Dragon Assassin Academy - Year 1 Read online

  “Promise me that you will, at least, listen to what the guardians have to say,” he continued.

  I nodded, uncertain of what else to say. “I promise.”

  It was hard concentrating on any of the classes throughout that day, knowing I had to meet the council after school.

  After the last ring of the bell for the end of class, Father met me outside the classroom and guided me all the way to the Custodian’s Office with a firm arm around my back. Guardian Sherlove, Guardian Nelson and Guardian Wilson were also in Custodian McPherson’s office. They were his three core allies together with my father. All five of them were veterans at planning attacks on the dragon clan, but I still didn’t understand what I was doing here.

  I sat down in a chair around the long oval table next to my father. He didn’t even look at me, to give me some sort of reassurance that I would be okay.

  Custodian McPherson sat down at the head of the table. “There have been some interesting developments in favour of us winning the war.”

  Everyone seemed to lean over the table to get closer as Custodian McPherson was almost whispering.

  “The Dragon King has no heir and hence his brother is next in line. His brother, Dramir has contacted me proposing a deal by which if we can kill the king, he will honour a truce.”

  “The king is heavily guarded,” Guardian Sherlove said, frowning in disbelief.

  “True. But he is also only one target away from reaching peace. We must act tonight and hope to surprise the guards, before any rumours spread. We shall take twelve Dragon Assassins who should be apt to infiltrate the dragon clan’s castle. Guardian White, you and your daughter will try and sneak inside. Dress Jade up like a maid, in that way she should be able to get close enough to the king to kill him.”

  What! Me?

  My heart jumped and my chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.

  What had he just suggested?

  Did he want me to enter the Dragon Clan’s castle and kill the Dragon King? My hands started shaking and I felt icy cold all of a sudden. My father turned to nod at me. He was so calm about the suggestion that it made me believe this wasn’t the first time he had heard of this plan.

  “No!” I bellowed. “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to kill anyone; I’m a healer!”

  The tears were scratching at the back of my eyes, threatening to emerge. I swallowed them down and felt like sinking to the floor when the custodian’s eyes drilled into mine.

  “This is what you’ve trained for. If you don’t want to kill dragons, then why are you attending the Dragon Assassin Academy?”

  I wanted to answer frankly and say that my father forced me to, but was afraid that it would dishonour Father, and at worst perhaps get me kicked out of the school. My father had trained me all my life to become a Dragon Assassin; if I failed at that, then what would I do? I had stayed with my father at the academy so many times it was like my second home. I knew more than ten ways to kill a dragon, another dozen ways to hurt them and there was a whole lot more I knew about their nature and habits, but I knew nothing of cooking, cleaning or sewing.

  “Be happy this might be your first assignment, and if you are successful, perhaps also your last.”

  “Isn’t there a trained Dragon Assassin who can do it; someone in third year? I don’t have the skill they do yet. You only learn about water spells at the end of year two. First year students can only…”

  “I’m aware of the curriculum, Miss White, I designed it. Your father has passed on enough skill and you are better than any of the third year females. You are also the only one who has dark enough hair to pass as one of their kind.”

  Perhaps I was best suited in theory, but I had never killed before. I didn’t know whether I had it in me, and this was an important fact to know before standing only a short distance away from the king, ready to jab.

  “What if they request me to draw up my wings and horns after my twenty-first birthday? That’s only in six months’ time. I won’t get any as the dragon shifters do at that age.”

  “Lie; say that you are younger than you are.” His answer was short and snappy. “Your crew is already with their horses at the North Gate. Good luck.”

  Now! Like, right now! Seriously!

  All the Guardians stood up and made ready to leave. Father ushered me out and down to the weapons room. The next few hours were a blur of seeing myself in slow-motion preparing for our mission and it was past midnight by the time we were all mounted on our horses. We ventured out into the dark and I saw buildings and trees swishing by as we galloped for the North Wall.

  At the gates, I looked out into the vast darkness that cloaked the landscape on the other side but I could still see it sprawling magnificently in front of us. This would be my first time outside our nation and I had no clue about what to expect.

  “Move out!” Father yelled.

  We swept over the rocky plains. For a while, there was nothing out there as we rode towards the dragon clan. But as we neared it, I could make out the giant wall that protected the city. Dragon city, according to my history teacher, was a walled-in city and those walls were impregnable, giving the winged beasts a strong advantage in time of war. The Earth Walkers had tried endlessly to break through them but they were solid. Nothing could get through and we were going to have to improvise and figure out a way to climb over them.

  The journey had been uneventful and I may have been the only one who thought it was suspicious how easy the ride had been. With everything I’d heard about the dragon clan, I expected to see some sort of beefed-up security even along the roads that led to the wall. But there was nothing. I pushed the concerns out of my mind as we drew closer to the wall.

  When we arrived at the wall, however, my thoughts changed. I was scandalized at the sight of numerous dead bodies and dried-up skeletons that just lay around on the volcanic ground. Each and every one of the slaughtered Earth Walkers symbolised a failed attempt at getting past their protections. Vultures were swooping around the corpses while flies buzzed and droned. The horrific stench nearly choked me and I gagged heavily, suppressing the irrepressible urge to vomit.

  We hopped off the horses and tied them to some trees behind one of the many small rounded hills. More of the hills were curving over the field leading towards the castle where I could see guards patrolling the walls. Bright, electronically-operated flashlights moved around the area every other minute or so giving us only a brief window to work as we’d have to use the blind spots that the lights couldn’t reach.

  Father tossed a climbing rope to me. I was so frightened that my legs were literally shaking, but Father’s strength and fearlessness encouraged me and I followed in his steps, trying to avoid being detected and started to climb the seemingly mountainous wall. It took almost an hour but finally we were in.

  The stories we had been told didn’t do this city justice. Tall towers rose high into the sky from the dragon castle and I stared at them, intrigued by their shapes and design. Not a single being from the dragon clan was in sight.

  “Where could these beasts be?” one of the Dragon Assassins commented, cocking his head and squinting his eyes to try and see further ahead.

  “Sneaky bastards! I’m sure they’re around here somewhere,” my father muttered, as he held one hand on his sword’s hilt.

  I made sure to stay close to my father. Staying low, we ran across dragon territory towards the open gates of the castle, hiding behind statues and bushes as we went.

  When I had the chance to poke around to see into the courtyard it was obvious that the dragon shifters were changing guards.

  One of the Dragon Assassins pulled back to hide behind the wall and was immediately joined by the rest of the team.

  “Did they see us? My guess is that we might be walking into an ambush.”

  “No, they are busy with their reports to the new guards,” Guardian Sherlove snapped.

  We rounded the wall and pulled closer to the castle, looking at a
portion of the magnificent building where most of the dragon clan were residing.

  We were able to creep stealthily through the narrow confines of the wall trench outside, which served as a drain for the waste from the sewers, all the time carefully observing the retiring watch troop who were standing in the forecourt of the Dragon King’s palace.

  I fell into step with my father as we entered a side door and sneaked through the breath-taking castle. My head was a mess, and I was finding it strangely difficult to organise my thoughts. I couldn’t place my finger on what exactly was bothering me, but it was suspicious that the resistance we had anticipated was not happening.

  I wanted to get out of this castle alive and a little mishap could ruin the entire mission. Custodian McPherson couldn’t be toyed with, we had to succeed. Everyone assigned to this mission had been trained rigorously for years. The custodian desired to restore the Dragon Assassins’ glory, which the dragon clan had repeatedly ridiculed. Our current custodian was the most esteemed amongst the Dragon Assassins in the entire history of the Dragon Assassin Academy, and getting on his bad side would be disastrous.

  As we advanced towards the throne room of the Dragon King’s palace, grey smoke came towards us, slithering around our feet and rising to cloud our vision.

  “It’s a trap. They know we are here. We need to get out before the smoke hits our lungs!” Father bellowed.

  I heard running footsteps but now the smoke was so thick that I could no longer see my father or any of the other Dragon Assassins.

  Fuck, I’m scared!

  I frantically called out for the other Assassins, but didn’t get any response. I tried to make out some vague shapes but I couldn’t see anything at all. During my panicked search for the rest of the team, I suddenly felt a sharp, piercing pain on my left arm. I hissed and covered it with my hand to heal it. It was then it clicked that we had been ambushed.

  The dragon clan wasn’t going to spare anyone of us. They were merciless in their dealings, and it was evident that this was the end of the road for us.

  One by one, ear-piercing screams from my team fuelled my fear.

  I must get out of here!

  I rushed backwards but stumbled on someone lying on the floor. I dropped down on all fours and crawled to see who it was. Peering closely at the face, tears welled up as I recognised my father and my a panicked screams echoed around the stone walls. I ran my hands over him but they became sticky as I encountered a puddle on his chest. I flung my hand near to my eyes and saw they were soaked in blood.

  He has been stabbed!

  I screamed again, pressing my hands over his chest, wanting to help so badly, but I couldn’t heal him as he was losing too much blood. He was gurgling blood at the back of his throat and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to last much longer.

  “You promised Mother you would come back alive!” I yelled frantically.

  My father didn’t respond; he continued to gag on his own blood.

  5

  CHAPTER 5

  What should I do now? I couldn’t leave my father here like this, on dragon territory, but if I stayed, I would be killed too. Tears welled up and started to flow down my face.

  Daddy! Don’t die!

  Suddenly, I felt hands grip hard around my arms and through the smoke, which had cleared slightly, I saw it was Guardian Sherlove and Guardian Nelson. They picked me off the floor, running out of the castle with me dangling like a rag doll between them.

  Our flight was made all the more urgent as we heard the sound of the stampeding castle guards, the noise murderously booming from inside the castle. It was joined by the clanging of bells close by, resonating in the night sky, warning all the dragon shifters of the intrusion. I heard explosions going off, with the threat of missiles targeted in our direction and I looked up to see dragons circling the skies above, breathing down fire on us.

  “No! Father!”

  I fought myself free from the Guardians’ grip, but Guardian Sherlove blocked my way back.

  “He is gone, Jade. Run!”

  How could he be gone? The bravest and strongest man I’d ever known couldn’t be gone. I needed my father.

  I knew there was no time to waste. Both the guardians were coughing uncontrollably as smoke and fire erupted everywhere around us, filling our lungs. The strangest thing was that my lungs seemed to harden in such a way that the smoke didn’t affect me at all. My vision was blurry though as the smoke stung my eyes causing involuntary tears to spill down my cheeks.

  The thuds of dragons landing nearby were accompanied by the sounds of war chants. We were being hunted and they wouldn’t stop until they had killed us all, but I couldn’t leave my father to the enemy; Mother would be heartbroken if the love of her life were to be buried in the land of the enemy.

  “We have to get his body! We can’t leave him there,” I cried to the guardians but neither of them listened to me.

  They were too focused on getting us out of the dragon clan territory. Going back would be suicide.

  My poor father. My sweet, kind, thoughtful father.

  This wasn’t the end I had envisioned for him and I sobbed even harder.

  I was exhausted and inconsolable by the time the two guardians shoved me up onto my horse. Guardian Sherlove took a hold of my reins at the same time as he urged his own horse on, racing down the hilly road, the bouncing as we galloped almost throwing me off the saddle. I just wanted to cry. Cry about everything; my father’s death, the failed mission, the exhaustion, all my Dragon Assassin friends who had died, and most of all I wanted to die rather than have to be the one to tell Mother about it.

  Guardian Sherlove only slowed the horses when we arrived at the North Wall so that we could be let into the city before we hastily continued to the doorstep of the Dragon Assassin Academy. He encircled comforting arms around me as he led me back to my family’s apartment within the school. He didn’t bother knocking as he burst into the hallway.

  “Ellen!” he shouted for my mother.

  Mother appeared in the doorway to the living room. Her face fell as she saw us and she crumpled to the ground, realising instantly that our mission must have ended disastrously. She knew what the dragon clan was like and she hated the idea of my father accepting the leadership of the team. Their brutality had no comparison. My mother had retired now, but she too had once been a warrior and had encountered dragon shifters at the North Wall. The only rumour which I had heard of from that day was that her team had been attacked severely, and none had been spared except her. That was what she never wanted to speak about from her past. She had only barely managed to escape the claws of death that day. This had happened two decades ago and I could tell that she was yet to recover from the shock.

  Everyone knew that the Dragon King wasn’t one to back out of a fight. I had realised he would strike back, but I’d never expected that my father would be a victim. He had been fearless and experienced. But so was the Dragon King, known for his fiery red eyes, his short temper, and his reputation for not hesitating to execute barbaric punishments. Apparently, even his smile was crooked. It was said that to look at him was like staring the devil in the eye.

  The moment I knew that Mother realised Father wasn’t with us, the ground under my feet caved in and swallowed me up. I was caught up in a whirlwind of pain and sorrow. My limbs went numb and I couldn’t lift a finger. It was as if a hot-piercing arrow had speared my heart, and all I felt was pain, nothing but pain. I was drowning.

  I tried to move my legs towards Mother, but they were wobbly, and gave way. I was only standing because Guardian Sherlove was holding me up.

  I couldn’t bear seeing my mother this devastated, as if the terrifying attacks on the academy weren’t enough. But Mother was aware of the Dragon Assassin’s laws – you must obey the custodian’s order, and if Father hadn’t embarked on that journey, they were going to lose him either way.

  Mother sent me to my room and I could hear her hissing voice for a long while
into the night. I felt sorry for Guardian Sherlove who had to be at the receiving end of my mother’s outburst. It wasn’t his fault. He was the one who had got me out of the dragon territory alive. I supposed Mother wasn’t the only one who would blame him either; Custodian McPherson would give us all an ear full tomorrow.

  That night I couldn’t sleep, and after a light breakfast the following morning I was pacing the grounds before going to the Custodian’s chamber where I would learn of the aftermath of the failed mission.

  All the other students seemed to be avoiding me as if they shared a secret that I was not privy to. When I walked through the alleys between the academy buildings leading to the council chamber, I saw the look the others gave me, talking in whispers around me. Rumours were that the heads of seven of the Assassins who had died in the mission had been sent to the academy on spears.

  The custodian had cursed this brutal action of killing his soldiers without mercy. People who had seen him had said he was incandescent with rage and was out for revenge. I prayed that he would calm down so that he wouldn’t make any rash decisions; it had been his hasty decisions after all that had led to my father’s death.

  Guardian Sherlove turned down the same alley as me and walked towards me in a straight line without actually seeing me. He looked like a soulless ghost, as he passed me without a greeting. He looked to be completely traumatised by the whole affair. Rumours were already circulating that he was going insane, but I knew what the trauma was like, I too was a victim. It had been Guardian Sherlove who had brought me out of that dark place and saved my life.

  I sighed, saddened and headed for the custodian’s office which was a large great hall where the main assemblies of court matters were settled. I pushed the door open and peered inside, seeing Custodian McPherson sitting behind the court bench with Guardian Wilson, Guardian Nelson and six other council members seated on either side of him.

  The hall was a sacred place and one of the most dreaded places in the academy. Serious matters were debated in this chamber.