32. Terrible omens
32
TERRIBLE OMENS
Nothing happened for two weeks.
No problems happened, anyway. Gwydinion disagreed, as his date with Kimat failed to materialize, but his opinion was in the minority. Claw found employment at the Brauge estate, a rubbing of a certain sword was gained shortly thereafter, and Naeron made arrangements with a friendly blacksmith. Kaibren holed up in his room, drafting the inscriptions that would keep everyone from roasting to death. Sicaryon and Anahrod traded off guard duties escorting Gwydinion, who began classes. Jaemeh never made an appearance, but he was likely stuck at the docks playing interrogator.
Then it came time for Gwydinion’s consecration ceremony, which was when everything went wrong.
It was supposed to happen like this: every day, the priests escorted a few candidates, one at a time, to the Great Cathedral, to be blessed by the high priest and dedicated to Eannis. The priests would then kill a wind shrike and use hieromancy to divine various omens about the candidate’s fitness. Sadly, this was an important part of the dragonrider selection process; dragons often lingered near the cathedral for these ceremonies, hoping to spot an auspicious candidate.
The consecration ceremony was also an investiture, the first step in a candidate’s entry into the priesthood should they fail to catch a dragon’s eye.
Anahrod’s augury had been so joyously full of prescience for her success as a dragonrider it had drawn Neveranimas’s attention. Such predictions had certainly not borne edible fruit. Indeed, Anahrod suspected no priest would ever admit to having claimed such a star-blessed future for “Anahrod the Wicked.”
They all agreed Anahrod shouldn’t escort Gwydinion. She would be too much at risk of being spotted by Neveranimas. Far too dangerous.
All Anahrod could do was sit in the apartment, wondering if she could justify cleaning her sword a third time, when an overwhelming emotional barrage hammered at her. Terrible anger and burning fury, coming from a location she couldn’t see, someplace far off in the distance. Someone had distilled a thunderstorm into a bottle, creating a seething, roiling avatar of hate. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
A second later, the rampant bells rang.
She knew what the sound meant. Everyone did. Anyone outside an apartment ran into the service tunnels. Everyone inside an apartment closed every door and window.
Anahrod ran outside.
The dragon’s screaming was easier to hear from outside, even over the jangling alarm bells. Thankfully, the roar was distant—a dragon hadn’t gone rampant right over the school. She couldn’t see…
Anahrod ran to a teacher whose name she’d never caught. She was calmly directing people into a shelter.
“Where’s the attack happening?” Anahrod demanded.
The woman scowled. “Not near here. Just get in the shelter and everything—”
“Do you know where the rampant attack started?” Anahrod resisted the urge to grab the other woman by the shoulders and shake her.
“The Great Cathedral,” the woman answered irritably, “but it’s a rampant dragon. They can fly, you know. It could end up anywhere. You need to get inside.”
The words sank in like knives, stabbing her anytime she tried to breathe. The Great Cathedral—where Gwydinion and Sicaryon had gone.
“Where’s your candidate?” the woman asked.
Anahrod stared at her in dull, numb shock.
“The Great Cathedral,” she whispered.
Anahrod ran back toward the apartment, toward the entrance to the service tunnels.
If any part of Yagra’hai was conveniently designed for humans, it was by accident. Roads existed, but only for delivering cargo and supplies.
For this reason, the default response to a rampant dragon attack was to go to ground. Literally so, in either underground safety shelters or the service tunnels crazing their way beneath the city.
By law and custom, shelters were open to anyone who might need them. In Yagra’hai, as in Seven Crests, rampant shelters were always underground, always built into the mountainside. Normal doors capped the tunnels, which were seldom larger than five feet across. The idea being that if a dragon wanted to dig through a hundred feet of mountain rock to crack open a shelter, no vault door would stop them.
Since “out of sight, out of mind” was typically an effective defense against rampant dragons, this generally worked out. Assuming people reached the shelters in time. Assuming nothing happened to the tunnels.
Anahrod wasn’t using the tunnels for safety, but for speed. Not having to navigate through a maze of fiefs and estates drastically reduced her travel time to the Great Cathedral.
She soon began encountering people running in the other direction. At first, they were just panicked. People who’d heard the first roars and had done the immediate smart thing. Quickly, however, she began fighting her way past survivors, the injured and dying. Which meant she knew the nature of the dragon she was dealing with before she exited the tunnels.
This rampant dragon breathed acid.
Dragons shouted in her mind, a barrage of chatter so constant and loud as to be unintelligible, like trying to pick a single voice from a screaming mob. Just like the humans, the dragons were panicked, upset, angry, and scared.
Anahrod spotted the dragon as she exited the tunnel in the rear of the Great Cathedral’s western wing. The miracle would’ve been overlooking the dragon: it was a bright, vivid yellow edging into an equally bright lime across its back fins and claws. Shiny black stripes ran their entire length on each side, from nostril to tail. Beautiful and sleek and utterly mad.
It opened its mouth, vomiting a stream of yellow liquid at something out of sight. Clouds of toxic vapor billowed up into the sky. The air tasted sharp, stabbing the inside of Anahrod’s nose.
But the dragon wasn’t Anahrod’s primary concern. She scanned the temple floor, searching for human bodies.
The problem—the gut-wrenching, bile-inducing problem—was that what bodies remained might not be identifiable. She forced herself to ignore that possibility.
The cathedral, like many dragon-oriented buildings, had no roof, more akin to a temple complex filled with wide, open courtyards and large pillars for dragons to perch upon. The dragon was destroying the grand entrance presidium, having already finished at the main altar.
And, oh Eannis, how the dragon had destroyed the main altar. The high priest was dead, his head and half his torso melted away. Bodies and body parts were everywhere. The body of a white dragon slumped in the center of the cathedral—possibly someone attached to the Church, because while dragons were never priests, they were often called upon for spiritual guidance. Onlooker or sage, however, the yellow dragon had ripped this one apart, giant raking claw wounds straight down its belly. The disemboweled dragon had left a steaming pile of viscera to add to the already overwhelming collection of smells.
She didn’t see—
She didn’t see anyone wearing the silver dragon embroidery of a candidate’s tabard. No one wearing Sicaryon’s dark brown leathers. No sign of his sword, which would’ve surely survived to some extent, even in an acid bath.
Behind her, the dragon’s roar shook the ground, followed by a stronger quake as the dragon crashed into something. People screamed.
[Modelakast! Modelakast, stop this at once!]
A crack of thunder rolled over the area, followed by a telepathic voice Anahrod recognized. [Don’t bother. She can’t understand you. Save yourself.]
Tiendremos had arrived.
He cast a dark shadow over the cathedral complex as he flew over, and if it wasn’t large enough to cover the entire site, that was only because the cathedral was so large. Storm clouds followed him like gray scuttling scrabbers.
Where would Sicaryon have taken her brother? She knew roughly what their starting position would’ve been—near the altar. If they’d survived—
No, they survived. They had to have survived. Where would they go? Could they be hiding behind a pillar, just as she was?
A massive boom interrupted her study of the main temple area, coinciding with a blinding flash of lightning that shattered a pillar. Her vision whited out, overwhelmed, before returning several seconds later.
Wonderful. Now she had to worry about dodging attacks from Modelakast and Tiendremos.
When she peeked out from behind the pillar, she saw a gargantuan twisting column of yellow and blue. She couldn’t tell who was winning. Tiendremos was a larger dragon; Modelakast seemed faster—and angrier.
They were too intertwined for breath weapons, however, so she ran behind a different set of pillars. She edged closer to the altar in the cathedral’s heart, searching for clues.
Then she noticed an odd detail: although the dead white dragon had been slashed to death, the acid hadn’t damaged it at all. That happened sometimes—dragon lineages were odd, and a dragon born of ice and fire parents might look like one but possess immunity to both. Acid had splashed against the dragon’s spine only to slide off and pool, eating away at the stone underneath. The dragon had died first, perhaps attempting to buy everyone else time to flee to safety.
Maybe Gwydinion and Sicaryon had escaped already. Maybe she’d passed them in the tunnels and hadn’t realized it. She might be putting herself in danger when they were already safe.
Eannis, she wished she could talk to humans the same way she could talk to dragons or animals.
She growled at herself. If she’d been thinking, she would’ve grabbed Naeron and had him use his magic to pinpoint Gwydinion’s location.
She glanced up at the fighting. Rampant dragons were much harder to deal with than their non-rampant counterparts. Modelakast didn’t seem big enough to be an elder, yet she was causing Tiendremos trouble. A rampant dragon was impervious to pain and cared nothing for its own survival. Anahrod felt the rage, a terrible, blistering sun scorching the dragon’s mind from the inside out.
This might be Anahrod’s best and only chance.
She ran for the dead dragon.
The white dragon had died on its side, mouth ajar and tongue rolling. It was average sized, but an average-sized dragon was still monstrously large. The head on its side was taller than her, its teeth as long as her forearm.
She heard muffled coughing.
Anahrod squatted down and peered into the darkness of the dragon’s mouth. “Gwydinion? Sicaryon?”
She swallowed a yelp when a hand grabbed hers and yanked her inside the dead dragon’s mouth. The orifice was as unpleasant as she would’ve expected, but in unexpected ways: wet, yes, but also cold and smelling of blood and ice.
There were worse places to hide. Unless the dragon dumped acid directly on top of the skull, they’d avoid splashes. A dragon’s skull was also the most damage-resistant part of their whole body. They’d be protected even if a dragon fell on them.
But the air was going to kill them if they stayed for much longer.
“Anah.” Sicaryon’s voice was a low whisper. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“None of us are supposed to be here.” She pulled him to her by the back of his neck, kissed him before she’d given any thought to the wisdom of doing so. “Just thank Eannis you did what I would’ve done—where’s Gwydinion?”
“I’m here, I’m here.” Her little brother stood behind Sicaryon. He shuddered in the way people do when they’re trying to cry without making noise. She let go of Sicaryon to hug her brother next, but she wished she had four arms or was a dragon herself—some native creature who didn’t have to let either of them go.
She winced as she felt a dragon scream. Not Modelakast. Not Tiendremos, either. The dragons were trying to put a stop to the rampage. They just hadn’t managed it yet.
“The fighting’s heading in the other direction,” Anahrod said. “We should run for it.”
“I can’t, I can’t—” Gwydinion was crying. “If we stay here—”
“If we stay here, we choke to death.” Anahrod reached around Sicaryon and pulled her brother to his feet. “You can do this. Who didn’t flinch at riding a titan drake or running from angry rock wyrms? Who body-rode underground river rapids for an hour before jumping into the Bay of Bones? Compared to that, this is nothing.”
He could do this. This was just shock and too long spent with nothing to do but think about how close death lurked, all roaring screams and spitting acid.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Sicaryon told him.
Anahrod didn’t give Gwydinion a chance to say no after that. She took his hand and started running. She heard his hitched breath behind her and ached inside. He’d be having nightmares about this for months, maybe years. So many dead. Chances were excellent that he’d been speaking to those people, smiling at them, just seconds before.
They made it to a pillar and hid there, catching their breath. Sicaryon had his hand on her stomach, and if it had been anyone else, she’d have lashed out, intolerant of what she would’ve interpreted as possessive, controlling behavior. She knew him well enough to know that he was just reassuring himself that she was still there, still alive.
“What now?” Sicaryon whispered to her. “Is the tunnel entrance open?”
“Yes, but we’ll have to run—”
Stone pillars buckled and crashed into each other as Tiendremos bowled into the west wing of the complex. Lightning flashed over the nearby stones and arced over the acid pools. The dragon roared and launched himself to the side just in time to dodge an acid stream that hit the ground where Tiendremos had been seconds before.
“Change of plans,” Anahrod said. “There’s another entrance in front of the cathedral.”
“They were fighting up there,” Sicaryon pointed out.
“Then let’s hope it’s not melted.” She pointed in the right direction, kept a tight hold on her brother’s hand, and ran.
They had one advantage: now that other dragons were fighting, the rampant dragon wasn’t hunting humans. Tiendremos was far more noticeable and significant a threat. Unfortunately, the dragons might still kill them by accident, collateral damage in the fight between giants.
Anahrod almost found herself caught under a pillar that had waited until the most inopportune moment to fall, but Sicaryon pulled her back in time. In turn, Anahrod stopped Sicaryon from stumbling into a still-bubbling pool of acid, after he slipped on blood-slick marble floors. Gwydinion, more cautious or just luckier, suffered no near misses at all.
They reached the entrance and found the lintel melted away, along with the first few steps down, but otherwise accessible.
Sicaryon jumped first and held out his arms to catch Gwydinion. He repeated it with Anahrod and then they ran, the tunnels still shuddering around them from the fighting up above.
“What happened?” Anahrod asked Gwydinion as they hurried, now traveling with the proper flow of refugees fleeing the battle.
“I don’t know,” Gwydinion sniffed. “They were about to kill the shrike when a dragon screamed and just started throwing up acid everywhere. And Neveranimas—”
Anahrod stopped in the tunnel, threw Sicaryon a worried look. “Neveranimas was there?”
“She was,” Gwydinion said, “but she vanished when the fighting started.”
“Good survival instincts,” Sicaryon said.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Anahrod asked Gwydinion. She could tell that he’d been crying. “Nothing splashed on you…?”
“No, I just—” Gwydinion made a face. “I’m fine.”
She doubted that.
“Surprising,” Sicaryon commented. “I’m sure as fuck not fine. How often does this happen, Anah?”
She didn’t know what to say. “It’s not… I mean…”
“We run drills.” Gwydinion’s voice was void of all emotion.
“It’s supposed to happen less often with dragonriders,” Anahrod said.
“I don’t think it’s working!” Sicaryon’s sarcasm dripped thicker than the acid upstairs. “I can’t believe you people just shrug and say, ‘Oh well, you know how it is. Sometimes the dragons just go berserk and kill everyone . What can you do?’” Bright outrage sharpened his voice to a keen edge. “How can you just accept this as normal ?”
Anahrod glanced at Gwydinion. “Let’s talk about this later.”
Sicaryon raised his eyebrows. “He just had to hide in a dead dragon’s mouth to stay alive. I think he already knows there’s a problem.”
Gwydinion said nothing.
“I am the last—!” She looked around at the people still streaming around them. Much fewer now. “I am the last person who will defend the dragons about this, Cary, but let’s reach safety first. Then you can yell at me about matters out of my control.”
“Dragon attacks have tripled in the last hundred years,” Gwydinion said numbly. “That’s what Mom says. And that nobody knows why.”
Anahrod felt ill. “Something tells me the priests don’t mention that in church sermons. Come on. Let’s hurry back.”
Gwydinion shook his head. “No, we should help. Survivors—”
“No. We’re not trained for it, and we’ll just make it harder for the people who are. I’m getting you back to safety. We’ll join the other students at school. And then we’ll—” Her voice trailed off.
She didn’t know what they’d do. She just didn’t know.