Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology (18 page)

“Horrifying, isn't it?” Her smile was like a cavern—too wide, too thin, and too dark for comfort. She let the curtain of hair fall back into place. “I was once like you. I believed dragons were the key to sustaining a better world, but I quickly learned otherwise. These dragons are just like the pollution that once swallowed our planet—aggressive, untamed.”

“I don't understand.” This woman certainly had Anja's passion, but I still couldn't accept that Anja Larssen was threatening my dragon.

“Then, once again, perhaps it would be better to show you.” With a sweep of her arm, she motioned deeper into the wild.
 

Men and women stepped out of the brush, startling me. How could I not have noticed them hiding? But then, the grass was tall, and my entire focus had been on the tree, and the chance of finding Cascata.

The people, silent as ashes, surrounded Zon. They wore armor like Haru's in thrilling shades of black to very dark gray.

“Hey,” I snapped as one of them stepped between me and my dragon.
 

“He'll be fine,” Anja said, gesturing again for me to follow as one of them pulled off the belt containing my other weapons—why had I let it hang loose? “He'll be coming with us. But the shroud must stay on. We wouldn't want his little temper to harm anyone.” Her gaze lingered on the sooty fabric as her followers gathered thick folds and began to guide Zon toward the mountains.

One of Anja's stern-faced mooks prodded me in the back with a thick rod the length of her arm. She needn't have. I would follow Zon anywhere, and until I could figure out what was going on, locate Cascata, and determine how best to save my dragon, I had little choice but to follow. My hands clenched, but I started obediently forward.

Haru skulked around me, making sure to keep out of reach, bless his soul, and went ahead with Anja.

We passed through a grove of massive hemlock trees, and I nearly stumbled on seeing the mountain through them. In its otherwise unmarred face, a great hole yawned like the mouth of the earth itself. The inside was paved with concrete, making it look like a military bunker from the Second World War. I tensed, my gaze flickering back to Zon. But surely he'd be all right without me for a moment as I went inside to investigate. Stepping into the bunker's shade, I immediately shivered at the damp chill of the underground.
 

A moan at the back of the group alerted me that the goons were dragging Zon into the bunker as well. I whirled, shoving the guard behind me.
 

“Wait! You can't bring him down here!”

From ahead, Anja remarked, “A little darkness never hurt anything, let alone a dragon.”

“You don't understand, it frightens him.” I still tried to get past the woman, who gripped my arm to keep me in place. She also seemed a little too eager to use that prod. “Knock it off!” I ordered, then snapped at Anja, “You don't know dragons!”

“Better than you think,” Anja retorted. “See for yourself.”

Something in her tone made me turn around. The floor of the bunker veered down into the heart of the mountain, and I could hear a groan emanating from somewhere in the depths. Scratch that—several groans.
Dragons'
groans.

Oh, no.

“What have you done?” The words were barely a whisper, half-lodged in my throat.
 

“They're fine,” Anja said, small, light eyes straight ahead rather than drifting to the chained dragons withering under minimal, artificial light. There had to be a hundred of them. “We routinely check them and while it's obviously not ideal for the animals, they survive.”

“Survive?” I choked on the word as I staggered to a stop, my eyes fixed on a tiny yellow dragon, strewn on the ground, one wing half extended. There wasn't even a shimmer in her feathers. My gaze flashed to Haru.

He stared at the slanting floor, avoiding the sight of the dragons. He seemed to notice my gaze and straightened, mimicking Anja's posture. I wanted to clobber him again.

“Yes, survive.” Anja's voice rang through the tunnels. “We won't destroy the animals, obviously. But the entire point of the solar movement to save the planet was to become self-sustaining. We need not rely on spirit animals that could go extinct for unrelated reasons, or that could one day turn on us.” As she walked, she kept strictly to the middle of the path, far out of reach of even the longest dragon's teeth. “It is time we learn how to sustain ourselves without help. Then …” She hesitated. “Perhaps one day, we can re-release these creatures to their owners.”

I didn't believe her for one moment. Anger, hot and feral as dragon's fire, burned in my chest. “You keep these animals here, and you will destroy everything we've worked so hard to create! The solar dragons returned because we restored the world, but it goes the other way too—if you harm these creatures, the environments they protect die with them!”
 

Anja whirled, eyes narrowing on me. “I just told you,” she said in a calm voice, contrasting her irritated features, “we will not harm them. But we can't let them out of this bunker until we have learned to sustain ourselves.”

Haru looked up at last, his brows drawing together. “Wait … what if she's right?”

“Of course she's not,” Anja dismissed. “Dawnlight Knights would say anything to get their way.”

My gaze snapped to Haru. “It's the truth. The little yellow dragon is Sahara.” My gaze slid to Anja as I challenged, “Isn't she? We restored that environment at the dawn of the new age, but now it's basically a desert again. I guess now we know why.”
 

Anja did not respond. Haru stared at the dragon. “Would've thought the spirit of the Sahara would be … bigger.”

“That's what happens when you leave spirits in the dark,” I said coldly. “They shrivel up and die.”
 

Anja inhaled in exasperation and turned around. “Your concern has been noted,” she snapped. “If you don't mind, we should move along.”

I minded very much, but the prod jabbed my back again, and I swallowed my anger. Arguing was clearly getting me nowhere. I'd have to find some other way to save these dragons. I peered through the throng of people, noting the manacles that chained the dragons in place. One thrust from my fire sword could sever those …

“Our dragons,” Anja suddenly spoke up, “do not require sunlight in the same way.”

Grudgingly, I returned my gaze to her. “What do you mean
your
dragons? There are no other dragons.”
 

“There are,” Haru said. He glanced at me, looking rather less guilty than he should have. “Dragons we've made.”
 

My brows lifted with disbelief, but just then the person so rudely prodding my back stopped, as did the rest of the group. I tensed as Anja smiled and said, “Meet the new,
real
breed.” She stepped aside, sweeping her arm out to present … dragons.

But they weren't like any dragons I'd ever seen. They were long and bulky, their snouts square and elongated like a crocodile's, showing off rows of teeth. I could see where Anja's mooks got their fashion sense from—dark, ashy scales covered these dragons' whole bodies, conspicuous against the feathers on Zon and his kind. The most striking difference, however, was their slit-pupiled snake eyes.

Despite ranging from gold to orange, there was no fire behind those strange eyes. For all their ferocity, the dragons stared blankly into space or followed Anja with a bland, subservient stare. These were no environmental spirits. These were zoo animals.

“Where did you get these?” I asked quietly. The beasts didn't even glance in my direction, as the solar dragons would have, heads quirked, feathers lifted, listening as if they might really understand. For all I knew, these dragons hadn't heard me at all.

“These,” Anja explained, “were engineered. Partly from your solar dragons, but blended with the DNA of birds and reptiles already in existence to make them hardier against lack of light. These are not so useless in the dark.” She half-smiled at one such dull-eyed creature. “They accomplish anything your solar dragons can do: flight, scouting, manual labor, providing companionship …” She turned to me. “They are the dragons this world needs without the dangers that come with them.”

I could only stare. Anja was a brilliant scientist. What was she doing breeding dragons that were mindless drones?

Her eyes turned almost imploring. “It
will
be a better world. Safer. You can tell your dear prince that.”

Heat touched my cheeks. “The way you are treating those dragons is—”

“I've heard enough.” Anja flicked her wrist at me, eyes on the ashy dragons. They all looked obediently back. To the people surrounding me, she said, “Escort her out. Keep the dragon.”

The prod-happy one poked my back again, and behind me Zon shrieked as they started to drag him away.

“No!” I lunged toward him, but the guards cut me off. Haru looked away. Zon tried to dig in his claws, but didn't have any strength. This time, when he cried out, it wasn't in anger; it was a squeak of fear, throwing me back to the night after Zon had hatched and met darkness for the first time. It was a sound I'd sworn he'd never have to make again.

The mook behind me prodded me once more.

I spun around and grabbed the prod. With a yank and a twist and a
thunk
I knocked the woman out cold. Several people surged forward, but I hadn't earned the rank of knight for nothing. Though Haru had taken me by surprise earlier, the situation was reversed here. I ducked around grasping arms and swung my new prod at knees, knocking several people over. Tightly packed as they were, the guards toppled others with them. I leapt over their flailing bodies.

Anja watched, her brows pinched in slight concern. Her hand drifted to my sword—oh no! I would not let her use that against me. I chucked the prod, and it knocked into her hand. My sword hit the ground and skidded away. I dove for it, dodging a man in black armor to do so, but missed when someone grabbed my hair. I took his wrist and twisted hard, flipping him over my head. He hit the ground with a satisfying
thunk
.

Anja tilted her head, and as one, the dragons converged. Though fear danced through me, I dove over the drones for my sword. Claws caught in the folds of my leather armor. But there, glinting under their feet—my sword. I reached for it, visions of freed dragons skittering through my mind. Before I could grasp it, one of the freaky mutant lizards jumped on my back, pinning me in place. Anja's mook pulled the weapon up and away from me, and instead of catching the hilt, my fingers glanced off the blade. Blood glimmered over my fingertips. I yelped as I drew back and looked up to find Haru, lips pressed into a firm line as he retreated, sword in hand.
 

Anja extended her hand for it, and he passed it to her hesitantly. The woman examined the sword once more. Then, eyes hardening, she set the tip to the ground at a forty-five degree angle and leaned hard against it. The pressure was too much. With the chiming song of breaking crystal, my sword snapped in half. My hope of freeing the dragons shattered with it.

She turned to me and tossed aside the broken pieces, which were quickly scooped up by one of her goons. “Drop her in the deepest cell in the bunker,” she ordered. “She doesn't see the light of day until we're finished here.”

“No!” Beyond the huffing of the weird dragons, I heard Zon's keening cries. “No!” I struggled, but claws dug into my back, and the weight knocked the breath from me. My hands clenched as the dragons converged around me. Their snouts and talons pried me from the floor, shoving me to my feet. So many claws and teeth were impossible to fight, and it wasn't as if I could appeal to their inner sweet nature, not when they were mind-controlled by the witch with eyes like ice. The dragons pushed me down the tunnel—opposite from Zon's. “You'll destroy us all!” I shouted after her, trying to appeal to her human nature—assuming she was still human somewhere in there. “Zon is the Amazon dragon! You can't let either of them die!”

“That won't happen,” Haru said quietly, as if trying to assure himself as well as me. “No dragons have died … we won't let them.” He glanced up at the now-distant figure of Anja. “… Right?”

I didn't have the chance to hear the answer as darkness consumed me.

Anja hadn't been lying. These dragons were quick and efficient in the dark. Their eyes lit up, flashing gold and brown. Stripes glimmered over their scales as if they were glazed with glow-in-the-dark paint. Considering they were genetically created monsters, for all I knew, they could have been.

The dragons shoved me into what I could only assume was a dark cave. I spun around to leap out the door, and barely missed a nasty bite from a large female. As I shied back, a mook laughed at me, and the door closed with a
thunk
, and a very permanent
clank
.

I took a shallow breath. It was cold down here. Very cold. The tropically-born Zon wouldn't like that.

In my mind, I could still hear him keening. His despair echoed through my thoughts, down through my bones to lodge as a thick knot of regret in my soul. I'd saved his forest, and when he was reborn, I'd sworn to protect him. And now …

A lump formed in my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but instead it clawed out of my mouth, and shattered through the room as a sob.
 

That very final
clank
sounded again, and I startled as the door shifted open. It was Haru, leather sleeve glowing in the dark. I hastily rubbed the tears from my eyes, fighting back embarrassing sniffs. “What?” I snapped. He couldn't give a girl five minutes to mourn the collapse of her empire?

“Tell me about these dragons,” he said quietly. In his hands he carried my utility belt. His fingers fidgeted with the straps and buckle.

“Swapping sides again so soon?” I snarled. “Isn't it a bit early for that? And why should I tell you about the dragons? Clearly you know all about them. That's why you were such a great rider, isn't it? You were planning to betray me from the beginning. And now, thanks to you, our earth is going to sink back into the decay the Dawnlight Knights have worked so hard to lift it from! But no, I don't mind that all our hard work has been in vain so you and your master can have lap dog dragons for pets. The entire planet Earth in exchange for mindless drones. Seems fair to me.”