Chapter Ten: The Rocks

The Third Silver Wings soared out into the sky, banking wide through a gap between several towers, and then inland, back over the city. Falling shards from the Fracturing burned their way slowly towards the earth.

Joseph marvelled at the sights around him. He had not gotten his fill from his brief flight with Mico. He doubted he would ever tire of seeing the world from so high up.

Now, snug inside the HALT pod, his views were much better. He had only the enchanted glass windows to see through, but they were big enough that he could see all he wanted. On his last flight, the vagaries of the wind had hindered him somewhat.

Although the passing city, with its array of proud towers, and the glittering bay, filled with islands, were incredible, Joseph found he could not take his eyes off the dragons.

Those of their flight were flying in formation, the four carrying HALT pods just beneath their bellies flying in a diamond, with the largest dragon, the light red one, leading, the two icy blues on each side, and the smallest, the light grey, bringing up the rear. The two larger grey dragons were each flying ahead, and to the side, of the formation.

The establishment of each dragonflight led to eclectic compositions. The distributions of the elements in a shard were utterly random, and the number of eggs present in a shard could vary drastically too. With all eggs recovered from the same shard forming a flight, there could be no standard configuration of flights. It was only in extremely rare circumstances that dragons from the same shard operated independently.

Without knowing exactly which fused elements the dragons were, Joseph could only make educated guesses as to their roles in the flight. The two smaller grey outriders were likely hussars, dragonriders equipped for either melee or long range combat.

Fire dragons, like the light red leading the formation, were usually dragoons, specialising in medium to long range engagements, but Joseph thought theirs was likely a hussar as well. The two icy blues were probably lancers, if he had to guess, medium melee fighters, and the smaller grey was almost certainly a cuirassier, acting as a utility for the flight.

Overall, it seemed like they were a medium flight. They couldn’t be designated heavy, not without the presence of a strong, heavily armoured frontliner. The lancers meant they were too bulky for light draconry designation either.

It made sense. The purpose of the mission was to get to the impact site quickly, bull through any resistance, and get out again. They needed to balance speed with strength. A medium flight was the best option.

As they cruised out past the city walls, over the patchwork fields quilting the countryside around Skyseat, Joseph looked further afield in the sky.

Other dragonflights were coming and going, dragons of all varieties on full display. Joseph noted vicious looking Fires, bulky Earths, sinuous Waters, and agile Airs.

In terms of size, Earth dragons were the biggest on average. Next came the Fires, then Waters, then Airs. The absolute biggest dragons were Fire, though, and the absolute smallest, were Water.

Though he had never seen one, Forge dragons, created by the fusion of Fire dragon with a Soulsworn, were the biggest dragons ever recorded. Conversely, the fusion of a Water dragon and a Heartsworn produced the smallest dragons, the diminutive Matriarch or Patriarch dragons.

He tried to pick out some of the fused elements of the dragons around, but it was a difficult task. Dragons of the same element always had some general similarities. Earth dragons tended to have blockier heads. Air dragons had larger wings proportionate to their body size. Fire dragons tended to be spinier, and Water dragons often had webbing at their joints.

As dragons grew though, their fused elements began to have more of an effect on their development, and became more physically and magically divergent. To make things more complicated, two dragons of the same fused element could often look different, although, generally speaking, the differences were slight.

The two icy blue dragons in the Silver Wings were a prime example. Joseph was fairly sure they were Ice dragons: Waters fused with Firesworn, but there was a chance they could be Mist dragons too.

The outriders, the two larger greys, he was becoming increasingly certain were Hurricane dragons. The element was a result of an Airsworn fusing with an Air dragon. They looked similar to wild Air dragons, but better-built, more muscular, and healthier, as result of both the care they received as a fused dragon, and the extra mana they shared with their rider.

Joseph was eventually pulled from his reverie, though not by choice. They had simply flown far enough out that the other dragonflights had become no more than tiny specks on the horizon. Skyseat had dwindled to a spiky looking smear.

They were over rougher countryside now, here and there dotted with fields centred around towns and villages, but now jostling for space with forests. The Rosefire Kingdom was heavily wooded, dotted with low mountain ranges, hills, and green valleys along the coast, then flattening out to the west. From there, the land became steadily wilder, and the elevation steadily rose again, the closer one came to the eastern border of the kingdom.

The hours passed, and Joseph made out a smudge on the horizon, which quickly resolved into mountains. They had reached the Rocks already. It was truly staggering how fast one could travel by dragon. Another hour more, and the Rocks were looming before them.

Here was a sight that Joseph had to admit was as beautiful as a dragon. Mountains, extending as far as the eye could see in either direction, stood proudly against the clear noon sky. Their snow capped peaks, and white and black flanks, looked at once inhospitable and mesmerising.

The Rocks was an enormous mountain range, dense and craggy, forming the natural eastern border of their kingdom. Joseph had never seen it before, and most people lived as far from it as possible. Though game was plentiful, and fish abundant in the lakes dotting the range, it was far too close for comfort to their enemies for most. The reavers’ land bordered the Rocks to the east. Even if there had not been a proper war in decades, the threat of raids was enough to push all but the hardiest closer to the sea.

There were several passes throughout the Rocks, but most were small and treacherous. The two biggest, the Jasper Pass at the northern end of the range, and the Amber Pass in the south, had large, permanent garrisons to protect against intrusions. The Amber Pass was where Genn hailed from. The Silver Wings were set to fly directly through their middle.

They angled lower, closer to the mountains themselves, underneath the level of the few, wispy clouds. They struck a course between two staid peaks, the ground below all rough stone, and tenacious pines.

Joseph shivered as they soared through the pass. The air filtering in through the vents was cold as steel. Far below, a small fortress perched on the side of a precarious escarpment, the highest point of the pass, holding the narrow way through to the kingdom heartlands. The landing field and stables were quiescent, but a plume of hot air snaking from the stable’s open side hinted at dragons asleep within. Heavy lance batteries stood silent on the towers. The fortress jumped closer, flickered by, and was gone just as fast.

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Just like that, they were through the mountains. Past the Rocks, and out of Rosefire Kingdom. Joseph almost expected to feel some kind of physical effect of leaving the kingdom. Since he was young, he had grown up on stories of the untamed wilderness beyond its borders. In the centre of the continent, there was nothing but untamed land, starving monsters, and the ruins of long-dead cities of ages past. All he felt was an all-encompassing trepidation.

The nomadic reavers that wandered the land to the east of the Rosefire Kingdom survived by dint of becoming almost as feral as the monsters. The wrack had always been feral, full of utter, unadulterated savagery, and were utterly uncompromising where their territory was concerned. The prolific species thrived in the heart of the continent, spreading like a cancer.

The reavers were the last human holdouts living away from the coast. In the east, that was. Joseph had heard tales of other humans, living in the wilds, fighting the wrack day in and day out, far to the west, but he had no way to verify them.

They flew now over lower ranges, interspersed with rich river valleys. The ribbons of water threaded across the landscape like sapphire stitching in a rumpled, emerald silk dress.

Joseph gloried in the views. The landscape was similar to the low ranges around Skyseat, and yet completely different at the same time. It was wild, untamed, untouched by man for long years. It was beautiful.

Joseph noticed several ruins as they flew, places where the shells of buildings lay cracked open and filled with verdant growth, like a basket of eggs dropped and left to rot.

Joseph was curious about them. The information they had on previous ages was scant and irregular. In some places, much knowledge survived the first Fracturings, but experts and specialists were lost. In others, the reverse was true.

He looked out across one particular ruin, at the blocky, squat towers, and sprawling warehouses. Both were ugly, aesthetically speaking, by modern standards, and yet still had recovered some measure of beauty by the odd, asymmetrical ways that nature had moved to reclaim them.

He assumed building without enchantments severely limited the range of what humanity could achieve. Supposedly, many of the greatest things humanity had built before the Fracturings had not survived. He had heard tales of towers that would have dwarfed even the tallest in Skyseat, of buildings so large an Earth dragon could fly inside them, and of structures set deep underground, somehow resisting the pressure of the earth with pure engineering. He wondered whether the architects of old would have been impressed with modern structures.

As he was ruminating on this, Joseph began to pick out more irregularities in the landscape below. Much of humanities’ ancient infrastructure had been cannibalised, or built on top of, in the civilised lands near the coast. The best place to build a city, or the best route for a road to take, had stayed the same, as often as not. Out here, the land told a different story.

Lopsided notches, flat and angular, wove around the sides of hills and valleys. A lumpy hill, covered in trees, had the top of a single, square building peeking through its crown. A long, winding trail though a plain had barely any trees growing on it for miles. Along a small river that seemed far too straight, trees grew in neat rows down both sides.

So the signs of humanity’s fall whispered to them as they flew. And they began to see signs of its new rise, as well.

Far in the distance, several tiny smudges of smoke rose into the sky. They were so thin and insubstantial that Joseph had to squint at them for almost a minute before he was sure of what he was seeing.

Reavers, he thought, and shivered. They had tenaciously resisted the encroachment of the wrack into their land for centuries, and as a result, they had become almost as feral as the monsters they fought. Even worse, they were losing.

They lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, riding in huge groups, following after the enormous herds of bison that roamed the endless plains they lived on. Their horses and horsemanship was legendary.

They only survived as long as they did by virtue of having an advantage during the Fracturings. They were closer to most of the impact sites, and so usually managed to arrive first at any that the coastal nations’ Mystics and mathematicians could not predict.

The coastal nations still had a massive advantage in dragonpower over the reavers. They secured every single shard that fell in their own territories, whereas the reavers had to contest with the wrack, and the coastal nations, for theirs. Using Water dragons, they also secured many of the shards that fell in the coastal waters off the kingdom’s coastline.

It left the reavers at a distinct disadvantage in terms of dragonpower, but they made up for some of the deficit through sheer skill.

They lived most of their lives in the saddle, following the great bison herds around the plains, and that skill in horsemanship apparently translated well to dragonriding. Their dragonriders were amongst the most skilled on the continent.

It wasn’t long until Joseph caught sight of his first reavers. He couldn’t help but gasp. A thin, raised band trailed its way across a plain, perhaps an old road or railway. On it, a group of perhaps a hundred horsemen cantered along.

They were too high up to make out any great detail, but even so, Joseph could feel the ferocity rolling of them. When the horsemen caught sight of the dragonflight, they began shouting to each other, wheeling their horses about and shaking their weapons up at them. The Silver Wings simply continued onwards, unimpressed.

Joseph wondered if Lauren had seen them. He couldn’t make her out inside her pod. He found he was more than a little apprehensive himself. Talking about flying into the wilds was very different than actually doing it. He hoped they found their shard uncontested.

Several more hours of flight, and the dragons slowed a little. Joseph peered out through the glass, and caught sight of a ruin approaching, the largest he had seen so far by a good margin.

The dragons were heading straight for it. They had arrived.

He became aware of a rumbling, hissing noise, and glanced out to his right. Up, up, there was a meteor, trailing a great streak of fire as it fell. It, too, was heading directly for the city.

Anticipation squeezed his guts. That was his shard. His claim to make. His dragon egg, falling through the air. He understood the bizarre lethargy with which they fell, but he couldn’t imagine it would take longer than a few more hours until impact.

They had arrived just in time.

Suddenly, Joseph was jolted forwards into his straps. He grasped at them, bringing himself back upright. His dragon had slowed dramatically. What was happening?

He peered out through the glass again, trying to see what the cause of the hold up was. The other dragons had slowed too, keeping formation. He watched as the other HALT pods swung like pendulums below them.

The ruins seemed empty, quiescent. The shard was still slowly scorching its way through the sky. They must have stopped to ascertain where it would land exactly.

Joseph took a deep breath, rubbing at his shoulders where he had slammed into his straps. Would have been nice to get a little warning, he thought.

He watched as the shard fell, trying to predict its course. Definitely heading towards the city.

Something caught his eye as he looked. Something beyond the city. Movement.

He squinted, trying to make out what it was, but the slight rocking of his HALT pod made it difficult.

There, he thought. Definitely movement, coming down that hill...

His knotted guts froze. The movement wasn’t coming down the hill, it was flying down it. Low, low to the ground, trying to approach undetected.

The shapes grew closer. And bigger. And bigger still. Terror surged in him.

Wyverns, he thought, suddenly wishing he could be anywhere else. The Wrack have come to contest the shard.

Above him, loud enough that it hurt his ears, even through the pod, his dragon roared in anger. The other dragons took up the call.

Joseph had a sudden sinking feeling that this might not be so simple as ‘get in, and get back out again.’