Dragon Plagued: Chronicles of Dragon Aerie Young Adult Fantasy Fiction (Plague Born Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

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  What Now?

  Copyright © June, 2016 by Travis Simmons

  The Chronicles of Dragon Aerie

  Plague Born Book One:

  Dragon Plagued

  Published by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Cover Art by: Kip Ayers

  Formatting by: Wyrding Ways Press

  Editing by: Wyrding Ways Press

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means—by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either are the product of the authors imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, and people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Get eight original tales of dark fantasy FREE by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/1TZSxun

  Wylan Atwater had to kill the great blue dragon, even if it meant her death.

  The Dar Desert spread out before her in an endless sea of glittering sand, but she didn’t see it. She was used to the sand, what Wylan wasn’t used to was the searing pain that stiffened her muscles. Her recent transformation to something akin to a dragon—red scales, fiery breath, talon tipped feet—was the cause of the agony. What was she? A wyrm for sure, though nowhere near as big as the blue dragon she raced after through the swells and updrafts of wind. She’d never considered that the air would have currents and shifting pressure systems, but here she was, battling her way through it while the glittering sapphire dragon sailed ahead of her with ease.

  She was nowhere near as big as the dragon—less than half its size with her forelegs part of her wings, unlike a true dragon. What was she, that she could shift from human to wyrm. Was she able to shift back?

  Wyvern, she thought. That’s what the dragon had called her moments before he’d robbed her of her old life.

  But it didn’t matter if she could shift back because her parents were dead; her home was gone. Everything she’d ever known, taken from her in an infinite anguish that sped by so fast she still felt dizzy from the violent change. She could still smell her father’s blood, sweet and metallic to her nose as his life spilled out of the dragon’s mouth, soaking into the sand in a scarlet stain. She could still see her mother encased in flames, her skin and hair shriveled and blackened by the heat.

  Wylan had just convinced her father to move to the city, to get away from their farm and the destroyed towns around them. She had plans of joining the dragon guard, she was going to fight to keep them safe…she’d already failed. She’d let her parents die. If only she’d transformed before the blue dragon had killed her father, Cuthburt, he might still be alive. They might be heading across the long desert to the imperial city of Darubai even now.

  She couldn’t think of what could have been—what should have been. She could only think of this—killing the dragon. He’d ruined every bit of her life, ruined so much more than her own life, according to the decimated towns she’d visited with her father to scrape together some measly life. Dragons were the blame for all of the anguish in the long desert, and this one was going to pay for what he’d done.

  She could still see its blue scales shimmering in the sky far ahead of her. She pushed her wings harder. At the height she kept, the winds fought her every inch. Her wings were tired, her heart thrummed near bursting and she feared at any moment it might give out. Her body ached from fighting the wind and urging herself south against the currents and updrafts. Her tail snapped out behind her like a pinion.

  But the memory of her mother’s body engulfed in flames and torching her home wouldn’t let her rest. The memory of that great blue dragon devouring most of her father with a single bite was terrible enough that she didn’t care if her heart exploded from exertion.

  Nothing was ever going to be the same. She had no home, no family left. If she did have family still alive, it was family who had abandoned her when she was a baby. No, her only family had been Kethill and Cuthburt, and now they were gone. Never again would she listen to her mother sing while sifting through dried beans. She’d never go with her father again to a ruined town in hopes that there might be something remaining to supplement their dwindling food storage.

  Sickness welled in her and she thought the contents of her stomach might empty out of her toothy maw all over the ground below. She opened her mouth and tried to vomit, hoping that would ease her stomach. Fire burned along her tongue and a great gout of flame charred the sand beneath her.

  If she could have wept, she would have.

  The blue dragon was faster than her, and despite her better judgement, Wylan rose higher to gain ground.

  At the crest of her flight, a vision filled her mind.

  A woman stood among trees like Wylan had only ever seen in her dreams or in her mindful wanderings through the pages of a book. Her skin was tanned, caramel in color and her hair was like ribbons of a rainbow, wavy and soft as silk. She turned to Wylan, her body thin, her breasts large and soft, as if swollen in motherhood. Her lavender gown drifted in the shifting breeze as though made of the softest gossamer.

  She reached out a delicate hand to Wylan. As Wylan’s mind felt the grip of her hand, the rainbow lady slowly shifted—her body grew smaller, her features softened, and her hair bleached out to a ghostly whisper of what it would grow to be. The rainbow lady was now a baby, cradled in a mossy expanse of flattened stone between the roots of a great oak tree. Her violet eyes searched into the deepest reaches of Wylan’s soul, and the wyvern hummed a tranquil song akin to the baby’s power. The baby spoke into her mind.

  :Come to me, wyvern. Come to me and protect me with your life so I can grow to become what you’ve seen.:

  I need to kill the blue! Was all Wylan could think. She struggled against the pull of the rainbow lady, desperate to keep her pace with the dragon. But there was another presence in her, another mind that she recognized belonged to the other half of her new life—the wyvern. The wyvern mind, the wyvern soul wanted more than anything to obey the rainbow lady. The wyvern soul was ensnared as easily as a moth to flame. It’s only desire to obey the whim of the vision-lady. Wylan struggled against the other mind as surely as she struggled against the breeze.

  :If it’s killing dragons you seek, I will help you.:

  Before Wylan was certain what she was doing, she’d turned south drawn on by the call of the rainbow lady. She could see another path before her, one of eddying, rainbow light that trailed through the air like wisps of clouds. The light infused her mind, putting to ease thou
ghts of her family and the life she left behind. The light spoke to the deeper part of her, the wyvern mind, and that mind rose to the surface. A mind of scales and fiery desires. A mind filled with concern of safety and longevity. It pushed Wylan’s desires aside and took command of their new body.

  Wylan railed against the mind, pushing at it, trying to swallow it down, hide it away deep within her where she could control the wyvern body once more. The mind was resolute and strong, but her need was stronger. Whatever this other presence was, it grudgingly gave ground. Before long, her mind aching and sore from the mental battle, Wylan had the upper hand. She turned her focus back the way the blue dragon had gone and away from the rainbow light. She couldn’t see the dragon any longer, but she knew the direction he had fled.

  She followed.

  For hours she struggled against the other mind inside her and ignored the call of the rainbow lady, who was urging her south. Instead, she’d chased after the blue dragon hoping that she would catch it. What she expected to do against such a powerful beast once she caught it, Wylan had no clue. There was no doubt that she would have died facing a wyrm nearly four times her size as the blue dragon was. At that moment, she hadn’t cared.

  Dying would be preferable to this.

  :We will not die this day!: a voice from the wyvern mind, roared through her skull.

  Exhaustion took Wylan. Power thrummed hard and violent from the other mind, and she felt the transformation coming upon her. She felt the other mind recede, and with it went the wyvern form. The human soul swam up from the darkened depths of the wyvern and claimed her. Red scales retracted, faded to caramel skin and black hair. Her teeth shortened and the wings vanished like smoke, replaced by human arms. All that remained the same were her golden eyes with their elongated pupils. Naked, and with a scream of terror on her lips, Wylan plummeted from the sky. Her body rocketed into a dune and plumes of sand exploded around her.

  She screamed again, feeling bones pop and snap deep within her body. She rolled down the dune, her arm bending in ways it shouldn’t bend. Her throat was sore and blistered from the burst of flame she’d let out when she thought she was going to vomit. She was distantly aware of the chaffing sand in places it had no business being, but the pain of that was miniscule compared to what she was already feeling.

  Wylan came to rest at the base of the dune, her body broken and bruised from the betrayal of wings and scales. She cried out, more in frustration and anger than pain, though there was enough pain to make her sob as well. Bones snapped again, but this time they weren’t breaking, they were righting themselves. A moment of searing pain blinded her and when it passed, there was nothing but the relaxation only terrible pain leaves in its wake. She stared up at the cornflower sky. Heat wavered her vision making the sun dance before her eyes.

  Wylan lay there for several moments hoping a wild tellik might find her and rend her body in two with its powerful jaws, bloodying its muddy green scales with her life. Only the call of the rainbow lady answered her. It urged her to her feet where she shuffled along, alone and afraid. The power ensnared her mind, fighting back her urge to find the blue dragon, and instead to go to the rainbow lady.

  Hours it seemed she trudged through the hot sand. Wylan hoped for the heat to roast her, but it didn’t touch her skin. She didn’t thirst. She didn’t burn. Once more she cursed the beast that lurked within. She could feel it resting in her belly like a coiled snake waiting to strike.

  She wished it would. She wished the wyvern would bust free from her body, scattering her parts over the desert as her father’s legs had been. She collapsed, a cry of anguish tearing from her throat. Tears slid unbidden down her cheeks as she clawed at her chest, willing the pain inside to be free. She wanted nothing more than to sink her fingers deep inside and pull the pain and sorrow out and make it stop.

  She’d considered many times what would happen when her parents passed, but she never thought it would be so soon. She knew it would be hard watching them die, but nothing had prepared Wylan for the torment of losing one she loved as much as Kethill and Cuthburt. She cried until her head hurt and her eyes swelled when there were no more tears to shed. The heartbreak remained, with no way to sooth its sting. Still she sobbed. Her entire life was over. What was left for her now? How was she to go on when there was nothing to go to? Everything had changed in a split second, and there was no way to make it right.

  But she went on. When the tears would no longer spill, and her body quivered with pain, and her sobs had finally abated, Wylan pushed to her feet and trudged on. She was fueled with a single purpose—to see the sapphire dragon dead. To make him pay for what he’d done to her, to kill him as surely as he killed Cuthburt. Even if she couldn’t kill him in her wyvern form, she would find a way to make him pay.

  And the rainbow lady was the key. If she could control Wylan this easily, there was a chance she could do the same to dragons.

  How could I ever have found them lovely? She wondered, remembering a time before the attack when she’d watch dragons dance in the sky, their songs echoing across the dunes like some alien prayer that called to her soul and urged her to fly. How could she have found that so lovely when all that existed on the other side of those dances and songs was terror and hunger for death?

  Eventually the town came into sight and Wylan stopped to stare. In all of her travels with Cuthburt she’d never seen a town so whole. Buildings still stood and there was no sense of dragon fire about the place. How could it be? How had the town escaped the wyrms? Furthermore, why? Why would this place stand, but the dragon had sought out her home to destroy? This place was much larger than her home and, from the look of it, had never seen dragons.

  The air shimmered around the town, wavering with heat before Wylan’s eyes. If it weren’t for the incessant call of the rainbow lady from within the town, Wylan would have thought the heat was finally getting to her. Mirages happened in the desert all the time, and the mind played tricks with the heat.

  She was sure this wasn’t the case. This town was real and somewhere inside the rainbow lady awaited her.

  On bare feet, Wylan made her way to the town. Her eyes were trained on the mud brick buildings. She waited for them to vanish; waited for them to show any sign of dragon attack. Waited to see the claw marks along the walls, to see roofs blackened with dragon fire, to see the blood and gore that was partially hidden by drifting sand. But it didn’t happen. The town was untouched by the ravages that scarred the rest of the long desert.

  Still, the town wavered in her vision.

  The town was like so many others with streets packed hard from use. The walls of the buildings were clean showing no sign of wear from the elements. Wind moaned around buildings, like ghosts unwilling to pass from the living world.

  She stopped, listening for the bark of a dog, the call of a mother to a child, the scream of a baby…anything. Only the ghostly wind greeted her ears. She shivered at the complete absence of life.

  Wylan set foot on hard-packed ground and ambled, naked, through the town. Doors stood open, but when she looked there was nothing but darkness within.

  “Hello?” Wylan called. “Is anyone here?” Her voice was hoarse from crying and sounded foreign to her ears. More croak than actual voice, but still it echoed through the empty streets and vacant homes.

  Silence fell. Even the wind eased as if waiting for a response to her call, waiting for life to return.

  There was none.

  “Rainbow lady?” Wylan called. “Are you here?”

  She felt dumb calling out to something that only existed in her mind. Now that she was within the town, the power of the vision vanished leaving her alone once more, wondering what she was doing here when she should be out hunting the dragon that stole her life. Was the rainbow lady nothing more than hopeful ponderings that something more than her—more than dragons—existed? A being that was shown to her mind to bend dragons to her will. She felt how absurd it was to have come all this way for somet
hing she’d seen when going through such terrible pain.

  “You’re an idiot,” she scolded, unsure if she was speaking to herself or the wyvern mind that rested at the base of her spine. She was too old to believe in fantasy now. Nothing greater than dragons existed. The gods had turned their back on the Dar Desert ages ago, before the dragons vanished. No one was going to save her, not ghosts or memories or gods, not even a rainbow-haired lady.

  Still, the town was an oddity in such desolate times, and Wylan peaked inside the nearest house. It was cold inside. Not just cool from the shade, but cold like a hand from beyond the grave reached out to brush its questioning touch over her face, wondering at her living form. Gooseflesh prickled along her breast and Wylan shivered. She was aware then just how naked she was. The need to cover her flesh before anyone appeared—if there really was anyone around—was greater than her fear of the harrowingly cold house.

  Wylan stepped inside. “Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone home?”

  She wasn’t expecting an answer, so she wasn’t surprised when none came. The front door opened into a dining room. Platters of steaming food sat on the table, untouched, their scent drawing her closer. A large pitcher of water rested in the center of the table, sweat along its surface as if it had just been drawn.

  Her stomach growled; Wylan was painfully aware that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Hunger hadn’t intruded on her until she saw the meal spread out on the table, steaming hot in the coldness of the house.

  She was angry at how she could be so hungry when her parents had just died. How could she think about eating when they’d never eat again? It seemed such a human need, a mockery of her pain and an affront to their memory. But she would need her strength if she was to face the dragon.

  “Clothes first,” she told herself, looming over the table. There was food the likes she’d never seen before, but smelled delicious all the same.

  She tore herself away from the table and explored deeper in the house. While there was no sign of people save the fresh meal on the table, the house had all the trappings of home equipped with rooms, beds, and clothes. She selected a pair of brown trousers that fit the best—though she still had to bind them tight around her waist—and a mauve tunic that she could have worn alone as a dress. She tied her long hair behind her with a length of leather she found in the washroom, and made her way back to the table.