Page 1 of Of Scale and Blood

CHAPTER1

When I was a child,I used to dream of riding Arleeon’s mighty drakkons. Dreamed of soaring over her vast mountain ranges and golden plains upon drakkon back, the wind streaming my long hair behind me, the sun in my face and joy in my heart.

The reality was colder, wetter, and far more dangerous, especially on days when storms crowded the peaks, the wind was high, and any abrupt shift in direction by the drakkon underneath me could launch me from her back.

But there was no denying the joy and exhilaration that filled my heart, and it far exceeded those childish dreams.

Of course, the only reason they’d come true at all was through tragedy. As a nation, Arleeon had hunted the drakkons to near extinction and, even now, centuries after the ballistas had fallen silent, they remained wary of humans and rarely flew over highly populated areas. While I’d spent the last fifteen years doing all that I could do to learn about them, I’d done so from the dangerous heights of the Black Glass Mountains—the rugged and often deadly range that lined the far reaches of East Arleeon, and whose foothills were a three-hour ride from Esan, my home city and the fortresses that guarded the eastern gateway into Arleeon. Zephrine, our sister fortress, guarded the western gateway.

Kaia had, of course, featured prominently over those fifteen years, but it had taken a long time to gain her trust. It helped that I was a strega witch—a rather derogative term given to those of us gifted with magics of the mind rather than the more highly prized mastery over earth, air, or even healing. While the term had once umbrellaed abilities such as the creation or manipulation of fire, the movement of objects, and mind reading, these days it was generally only directed at those of us who could understand the thoughts of animals and control their actions.

I’d inherited the gift from my mother, but it remained something of a mystery where my ability to call forth fire had come from. There was nothing on my father’s side of the family that suggested any sort of magical skill, be it strega or not, but then, he’d come from a long line of kings who’d valued practical skills and human ingenuity over magical abilities that were often limited by the strength of the practitioner. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they’d actively worked on erasing any sort of magic or mind skilloutof the line—it would certainly explain why a number of “spares” had inherited the throne over the heir in centuries past.

Kaia and I hadn’t really conversed all that much over the decade and a half I’d watched her, but the few times wehadallowed her to see I meant no harm to either her or her two drakklings.

Thatwas the only reason she’d come to me in Esan, seeking help for her young, both of whom had been attacked by those we now referred to as the gilded riders—armor-wearing warriors of unknown origin who rode huge birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch with deadly force at their foe, and acidic dung that could burn through flesh, wood, and rock with equal ease.

They’d attacked the three drakkons with little warning, in what we now knew was one of several “minor” skirmishes meant to test what forces Arleeon could bring to bear against them. The little male had died by the time we’d gotten back to him, but I’d managed to patch up the larger female—in the drakkon world, females were always larger than the males—enough to allow her to fly again. Gria, along with Rua and Tane—the mated pair of red drakkons who’d come to our rescue when Kaia and I had been attacked by gilded riders on our way back from Jakarra—now resided in the abandoned aerie high above Esan.

In the three days that had passed since our dramatic return to Esan, Damon—the man tradition and treaty had forced me to marry—had raised barriers via blood magic to prevent anyone—aside from a few necessary exceptions—using the two external entry points into the aerie. The gilded mages were probably capable of breaking those protective spells, but it would take time and effort, and that would giveusthe time to retaliate.

Kaia banked right and swept over the grasslands. This area was sparse, skimming the foothills of the Black Glass Mountains for hundreds of miles before sweeping down to the sea and the port of Hopetown. It was mainly inhabited by herders, their semi-domesticated bovine, and wild longhorns, the latter being large, hairy ruminants with horns that stretched at least three feet on either side of their blunt heads. While they were by nature intractable, farmers had for centuries crossbred them with the much smaller bovine to produce an animal that could be used for multiple purposes—neutered bulls to pull carts and plowing equipment, and cows for their fat-rich milk.

The sheeting rain made it impossible to really see anything other than faint shadows on the ground below, and, even then, it was the flick of hunger that burned through Kaia’s mind that told me those shadows were indeed longhorns rather than bovine.

Hairy ones sweet, came her thought.Good to eat.

Their meat is way too tough for me, I replied, amused.

My teeth sharper.

Sharp enough to bite a human in two with ease, in fact. Thankfully, drakkons apparently considered us poor eating, which was why, on the few occasions theyhadattacked human settlements, they generally just spat us back out.How much farther have we got to go?

Twenty sweeps past Ebrus’s ashes.

Given I had no idea where the ashes of her young male currently were in relation to the grasslands I really couldn’t see below us, that wasn’t much help.

She arced to the left and began a descent, the four main phalanges on each wing shimmering like flame in the wet shadows of the day. At well over eighty feet long with a wingspan more than double that, she was big for a drakkon, and I doubted I would ever escape the awe that rose every time I sat astride her neck. Of course, part of that came from the fact she wasn’tjusta drakkon. She was a queen.Thequeen, the one they all obeyed, if you believed what she said—and, having witnessed the deference the two younger drakkons had given her, I certainly did.

The sharpness of our descent increased, and I instinctively tightened my grip on the spine directly in front of me even though a slip wouldn’t actually send me falling to my death. When Kaia had consented to me riding on her back, I’d made a makeshift harness to help keep me attached. It was little more than a series of courser breast plates looped around her neck and simple U-shaped harness to anchor it—and me via the climber’s harness I was wearing over my oilskin jacket—to one of her spines, meaning if I did slip, I’d at worst end up dangling via the ropes from her neck.

I’d asked the saddlers to come up with a better solution and given them both Kaia’s and Rua’s measurements, but I was well aware it was going to take time to construct something more serviceable.

Overhead, thunder rumbled, an ominous sign the storm was getting worse rather than better. Anyone with any sense would not have come out on a day such as this, but in many respects, its ferocity gave us the perfect cover, as the gilded birds appeared to avoid full daylight or indeed inclement weather. Of course, given how little we still knew about them, we had no real idea whether it was actually a restriction or a choice on their part.

Needing to find at leastsomeanswers was one of the reasons we’d come out here today. Kaia had torn a rider free from his bird when they’d attacked her and her drakklings and cast him to the ground. While we had no use for his body—we now knew what they looked like even if we had no idea where they came from—we desperately needed to know what common weapons could pierce the armor they wore. Hot enough flames could certainly melt both it and the feathers that protected the birds they rode, but fire-capable stregas were not plentiful here in Esan, and our effectiveness was restricted by just how long our physical strength held out. Weapons made of Ithican glass also worked, but then, there were very few substances in this world that itcouldn’tpierce. It, however, came with two major problems: one, only those of us tasked with scouting Mareritten for any sign of activity or armed build-up possessed such weapons and, even then, their scarcity meant they were shared between detachments. And two, it was impossible to use a sword or knife on drakkon back or indeed on foot against a winged foe simply because their use, by necessity, meant getting too close.

I did own both an Ithican knife and sword—my father had gifted them to me when I’d first gained my captain’s pips—and Mom, who’d been weapons master on Jakarra before she’d married my father, had recently given me her bow and a quiver. Though it was far more useful against winged foe, of the dozen or so arrows she’d brought over, only nine now remained. And Jakarra, the one place we could have easily gotten more from, had all but been destroyed by the gilded riders and its people made refugees in their own lands.

My parentshadreached out to Ithica with a request to purchase more of the “waste” shards the arrowheads were made of, but as yet, we’d had no reply. But even if they did come back with an affirmative tomorrow, the supplies would still take time to get here.

And I very much suspected time was the one thing we didn’t have much of.

Kaia’s flight straightened again, the very tips of her wings lightly brushing the tops of the wind-flattened grass stalks. Though we were flying low, we weren’t intending to land. We simply wanted to know if the rider’s body remained where she’d flung it, and more importantly, if the armor was intact or had been scavenged by one of the herders who called this place home.

If the armordidremain, then we’d swing back here and pick it up on our return to Esan.

Nearing, Kaia said.

---