Part 10
Although the city was still dark,Moordryd woke up not knowing why. He looked around, wondering what had roused him, and found Decepshun awake as well. She didn't look concerned, so he got to his feet and went to the door, looking through the grate.
In front of the house, Penn was helping Parmon and Kitt stow gear inside their saddles. Moordryd crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, adjusting slightly when Decepshun nudged him out of the way with her snout.
"Can you hear what they're saying?" Moordryd whispered.
She whuffed, giving him a dark look, and he rolled his eyes at her. His dragon could be so melodramatic. He listened intently, but he could only make out a handful of words as they packed.
"...gauntlet...map...make good time..."
Moordryd nodded to himself. So Parmon and Kitt were off to find their gauntlets. What was more interesting was how Penn had a map of any kind. The wastelands were just that, terrible wastes of vast deserts filled with hydrags and muortas. The relics of the dragon empires were scattered far and wide. Any kind of map would be priceless, let alone one that they could use to find the gauntlets.
Who exactly was Penn?
As Parmon and Kitt raced off, Moordryd watched Penn head back inside, and once again the arena was dark and quiet. Morning light only just started to pierce through the gloom of the midlevels.
"Might as well stay up," Moordryd said, yawning as he disrobed and stood under the shower usually meant for dragons. He shuddered under the cool spray and stepped out quickly, shaking the water out of his hair.
Decepshun whuffed again, using her tail to point at the bruise still mottling his calf. He turned and examined the mark, wincing as he touched it.
"Yeah, it still hurts a little," he said. "But it's not that bad."
She narrowed her eyes at him. He cringed back, knowing that look.
"Really," he insisted. "It's not that bad. I've been walking on it fine. It just needs exercise."
He didn't need to read her mind to know what she was thinking. He stayed out of the reach of her tail and picked up his clothes, dressing and grabbing his jack stick.
"Yeah, I know it's early," he grumbled. "And I could use more sleep. But it's not going to happen so I might as well work out a bit. I promise I won't push myself."
When she didn't nip the seat of his pants and yank him back against her side, as she had done on rare occasions, he figured he was safe and went outside, leaving the door ajar in case she followed. He took up the beginning stance of the first kata, slowly moved through the steps, and brought his jack stick around in an easy swing. The precision gave him a sense of control as everything else felt like free fall.
"Mind if I join you?"
Pausing, still holding his stick out, Moordryd looked over his shoulder at Artha, who heaved a giant bag of dragon feed at his side. Moordryd grinned and set his stick down, leaning on it as he gave a meaningful look to Artha's bag.
"Um..." Artha smiled sheepishly. "After I finish my chores, of course."
"Stable brat," Moordryd chuckled. "Sure. I'll still be here."
With a bright smile, Artha nodded and hurried to the stables, pouring out the feed into the large tank that distributed the meal evenly to the different stalls. Moordryd returned to his practice, beginning the next level kata. Then the third.
By the fourth kata, Artha had joined him and followed only a step behind, mimicking his moves. Moordryd noted that sometimes Artha practiced the new hand positioning that he'd shown him, and sometimes he reverted back to his favored jack stick technique. And sometimes...he narrowed his eyes.
Moordryd came to the end of the kata and looked over his shoulder at Artha, who looked confused as to why they weren't going onto the next form.
"Wanna try something different?" Moordryd asked.
"Huh?"
"A match," he said. "You against me."
"But..." Artha motioned towards Moordryd's leg. "You're still hurt. And you're still getting better from the bane attack."
"Not a real fight," Moordryd said, rolling his eyes at first. When he realized how puzzled Artha looked, he frowned. "The technical term is sparring. Practice fighting. Haven't you done that before?"
"Not much," Artha admitted with a shrug. "I mean, sure, there's during races, but it was only with Morti-I mean dad that I got any practice in, and even that was more about racing."
Moordryd felt a rush of smug superiority that crumbled almost as quickly. The stable brat didn't put in the hours of practice that he did, and yet he was almost as good a fighter as Moordryd. At first he wondered if he was simply a terrible fighter, then shook his head to himself. No. Artha was just a natural talent.
"Dad always said I'd end up hurting anyone else," Artha finished.
"Tch. No worries," Moordryd said. "I can take anything you can throw at me."
"Are you sure?" Artha said. "You're still kind of limping."
"I'll be limping for days," Moordryd snapped, annoyed at being pitied. "Those feed crates weigh a ton."
He paced for a moment, calming down again. He took a breath and faced Artha again. "I've fought on worse. It's nothing. And we need the practice."
"Well, I can't argue that," Artha said reluctantly. "And I would like to fight without both of us trying to kill each other."
With a nod, Artha came around and faced Moordryd, holding his jack stick out horizontally. Moordryd chose a vertical hold, standing at the ready. Neither moved, staring into the other's eyes, breathing steadily, waiting to see who would attack first-
Artha slid in the sand, punching his stick at Moordryd's chest. The other boy turned hard so that the stick missed, then brought his own stick around Artha's head. Artha ducked, and nearly took the other end in his face as Moordryd jerked the short end of his stick up.
Snapping his head aside, Artha avoided the hit and stood, bringing his stick in a spin that would have clipped Moordryd's jaw if it had connected. Instead Moordryd tilted his stick in a quick if clumsy block and took a step back, blocking Artha's next hit.
Now on the defense, Moordryd kept stepping back, doing less blocking than dodging. His eyes narrowed as he realized Artha had several moves that he favored, none of them his more serious attacks that he'd faced in a real fight, and he waited for Artha to swing wide before stepping in close, almost face to face.
"Gotcha," Moordryd smirked as he punched his stick forward.
Startled, Artha stumbled backwards as he dodged. Trying to buy himself some room, he brought his stick up and then tilted his wrist sharply, bringing his stick around again in a vicious circle so that the back half came around faster than he'd expected.
Moordryd moved almost too late. The stick whistled by his head as he dropped to one knee, wasting a precious few seconds leaning on his staff as he regained his balance.
"Guess again," Artha grinned.
A second later he had to jump to dodge Moordryd's sweep.
"Keep laughing," Moordryd said, straightening. "Next time my stick's going right-"
A rumble shook the floor, shifting the sand underfoot. Both of them wobbled unsteadily, and Artha dropped to one knee beside Moordryd. Both of them looked at each other questioningly, then looked up when they realized neither of them knew what was happening.
Smoke billowed out in a wide circle in a level overhead. A second later, there was a burst of sparks as another cloud of smoke slowly rose to the sky.
"What was that?" Moordryd breathed.
"I don't-"
Another explosion cut Artha off, sending shockwaves through the city that faded to a rumble as they reached down to the arena. Artha and Moordryd both shared a look.
"Armeggadon?" Moordryd asked.
"I don't think so," Artha said slowly. "He doesn't crash around like that. And you can barely feel the power level up there. That doesn't feel like eight dragons."
"Just one really big one," Moordryd nodded. "One of those huge warriors, maybe."
Artha glanced over to his home, where he spotted Penn leaning out of the window to look up. "Maybe. You up for checking it out?"
"You don't think he'll try to blast us?" Moordryd wondered. "Last time felt like a momentary truce, nothing else."
"We don't have to charge in blind," Artha said. "But I'm going. I can't let whatever's up there keep damaging the city."
Not mentioning that he wouldn't dare go if Artha wasn't there, Moordryd nodded.
"All right, let's go check it out," he said, heading back to the stables. "I hope it's just one of them, though."
To his relief, Decepshun was quick to get on her feet. If she wasn't at full health again, she at least looked like she could hold her own in a fight.
"Don't worry, girl," he said, patting her nose as she magged on her saddle and gear. "If it looks bad, you get us out of there."
She nodded, then lifted him into place. In front of her berth, Artha already sat on Beau, armored up. He watched in fascination as Moordryd summoned his own armor, still enthralled by seeing another transformation.
"I think we'll have a good chance," Artha said as Moordryd came out. "We're not going into this one alone, I think."
"Huh?" Moordryd followed his gaze and watched as a large, hidden door began sliding up against the wall of the arena. If he hadn't seen it move, he never would have thought it was there. "Whoa..."
"I guess dad figures we trust you," Artha said as he grinned. "Since you decided to trust us."
Stunned into silence, Moordryd felt Decepshun shy away behind Beau as a huge, red, four armed dragon stomped out of the doorway. On top, perched like a doll on a tank, was the dragon priest that had given him so much trouble in the past.
"Wait..." he groaned as he slowly realized. "You mean...all this time, it was...oh scales."
"Yeah," Artha laughed. "That's dad."
With some difficulty, Moordryd tried to reconcile the image of the stable brat's protective father with the fierce warrior sitting on top of that monstrous dragon. Memories of fighting Penn bridged the two in his mind.
"No wonder he's such a pain to fight," he muttered.
"At least your on his side now?" Artha offered.
"Ready, you two?" Penn called down from Tyrannis Pax. "Shadow Booster, be careful. My readings show you're not back to full energy yet."
"Don't worry about us!" Moordryd shouted up. "We can handle ourselves."
With a nod, Penn turned his dragon and headed for the main entrance. The amount of power crackling around him made Moordryd wonder why the walls didn't buckle out or the floor crack.
Reassured immensely, he breathed out a sigh and leaned down to whisper to Decepshun. "See? Told you we'd be okay."
Not convinced, she whuffed in return and ran at Beau's side into the streets. Almost immediately she leaped up onto one side of a neon billboard and jumped off, leaving the sign crumpled and giving her the leverage to land on top of the row of buildings. Unable to follow, Beau had to wait until they passed a shattered slab of pavement that had fallen from above, using it as a ramp to a lower building and then jumping up to join Moordryd.
"Taking the high ground?" Artha asked.
"No," Moordryd said, nodding at Penn beside them. "Just don't wanna get stepped on by that mountain of scales."
"You know, our comms are linked," Artha said casually. "He can hear what we say."
"Oh really?" Moordryd grumbled.
"Yes," Penn said loud enough to be heard through Artha's helmet. "And we should get you linked up, too. we're on the alpha eight two four signal, high pitch."
Moordryd adjusted the settings of his helmet, fine tuning the digital receptor, adding in the second feed so that he'd be able to hear Cain if he called in. "Got it?"
"Loud and clear," Penn said.
"So's that thing above us," Artha said as another explosion rattled the streets. Now that they were closer, the mag bursts shook everything around them. Glass lay on the sidewalk where windows had shattered.
"We're almost there," Penn said. "As long as the mid-level access ramp is still in one piece."
Connecting the levels of Dragon City meant either the long compression elevator tubes or the spiral ramps, streets that wound like corkscrews behind thick sheets of clear protective acrylics. To their relief, the ramp was still standing, if battered and bruised.
The crowd evacuating from the upper level screamed in unison as they saw the three of them barreling towards the ramp, but Penn easily leaped clear of all of them and Artha and Moordryd both managed to run their dragons along the edge where the floor met the wall, similar to the racing circuit.
Upon coming out, however, Moordryd brought Decepshun to a hard stop. Beside him, Penn and Artha did the same.
Not Armaggeddon, but almost as bad-the other warrior in red and black, with armor similar to his own, furiously blasted open huge rents in the surrounding walls and ceilings, magging rubble clear only to hurl it into the street.
"It's amazing no one's dead," Artha muttered.
Moordryd swallowed. If they weren't careful, they would be. His heart leaped into his throat as the warrior felt them coming close and turned, his glowing eyes burning into Moordryd.
TBC...
Author's note:
1. It's a bit shorter than I wanted, but I'm working on writing again. Yey.