The Dragon Games

The Notebook

My hand woke before I did, lunging out for something to hold on to, only to scrape a four-fingered trail through the mud. Blinking, I sat up, and my dream returned to me in broken flashes. For as long as I could remember, my dreams began a thousand different ways – the roar of a dragon, the blur of an arrow, the stench of burning flesh – but they only had one end.

Falling through the clouds while streaks of fire and smoke explode across the sky.

A split second before my back hits the ground, I wake. This time, I woke up on a forest floor, the ashes of last night's bonfire scattered around my campsite. I had only meant to rest for a few minutes, but now the afternoon sun was gone, and there was no light out except for the stars and the two amber orbs glowing from between the branches on the opposite end of the forest clearing.

The shadows of the trees hid Toh, leaving only its eyes visible in the darkness, which narrowed like knives when they met mine. Each day I avoided flying, Toh grew more irritable.

"Evening!" I called, pushing off my knees to stand. "I'm heading for the –"

With a flap of its wings, Toh disappeared, sending a gust of wind scattering the branches

"--- city," I said to the trees. Distantly, I wondered if dragons were capable of logical reasoning, and if so, how often Toh weighed the pros and cons of eating me and finding a new rider.

After strapping a few daggers to my person, I began hiking, and in less than an hour, I reached the burrow, where the rickety wooden buildings rattled against each other with every whisper of wind, where the stench of sewer clung to its walkways and people, infused in every breath.

Scaldril's elite like to joke that while you may leave the burrow without the valuables you had walking in, you won't be completely empty-handed – there's always a chance of contracting some rare mutant disease. Which is a terribly offensive joke, in the sense that it's definitely true.

I had not crossed more than a few blocks when I felt a hand reaching for my six coppers – the last coins I had left after a summer spent searching for Sammy. I whipped around, catching its owner's wrist.  The pickpocket, no more than seven or eight years old, jerked his head away, tensing for a blow.

It was rotten luck that out of all the people in all the burrow's crowded streets, he managed to pick the seasoned criminal, but the kid was obviously no stranger to rotten luck. His clothes were ill-fitting and worn to rags, and his hair had not been washed in weeks.

"You know where Carlos' Tavern is?" I said.

He gave a tight nod, his body rigid as a wire.

"I'll give you six coppers for directions." 

His jaw worked up and down. It took him a few tries to work up the courage to speak. "S-seven."

"Seven?" I dropped the boy's wrist, turning my head to face the street ahead. "Tough luck, little man. Seven is for people who know how to lightfoot."

Like everything in the burrow, Carlos' Tavern was seedy and dank, with a sin visible at every turn. I weaved past the tables crowded with drunkards and gamblers, skirted around the propositioners and their eager clientele, and headed down the back stairwell, ignoring three different offers of drink with me, pretty! The bottom of the stars fed into a labyrinth of halls, and I went right on muscle memory.

Just as I rounded the corner, a hand slapped over my eyes and shoved me backward. My back hit the wall, but before I could summon the divine, my attacker tightened his hold on my eyes, sealing me in total darkness.

"Haven't heard the new policy?" His deep voice came from over a foot above my head. His size matches his strength – I tested his hold with a jerk and didn't budge so much as an inch. "Any raider who shows their face in our town gets thrown neck-slit in the gutter."