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Darzhja: Chapter Two

Originally from writing.com

By Shalion and Brian

Kaj was cruising along stately after me as we both circled around the fields outside of New Alveri's outermost southwestern gate. His massive wings, an unremarkable shade of brown like most Sky-Swallowers, lived true to his namesake, shading nearly an acre of land under him. He flapped them once mightily for every three of my own. The big dragon could have moved faster, I knew, but he was letting me take the initiative, prepared to counter whatever move I threw at him. He hadn't caught me yet, but I knew that he eventually would and so far all I'd managed to do with my quick strikes was chip a few of his scales.

My plan to tire out my much larger opponent had failed. Kaj, who'd been on guard duty for the past 20 years, seemed inexhaustible. And here I was panting and struggling just to keep ahead of him. The distance between us decreased as I struggled to think of a way to inflict some sort of damage on him. Behind me, Kaj grinned keenly, confident, but not with a reason to be. I beat my wings with renewed vigor. I was not going to lose! I wasn't fighting for my life. I was fighting for far more! I had to prove that I was more than a penniless, clanless orphan with no future. I had to because more than my own future rested on my shoulders. I was through running.

Dipping a wing, I turned a 180 on a dime. My neck heart throbbed, keeping the blood flowing to my head as I strained under the g-forces. Kaj rushed toward me almost like a mountain. He spread his claws wide. I was not going to launch myself right into his teeth and claws, however. At the last moment, I feinted, closing my wings and sending myself into a corkscrew under him again going for his underbelly. Kaj chuffed, however at my ploy, lifting himself out of my reach with a single beat of his great wings. With his longer leg, however, he still managed to graze me on my flank. He failed to break through the scales - and if he had, I'd have been out of the fight instantly and in mortal danger to boot - but it hurt intensely nonetheless. I'd failed.

I don't know why I did what I did next. Maybe it was something in the way he was holding his body at that moment, but more likely it was pure dumb luck. Kaj's tail was pointed straight down to balance as he lifted himself up. As I hurtled by, I whipped my tail out and caught my tail weapon against his, an elongated and segmented bone mace with scale-like protrusions something like a cross between a snake's rattle and a pineapple. My weight, though slight in comparison to Kaj's was not inconsiderable. The bigger dragon's hindquarters dropped as I fell, tugging on his tail. When his wings were angled straight up, Kaj stalled and began to plummet. "Darzhja!" roared Kaj with real fear in his voice.

I was pointed nose down with my wings closed, the wind whipping into my face as the ground neared. Kaj, behind me and still hooked to my tail was falling tail first, his great wings billowing empty behind him as his massive bulk dragged him down to Earth. It was one of the worst positions possible for a falling dragon, especially the bigger ones. "This isn't how a duel is supposed to go, Darzhja!" Kaj roared again. He whipped with his tail, but I jerked back, keeping them lodged together.

"It goes however I can make it go, Kaj!" I yelled over the wind. "Submit and I'll release you!"

Kaj hesitated and the ground grew nearer.

"How long do you think will it take them to fill in the crater, Kaj?" I asked. I hurt my pride to win like this but Kaj had already proved to me my superior in pure brawn and fighting experience.

"I..." started Kaj, but I would never learn what it was he was going to say.

At that moment, there was a terrible explosion from within the city. It was so close that me and Kaj were sent tumbling through the air from the shockwave. Wordlessly, I scrambled to help Kaj realign himself before we both hit the ground. Smoke billowed thick, black and greasy as if possessed with an evil malevolence from the trade district of New Alveri, in many ways, the heart of the city. Before the city walls rose to block our view, I saw one of the lavish marble towers, magicked to stand as tall as a cliff-face, crumble and crash into some neighboring buildings.

We landed heavily, all but crashing, but Kaj fortunately broke my fall. I tumbled off his back, the larger dragon groaning. I was still in shock, looking at the smoke erupting into the sky so close. Little bipeds streamed out of the open gate, screaming and clutching their children. Dragons scrambled into the air all across the city. The unthinkable had happened. New Alveri had been attacked.

For a while, all I could do was stand there in shock at what had transpired.

Darzhja, we've got to see who we can help out!!" said Kaj.

"Right!!" I answered, snapping out of my stupor.

Immediately, my first concern was that of the other orphans. The orphanage, thankfully, was a good flight away from the market district, yet what worried me immensely was that my friends, Ophelia, Iskierka and Blaze, had been there at the time of the attack.

When I got to the market district, the scene was complete pandemonium. The shops and pubs I had visited every day were on fire, blazing out of control. I watched as the humanoids streamed out; the fear in their eyes and their panic. Some were crying, having lost everything they had ever owned, and crying for loved ones.

"Darzhja!!" cried a familiar voice.

I curved my gaze toward Blaze. His eyes were glazed in panic, jittery. The top part of his left horn had been clipped off, but other than that he was thankfully uninjured.

"Blaze!! What happened!! Where are the others!!" I shouted.

Blaze began to stammer incoherently.

"Calm down and take a deep breath kid and tell us what's going on..." said Kaj, lowering his head toward the young Fire Dragons level. Blaze gave a few shuddering breaths before he composed himself.

"I...was working at Mr. Ebon's smithy when there was this huge explosion. Ophelia managed to get back to the orphanage and check if the younger ones were safe, but Iskierka..." he cried.

"Iskierka?" I said, my hearts skipping a beat, "Where is she? What's happened to her?"

"S-she was inside the artist guild headquarters when the attack came, but the passage there is blocked by the rubble one of the fallen buildings," said Blaze, "By the Ancestors, what if she's...she's"

"We'll get her out kid, she's going to be all right..." said Kaj. "Meanwhile, I want you to get back to the orphanage, there's nothing else you can do here..." Of course, there was no way of knowing whether Iskierka was all right, but there was something about Kaj's cool demeanor that reassured us.

"Leave this to the warriors Blaze!! She'll be out in no time!!" I assured him.

We made our way through the panicking crowd.

"Over there!!" I cried. One of the skyscrapers had collapsed right on top of a series of buildings, one of which was the artists guild. Whoever had been directly under it would have been crushed. I feared the worst.

As I rushed to the scene, my front claw suddenly stepped on something squishy. I instantly stopped in my tracks. I lifted it up and stared at what I had stepped on, and wished I hadn't. It was the smashed corpse of a dwarven child. Its body had already been crushed into a paste, and the only thing I could recognize was its face, screwed in an expression of pain.

In my horrified panic, I turned my head away and swiped my claw to rid myself of it, screaming, yet the stain would not go away. The poor child's blood clung to my claw.

Kaj turned back and grabbed me by the shoulders, "Darzhja!! Get a hold of yourself!!" he shouted. I stared back up at him and whimpered, "There's nothing we can do for this poor soul. Only the Great Dragons Above can protect him now. We've got to find your friend..."

I could only nod numbly, and followed the huge dragon deeper into the inferno. Kaj carved a path through the rubble, and then I caught sight of the smashed headquarters of the artists guild. Many of the humans I had known, ones that I had worked for, were already dead or mortally wounded. Usually, at this time of day, Iskierka would have been in the studio, one of the only places within the guild large enough to accommodate the size of a dragon. It was only because that room was so large, and well built, that that part of the guild wasn't completely smashed.

The entrance had been blocked off by what had been the balcony of the marble skyscraper. I peeked through one of the larger cracks.

"Iskierka!!" I screamed, recognizing her under a pile of rubble.

"D-Darzhja, I...I'm..." she said weakly.

Kaj stepped forward and with a mighty heave and a roar, lifted what had been a marble balcony of one of New Alveri's skyscrapers over his head. "Iskierka!! Can you move!!" I cried.

"I....can't, it hurts," she wailed. It was only then that I noticed a puddle of blood pooling around her belly. Her back leg was twisted at a terrible angle, as was her right wing. That allowed me I to duck into the path Kaj had created and gingerly made my way to Iskierka. Her body was wedged under a series of metal beams. Frantically, I began shoving the rubble out of the way.

"Am...am I going to die?" she murmured, her eyes grazed and frightened.

"You're not going to die Iskierka!! You're going to be all right!!" I screamed back. "We're going to see Blaze and Ophelia and the others again."

Iskierka merely gave a shuddering breath in response.

"Hurry up Darzhja!! I can't hold it up forever!!" Kaj called, straining under the weight.

Finally, I managed to get enough rubble free that I could move her. I had to be extremely careful, or else she could get even more injured.

I grabbed Iskierka underneath his front claws and pried her out from the rubble. Iskierka let out a wail of pain as I did so. Lifting her limp body over my back, I staggered out of the rubble, just as Kaj let go of the balcony, back onto the street.

"Iskierka! Iskierka!!" I called out. She wasn't moving on my shoulders. Was I too late?

"She's only unconscious Darzhja," said Kaj. I let out a sigh of relief.

"She's going to need help soon... Get your friend back to the orphanage," said Kaj. "I've got to report with the rest of my unit to find out what's going on..."

I nodded, and quickly made my way through the streets. It would have been faster to fly, but it was too risky considering her condition. Though I had taken the route from the marketplace to the orphanage thousands of times, it felt like forever.

"Lady Ramoth!! Lady Ramoth!!" I screamed.

"Darzhja!! Thank the Ancestors you're safe!!" the old matron cried.

"I'm all right, but Iskierka's badly wounded!!" I wailed out.

"Get her inside quickly then!!" cried Ramoth. I nodded, and rushed into the chapel. I set her down at the altar, where the priests immediately rushed forth to tend to her.

"Darzhja, make sure that the younger orphans are within their dorms. I'm counting on you to keep them safe understand!?" ordered Ramoth.

I nodded and headed inside. The younger hatchlings scurried about, scared and panicked. Quite a number of them were crying.

"Darzhja!! Is Iskierka going to be all right!!" asked Ophelia.

"She was hurt pretty badly when the skyscraper collapsed on the artists guild. She'll at least live, but I don't know how she'll end up from there. I'm just glad that you and the others are safe."

"I'm still worried about Blaze though. He hasn't come back since the attack..." said Ophelia.

"What? I saw him on the streets and I told him to return to the orphanage. You're saying he hasn't shown up yet!!"

I hoped that it was only because he was late, or that he decided to ignore what Kaj and I had told him and decided to help out the civilians, but I couldn't help but fear if something had happened to him. I made up my mind.

I just couldn't sit still at the orphanage, not after I'd heard that Blaze had yet to return. People were still running amok. The humanoid priests were doing what they could for the injured dragons coming in, but it was too much. I realized then that adult dragons were coming in, some collapsing on the landing and others walking up the steps with broken wings. The hospitals in the area were full, they were saying, and there was nowhere left to go. So many dragons, and yet these were the ones yet able to move and talk. How many more were left in the burning rubble like Iskierka? How many hundreds or thousands of smaller bipeds were killed or injured where they did not have the strength of a dragon to see them through? I had to find Blaze.

Lady Ramoth wouldn't have let me go, so I didn't beg her pardon. Besides, I was technically no longer under her authority anyways, but it still bothered me to disregard what she would have wanted. Hopefully I could find the wayward fire drake and be back before she noticed. I slid out the side entrance and took the stairs down, leaving worried and crying orphans behind me.

It was a good thing I hadn't taken to the air. I saw the Knights flying in formation overhead. They were stopping civilian dragons and directing to the center of New Alveri, the Temple itself. I knew the dragon populace was being conscripted and recruited for rescue efforts, while at the same time, the humanoid half of the Knights were on the ground compelling the two-legged populace to evacuate the district. It might not have appeared fair on the surface, but dragons were outnumbered by the faster breeding races fifty to one and most dragons understood that it was their duty to help in an emergency. Such was the price of power.

I longed to fly up and be organized into the effort. To the Knights now securing the skies over New Alveri, I'd be nothing more than another useful body and pair of wings, but at the same time I'd be a useful body and a pair of wings, an equal to everyone caught in this nightmare storm that had thrust the world I knew into destruction and chaos. But I had to find Blaze first and see him safely home.

The fires were spreading as I reached the bottom of the cliff-face where the market district was. The air was dense and uncomfortable. But as a dragon, I could handle a good deal of smoke. The humanoids who hadn't fled already were not so fortunate. People, people I knew were stumbling blind along the sidewalks, choking to death, but I couldn't help them! The bodies of those who'd died in the explosion or soon after still littered the streets like refuse. It hurt my heart to see them, so I closed my watery eyes. "Blaze! Blaze!" I called and coughed.

A blackened window burst from the heat beside me and the resulting back draft lifted me off my feet. The side of my neck felt seared even through my fire resistant scales. I lay stunned on the cobbles for how long I didn't know. Water from the sky revived me. I woke, the side of my neck still burned and raw, and saw overhead a passing formation of Knights. The riders were magicking water to cling to the underbellies of their airborne partners so they could spread it over the burning district.

I got to my feet and called for Blaze, but my voice had gone. I had to close my water lids for the acridness of the air and I realized that I was coughing constantly. Where was Blaze? Where was the way back? I tripped over my left wing which I'd inexplicable left dragging on the ground. I felt dizzy and my neck was starting to blister under the scales. This was a foolish mistake. How could I have thought that I could have rescued Blaze? I couldn't even beat Raj in a fair fight.

There was a crash and for a moment, I thought that another building was crumbling down to cinders. Then I saw a large group of humanoids. They were dressed in thick yellow coats and orange suspenders. Their faces were blackened by soot, but around their noses and mouths, translucent bubbles clung to clean skin. A tall, muscular grey scaled Dragonborn emerged from the doorway he'd kicked down. "Clear." He said. Across the street, I saw a team of sturdy dwarves carrying axes perform the same function.

An elf, his eyes stained red and watering ran forward to me with the speed of a deer. He waved his arms as I bobbed my head woozily. "What are you doing here? You have to get out, the whole district has caught fire!"

"B-blaze..." I muttered. I coughed and spat out a thick black wad on the street cobbles. 'M-my friend." I subsided into more coughing and lay down before the elf, feeling wretched.

The elf raised his left arm and twirled the fingers in a complicated loop pattern, then uttered a single word. A bubble formed itself around my snout and I found that I could breathe again, though my mouth and throat remained raw. "If your friend's here, we'll find him. Leave but don't fly, things are still burning and exploding in the city. We have to keep the fires from reaching the alchemist's guild! If you see anyone alive help them get out, now go!"

I nodded once then turned tail. It was still difficult working my way back, but my water lids protected my eyes despite making my sight blurry and nearsighted. Water was coming down now every half minute, drenching me and everything in the district as the Knights flew their patterns nonstop. As the fires burned down to cinders, dragons were landing here and there to help sort through the rubble. I found no sign of Blaze on the way back nor anyone else alive. The couple of people I'd seen earlier on the street were collapsed dead face down in the ash. I wept, leaving bronze tracks on my blackened cheeks.

Lady Ramoth was livid when she discovered my condition and I told her what I'd done, naturally. I received a smelly green poultice for my neck, but no other care. In fact, I was put right to work as an orderly to help with the heavy bulk of the dragon patients occupying as many of the rooms as could be spared. The orphans and staff were shunted to the closets and even hallways as the orphanage was converted into a makeshift infirmary. Even Lady Ramoth gave up her personal quarters. Again, I could not help but notice how many dragons lay injured on the cool stone of the caverns.

Some sense was beginning to emerge from the conflicting tales of the dragons. The explosion had happened during some sort of meeting of the four major trade princes, three of which were dragons of incredible wealth and power. Rumors ranged from saying that all four princes had died in the explosion to only the dragons had died, the fourth having been spirited away by magic to none had actually died and that they had been using doppelgängers to conduct the meeting. Regardless, people were saying this was a deliberate attack against the dragons of New Alveri. "Curse the short-livesss!" a crotchety old Deathwing hissed, "Curssse them and the holesss they crawled from... ahh!"

"Shush now, grandfather." I said and squeezed water into his mouth from a rag and placed the cool cloth on his face. He was burned over half of his body, the black scales curling away from the skin, revealing tender red and yellowed flesh underneath. He wouldn't survive the night.

I was quickly called away, however by a human priest in blood splattered robes. He told me that Iskierka was to lose her precious wing.

"No!! She can't lose her wing!!" I wailed, "She'll never be able to fly again!! Isn't there anything else you can do to fix it!!"

"I'm sorry Darzhja... I truly am. We've already tried everything we could think of, and even had a mage tried to look at it. Yet, her wing was crushed beyond repair, if it isn't amputated we risk it becoming infected and that would surely cost Iskierka her life..." the priest sighed.

I curved my gaze over to the young gold dragoness and could only watch with horror as a team of humans lifted a giant saw. My gaze shifted toward her broken wing. It was a mess. All of the wing bones had been shattered, while its membranes looked like torn curtains. Two thirds of the connecting tissue had already been ripped out from her back, leaving only the twisted bone that connected it with her spine. My mind told me that amputation was indeed the only thing that could be done, but the fact that it was Iskierka that this had to be done to; Iskierka who was my dear friend, and knowing that she would never fly again, never find love with a mate and likely condemned to a life of poverty was too much.

Iskierka curved a pair of pleading and scared eyes at me. "Darzhja... I... please don't let them take my wing," she moaned weakly.

I wished I could tell her to be strong. That everything was going to be all right. I even thought about outright lying to her and telling her that she would be getting a brand new wing. Yet I couldn't.

The priest came up to me again.

"I'm sorry that I have to ask this of you Darzhja, but would you please keep your friend still while we perform the amputation?" the priest whispered. I could only nod numbly; they were severely short of staff, and besides it was only right that at the very least, Iskierka had somebody to cry against as the grisly deed was done.

"N-nno!! Make them stop!! Please!! No!!!" begged Iskierka, sensing the saw approach her joint. She vainly attempted to thrash and kick the priests away from her, and it took all my power and discipline to keep her still, rather than to stop them.

"I'm sorry Iskierka..." I murmured, placing my larger body over her and keeping her pinned. The next moment, the entire chamber echoed with an ungodly scream of incoherent despair, her tears pouring out in rivers, yet the sound that would give me nightmares for the rest of my life was that awful scraping sound, of flesh and bone being rent so unceremoniously. I wanted to close my eyes, but found that I couldn't, and I watched as they slowly and agonizingly ripped through her bone, her blood pour out in a grisly display, splattering the priests and most of my body. The whole while, Iskierka writhed and kicked underneath me, her hearts beating with fear and panic.

The whole operation lasted less than a minute, yet it had seemed to have lasted forever. Finally, mercifully, the amputation was over, as the priests whisked the broken wing away, setting it to a corner of he chamber along with a three others that had been amputated earlier that night, before rubbing the wound clean with alcohol, stopped the bleeding and bandaged it tightly. Beneath me, Iskierka whimpered softly and helplessly, her eyes tightly shut.

"Its all over Iskierka. Everything's going to be all right..." I assured, whispering in her ears. She didn't sound too reassured, as she could not have mistaken the quavering and fear in my own voice. Iskierka let out a few shuddering breaths, before collapsing unconscious in exhaustion.

I gazed about the chamber, suddenly finding the chamber too confining. I rushed outside and took a few shuddering breaths, my thoughts scrambling over all the horror I had seen today. All the dead humanoids. The city in ruins. The orphans, crying in fear. Blaze gone missing. Iskierka losing her wing... So I angled my head into the sky and screamed.

"Darzhja..." said a voice. I curved around to face Lady Ramoth.

"Please come back inside would you?" she said. Yet her voice lacked the usual sharp sting to it, but rather it seemed forlorn and sympathetic. I tried to hide my tears from her, yet I could not.

I placed my head against the base of her neck, allowing her to stroke my head like she had when I was a hatchling.

"Its...its not fair..." was all I could sputter out. "S-she didn't deserve this..."

"Were life fair, it would have been I to have given my wing, that the victims should be the old rather than the young. If life were fair, Iskierka would have been born with a mother and father to love her. Yet, that is not the way of the world. We must deal with the hand that we were dealt with, not the one that we would have liked to have. Because above all else, life must move on my child..." said Ramoth.

I sniffled back. Ramoth, in her long centuries of life, must have seen an entire lifetime worth of sadness and misfortune, yet she always seemed to carry on, and remain just as strict and disciplined as she always was.

"Now then, let's come back inside Darzhja, I'm sure you could use some rest..." she cried. I did come back inside. I gave a glance toward Iskierka, and shook my head for a moment. Thankfully, all the orphans were already asleep, and did not have to hear the surgeons carve out Iskierka's wing. That is, everyone except Ophelia. She was curled up into a ball, as if wishing she could return to the comfort of the egg shell, her bloodshot eyes glazed, seeing, but not seeing. As the only one of the four older orphans to escape completely unfazed, I knew she was blaming herself; that somehow she too should have gone missing or had her wing amputated.

"I must look so pathetic..." she murmured, "Curled up in a corner instead of helping out like you are..."

"Ophelia..." I cried, "Please don't blame yourself for what happened..."

"But...but...but" she stammered.

"Look Ophelia. Even if you think you were to blame, it doesn't matter anymore. Iskierka lost her wing, Blaze has gone missing, and after tomorrow, I'm going to be gone for good. That means you have to be the one to take care of everybody now..."

"M-me?" she stammered. "B-but I'm not strong like you. I get scared easily..."

I let out a sigh, "Perhaps, so, yet at the very least, you have to pretend to act like you're strong and brave for the younger ones, for Iskierka."

Ophelia shifted her gaze up. "I suppose when you put it that way I don't have a choice now do I? Lady Ramoth can't be everywhere can she? I know I'm not a good leader like you, but I'll definitely won't let the others down, not without giving it my all..."

I gave her a hug, "That's all I could ever want out of my friends. I knew I could count on you..."

And thus, I felt a little less worried, knowing that I would be able to leave the orphanage and that they were in capable claws. Thus, I was finally able to sleep...