Kindred: The Book of DraKon

Kindred: The Book of DraKon

T. Quakhaan

 Chapter One

  The sun was setting in a swirl of reds and gold, the reds bleeding into the far distance while the gold burned overhead. The colors reflected off his mirror-gloss black scales.  No where could he place his feet that did not place the fallen beneath his talons. Nenenthel snorted in disgust. Hamenai (mortals) were no better tn vermin, he thought, always finding reasons to be curious, covetous, or contentious.  The world had not been a quiet place since their dawning.  Better the DraKon remove itself to the vast reaches of burning deserts or the searing cold of the highest mountains where these pests were kept at bay by the natural elements, he thought.  Nenenthel stepped gingerly, more out of respect for the dead than concern for his balance. His wide spread wings and the gentle touch of the breeze allowed him to step lightly. He swung a head the size of a grown bull over one massive shoulder.

“We’re too late. It’s dead, poor thing,” he announced, plodding grimly onward.   “Come away, Arenenthy.  No good’ll come of lingering when the spark of the soul has fled.”   His scales rattled against the splintered spears, cracked shields, and tumbled boulders of the battlefield.

 “Who would do such a thing,” asked the female?  Her long horned snout gave the body at her clawed feet the gentlest of nudges.  Her warm breath curled around the body, warming it for a moment so that the young Hamenai woman, her middle swollen with life, seemed merely to sleep. “Why bring a breeder out here in the middle all this violence and madness,” she asked?  Blood oozed from the woman’s neck where a blade had kissed and ravaged her. Her life now pooled into the trampled plain and stained the DraKasi’s talons.  “The Eld asked for an escort but said nothing of bringing a breeder.”

“We are too late,” the male repeated.  “Areny, come away,” he urged, and began to move again.

   Arenenthy, a slightly smaller, more graceful version of the great bull DraKon, gave the body one last, hopeful inspection. True it was too late for the breeder, but what of the young within? Could it have survived? Was it mature enough to claim a life outside the parent host?  Arenenthy moved her muzzle closer to the bulging middle. Yes… yes, there! A tiny heart still beat, an unformed consciousness darting about seeking a contact now broken.  “Here, little one,” Arenenthy crooned to the unformed, grasping thoughts; “I am here.”

  The breeder’s middle heaved as if in a sigh and the life within wriggled and twisted seeking escape or freedom.  “Nenen,” Arenenthy called, with excitement. “There is still life inside this one, not her life but the life of her young.”

    “Leave it,” Nenenthel replied, turning sad eyes upon his mate. Having lost her fledglings was she now seeking solace for her loss in this most unlikely place? No good could come of it. “How would we care for such a thing?” He heaved a sigh of regret and eyed the corps sternly. “It is one thing to take a breeder into shelter until her own can claim her, but quite another to try to preserve what is not able to fend for itself.  Best there be an ending before suffering our poor attempts at parenting what we know so little of.”

  Arenenthy’s head rose, her lips peeling back from her foot long teeth and longer fangs.  There was life here, and her nature would not sanction leaving it.  The new life must shed the old, she reasoned. Therefore, she would have to desecrate the breeder’s body.  It was a thing to be done with finesse if she did not want to rend the young in an attempt to free it. Tooth or talon? “Nennen, I want it.” She called, simple and direct. She watched him swing around with agitated swipe at the bodies at his feet.

“Oh, for love of eggs, Areny!” he exclaimed. “The air might kill it, you have no food to feed it, no hands to lift or clean it…”

 She cut him off; “I.  Want.  It.”

  He knew that tone. He knew that glint in her eyes, the stiff set of her neck and shoulders. There would be no reasoning her out of this folly. If justice prevailed, then nature would take its course and the thing would expire quickly. No more fuss.  He cocked his head and studied the situation from several angles. There was vigorous movement within the bulge. Extending his awareness, he could feel an unformed questing from the consciousness, an increasing urgency … almost a plea. Help me, help me, help me… He snorted in alarm at the terror that engulfed him at the contact and quickly severed the connection. Slowly, he met the questioning eyes of his mate with new understanding.

“If we are going to do this,” he said in earnest, “best be by magic.”   How could he turn aside from such a desperate plea?  He lowered his massive snout and blew a stream of soothing thoughts toward the struggling form.

 “That’s it, little one. Curl tight, as small as you can,” added Arenenthy, trying to sooth the unformed consciousness.

 “We are going to make an egg of you. It’s only for a short time, just until we reach our home.” The great bull DraKon assured the embryo as he hummed. “Then you can hatch and we will take matters from there.”

    Arenenthy began to weave a more subtle note, something like the whisper of glass chimes into the deep bass tone supported by Nenenthel.  A shimmer encircled the breeder’s body, turning it a translucent quality which allowed the embryo to lift clear of the cavity, encircled by the DraKon’s magic. Slowly reaching for the tiny morsel of mortal life, the great jaws of the female DraKon opened.  Her long armored yet sinewy neck extended.   Together the magic of the DraKons guided the orb along its journey to a nesting place within Arenenthy where it could attach and draw nourishment just like any other egg.

  When they were satisfied that the task was successful, and leaving the Hamenai’s body where it lay, both DraKons launched their massive forms skyward and used the downbeat of their gigantic wings to gain the altitude for effortless flight.      

                                                                                 ****

     “Over here, my lord,” the short, thickly built soldier called. He knelt amid the slain; his right hand free of the metal gauntlet that still covered his left hand. Chain mail covered the padded cambric of his uniform and his sword rested in the leather scabbard over his right shoulder.  Behind him, no more than twenty steps, his superior, Lord Darnak of the Xendril stalked toward him, an expression of sorrow warring with his mounting rage. The slain had been traveling on a mission of peace to the kingdom of Eldoran, home of the Elds. Darnak’s sister, Lady Karamith, wife of the Eld prince, had volunteered to head the delegation despite her condition.  A treaty with the Elds would mean an end to the raids and pillaging of the towns and villages along a boarder shared with their ancient enemies.    His heart pounded into his throat as he neared the wreckage of the wagon that was supposed to transport her in safety and comfort. His sister… his sweet, ever smiling, gently spoken baby sister...whose body now lay sprawled grotesquely, a dried pool of gore attesting to the manner of her death.  More to steady his legs than anything else, Lord Darnak rested a hand upon the shoulder of the soldier who had located her.  The man looked up, pity and compassion twisting with his need for retaliation. “I am so sorry for your loss, Lordship,” he offered.

Darnak returned a nod, not trusting himself to speak. His eyes refused to see what lay before him in full detail – he couldn’t blame his brain for not wanting to process these horrid facts either, but there she lay.  The soldier surrendered his place and Darnak knelt, gathered up one of his sister’s stiff, cold hands, as tears clouded the disfigurement that was her throat. “Kara…”he groaned. A primal scream tore the brittle air from behind him.

 “Nooo!”

 Boots bounded the body strewn field and a shadow fell over Lord Darnak’s armored shoulders. Hands, with more than mortal strength, lifted him bodily out of the way and the young Eld lordling, Vixeon, collapsed over the woman’s torn body with another howl of grief.

 “How?!” Turning on his brother-in-law, his eyes afire with fury, Vixeon demanded, “how in name of Hallowed Spirits could this happen?”  

Darnak bristled at the assault. “You tell me, Eld.” He snarled back, using the word like a curse. “Where’s the escort your father promised? Why are there no dragons among the fallen?” Without thinking the two men squared off over the dead woman’s body like two wolves over a bone.

“What are you saying?” Vixeon growled, his tone deadly, one hand groping for the saber at his side.  Darnak stepped forward until the point dug into his chainmail just below his heart.

“I’m saying your father betrayed me,” he hissed, locking dark eyes with the Eld. “I’m saying he never intended to honor the marriage -or the treaty.” He grasped the blade with his bare right hand and squeezed until the red of his blood stained the metal. “Go on, you worthless piece of meat- finish it if you have the-“

The forgotten soldier used the flat of his sword to jar the saber free of Darnak’s grasp, and then shoved his larger frame between the two men. “Please, my lords,” he pleaded, shoving them further apart. “Enough of our dearest blood has watered this waste land. We do not know for certain that lord Vixeon’s father is responsible. Let us tend to our dead and then-“

“And then I’ll tend to your father,” Darnak told Vixeon.  He stalked off calling over his shoulder, “Touch my sister, and I’ll kill you.”

 “She is still my wife!” Vixeon shouted at his back. Turning, he knelt again beside the woman for whom he had given up his exalted place at the Eldoran court, his titles, his heritage, his people, and his family.  She had volunteered for this mission in the hopes of repairing the relations between Vixeon and his father.  Father, Vixeon swore silently, if you have had a hand in her death, Darnak will not find enough of you to wipe his tears. His hands strayed to the place where the promise of new life should have nestled. Goodbye, my child-the thought died half formed. Before, he could already feel a consciousness, and the physical form of the child she carried within her. Now, all that remained was a hollow. Not the rigidness of death … gone. The child is gone! Vixeon’s breath froze in his throat. The child is gone –removed without a mark. Hamenai or beasts could not have accomplished it. Would an Eld? Had his father stolen his child too? What other creatures under heaven would have the magic to do this? “DraKon, “he hissed in answer. DraKon were the ancient allies of the Eldoran.

“My lord?” the soldier turned back from watching his superior forming up a burial detail.

“DraKon have done this thing,” Vixeon said. Gathering up the remains of his wife, Vixeon went to find her a more congenial final resting place.