Sky Riders: The Rising Sun

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The normally quiet village was bustling with activity and excited, nervous chatter. Women rushed back and forth between their homes and the village square, bringing supplies to the small group of men who were gathered there, saddling their horses and checking their weapons.

Eliana stood on the outskirts of the group of men and horses, strapping a sword to her waist that was much too large for her slight frame. Otium stood beside her, nervously wringing her weathered hands.

“I do not think this is wise, Eliana,” the old woman murmured.

The girl smiled calmly and put a hand on her guardian’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Otium. I’ll be fine. Our hunters are strong enough to bring the dragon down.”

“It’s not the dragon that I’m worried about,” Otium responded quietly, casting a wary glance at the men in the village square. “I do not trust those men alone with you.”

Eliana looked towards the men as well. Caedis caught her eye and curled his upper lip in disgust before looking away. She scowled at the back of his head before looking back at the old woman.

“This is my chance, Otium,” she said firmly. “If I can prove myself useful in this hunt… maybe they will accept me, despite…”

The old woman put her hands on Eliana’s shoulders and looked up into her amethyst eyes. “You should not be accepted despite anything, my dear girl. You deserve to be accepted because of who you are, not despite it.”

The girl gave a weak smile and embraced the woman tightly, trying to transmit her love for her through the contact. “Thank you, Otium,” she whispered. “Thank you for everything. You have been my only friend here since my father died. I don’t think I would have survived without your kindness.”

Otium sighed and returned the embrace firmly. “Someday, my dear. Someday, they will all see you for who you are, and not for what your mother was.”

“Eliana!” a voice called out sharply.

She released the old woman from her embrace and turned towards the men. They had mounted their horses and were all looking in her direction. It was Teleas that had called to her. He sat astride a prancing gray gelding, a crossbow slung across his back.

“Let’s go!” he snapped. “The beast is nearly an hour ahead of us now.”

Eliana gave a quick nod and turned briefly back towards Otium, forcing a smile. “I’ll be home soon,” she said.

“Be careful, Eliana. Not all beasts have claws and fangs.”

She nodded again and quickly hugged the woman.

“Hurry up!” another hunter shouted.

Eliana turned and ran towards the six mounted hunters, pulling herself up onto the back of one of their horses. She sat behind the saddle and wrapped her arms around the man’s waist. She felt him cringe under her touch and tried to ignore it.

This hunt will change everything, she thought to herself. And she was determined to make it true.

Teleas turned towards the hunting party. “Alright, men! Let’s find the dragon!”

The hunters whooped and clapped their heels to their horses’ sides. The villagers parted, and the horses bolted out of the village square, plunging into the woods in the direction the dragon had gone nearly an hour before.

They were riding blindly, simply heading in the vague general direction of their prey. They were relying on her to somehow find the invisible trail in the sky and lead them to the dragon. Her eyes searched the sky with determination. If their party managed to find and slay the dragon, they would return as heroes, and she was determined to be a part of the legend that would be born from their tale.

As the party rode onwards, she pushed her mind outwards, touching the essence of everything around her. She had done this many times in Vegrandis, feeling the presence of the people and animals in the village, but she had never done so in search of a particular creature. She felt the minds of the men and horses like warm glows of light in a dark room, along with a few pinpricks of light as birds and squirrels darted away from them.

Eliana’s mind reached outwards and upwards, scanning as far into the sky as she could manage. She pushed her thoughts as far as they would go, until her head began to throb from the focused effort. Then she felt a bright but distant presence several miles ahead of them, still heading in a westward direction. “Stay on course!” she called to the riders. “Head west, towards the cliffs.”

“Are you certain?” Teleas shouted back.

She nodded sharply, and he returned the gesture.

“That means it’s probably headed to its nest,” another rider interjected from behind them. “The lore says that dragons always nest in cliff faces.”

Teleas seemed to mull this over as he guided his horse expertly between the trees. “Keep it within your senses, Eliana,” he said. “We’ll see where it goes. If it heads for the cliffs, maybe we can get to its nest.”

She nodded in understanding and they rode on.

~*~

The men’s faces were flushed and glistening with sweat. The horses were breathing heavily, a lather of foam on their chests. Eliana gazed desperately up past the tree tops, pushing her mind as far as it could reach, searching for that great, terrifying presence. But the sky was empty for as far as she could sense.

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “I need a moment.”

The men grumbled in irritation, but they pulled their exhausted horses to a halt. Eliana sat perfectly still on the back of the horse, squinting up at the forest’s canopy, looking carefully for any sign of shadow or movement above them. Her ears strained for the beating of leathery wings. Her mind frantically searched the skies. She needed to find it. She could not fail at this.

“You lost it?” an angry voice demanded.

She stiffened at the familiar, disgusted sound of Caedis’s voice. She looked towards him and scowled, pushing back a lock of raven-black hair that stuck to her sweaty forehead. “It’s not my fault we had to find a place to ford that river,” she snapped back at him. “It got too far ahead of us for me to sense it.”

“That’s the only reason we brought you along, you little mongrel!”

She was about to give a bitter reply when Teleas interrupted. “Caedis,” he said sharply, “I recommend that you remain quiet so Eliana can pick up the trail again.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man muttered under his breath. Then he fell silent.

Their leader looked at the girl. “Climb that tree and see if you can pick up the trail again,” he instructed.

She nodded eagerly. She needed this as much as they did—more than they did. She stood on the horse’s hindquarters and grabbed a branch above her head, pulling herself up into the tree more quickly and easily than any of the men could have done. She leapt nimbly from branch to branch, ascending the giant oak with ease.

She could feel the tree’s life, thrumming beneath her feet as she climbed, and she let it guide her as she placed her feet and hands on its branches. She had never explained to anyone how she climbed trees so easily; they already knew that it had something to do with her mother’s blood in her veins. When she reached the top of the canopy, she peered above the treetops and searched with her mind and her eyes for the great, shadowy shape that she’d lost track of just twenty minutes before.

She could see the edge of the forest several miles ahead of them, in the direction of the western cliffs, but there was no sign of the dragon in that direction. Perhaps it hadn’t been headed for the cliffs after all. She scanned the horizon, turning her head to the north, where tall hills and bluffs rose above the forest canopy. Below her, Eliana could hear the men bickering.

“It’s gone,” one of them said. “We should just head back home.”

“But it could come back at any time!” another argued. “We don’t know where that thing is living. It could come back to our village and kill us at its leisure.”

“Or it might just be gone. It might have just been passing over. There’s a chance that—.”

“Yes, a chance! You might be willing to stake your family’s lives on a chance, but I am not!”

She tried to block out the men’s voices, to ignore the terror that was so clearly driving them on this hunt. She needed to focus all of her senses on finding the dragon. Her eyes scanned the shadows and crevices of the hills and bluffs to the north. She felt it before she saw it.

The strange, unfamiliar presence returned to the edge of her mind, causing a shiver to run along her skin. And then the shadow emerged from around the edge of the bluff, heading westward again. It was trying to evade us, she thought. But how was that possible? Dragons couldn’t reason like that. Could they?

Eliana looked down towards the base of the tree and called, “I’ve found it! I found the dragon!” The men cheered in excitement. “It’s just north of us,” she shouted. “It was hidden behind the bluffs, but it’s headed west again, towards the cliffs!”

She turned her eyes back towards the great shape in the sky, momentarily entranced once again by the strength, size, and wild beauty of the distant creature. The red scales glinted in the evening light like a pool of rubies. She held her breath, captivated by the creature.

“Hurry up and get down here!” Teleas shouted. “We need to get back on the trail!”

Eliana tore her gaze from the dragon’s flight and scrambled down the tree, dropping to the earth and landing between the horses, who snorted in surprise at her sudden appearance.

“Hurry up!” another of the hunters shouted.

She scowled at them. If not for her, they never would have found the dragon’s trail to begin with, much less recovered it after their grueling, hours-long ride. But there was no gratitude, no “Well done, Eliana,” or “Good work.” There was only, “Hurry up.”

Trying to suppress her irritation, she vaulted back up onto the horse she’d been riding, clutching the rider around his waist, and the hunters kicked their exhausted steeds onwards once again. Eliana kept her mind expanded, touching the dragon’s warm presence, keeping track of it.

The more time she spent touching the dragon’s mind, the stranger it seemed to her. It didn’t feel quite like an animal’s mind. She had expected the same dull warmth that she felt when touching the presence of the horses or the cats in the village. But there was something different about this—something almost human.

The hunting party broke through the trees and onto the open plains, giving them their first clear view of the dragon since it had passed over Vegrandis that morning. Eliana felt the hunter in the saddle go tense, and this time it was not from her touch.

A few of the men reached for the bows on their backs, eager to bring down the quarry that had been evading them for most of the day.

“Don’t!” Eliana shouted. The men looked at her with anger and irritation at the fact that she’d dared to give them an order of any kind.

“She’s right,” Teleas said before anyone could respond. “If it’s coming to the cliffs, it’s probably heading for its nest. If we fire at it now, it won’t lead us there.”

Ahead of them, the dragon folded its wings and vanished over the edge of the earth. The hunting party continued galloping until they drew near the cliff’s edge, then came to a sharp halt, peering down at the churning ocean below. Eliana spotted the dragon’s tail disappearing into a cave in the cliff’s face.

“There,” she said, pointing towards the cave. She slid down from the horse and squatted near the edge of the cliff, studying the rocky face below her. “It’s not far,” she said. “Maybe twenty feet, and it looks like there are enough handholds that we can climb down without much trouble.”

“We?” Caedis said with a sneer, dismounting his horse. “What makes you think you’re coming?”

She frowned and opened her mouth to respond, but Teleas interrupted her. “Caedis is right,” he said. “You stay here, Eliana. We have no more use for you.”

And that was it. They only wanted her around so long as she was useful to them. Now that they’d found the dragon and its nest, she was easily cast aside. She was disposable. Despite all she had done for them on the hunt, she was still nothing to them.

“But my magic is just as strong as yours!” she cried incredulously. She needed this. She needed the hunt to change everything.

Teleas turned on her sharply, his green eyes burning into hers beneath his shock of orange hair. “We do not need your kind of magic,” he snarled.

“Stay here and mind the horses, half-breed,” Caedis smirked.

With that, the men disappeared over the edge of the cliff one by one, leaving Eliana standing, fuming on the rocky edge. She glared down as she watched the men descend, her fists clenched at her sides. How easy it would be to knock a few rocks down on them… she thought.

She let out a heavy breath and dropped onto the grass in frustration. She wrapped her arms around her legs and glared out over the ocean, watching the setting sun with a seething bitterness. Nothing was going to change. It didn’t matter what she did. The men and the others in the village would continue to hate her—for what she was, and for what she wasn’t.

Behind her, the six horses tore at the grass, their reins hooked over the saddle horns. She touched their minds with her own, sensing their exhaustion and their relief at being able to rest and graze. Absentmindedly, her slender fingers ran along her jaw to her earlobe. She traced the shape of her ear, feeling the slightly pointed tip, which she always kept hidden beneath her raven hair. Not that it truly mattered if she hid them or not—everyone in Vegrandis already knew what she was.

She suddenly felt the horse’s minds become anxious and alert. She looked towards them and saw that they had all lifted their heads, their ears pricked in the direction of the cliff. A roar suddenly shook the cliff and the horses whinnied, tossing their heads into the air, their manes flying around them. They tensed, ready to bolt to the woods. Eliana felt their fear press against her mind, but she forced it down, forcing calm into her own thoughts and pushing those thoughts into the horses’ minds.

With her calm presence in their minds, the horses became still again. “Hush,” she whispered in her thoughts. “It’s alright. Don’t be afraid.”

They snorted and rolled their eyes but stayed where they were. Eliana glanced towards the cliff, then looked back at the horses. “Stay here,” she ordered them silently. She knew they would listen to her silent command. When she spoke to animals in this way, they always obeyed her, though she didn’t know why.

Without looking back, she slipped over the edge of the cliff. She quickly and carefully placed her hands and feet, easily finding holds to guide her down the edge of the cliff. As she descended, s few loose stones tumbled off the cliff face, falling to the ocean far below her.

She looked down to the outcropping in front of the cave mouth, trying to judge the remaining distance. As she did so, flames burst from the cave, as if the doors to hell had been opened within. She could hear the shouts of the men and the roars of the dragon echoing inside. She hesitated, considering turning back. Then she continued climbing down. If anything was going to change, she had to be a part of this hunt.

Finally, she dropped onto the rocky outcropping, trying to stay away from the mouth of the cave, in case another blast of fire should emerge. Cautiously, she peered inside. The red dragon was pressed against the back wall. The six hunters stood between Eliana and the dragon, their backs towards the cave’s opening.

The dragon was trying to snap and swipe at the men with its razor-sharp fangs and claws, but an invisible shield deflected the attacks. The animal let out another blast of flaming breath. The fire parted harmlessly around the hunters, protected by the magic of the two sorcerers, Caedis and Teleas. Eliana pulled quickly back from the cave mouth just as the fire burst past again, stinging her skin. Then she peeked inside again.

The hunters were firing arrows and bolts at the dragon. Most of them bounced harmlessly off of the dragon’s red scales, but others tore through the papery membrane of the dragon’s wings, or stuck into the softer flesh of her neck and chest. The two sorcerers fired small bursts of magic, which collided with the dragon’s hide with soft booms, causing the creature’s great body to shudder in pain.

The men took turns darting in under the dragon’s head, piercing her soft underbelly with their swords. The dragon roared in pain and frustration as they continued to bombard her with weapons and magic, every one of her attacks glancing off of them harmlessly. Blood ran from the holes in her torn wings and dripped down the soft scales of her belly. The beautiful, fierce animal that had glided so effortlessly through the skies was being torn to shreds before Eliana’s eyes.

Over the pained roaring, Eliana heard the men’s laughter. They were playing with her, like a cat tormenting a mouse. A spell from Caedis or Teleas could have killed her quickly, but they dragged it on. They were torturing her for the joy of witnessing her pain, their fear of the creature turning to malice—just as they had tormented Eliana her entire life. Empathy welled up inside of the young girl, and Eliana stepped into the mouth of the cave She yearned to intervene, but she knew that if she did, the hunters could kill her just as easily as they were killing the dragon. She was no more human to them than the animal they tormented.

A blast of magic from Teleas finally brought the trembling dragon to her knees, her great, scaly sides heaving with labored breaths. The hunters took a few steps forward, and the dragon tried to pull herself towards a pile of glittering stones nearby. Not stones, Eliana realized. Eggs. Her eggs.

“Caedis,” Teleas said gruffly. “I give you the honor of the final blow.”

Eliana saw the young man smile as he drew his sword and stepped up to the dragon’s side. The dragon looked up at him and gave a low, guttural moan. Eliana could sense a pleading note in the tone. Somehow, she knew that the dragon was trying to speak to him, pleading with him for the sake of her children. Eliana’s heart wrenched with pain, but she was rooted to the spot, her voice trapped behind the lump of tears that barricaded her throat.

Caedis seemed to hesitate at the dragon’s moan, but only for a moment. Then, he raised his sword and, without a word, drove it downwards, deep into the dragon’s heart.

Eliana dove into a crevice in the cave wall and covered her face, unable to watch the ending of the hunt that she had led. But she heard it. There was a weak roar, a low moan, and then silence. The noise of the men’s cheers covered any sound her suppressed sobs might have made in the cave.

And she felt it. Her chest ached, as if her own heart had been pierced by Caedis’s sword. She pressed her hand firmly against her sternum, trying to repress the ache and regain some of her breath. But the piercing pain would not subside.

“Well done, my boy!” she heard Teleas cry. “Well done! Now, help me deal with these eggs.”

Eliana peered out from her hiding place and watched as the two sorcerers each picked up an egg that was nearly a foot in length. They shone in gem-like shades of green and blue.

“You know the spell?” Teleas asked.

Caedis nodded. According to the stories, magic was the only thing capable of breaking the stone-like shell of a dragon’s egg. The other men stood back, watching the two sorcerers.

With a nod from Teleas, both men cried, “Shyjael maer!”

The eggs shattered, scattering jewel-colored fragments across the cave floor. The small, lifeless bodies of the unborn dragons slipped to the ground with a quiet thud. The men pushed them aside like inconvenient rubbish and picked up another pair of eggs, repeating the spell, killing two more unborn children.

Eliana covered her mouth with her hand, trying to keep herself from crying out, as she watched the slick, scaly bodies fall to the dirty floor. By the time the men had finished their bloody deed, seven tiny bodies lay in the dirt—seven infants that had never had the chance to live, scattered in front of the body of their mother, who had died trying to protect them.

The hunters gathered together as Teleas spoke, unceremoniously kicking the little bodies aside with their boots. “We have done a great thing this day,” he said. Eliana could hear the sense of belief and self-righteousness in Teleas’ voice, and it made her stomach turn. “We have removed not one, but eight monsters from this world! We will return to Vegrandis as heroes!”

The men cheered again, celebrating the murders they’d just committed before following Teleas back to the mouth of the cave, a proud strut in their gaits. Eliana pressed herself into the shadows of the crevice, holding her breath as they passed her hiding place. She stayed where she was, silent and still, listening to the sounds of the men climbing the cliff face. Then, she heard their voices.

“Where’s the half-breed?” Caedis asked sharply. His voice held more irritation than concern.

“Eliana!” Teleas cried. “Eliana!”

The girl remained in her hiding place, silent tears still leaking from beneath her closed eyelids, her head resting against the cave wall behind her.

“Well, I call this a bonus then,” Caedis laughed. “We killed eight dragons and we don’t have to take the mongrel back with us? If we’re lucky, another dragon came ‘round and ate her.”

She heard the men’s loud laughter, followed by the sound of hoof beats as they trotted back towards the village and the celebrations that would undoubtedly be awaiting them there. Eliana stood with her eyes closed, listening to the silence that now filled the cave. The soft crashing of the waves far below was the only sound that remained.

Slowly, she emerged from the crevice, surveying the bloody scene before her. The floor was glittering with a mosaic of eggshells—green, blue, red, and brown, all catching the light of the sunset outside the cave. The bodies of the unborn dragons lay among the shell fragments, their scaly hides still slick with the egg membranes, shining in the same colors as the eggs from which they had been ripped.

Eliana stepped carefully between the little bodies, making her way towards the large, unmoving shape of the mother dragon. She knelt beside the great head, which was longer than Eliana’s entire torso, and placed a hand on the red, scaly cheek. The hide was warmer and smoother than she’d expected.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in the growing darkness, trying to swallow her tears. “I’m so sorry… This is all my fault. I led them here. I should have done something. I should have done something, but I…”

She was suddenly aware of a presence in her mind again. She realized that with a shock that the presence—that strange, powerful presence—had been in her mind all along. She was only just noticing it. Beneath her hand, the dragon’s head moved slightly, and the heavy-lidded eyes opened halfway, peering at her wearily.

Eliana jumped backwards, her heart leaping into her throat. The dragon’s presence in the back of her mind was more than just a presence now. It felt like a living creature, peering into her thoughts. It pressed calm and comfort into her mind, just as she’d done to the horses up on top of the cliff. But beneath the calm, she could somehow feel the dragon’s pain, her weariness, and her knowledge that she would soon die.

Eliana realized then why her chest had burned when Caedis had pierced the dragon’s heart. Her mind had been touching the dragon’s mind all along. They had been connected, and she had felt the dragon’s pain. And now, she was feeling her dwindling life, like a dying fire in the back of her mind.

She met the dragon’s eyes, which were warm and brown and filled with intelligence—intelligence, and pain. Her racing heart slowed, and she knelt beside the dragon once more. A great foreleg moved towards her, and Eliana looked down as the mother dragon lifted her clawed foot, revealing a shining golden egg. She had saved one of her children.

The dragon pushed the egg towards Eliana. “Save him.” The girl jumped at the sound of a voice in her mind. It was a warm, gentle female voice that was tinged with pain. It was the dragon’s voice.

“What?” Eliana asked aloud, afraid to press her thoughts into the powerful, dying mind that now pressed so insistently against her own.

“Save him,” the voice repeated. She could feel the dragon’s desperation and urgency. “He will save us all.”

“How can I…?”

“You must protect him. The fate of our races depends on him. And he depends on you.”

The dragon pushed the egg firmly against Eliana’s knees. Then, like a window shutting out a warm breeze, the presence disappeared from her mind. Eliana felt her breath hitch in her chest as the presence that pressed against her thoughts suddenly vanished. It felt like a piece of her own soul had been ripped away, and she blinked as spots and tears filled her vision. She felt the dragon die, and with it, a part of her felt like it had died as well.

The pain-clouded eyes slid closed and Eliana bowed her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I promise,” she whispered, breathless from the sensation of feeling the dragon die. “I promise I will protect him. No matter what.” She bent down and kissed the scaly red forehead, then turned away.

Carefully, she picked up the nearest baby dragon, cradling the limp body in her arms. From nose to tail, he was no longer than her forearm, and his head fit perfectly into the palm of her hand. His scales were a shining emerald green. Eliana carried him to his mother’s side and rested him on the ground between her forelegs.

One by one, she gathered his brothers and sisters, and laying them around their mother’s body. Then she bent and picked up the golden egg, hugging it tight to her chest. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Jhol thosi,” she whispered.

Instantly, flames began to lap at the scaly bodies in front of her, climbing over wings, claws, and hide. With tears in her eyes, Eliana turned away and stepped out of the cave, cradling the golden egg in her arms. She looked up at the cliff face, then tore a long piece of fabric from her tunic. She wrapped it around the egg, making a strap to slip over her shoulder.

With one last look at the smoke that was beginning to fill the cave, Eliana slung the egg over her shoulder and began the climb back to the top of the cliff. She slipped once, losing nearly a foot of the ground she had covered, but continued onward, the egg swinging from her shoulder. When she reached the clifftop, she looked westward, where the sun was barely visible over the watery horizon, setting on her old life.

Eilana knew she could not return to Vegrandis. The villagers already hated her for being half elf. If she were to return with a dragon’s egg, they would certainly destroy it—and likely kill her as well. She had promised to protect the unborn dragon she carried, and she intended to do just that. She and the egg needed a safe harbor, a new beginning.

The human half of her had not been enough to give Eliana a home among humans. But perhaps the elven half of her would allow her to find a home among her mother’s people. Eliana turned eastwards and began walking, cradling the egg to her chest. Perhaps she and the unborn dragon could find a home in Iterum, the elven city.