The Dragon Games

Arrival

I have seen many dragon landings. The Blacktooth arrived in a blur of talons and fire, hundreds of past victims caught between the folds of its teeth. Rauuk arrived like a predator, landing with such precision that the ground didn't flinch under its six-ton weight. 

And the wyvern? 

The wyvern hit the ground stumbling, nearly face-planting over its own talons. After a few steps to correct its balance, the wyvern clobbered past the Windsors with all the grace of a drunk chicken. 

Its size was much smaller than it appeared in the sky — a mere fraction of the blacktooth hydra — and its limbs were poorly proportioned. The wyvern's head was too big for the rest of its body and almost toppled the dragon off balance with each stride.

Roughly a field away, the wyvern jerked to a halt. The Windsor tensed, their breath catching, only for the wyvern to thrust its overlarge head in a patch of wild dandelions. The wyvern ate a dandelion, shook its head at the foul taste, and spit out a gobby mess of petals. 

Then it ate another dandelion and repeated the process. After the third dandelion, you would think the wyvern learned its lesson, but it stubbornly ate a fourth and a fifth and a sixth. I glanced at Elio, my brows raised near my hairline. 

This was the mighty wyvern?

Elio leaned forward, squinting hard, his brows pushed together. Suddenly, his eyes widened. He turned to me. "It's a hatchling!" he whispered. "The wyvern's just as a baby."

The Windsors had not come to the same realization; that was apparent from one look in their direction. They wore the faces of an individual who had been scammed for every copper they were worth, who had thrown away their own chance of bonding with a dragon for the letdown of the century. 

Despite their nasty shock, the Windsors did not waver from code red. Knees down, weapons lowered, silent as the dead. Slowly, Grace rose to her feet. She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin, her eyes blazing with determination.

"It's obvious what is going on," Grace declared. "The wyvern is not only the strongest dragon in the arena; it is also the smartest. It pretends to be simple-minded to lull its prey into a false sense of –"

Loud gagging interrupted Grace's speech. The wyvern's head was cocked toward the sky, its shoulders heaving as it regurgitated the dandelions ... and a small boulder.

"A real political mastermind, eh?" a Windsor murmured.

"It killed the blacktooth," Grace snapped. "It will be mine." 

She strode toward the wyvern, her eyes blazing, her long braid gleaming against the night. She stopped ten feet in front of the wyvern. The wyvern's head was back in the dandelion patch, gnawing away like there was no tomorrow. For a full minute, Grace stared at the wyvern, not moving.

"Why isn't she saying the wyvern's name?" I whispered. "Is she not worthy?"

"Say thy name," Elio murmured, more to himself than me. "Perhaps... perhaps Grace is supposed to say her own name, not the wyvern's."

It seemed Grace was coming to the same conclusion. She stepped forward, refusing to be ignored.

"Mighty wyvern," Grace said. "My name is Grace Midlands, of the great and noble Midlands bloodline, of riches on my father's side and royalty on my mother's."

The wyvern continued to chow down.

Grace's jaw ticked. She raised her voice, nearly shouting. "My name is Grace Midlands!" When the wyvern still did not react, Grace went even louder. "Grace Midlands commands you to give her what she is due!"

The wyvern froze, its shoulders going rigid.

Grace grinned, but her face dimmed as the wyvern slowly rose to its hind legs, towering over her. Its shadow drowned her in darkness, blocking out the crimson moon, and its eyes narrowed to thin slits, sharp and cold as daggers. 

For the first time since the wyvern landed, I felt a cold shock of fear. The wyvern may be a newborn, uncoordinated and immature, but it was still a wyvern, capable of slaying Blacktooth without earning so much as a scratch. 

The only protection we had against it – the clue – was suddenly looking shaky at best.

"So the ritual said it would summon the wyvern," a Windsor said, his voice high and squeaky. "But what did it say about taming it?"

"Do you hear me?" Grace shouted, her voice cracking with fear. "My name is Grace Midlands! Show me what I am due!"

The wyvern whipped its tail, hitting Grace square in the chest. She flung across the feild like a rag doll and smacked against a tree trunk. And when she hit the ground, she stayed down. The Windsors froze, their faces emptying of color. 

Then the wyvern's head jerked right, looking directly at Stonehedge.

"Run!" a Windsor screamed.

I shot to my feet, but a wave of dizziness nearly sent my crashing to my knees. Elio wrapped an arm under my shoulders, letting my use him as a crutch. Together, we ran into the woods. 

You'd think I'd be utterly wasted after maxxing out on the Divine, but my adrenaline was working overdrive. My arms and legs were numb, and I could not feel anything but my heart, which pounded against my rib cage like a war drum. It helped that Elio was carrying most of my weight.

In seconds, we lost sight of the other pledges, the fog too thick to see more than ten feet ahead at once. But even if we could not see the pledges, we could hear their labored breaths. And once the screaming started, it did not stop. Soon it was followed by the woosh of falling trees, splintered wood, and snapping bone.

"Just up this hill," Elio rasped as we ran up the incline. "The wyvern does not have our scent. If we can get out of sight, then—"

Suddenly, the wyvern's tail shot out from the fog. Suddenly, we were airborne, and Elio's hand was ripped from mine. I flailed through the air for a moment, then hit the ground tumbling, falling head over boots the rest of the way down the hill, until I landed in an unfamiliar part of the woods. 

I pushed myself to my feet and was about to shout for Elio, when a low growl echoed through the trees. I jumped behind a tree, just in the nick of time. 

A heart beat later, the wyvern prowled out of the fog.