The Broken Scale (The Dragon Riders of Arvain) Read online

  “Close your mouth, boy, and wipe that stupid look off your face or it might stay there permanently.” Hayden closed his mouth and tried to look normal. “Well, I would say that’s better, but you’re still ugly, now you just don’t look dumb and ugly. This is the real world, boy. If someone wants to hurt you, they aren’t going to stop just because you asked nicely. This is the world you are going to jump into and that noble heart of yours is going to get you killed. You need to make up your mind whether or not you are going to bend with the world and become one of them, or stand strong against the waves and become something entirely different.”

  “What would I become?” Hayden was trying to stay within the fire’s ring of light so he could see Fendrel’s face. Hayden looked around and realized it had gotten dark a lot faster than he thought it should. It scared him a little to think how lost he had gotten in his own thoughts, and while listening to Fendrel speak, he lost time and didn’t realize what was going on in the world around him. I need to stay more focused on what’s going on or this could get me into trouble one day. Hayden shrugged off the thought and looked back up at Fendrel, realizing he had been staring at him.

  “Boy, if you are going to ask me questions, at least do me the kindness of listening to me when I answer you.” Hayden nodded his head in a silent apology. “Thank you. Now, you would become one of two things: one, you would probably be dead, two, if you survived, then you could possibly change the world to whatever you wanted. All through history you will find men and women who went against the world and did things how they saw fit. Not all of them were good righteous people, but they still affected Arvain in one way or another. Some doing enormous amounts of good, and others causing great amounts of chaos and evil. You never know just how everything will be affected by your actions today. You might have done something yesterday that, without even realizing it, could cause the whole world to blow up tomorrow.” Fendrel lay down just as he did the night before, using his pack as his pillow and wrapping up in his travel cloak.

  “You don’t really think that would happen do you, you know, the whole world blowing up on account of something I did yesterday?” Hayden started to lie down also, trying to get comfortable, but feeling every little rock and stick that he had missed when he tried to clean off a space earlier.

  “Well crazier things could happen,” Fendrel responded with a note of seriousness to his voice.

  “Like what?” Hayden sat up on one arm, thinking he was about to hear something wild and farfetched.

  “You could actually get a dragon egg.” Fendrel was able to sound serious while he spoke but as soon as he finished he rolled over on his side and began laughing loudly at Hayden’s expense.

  “That’s not funny,” Hayden replied quietly as he turned and tried to fluff his pack the best he could. He laid back down, but this time with his back to Fendrel, hoping it would help drown out the laughter. It did no such thing, and for the next few minutes all Hayden could do was listen to Fendrel cackle like a child and repeat the same line over and over again. This would in turn cause another laughing fit to erupt from the old man.

  “He he, you could actually get a dragon, good one, he he,” Fendrel spoke to himself.

  “Shut up, it wasn’t that funny,” Hayden replied angrily and tried in vain to go to sleep.

  ------------------

  The following morning was spent mostly in silence. Hayden was so lost in his thoughts that he cleared the camp without realizing it. He continued to work, and when he was finished he just picked up his pack and started walking without any kind of acknowledgment to Fendrel’s existence. Fendrel sat back and watched Hayden, only moving to follow him when he started to walk off.

  “You aren’t still mad about the joke last night, are you, boy?” Fendrel asked causally, but Hayden could hear he tried to cover a laugh as he spoke. Fendrel tried coughing after he spoke so he would not start laughing out loud.

  “No, it’s not that, it’s just that the whole world seems a lot darker than I thought it was.” Hayden let Fendrel walk up beside him and put his arm on his shoulder.

  “I know what you mean. It is always dirtier and darker than what we had imagined it to be. Don’t let it get you down, though. You can always help shed some light on it. Plus, don’t forget we will be at Celestial City today, so that should cheer you up a bit.” Fendrel seemed to have cheered himself up, he walked with a little hop in his step and a smile on his face.

  Well there is that. It will be nice to not have to walk nonstop for a while. I wonder how long I will have to wait until I can try to get an egg. I can’t wait for the trials, I know I will fly right through them thought Hayden. Hayden, without thinking about it, started smiling also. As they continued on the road, they started running into more and more people. Most were traders with large carts full of goods. Luckily the road had widened so that they did not have to run off the road every time a cart came by. Many of the people were pleasant towards them, asking basic questions about how their trip was going.

  At midday, Fendrel told Hayden that they were only a few hours away and that they would be in the city by dark. Hayden did not have to wait long to know that Fendrel had been telling the truth. As they came through a bend around a thick group of trees, Hayden saw a sight that made him stop mid-step and almost caused him to fall. He looked up with awe and beheld a scene that he would never forget: dragons flying in a giant V shape. They had not made it even a hundred feet in the air and Hayden could still hear their wings beating as they gained height.

  Hayden quickly counted the dragons and their riders and tried to get a good look at each one. There was a silver in the front of the “V” formation and there were two copper dragons flying behind him on both sides. As they began to get some distance from Hayden and Fendrel, the silver dragon turned and let out a roar that Hayden felt as much as he heard.

  Hayden knew that Fendrel was speaking to him, but he dared not turn his head away from the dragons, lest he miss a single thing. After a few seconds he noticed that the dull noise that must have been Fendrel’s voice ceased and Hayden was able to watch in silence. One of the first things he noticed was that the silver dragons were almost twice the size of the coppers. The coppers had wings that were proportionate to their body size, but the silver’s wings were like giant sails, much bigger than he thought they would need.

  The silver would push up with one massive beat of its wings and then soar smoothly for a second and then push up again. The entire time, it remained in a constant fluid movement that made it look like it was completely at ease. The coppers on the other hand, were flying like baby birds fresh out of the nest. Their wing beats were random and their wings weren’t always flapping at the same time, so they were thrown off balance and would then have to struggle to get right side up again.

  “They are amazing,” Hayden said to himself as much as to Fendrel.

  “They really are.”

  “I had no idea the silvers were so much bigger than the copper dragons. Those four were even smaller than the one I saw back in Erskine.” Hayden was still watching them as they began to just become small blots against the blue sky.

  “Well they are still first years. They probably just had their first flight and have just started their flight training. I guess there were no silvers hatched last year, either.” Fendrel had already started walking and turned to see Hayden still squinting at the sky with his hands blocking the sun. “Well come on, we are almost there, and trust me, there are many more dragons where we are going.”

  “You said they were only a year old? Doesn’t that mean that they are about to start the trials?” Hayden jogged to catch back up to Fendrel. When he got to him, Fendrel had his tongue slightly sticking out and was counting on his fingers silently in his head. A look of slight amusement crept onto his face. “What is it? Did they already have the trials? Are the eggs for this year already gone?” Fendrel quickly answered Hayden before Hayden could work himself into a fit.

  “No, no n
othing like that. The eggs are still there waiting on you and the trials haven’t started yet.” Hayden realized he had been holding his breath and he released it when he heard the trials hadn’t started yet. He then turned and continued to walk down the road. “They start at first light tomorrow,” Fendrel told Hayden.

  Hayden stopped in his tracks and turned to face the old man. Fendrel just shrugged his shoulders at Hayden. What am I going to do? The trials start tomorrow and I am not even in the city yet.

  “Don’t worry, boy, if you aren’t ready tomorrow, then you would not have been ready in a week.”

  “That’s not true, I could have learned something in a week that would help me get an egg,” Hayden responded.

  “Well yes, you could have done that, but you don’t have a week, so let’s stop talking about who was wrong and let’s get you ready for this thing!” Fendrel took a few large paces up to Hayden and smacked him on the back a little harder than Hayden was expecting. Hayden stumbled forward a little and caught himself before he fell. “Sorry.”

  They continued walking with Hayden mumbling under his breath. Hayden wanted to start running and make sure he got to the city as soon as possible, but Fendrel kept telling him to slow down whenever he started going too fast. “We are almost there, calm down. We will see the River Savior soon and will be able to see Celestial City within an hour or two.” Fendrel had to repeat this statement three times because it wasn’t long after he said it that Hayden would speed down the road.

  “How do I know that? How do I know you haven’t forgotten how far it is, huh? How do I know that we aren’t five days away or if we are even heading in the right direction?” As Hayden spoke, he turned around and walked backwards so he could face Fendrel and continue to walk to what he hoped was Celestial City.

  “Turn around, boy, or you are going to fall into the river.”

  “There is no river.” Hayden turned around and saw that up ahead, the road turned a hard left and there was a drop off at the turn, because he could not see what was directly after the road. They covered the remaining distance to the turn in silence. When they reached it, Hayden was right that there was a drop off, and some forty feet below them was a river. The river was almost a hundred feet across, but it moved silently and there were no rocks jutting out so there weren’t any rapids or white foam. “So you can remember where the river is but not when this year’s trials are?”

  “I am old, some things I remember, and some things I can’t.” Fendrel just shrugged his shoulders and they began walking down the road as it followed the river. “Now when we get to the city, we are going to kind of stand out a little. It would also help us to blend in if you don’t gawk like you have never been there before.”

  “But I haven’t been to the city before,” Hayden responded.

  “I know that, but let’s not tell everyone that. Now, some big things that are going to be different about Celestial City and your home town are number one, the size. How many people lived in Erskine if you had to guess?” Hayden had calmed down a great deal since they found the river and he could tell Fendrel wanted to get him talking and keep him relaxed.

  “Um, I don’t know, maybe two or three hundred adults. Why?”

  “There are almost a thousand men who guard the walls to the city.”

  “A thousand?!?” Hayden’s voice got a little squeaky and high pitched when he shouted out his question.

  “That’s just who guard the walls mind you, that does not include the main ground army, and then the regular people that live there. The river we are following will fork at the city, one part will head into the forests of Eytherka and eventually into the sea, whereas the other part goes into the Bergelmir Mountains and flows into the dwarves’ underground irrigation system. It’s at this fork that they built the city. The walls completely surround the fork, which is no small task as you will see, and there are three walls that make up the city’s defenses. The walls make a giant triangle around the river, with the north corner lying in between the two forks and the western and eastern corners on either side of the main body of water we are following now. Everything in Celestial City is made of metal, everything. The walls were first made of stone to only about twenty feet high, but when they discovered all the rich minerals in the land and the city began to flourish, they decided it was time to upgrade their style of living. The walls are now close to fifty feet high and they look to be made of one giant sheet of metal, but don’t let that fool you, there are trap panels built along all three walls that will open up to reveal one of their many war machines.”

  Hayden listened, and tried to imagine what the city would look like, but with no success. He could not fathom what a city made out of metal with thousands of people would look like. The road began to rise at a steep incline and Hayden was starting to feel a burning sensation in his legs.

  “They even made the houses out of metal so that they would not burn if they got attacked or if someone just had an accident while cooking or something of the sort.” Fendrel was walking with one hand pressed on his leg and it was very apparent that this hill was taking a lot out of him.

  “I just can’t imagine what a metal city would look like.” Hayden topped the hill first and reached back to help Fendrel walk the last few feet.

  “Don’t imagine, just look at it.” Fendrel pointed and Hayden turned and was, for the second time, dumb struck by the sight.

  Celestial City’s walls shined as the sun hit them, and the city was enormous, much bigger then he thought it could have been. Outside the city were miles and miles of fields used for farming and he could even make out giant herds of cattle, some with thousands of head of cattle, making up huge spots in what looked like a giant green and brown quilt. Hayden’s attention was drawn back to the city and he just stared at it.

  They had come up on the rear wall just as Fendrel had said they would. Hayden could see down the entire wall and into the city. The rear wall did look like one giant sheet of metal, and he could see where the walls turned in and met, making a giant arrowhead shape. Each wall had a cover over it so the men on it would be protected from the weather and any projectiles that were hurled at them. There were three giant towers, each one almost twice the size of the walls, one at each of the three corners were two of the walls met.

  On top of the towers sat what appeared to be giant statues. On the tower furthest away from them sat a golden dragon, on the one facing the east was a silver dragon, and the tower on the west had a copper. None of the dragons had saddles of any kind and they weren’t moving; those were the only reason Hayden thought they were statues because they looked so real that at any second they would spread their wings and take to the sky.

  From their vantage point it looked like giant birds were circling above the city. There were dozens of dragons in the air with their riders. Some were flying in V shapes while most of them were just in an unorganized mess, but by some miracle no one even got close to hitting each other.

  He noticed that the river separated the city into three different areas; the largest part of the city was on the far right side and it was made up of metal houses, all organized and in neat rows. Hayden was amazed to see that some of the houses seemed to be on top of other houses. The top section that was in between the two forks was just a bunch of buildings that Hayden couldn’t really make out from so far away. The last side on the left was the one that amazed Hayden the most. It had a lot of smoke coming out of some of the buildings and it housed a few buildings that were thirty and forty feet tall, but the thing that caught Hayden’s eye was an enormous metal pyramid.

  “What is that?” Hayden asked.

  “The Metallic Pyramid? I mentioned that to you already. That is where the dragons and their riders stay when they are in the city. There is a side for each color of the metallic dragons to use. We are facing the corner between the coppers and silvers, they face the way their corresponding statues are. That whole side is the military side, those buildings you see the smoke coming out
of are blacksmiths and those big ones, the ones that look like giant squares, those are barracks that they use to house the army and the guards.” Fendrel was pointing at the buildings as he spoke and Hayden was trying to see everything.

  “The area to the far right looks like houses, right?”

  “Yes, that’s where everyone else lives who’s not a rider or part of the army.” Fendrel nodded at Hayden’s correct guess.

  “What’s the top section for?”

  “That is where all the shops, store houses, taverns and all the stuff that goes along with trades are. They keep it all together to make it easier on the people. As you can see there are four main gates; one on each of the two other walls and there are two on this one, one on each side of the river. The roads leading out of the military side lead to large open encampment where the foot solders do most of their training, the roads going out of the top section just thin out and go to various towns and villages. The southern road, the one we are on now, thins out also but it goes all the way to the frozen mountains. It’s the same way they say our ancestors came when they founded this place.” Fendrel started walking down the road and had to tell Hayden to follow. He could have spent a few days just staring at the city from on top of the hill.

  “This is amazing; this place looks so … so… amazing,” Hayden said as they began descending the hill.

  “Good choice of words, boy.” Fendrel continued to tell him about the peoples dress and what kind of food they liked to eat. As they got closer to the city they had to cross a bridge to get over to the side where the gate that led to the houses was.

  Hayden watched as a copper dragon came out of the sky and landed on the wall directly over the gate. They were still a mile away from the city but there were already more people on the road then Hayden had ever seen in his whole life. Everyone took notice of Hayden and Fendrel because they were dressed so different.