Page 53 of Dragon Valley
“Hurts… Nadi, I can’t…”
“Yes, you can!” I grabbed his face in my hands, my fragile control and resolve finally cracking. “You can’t leave me, Caden! I love you!”
It must have been seconds but felt like hours. I finally pulled Caden away from the wall and we took our first steps up. Dusa’s cries from above, the adrenaline shooting through me, the desperation to keep this man alive for my own sanity, or maybe a mixture of all the above, kept me going.
The moment I tasted the sweetness of fresh air, I ripped my mask off and then Caden’s. We were still halfway up the stairs and the smoke was quickly overflowing the room and rising up with us. I had no strength left by the time I reached the top step. Through my painful, smoke-irritated eyes I saw charred bodies piled up all around the small building and Dusa seemed busy with more attackers outside.
She poked her head into the house and went berserk at the state we were in. Her cries nearly made my ears bleed as she scratched and tore at the paneling, making a bigger doorway. The last thing I saw was her long claws reaching out to grab us, then the sensation of being dragged across the floor, followed by the blissful feeling of wind whipping past us and weightlessness in my body.
21
IGNAZIO
“My Lord…I think the dragon’s returning.” Jast sounded relieved but extremely uneasy. I could hardly blame the guy. Unlike me, he wasn’t obsessed about dragons and hadn’t dreamed about seeing a real one since childhood.
I stood and turned abruptly, realizing immediately that something was wrong. Dusa carried no riders on her back as she flew toward us but appeared to be clutching two limp, unconscious bodies in her claws.
“Get back! Give her room to land,” I ordered.
My soldiers scattered. At any other point, it would have been funny. I often joked they attached themselves to my hip so tightly I wished to flick them away like specks on my shirt. But now, they were still apprehensive of the dragon and her Rider despite my assurance they could be trusted.
Dusa flared her magnificent wings out to brake her flight, landing with just a few feet of skidding on her rear legs. If the situation weren’t so dire, I’d be content to just sit back and watch her in awe. Her front claws cradled the two lifeless bodies of Nadiyah and a man who looked to be on death’s doorstep.
The golden dragon laid them both gingerly on the ground, then roared deafeningly right in my face. She breathed no fire but I could still feel my hairs curling from the heat of her mouth. I couldn’t read dragon emotions like Nadiyah’s people, but the message was clear— save them or you’re toast.
“Jast!” I hollered, pushing my sleeves up. “Bring the whole kit!”
“Right here, my Lord,” he said, running over with the heavy trunk like it weighed nothing.
I lowered myself to my knees next to Nadiyah’s companion. As much as I wanted to check on her first, his injuries were far more severe. He’d been beaten badly, possibly even tortured for information. I pulled my knife from my boot to cut away his clothes and get to work.
The world around me melted away as I focused on his injuries, taking the tools I needed from the trunk and only speaking to give orders to the soldiers who gathered around him next to me. With half a dozen hands, we worked like a single organism to save this man’s life. Jast and I formed this unit with this exact purpose in mind.
When the war broke out, I specifically wanted the best soldiers who were also trained as medics. From there, we interviewed them extensively to find out where their loyalty stood. Over eighty percent were blindly loyal to the crown, as I expected. They’d been fed nothing but pro-royal propaganda their whole life. But if they gave even a hint of sympathy to the rebels and poor folk of this country, I kept them to interview further.
If anyone asked, I was interviewing for my personal guard. As a member of the Tannia nobility, naturally I would be targeted for rebel attacks too. Over a year passed before we whittled it down to these men serving me today, and each one of them was irreplaceable. Yes, we paraded around the country like my foolish relatives, showing off our wealth and shallow charity supposedly boosted the morale of the poor folk. If they would just submit, they could aspire to be like us one day.
It was sickening. The people looked at our carriages, our clothes, and our pearly white smiles with such disgust for being out of touch with real life. I hated every moment of it. But little did the other nobles know that we went into villages to treat the sick and injured. We even helped deliver babies because all the best doctors had been poached for the war.
We treated people with common infections and nutrient deficiencies. Antibiotics and high quality food became too expensive and scarce for these people to afford. The disgusting noble families hoarded it all for their inbred selves.
Growing up, my parents loved to tell everyone that I studied healing and medicine. Pretending to care about others made them look good. The moment no one was listening to them boast, they said what they really felt.
“Ignazio, you are too well born to have blood on your hands every day,” my father said. “Such grotesque work is beneath you.”
“I’m saving people’s lives!” I yelled to their deaf ears.
“Darling, those poor folk never stop having children. What’s the difference if they lose one or two?” my mother countered with a flippant wave of her hand. “What if you catch a fatal disease from those people? If we lost you, the whole country would be devastated!”
Their discouragement only made me work harder and fight to keep my secret missions hidden from prying royal eyes. Thank the Gods I had Jast and my guards always covering for me. They swore an oath of loyalty to the crown and my family, but their loyalty tomewas ironclad. Most of them came from poor families themselves and worked their way up through the royal army ranks.
It was nearly nightfall by the time the young man stabilized. I sat back on my heels and rolled my head around on my stiff neck. The dragon’s inquiring growl made my hairs stand on end.
“He’s going to be alright,” I told the scaly beast. “But he needs to rest and may not wake up for a day or so.”
Her pupils narrowed to slits as if suspicious of my answer, then turned to nudge Nadiyah, still unconscious and propped up against her side. I looked to Jast who had been treating her.
“She’s fine, just minor smoke inhalation and exhaustion,” he said. Then to the dragon, “Your Rider needs rest and fresh air to breathe. Her lungs will clear the smoke on their own as long as she doesn’t breathe in any more. She’ll be good as new when she wakes up.”
