The Lacertian Games

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley of Eramus.

The Qarbor Mountains ensured the beasts remained on their side of the supposed dragonmade range that had risen from beneath the earth at the conclusion of the War and drawn a veritable line between human and dragon. For three decades, the only mingling involved captive aquadrakes born and bred for slaughter, until dozens escaped the farms.

Some were killed attempting to climb the mountains, some were recaptured, and some were intelligent enough to make a home in the closest body of water.

Like the aquadrake in the Lake of Eramus, the jewel of the Valley most now believed to be cursed.

One of many widespread superstitions Ryker Everett refused to believe.

He crouched in the waist-high grasses lining the lake’s edge, surrounded by his two cousins, his uncle and Cutler, his uncle’s husband. Each of their breaths curled before him as they shivered beneath their cloaks, staring towards the water so still Ryker could see the stars and full moon mirrored as clearly as if he looked up. But he didn’t dare to, didn’t dare to tear his eyes from that water not twenty metres away.

Aquadrakes, with their water-resistant scales, were notoriously silent. They cut through the depths without creating so much as a ripple and could breach the water’s surface without a single drop of sound. One blink too long, one heartbeat when none of them watched that water, and they’d all be dead.

But Ryker and his family had no choice but to be here, half-frozen in the dying chill of winter and weeks old clothing, damp and filthy and miserable. Not when Ryker’s mother was counting on them. When Mayor Caralho increased the taxes, when the leniency gifted after Ryker’s father and brother were murdered wore thin, the fat prick had given them an ultimatum. Pay him what he was owed, or lose their farm. Their home.

The amount was abhorrent, inhumane, and could only be attained one way.

The Lacertian Games—a three-month-long, biennial tournament of endurance, skill and very nearly dying by whichever dragon the ten tasks sent the fifty teams of Hunters after. With over thirty known species of dragons, there were few ways to prepare. The Hunters only learned what they would hunt the morning of the task and there was only one that always remained the same: the Qualifier, where the head of an aquadrake killed in battle was required.

Hence why Ryker knelt here, hands numb from the cold and an ache in his skull like someone slowly tightened a band around it. He’d emptied his waterskin last night and hadn’t dared approach the lake to refill it.

Ryker attempted to blow warmth into his stiff and aching hands, and for the umpteenth time wished he’d purchased those gloves he’d seen hanging from a stall in the town they’d passed through three days ago, instead of buying that fresh cooked beef pie.

Coals—it had been a good pie. The gravy perfectly seasoned, the chunks of steak just the right tenderness and that pastry—

Ryker’s stomach tightened, the emptiness a familiar ache. He reached into his coat pocket for the amaranth berries he’d stashed there earlier, discreetly popping a few into his mouth. If Seth, Ryker’s cousin, saw him eating, he’d sooner tackle Ryker and turn the berries into nothing but pulp before taking no for an answer.

Seth and Lola flanked Sander at the rear of their group, tucked under their father’s cloak for warmth. It never got this cold in Karthus, their hometown, and no matter the two weeks Ryker had spent in the north during the last Games, he’d never acclimatised to the chill.

The twins were twenty-one, a year younger than Ryker and just old enough to enter the Games. They both bore Sander’s colourings: golden brown hair, freckles and hazel eyes—the same eyes Ryker inherited from his mother, Sander’s sister. But the black hair, olive skin and hooded eyes belonged to Ryker’s father.

Cutler, the last member of their hunting party, lingered to Ryker’s right, closer to the water. They were the first line of defence should the aquadrake discover them.

The debate had lasted months, if this risk was worth it, if losing the cattle farm that had been in Ryker’s mother’s family for centuries was worth entering the tournament which cost his father and brother their lives.

His mother, who hadn’t spoken a word to her brother in two years despite living in the same house, begged Ryker not to go with Sander. But the farm was their home and they’d already lost so much.

For Ryker, it had been an easy choice.

Not just to save his home but to look Falcone Valentia and his spawn in the eye and maybe plunge his sword through them for what they did to his family. Sander had told Ryker only pieces of what occurred the night they were attacked in The Hunter’s Inn, but Ryker knew the reports which claimed it was an unprovoked brawl involving many of the Hunters was a lie.

It was a targeted attack, for Sander and Ryker’s father and brother were about to win the Games, and steal the Valentia’s victory streak.

Falcone and his brothers had won it eight times in a row, and his children had continued that legacy over the last three tournaments. All of them, every single one of his sons was as foul as him. But it was Falcone’s only daughter that was the worst of them.

Slōane Valentia—the Vermillion Viper. Her very name shifted Ryker’s blood to boiling.

Falcone’s loyal pet, his greatest warrior, and Iānus City’s beloved darling. She was worshipped for her brutality, her beauty and her affinity for poisons. Even Ryker had been captivated by her the first time he’d seen her. He’d been in the crowd for the Viewing, cheering for his brother and father and uncle as they presented the giant head of the aquadrake they’d taken from this very lake two years ago and found his tongue turning to lead when Slōane swaggered onto stage with her brothers flanking her. She’d flashed a pretty grin to the crowd, one far too soft for the scars that circled her throat like a brutal necklace.

Another of those useless superstitious believed Falcone had lain with a serpent woman in the steppes of Dracovia, dragon territory, and brought Slōane back to be raised here.

It was one superstition Ryker wouldn’t mind believing.

The only thing Sander had admitted, the only truth of that night in Hunter’s Inn: Slōane had been there, too, and maybe it was because Ryker had admired her strength, her skill and fearlessness in those last games, because he’d begged his brother to introduce them like some lovestruck fool, but of all the Valentia’s, Ryker hated her most.

So much so that Sander made Ryker swear on his mother’s life he wouldn’t lose his shit when they encountered her, because they would. She’d be there tomorrow, at the Viewing, charming everyone into thinking she was anything but a monster.

“How much longer?” Seth whined, his adenoidal voice cutting through the razor-sharp thoughts in Ryker’s head.

The handful of berries now nothing but pulp leaking between Ryker’s fisted fingers. Great. His aching stomach begged him to suck off every pulverised piece, to not let another drop of the sweet juices fall to the earth, but five-day-old mud and Coals knew what else coated his skin. His life on the farm gave him a high tolerance for dirt and mess, but this journey, with reeking bog holes he had to lead his horse through by foot and the decrepit inns whose only bath water was already a milky brown, he couldn’t bring himself to risk it, not so close to Qarbor Mountains. Perhaps it was the privilege of always having a warm bed, a place to bathe, a home, but Ryker wiped off the pulverised berries on a tuft of the long grass, returning Cutler’s sideways glance at Seth’s outburst with an eye-roll.

Ryker glanced back at his cousin only when Cutler’s gaze shifted back to survey the lake. Seth braved the cold outside his father’s cloak and soundlessly dug through Cutler’s pack, one eye on his stepfather as he pulled out an unnatural amount of knives in search of food. The grimace on his freckled face revealed little to be found.

“It won’t be long now,” Lola said in a tremulous whisper. She wore most of their spare clothing, enough layers that she’d be little good in the fight to come. But she wasn’t here for that, it was her knowledge of dragon anatomy and culture that made her so invaluable. Even if she could wield an axe as good as Ryker and hit bullseyes on almost as many archery targets as Seth, moving or stationary.

Sander had ensured his children would never be defenceless, but remained the strongest fighter amongst them, favouring a double-ended spear made of Iānus Steel. Like all Iānus-made objects, the steel held the kaleidoscopic outline of dragon magic. A gift, Sander claimed, from a Hunter last Games.

Alongside Seth’s deftness with a bow, he possessed an uncanny talent for horticulture and botany. Seth knew the plants they could eat from those that would kill them from a single bite—below and above Qarbor Mountains.

Cutler, with his unhealthy attachment to blades, was the best swordsman in the eastern towns and rarely prowled without the crisscrossing longswords strapped to his back.

Sander’s gaze sliced to Ryker’s. The order to look ahead as clear as the mirrored stars on the lake. “It’s almost midnight,” he noted in his typical gruff voice.

Midnight—when the aquadrakes of Eramus Lake left the depths to bathe in the moonlight. It was a brilliant spot for it. A peaceful, misleading pocket of beauty. With the Qarbor Mountain range shadowed in the distance like eternal guardians, pine trees reaching towards the sky and an endless starry mirror. It would be lovely in the summer, when the cold wasn’t leeching into Ryker’s skeleton.

“Why does it have to be midnight?” Seth groused, far too loudly and all shushed him. Neither Ryker nor Cutler looked away from the water.

“Because, genius,” Lola drawled and Ryker defied his uncle’s order to give him a pleading look. Sander merely smirked and resumed watch, allowing the inevitable bickering war to begin. Lola charged on, “Aquadrakes are only seen here at midnight, under the full moon.”

“Lacertian starts tomorrow,” Seth argued, “if we’re not at the Qualifier with the aquadrake, well, we might as well start packing now because we ain’t saving the farm without it.”

“We shoulda taken the loan,” Cutler sang, his talented vocal cords hitting every note. It was nice having him around, not just because he would guard them all until his final breath. But at night, when the harrowing feat before them settled in Ryker’s gut like a stone, Cutler’s lute-playing and limerick singing—that he instructed each of them to create during each day’s ride—helped Ryker find sleep.

“We still could,” Seth said hopefully, lifting off his knees as if to start the trek to the Northern breeders said to offer loans for those unable to afford the full fee right then.

Sander grabbed Seth’s cloak, tugging him back to the damp mud and Ryker stifled his chuckle at the squelch his cousin’s knees made. “We’re staying,” Sander said, voice thick with fatherly authority. “That’s final.”

***

Midnight arrived and passed. Still, there was no sign of an aquadrake, and Ryker was ready to run through the long grass, waving his arms above his head and shouting in hopes it might tempt one to shore.

They still had a seven-hour ride to Iānus City once they bagged the head, and with the Qualifier commencing at midday it left less than four hours to defeat the aquadrake, attain a few hours of sleep and allow for the time to actually enlist.

Sander had dared creep closer to the lake’s edge, opting to throw a rock into the water rather than exposing any of them. It left Seth and Lola at the rear alone, both using the other as a means to stay upright as they fought sleep’s heavy clutches.

Sander and Cutler, however, remained perfectly functional. More so than Ryker, whose eyes had grown heavy and aching. Weightlessness filled his body, the buzzing of beetles, the hooting of owls and the soft thundering of his own heart like a lullaby.

If he could just shut his eyes for a minute, give his mind and body a chance to find peace.

But his heartbeat grew louder and louder until it drowned out the beetles, the owls, and Ryker realised it wasn’t his heart at all. That was a horse, galloping closer.

Ryker’s eyes sprung open, the weights that had drawn them shut loosening as he peered through the grass to see a cloaked traveller riding for the lake.

Seth and Lola scurried closer, drawing to their father’s side like magnets. “What do we do, Dad?” Lola whispered.

Sander met his children’s eyes, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Stay here.” Then he glanced back at Ryker, a different order written in his eyes, reminding Ryker of the second vow he’d sworn to his uncle: to protect his cousins, even if it meant leaving Sander and Cutler behind, it was his task to save them.

As Sander and Cutler crept forward, the former collecting his spear as the latter withdrew his swords, Ryker retrieved the double-edged axe from his back and followed at a distance, keeping Lola and Seth behind him.

“Ready your bow, Seth,” Ryker ordered as gently as he could.

Seth gaped at him. “They’re human.”

Ryker didn’t tear his eyes away from the traveller still approaching, unaware of the death awaiting them if the aquadrake so deemed it. “It’s not for the rider.”

“Coals, Ry,” Lola said, and gripped Ryker’s arm, tugging him to a halt. “We’re using them for bait?”

Ryker blocked out the words before he lost his nerve—it was far more complicated than that. “They’re riding towards the lake of their own free will,” he said, to his cousins and himself. “If the aquadrake comes, we’ll kill it. If it doesn’t, they’re not at risk.”

“And if it kills them?”

“Then they’re a fool who rode into Eramus unprepared,” Cutler sniped coldly from ahead.

“We won’t let that happen,” Sander cut in, glancing back at Lola with a reassuring smile, one that didn’t chip away at the icy focus in his eyes. “No one dies tonight, sweetheart.”

Lola released Ryker’s arm and they all dipped lower in the grass as the traveller reached the water’s edge and dismounted. Their back to the lake.

Ryker’s breath caught in his throat as a dark mass broke the surface of the water.

An aquadrake, delicately peaking above the water at the unwitting prey.

Coals smother him.

“Dad,” Lola mumbled, awe-filled and terrified.

The aquadrake crept closer, barely making a ripple, and Ryker’s grip tightened on his axe handle as he fought the urge to shout. If the traveller was eaten, it’d be his family’s fault. His fault for standing by instead of calling them away from approaching death.

“Sander,” Ryker hissed.

His uncle remained stone-faced, muttering encouragements to the traveller to turn and see. But they didn’t turn, didn’t stop fiddling with the saddle of their horse. Even when the aquadrake rose from the shallows mere metres from the traveller’s back until even its bat-wing-like fins broke the surface.

Lola let out a sound that might have been a sob, her hand once again squeezing Ryker’s arm and he rested his over it. She’d loved dragons from afar her whole life and Ryker knew some part of her dreaded the Games, knowing that she’d have to kill the things she loved so fiercely.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

Teal scales, six pearlescent white horns atop its head, four garbles of similar hue like whiskers and the fins a deeper blue with veins of emerald green. The moonlight sent it all shimmering.

And they were here to kill it, this incredible, beautiful thing.

They had no choice, no alternative. It was this drake—this dragon and so many others—or it was them. Ryker had never been greedy in his entire life, never wanted for more than what he possessed on that farm he loved with all of his heart. But he could be greedy tonight, he could be selfish and awful and choose his family above all.

So, he plucked Lola’s hand from his arm and crept up to Sander’s side, ready to kill the beast and be done with it.

The aquadrake resembled a lindworm with those two front arms, powerfully built for both water and land. It used them now as it crept closer to the traveller.

Were they deaf? Lacking all instinct? Why wasn’t the horse moving?

The grass rustled behind and neither Ryker nor Seth were fast enough to stop Lola from launching to her feet, the grass up to her heaving chest as she sucked in a breath and screamed: “BEHIND YOU!”

The traveller’s hooded head whirled towards her, and even if Ryker couldn’t see their face beneath that dark hood, he knew the traveller saw each and every member of his family.

It could only be heartbeats they stared, but it felt like a lifetime passed before the traveller drew their sword from a sheath at their hip, sent their horse off with a slap on its rear and whirled to the aquadrake perched in the shallows. Cloak billowing out around them, the traveller’s movements surprisingly graceful for someone oblivious to an impending attack. Unless they’d known all along. Letting the aquadrake sneak up on them, let it think it had the upper hand.

Sander was the first to start running and it sent the rest of them surging from the grasses, weapons ready to defend and claim the kill.

It was their ticket in—their only ticket.

A moment of consideration passed between traveller and aquadrake where neither struck, as if they were conversing. Then the drake pounced and Ryker knew he must have imagined it. The beasts were beautiful, but they were just that: beasts.

The traveller dove to the right, the drake’s mouth of fangs mere inches from shredding them apart. It was massive, growing larger with each of Ryker’s strides closer. Would they even be able to carry that head? Or would it be so heavy they couldn’t lift it?

He’d find a way, even if he had to walk to Iānus City to not overwhelm his horse, Ryker would do it. After all, the heavier the head, the greater the time advantage.

They just had to kill it first.

Ryker pumped every remaining ounce of strength into his legs, overtaking his uncle and Cutler, as the traveller’s sword sliced through air and time and the drake’s long whiskers.

The beast roared and Ryker’s chest threatened to cave in. Pain—they could still feel pain. But so could the cattle at home, so could the deer he’d hunted his whole life.

This was no different, he reminded himself. Just a beast.

The traveller was agile, a warrior trained for years to know their body so well, to be able to move like a shadow. It was a dance, the battle Ryker and his family raced to end. Steel and teeth and talons.

Ryker gripped his axe as ten metres remained, as the full force of that aquadrake hit him, and he wasn’t afraid. Not to stand up for his family, not to walk in his brother’s footsteps.

The drake surged for the traveller, those powerful arms launching it out of the water, jaws wide to swallow them whole. But the traveller leapt, seeming to defy gravity as they flipped above the dragon’s massive head.

Their sword was a flash in the moonlight and Ryker bellowed as he flung his axe, not breaking stride. Ryker and his family had to make the kill, had to have the drake’s blood on their weapons for the Viewing.

The axe plunged into the aquadrake’s skull, right between its sapphire eyes, at the same moment the traveller swung and the aquadrake crashed to the grassy earth, severed head bouncing thrice.

The traveller landed in a crouch, their shadowed face undiscernible beneath their hood but Ryker could feel their gaze on him. He skidded to a stop, his family a step behind, and made sure his smile held every ounce of triumph.

His axe had landed first, he knew it.

But the adrenaline pulsing through Ryker’s veins shifted into something uglier, sent his teeth to grinding, when that traveller braced a boot on the drake’s head and pried Ryker’s axe from its head.

Not a traveller at all, but a Hunter. One wealthy enough to afford the fee at any breeding farm, even Falcone’s, by the look of their thick, dark-red cloak. Edged with gold thread crafting vines of flowers and leaves and thorns. Even their boots were well-made, hardly worn at all.

Scum—for coming here, for stealing his family’s ticket in.

“That’s our—” The words died on Ryker’s tongue as the traveller tossed his axe to his feet, as he realised that not a single drop of blood painted the weapon. How was that possible? He saw it dig through the drake’s skull, could still see the wound gaping in its head.

Had he been a second too late? The blood only gifted to the one who truly made the kill. The traveller had already sheathed their sword, confident in their own victory.

The Hunter whistled for their horse as they bagged the head that was easily five times the size of a human’s own, and straightened, hauling it off the ground as it it weighed nothing. “I’ve no wish to fight,” the traveller said, she said, without a glance back.

Cutler stepped forward, swords upraised, and Sander grasped his arm. “We’ve been here for hours waiting for that drake,” Cutler barked, shoving out of Sander’s grip.

The cloaked woman turned to face them fully, gesturing to Ryker’s bare axe. “And, evidently, I killed it.”

Cutler marched forward before Sander could stop him and snatched the bagged head from the Huntress’s hands. It toppled to the earth, Cutler straining to drag it away, as if it had gained fifty kilograms after leaving her hands.

Ryker surveyed the woman. She was taller than Cutler, maybe even close to Ryker’s height. But her cloak and equally well made black clothing revealed a slim figure, muscled, but nothing to suggest the strength she just revealed.

Cutler arrived at Sander’s side with sweat beading on his brow, grinning up at his husband, but Sander’s face dropped into his hands as the traveller retrieved their sword.

“They check the blades, you know.” The woman admired hers in the moonlight. The Iānus-made black blade, the lapis lazuli pommel, the ancient etching down the bevelled fuller, and the thick sheen of blood extending the length of it.

Coals spare them.

A roaring filled Ryker’s head as the woman removed her hood, but he already knew who stood before them and acid lined his tongue as his grip tightened on his axe, enough to melt The Vermillion Viper where she stood.

She’d changed in the two years since he’d last seen her. The once waist-length auburn hair hung at her chin, far shorter than he’d ever seen on a woman, and choppy, as if she’d taken the knife from her boot and sliced the lengths off herself. It stole nothing of the soft beauty in her large brown eyes, arched brows and the collection of beauty spots on her ivory skin.

No, not beautiful—a monster. A murderer.

“The blood stays in the blade up to three days,” Slōane Valentia went on in that venomous purr, her too-white teeth proof of a privileged life. “And everyone knows Priestess is mine.”

All had laughed when Falcone’s daughter named her sword after a tarot card, until they saw what she could do with it, until her divine femininity earned her the title of most beautiful female in Iānus, despite the necklace of crisscrossing scars across her throat that had as foul a reputation as she did.

Cutler positioned himself between the bagged head and Slōane, swinging his sword in a circle. “The beast’s body remains. I need only it’s blood.”

Slōane’s mouth curved upwards, nothing but cruelty in that face. “And the Viewing?”

“Can be manipulated. You killed it from above, we were before it.”

She dropped her weight to her hip and admired her blackened fingertips and nails, as if she’d dipped them in ink. A new feature, one as grotesque as the rest of her. In her other hand, she jingled a familiar, small leather bag. “Is this all the gold you have?”

Ryker’s focus cut to Cutler, who patted down his coat, searching every pocket.

Fury warped his craggy face.

Their gold ... all of their gold. Ryker hadn’t seen her take it and the short time it took Cutler to snatch that head couldn’t possibly be enough to steal it. Even as he struggled to drag it away, she had kept her distance, smiling like a cat at his struggle.

And yet. The Viper tossed their coin up and down in her hand. “Not quite enough for mare breeding pits, huh?”

Seth knocked an arrow and Ryker imagined splitting that pretty smile with his axe, but if she was dexterous enough to pick Cutler’s pocket without him noticing, none of his family stood a chance.

A wordless growl left Cutler and he prowled to Sander’s side, leaving the bagged head behind. “Give. It. Back.”

She didn’t. “I’ll warn you only once. Do not enlist in Lacertian.”

Sander stepped beyond Cutler, beyond Ryker, until only a metre stood between him and Slōane Valentia. “Why not?”

The Viper’s head cocked to the side, her eyes widening ever so slightly as if seeing him for the first time and Ryker thought it might be recognition that flickered across her face. But it was gone in a heartbeat, replaced by that mask of glorious boredom and infinite amusement. “You will not win,” she warned, a note kinder.

“Witch,” Ryker hissed.

She scanned him from the worn boots to his wool hat. Her top lip peeled back from her teeth as if she’d hiss at him. “Careful, handsome, I adore flattery.”

Ryker spat at her feet.

Her cackle skittered over his skin and she tossed the coin to Cutler. “There’s a breeder three miles that way if you’re so desperate.” She jerked her chin to the southeast, those eyes never leaving Ryker’s, even when she grabbed Sander’s hand—which had Cutler withdrawing his second sword—and pressed what looked to be a large silver coin into his palm. “Give them that, tell them you’re collecting my favour and you’ll get your head.”

Sander took a pointed step to the right, obscuring her view of Ryker, and Ryker’s chest loosened from a tightness he hadn’t noticed until it eased.

“Are they certified?” his uncle asked.

“Yep.” She swaggered around him and plucked the bagged head from the ground like it weighed nothing. Her venomous smile for Cutler as she returned to secure the bag to her horse. Was it some spell? Some enchantment that prevented a Hunter from stealing another’s kill?

Slōane went on, “But they’re bulls. Large enough to qualify but you won’t get the time advantage and neither will you lose that pitiful fortune.”

Seth’s bow groaned as he drew his arrow back, ready to shoot her down. “We don’t need your poisoned charity.”

Sander shot his son a reprimanding look, then another silent order to Ryker.

Gritting his teeth, Ryker pushed his cousin’s bow down, swiping the arrow and slid it back into the quiver at Seth’s back. The same hatred burned in Seth’s eyes that raged in Ryker, but they were nothing to her. Just farmers, hunters of measly mortal game.

Slōane Valentia had been trained since birth to be merciless and lethal, trained against countless aquadrake at Falcone’s breeding farms.

“Where are your brothers, Slōane? Your father?” Sander asked stiltedly, attempting to appeal to her kinder nature. As if she even possessed such a thing.

She turned slow—a predator poised to pounce. The colour had drained from her skin, and a taut, white rage sucked the humanity from her face as she eyed Sander with a starkness Ryker’s uncle was smart enough to back away from.

“Hunting” was all she said.

That coldness, it was anathema to Ryker’s temper, seeing the monster that lingered beneath that beautiful face. “And why are you here stealing our ticket instead of treating yourself to one of your breeding farms? I imagine you Valentia’s would have your servants kill the drakes for you if not for the Viewing.”

“Wild beasts present more of a challenge,” she said as she admired those vulgar nails.

Ryker pondered her dark cloak and wondered if her blood would even show on it if he planted his axe in her stomach.

Sensing that, Sander ordered Cutler to guide Ryker, Lola and Seth back to their camp. Ryker planted his feet, until Lola’s trembling hands wrapped around his wrist, her wide eyes pleading, and allowed himself to be led away.

But the night was quiet enough that even as he walked, Lola tucked under his arm, Ryker heard his uncle say, “Why are you here, Slōane?” The gentle familiarity in that tone proved Sander had left out much of what occurred last Games.

“You shouldn’t have come back, Sander.” There was nothing of the Viper in that lifeless voice, only bitter emptiness.

But Ryker didn’t glance back, didn’t waste another thought on the siren that was Slōane Valentia as she urged her horse into a gallop and disappeared into the night.