Refuge of Dragons (Voices of Dragons Book 2), page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
August 1945
The Faerie Queene
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Author's Note
More from Carrie
About the Author
Copyright Notice
In August 1945, shockwaves from the two atomic bomb explosions in Japan woke the dragons. After lying dormant underground for a millennium, they rose up against humanity. The last time they had fought, human armies possessed only swords, catapults and rudimentary gunpowder. This time, with human aircraft to match the dragons’ flight, the two sides were evenly matched. Eventually, they agreed on a truce. The dragons retreated to territory in the far north, but tensions lingered, and violent conflict once against seemed imminent—until seventeen-year-old Kay Wyatt, in a plan she concocted with a young dragon named Artegal, offered herself as a virgin sacrifice to preserve the peace.
The sacrifice was symbolic. Kay lived, and she and Artegal went on to search for Dracopolis, a fabled hidden refuge where dragons and humankind lived in peace.
Then with his waving wings displayed wide,
Himself up high he lifted from the ground,
And with strong flight did forcibly divide
The yielding air, which nigh too feeble found
Her flitting parts, and element unsound,
To bear so great a weight: he cutting way
With his broad sails, about him soared round:
At last low stooping with unwieldy sway,
Snatched up both horse and man, to bear them quite away.
--The Faerie Queene, Book 1, canto xi, stanza 18
The fourth day after the sacrifice, after a day of crossing the Atlantic, with Artegal flying low enough that a mist of salt water coated his body and Kay’s face, they reached the coast of Greenland and turned to follow it north. The pumping, swooping action of the dragon’s wings felt almost mechanical, and Kay had been clinging to his harness so hard, for so long, that she was numb. But they continued on, and on, until the ground below turned white and frozen. Until finally they saw the unbelievable: another dragon with harness around its chest and a rider on its back.
It might have been a mirage. Kay held her breath; Artegal’s wing beats tilted back, so he hovered.
As the flame-orange dragon circled in the distance, its rider waved, swinging an arm overhead for best visibility. Kay tried to wave back, but she was tired, her arms cramped from holding on so tightly. The sun glared off the ice, making her head ache. It was a wonder she could see anything.
But they’d done it. They’d found Dracopolis.
Artegal’s wings glinted white in the light as they dipped, and he descended. He landed hard, legs giving way, his body slumping to the snow. He was usually so nimble, so graceful. Now, the blue-gray dragon lurched, setting the claw tips of his wings on the rocks and heaving a sigh. He’d flown for almost a week with only a handful of rests and little to eat and drink. Now, they were nearing the end of the journey, and the strength he’d been harboring seemed to disappear. She leaned forward, touching the base of his neck, and called, “Are you okay?”
An affirming growl rattled in his throat. She started to unhook her harness from the clips connected to his ropes, and he tilted an eye toward her. “Wait,” he said in his rough, gentle voice.
Wait. If this didn’t go well, they’d need to get out of here. She blinked back tears. Where would they go? He didn’t have the strength to fly any farther. This had better go well.
The other dragon and rider continued flying in a wide, lazy circle above them, spiraling down to earth. This was what they’d come to find, Kay reminded herself—the secret settlement of dragons and humans living together in peace. Here was proof that the stories were true, and she and Artegal had known what they were doing the whole time. They weren’t the first to build a harness to secure a rider to a dragon’s broad back and go flying together.
Though late in the day, the sun still lingered above the horizon. It seemed to have hovered there all afternoon, and the slanting, hazy light reflecting off the gray sea on one side and a field of ice on the other stung Kay’s eyes. She wished she’d thought to bring sunglasses. A chill breeze cut at her face, but she was so used to the numbing bite of the wind while flying that she hardly noticed.
Above a nearby flat stretch of ground, the strange dragon dipped a colorful wing and plunged downward, bringing its hind legs under at the last minute to alight. The move was fast, graceful. The dragon stretched its wings before folding them back and leaning forward to rest. It kept its head raised, regarding them with a haughty, narrowed gaze. The scaled ridges over its eyes slanted, and its lips seemed to curl.
The dragon was twice as big as Artegal. Its scales flickered red, a flaming spark against the snow-swept landscape around them. Kay felt the muscles in Artegal’s back and neck tense, as if he was thinking of backing up or even launching. She took a stronger grip on the ropes.
The rider was a woman, her hair in a thick blond braid over her shoulder. She wore leather— a fur-lined coat and trousers, heavy boots, woolen gloves and a knitted scarf. Slotted glasses covered her eyes, defense against the snowblinding light. Over it all she wore a leather harness that fit snugly around her shoulders and torso. She pulled back a couple of straps, presumably undoing buckles, and slid off the dragon’s back, down its shoulder, landing on snow.
Calling enthusiastically and smiling, she marched toward Artegal. Kay didn’t understand her.
“What’s she saying?” Kay whispered to Artegal.
“Don’t know. And he hasn’t spoken yet.” He tipped his snout to the other dragon.
The other rider stopped, shaded her eyes and called, “English?”
Kay blinked. “Yes.”
“Where are you from? Where did you come from?” Her accent was strange, full of roundness and drawn-out vowels. Kay had trouble understanding her.
“West,” Kay said, pointing. “Across the Atlantic. The Rockies.” An entire ocean and most of a continent. God, what had she and Artegal been thinking?
The blond woman laughed. “Marvelous! Come down from there, eh? Let me look at you.”
Kay hesitated. “What do you think?” she murmured to Artegal.
“No choice, really,” he murmured back. “They seem calm.” The flame-colored dragon snorted.
Which probably meant they didn’t mean any harm. Kay had become paranoid. But this was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
“Don’t be ‘fraid!” the woman called. “You’re welcome here, very welcome!”
Hands shaking, Kay undid the clips on her harness that held her in place, and with much less skill and grace than the other rider, she skittered off Artegal’s back onto the icy ground. She stayed close to him, keeping her hand on his neck, and let the woman approach. He arced his neck around her, sheltering her. The message: they would have to contend with him if they wanted to hurt her.
Under the bulky clothes, the woman was stout, her face and ears rosy and chapped, her expression bright. She stopped close enough to talk, but far enough away that Artegal couldn’t reach her with his teeth. A polite distance, Kay though, recalling her own first meeting with the dragon.
“Welcome!” she said. “We’ve not had fresh news in ages. Ages! You’ll have to tell everything, how you came here, who you are—but later. When did you last eat?” She said this to Artegal.
Artegal huffed through his nostrils. “Days ago. Fish on the crossing.”
“That’s no good. We’ll feed you both, quickly then. I’m Inge. And you—”
“Kay,” she said, her voice hoarse; cautious. “This is Artegal.” She gestured up at the dragon, not yet ready to come out of the shelter of his wings. Artegal nodded at the woman.
Inge pursed her lips, considering, maybe a little bemused. She gestured to the reddish dragon. “He’s Rood, a little standoffish but no mind. Come with us. Come to Dracopolis, the others will wish to meet you.”
“Where is it?” Kay asked.
“Not far. We fly a bit, then walk a bit. Come on!” She trotted back to her dragon, the flame-colored Rood, who dipped his wing for her as she grabbed hold of his harness and pulled herself onto his back. The movement was so smooth, so perfect, they must have been doing this their whole lives.
“Are you okay?” Kay asked Artegal. Against the landscape of rock and ice, the color of his scales seemed to fade, more silvery and gleaming than blue. A dragon of ice.
“Yes,” he said. “Just a little more.”
More slowly and carefully than Inge had, she climbed on Artegal’s back. She was always careful, worried about stepping on a sensitive spot on his back or near his wings. Such care must have been second nature to Inge.
Inge and Rood launched, a burst of movement and a swoop of wings, powering straight up in a flurry of disturbed snow glittering around them. Artegal followed, muscles bunching, wings stretching, as if trying to match the impressive move, but he was simply too tired. He lurched, his wings scooping at the air several times before his body lifted. Kay lay flat on his back, still as she could to not throw him off balance. She looked forward, along his neck and past his head to see the other dragon flying, dipping and soaring, circling back to let Artegal keep up with him.
They left the coast and turned inland to fields of rock and ice, patches of ground where a thin, scrubby layer of vegetation kept hold. There was also steam, signs of hydrothermals. Soon, Rood descended. Kay propped herself up, leaning on Artegal’s back, looking for where Inge and Rood might be going, but saw nothing. More rocks, more ice. The dragon landed on a clear stretch of ground, and Artegal followed, sighing as he folded back his wings.
Kay unhooked her harness and slid off. Inge was already on the ground, waving them over. “This way! It’s not far.”
The dragons were surprisingly agile on the ground. Their huge bodies should have been bulky, ponderous, but they balanced on their claw tips, and their tails stretched out behind them like rudders, counterweights for their necks and heads. They stepped lightly, sinuously.
Kay had to scramble to keep up, staying out of Artegal’s way while also trying to keep close to her friend. Ahead, Inge’s long, practiced strides seemed to easily match her dragon companion’s. Like the flying, she’d probably been doing this all her life. Kay was a little envious, and a lot tired. She did the best she could.
She tripped on a rock, recovered, and grumbled at herself for being clumsy.
“Are you well?” Artegal asked, looking at her sidelong with a big onyx eye.
“Yeah. Just tired,” she said.
“Yes.”
Inge and Rood marched them up a gentle slope topped with craggy outcroppings of dark rock. Kay only spotted a break in the ridge when they rounded the top of the hill, and Inge leaned on a boulder. A path opened up, leading over the ridge and down, wide enough for a dragon to travel.
“Here we are!” she said.
Rood went down first, slipping over the ridge and vanishing. Kay marveled that a being that large could vanish. Inge gestured Kay and Artegal over next. Kay went first, bracing against the rocks and checking her footing. She didn’t trust her exhausted muscles. She stepped aside to give Artegal room to follow her.
The overhang protected a caldera filled with rubble, the result of old rockslides spilling into a cleft in the earth. Steam trailed up from some of the cracks, fissures leading to some geothermal source. Flying directly over the area, you’d only see rocks and ice. Here on the ground, the dark mouth of a cave was visible, a rough, broken opening and a path leading into it. Rood went into the darkness.
Kay and Artegal stared a moment. She wondered what they were getting into.
Inge approached. This close, Kay saw that she was shorter than she expected.
“Welcome,” she said. “You ready?”
Urged on by Inge, Kay and Artegal picked their way along the rubble field to the mouth of the cave.
Warm, wet air pressed out, and Kay caught her breath. The last couple of days, she’d only felt the cold bite of the freezing arctic. The darkness surrounded them quickly—little sun got past the hill and outcropping. She listened hard for the sound of Rood’s clawed feet scraping on the ground ahead, past her own noisy stumbling.
The tunnel they moved through seemed large to her. She couldn’t sense where the ceiling was, and she couldn’t touch the walls with her outstretched hands. But it must have seemed close to the dragons. Artegal would hit his head if he sat up, and Rood moved in a crouch.
Soon, a light ahead glowed, and the cave opened into an unbelievable valley.
Pools of water dotted a green meadow, scooped like a bowl and spreading far before her, farther than she could see. Livestock—goats and sheep—grazed in pastures, people worked in gardens, and smoke rose from chimneys in several dozen stone huts clustered along one side of the bowl. The valley, its meadows, pools, pastures, all its signs of people and habitation, continued forward, around a bend and beyond.
The jagged cavern walls, cut with ledges, pillars, and protrusions that looked like like teeth or stairs, stretched up to a ceiling dotted with holes, through which faint rays of sunlight poured, creating an ethereal twilight. Dragons perched there like carvings, dozens of them, lining the volcanic walls. Small as cars, large as houses, the colors of gems and forests. All watching with dark, glittering eyes. One launched, spread its wings, and glided to land in an open pasture near a pond that was filled by a running stream. Birdsong rose from a grove of trees.
Kay leaned on Artegal’s shoulder, staring. Artegal grumbled low in his throat, “It is like home. Except for the people.”
Apart from being underground, this might have been any pastoral village, like something out of an old painting. There must have been hot springs and thermal vents keeping the air warm. She wanted to take off her coat, lie in the grass, and sleep.
They were safe. They’d done it—they’d found Dracopolis. It was all true. She wiped her eyes, which had started to water. Artegal let out a sigh.
“I can’t guess what this must look like through your eyes,” Inge said. “Been quite a time since we had newcomers. Before my time, for certain.”
Rood took off from the end of the tunnel and flew toward the largest of the buildings in a cluster half way down the valley. This one was two stories, whitewashed, and had a bell tower. It might have been a church.
Inge unwrapped her scarf and pulled off her gloves and eye shades. “Rood’s gone to get the Elders. We’ll wait here, let them take a look at you.”
Kay felt her mind fuzzing out—this was too much to take in. It was all so strange and unbelievable. What was going to happen next? She had no clue. She couldn’t even imagine.
She turned to Artegal and started unsnapping the clips and untying the knots that held his harness in place. He’d been wearing it for a week, and it had rubbed some of his scales across his chest and under his wings dull. She could focus on the mundane task, coiling the ropes while Artegal stretched, shook out his wings and scratched at the spots where the harness had rubbed.
By the time she’d finished arranging the harness, a committee of sorts had arrived. Two people: a man and a woman, both of them older, their hair graying. They were smiling and seemed just as enthusiastic as Inge had on seeing them. Their clothing was rough, archaic—loose woven, natural colored shirts and trousers tied with sashes of red, blue, purple, woven jackets, and leather boots.
They seemed so happy to see her and Artegal.
“Welcome!” the woman said. She wore her long graying hair in a braid.
“We have not welcomed a newcomer in so long—how did you find us?” the man said. “Wait—do not talk yet. We will wait for Laris. He will want to hear this.”
“Laris?” Artegal said, his neck rising up, his head alert despite his exhaustion.
“You know him?” the man said.
“My Mentor.”
“Ahh!” the man said in wonder.
Kay put her hand on Artegal’s chest. He had wanted this so badly. His Mentor had left the Rockies a generation ago.
They didn’t wait long. Rood returned, soaring across the cavern and giving some idea of just how large the space was, that a dragon like him could fly across it. Another dragon was with him, even larger, so black he turned iridescent at the edges, purples and greens rippling in the light. Artegal shivered, rearranging his wings.
Rood came to rest on a nearby ledge. The stone hadn’t just been carved, she realized—they’d been worn down by the gripping claws of house-sized dragons using them as perches for centuries.
A large, flat pillar, like the base of a statue, stood at the entrance of the tunnel. The great black dragon came to land here, giving him the perfect vantage to look down at the newcomers like some kind of judge. When he spread his wings, they encompassed her and Artegal. He was a shadow. Kay put her clenched hand on her companion’s shoulder.
Artegal let out a sigh. Even under his scales, she felt him relax. He bowed his head before the great dark dragon, whose voice rumbled—a rattle, a growl. Artegal responded in kind. A dragon conversation, hushed. Vibrations of it prickled across her skin.
Artegal turned to her then. “Laris,” he said. “My Mentor.”
The hulking dragon bowed his head to her. “Welcome, Kay, to Dracopolis.”
