Chapter II, part 1: Memories of a blade.

Liriel was heading towards the giant cave in the center of the small city to start her morning training routine. The first rays of the sun barely managed to dispel the darkness of the night but despite that, her eyes were fixed towards the sky. And she was rewarded, this day too, for this act.

She saw three gracious forms lunging towards the air. One white and two blues today, she thought. As the large bodies of the dragons rose up elegantly, she sighted. She always held a deep fascination about dragons. Even the smaller ones, the human controlled, were beautiful and magnificent in her eyes. Each day, about the time that the training started, the morning dragons would fly towards their borderlines, to give the night watchers the necessary rest. Each day the past three years, she cursed her fate to be born a girl.

She was a perfect warrior; she would become even greater they assured her. But she could never become a Dragonrider. Due to her origin and her martial skill, due to her body and her discipline, she would have been a great rider. But no female riders existed.

It was all part of the ‘curse’ the more superstitious said. It was part of something unknown, the wisest scholars admitted. Because from the eggs that any human would steal from the dragon coves only small dragons came out. The current dragons that the clan had were a little larger than a two stories house, and no other clan could boast much larger ones. But the true dragons were over three times larger, and that was without counting the red ones which could dwarf even the largest of the other wild ones. Sadly, no one knew why the dragons were stunted the moment they hatched. For that matter, no one could explain why the dragons that came out of the eggs were only male ones, little creatures that even from their hatchling stage would never accept a woman to touch them.

That was why the dragon nests were precious to all. No one could breed a dragon but dragons themselves. The most, humans could do, was to sneak in and steal an egg or two before the dragon managed to break through the spells that bounded him. Huge hunting groups had been wasted in the wrath of a mother dragon because they underestimated the time that their sorcerers could handle them. Teleportation with the eggs was also impossible; as in human’s pregnancy, in dragons too, magic during the hatching was usually fatal for the unborn…

As she entered the brightly lit cave, she let all thoughts of dragons vanish from her mind. She had a job to do. She had to learn how to fight, and she had to teach others, younger, too. Even if she fought underneath the Dragonriders, she would make her clan proud, she would make the dragons proud to have Charodians lead them to battle and not whelps from the other clans.

The size of the cave was immense. Older warriors that had gone dragon hunting would even claim that it was over five times larger than the largest dragon lair that they had seen. Nowadays, many little tunnels were excavated around it, many places converted to storages and armories. But the central, largest place was still empty and used only for two things, festivities and the training of the youths.

It was an ancient custom that too. Legend had it that in this cave Charoden and Kaidin, the founders of their clan first logged. That in the natural abode that this place offered was where their clan started. And it stood to reason, someone could house over a thousand people here. Before a clan would be able to settle down, she would need somewhere to actually stay, someplace that those people slowly gathered together under a common banner. And as then, so now again, the youths would start their lives and their training here. As a small replica of the age of then, they would have to walk out of the cave complete men and women, people able to fight for their freedom.

Sweat was running thick under Liriel’s helmet. Her muscles were already feeling a little sore. And it was no wonder. For the past three hours, she was the only one of the trainees that still hadn’t taken a break. She hadn’t even let down her heavy, massive shield. She couldn’t afford to, she thought. Should she lost her shield in a normal battle, she would still be ok, the massive size of it made it difficult to use in close combat either way, but the shield wasn’t for humans. It was the only way that the infantry could protect itself from the fiery hell that came loose from the dragons’ mouths, at least until sorcerers, archers or their own dragons took them out.

Suddenly, a deafening shriek sounded from somewhere outside. Swords and shields froze in place. Trainees that were sitting rose instantly, the younger ones left to exchange pondering gazes with one another. In the stillness of the chamber only a body moved; Raymond was running at an incredible pace towards outside.

Liriel knew where he was going, to the council room. No one could ignore such a dragon shriek. A perfectly trained shout that wasn’t easy to reproduce unless the rider wanted to, an alarm. Someone has declared war on them.