Gatekeepers Book 1: Darkness

When Draycos came to, he immediately flinched from the pain coursing throughout his entire body. He could tell that his injuries had been healed to some extent, but not completely like during his training with Zero and Damrabe. Draycos could feel the bandages wrapped around most of his torso. Groaning, he opened his eyes.

He was lying in a bed placed in an extremely large room, about the size of an indoor soccer stadium with a vaulted ceiling, filled with beds of various sizes. Ornate steel framed windows stretching from near the ground to almost all the way to the ceiling were placed in the stone block walls at regular intervals, and the late afternoon sunlight streamed through them. A large French door made of almost black brown wood took up almost the entirety of a wall at one end of the rectangular room.

Draycos heard parchment crinkling and looked up behind him to the right to see Vertex leaning against the wall behind the head of his bed, holding a rather thick leather-bound book in one hand. The book was large enough for Draycos to use as a table.

“Vertex?” Draycos called out weakly.

Vertex looked down at the sound of his name and saw Draycos looking at him. A pleased expression quickly flicked across Vertex’s face before it disappeared, and he closed the book with a snap.

“Glad to see you’re finally awake,” he remarked as he squatted down next to Draycos’s bed. “You feeling alright?”

Draycos attempted to sit up but fell back on the bed in pain; his entire chest felt like it burned the moment he tried.

“Hell no, I’m hurting all over,” Draycos groaned, gritting his teeth to deal with the pain. “I would’ve thought my injuries would already be healed by the time I woke up. Where’s Damrabe?”

Vertex sighed. “He’s been busy the last two days helping the king deal with the repercussions caused by the actions of one of the Killwing branch family heads,” he responded. “I’m sure you’re smart enough to understand that the endurance assessment test you underwent wasn’t meant to be that way. That branch family head had tweaked the spells used to conjure that mock dragon that injured you so that it was much more powerful than it should have been.”

“Two days?” Draycos echoed. “I’ve been out for two days?”

“That’s right, and honestly, the head doctor here said it would probably be about a week before you regained consciousness,” Vertex told him. “All your ribs were smashed, and three of them punctured your lungs. Your left shoulder was dislocated, and the arm was destroyed, and your stomach, spleen, and intestines were all badly damaged.” Vertex shook his head. “It’s a miracle that you’re even alive right now. Any other human should’ve died from blood loss. You were in intensive care for over a full day as the doctors and fairies worked on you.”

“By the way, where are we?” Draycos asked as he kept looking around.

“You’re in the infirmity located at Dragonspire Castle, which is obviously the Dragon King’s castle,” Vertex informed him. “Theravor had you brought here immediately upon your collapse at the end of your exam. Many of the dragons were in an uproar about that, but he wasn’t going to listen to anyone complain about it. Theravor said that he and the Dragon Council would take responsibility for this since it was a member of the council that caused the whole incident.”

“The exam!” Draycos suddenly cried, surprising Vertex. He bolted up and instantly clutched his chest before coughing up some blood.

“Idiot,” Vertex commented as he shook his head. “The head doctor and his assistants can’t compare to Damrabe and his healing abilities; you’re still injured. Any more movements like that will reopen all those injuries.”

“Th-the exam,” Draycos managed to get out between gasps of pain, wiping the blood off his mouth. “It’s been two days now, right? Do we have the results?”

Vertex said nothing and pointed to a spot next to Draycos. Sitting on top of a small nightstand next to his bed was a rolled-up scroll tied up and held together by a red thread.

“You woke up at a convenient time,” Vertex said. “A messenger just delivered that scroll a few hours ago. It’s from Poseidon, and it contains the results of the assessment exam. Go on; open it.”

Draycos grabbed the scroll and pulled the red thread off. Unfurling the scroll, Draycos saw that a large table had been drawn on the sheet of parchment, filled in with words and numbers in Dragonscript. From the left to the right, the columns contained a prisoner name, it’s race, attack, defense, speed, magic, and endurance, followed by the last column containing the prisoners total score. The scores started at the highest and worked their way down, so Draycos started scanning the chart from the bottom, since he knew he wasn’t near the top. His eyes stopped moving after moving up the list by about a dozen names.

Name: Draycos

Race: Human/Unknown

Attack: 2

Defense: 1

Speed: 3

Magic: 0

Endurance: 5

Total: 11

Draycos continued to stare at his stats for a while in silence. Vertex craned his neck and looked at the scroll from above. He snorted to hide his happy expression as he spotted Draycos’s name on the list. Draycos’s grip tightened on the scroll.

“I...passed?” he said in a daze. “I.. really passed the exam?”

“It certainly looks like it,” Vertex grunted as he leaned his head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. “Not only that, but you even beat the bare minimum score required to partake in the games. Not bad, Draycos; I think you exceeded everyone’s expectations once again.”

The doors on the far wall suddenly opened with a loud bang. Startled, Draycos and Vertex looked over to see a large crowd of dragons file into the room. At the front was Theravor and the black dragon that assaulted Draycos in Poseidon’s office, Vinzgar. To Draycos’s shock, Vinzgar was dragging another dragon behind him, bound in multiple layers of chains. The bound dragon was nearly identical to Vinzgar, except it was somewhat smaller and its underbelly scales and wing skin were a dark grey, and yellow irises glared out of its eye sockets. A large cloth had been crammed in its jaws, gagging it. Zero and about eight or nine other dragons that Draycos didn’t recognize filed in after the restrained dragon. Damrabe, Poseidon, and Reothad ended the procession.

Draycos and Vertex continued to watch in stunned silence as the group made its way over to their location. With a grunt, Vinzgar pulled on the chains binding the dragon and swung him over his head, slamming him on the floor before Draycos’s bed with a loud boom. The entire room trembled violently, and the glass in the windows rattled noisily.

“Wow, everyone has some impressive timing going on today,” Vertex commented. “Theravor, Draycos just came to a few minutes ago. He’s managed to pass the assessment exam.

Theravor gave Draycos a quick smile. “I’m glad to hear that. That works out well for all of us.”

Draycos glanced away, blushing slightly as he scratched the back of his head. “I’m just happy I was able to follow through and not waste everyone’s time,” he murmured. He gave a short bow from his position on the bed. “Thank you, everyone.”

“I realize we all would like to have this little happy moment right now, but we have far more pressing issues to deal with presently,” Vinzgar growled dangerously, stomping the ground as his tail whipped the floor.

Theravor sighed and closed his eyes. “Yes, you’re right, Vinzgar,” he stated, covering his face with a hand. “In all my years, I would’ve never suspected someone in the council capable of this level of foul play....”

“Foul play?” Draycos parroted. He glanced at the dragon that was squirming on the floor, attempting to break out of his restraints. “You mean...?”

“Yes, Draycos, this dragon here attempted to sabotage your exam,” a female dragon finished what Draycos started. She had lavender scales and moonlight-white underbelly scales, and her wings were long and insect-like, almost like a butterfly’s. They glittered in various shades of green, blue, and red. Her tail was tipped with a fin-shaped membrane like her wings, and she wore various pieces of jewel-studded gold jewelry.

“Hey, hold on a second; I recognize that voice!” Draycos exclaimed.

The dragon smiled sweetly at him. “Yes, I was in charge of the latter half of the assessment exam,” she replied. “My name is Boreta.”

“I bet you also recognized my voice during the first half of the exam, huh?” Zero asked from Boreta’s side.

“Yeah, of course I did. It’s kinda hard to forget the voice of the dragon that’s made multiple sexual advances on me.”

Many of the dragons present chuckled at this as a vein visibly pulsed in Zero’s forehead.

“Hey, hey. Let’s not get mad at the boy for using your joke against you,” Theravor laughed. He quickly grew serious again. “Draycos, can I presume that Vertex informed you about the sabotage of your exam?”

“Yeah, he did mention one of the heads of the Killwing family was involved in that.” He looked down at the dragon on the floor again. “Is this the guy?”

“That’s right,” Vinzgar growled, glaring down at his relative. “We were going to wake you up for this, but since you’re already awake, that saves us some trouble. Now we can beat the information out of this bastard of a Killwing on why he’d pull such a stupid stunt during the exam.” Vinzgar reached down and yanked the gag out of the dragon’s mouth.

“Alright, then,” Vinzgar hissed as the dragon choked and coughed. “Spit it out. Now.”

The dragon continued to cough as it glared at Vinzgar, not responding. In one swift motion, Vinzgar pulled a long black rod seemingly out of midair and pierced through the dragon’s tail with it, pinning it down near the stump. The rod appeared to be made from shadows, exactly like the scimitar Draycos had used during the exam. The dragon shrieked in pain as it twisted and squirmed in pure agony.

“I just destroyed one of your urinal tracks,” Vinzgar growled, holding the dragon’s head in place and leaning over till he was snout to snout with it. “You’re going to have a painful time if you don’t get that looked at right away. Keep quiet and I’ll destroy the other one, making going to the bathroom an absolute hell.”

The dragon broke out into a cold sweat but kept his silence, eyes full of fear.

Theravor sighed and put a hand on Vinzgar’s shoulder. “I’m afraid we won’t get anywhere like this, Vinzgar,” he told his rival. “Let’s fall back to our alternative plan.”

Vinzgar growled but backed off. “Just when we were getting to the good part, too,” Draycos heard him hiss under his breath.

Boreta reached for her neck and placed her long, slim fingers under her necklace. When she pulled them out, a small vial the size of Draycos’s filled with a cloudy white liquid was in her hand. Draycos had no idea what it was, but the dragon’s complexion instantly went pale, and it frantically tried to back away from Boreta.

“What is that stuff?” Draycos asked as Zero and Vinzgar each got on one side of the dragon to keep it in place with one hand. They used their other hands to force its mouth wide open.

“It’s a truth serum,” Theravor responded. Boreta approached the restrained dragon, uncorking the vial. “One drop of that on our victim’s tongue and we’ll get all the information we could ever need out of him.”