Called by the Dragon
1

Before the jagged mouth of a deep canyon, twelve children in beigedesert garb scurried to line up in two rows of six. Towering and narrow,the passage that snaked ahead was far darker than it should have beenin the rising light of the dawn, but not a single child betrayed even theslightest shade of fear. Instead, they looked straight ahead with wide,alert eyes, some even eager.

A bald man in hardened leather armor paced before them, staring hardat each small head he passed. “Let's get this out of the way: yes, youmight die. We'll send notice to your family with your remains for aburial. You might have been hand-picked to come here, but you'renothing special yet. Not until you pass through the Gauntlet. And noone feels sorry for you just because you're still knee-high and knock-kneed. Is that understood!”

Twelve childish voices chimed in uniform assent. The man grimaced. Heswore these kids got smaller every year. “None of you are going tomake it through the Gauntlet on the first try, so don't get any stupidideas if you want to live to try again tomorrow. Only been done oncebefore, and none of you have the right look in your eyes. You won't getfar. But that's why you're here, so you can harden and grow and stopbeing useless little brats. You might think you're special for gettingfarther than the rest, but you're only on the brink, nothing but fodderuntil you prove yourself. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then...” The man moved off to the side with one final stride, letting hisheavy boot fall onto the loose, sandy dirt with a thump. “Go!”

The children took off with a scramble toward the gorge’s entrance, therustle of their clothes accompanying their frantic footsteps as theyentered the darkened passage. They left behind the commandingofficer, who stared after them with a stern expression.

“Bit cruel, isn't it? I think a few would make it here and there if youdidn’t batter their confidence like that before they even start.”

He didn't even turn to look at his adjutant, a slender young man withblond hair, blue eyes, and dashingly high cheekbones. “Be quiet.”“Alright, sir. You've got it, sir, no lip from me. Then...want to join thepool we've set up? I've put money on the girl with the long black hair.She's got feral eyes, maybe more used to desert terrain than most ofthe recruits. We're thinking she'll make it a third of the way.”

“Shut up.”

“But Captain Sanson...”

“I will strip you down to your smallclothes if you don't stop badgeringme, you dolled-up palace reject.”

Louten pouted. “I knew I shouldn't have taken this post. All of you aretoo coarse, and this place is nothing but dust and rude words.”“Maybe stop chasing the wrong skirts, then. Being banished out to thedesert garrison in the sands here will teach you to slide in under thewrong covers, won't it?” Captain Sanson shook his head. Burdened withan unhardened pretty boy out here in the desert fringes...Loutenwouldn't last long, not with the growing rumors of rebel uprisings everyyear and the sharp, dry sands encroaching on fertile territory more witheach season like an unstoppable disease. Not to mention all thedangerous beasts starting to slither out of the desert on top ofeverything else, too. Louten could barely hold his clothes togetherwithout an attendant to help him pull back his perfectly groomed hair;what was he going to do if they were ever raided? Couldn't even stayout of Sanson'’s hair today while he handled the first day of Gauntlettraining. Absolute pest.

He peered down the gorge and waited for the first shouts to ringthrough the eerily dark canyon. Didn't have much hope for this year'sbatch of the most promising the Imperial City had to offer, becausethose children weren't the only ones being tested today. If anything,they were only the bait. Playthings.

Someone was coming. They would replace out who.

Boots stomped along the sands as the children rushed along thebottom of the gorge. The craggy rock walls on either side toweredhigher and higher, and the meager light shining through the dividefailed to illuminate the shadowed passage. Tall, stalagmite-shapedstacks of weathered rock stood guard at irregular intervals along theway, some skinny and barely an imposition while others were nearlythree meters wide at the base, forcing the runners to clamber aroundthe gigantic monoliths.

Soon, the natural corridor narrowed even more. Two meters wide, andthen just one, until the children were sliding forward one by one downthe descending slope like droplets of water funneling downward. Andthe deeper they went, the darker it became, until finally the jagged topsof the gorge converged and blocked nearly all the light, leaving onlyscant, scattered reflections of daylight to glimmer against the rocks andsands.

The children slowed down. They glanced between themselves andcounted their numbers, only to replace they had all made it so far. Thiscouldn't be it, their eyes said. Yes, the terrain had been hellish, but theyhad come almost a full kilometer and there was nothing but dirt anddust. They had expected at least one dangerous beast or two, maybe,something that would truly put them in danger so they could provetheir mettle.

And then they felt it. The rumble of loose earth under their feet, faint atfirst but growing stronger by the second. Two of them, a girl with darkhair pulled back in a ponytail and pitch black eyes as well as a boy withmuch the same looks, wasted no time in scrambling to climb onto theclosest ledges they could replace, fingers digging into the crumbling wallsand digging for handholds. The other children learned quickly. As soonas they saw the two desert natives leap for safety, they followed suitwith all promptness - except for the last pair, too slow by a hair'sbreadth.

Something burst out of the ground, spraying gritty sand in alldirections, and the first screams rang out as the serpent-like creaturebashed into the wall and knocked down the two stragglers who hadonly made it several meters up. They lost their holds and tumbled tothe ground in a heap, one curling into the fetal position immediatelywith a rattling groan. The other was luckier and managed to land ontheir rear, but he was in no position revel in any relief. With a fearfulgasp, he scrambled onto his hands and knees and tried to run for thewall again, but the gigantic wyrm reared up, up, up -

- and roared as it struggled to throw off something that leaped frombehind onto its frilled head and neck. Dark green scales glittered andclinked together as the wyrm writhed, even hurling itself into the wallwith ferocious strength and injuring itself. A spatter of silvery bloodflew from the creature's gaping, fanged maw and landed on severalother children who had yet to make it high enough to reach safety. Theserpent was easily seven meters long and as thick around as three trees,and when it reared up, its shadow swallowed them all. They wouldn'tmake it. They wouldn't make it-

A shout went up when one of them finally identified the shape attachedto the wyrm'’s head. A person! Someone in dark leather armor andwhite attire underneath, someone who had just lodged their spearstraight across the rear of the creature's maw behind its fangs. Thebeast wailed again and attempted to close its jaw as it thrashed andscreamed, but the wooden shaft of the weapon held strong. Whoever itwas wrangling the wyrm was strong enough to cling to the head andneck with just their clamped knees. Who was that? The armor wasgeneric foot soldier issue, and they had their head concealed in a whitecloth wrap that barely revealed even the eyes. Who? And moreover,what had this person been doing in the canyon ahead of them?

But no time for questions or gratitude. Their rescuer's timelyappearance would have to go unthanked. They scrambled back downto the ground and fled, running past the writhing creature -

- and leaped back when the wyrm crashed across their path, barring theway forward.

“Grab rocks to throw with!” someone barked, and the recruits’ heads allwhipped around to look at the young girl who had just shouted. Shewas already picking up the sharpest piece of rubble she could replace thathad fallen from the bashed wall, and she wound back her arm to hurl ittoward the wyrm writhing in the sand. Her pitch-black eyes were hardand fierce, and the stray strands of dark hair that had freed itself fromher ponytail were pasted to her forehead with sweat. “Don’t be idiots!That guy's not on our side. He's using the wyrm to get to us, too!”They realized in an instant that it was true. With the spear still lodgedhorizontally across the open jaw, preventing it from closing, the wyrmwas hardly a threat as long as they stayed away from its thrashing tail.But the person who had subdued the wyrm, the one who was noweffectively riding it, even - he was staring at them as he jerked back onboth ends of his weapon shaft, making the creature's head rear back aswell under his controlling grip. The wyrm hadn't fallen in front of them.That soldier had steered it there. Dark eyes stared out at them throughthe slit in the white head cloth, and the girl shouted once more.

“A desert native! Don't let down your guard. He can't catch all of us!”That was true, but what everyone else also knew was that not everyonewould make it. Most might, if they were lucky enough to not be thebait. The others, the ones who went first...

“Oh, “Oh, look at that! I knew you were up to something when youdidn’t meet us at the river choke point, you dirty cheater!”

Another voice rang out, a strong, masculine one that echoed aroundthem. The wrangled wyrm renewed its struggles once more at thesudden appearance of an armored man strolling in from behind it, butthe rider gave it another punishing jerk of its spear and forced it tosettle.

The newcomer was a young man with a strong, cut jaw and a cleft chin.Sandy blond hair and dark blue eyes glimmered even in the murky half-darkness of the gorge, and the mixed metal and leather armor snuglyframed a tall, muscular stature. He approached with slow steps, movingexpertly around the wyrm'’s twitching tail as he twirled a sword in onehand. The air of a trained, confident soldier, but the smile curving hismouth was playful rather than dangerous. He stared up at thecreature's bleeding head and grinned, ignoring the gaggle of staringchildren entirely. “The others shouldnt be far behind, so sadly, youwon't be snatching your win this easily. But, hey. Nostalgia. I rememberwhen I was a kid making my first Gauntlet Run here, like those kids.How's it feel to be on the other side now after all these years? Being thechaser instead of the chased?”

He received no answer.

“Oh, come on. No need to be so serious.” He twirled his sword in hisgrip once more before positioning it in front of him with both hands onthe haft. “Rookies don't get to clear the Gauntlet on the first try,whether you're here for the First Run like these kids or for the Second,like us. Save yourself some time and just come down. If we're quickenough, I'll split half the kids with you, and we can take the wintogether this time before the others get here.”

Still no answer. Some of the children surreptitiously began edgingtoward the wall, confused by whatever was happening but stilldesperate to escape. If those two adults were going to remaindistracted, then perhaps this was their chance to -

“Ah, don’t move, you little runts.” The man hadn't turned toward them,but it was clear who he was speaking to. They all froze, eyes glued tothe glinting tip of his sword, and were reminded very clearly they hadno weapons of their own. “All of you stay exactly where you are. UnclePierro will take good care of all of you - as soon as he gets this ladyhere to agree. What do you say? Are we going to team up, or are wegoing to settle this the hard -"

He leaped out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by thewyrm's diving head, which bashed through a natural rock pillarformation before slamming into the wall with a screech. Instead ofwithdrawing and trying again, the creature shuddered with an echoingwail before collapsing in a limp pile across the floor of the gorge. Allwas silent as “the lady’ dismounted from the head, one slender leggracefully swinging over the thick neck and joining the other to standupon the loosely packed sand. She bent over to slide her spear outfrom behind the wyrm'’s fangs, belatedly freeing its maw. With anexperimental heft, she steadied her grip on the weapon and staredback at the other soldier, who grinned even wider.

“I should have known better than to negotiate with you. Come on, then.Let's get down to business, Anzi."