Rise of the Dragons Read online

  Bet I can! Joss sent, and he was off, running after Lysander as the dragon looped his way in and out of the doorways of the stone circle. After three laps of the circle, Lysander suddenly stopped and sat down. Joss—ever the anxious parent—hurried over to the dragon, afraid he had hurt himself, only to find Lysander fast asleep and the apple, peppered with dragon tooth marks, rolled onto the grass. Joss picked up both dragon and apple and carried them back to the hut.

  Joss had just settled Lysander onto the straw bedding when he heard a noise—someone was outside the hut. He froze, his heart pounding with fear. Madam Zoll! She must have seen Lysander and now she’d come to take him away. Joss tiptoed over to the door and leaned all his weight against it. He would never let her take Lysander from him. Never, never, never.

  Joss felt someone push the door. Digging his heels into the floor, he pushed back with all his strength. No one was going to get inside. No one. And then he heard a voice, soft and puzzled: “Joss? Joss, are you there? Are you okay?”

  Weak with relief, Joss threw the door open. There was Allie, her dark, wispy hair escaping from her plait, her face flushed from her run across the fields, smiling broadly just like she used to when they were still with Mum and Dad.

  “Allie! Oh, it’s so good to see you!” Joss said. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed Allie that day. It felt wrong not to have her sharing such an important event in his life.

  “I wanted see you and Lysander,” she said, still breathless from her run. “They didn’t see me go, but I can’t stay long. How is he?”

  Proudly, Joss showed Allie the sleeping dragon. “He’s grown so much,” Allie said anxiously. “He must be twice the size as he was this morning.”

  “He is,” Joss smiled. “They say Silvers grow fast, don’t they? He’s a real quicksilver.”

  They tiptoed out of the hut and sat on the steps as the sun began to sink toward the hills. “So, have you thought about what we’re going to do with Lysander?” Allie asked anxiously.

  Joss turned to his sister, eyes shining with excitement. “Oh yes, lots. Oh, it’s so exciting.”

  “Joss! I don’t mean the games you’re going to play with him. I mean how are we going to feed him? How are we going to keep him from the Zolls? Think about it, Joss. Please, just think.”

  “I have been thinking,” Joss said, sounding hurt.

  “Good,” Allie replied.

  “I’ve been thinking that Lysander is our freedom! As soon as he’s big enough, we can escape. We can fly away on him and they’ll never be able to catch us. Ever!”

  Allie sighed with exasperation. “But how are we going to keep Lysander secret until he is big enough?”

  “We can do it, I know we can,” Joss said, his eyes bright. “And then as soon as he’s grown you can sneak out one night and we’ll fly away and the horrible Zolls will never ever see us again.”

  “We could go back home,” she said wistfully. Allie thought of their small settlement beside the ocean, the school with a handful of children, the games they had played on the beach, the happy evenings they had spent listening to the grown-ups talking late into the night. But then Allie remembered how, one by one, the families had disappeared. Some trekking into the mountains for safety, some taken by Raptors while out fishing, and others who had never come home from foraging trips. And then the terrible day when it had all ended: their parents taken by a flight of Raptors while she and Joss had lain hidden beneath an upturned boat. “Except there’s no one left to go back to,” she ended sadly.

  “But we can find new places,” Joss said, “and new people to be with.”

  Allie shook her head. “There aren’t that many people left now, Joss. The Raptors have seen to that.”

  But Joss refused to be downcast. “Allie, even if that’s true, we can still get away from here. We can still find somewhere away from the Zolls, safe from the Raptors and—”

  Suddenly Allie gasped and leapt to her feet, pulling him with her. “Inside! Get inside the hut,” she hissed.

  Joss’s fears all came tumbling back. “Why?” he whispered.

  “Raptors!” Allie pointed to the sky, where a dark arrowhead of three Raptors was visible just beyond the hills. There was no doubt about it; they were heading their way.

  In moments they were in the hut and slamming the door. They threw themselves to the floor, Joss covering the sleeping Lysander with his body. With their hearts pounding in their ears, Allie and Joss lay on the rough boards; it was not long before they heard the rhythmic swish-oosh, swish-oosh, swish-oosh of wingbeats growing rapidly louder until they were directly overhead. The hut swayed scarily in the downdraft, and through the gaps in the planks they could see the grass swirling as though caught in a sudden whirlwind.

  Joss and Allie lay still as statues as huge dragon-shaped shadows came drifting across the grass, growing ever larger as the Raptors slowly descended.

  “They’re circling us,” Allie whispered.

  Joss felt sick. “It must be Lysander,” he whispered. “They must have found out about him.”

  No longer daring to speak, they watched the massive dragon shadows lazily circling. Allie found Joss’s hand. She squeezed it tight, and together, hardly daring to breathe, they waited. After what felt like an eternity, Allie noticed that the fearsome shadows were getting smaller, and she realized that the Raptors must be flying higher. “I think they’re going,” she whispered to Joss. He squeezed her hand in reply. Together they watched the shadows grow ever smaller until they disappeared and the grass became still. Gingerly, Allie opened the door and peered out.

  “They’re gone,” she said, feeling weak with relief.

  Together, Joss and Allie looked out at the empty hills. Everything was strangely unchanged apart from the sky, which was rapidly darkening, sending deep shadows across the stone circle.

  “It’s getting dark,” Allie said anxiously. “I’ve got to go. Like, right now.”

  “But suppose the Raptors come back?” Joss replied nervously.

  A harsh shout in the distance made Allie’s hands fly to her mouth in horror. “It’s Madam!” With that Allie was off, running fast.

  Joss hurried after her until he reached the foot of the hill, and then he stopped and stood in the shadows. He glanced up at the sky; there was no sign of Raptors, but Joss knew they were hard to see at twilight. Anxiously he watched his sister’s slight figure race across the open grassland, heading toward the forbidding high walls of Compound Zoll. Striding to meet her, he saw a squat figure in flowing robes—Madam Zoll. With a churning feeling in his stomach, Joss watched Allie reach Madam Zoll and sink into a curtsy; he saw their owner drag Allie to her feet and aim a swipe at her head. He saw them set off together with Allie being dragged along by her collar, and then it became too dark for him to see anymore. With tears in his eyes, Joss turned and angrily kicked a stone, sending it flying into the night. He hated seeing his sister treated this way, and even more he hated that there was nothing he could do about it. As soon as Lysander was big enough, he would take Allie away from this awful place. And if the Zolls tried to stop him, they would have a fight on their hands. The worm was about to turn.

  Joss hurried back through the darkness to the hut, where he wedged the door closed, curled himself around Lysander, and held the dragon tight. “We’re going away soon,” he whispered. “We’ll start a new life and everything will be all right.”

  Lysander gave a small snuffle, and then he stretched and wriggled, trying to get comfortable as a new row of scales began to form.

  In the small hours of the morning, Edward, Decimus, and their two outriders flew home along the steep-sided pass that led through the mountains to Fortress Lennix. Edward had delayed the return as long as possible in the hope that D’Mara might have given up waiting and gone to bed; but as they touched down quietly in the landing yard, Edward’s heart sank—the light was still burning in D’Mara’s lookout.

  Three night attendants ran to greet them. T
hey took the outriders’ orders for their post-raid meal and escorted them back to their chambers. Neither Edward nor Decimus was remotely hungry—Edward because he dreaded reporting his failure to D’Mara and Decimus because his Lock’s discomfort sat deep inside his own stomach like a rock.

  Decimus lowered his head so that he could look Edward in the eye. We did our best, he sent.

  “Best isn’t good enough,” Edward muttered, his eyes on the spiky silhouette of D’Mara staring out the window.

  Decimus hated agreeing with D’Mara, but he felt that Edward had made the wrong call going at dusk. Lennix, he sent, we must search in daylight next time. The dragon paused, wondering whether to continue. There was something he had wanted to tell his Lock, but until now Decimus had been caught between allegiance to his fellow Raptors and loyalty to his Lock, and had been reluctant to speak.

  “What’s up?” Edward asked, sensing his Lock’s dilemma.

  I hear things, Lennix, Decimus sent. Raptors getting restless. Trouble brewing.

  “Trouble?” Edward sounded rattled.

  A rather powerful group of young ones are dissatisfied. They say the flight’s lost its edge.

  “Do they indeed?” Edward muttered, frowning. “And who exactly is in this group?”

  Decimus would not be drawn. Oh … assorted hotheads. They want more excitement. More … blood. And they blame the family. Decimus glanced around to check that no one was listening. The thing with that Silver, Lennix, is—and this is not easy to say, believe me—I think D’Mara could be right.

  “Oh?” Edward raised his left eyebrow in surprise. Decimus rarely had a good word to say about D’Mara.

  This world is ruined now. It’s no good for us anymore. A Silver, if that truly is what we found, would give us access to that other place.

  Edward snorted. “Decimus! You don’t believe that ‘other place’ rubbish too, surely?”

  Decimus did the dragon equivalent of a shrug—a quick head tilt. All the old stories tell of a place. Only yesterday we had an old Green holding forth in the Great Hall, droning on with a dreary long poem about it. Must admit I fell asleep halfway through. Started snoring apparently. But you can’t deny it, Lennix; there might well be something in the legends. And always it’s the Silver that is the link between the worlds. You know the old saying: Every cloud has a silver lining?

  “It’s just a turn of phrase,” Edward said, unwilling to be convinced.

  There is often more truth in these old phrases than we think, his Lock sent. And dragons have longer memories than humans. Just think, a whole new world for us. Fresh and full of humans. You would have the flight eating out of your hand.

  “As long as they’re not actually eating my hand,” Edward quipped—and then wished he hadn’t. A taste for human blood was a heady thing, and even though he trusted his Lock utterly, there was no point in giving Decimus ideas. Decimus eyed his Lock quizzically, and Edward wondered if the dragon had guessed what he had been thinking. “We’ll get that egg. Trust me,” he blustered.

  Decimus nodded. We need a plan, Lennix. I suggest we track the flight’s path all the way back from the Green Valley. I doubt if Ramon has any idea where he let the darned egg drop.

  Edward nodded. “You’re right, as ever,” he said. “I’ll go over the charts first thing in the morning.” He felt a wave of fondness for his Lock. Decimus was the most loyal and dependable creature Edward had ever known. He pressed his beaky nose against Decimus’s soft snout in affection. “Thank you, my friend.”

  Decimus watched his Lock stride purposefully across the landing yard toward the fortified double doors that led to the Lennix quarters and the lighted window at the top of the stairs. The dragon shook his head ruefully—why humans bothered to be married was beyond him. Decimus wandered across the landing yard to the long loggia that led to the Raptor quarters, where he was greeted by a night attendant, eager to do his bidding. Out of the way of D’Mara’s baleful gaze, Decimus’s appetite had returned. “Dir-ra me faruna ne freemin,” he said, the soft sounds of dragonsong seeming incongruous coming from such a scarred warhorse of a beast.

  “Four sheep heads,” the attendant repeated. “Of course, sir. It will be a pleasure.”

  Edward Lennix snatched a few hours’ sleep and was up before dawn, well before D’Mara woke. Silently, he slipped out of the Lennix quarters and headed off into the chill tunnels of granite that burrowed deep into the vast bulk of Fortress Lennix. The dark gray walls glowed dully in the light from candles tucked into countless alcoves. As he hurried through the gloom, Edward pondered Decimus’s words from the night before. His Lock was right: He had known the Raptors were edgy but he had chosen to ignore it. And now, Edward realized, it was as important to him as it was to D’Mara to retrieve the Silver egg. Apart from the fact that his own pride was at stake—it was quite possibly a matter of the very survival of the Lennix family.

  As he strode through the cold and the flickering shadows of the tunnels—and very nearly mowed down the night candle trimmer—Edward began to rage at his own stupidity. He had lost the wretched egg through carelessness due to his annoyance at being dictated to by D’Mara. He had been unprofessional. Determined to be utterly focused from now on, Edward arrived at his office and, after spending five minutes clicking his way through the locks on the door, he hurried to the shelves that lined his room and began pulling out endless long rolls of maps from their pigeonholes.

  Edward worked steadily through the morning, poring over the maps. His office was an old strong room. It possessed only one small barred window that looked out onto the sheer wall of rock that reared up at the back of Fortress Lennix, which suited Edward, who did not like distractions. But the aspect of his office that suited him most was the thickness of its walls and its reinforced steel door, with multiple locks to which D’Mara did not have the keys. So when, late that morning, D’Mara hammered on the door to no avail and then screamed through the peephole—“Edward, come out! I know you’re there!”—Edward never even heard her.

  Decimus too woke before dawn. As the sun rose, he slipped out of his vaulted chamber of red and gold and headed up the wide ramp to the landing yard loggia. He emerged into a damp, cold mist that hung gloomily over the fortress and coated the cobbles with a fine sheen of water. It was the kind of weather that dragons disliked—the damp got into their wing folds and made them sneeze—but even so, at the far end of the yard, Decimus was not surprised to see the hazy shapes of five Raptors, one of whom he recognized as Valkea, a young and highly ambitious Red. Decimus kept a mental list of possible troublemakers and at number one—by a large margin—was Valkea. And with her, Decimus suspected that he was likely to find numbers two to five on his list.

  As one of the most senior Raptors, second only to Bellacrux, Decimus’s presence anywhere was never questioned. However, he did not wish to give Valkea any reason to think he was keeping tabs on her, and so he embarked upon an inspection of the low wall that surrounded the landing yard, wandering slowly along the boundary, knowing that at the far end of it was Valkea. After some minutes seemingly immersed in the state of the stonework, Decimus saw the red barb of a tail just in front of him. He looked up as if surprised. “Stehfa!” he said, apologizing for his intrusion.

  Valkea was pleased to see Decimus. She made a point of cultivating the most senior and influential dragons in the Roost. Valkea was an elegant, fine-boned Raptor and normally stood a head taller than the stockily powerful Decimus. Very subtly, she arched her neck to appear shorter and looked up into Decimus’s dark yellow eyes. “Forsarrwi in hiinke te, somma lae,” she murmured, telling Decimus that it was a pleasure to see him, as always.

  Decimus returned the compliment and then took care to greet Valkea’s companions—two Blues, a Green, and a Yellow, who were indeed numbers two to five on his list. Unlike his Lock, Decimus was a skilled diplomat. Giving the appearance of doing nothing more than enjoying a brief talk with five of his most respected colleagues, he embarked upon fin
ding answers to some pressing questions, which were:

  Were Valkea and her companions angry about the loss of the Silver egg?

  Did they understand the importance of finding a Silver?

  Were they planning trouble?

  “A misty morning,” Decimus said. “Most vexing for you young active ones.”

  Valkea dipped her head politely. “We’ll manage,” she said. “Besides, vexation is something to learn from, do you not agree?”

  “Indeed so,” Decimus said opaquely. “Ah well, a day of rest beside the fire listening to the storyteller is no bad thing,” he added. “Every cloud has a silver lining.”

  “Silver! Huh!” the Green behind Valkea muttered. “No chance of that, by the look of it.”

  “No chance of anything much here …” This came from the shadowy Blue.

  Decimus affected not to hear. It was a useful ploy for an older dragon to appear a little deaf at times. “And the summer will be with us before we know it,” Decimus said jovially. “All seems better when the sun shines.”

  “Indeed it does. And all will be better by the summer,” Valkea murmured.

  “Much better,” agreed the shadowy Blue, as Decimus’s keen eye for movement noted a covert touching of tail tips between the five—a sure sign of conspiracy.

  “Ah well,” Decimus said, looking down at the wall as if fascinated, “at least it’s a good morning for inspecting the stones. The damp shows every fault line.” He had no idea if this was true, but it sounded good.

  “Is that so?” Valkea said, eyeing Decimus speculatively. “Every fault line?”

  Sensing danger, Decimus laughed. “So I’m told. But it all looks just fine to me.” He looked Valkea in the eye with what he hoped was a clear, uncomplicated I-trust-you-completely gaze. “Wishing you young ones a very good morning, and may the mist clear soon.”

  “Wishing you a good morning also,” Valkea returned, and stepped back, taking her tail-touching companions with her, to allow Decimus to continue with his inspection.