Chapter 1

A/N

Okay, guys, just to say, I've heard a lot of buzz about people plagiarizing and stealing other people's work. Don't do this to me. Seriously, don't. If you do, well...

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for fame and a publisher, I can tell you I don't have those. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my darling book go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

-Taken

Yes. I will do this. Well, no. That's illegal. But I will make your life a living hell if you do this. I will find a way. Mind games are my specialty, little thief. Anyway:

All works belong to Dryad. No exceptions.

All Rights Reserved: No parts of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any way or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of Dryad or her aliases.

Thanks! Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Soren woke to a powerful explosion of heat and sound. The barracks were on fire; flames rose up around him like walls of heat. In a corner, an enchanted chunk of rock blazed and popped. Soren leaped out of bed, scrambling for his boots. Next to him, Emily, his squad partner, was doing the same. The heat was almost unbearable: the thatch roof was on fire, and the beams holding up the burning material threatened to collapse at any second. In the midst of panic, his numb brain idly wondered "Why do we use highly flammable building material on barracks for warriors who ride dragons?"

The first thing Soren did when he stood up straight, was seize the dragon mark that lay on his bedside table. Running through the smoke, Soren managed to follow Emily out of the inferno that was his home since age fifteen. He stumbled out of the door and turned. For a moment, he considered running back inside for his stuff: his books, his money, his clothes, his letters. Instead, he stood there watching the sparks dance, as ten other young men and women ran out of the other doors, coughing as they came.

Soren glanced down at his palm. In it, he held a dragon mark. A wood pendant, carved with a dragon. He took a deep breath, staring at the red dragon carved into the greenish wood. Every Squad member was issued one upon completion of their training. Out of all his things, letters, pictures, he was glad he'd saved this. If he'd let her mark burn, he could never have forgiven himself. He hung it around his neck, next to his own mark, a black dragon carved into cherry.

He glanced over at Emily. She too was clutching her own mark, holing tightly to it as she turned to look at the flames.

She looked at him and gave a sigh of relief. She began to say something but was interrupted by a bizarre sound, considering the circumstances.

A woman's voice rang out over the whole city of Ekingrill. It bounced and echoed off of the stone walls and hovered above the city. It was impossibly loud, and it seemed as though everyone in the city could surely hear it. It was cold but calculating. The words that pierced the silence were interrupted only by the explosions of fire reaching a combustible material.

"Subjects of Ekingrill and Morropotia: Listen to Our words and do not fight Our total dominion. In the world of Doria, We, Queen Mieru, are known to be the most powerful necromancer there is. So far We hath only fired on thy military buildings with Our sorcery, We hath not used Our necromancy against thee. Be warned! If thou dost attempt to fight back against Us, We will, without mercy, calleth up Our army of those long dead. Thou shalt be pitted against thy ancestors. We are made to rule thee, and if thou dost wish to live in peace with Us, thou shalt submit. Thou werst made to live under the rule of one more powerful than thee. As thy new Empress Eternal, We shall require a sacrifice each month, of a Youngling, a Mature Adult, and an Elder of thy populace! Each first of the Month, they shalt be sacrificed on the altar block of Athis! Children of Morropotia, thou shalt live thy lives uncontested, for We are thy new leader, and We shalt have dominion over all Doria as the Gods call forth! Thou shalt soon be overjoyed to have Us as thy Empress Eternal!"

The words ceased. No one clapped or cheered. Soren heard a several high-pitched screams ring across the city. They hung in the silence that otherwise filled the whole of Ekingrill.

At the sounds of the screams, the dragons all began to growl and yip nervously in their den. A sharp jolt of nervousness hit Soren, coming from his dragon Branden. Next to him, Emily doubled over, feeling a similar hurt.

Their squad partners ran for their dragons, clearly planning to run or fight. Another fireball crashed into the courtyard. Soren turned and saw a small army of figures launching spheres of flame at the city. Fire Giants. Even dragons stood little chance against these creatures. There was nothing they could do here.

He looked at Emily. She nodded. They called in their minds for their dragons. A blur of over-excited yellow shot out of the stable aiming for Emily. It dodged at the last moment and whimpering slightly, hid behind Emily. Grosami stuck her nose under Emily's hand and a small yip of confusion slipped from the dragon. Snuffling slightly, the slender yellow dragon reached up and nosed at Emily's face.

Branden, so unlike Emily's dragon, slunk out quietly, and, with an uneasy rumbling in his chest, came up next to Soren, his tail whipping back and forth, the only visible sign of his anxiety. Soren relaxed slightly in the presence of his large dragon. He rested his hand on Branden's green scaled hide. Branden turned his boxy face towards Soren, nudging at his arm.

Hurry up, he seemed to be saying.

Soren swung up onto the dragon's back, and Branden shifted onto his back feet and ruffled his large wings in anticipation of the oncoming flight. They were just about to take off, when Soren realized he'd forgotten something. He felt a pang of guilt that he could just forget her so easily.

He turned to Emily who sat atop Grosami, and she looked at him, puzzled. "Don't take off," he told her, keeping his voice low. "Stay on the ground and follow me. I need to get something. This way." He flicked the leather reins and tapped Branden's wing with his knee. The dragon slunk forward, cat-like. He folded his wings at his sides, lowering his neck to make his way around the flames.

Clearly disappointed, Branden gave Soren a look, clearly meant to show his disdain for Soren's decision to remain earthbound. As he passed the burning thatch, Branden reached up and took a mouthful of the stuff, chewing it slowly and deliberately. The dragon sneezed out a tongue of flame. He walked through the ceremonial granite arc; the polished monument to Dragon Squads said:

Stat magni draco custos caelos, omnes protegens

{The mighty dragon stands as the keeper of the skies, protecting all}

Now the might of the dragons was under the power of this Mieru lady. Soren knew they had to get out, before they were forced to use their power on the innocent.

Soren looked apprehensively towards the King's Tower. He might've imagined it, but he could swear he saw a woman standing at the balcony.

One thing he knew he didn't imagine, however, was the thing suspended before the castle gates. Branden and Grosami saw it first. The dragons both stopped in their tracks and, ignoring the nudges Soren and Emily gave them, turned towards the gates instead of heading down the stairs. The two dragons raised their heads to sniff the air. Branden trotted towards the object, and Soren sensed confusion in Branden's air. Emily tugged at Grosami's reins, but she continued inexorably towards the thing, her ears flat against her skull. She bared her teeth in a hiss. In that moment, the squad partners became aware of the metallic smell of blood. In the shadows thrown by the uneven firelight, Soren couldn't be sure what it was.

Then a fork of flame roiled out of Branden's nostrils, illuminating the dead figure of a man in royal robes. Middle-aged, balding, a look of betrayed sorrow on his face: His Royal Eminence, His Highness the King of Morropotia, King Ferrill. The most powerful man in the fourteen provinces and the six islands combined. Well, not anymore. Now he was dead, and some loon was in control of the most powerful province and her Dragon Squads.

Soren and Emily looked up at the king. They saluted their dead commander for the last time.

"Your Eminence, Our King," they said. Stiffly bringing their hands down to their sides, they pulled the dragons away from their dead monarch. It pained Soren to leave his body hanging there, but they were cutting it close as it was. They had to get out of the open and fast. They turned away then stopped. Soren hesitated for a moment, then he and Emily glanced at each other. Without speaking, they dismounted and cut the body of the king down. Emily grabbed his feet, and Soren grabbed the monarch around his arms. They struggled to a small guard tower, and forced the door open. They eased the corpse into a chair and sat him upright.

Breathing hard, they quickly went back out and remounted.

He urged Branden along, sending him mental nudges. They headed in a spiral, inward and downward. As they entered Lower Ekingrill, they slowed, keeping their eyes open. It wasn't likely for any of the new woman's men to look for them here, but they had to be wary of other dangers. They had dragons, but sometimes desperate people will do anything to get their hands on a little bit of gold or food, and Lower Ekingrill was definitely home to desperate people.

Besides the danger of thieves and muggers, there were also very dangerous men and women who haunted the underworld. Soren had never met a shadow, but he knew that they were possibly more deadly than the most powerful warrior. He kept his eyes peeled for anything suspicious.

As they entered the more tightly designed architecture, they had to dismount, and lead their dragons through the city streets on foot. The crowded, cluttered streets made it impossible to walk at anything faster than a leisurely stroll, so Soren had plenty of time to take in the horror around him. The military district had been brightly lit by the firelight from the flaming buildings, but the area they entered was dark and foreboding. Mud and spoiled food littered the streets. The gutters by the side of the path were filled with a nasty murky liquid made up of god knows what. As they descended into the city's underbelly, Soren could almost see the houses getting shabbier and shabbier and progressively drawing back from the street.

"I can't believe this is where she lives," he said almost inaudibly.

As he led Branden through the streets, he saw wary eyes shining out from dark crevices, and faces hollowed with hunger and desperation. An old man sat on the ground near the gutter, doing nothing but stare at a cup that would never fill with coins. Each house was closed up tight and seemed to be grimacing, pulling itself inward to bear the time of terror that came with a new dictator. In front of him, rats crawled in the muck of human misery. The streets were filled with filth, but the rotten food was missing, as the most destitute had picked it clean of anything that was at one time edible.

On a street corner, a woman wrapped in rags cradled a baby that was ominously silent, a young boy peered out from behind her legs, dressed similarly. Soren tried to keep himself from seeing all the horrors of the slums of the Ekingrill, the supposed City of Prosperity, but he soon realized that for every story of a successful new life, there were ten other stories of people who'd been ground to a pulp in the city's tough market.

He walked past the apothecary, where unfortunate souls coughed up their life's savings to stop themselves or a loved on from coughing up blood. He kept his eyes on the ground, not making eye contact with any of the suffering. That didn't stop a bold little boy from dashing up to Emily and tugging on her pant-leg. She jerked away from him, then she looked down, and her face softened. She bent down to look him in the face.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her eyes warm, but filled with sadness.

"Please, missus," he begged. As he spoke she could see blackened teeth and a tongue grey from lack of care, "Please, missus! 'elp Baby Joe. 'e can't keep 'is-self from the shivers. The apothecary can't 'elp no more, 'e says, that 'e can't do nothing, and that Joe's gonna die from them shivers. 'e says it's the Death's hand. I gots a penny, earned it meself. Do ya gots anything that can 'elp Baby Joe? 'Cuz Momma says that they dragon folk got magic, I can give ya penny for some magic to 'elp Baby, Please, Missus! We just gots to get some 'elp for Baby Joe, else Sissy goin' die, seeing as 'e's her baby 'n' all, she gonna die of sadness!"

Emily stopped in her tracks. A thousand thoughts flashed through her head, and a million replies vied for her approval. But Emily decided to just go with the truth.

"I'm sorry, honey," she said, "We dragon riders don't have any magic. At least, nothing that could cure your sister's baby. The best thing I can do is tell you to hide from the new Empress. I wish I could help. I really do."

With difficulty, she raised her eyes from the child's pleading face and kept walking.

The boy called after them: "If you ain't magic, then how come the girl down the way got them psychic powers zat make her face go all blank? She read my fortune lotsa times!"

Soren looked back for a moment. "No she hasn't. That's a fake."

At the raised voices an old man plodded forward, eyes closed, shaking an empty tin cup.

"Alms?" he asked. His voice was shaky and wheezing. A droplet of drool dripped out of the corner of his mouth.

Soren pushed past him, carefully watching for number 207. He passed several drunk men laughing raucously outside a seedy tavern, and hordes of hollow-faced children sitting numbly by the side of the road, or scratching through the trash. A little girl with a ragged bow in her hair dug through the gutter, coating her hands with scarlet fever and cholera and god knows what other potentially deadly diseases. On the street corner, a skinny cat pounced on a skinny rat, making its smug eyes go skinny with pleasure.

A pack of five or six teenagers crowded the shadows of the area ahead, conferring amongst themselves about the options available to them. The outcasts of the pack, two kids of about eleven or twelve, watched Soren and Emily pass, their hungry eyes glinting with greed, following them like a hawk does a mouse.

Branden snorted at the gang, a tongue of flame licking out of his mouth to remind them just who they were watching.

A little shack by the side of the road glimmered with the flickering light of a candle. Distant yelling could be heard from within, suddenly amplified when the door burst open, shedding a watery light on the street, sending a little baby toddling out, followed in quick succession by his siblings and their mother.

"And don't come back until you find work, you worthless witch!" slurred a voiced, sharp with anger and heavy with violent intentions. A man with sagging eyes who was obviously inebriated struggled to the door, clutching a gin bottle. He leered at the two dragon riders, then slammed the door shut.

The baby started crying, and one of his many siblings picked him up and bobbed him on her hip. As they passed the group, Grosami, ever curious, stuck her nose out and licked the baby. She obviously regretted that decision, letting loose a hurricane-like sneeze.

Soren was starting to get nervous in this treacherous place, so he kept his eyes peeled for number 207, hoping he wouldn't miss it in the gloom. As it was, it would normally be easy to miss the little shack with peeling numbers on the door, but Soren knew it right away when he saw the woman throw a yelling man out the door.

"And stay out!" she snapped, "We ain't wantin' you 'ere! Bad nuff you come 'ere wit' yer bottle o' spirits, then you go 'n' try to attack our little mystic! There's only so much we'll take afore we throw you out on yer arse, sonny boy! Next thing you know, you'll be sittin' on yer fat butt in the jail, boy! You ain't coming back 'ere no more, 'til yer good 'n' sober, Ya hear? Now get yer arse out o' my prop'ty, and off to cool down yer temper!"

A feeling of cold stole over him as Soren went up to the woman.

"Rebecca Derry?" He asked.

"Yessir, that's me! Best readings in all o' Ekingrill wi' my-! Oh dear lord. That's never Soren Toll, now ain't it? Well, now, yer girl, yer Forrester, she been nice an 'ealthy, now, so don't you go get in a tizzy over that. Ever since you left her wi' me, ya know, she's been real good condition."

"Where's Ruca?" asked Soren, his voice dark with anger. Reacting to his rider's outrage, Branden hissed at the woman. She paled with fear and bobbed over to the door.

"Oh, now she's right along 'ere. You got a new girl, eh, Mister Toll, a nice Dewen gal, eh? She ain't zactly like yer old one, but I s'pose-"

"Shut up your ignorant, bigoted prattling, Ms. Derry, I need to see Ruca. And the dragon."

Emily went over to her, long black hair rippling, almost reflecting her anger. "For an uneducated Roccan, you sure have a lot of opinions. Here's some advice: shut up. Now move out of the way, Rocky."

Soren pushed past the short squat woman, and stepped into the other room. Ruca was sitting at a table, expression blank. Mett, her red dragon, lay beside her. Ruca, only average size, seemed to have diminished in the years since he'd seen her last. She'd become small and frail. Ever since her house had been repossessed, she'd lived with Ms. Derry, but he hadn't known the conditions. After the accident, Derry had shown up at the house as scheduled, accepted the money, and taken her to a "Home for Girls" in Lower Ekingrill.

Soren stepped into the room. The sight of Mett faithfully snuggled up next to Ruca broke his heart. The dragon had its his head in her lap, and looked mournfully at Soren.

He roused Mett with a call, then went over to Ruca. He gently took her by the wrist and led her out of the shack, Mett following closely behind. Once they reached the street, Soren and Emily lifted his blank friend onto Mett's back, Mett shivered with pleasure at being with his rider again. The little dragon was about the size of a pony, so the tight streets would not be a problem. He clucked at Mett, then retraced his steps leading both dragons through the winding streets.

They traveled up out of the stomach of the city, leaving behind the filth and the suffering. As they reached the fresh night air that had been unable to penetrate the fog of death that hung over Lower Ekingrill, Soren released a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.

He relaxed too soon, however. He heard a loud rattling and crackling to his left. Mett nervously danced a few steps back, and Soren turned to see something he had never dreamed he would see. Akin to a description in a fairytale, bony, scabby hands were climbing out of the dirt next to a Chapel. Branden snarled, showing his yellow teeth.

He inched in front of Soren, snarling all the while.

Grosami, however, ever the foolish dragon, trotted closer. Her head was tilted at an odd angle. Emily called her back, but the dragon ignored Emily, and sniffed at the skeleton that was now almost halfway out of the dirt. The skeleton lashed out at Grosami. Alarmed, she jerked back, and her ears went straight up.

She gave an indignant snort and backpedaled, finally heeding Emily's desperate yells. Her eyes wide, Grosami picked up speed until she was galloping right at the group. She skidded to a halt, clawed feet sliding on the stone. Emily swung up on Grosami's back, pulling her flight goggles over her eyes. Soren clucked at Mett, but the dragon wasn't looking at him. Mett's angular yellow eyes were turned towards the Squad graveyard.

"What- is that?" choked out Emily. A massive Dragon skeleton was perched on the roof of the still burning dormitory. A thin layer of leather still covered it's frame, but the creature was mostly translucent, and light from the fire shone through it, creating a terrifying shadowplay of bones that loomed across the city. Emily and Soren watched, terrified, as the monstrosity shifted to its hind legs, preparing for takeoff. It looked old and rusty, unused to its decaying body, but, impossibly, it took off and soared through the air.

"We've got to get out of here..." whispered Soren.

Opting for speed rather than stealth, and praying that the dragon would be out of practice after its long stint of death, Emily and Soren nudged their dragons into a gallop. The dragons matched each other almost step for step, and a rush of wind hit them as the dragons launched themselves into the smoky night air. They flew through the smoke, but then Soren realized that Mett wasn't behind him.

He glanced back. The dragon was rearing up and down nuzzling at Ruca's blank face, but not taking off.

"We have to go back!" he yelled.

Emily glanced back. "Why isn't she following us?"

Rather than reply and admit his guilt, Soren yelled and drove Branden down to the courtyard. He was just about to land when he heard a scream.

He jerked around, and his stomach leapt up to his throat. The skeletal dragon was snarling and snapping at Emily and Grosami. Emily shrieked out a command, and Grosami let out a loud squealing noise, jetting out spurts of weak flame. Emily and Grosami were alive and dodging but not for long.

"Follow!" Soren bellowed at Mett, and the dragon leaped into the air, keeping behind Soren and Branden. Emily flew over to Soren, joining him, barely avoiding the skeleton's teeth.

Flying in formation, the dragons escaped into cover of the smoke. The skeleton, lacking a tongue, couldn't find them in the foggy screen. Grosami, Branden, and Mett soared through the air, flying at full speed towards the woods. They heard loud, angry roars in the cloud of smoke behind them and urged their mounts to go faster. Soren glanced at Emily. Her eyes were wide with fear and tension. She had nearly died.

As he had that thought, a white blast of light emanated from Ekingrill, accompanied by a loud bang. The dying scream of a dragon rang out. A squad member had fallen. They had to hurry.

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