Chapter 1 — And So It Began

As her wings draped over herself in boredom, Jakyra felt both surprise and relief at the sight of armored dragons intruding on her makeshift den with polearms in their claws.

Well, ‘armored’ was a loose term. Iron helms, if they could be called helms, covered their forehead and left the rest of the head exposed. Metal cuffs adorned their wrists. Each piece bore an insignia depicting two outstretched, overlapping wings and a flaming torch at the center — a symbol for the dragon capital, Wynn.

So Wynn had sent rookie guards to her. Their youthful features and foolhardy confidence offered the impression that they hadn’t been guards for long.

She smiled at the stern squadron, forcing herself up as the rookie guards gripped their polearms tighter. One of them nudged a bright green-scaled gleem dragon, who strode forward under the coairse dragon’s amused gaze. Large, elegantly built, and possessing a commanding aura, she had to be in charge.

This can’t end well, Jakyra thought as she stretched out the cramps in her thick, muscled body, predicting how this would play out.

“You know, it’s rude not to knock,” she said out loud, mentally noting that of the fourteen dragons in front of her, most were gleem and metallik dragons. Two wyirm dragons lurked in the back, their serpentine bodies shuddering from the accumulating cold air.

She took a step forward, paying more attention to her rusty pink scales than to the menacing gleem dragon glaring at her. “Then again,” Jakyra continued, “knocking on skulls would be rude itself. Though if you want to knock on mine, sure, knock yourself out. I can take a beating — coairse dragons are good at taking those.”

A few dragons snorted. Jakyra diverted her attention to the room, a few bones from her last meal lying to one side. Dim rays of sunlight swept past the guards at the entrance, giving the shadowy area some color. Indented into the ceiling was a cracked spot full of loose stones.

“Why?” she finally said to the gleem dragon in front of her, done with beating around the bush.

The dragon stared at an inattentive copper-scaled metallik dragon before huffing, not able to stand the silence either. “We have orders to escort you directly to the Dragon Crown,” came her brisk words, eyes still locked on that metallik.

“Obviously.” Jakyra tapped her talons upon stone, recalling a couple of her interactions with the council of dragons at Wynn. “But why?”

The copper dragon snapped to attention, noticing the green dragon’s ordering gaze and stepping beside her. “Not our orders,” mouthed his deep voice. “We’re only told that this has nothing to do with their grievances against you. You’ll come now.”

Good grief, Jakyra thought. No way the Crown would summon her for a simple chat, not with their relationship.

Her eyes bounced around the room once more before settling on the metallik. “I suppose you’d want me to cooperate.”

Unlike the much calmer gleem next to him, the coppery dragon didn’t hold back any of his annoyance. “This isn’t a matter of whether you want to or not.”

“Oh really? The Crown wouldn’t send me children with pointy sticks—”

Many of the guards grunted, readying their polearms. The copper dragon himself nearly charged on the spot when the green female beside shook her head violently, waving her comrades back. Nevertheless, her disgust with the uncalled-for comment plainly showed.

More importantly, though, it revealed something to her: these rookies weren’t afraid of her one bit.

This really won’t end well, she realized with a dry chuckle.

“Don’t play games with us,” the metallik barked, teeth laid bare as tension chilled the stiff air. “The Crown demands your attention. I don’t see what makes them so wary of you, but you can see that you lack the luxury to refuse, no?” The tip of his weapon pointed at Jakyra as he said this, to the disapproval of the green dragon.

Jakyra gave her surroundings a final once-over before putting up a claw. “No? Oh, I don’t know, but I guess so. There’s so many of you foes, so, well, oh no.”

“Hmph. Oh no indeed.”

“Oh yes.” And without warning, Jakyra’s lightning-like fist smashed against the side of the green dragon’s head, where her silly helm didn’t protect her.

The large guard didn’t even moan as she collapsed, her girth falling upon the copper metallik. A childish rasp escaped his throat as he was sandwiched between stone and scales.

Another guard’s skull tasted oblivion at Jakyra’s hands before pandemonium broke loose. “Get her!” someone yelled, thrusting the guards forward. The pink dragon smirked, already setting up her plan of action.

She yanked a polearm from the closest gleem dragon, lurching him right into her explosive fist. Stealing the weapon from her fourth victim, she used it to ward off blow after blow from attackers, pummeling anyone who made the mistake of being too close to her. For someone who disliked fighting with anything but her own claws, she wasn’t bad with a ‘pointy stick.’

Still not my style, she concluded anyway, shifting her weapon into her tail’s grasp. Unfurling her wings, a cloud of dust swept over her foes as she rose to the loose stone on the ceiling. With one solid swipe of her claw, pieces of stone and debris rained upon the dragons, creating a scene of confusion.

The two wyirm dragons she noted earlier flew in front of her, faces glum but foolishly determined. “D-don’t,” one said. Jakyra shrugged as she turned around, then flicked her tail sharply. Her polearm shot off, scraping her foe’s cheek as he and his fellow wyirm flinched.

A metallik dragon rose from the dust at the same time, only to become next in line to meet Jakyra’s fists of fury. His body going limp, a vile idea suddenly came to Jakyra: Versatile meat shield.

The recovering wyirms darted in front of their target, only to gape in horror as the whole body of a metallik dragon swung at them, polearm inconveniently outstretched. Their minds shut down as scales collided, sending their narrow, light bodies swerving to the walls. Thus another two poor rookies had their bodies battered up.

Though they got off lucky. Getting hit by a stunned dragon was one thing, but Jakyra quickly saw that dropping said dragon onto the skulls of her foes was worse. She eliminated three dragons this way, including a very unfortunate copper dragon who had just freed himself. His distinct yelp in terror instantly clicked with her.

By this point, only five dragons remained, awestruck by the coairse dragon’s raw power and cunning. There were fourteen of them, and she had knocked out nine while barely receiving a scratch! “I’m starting to see what our elders were talking about,” a sleek gleem said out loud, throwing down her weapon in surrender as Jakyra took notice overhead. The others gulped, looking around at the sprawled bodies before doing the same.

“Of course.”

Heads snapped towards the cave entrance, converging on an old, metallik dragon covered in dark sapphire-hued scales. He wore a wistful, unsurprised expression as he took in the scene of sprawled rookies, stroking his chin. “My apologies, Jakyra. This isn’t what you expected, is it?”

Jakyra definitely didn’t expect the elder dragon. Of all the members of the Dragon Crown, this one chose to tag along with the guards. Did he send them here himself?

No, something else is up, good ol’ Ulm isn’t the sort to plan something like this. I’m less of a pain to him than his own back, heh. Jakyra gently lowered herself to the ground, waiting for the inevitable explanation.

“Silly dragonets we have here,” Old Ulm said to the drooping guards with a warm sneer. “I told you, if the Crown fears someone, it’s not for naught. Looks like Jakyra knocked the foolishness out of your heads good, didn’t she?”

Jakyra mimicked the elder’s face as she approached the dragon, a fresh quip on her tongue. “Oh, I’m sure that as I knocked them to the ground, so did I knock out their mindsets, their wills, their pride, and maybe a few teeth. Just another day for a professor of the school of hard knocks. But pardon me elder, have you sent these fools here to be schooled?”

Ulm wheezed, approving her wordplay. “I can’t stand anyone without a grain of caution, a hint of fear. These guards in training thought it silly that the Crown acts so cautiously with you, believing that they could gang up on you easily.” He peered again at the fallen dragons, a few bodies shuddering as they roused from unconsciousness. “Well taught, professor Jakyra. Seeing all these dazed dragonets, it reminds me of what happened in that gorge once.”

That brought a grin to Jakyra’s face. What she had done to infuriate the Dragon Crown that time — whatever did she do anyway? Stride into their court and make fun of their management of sanitary conditions? — was enough for guards to pursue her to a nearby gorge, where she made use of the landscape to hide, drop small boulders, create rockslides, shower her enemies in tree branches and logs, and take out a snout or two where possible. Good memory. The faces the Crown had when she and the few guards she spared brought those she had beat up, smugly apologizing for the trouble and making up for it!

A nudge from Ulm jolted her from her reverie. “Well, the newbies are getting up. Jakyra, their message about the Dragon Crown requesting your appearance is not false. We actually have a strange situation at Wynn that you’re needed for. I pledge to you that this is no joke, and that there won’t be any harm wrought to you.” Another wheeze escaped his throat. “Harm! Smoldering bars of irony, as if you’re to be afraid of us harming you!”

A strange situation? Jakyra couldn’t imagine what was happening that required her — or more importantly, that she was required in the first place. I don’t know, she wanted to say, but something in her heart assured her that she had no reason to worry. Unlike the other members of the Crown, Ulm was too trustworthy and fair-minded to break his word.

“Explain?” she asked, raising her voice over the moans of the awakening dragons.

“Can’t,” Ulm said. “All I know is some excavators unearthed this doohickey from the ruins of Scal, believing it to be some uniquely crafted jewel. Turns out there’s more to the gem than meets the eye, but other than it taking an interest in you—”

“It took an interest in me?” Jakyra couldn’t wrap her head at the idea of a sparkly object communicating with dragonkind, but once she pondered over it, something clicked in her. An artifact? An item infused with raised magic?

No. That sounded like revered magic.

The larger green dragon from before passed by Jakyra, a disgruntled, acknowledging smile on her low-hanging head. The pink coairse dragon ignored it, her vision soaring towards the gathering clouds outside. Revered magic. Finding something that valuable and dangerous from Scal’s ruins was one thing, but to be summoned by it? Her mind swooned at the possibility. Had she not trusted Ulm deeply, she’d pass this off as a ridiculous lie.

“At least, I’m told that it wants someone like you,” Ulm said. “We’d have to show up to understand. What do you say?”

At the distant beating of wings, Sauda peeked out of the woodlands offering camouflage to her dark elven garb and her darker face. In front of her were peaks of mid-height mountains, patches of woodland covering their tops like bushels of stuck-out hair. Past them were vast ranges of rocky formations covered with splashes of green, snow capping a few peaks that reached for the clouds.

And from the mouth of a relatively unimportant cavern soared out a group of dragons, their iron equipment glittering with their shiny bodies. Well, the metallik dragons at least had a sheen — for the gleems, they were simply vibrant in color, while the wyirms had moderately sleek scales.

Amongst the polearm-wielding guards was a bulky dragon with pink scales that always looked grimy. Though her dark red eyes and chiseled details weren’t visible from afar, Sauda could visualize her like she was right in front of her — Jakyra. Closeby was an elderly, dark blue metallik, probably a member of the Crown and a chieftain of his hometown.

Jakyra doesn’t look tired or bound, thought Sauda with a start, toying with the dagger in her hand before returning it into the fold of her clothes. She’s willingly going with them?

This made little sense to the elf. Jakyra, casually tagging along with Wynn’s guards? How strange.

And unless her memory was failing her, the blue dragon was Ulm, a member of the Dragon Crown who got along with Jakyra. In a way, he was like her guardian. Ulm wouldn’t track the coairse dragon down out of spite, but out of concern. For this many guards to accompany the elder, it was all too contrary.

Sauda fixed her balaclava, making sure only her narrowed, gray eyes and a lock of her hair were visible on her face before stepping away. Something was up.