The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle

  ‘What else?’ per Grogan repeated harshly, lashing his tail across Gabrial’s chest to prevent the young dragon from launching too soon.

  Gabrial roiled his wings in frustration. ‘Only one i:mage.’

  Per Grogan nodded. ‘One. Don’t waste it.’ He pulled his tail away and Gabrial launched. ‘Stay low!’ the old dragon bellowed, adding to himself, ‘The less far you have to fall, the easier it will be to stand up tomorrow…’ And then he took to the rock that Gabrial had vacated and bellowed to per Gorst that his charge was in the air.

  Likewise, per Gorst let it be known that G’vard had launched.

  Two dragons, one theatre of air.

  The battle for Grystina had begun.

  2

  Gabrial arrowed downward into the cloud, rolling once before levelling out and streaming with it toward the far mountains. He was following per Grogan’s advice to fly fast below the layers and tease the white dragon with glimpses of him, before disappearing at the point of a strike. On a day as bright as this, blues enjoyed the natural advantage of being able to lose themselves in the sky. It mattered that the angle of the sun was right, but for a brief and sometimes telling moment Gabrial knew he could effectively vanish. And a moment was all it took, at speed, to lash out and rip away a dragon’s scale. The first to deliver an opponent’s scale to Prime Galarhade would be Grystina’s champion.

  But G’vard was a dragon of no mean stealth, and his second, per Gorst, was a clever tactician. Between them, they’d concocted an unusual strategy, which also made use of the cloud. Gabrial’s first inkling of it came when it started to rain. He was confused, and rightly so. There had been no rain in the sky all morning and the cloud was too fine to produce the sort of wash spitting over his wings. Yet the droplets were definitely coming. Suddenly G’vard loomed up behind a semi-transparent wall of water and Gabrial realised what was happening. The white dragon was using bursts of cold flame to condense the cloud and drive the water across Gabrial’s flightpath. As Gabrial splashed into it, four huge claws punched through the torrent. Their sharp tips closed like a deadly flower, grazing the small scales under his jaw. A moment later, his lungs were almost turned to stone as the thwack of G’vard’s enormous tail fell across his breast. No scales worked loose, but the hit sent Gabrial spinning sideways. Every spiracle hissed in complaint. His fire sacs stuttered and temporarily went out. Dazed, he fell in a plummeting spiral. The gasp from the onlooking dragons suggested they feared for the young blue’s life. It would have been a simple matter at this point for G’vard to swoop down and flick a scale off Gabrial’s back or shear away the isoscele at the tip of his tail. (What humiliation that would have been: a sore stump instead of a sharp triangle.) Instead, the white swung round and waited for Gabrial to right himself, prepared to intervene if necessary and save his opponent from a fatal crash. For as per Grogan had rightly said, this was a test of worthiness, not a battle to the death. The Wearle could ill afford to lose any dragons.

  After a drop that measured some thirty wingspans, Gabrial recovered. His fire reignited and his ear stigs rattled out a fierce alarm: if he didn’t lift his head and do something with his wings he was destined to become a permanent feature of the valley floor. He heard roars of relief as he rolled three times and found the strength to enter a glide. It wasn’t enough to prevent him hitting an escarpment and tumbling even further down the valley, gathering snow like a falling seed. Any sensible dragon might have accepted defeat. But Gabrial wasn’t ready for surrender. He was stunned and pained all over his body, but the hurt had merely sharpened his senses. He flipped himself upright, roared for good measure, shook off the snow and looked around for G’vard.

  The white dragon had landed behind him. G’vard had risen to his full height, just over a flame’s length away. His jaws were open, his multiple, hooked incisors glistening and sharp against the smoke-stained pink of his mouth. It was a posture that would have made most dragons cower, and a ripple of fear ran through the blue now. When dragons grappled on the ground, rarely did the smaller beast triumph. Gabrial was strong, of good weight for his age, but G’vard was huge in comparison; the hardened veins in his formidable wings were almost as thick as Gabrial’s front legs. But it was the eyes that Gabrial knew he must avoid. G’vard was fully jewelled and an expert in glamouring, the ability to mesmerise opponents with a stare. Yet it was a subtle glance at the eyes that saved the blue dragon and prolonged the fight. Something wasn’t right with them. The eyes were shaped like jewels, with many angled sides, but they weren’t glittering. That could only mean they weren’t real. Gabrial was looking at an i:mage.

  Of the many gifts dragons possessed, the ability to i:mage was the most prized – simply because the technique was so difficult to master. As early as the wearling stage, young dragons were encouraged to make structures outside their heads of the shapes they created inside them. These ‘floating pictures’, as they were sometimes called, had no substance and dissolved as the dragon’s concentration wavered. Gabrial could still recall many of the ‘blobs’ he’d produced as a wearling. He had struggled in his youth to make anything worthwhile (his mother had called his first creations ‘disturbingly different’), but had steadily improved with his father’s guidance until he could make convincing i:mages that looked so perfect they had to be prodded to determine whether they were real or not. That was exactly what G’vard had done here, used his ability to create a duplicate i:mage of himself, even drawing some snow into the structure to give it depth. Gabrial took a chance and flew straight at it. The fake G’vard exploded in a burst of snow, hiding the blue just long enough to avoid the swing of real claws concealed behind the i:mage. Once again, G’vard was left frustrated and the young contender escaped.

  And now Gabrial had a minor advantage. G’vard had used up his chance to i:mage. If he tried again he would be disqualified and the contest would default to Gabrial. What’s more, Gabrial was in the air again, where he was more at ease. On a straight flight, G’vard would have left him behind in five wingbeats. But in aerial combat, Gabrial was easily more agile, and he proved it several times in the next few clashes. Twice the white dragon closed on him at speed, and twice Gabrial deftly swooped away. At one point, he cleverly folded his wings and darted between the white’s stout legs, almost nicking a scale from his belly. The watching dragons hurred in appreciation. The blue was proving an entertaining adversary. Was it possible he could actually win?

  Gabrial believed he could. But he was also aware that if the aerial exchanges continued for too long he was going to tire. One sloppy wingbeat, one miscalculated roll, and G’vard would have him. And so he moved into his final stage, which was to use his right to i:mage. First, it involved a little deceit. He swung toward G’vard again, apparently attempting to loop around him. This was a dangerous strategy. Halfway through the manoeuvre, G’vard twisted and caught hold of Gabrial’s leg (the unscaled part between the knee and the foot), almost dragging the youngster to him. It was a terrifying moment, echoed in the gasps from the mountain tops. Yet somehow Gabrial wriggled free, banking away toward the only volcanic peak in the range – the open crater of the mount they called Vargos.

  G’vard roared and gave chase. The watchers rumbled, thinking the blue was fleeing. But this was all part of Gabrial’s deceit. He had saved enough energy to put a decent space between himself and the white. And as he flew over Vargos, in his wake he created his i:mage, a huge eruption of volcanic splinters – fire, hot embers, fizzling rock, spits of lava, dense black smoke. It took a huge amount of mental energy. Indeed, as he landed on the far side of the crater and turned to look for his pursuer, he almost toppled into the fearsome caldera his mind had created. The eruption looked incredibly real. It was almost as if the thrill of battle had strengthened his i:mage and shaken the entire mountain awake. Deep in its belly, it was grumbling worse than per Grogan at sleep. Gabrial thought he heard the sound of splitting rock, but ignored it as
he set himself, ready for G’vard. He was hoping the white would come through the i:mage with his eyes closed – as he would if shielding himself from real sparks. Then Gabrial could pounce, steal a scale and win. But G’vard was nowhere to be seen. And the mountain was growling like a thing possessed. Out of it came a dreadful cry – a cry that sent a shiver running right through Gabrial. It was Grystina, calling to say she was in danger. She was birthing in this mountain, Gabrial realised. She was here, in the caves of Vargos.

  In two wingbeats he had crossed the crater to the other side, though it might have been better for him to sink into that hole and never come out. What he saw as his i:mage dispersed struck a chord of terror in all three of his hearts. Dragons were descending from the mountain tops, swooping on an area halfway down Vargos, coming away with great lumps of stone. G’vard was among them. So too, per Gorst. A whole section

  of the slope had collapsed, in a slurry of rocks and churned-up snow.

  With a flap of wings, per Grogan landed beside Gabrial.

  ‘W-what happened?’ Gabrial stuttered, blinking in shock.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ per Grogan hissed, steam emerging through the gaps in his teeth. His eyes held a deeply troubled look.

  Gabrial was shaking. What had he been thinking? Embers. Smoke. A distraction, nothing more. Not this. Not a landslide. That just wasn’t possible.

  ‘The mountain cracked,’ per Grogan said, as if he’d like to pick it up and drop it on Gabrial’s foolish head. ‘Did you i:mage a solid rock fall?’

  ‘No,’ said the startled blue. ‘I…I can’t do that, you know I can’t.’ He looked at the frantic activity below. The whole Wearle, directed by an Elder called Grynt, was trying to free a passage through to Grystina and her precious wearlings. Gabrial shook his head in horror. ‘We have to go and help.’ He put out his wings.

  ‘No,’ said Grogan.

  Gabrial looked into the old dragon’s face. Lines were creasing around Grogan’s eyes. ‘But—?’

  ‘They may turn on you, Gabrial. Godith have mercy, it would be better if you fled.’

  ‘But I didn’t do anything,’ Gabrial repeated. ‘I can’t i:mage physical effects.’

  Per Grogan fanged his lip. ‘That’s not the way the Veng will see it.’

  Gabrial tightened his claws, sending a small stone tumbling down the mountainside. Grogan was right; if the Veng set upon him they would rip him to pieces and ask questions later. But his fate truly rested on the judgment of the Elders. ‘I’m innocent,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to fear. We must aid Grystina. If we fly into the crater we might be able to reach her from the in—’

  ‘No!’ Again, Grogan held him back. ‘Look at me, Gabrial.’ He dug his claws into the young dragon’s chest. ‘She’s already dead. She couldn’t survive a rock fall like that. You wouldn’t get through the melt pools anyway.’

  Dead? The word felt like a stone on Gabrial’s tongue. Dead? He had killed a potential queen? And almost certainly her wearlings too. Wearlings that could have been his to care for. His knees gave way and he sank to his haunches, a sickness as ferocious as any eruption beginning to bubble up deep in his gut. As if his nerves weren’t strained enough, faint cries began to ripple the air. The excavating dragons had found something.

  Gabrial and Grogan looked down together, in time to see G’vard, blackened by dirt, presenting a moving bundle to the prime dragon, Galarhade. It looked like a wearling. It was a wearling. A female. A wearmyss. The whole world fell silent for it. For a moment, the entire planet was still. All that moved were the feet and tail of that baby dragon, reaching out for her absent mother. Galarhade tilted his head very slightly. He grunted something which sounded like a question. G’vard shook his head from side to side. The onlooking dragons all lowered their gaze. A wave of sorrow flowed up the mountain and all but stopped poor Gabrial’s hearts. He knew what that head shake meant.

  Grystina, as per Grogan had suspected, was dead.

  3

  The Elders called the Wearle to gather at Skytouch, where the mountain flattened out at the bottom of the waterfall and the water spread forth like a seeping wound to form a restless lake, always on the verge of freezing – or thawing. The result was a conflict of shuffling ice that flowed over the basin at its farthest edge into any number of smaller cascades, before joining the permanent glacial lane that surged between the mountains in snow-thickened layers to the open sea. On their homeworld of Ki:mera, centuries of flamework had led to the carving of ornate settles at meeting places just like this. Here, the dragons perched wherever they could, mainly clawing to ledges on the lower mountainside. Gabrial sat some ten strides from the water, an uncomfortable figure on an even more uncomfortable seam of boulders, guarded at his rear by two of the Veng who had forcefully escorted him there. On the shoreline in front of him lay the tragic figure of Grystina, stone chips in the traps of her scales, rock dust blighting the pleasing gradations of her mid-green body. Just beyond her, at the near-centre of the lake, on a natural stone pillar that poked through the ice field like a discarded tooth, sat the Elders, Grynt and Givnay, between them the imposing figure of the Prime dragon, Galarhade.

  Galarhade was old. It showed in the furrows around his eyes and in the hairs which grew unflatteringly long from the base of his jaw. These days, his tail rarely stood straight, but lay curled around his creaking legs (to warm the failing joints, some said). His breast, once as bright as the fresh ice around him, was slowly losing colour, the first indication that death’s scale had set forth to shadow his eyes. But these were minor imperfections. Through most of his body, including his wings, he was still a magnificent red – a colour not given to a dragon at birth but a prize earned from a dance with longevity. Green or purple was the base colour of most dragons, who grew into it (from blue) around their ninth turn. They would keep that shade for the rest of their lives – unless they lived to be Galarhade’s age. Then the scales would cease to renew but at the same time gradually convert to red, like a tree observing the onset of winter. Unusually, for one so aged, Galarhade had lost none of the glistening highlights on his eyes or wings, most notably along the run of fine scales which protected the bony edges of the wing. Too many ‘lytes’ (scales which sparkled) were generally considered unappealing, though dragons had argued for and against this feature for centuries. Decorative braids on the face or zig-zagging accents along the neck were the trimmings that determined beauty in females or handsomeness in males. The debate went on. Many believed that Galarhade possessed the perfect mix: enough lytes to make his contours shine, plus the finest example of gradation ever seen, those sweeping tints across the underwings and chest that truly determined a dragon’s ‘look’ and set one dragon apart from another. The tail was also a source of great vanity. Those creatures blessed with an elongated hue that flowed from their neck right through to the isoscele were much admired among their peers. G’vard, for instance, despite being white, and therefore one of the genetic minority that had hatched outside of the standard pattern, possessed an enviable range of near-white tints that almost touched yellow at his isoscele (a colour much desired, but rarely seen). G’vard was tipped to be an Elder someday. But for now, the wisdom and majesty of Prime Galarhade was the voice that prevailed upon the Wearle.

  He summoned G’vard to stand beside the blue. It was the closest they had come since the battle terminated.

  ‘Is there no hope?’ the Prime dragon said. He had spoken softly, but his words rolled across the lake with such stark gravity that even the clattering ice fell silent.

  ‘None,’ said G’vard. ‘Grystina was dead when we found her.’

  ‘That is not what Prime Galarhade meant,’ said Grynt, the fearsome-looking Elder at Galarhade’s right.

  Galarhade raised a single claw, enough to keep Grynt in his place. ‘What of the drake?’ He meant the male wearling. A mother would only ever lay two eggs: one male
, one female.

  G’vard hesitated. His white chest rose. ‘Missing.’

  ‘Missing?’ gasped Gabrial, blowing up a whisk of snow. He looked at G’vard. There was a faint speck of light in the white dragon’s eyes, as distant as a pale Ki:meran moon. He was mourning the loss of Grystina more than anyone.

  ‘Be silent,’ said the Prime, barely raising his voice.

  Gabrial bowed his head. He should not have spoken out of turn, he knew, but he’d done no more than echo the rumblings on the slopes behind him. ‘Missing,’ G’vard had said. That meant there was a chance the drake was alive.

  ‘When we entered the chamber,’ G’vard announced, his words floating off his tongue like a fog, ‘we found the wearmyss shielded by the queen’s tail.’

  A fresh wave of murmurs descended. Strictly by law, Grystina should not have been declared a queen until she emerged from the cave with her young, but no dragon was going to challenge the sentiment.

  ‘Continue,’ said Galarhade, waving for quiet. His ears, like his legs, were no longer at their best.

  G’vard drew breath. ‘The floor of the chamber had partially collapsed. Grystina had been taken into the void. All but the thickest part of her tail was buried by rocks that had fallen onto her. When we pulled her out, we raked away what we could of the rubble. We dug where it was safe to, but the debris was deep and so hard-packed it was difficult to clear. We believe it consumed the drake, because we could not scent him

  or find evidence of his body. One so young could not have survived such a weight of rock. His fire belongs to Godith now.’

  ‘Have you looked for tunnels?’ a sharp voice said.

  Gallen, leader of the Veng, arched his body forward. He was on a ledge not far above Gabrial’s right ear, a worrisome speck on the edge of the blue’s vision. It was a general truth that dragons feared nothing except themselves, but if there was one class they cared not to cross, it was the Veng. Like G’vard, the Veng also differed from the standard colour pattern. They were bright green, almost emerald, not easy on the eye. They were often considered to be physically small, an illusion caused by their lack of gradation and the slender design of their bodies (they were sometimes called sier pents, a derogatory term that meant ‘green fish’). There were no illusions about their power, however. One only had to look at their ferocious horns or count the battle stigs rising from the backs of their heads to know how intimidating they could be, even to a dragon like G’vard.