Sabre

Worthless. Jinx. Shade-marked. If an insult existed, I'd heard it a hundred times over.

Life in the Guided Blades was cutthroat, but it was the only life I had ever known. My first memory out of the egg was that of dragons dressed in animal skins, drinking and chanting and dancing around a raging bonfire. Like Beastclans, I realize now, but at the time, I took it as completely normal.

The violence and bloodshed were normal, too. Growing up, I learned not to take a second glance at a dead dragon being hauled out of the lair, or some prey animal torn apart by a pack of hounds for amusement. Glancing earned a slap if you were lucky. If you weren’t, you got thrown in a pit fight.

“C’mon, you scrawny worm. Fight back!” a war-scarred Skydancer hissed in my ear, shoving me back into the ring. On the opposite end of the ‘battlefield’, an adolescent Ridgeback flexed his muscles and strutted for his adoring audience.

“Round two, Shade-spawn,” he taunted, his head high. He knew he’d win the fight. He always won. His name was Keris, and he was the Blades’ finest young fighter.

I backed up. A spear jabbed at my tail and a dragon spat at me, just missing my eye. I stumbled forward, and he struck.

Ridgebacks, even half-grown ones, were covered in hard, sharp spines. Those same spines ripped into my flesh as he clawed at me. I threw up my wings, trying to claw back. I did try, you know, every time. But Keris deflected every one of my blows and countered with his own. I was beaten back, slipping in puddles of my own blood, while the spectators jeered and stamped their talons to some primal beat.

“That’s enough,” a voice growled, and the uproar died within a heartbeat. An Imperial shoved his way through the crowd, flicked Keris aside like he was an insect, and planted himself before me. “The weakling has learned his lesson. We want fighters, not corpses. He will recover for three days, then resume his training. I want those wounds patched up by tomorrow.”

“Lucky,” Keris muttered, but a bone-covered dragon swept me up and away before I could hear the rest.

*

“I don’t get it. Why don’t you ever try to fight back? Go for the eyes-- or the underbelly! Ridgebacks don’t have armor over theirs, you know.”

A Pearlcatcher paced around the table where a healer was wrapping me up in bandages, poking at my wounds like the blood fascinated her. Out of all the young dragons in the Blades, Fallacy was probably the one who least wanted me dead. She was female, therefore she’d never be on the front-lines. Such was the way in this ‘clan’. So instead, she spent her time bothering the healers and their patients.

“You’re a Guardian, Sabre. You’re made of armor! How do you keep losing?”

Also, she was probably the only dragon who called me by my given name.

“I just don’t want to fight,” I said, wincing against the pain. “I don’t like blood, and I hate seeing animals suffer. I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“You got that right. What are you, a dragoness? Toughen up!”

“I can’t,” I whined, which probably didn’t help my case.

“You’re going to have to,” the medic growled. She was a shriveled old Wildclaw, and every time she moved, the bones stitched on her robes rattled against each other. “Whiplash said you’d be back to training in 3 days. He doesn’t appreciate time-wasters.”

“Hey, look.” Fallacy said, placing her talons on the table and looking me in the eye. “If it’d make you feel better, I can come down to watch your training that day. Got nothing better to do, anyway.”

“Really?” Sure, there was nothing against females watching a training session, but she’d have to jump through a few hoops to skip her own training. “You’d do that for me?”

“Sure, it’ll be fun.”

She said it so blithely, yet to me, she was a ray of sunshine in a very dark lifetime.

*

The majority of the Blades were out on a raid, and the lair’s central cavern was empty save for a circle of young dragons. I sat between two Snapper siblings who kept leaning across me to gossip, and they made no effort to hide the fact that it was about me.

“Those runes are so creepy.”

“Riposte says they’re messages from the Shade. He’s cursed!”

“What if the Shade comes out of him and tries to eat us?”

I shuffled backward so they could talk, but my back hit a tree-like leg that had slammed down behind me.

“Rest well?” Whiplash boomed but stepped over me without waiting for a reply. “Alright, you filthy maggots! Today I’m going to teach you how to deal the fastest killing blow known to dragon-kind: The classic throat slit. I see you rolling your eyes there, Keris. Pay attention; it might save your life.”

The Imperial settled himself in the middle of the circle and pointed at his own long neck. “The neck holds many important channels. The jugular vein. The spinal cord. The windpipe. All bunched together for your convenience. When defending, always keep your neck protected by tucking in your chin.” He demonstrated, bowing his head low to the ground. “But if you’re on the opposite end of the receiver, you can get around this by bluffing.” He lifted his talon in the air. “Force your opponent to look up and gauge your attack. Then...” In a single fluid motion, he leaped forward on his back legs, pouncing on an imaginary target. “Pin him underneath you, using your weight. Aim for a diagonal slice, and with several claws. If you do it right, your target will bleed out within minutes. End of story.

“But enough words. Now you’re going to practice. Keris!” he barked, and the Ridgeback stepped forward eagerly. “Wipe that grin off your face. It’s time for a rematch. Sabre!”

If anything, that just made Keris’s grin even wider. I staggered to my feet and crept forward. Whiplash’s tail thwacked me from behind, pushing me forward.

“We stop at first blood. Use any means necessary to pin your foe. Take your positions!”

We moved to opposite ends of the dragon-made circle. Keris strutted as always, scraping his claws along the ground to leave long, ominous trails. My eyes swept the row of dragons and settled on a light orange shape sitting at the very edge. Fallacy had kept her word, after all.

“On the count of 3. 1...2...3!”

Keris moved like a whirlwind, crossing the space in an instant and swiping a claw at me. I ducked under him and headbutted his side, sending him stumbling into another dragon’s lap. The circle laughed.

“You’ll pay for that, Shade-beast!” he roared, propelling himself at me.

I sidestepped him, but his wickedly-spined tail managed to nick my pelt. I crouched to leap onto him, but he tackled me, shoving me onto my back. His claws skidded off my armored underbelly, but he clambered on anyway, resting his front leg on my neck. I gasped for breath, and the circle cheered.

“Keris! Keris!”

But somewhere in the back, I heard a familiar voice, but unfamiliar in its sheer savagery.

“Tear him apart! Kill the Shade-touched!”

Fallacy was cheering for my death.

I think this, not the years of abuse, or decades worth of open wounds upon battle scars, was what changed me. The one dragon I thought was different, was just as terrible as everyone else. And I learned that I was truly alone in this ring.

My blood roared in my ears. My muscles tensed more than I knew was possible. I pressed my back legs into Keris’s underbelly and shoved upwards, throwing him off me like a ragdoll.

The crowd went wild. Keris flailed his wings hard, but couldn’t slow his descent. He landed flat on his back, knocking the wind out of his lungs, and I was on him in an instant, all aches and pains replaced by hot fury.

“What-- how--”

“Who’s the weakling now?” I hissed and dug one claw into his throat.

“Stop!” Whiplash leapt into the ring and pulled me off. Keris was gurgling, blood bubbling up from the slit in his neck. “Healer! Now!”

As I hung suspended in the Imperial’s grasp, my adrenaline receded, and the red edge around my vision faded away. I blinked, staring at the Wildclaw carting Keris away, confused for a second.

“What-- what happened?”

Whiplash set me down, focusing his gaze on the circle of students. “That was unacceptable behavior. You must never lose control during training. On the battlefield, however...” He looked down at me at last. “Meet me in my lair, same time tomorrow. I think Shatter could teach you a thing or two...” He turned and strode away, effectively ending the training session.

As soon as he was out of earshot, the other dragons surrounded me, chattering and asking questions I couldn’t answer.

“What just happened?”

“How’d you do that?”

“Can you teach me how to do that kick thing?”

“You were all like ‘whoosh!’ and ‘rargh!’ and ‘you’re the weakling now Keris’!”

A Pearlcatcher shoved her way to the front, and I realized it was Fallacy. “That was some fancy fighting there, Sabre! I knew you had it in you. So where’d that inner rage come from, anyway?”

She didn’t know I’d heard her.

But I knew. She was just like the rest of them. Shallow, brutal, evil.

“You wouldn’t know, Fallacy,” I said, shoving through the crowd. The dragons parted like mice from a cat. “You never knew me at all.”