Written by Thomas Mansfield
Edited by Erin Middleton
Contains strong violence and references to sexual violence
Dumu stood at the gate of Aradsar alongside his fellow dragonkin, waiting anxiously for the doors to open. Two redstone towers stood on either side of the great wooden door, jutting out from the rust-red hills and stony crags. Yhirax stood beside him, almost bouncing with eagerness, while Theera was in front of them, almost protectively. Two long blue cloth banners flowed from the towers, each emblazoned with a roaring, sand-yellow dragon’s head with a thick horn jutting from its snout – a depiction of Gharamax the Storm Dragon, king of the Bluebane Alliance.
They had arrived with what seemed like hundreds of other dragonkin; red firescales, blue stormscales, brown rockscales like Dumu … he saw yellow sandscales like Yhirax, green leafscales like Theera, dragonkin with scales of a dozen different colours, all gathered here as fresh recruits for the Bluebanes. Dumu towered a good head and a half over all of them, thick of limb and broad of shoulder, and the whole journey here he had endured the stares, the comments on his size … it was too much attention. It had been the same back at Broken Egg village. If I had been born smaller, perhaps people would stop looking at me.
He heard someone shout orders from atop the gates, and a growl of excitement rumbled through the crowd of initiates. This is it, Dumu thought, unable to tell if he was eager or terrified. The gates opened with a deep groan, and the dragonkin swarmed in.
He and the rest of the initiates were herded through the main street of Aradsar by a squad of seasoned Bluebane warriors, dressed in leather armour and blue cloaks, their faces impassive from atop their squawking dunebird mounts. Now that he was past the gates, Dumu could see that the town had been built out from a narrow river valley, turning the township into a long, winding corridor of red rock. The people of the town, most of them human, watched them warily from windows and doorways carved out from the cliffs and crags, and sturdy wooden bridges connected the two sides of the valley between walkways of wood and stone.
It was the walkways that were the most colourful part of the valley, sporting the banners and symbols of the various dragonkin clans that made up the Bluebanes. “There’s hundreds of them!” Yhirax exclaimed, a grin plastered across his maw. His ruby red eyes gleamed hungrily and his tail was swinging back and forth rapidly. “Warrior clans, smithing clans, witching clans … that one over there, that’s dedicated to Archdragon Tiamat, I’m certain …”
“Look at that one,” Dumu added, pointing up at one of the largest and most prevalent banners. It showed a dragon’s skull, white against black, with two long, forward-facing horns. “That’s the Ntharls, isn’t it?”
Yhirax’s grin widened. “Aye, that’s them.” He elbowed Dumu playfully. “Our future clan, eh?”
“You think so?” Dumu asked, uncertain.
“Of course!” Yhirax insisted. “A clan as fearsome as the Ntharls? They would kill to have Dumu the Giant amongst their ranks!”
“I don’t like that name,” Dumu mumbled, turning away. “Giants are cruel and savage. They eat hatchlings and destroy villages.”
“Dumu the Mountain, then,” Yhirax suggested. “Or Dumu the Rock?”
Dumu shook his head. “I just want to be Dumu.”
Theera did not look even half as thrilled as Yhirax did. Their brood-sister was looking up at the Ntharl’s banner mistrustingly, the frills on her jaw fanning up and down. “Ntharl Jhex is mad,” she muttered. “You’ve heard the rumours.”
“So? That’s all they are. Rumours,” Yhirax replied dismissively. “And they didn’t stop you from joining, did they?”
“Of course not,” Theera retorted irritably. “I’m no coward. But I’m here to free my kin in slavery, not to join a clan.”
“Can’t we do both?” Yhirax laughed. “Do as you will, but by the end of this war, Dumu and I will be clansmen.”
Dumu said nothing. All three of them were clanless bastards, born to parents he’d never met and raised in a hatching-house with a dozen others. Joining a clan had always been Yhirax’s dream, and not without good reason. Clanship came with full bellies, mountains of silver, and fellow kinsmen willing to lay down their lives for you, and though Dumu had often fantasised of having such things too, he’d never put much stock in them. There had been no great clans back in Broken Egg village, and the dream of actually joining one had always been that – a dream.
The day the Bluebanes arrived at the village changed everything. Yhirax had jumped at the opportunity to join them, and after Theera had sworn her service as well, they’d left Dumu little choice other than to follow them. Maybe it’s for the best, he had told himself. Perhaps I will find my purpose with the Bluebanes.
It wasn’t long before they arrived in the centre of Aradsar, marked by a tear-shaped pool underneath a great walkway. From atop the walkway, a pitch-black darkscale stood, armoured in bone-white plate armour. “My fellow dragonkin,” he declared, his voice low and coarse. “I am Ntharl Jhex, High Father of Clan Ntharl, Lord of the Bone Pit, and Warfang of the Eastern Hordes.” Yhirax bounced eagerly beside Dumu as the Warfang gave his speech. “Like you, I swore myself to the Bluebanes because I was sick of the foul Redblood mercenaries and the hypocrites of Providence! For years, we have been at the mercy of the slavers of the red deserts, abducting our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters for the black city of Ifenswalk! Through dark magics, they strip them of their dragonsbreath, that which makes us dragonkin, and geld them like animals to make them docile! And what do the noble and honourable houses of Providence do, these rulers of ours who supposedly forbid and condemn slavery?
“Nothing!” Ntharl Jhex spat the word with venom, and the crowd rumbled with assent. “They do nothing! And why would they? They live in a paradise of grass and water, what do they care what happens to us lowly desert folk? Well, to Nihil with Providence and may the devils take their king! It’s King Gharamax I serve now, and with you, we shall exact justice upon them all! Tonight, I shall hold a feast in our king’s honour, to welcome our new kin to the Bluebanes and to celebrate the victories to come!”
He doesn’t sound mad, Dumu thought as the dragonkin cheered. His doubts began to clear, and hope began to replace them.
The feast was enormous. It seemed to stretch throughout the entire town, with long tables covered with food, colourful streamers flying across the streets, and music and dancing wherever Dumu turned. Yhirax was quick to vanish into the crowd and the noise, while Theera stayed by Dumu’s side to mutter caution into his ear. “Careful you don’t drink too much. Don’t eat too heavily either. We’re supposed to begin training tomorrow, after all.” Yet despite her advice, Dumu found himself drawn into the festivities; spiced and roasted goat, grilled lightning bird, all accompanied by beer so yeasty he could almost chew it. He found himself feasting, drinking and laughing alongside dragonkin he had never met before in his life, yet here, in this moment, they were his brethren.
“Stand to attention, all of you!” their instructor snarled at them, his voice like gravel being crushed underfoot. “You are not in your little village militia anymore, you are in the Bluebanes!”
Dumu blinked at him blearily. Along with the other initiates, he’d been ordered out to the training grounds on the edge of town, a field of dirt and stone dotted by canvas tents and wooden dummies. He hadn’t even had breakfast yet. Theera stood attentively beside him, while Yhirax, still recovering from last night’s festivities, looked like he was a breath away from falling over. The other initiates didn’t look much better. Some even looked worse.
Their instructor marched up and down before them, a severe glare on his face. The older, green-grey dragonkin had stoney eyes, spines running down the length of his back and a deep blue cape slung over his shoulder, complimenting his steel breastplate. “I am Ntharl Graax, your tutor in the ways of combat,” he introduced himself. “I have been saddled with the thankless task of turning you soft-scaled, clanless children into warriors worthy of the Bluebanes. As such, I expect you to obey my every command. I tell you to sit, you sit. I tell you to fight, you fight. I tell you to piss, then you will whip out your cock and piss.”
Dumu heard a snort of laughter from one of the gathered initiates, a bulky dragonkin woman with bright orange scales. He heard her murmur something under her breath to some of her fellows, some kind of joke. Ntharl Graax heard as well. As she turned back, their instructor suddenly leapt forwards and struck her across the jaw, knocking her to the dirt. The initiates around her cried out in alarm, and Dumu heard Theera curse. Dumu stared at the motionless she-warrior with his heart in his throat, feeling like he’d just wandered into the pen of a rabid beast.
“Do not think that I will tolerate mockery from any of you!” Graax snarled, whipping around to face the rest of them. “None of you will do so much as breathe in my direction unless I ask you to! This is your lot as initiates, until such a day that I deem you proper warriors! And make no mistake, while you answer to Clan Ntharl, none of you are of Clan Ntharl. You are not our kin, and we owe you neither pity nor mercy. Impress me or my brethren in combat, and we may deign to give you our name, but that is an honour that you must earn. Now pick up your weapons! Your training begins now!”
And so it did. Dumu found himself training alongside Yhirax with the axes, while Theera was separated from them to learn the way of the spear. The drills were simple, but horribly repetitive. Swing your axe — from your right, not your left — advance — swing from the left this time — advance. Keep your shield up, cover your head, use your dragonbreath, retreat, advance, then start all over again. Over and over, they repeated the same movements, until Dumu could perform them off by heart. By the end of it, his whole body was aching, his nostrils were filled with dust, and he felt about ready to pass out from the heat.
Graax gave them but a few minutes of rest before the next exercise. He had them spar against each other with blunted weapons and wooden shields, fighting in pairs and cycling between each other at his barked command. The matches were much less tiring, Dumu found. None of the other warriors could break his guard, and it was an easy matter for him to throw them away without too much effort. He didn’t press his attacks, however. He simply kept them at bay until he cycled to the next foe. He knew too well how easy it was for him to hurt someone with his strength.
It was during the sparring that he saw her. She appeared suddenly, without announcement, standing beside Graax like a shadow. Her scales were as dark as smoke, her limbs long and lean, and her eyes a bright, piercing yellow. She wore a silvery dress with flowing sleeves, with a green striding spider emblazoned on her chest, and though she wasn’t as broad as Dumu, she was just as tall, meeting his eyes at his level. He found himself stunned by that alone.
The roar of his sparring partner bought Dumu back to reality. Spinning around, he saw the stormscale rushing at him, training axe raised high. Dumu raised his shield quickly, catching the blow just in time before throwing his whole weight forward. Dumu stepped away as his partner crashed into the dirt, catching his breath.
“Enough!”
Everyone came to a halt. Dumu turned to see Graax storming towards him, the darkscale woman following him. Though Graax didn’t stand any higher than Dumu’s collar, he couldn’t help but tense up as the instructor approached.
“What kind of warrior steps away when their opponent is on the ground?” Graax snapped, glaring furiously up at Dumu. “Finish him!”
“I …” Dumu stammered. “He’s one of us, noble teacher, I can’t—”
The punch came so quickly that Dumu didn’t realise what had happened at first. He staggered back, blinking at the stinging pain in his mouth. “Do you think a Redblood would let you stand if you fell before him?” Graax snarled at him. He pointed a clawed finger at the fallen stormscale. “I don’t care who he is to you; in this moment, he is your enemy, and you are his!”
The darkscale woman touched him on the shoulder. “Do not be so harsh, father,” she said in a cool, calm voice. “This one demonstrates loyalty to his kin. That should be rewarded, not punished.”
“Hmph.” Graax stepped back, glaring daggers into Dumu. “Start again! And this time, I don’t want to see you stop until my daughter tells you to!”
Dumu turned to the stormscale, who was already back on his feet and preparing to attack. He raised his shield and braced himself, trying to keep his axe from shaking in his hand.
The stormscale charged forward with a war cry, swinging his axe. Dumu blocked, then blocked again. On the third swing, he caught the blow and threw his foe backwards. Trying to remember the drills from before, he stepped forward and swung. His opponent tried to block with his own shield, but Dumu’s strength made him buckle and lose his footing. His was vulnerable for a moment, only for a moment, and Dumu brought his axe to swing …
And he hesitated.
He saw a blur as his opponent took the opportunity to strike, and the next thing Dumu knew, he was on the ground. His head was ringing, a stinging pain was burning on the side of his maw, and he could feel blood dripping down into his open mouth.
The darkscale woman was beside him in an instant. She knelt down and touched his face where the axe had struck him, her mouth curved into an unreadable smile. Dumu blinked up at her dazedly, trying to push himself up …
… and almost leapt out of his scales when a giant emerald-green spider crawled down her arm towards him.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the woman as he moved to swat it. “Moxa means no harm.”
“Moxa?” Dumu asked dazedly.
“My familiar,” she explained cooly. Slowly, she lowered her arm towards him, placing the spider gently on his wounds. Dumu flinched as its spindly legs crawled across his scales, like tiny little needles, but the creature did not bite. Rather, it began to spin a web across his wound, with warm, sticky silk. When it was done, and the spider had retreated back to its mistress, the woman touched the webbing and uttered a sharp, quick word. The wound stung a little more, then not at all. As Dumu pushed himself up, the silk dried and scattered to ash, and where he touched his scales, there wasn’t even a scar.
“There,” the darkscale purred, cupping his cheek in her hand. “Is that better?”
“Aye …” Dumu murmured, wondering why his heart was beating so fast.
“Good. Whenever you are hurt, I will be there to make you better. Remember that, my giant.” She stepped away, and suddenly Dumu remembered that he was in the training yard, with half a hundred fellow warriors. Those nearest to him seemed to be staring at him, including his sparring partner, and Dumu felt himself shrink under their angry glares. What did I do?
“Now,” the darkscale spoke, her voice cracking like a whip. “Do it again. And try to hit him this time.”
The spider-witch reappeared on the fourth day of training, when they began using the oil pots.
“Of all the Redblood weapons, none are as dangerous as their pots of mulukian fire,” Graax told them. “Once it ignites, no amount of water can put it out. Defending against the fire will be a vital part of your training.” A crooked grin crept up his maw. “Of course, we can’t train you with actual mulukain fire … but we have something that will work just as well.”
The solution was hot oil, poured into clay vessels and thrown at them from afar. Row by row, Dumu and his brethren would step up, block the incoming pots with their shields, drop their shields, then charge forward before returning to the back. Dumu was relieved to find that he was not the only one reluctant to perform this drill. More than a few of his fellow initiates protested and tried to back out, only to be cowed into line by Graax and his blue-cloaked warriors. His daughter watched from the edge of the training field, and Dumu could feel her eyes on him throughout the whole ordeal.
As his row crept further to the front, and the pained screams of those who failed to block the pots grew louder, Dumu suddenly felt the urge to drop everything and run, run away from the pain that was surely coming his way. He almost did. But then he saw Graax’s daughter looking at him, calmly expectant, and as absurd as it was, he felt his resolve harden. He stepped forth.
He blocked the first pot without issue, feeling the heat through his shield. The second time, some oil splashed onto his foot, searing him and causing him to grit his teeth. The third time, he reacted too slowly, and liquid fire coated his shoulder and chest. But before he could do more than drop his shield and shriek in pain, she was there. She took him aside from the others, putting her spider on his wounds to spin its magic webbing. When she’d finished her spell, and the silk came apart, he saw only fresh scales where the burns had been.
Dumu stared up at the darkscale, at her luminous eyes and her cool, collected smile. He felt warmth flooding through his chest where her talons brushed against him, all the way up to his face. “My name is Dumu,” he blurted out. “What’s yours?”
“Nis,” she replied smoothly. “Ntharl Nis.”
After that, Nis watched over every training session Dumu had. Whenever he was injured during a spar or oil pot drill, she would be there, healing him with a touch and a word. She was always smiling during the drills, and it felt as if she was smiling at him in particular. The only time he saw her frown was when he hesitated or backed down during the sparring drills. Unwilling to disappoint her, he forced himself to be aggressive, pressing the attack until he knocked his opponents to the ground. A pang of guilt would shoot through his heart whenever he hurt his brethren, but when he turned to see the satisfaction on Nis’s face, his heart would soar.
After a while, Dumu began to notice the change in his fellow initiates. He saw the dark looks, heard the muttering behind his back. Where these kin had once embraced him like family, now they were cold and distant, treating him like an oathbreaker. Confused and upset, he’d tried to ask what he had done, but his questions had netted only growls and glares in response.
“They all hate me. All of them, except for Nis,” Dumu lamented to his friends one morning while they were sitting around the great cookfire that smouldered in front of the sleeping tents. Each of them had a bowl filled with a thick gruel of peas, lentil and onion. Dumu stirred his around, lacking appetite for the foul meal. “What did I do to offend them?”
Yhirax snorted derisively. The sandscale sported a thin scar just below his eye, earned during one of the sparring matches. “Ah, just ignore them. They’re jealous of you, is all.”
“Jealous?” Dumu asked blankly. “Of what?”
“Of what?” Yhirax laughed incredulously. “Dumu, you handsome fool, they’re jealous of you and Graax’s daughter! She wants you!”
Dumu blinked in astonishment. “She does?”
“Of course! Why else do you think she favours you so greatly? The rest of us will have to prove ourselves in battle to join the Ntharls, but you? You’ve been handed free entry! If you sire a hatchling with her, you have the right to demand clanship, without needing to even set foot on the battlefield!”
Dumu suddenly felt very hot in the face. “But why?” he spluttered. “Why would she want me?”
“Because you’re the strongest initiate here,” Theera muttered darkly, sitting beside Yhirax. The leafscale now sported a burn across her shield arm from where she’d taken an oil pot, scarring her brilliant green scales with flaky black ones. “I heard some of the clan warriors saying so. They think that once you’re trained, you’ll be the greatest warrior this side of Karatera. The Ntharls must want their very own Allira Veranus.”
Allira Veranus … Dumu had heard that name before. “That’s the frostscale warrior from the Black River, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Aye,” Yhirax replied through a mawful of food. “Sworn shield of one of the dragon princes, apparently. I’ve heard the others say that she’s a slayer of sphinxes and demons, that she’s as deadly as she is beautiful.”
“I thought all the frostscales were dead.”
“Maybe they’re not. What does it matter?” Yhirax said dismissively, waving his question away. “You’re not wooing Allira Veranus anyhow, you’re wooing Ntharl Nis.”
Dumu fidgeted with his food, his stomach twisting into a knot. “I don’t know …” he murmured. “I’ve never wooed a woman before.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard. She already fancies you.”
“Fancies him for her clan, more like,” Theera retorted sourly, still prodding at her meal. “I don’t trust her.”
Dumu frowned, affronted. “She’s nice to me. When I was hurt by the oil pots, she used her healing spells on me.”
“If she’s so kind, why hasn’t she healed anyone else?” Theera gave him a sharp look. “Just think, Dumu. She singled you out on the first day of training, the moment she saw you on the field before she knew the first thing about you. How can you trust that?”
“What would you know about trust?” Yhirax interjected before Dumu could reply. “You’ve been speaking ill of the Ntharls ever since we arrived!”
“Is there any other way to speak of kinslayers?” Theera demanded. “Ntharl Jhex murdered his daughters. I thought it was just a dark rumour before, but now I’m certain of it.”
“Why, because it gives you an excuse?” Yhirax growled. “It was accidents that claimed his daughters, Theera. No clansman would ever harm their own kin, let alone the clan’s High Father!”
“So the Ntharls say.” Theera put her bowl aside, seeming too troubled to eat. “And it’s not just that. The way they treat the humans of Aradsar, the way they train us … it’s cruel. Too cruel.”
“Sounds to me that your scales are too soft for the Bluebanes,” Yhirax said with a sneer. Dumu barely recognised his brood-brother’s voice. “Why did you join if you have such little faith in our cause?”
Theera looked like he’d just slapped her. “Perhaps you should ask your friends in the Ntharls that question,” she hissed. “And remind them that we’re fighting this war to free the slaves.” She stood up, giving the two of them a fiery glare before marching away.
“… Theera?” Dumu murmured blankly, staring after her.
“Never mind her,” Yhirax told him, looking like he’d just swallowed something bitter. “She’s just jealous too, most like.” He clapped Dumu on the shoulder, flashing him a forced grin. “Focus on getting your clanship, alright?”
Dumu watched their friend leave, feeling a stone settle in his stomach. “Okay …”
The day of the march came suddenly, like a change in the wind. Graax simply announced to them all one evening that they would be marching east for the city of Quzabi, as if they should’ve expected him to say so. He didn’t tell them why, or even how far away the city was. All he said was that he expected them all to be packed and ready by first light, in a tone that brooked no quarter. The tents of the training grounds were pulled down and packed, the cookfires swept away, and arms and armour were given to those who needed it. They left in the morning as one great Bluebane horde, just as the sun was peaking over the horizon.
They’d all declared warriors before they left, Dumu and all his fellow initiates, told by Graax that they were ready to take the fight to the Redbloods. Yet Dumu didn’t feel ready. He felt more like he’d been thrown off a cliff and told to fly. It didn’t help that his friends seemed to keep their own company these days, Theera with some other initiates and Yhirax with a group of lesser Ntharls, leaving Dumu to his own devices. He was among more dragonkin than he’d ever known in his life, yet he had never felt so alone.
The marching days were long and arduous. The commanders had them walking from dawn to dusk down a long dirt road bordered by red desert on one side and rugged highlands on the other. Each day ended by setting camp, and began by taking it back down, and the only life they passed on the road were drygrasses, salt bushes, and blood-drinking ironthorns.
The horde grew larger with each passing day as well. Smaller clans and human forces joined with theirs one by one, adding more and more unfamiliar faces until they were all Dumu could see. On the fourth night of the march, as he was wandering through camp, he suddenly realised that he didn’t recognise a single person around him. He didn’t see his fellow initiates, nor his friends from Broken Egg village. Only strangers.
“You seem troubled, my giant,” Nis murmured to him, her arm linked through his. The darkscale had been the one person who hadn’t left him since they marched out from Aradsar. She often accompanied him in evenings on his patrols around the camp, silently following Dumu like a shadow. The other warriors kept their distance as she and Dumu passed through the temporary streets of canvas and cloth, watching the two of them with fear and resentment. “Do you worry you will falter, when the day comes and you must raise your axe to kill?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Dumu mumbled. In truth, he’d been trying not to think about what would happen when they reached Quzabi. Whenever he did, the world beyond him seemed to vanish, and all he could feel was a cold, insidious pit in his chest that threated to swallow him. He felt like Nis was the only tether keeping him from falling in, yet after what Theera had said about her, he found that thought disquieting.
“A true warrior does not doubt his courage,” Nis told him smoothly. She led him into a black and white tent near the centre of the camp, the entrance lined with cobwebs as if it had been standing for years. Her tent. Dumu stepped through nervously, ducking his head as she did. He’d seen her tent from afar, but this was the first time he’d actually been inside. A bed with a fine black sheet was laid out within, beside a wooden chest and a small cabinet. Towards the roof of the tent, large green spiders nested within thick, sticky webs, looking down at them curiously.
Nis knelt down to open the cabinet, reaching in and retrieving a corked glass vial filled with a pale blue liquid. “Here,” she said, offering it to him. “If, on the day of battle, you are still filled with doubts, drink this potion to rid yourself of them. You will fight stronger, without fear, and without pain.”
“Truly?” Dumu wondered, looking the vial over.
Nis smirked. “Have I lied to you yet, my giant?”
“No …”
She reached up and stroked his cheek. “Then trust me.”
Yet that night, he found himself beset by doubts. His bedroll was on the outskirts of the camp, along with most of the other, and it was there that he laid, staring up at the stars. He turned the vial over and over in his hands, holding the liquid up to the moonlight as if it would help him see it clearer. She keeps calling me her giant, he realised. Has she ever called me Dumu?
When the army set out the next day, Dumu left the vial behind, nestled between the rocks.
It was on the sixth day of marching, in the hours after sunrise, when they finally saw another town. Dumu thought it was their destination at first, but the mutterings of the other warriors proved him wrong. “Quried, not Quzabi,” they told him. Whatever its name was, it would be the site of their first battle, their first victory on the road to Ifenswalk.
It had taken all of Dumu’s willpower not to flee.
The preparation for the attack was impossible for him to follow. Orders were shouted, horns were blown, and war drums were pounded. Dumu found himself shoved into the middle of the vanguard alongside his clanless brethren, axes in one hand, shields in the other, and armoured in leather. Behind them were clan warriors, archers and dragon-sorcerers, and flanking them were camel-riding cavalry armed with longaxes and pikes. At the very back of the army, Dumu knew, were the High Fathers of the commanding clans, who would conduct the battle. Which row will Nis be fighting in? He wondered if she’d even be fighting at all.
Step by step, they marched closer and closer and closer. Dumu’s heart pounded to the rhythm of the drums and his stomach threatened to send bile up his throat. I should’ve taken the potion, he thought uneasily, feeling foolish and guilty. But there was nothing to be done now. He could see the town walls ahead of them, a yellowish pale ring, too far away yet all too close. A squat, ugly castle arose on a hill outside the southeastern walls, looming over Quried like a tombstone. A set of large wooden gates barred entry, yet Dumu knew it didn’t matter – they would likely ascend over the walls, rather than enter the town through the gate.
But, just as he thought that, the gates started to swing open. Dumu blinked, confusion replacing fear. Why would they open the gates to us?
Behind him, he heard someone bellow a command. “CHARGE!”
And then Dumu’s ears were filled with the roar of a thousand Bluebanes, a deafening warcry. The gates of Quried opened, and the dragonkin swarmed in.
It was the warriors behind him and his own panic that forced Dumu forwards. It was like he was being flung around by a sandstorm, powerless to fight back or do anything other than move with it. His ears were filled with shouts and roars and clashing steel, and when he finally broke free, he found himself stranded in the town’s market square and surrounded by dead and dying enemies. His heart was in his throat and his axe was shaking in his hand.
Something’s wrong.
Dumu looked at the corpses. The dead men wore piecemeal armour, and seemed to have been wielding spears, picks, pitchforks, and other simple weapons. They didn’t look like the Redbloods that Dumu had always pictured in his head. And they didn’t throw mulukian fire at us, he realised. The whole point of the oil pot exercises had been to train them against that, yet these men didn’t seem to have any of the infamous fire pots. These are town guards. Where are the Redbloods?
His throat tight, Dumu ran down a dirt street bordered by mudbrick homes. Already, the air was scented with smoke and punctured with screams. There was fighting further down the road, his fellow dragonkin against the village warriors. Before him was only a single old man with a spear, standing in front of a hut. He dropped his weapon and fell to his knees sobbing as Dumu approached. “Where are the Redbloods?” Dumu demanded, trying to keep his voice from shaking. When the man rambled back at him in a tongue he didn’t understand, Dumu grabbed him by the collar and repeated the question in Iliac, using what few words he knew.
“No Redbloods,” the man sobbed. “No Redbloods!”
It was then that Dumu understood, in a flash of clear, terrible insight. Of course, the Redbloods weren’t here. They were mercenaries, men who fought for coin and coin alone. Why would they protect a town that could not afford them?
Horrified, Dumu dropped the man, staggering back a few steps. He stood as still as stone, his throat tight with terror, before bolting down the street, right into the chaos of the battle. The dragonkin had set Quried on fire, smoke rising into the sky and threatening to blot out the sun. The slain townspeople had stained the ground crimson with their blood, and the screams of the dying filled the air. “There’s no Redbloods here!” Dumu shouted, as loud as he could. “They’re just people!”
Nobody listened. Nobody cared.
Dumu watched helplessly as the Bluebanes murdered the people of Quried in cold blood. He saw a sandscale swing his axe into a peasant’s chest, caving it inwards with a horrid crunch. He saw a stormscale thrust a spear through an older man’s stomach, crimson spilling from the wound like a burst wineskin. He saw a firescale chase after a fleeing girl, unleashing orange flames from his maw when she tripped and fell. She screamed as she burned, and Dumu felt his bowels turn to water.
He heard a shriek behind him, too close for comfort. He spun around to see a human mother escaping a burning house with two children, no taller than her hips, only to be caught by two darkscale warriors. They were led by another darkscale, a woman in a silver dress, a woman just as tall as Dumu. A dark green mass writhed at her feet.
One of the warriors kicked the mother to the ground, where she clutched her babes to her chest and wept. The woman pointed at the family, and the green mass moved forward to cover them. Spiders, Dumu realised with sickening dread. He watched as children and mother disappeared under the dark green swarm, wailing as the spiders covered them. He sprinted towards the spider-witch with their cries in his ears, raising his axe to swing at her.
She turned to face him, looking at him with her bright yellow eyes and scales as dark as smoke. Her cool, collected smile vanished as the axe came down upon her outstretched arm, and a shock jolted through Dumu’s body as steel sheered through silk, scale and bone. She staggered and almost fell in her shock, clutching at her forearm, which now hung from her by what seemed like a single bloody thread of tissue.
Dumu barely had time to realise what he’d done before the other two darkscales charged at him, roaring in outrage. He raised his shield, and the axes destined for him buried themselves into the wooden disk instead. One of the warriors reared back and unleashed his dragonsbreath at him, a plume of red fire. The shield caught that too, though the flames curled around the edges to lick Dumu with their burning bite. Fuelled by terror and instinct, Dumu lowered his shield, and unleashed his own dragonsbreath. A cloud of pale yellow fumes erupted from his maw and covered the two warriors, sending them into coughing fits. The one closest to Dumu fell to his knees, clutching his throat as yellowing spittle frothed at his lip. The other turned to run, but Dumu seized him by the wrist with his shield arm. He buried his axe in the dragonkin’s chest, crushing through his armour in a single blow. When he pulled his axe free, the warrior fell dead.
For a moment, Dumu stood paralysed on the street, shaking and struggling to breathe as crimson dripped from his axe. He looked around and saw the other darkscale succumb to his poison and die in the dirt. The rest of his kin hadn’t seen what he’d done in the chaos and the smoke, and had already moved on further down the street, leaving only corpses behind them. He was alone.
Save for one.
He turned to face Nis, who had staggered away from him in the confusion to lean against the fence encircling the burning house. She didn’t look beautiful anymore. Her face was twisted in pain and fury, her free hand clutching her ruined arm in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. The spider swarm had dispersed, leaving the swollen corpses of the family behind them, but he could see Nis’s familiar feverishly spinning a web around where the two parts of her limb should have been joined. It was the same webbing the spider had spun on him, during his first sparring session. It felt so long ago now.
He slowly walked towards her, his feet moving on their own accord. Nis looked up as he approached, her rage turning into blank terror as he raised his axe. Her voice came out as a faint whisper. “Wait—”
The axe fell, burying itself so deep in her head that her skull split in twain, right between her eyes. Blood spurted down her smoky dark snout and her whole body seized up. She stood stock still before him for a moment, as if she hadn’t realised that she had died. Then she went limp, and her bright yellow eyes went dark.
Dumu wasn’t sure how long he lingered after that. He dimly recalled walking through the streets of Quried, the smoke and the blood and the screaming all melding into a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. When he finally felt some semblance of awareness again, he was in the town square once more, standing among the rest of the warriors. His fellows were laughing and cheering as if they had won some great victory, but Dumu had no idea why. They stood in a ring around a human man with a dishevelled black beard, who’d been stripped naked, beaten bloody, and forced to his knees. Two darkscales loomed over him, riding on armoured war camels and covered in bone white plate and mail. Their breastplates were styled in the likeness of a ribcage, their helms like dragon’s skulls. One sported a deep blue cape, flapping in the wind, and behind his helm burned wicked red eyes.
“I opened the gates for you,” the human was saying, weeping. “I opened the gates, like you told me, against the instruction of my lord! You told me to surrender, and I did!”
“So you could gut me in my sleep like a common mongrel, I know,” replied the darkscale in the cape, smiling cruelly. “Thinking you could trick me was not your first mistake, human, but it will be your last.” He turned to the other warrior. “Brother.”
The other Ntharl trotted his camel forwards, his eyes solemn as he opened his maw. The human had enough time for one last shriek before he was engulfed in dragonfire, the flames as red and bloody as betrayal. Dumu felt sick. As the dragonkin laughed and the human burned and died, he looked up at the kin in the cape, leering and grinning at the scene. He looked up at Warfang Jhex, High Father of Clan Ntharl, and he saw the face of madness.
By midday, Quried had been completely torn apart. His fellow Bluebanes had robbed it of silver, copper, anything and everything of worth. The dead were dragged outside the walls for the vultures and the jackals, while the survivors, Dumu saw, were rounded up into a storehouse on the edge of town. He saw clansmen go in and come out dragging one or two townspeople at a time, binding them in rope and chain. Slaves, he thought miserably.
He wandered the ruins in a daze, not quite sure what he was looking for or where he was trying to go. It was during his wandering that he came upon them. Theera and Yhirax, his friends, talking in the burned ruins of what could have been an inn. Theera was sitting amidst the rubble with her spear in hand while Yhirax stood over her, arguing furiously. A wicked-looking axe was hanging by his belt, forged from a dark steel.
“Yhirax?” Dumu said as he approached, an uneasy feeling in his gut.
Yhirax turned to him, a proud grin spreading across his snout. “No longer, my friend. You’re speaking to Ntharl Yhirax now. Some clansmen took notice of my heroics in battle.”
“Ntharl Yhirax,” Dumu repeated hollowly.
“Aye, and already, the boons are showing themselves,” Yhirax crowed. He stroked the head of his new axe. “Take a look. A gift from my new brethren. Terror, they call it.”
“Oh yes, it’s a fine weapon,” Theera spat, glaring up at him. “Why don’t you tell him what you did to earn it?”
Yhirax waved his hand frustratedly. “I killed a Redblood. Isn’t that why we’re here?”
“She was an innkeeper. You raped her.” Theera was staring at Yhirax like she’d never seen him before in her life. “I saw you. I came in here to try and stop you, but those Ntharls … they stopped me. They were laughing.”
“She was a Redblood!” Yhirax snarled. His eyes gleamed with something ugly, something that wasn’t Yhirax. “She took Redblood coin, gave them bed and board, and likely serviced them the same as I serviced her! She might as well have had the black dagger in her ear!”
“Is that what they said, when they gave her to you? Did you even hesitate when they told you what to do for your precious clanship?”
“Of course not. You ought to know as well as us what clanship means.” Yhirax told her, stepping over to Dumu. “Dumu and I have—”
Dumu recoiled away from Yhirax like he had the plague. He backed away, his throat tight and his stomach roiling, unable to tear his eyes from what had once been his brood-brother. Yhirax blinked, looking like he’d been slighted.
“If you truly don’t see that what you did was evil, then you are lost, Yhirax,” Theera said, disgusted. “Get out of my sight. And if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”
Yhirax stared between the two of them, his eyes hardening. “As you wish,” he said stiffly. “I have a new family now, as it happens.” With that, he turned on his heel and stormed off. He didn’t look back.
Once he was gone, Dumu stumbled over to his brood-sister, sitting down heavily beside her. His eyes were stinging with grief and the pain of treachery. From the corner of his vision, he saw Theera prodding the coals of the ruin with her spear as if they would yield some answer to her. When they did not, she threw the weapon aside and drew her legs up to her chest, tears running down her face.
“I killed Nis,” Dumu confessed, his voice hoarse.
“… Good,” she murmured after a moment. Wiping her eyes, she told him, “I’m leaving. Tonight. I’ve been talking with some others … we’ve decided that we’re not going to do any good staying here.”
It took a moment for Dumu to understand what she meant. He stared at her. “They’ll kill you,” he said softly. She knew the penalty for desertion as well as he did.
“I don’t care. The others can follow the Ntharls into Nihil if they want, but I’ll have no part in this.” She looked at him warily. “Will you?”
Dumu said nothing. But Theera seemed to read his answer on his face.
They departed in the twilight hours, when the rest of the army was asleep. They were a party of six, Dumu, Theera, and four others. He recognised the orange-scaled girl that Graax had beaten on their first day of training, but the others were strangers to him. They stole through the gate as the guard was changing, and fled down the road without even moonlight to guide their way. Dumu had packed only a bit of food and what little coin he had, his shield slung across his back and his axe hanging from his belt. They did not follow the road for very long, ascending into the hills as soon as they could. Theera said it would make them harder to find.
When they reached the top of one of the hills and paused to catch their breath, Dumu took one last look at Quried, far down below him. All that was visible in the deep of night were the torches and the cookfires, pinpricks of orange against a curtain of darkness. He stared mournfully for a while, then he turned to follow the others, heading towards whatever future awaited him.
The End
Sprouting Nonsense 