Deserter

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DESERTER

  EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT FROM WINGS OF FIRE: LEGENDS: DARKSTALKER

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  COPYRIGHT

  Note: This story begins before the War of SandWing Succession and ends shortly after the events of Winglets: Assassin.

  Unlike most dragons, Six-Claws had a remarkably happy childhood.

  His mother was one of Queen Oasis’s most trusted guards and his father was the head chef in the queen’s kitchen. Ostrich and Quicksand’s lives were devoted to the queen, but Six-Claws and his two sisters came a close second. The family was almost always together.

  His mother taught him how to keep watch and how to fight and how to defend his queen at all costs. His father taught him how to make camel shish kebab and date soufflé. His sisters, meanwhile, taught him that you should really not tell your sisters who you have a crush on, unless you want the entire palace to know about it.

  Six-Claws loved growing up in the SandWing palace, surrounded by open sky and rolling desert dunes as far as the eye could see in every direction. He learned to fly earlier than any of the other dragonets who hatched in his year. He signed up for every patrol, whether it was harvesting brightsting cacti or hunting desert foxes or firebombing suspected dragonbite viper lairs. He liked to be useful. He liked to be doing things.

  And of course, since his parents were loyal to Queen Oasis, he was loyal to her as well. If anyone asked, he could have rattled off a list of reasons why she was a great queen. This was a conversation he heard regularly around the dinner table in the small barracks room assigned to his family.

  It wasn’t until he was five years old that he learned there might one day be a different SandWing queen.

  That is, he knew intellectually, from school lessons, that a queen’s daughter, granddaughter, sister, or niece could challenge her to a fight to the death, and whoever won would be queen. But he’d never imagined anyone doing that to his queen.

  He was in the kitchens that afternoon, pounding beetles into a glittering black powder for his father, when his mother came in. She nudged Six-Claws affectionately with her wing as she passed him. His father looked up from one of the cauldrons, steam obscuring his face.

  “Did you hear?” Ostrich asked him. “Another princess hatched today. The queen is calling her Blaze.”

  “Really?” Quicksand dragged a tray of bread loaves out of the oven. “She’s keeping it, then?”

  “Her Majesty has always said she’d allow three heirs, no more,” said Ostrich, taking the other edge to help him lift it onto the stone table. “So if she keeps Blaze, one of the others has to go.”

  Quicksand snorted. “That’s easy. The one who likes cutting the legs off jackrabbits just to see what they’ll do.” He wrinkled his snout. “There was one flopping around the courtyard shrieking for an hour yesterday. Do you know how hard it is to stuff olives under those conditions?”

  “She’s creepy,” Ostrich agreed, “but the one Queen Oasis should get rid of is the other daughter, Blister. That dragon always looks like she’s murdering you with her eyes. But it won’t be either of them. It’ll be the queen’s sister, you’ll see. She’s much closer to challenging Her Majesty than the daughters are. It makes sense to dispose of her.”

  “Challenge the queen?” Six-Claws interrupted, startled out of eavesdropping. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “To become the next queen,” Quicksand answered with an amused expression. “Because she thinks she’d be better at it than the current queen.”

  “No one could be a better queen than Queen Oasis!” Six-Claws insisted forcefully.

  “That’s absolutely right, dear,” his mother said, wrapping one wing around him. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be queen for a long while yet. Although whoever comes after her, we’ll be loyal to her, too.”

  Ostrich was right about one thing: by the next day, the queen’s one remaining sister had vanished into thin air, and nobody ever mentioned her name again.

  After that, Six-Claws watched the SandWing princesses differently. Now they weren’t just royalty. They were deadly. They were a threat to his queen.

  Well … two of them were.

  The youngest daughter, Blaze, turned out to be one of the silliest dragonets Six-Claws had ever met. As soon as she could walk she started following any dragon she could find who was wearing treasure. The more sparkles, the better; she had a knack for zeroing in on the dragons with the most glittering jewelry.

  Six-Claws suspected that if she ever killed her mother, it wouldn’t be for power or a throne; it would be for a pair of diamond earrings. And she wouldn’t do it with her claws or her fire — she’d do it by annoying the queen to death.

  He watched the princesses for two years, but his first interaction with them didn’t come until he was seven years old …

  “My sisters are up to something.”

  Six-Claws looked up, squinting at the figure silhouetted against the blinding sun. He’d been trying to dig out a stubborn ball of roots from the palace garden for the better part of the morning. His muscles ached and his scales were hot enough to fry snake eggs on.

  “Sisters are always up to something,” he said, resting his arms on his shovel.

  “True. But whatever my sisters are planning could bring down the kingdom.” The other dragon turned his head into the light, and Six-Claws tensed, recognizing Prince Smolder. The prince was from the same hatching as Princess Blister, so he was two years older than Six-Claws. They’d been on several missions together, although they’d rarely spoken to each other.

  And he was right. His sisters were not ordinary dragons.

  “Which sisters?” Six-Claws asked. “How do you know?”

  “Burn and Blister,” said the prince. “They’ve been whispering together all morning.”

  That was definitely a bad sign. The two older princesses generally avoided each other as much as possible. If they were conspiring, that could only mean bad things for someone.

  “Why are you telling me?” Six-Claws asked cautiously.

  “Well,” Smolder said, “I’m not sure what else to do. You seem kind of strong and sensible. I was hoping you could come up with something.” He flicked his venomous tail around and sat down with an expectant expression.

  “You should ask them what they’re up to,” Six-Claws suggested, jabbing at the root ball again. “You’re their brother. They might tell you.”

  “Ha ha!” The prince gave an odd shudder. “And draw their attention to me instead? No, thank you, that’s not how survival works in this family.”

  Six-Claws considered for a moment what it must be like to live in a family where “survival” was an issue of sibling dynamics. “They can’t be going after the queen,” he mused. “Not together. But I could warn my mother, just in case.”

  “Who else would they be plotting against?” Smolder wondered.

  Realization hit Six-Claws like a lightning bolt. “Your little sister,” he said. He dropped the shovel and his wings snapped open. “Knock the number of heirs down to two.” He scrambled out of the hole, shaking dirt off his claws. “Where is Blaze?”

  “How would I know?” Prince Smolder jumped out of the way of the cascades of dust coming off Six-Claws. “So you’ll take care of it?”

  “Aren’t you going to help me?” Six-Claws frowned at the prince. “Don’t you want to protect your little sister?”

  “I am!” Smolder shifted warily on his talons. “By telling you, and then staying alive so I can do it again next time! I’m sure you can handle it.” He took another step back, then turned and hurried off into the palace.

  “Wait!” Six-Claws called. “What about your brothers? Where are they?”

  “Out on pat
rol,” Smolder yelled back before he whisked around a corner and vanished.

  Six-Claws heaved a frustrated sigh. He didn’t have time to run after a cowardly prince. Apparently he had to find the youngest princess before something terrible happened to her. Which did not sound like his job at all, but unlike Smolder, he wasn’t the kind of dragon to pass it off to someone else.

  The wingery was close by; he could check there first. Most dragonets in the palace played in the shelter of its walls until they were two years old, under the watchful eye of a pair of ancient SandWings. Six-Claws remembered their creaky voices telling stories about how they’d taught young Oasis to fly when she was just a tiny mite herself. The wingery was open to anyone who lived in the palace, so the children of servants and nobles all grew up together — princesses and future pot-scrubbers side by side.

  With no time to waste, he hopped onto the wall of the garden and flew there instead of taking the cooler indoor passageways.

  The courtyard for the dragonets featured a sunken pool in the middle, where they could splash and cool off in the midday heat. This was overlooked by a shaded pavilion with long white curtains on the three open sides. Six-Claws had spent two painful years in that pavilion, struggling to learn to read and to count little piles of red pebbles. Sitting still for that long was the worst. That was not his idea of doing something; that was just torture.

  The rest of the courtyard was set up to help the dragonets learn to fly: ledges at different heights, soft piles of sand to land in, claw holds and perches everywhere. And of course, in one corner, a first aid station stocked with lots of brightsting cactus, which was the only antidote to the venom in a SandWing’s tail. The venom didn’t come in until a dragonet was closer to three years old — luckily for everyone — but at this age they had a tendency to crash into everything or leap onto their parents without looking first, so there was a lot of bandaging and antidote-administering required. The young dragons also spent a lot of time practicing how to be aware of their tails and everyone else’s, so they could eventually be safely released into the rest of the palace.

  Six-Claws flew down into the courtyard, scanning the pool and the flying stations. No sign of Blaze. She had just turned two, so she might consider herself too old for the wingery now, but he couldn’t think where she might go next. He stuck his head between the curtains of the pavilion and an entire class of SandWing dragonets twisted around to stare at him.

  “Yes?” snapped the wizened old dragon at the front.

  “Is Princess Blaze here?” Six-Claws asked.

  The teacher snorted. “Do you see anyone drawing tiaras in the margins of their history scrolls? Then, no.”

  “Do you know where she might be?”

  “My guess? Drooling over a pile of gems or sharing adoring sighs with a mirror somewhere,” he snapped. “Stop interrupting our lesson.”

  “I can help you look,” offered the dragon beside the teacher, and Six-Claws noticed him for the first time. He was older than the other dragonets, probably about four years old, with powerful sandy-yellow wings and flashing black eyes.

  “Your mother said to stay here and learn the job,” the teacher growled.

  “Oh, but this sounds very important,” the other dragon answered, practically leaping over the little dragonets between him and Six-Claws. “I’m sure I’ll be back soon!” He seized Six-Claws by the arm and muttered, “Let’s go, quick.”

  Six-Claws backed out of the pavilion and jumped to the nearest balcony. The young dragon followed him, ignoring the wheezing shouts of the teacher, and then they both soared up to one of the higher palace towers. The wind tugged at their wings with unusual strength, and when Six-Claws glanced up, he realized the sky was darker than it should be for midday in the desert.

  “Thank you for getting me out of there,” the dragon panted as they landed. “I’m Dune.”

  “Six-Claws. What was that all about?”

  Dune immediately looked at Six-Claws’s talons — yes, he had six claws on each of his front feet instead of the usual five; thanks so much for letting everyone know right away, parents — and then tried very hard to pretend that he hadn’t. “I’m supposed to be in training to become a teacher. My parents are both teachers, and they think working in the wingery forever would be just the perfect job for me.” He wrinkled his snout.

  “You sound thrilled about that idea,” Six-Claws said. He was only half listening; his attention was on the palace compound spread out below him as he searched for any sign of the littlest princess. Far off on the western horizon, a wall of ominous clouds was gathering.

  “I guess minding dragonets runs in the family,” Dune said. He shuddered. “But I hope I don’t have to do it for the rest of my life. Dragonets are so aggravating. I want to be a soldier! I want to fight in battles and do glorious things and be a hero!” He flared his wings enthusiastically. “What do you want to do?”

  “Whatever my queen needs me to do,” Six-Claws answered, with complete honesty. He wanted to serve his tribe and be the most useful dragon he could possibly be. “Now think. Where could Blaze be?”

  “The royal treasury,” Dune said promptly. “Hoping her mother will come by to unlock it so she can roll in the jewels. That dragonet is as bad as a scavenger. I’m not sure she thinks about anything except treasure, and she doesn’t even care about which items are worth more than others. We tried to turn her obsession into a math lesson, but she prefers the prettiest ones, even if they’re fake.”

  “Go check the treasury,” Six-Claws said. He turned toward the other side of the tower, intending to search the other pools — but then something caught his attention.

  A flash of light out in the desert.

  A tremor of movement across the sand.

  A small dragonet, trekking out toward the incoming storm.

  “What is she doing?” he yelped. He couldn’t tell for sure that it was Blaze, but whoever it was needed to get back to the palace right away.

  “Whoa,” Dune said, squinting beside him. “Is that the princess? Why would she be out in the dunes by herself? By all the lizards, she is going to get crushed by that sandstorm.”

  “Get help,” Six-Claws said. He shoved Dune back and spread his wings. “Tell the queen, if you can.”

  “You’re going to get her?” Dune said. “Why? You’ll both get crushed.”

  “Because you never leave dragonets in danger,” Six-Claws answered, startled that anyone would need to have that explained to him.

  “You don’t? Even if it means risking your own — all right, all right,” Dune said, cutting himself off at the look on Six-Claws’s face. “No dragonets in danger, got it.”

  Six-Claws threw himself off the tower and soared over the palace and out into the desert, beating his wings as fast as he could.

  He was lucky to be strong and fast. By the time he caught up to Princess Blaze, the wind was whipping furiously around them, flinging harsh particles of sand into their eyes. But she was still struggling onward, walking instead of flying, her wings tucked in and her head bent and her eyes closed.

  Six-Claws landed in front of her and spread his wings, shielding her from the storm for a moment. She rubbed her face and looked up at him, blinking in surprise.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To get my favorite crown,” she said spiritedly. “Don’t you try to stop me, you big-shouldered bighead!”

  He tilted his head. “What crown?”

  “The one Agave stole and hid out here, according to Camel, who heard it from Parch, who is her best friend, so it’s completely true, and I’m going to get it back, because it’s MINE and Mommy gave it to me.” Blaze suddenly sat down and lifted her chin. “Unless you go get it for me. Ooo, that sounds like a good idea.”

  “We can’t,” he said. “This storm is too dangerous.” And I’m guessing that whole story is a lie planted somewhere along the way by Burn and Blister, he thought. “You must get back to the palace.”

 
; “NO!” Blaze shouted. “I want what’s mine.” She tried to stomp past him, but the wind immediately seized her wings and flung her backward onto the sand.

  “Ow!” she cried, trying to sit up. “That hurt! Something hurt me!”

  Six-Claws looked over his shoulder. An enormous wall of dust clouds was bearing down on them, reaching from the sand all the way up to the sky and moving fast. There was no more time to treat the princess like precious royalty.

  “We have to go!” he shouted. He threw his arms around her, pinning her wings to her sides, and lunged into the air.

  “My crooooooooowwwwwn!” she wailed. She plunked her head on his shoulder and cried all the way back to the palace.

  The princess was heavier than she looked, but the wind was with them now, hurtling them in front of the storm. As they got closer, Six-Claws could see doors and windows slamming closed all over the palace. The dragons were preparing for the onslaught of sand.

  Wait, he thought desperately. Wait for us. We’re coming.

  And then finally, as his strength began to give out and he felt the cloud right on his tail, he saw a shutter open in one of the walls. Dune leaned out, waving a huge white cloth to get his attention.

  Six-Claws put on one last burst of speed and threw himself through the open window, tucking himself to crash-land on the floor with Blaze on top of him. They skidded part of the way across the room, and he could hear the cries of dragons leaping out of their way.

  “Did you bring the entire desert in with you?” one of them yelped.

  “Idiots! Waiting till the last minute!”

  “Don’t you know anything about sandstorms?”

  “We should have left you out there!”

  “Hey, that’s Princess Blaze,” said someone else, and a kind of hush fell over the room.

  Six-Claws blinked, feeling sand cascading from the corners of his eyes. His vision was still blurred, but he could see that they were in one of the great halls where Oasis hosted feasts and dances. Normally sunlight filled the hall, but it was dark with all the shutters and doors closed, and only a few torches had been lit so far. Circles of warm firelight reflected off the scales and dark eyes of the dragons gathered around them.