Mara resisted a desire to tell the boy to stop looking so pathetically scared. It was very annoying. She patted Joss’s shoulder in what she hoped was a motherly way. “Your Silver’s talent is nothing to worry about, Joshua. Indeed, it is something to be very happy about. And so, Joshua, I thought today you could see if Lysander will take you through one of those amazingly exciting invisible gateways. Your sisters can go with you on Trixtan to keep you company.”

  Joss forced a look of enthusiasm into his eyes. “Oh yes! That would be such fun. I’d love to.” And then, like the sun going behind storm clouds, he changed his expression to desolation. It was a little mechanical but good enough to fool D’Mara. “Oh!” he said miserably. “But my Lock is deep into his dragonsong sleep.”

  With some difficulty, D’Mara resisted the temptation to scream with frustration. Why did she always have to wait so long for her plans to work out? She let her arm fall from Joss’s shoulder, much to his relief. “So soon?” she said, and gave a brittle little laugh. “My, my, these Silvers develop very fast. Well, it can’t be helped. We’ll timetable it for tomorrow.”

  “Oh yes. Wow. Great, really great. I am so looking forward to it,” Joss babbled.

  D’Mara gave Joss a puzzled look. There’s no getting around it, she thought, the kid is weird.