Fire Rider Read online

  Fire Rider

  Fire Rider

  The Rillion Book 1

  T M Miller

  T M Miller

  Copyright © T M Miller 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-9993245-1-3

  T M Miller asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2018 by Hatchinscope.

  PO box 1023, Horsham,

  West Sussex, England. RH12 9TW.

  Cover dragon silhouette and interior illustration:

  Copyright © T M Miller 2018

  This work may not be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of T M Miller.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  To my parents and big bro.

  And why I was such a dreamer.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Book 2 of the Rillion is flying your way!

  About the Author

  A Message from the Author

  1

  The City of Tiara floated on a bed of low mist. Graceful, white-stone towers rose high into the night sky and gave off a ghostly radiance in the moonlight. By now, the torches placed along the top of the city wall had burnt down to nothing more than smoking husks. Only one light was clearly visible, and it came from just beyond the perimeter. Here, a shorter tower sat inside a high-fenced yard, its top balcony bathed in a flickering glow from within.

  Through the open doors, a boy could be seen pacing back and forth by the light of a lantern. He wore a crumpled nightshirt and walked with an uneven gait. As he limped across his sparsely furnished room, he ran a hand through his dark brown hair in an agitated manner. Back and forth he went, passing his bed, with its blanket thrown to the floor, three more times. At last, he stopped short and threw up his hands in a futile gesture. Turning, he stepped out onto the terrace. He cut a scrawny silhouette with his thin limbs and mussed hair. The boy’s name was Jaron, and the tail end of his own scream had woken him from his nightmare.

  Jaron unbuttoned his nightshirt in an attempt to cool the sweat from his chest before resting his elbows on the balcony railing. The Plains of Wake were spread out before him, the moon still high enough to bathe them in a blue-tinged haze. Thin wisps of cloud, pushed by a gentle breeze, dimmed the moonlight at intervals, and turned the sluggishly swirling mists that covered the plains into a mirage sea. In the distance, he could see the shadow of the Notresia mountains that bordered their northern edge. Jaron sucked in the cool night air, glad to be out of his stuffy room. Not for the first time, he gave silent thanks for being given the floor at the top of this tower, and not only for the view. The terrace doors had thick glass, so at least up here no one else could be disturbed by his nightmares, even if he woke himself.

  Sprague, the trainer, had moved him to this tower not long after taking Jaron on at the yard, saying it would help force his fitness having to tackle the stairs. Jaron suspected it was rather to stop him from waking the other workers, although Brill was the only one who had complained, and that was no surprise coming from him. Climbing the steep winding steps had been painful at first, but Sprague had been right; they had helped his tighter left hip to become more mobile. Yet at the end of the day, and when he was especially tired, Jaron still needed the help of his hateful stick to make it up to his room.

  The three floors below Jaron’s were used for storage. At ground level there was a feeding room with a thick butcher’s bench for cutting up meat and a tack room for saddles and bridles. In here, two crossbows hung on the back wall ready for emergencies and with firing bolts to hand. The other riders and grooms lived in a block at the far end of the yard, just past the exercise pens and next door to Sprague’s house.

  Jaron didn’t mind being so isolated. This last year he had found himself becoming more and more of a loner anyway. He cupped his chin in his hand and sighed. For five months he had been sleeping well and had even begun to hope he was free of the nightmares, at last. Caught up with training, Jaron had fallen into bed at the end of the day too exhausted to dream of anything. It could only be the rumours that had reignited them; whispers of how the Raken and their monstrous flying firedrake were coming to Tiara to protect the city’s stores. Protectors, he thought in disgust. He turned his head to look westwards, to where the huge dark blocks that were the grain barns sat at the start of the bare fields.

  Jaron knew the soldiers would be waiting there hidden in shadow, as they had been every night since the harvest. Why couldn’t the Tiarian soldiers deal with the raids? Anything rather than have the firedrake here. The Raken may have been cleared of any blame after the attack, but all Jaron knew for certain was he couldn’t face having those beasts anywhere near him, wild or not. Not after knowing what they were capable of – and not after losing Teel.

  He still missed the man who had been as a father to him. Teel had seemed invincible, but not to firedrake fire, nothing was. Not a day had passed that Jaron hadn’t thought of him: his kind brown eyes, the bad jokes, his strength.

  A tear escaped and slid down Jaron’s cheek, slowing as it met the trench of his scar. He angrily brushed it away and shook his head, disgusted. ‘They’d better not come here,’ Jaron warned the glowing moon. His anger had made him speak out loud, forgetting for a moment where it was he stood.

  In answer, a deep-chested rumble sounded, rising up from one of the two barns in the yard below. They faced each other across a wide path, thinly shrouded now in mist. The barns had no white-stone walls; instead, thick bars ran from ground to tiled roof. At the end of the nearest barn, a large shadow moved, as big as one of the cart horses that pulled the grain wagons. It came closer to the bars and pressed against them.

  Jaron bent over the balcony wall as far as he dared. ‘It’s alright, Caliber,’ he called down softly. There came another low rumble, before, apparently satisfied, the shadow backed off and was lost within the dark interior of its cage. As Jaron straightened, a sudden wave of heavy weariness washed over him.

  Enough. Pushing off from the balcony wall he returned to his room, taking care to close the doors softly behind him. Inside, it was still too warm, and he would have liked to leave them open, but he couldn’t run the risk of disturbing the kelpra below should his nightmare return.

  Falling onto his bed, Jaron left the blanket where it was on the floor. He sat up to put out the lantern on his little table and, with a tired sigh, laid back down. Spreading his arms and legs wide in a bid to stay cool, he closed his eyes.

  Next morning, early, it was already warming up in the yard. The kelpra were out in their separate high-fenced pens after slurping up an offal breakfast swimming in blood, the sun picking out the patches or stripes on each kelpra’s coat that marked them from afar. The large beasts were similar in shape to a horse with a wedge-shaped head, a slightly shorter neck than you would find on a pony, complete with mane but with a tufted long tail and rounded ears. Each pen had a thick scratching post and while working off their bloody morning tonic the kelpra would run their long claws down its length or gnaw at the wood with their sharp teeth.

>   Inside the barns, the mucking out was in process. Straw was tossed and pulled up to air the metal floors of the cages. The two barns faced each other across a small yard and within the slanting rays of sun dust spores danced and twirled.

  Sprague arrived, at an unusually late hour for him. The trainer called to his workers to stop what they were doing. When all five had stepped into the yard, Sprague’s bushy dark eyebrows knitted as he pointed a thick finger at Brill, a tall gangling youth. ‘Monty’s tack was in a right grubby state last night. How come you didn’t clean it after training?’

  Brill pouted. ‘I did clean it, Sprague.’

  The trainer grunted. ‘Not by my reckoning, the stitching was terrible. Look after your tack, Brill – how many times?’

  Brill scowled and turned away into Monty’s cage.

  ‘I’ve not finished yet,’ Sprague called after him. Muttering under his breath, the youth let his fork fall with a clatter before turning back. ‘Listen up, all of you.’ Sprague ran a hand over his shining bald head. ‘All riding is to take place on the training track only, no going out onto the plains.’

  The workers looked at one another.

  ‘Because of the thefts,’ Sprague explained. ‘Blasted Ernots have been at the grain stores again.’

  ‘But Sprague,’ Sanra was tying up her thick black curly hair to cool the back of her neck, ‘they’d never catch us on the kelpra.’

  ‘They came too close to the yard last night,’ Sprague said. ‘I met the soldiers carrying a dead Ernot when I unlocked the yard gates at dawn.’

  Tucker gasped. ‘A mountain man! Are they as big as they say?’

  ‘Massive, I heard.’ Liam got in before Sprague could answer. He was the oldest of the workers and Sprague’s second. ‘My brother’s a soldier. He says it takes six of them to carry a dead Ernot and they’re covered in hair all over, like fur.’

  ‘Really?’ Tucker’s eyes widened even more. He was the latest recruit, the youngest, and the most excitable. Not a good combination with the kelpra but then hands were hard to find due to the danger of getting them bitten off if you didn’t know how to handle the beasts. The others still took care to always accompany Tucker, just in case.

  ‘Lord Bell,’ Sprague resumed, frowning at their interruption, ‘summoned me just after. He thinks they’re getting too brazen. And he’s fed up with those creatures taking up too much of the army’s time.’

  ‘The Ernots wouldn’t stand a chance against the kelpra,’ Brill muttered.

  Sprague shook his head. ‘They’ve broken the locks on the grain barns more than once and if they got in here all it would take is a spear through the bars. Lord Bell doesn’t want to run the risk of losing any of them with the race festival so near.’ He looked at Jaron as he said this, who felt a strong sense of unease rise up inside of him. He didn’t like the way this was going.

  Sanra folded her arms. ‘I still don’t see why we have to stick to the track, Sprague,’ she argued. ‘Everybody knows the Ernots only attack at night. The kelpra’ll get bored.’

  ‘Boring or no, that’s my order, or rather, Lord Bell’s.’ He hesitated, seeing their downcast faces. ‘Look, it won’t be for long. His eyes flicked to Jaron and away again. ‘Maybe just ‘til the Raken get here.’

  They all gasped, except for Jaron, who felt his heart give a little judder.

  ‘So, the rumours are true,’ Liam said. He looked quickly over at Jaron, who couldn’t stop himself:

  ‘Raken?’ he rasped.

  The trainer’s usual fierce glare softened. ‘Yes, Jaron. I saw Lord Bell yesterday. He told me they’ve agreed to come – now they’ve got a good enough offer,’ he added with some disgust.

  ‘The Raken are coming!’ Tucker was bouncing on his feet. ‘I’ve never seen a firedrake!’

  ‘Jaron has, haven’t you?’ Brill’s loud mocking voice.

  ‘Shut up, Brill,’ Liam said, a little too quickly.

  Jaron kept his chin up but felt the scar on his left cheek burn.

  ‘I still don’t understand why they would come,’ Tucker said.

  ‘For protection, as guards,’ Sanra answered.

  ‘Weren’t you listening, Tucker?’ Brill was more impatient.

  As Tucker’s face went as red as his hair, Sprague answered, not unkindly. ‘We lost too much to the Ernots last year, they would never dare raid the grain with the Raken as sentries on those flying beasts.’ He rubbed his short beard. ‘So, when they get here, training on the plains will resume. But until then…’ he frowned at them all, ‘absolutely no riding out on the Wake, got that?’

  ‘Yes, Sprague,’ they said as one.

  ‘Right, back to work, you lot.’

  They returned to mucking out cages. As they worked they talked excitedly about the Raken and their flying beasts. Jaron couldn’t join in with their enthusiasm. He piled up the straw and forked up a gnawed thigh bone and the calf bladder Caliber had left from last night’s meal. Now it was confirmed, he was dwelling on the news with dread in his heart. A prickle of heat washed over his body that was nothing to do with the temperature. He reached up to work a finger under the thin scarf he still wore about his neck.

  ‘Jaron?’ Sprague was standing at his shoulder. ‘You alright?’ He spoke in a quiet voice so the others wouldn’t hear. ‘They won’t come anywhere near the yard, nor the kelpra. They’ll have me to answer to if they do.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jaron lied. After last night’s nightmare wrenching him from sleep, he felt weary of it all. Sprague must have sensed he didn’t want to talk and, left alone, Jaron dug his fork back into the straw with some force. It was as though his village being destroyed didn’t matter at all here in Tiara. A year and a half ago, he would have been as excited as Tucker. He would have run outside with his friends to watch in awe whenever a Raken beast flew overhead. As Jaron banked up the bed, working to toss the straw up the sides of the cage, his mouth twisted in bitterness at the memory.

  2

  A warm sunny afternoon three days later and Jaron was on an errand to the racetrack. Over one shoulder he carried a sack full of grooming tools. He had offered to spare Tucker another journey but if truth be told, it was really to escape the excited chatter back at the yard as the day of Tiara’s race festival drew ever nearer. His nerves were jangling enough as it was. He and Caliber had raced three times now, but the Great Wake Trophy was the most prestigious race in all the Corelands. Jaron still had to pinch himself to believe it was happening at all.

  It made a nice change being away from the yard. As he passed into the large square, he looked about him with interest. It was only half-full of people as it wasn’t market day, which was one of the reasons for Jaron choosing to take a short cut through it today. Despite the lack of crowds, he noticed a couple of people staring at his limping gait and he dipped his chin down so his hair fell over his cheek scar.

  As he reached the middle of the large square, he couldn’t resist looking up now and then to gaze at the beautiful facades of the white-stoned buildings that surrounded it. Tiara was renowned for its graceful architecture. Suddenly, the back of his neck prickled – just as a huge shadow sliced across the sunlit faces of the buildings to his right. Somebody screamed and, jerking his head round, Jaron saw an arm pointing skywards. He looked up, and gasped.

  The huge silhouette of a firedrake flew low above the square, the sun picking out the network of thick veins threading through the wing membranes as they thrust through the sky with a heavy whoosh. Dropping his sack, Jaron pivoted on his heel towards it. Shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand he kept it in his sights amidst the cries and surprised shouts from all around him. Fear clenched his chest. The beast’s long narrow neck stretched forward as the huge reptile passed over the square. He just caught sight of the face of its rider looking down before it flapped out of sight over the rooftops, its long tail slicing after it through the warm afternoon air.

  Amidst the exclamations of awe from people at what they had just seen,
along with some mutterings, Jaron stood staring up at the now-empty sky with the bitter taste of fear still in his mouth. Shaking his head in disgust, he bent down to retrieve his fallen bundle and limped unsteadily on his way.

  ‘They are awesome, really amazing.’ In the cage next door, Tucker’s eyes were shining but his enthusiasm was wearing. ‘I would love to ride one. Dad said the riders are really friendly.’

  Jaron gritted his teeth and concentrated on brushing the dried sweat off Caliber’s velvet ebony coat, watching how from under the bristles the thin blue stripes shone through.

  ‘And how does your dad know that?’ he heard Liam ask as Caliber, sensing Jaron’s sudden mood, turned his head around as far as his chain allowed to look back at his rider. The kelpra’s eyes; bright amber, were placed more forward than a horse, and now they gazed at him intently. Jaron reached over to stroke a hand down the long nose that ended in a wide muzzle like a cat, where two gleaming fangs protruded below the upper lip.

  ‘He works in the kitchens and takes them food sometimes. I might go with him one evening; perhaps I could get a ride, do ya think I could? He said there’s one called Val, his firedrake’s called Motch and–’

  ‘Motch?’

  ‘Yeah, so I thought–’

  ‘Strange name for a beast like that.’

  ‘What’s this?’ At Sanra’s voice Jaron looked over. She stood beside Liam in the cage doorway where the red-haired boy was mucking out. Undoing her riding helmet, she pulled it off and shook her black curls free.

  ‘I was talking about the firedrake. They’re great, aren’t they?’

  ‘Oh.’ Her eyes went to Jaron who quickly returned to his grooming.

  Brill, pulling down Monty’s straw bed opposite, had been listening. ‘Yeah, they’re great,’ he called across now. How are you feeling, Jaron? You looked white as ash when you came back from the track the other day.’ Jaron stopped brushing and turned to eye Brill. From within the empty cage, Brill sauntered over to the doorway and grinned across the yard at him. ‘Frightened you’re going to get burnt, Jaron?’