All Chapters of Called by the Dragon: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

It's hot. It's hot, and there's sand blowing in Anzi's eyes with the stiff wind that keeps rising from the direction of the horizon. The sun is setting, but this is when the desert fringes and the savanna awaken, when life stirs in the shaded burrows underground. Rabbits and foxes will be making tracks soon, rabbits to the succulents, foxes to the rabbits.And her, to the foxes.Once the sun sets, she'll be watching for dinner. Tonight's a special occasion that calls for meat, and Mama is both sad and ecstatic. So is Baba. It's not that they're surprised - there's always been something different about her, after all, and during the annual Selection on the summer solstice, all eyes were on her as she ran faster, leaped higher, and hit harder than all the other children her age who came from the same district. This is expected. This is right. Even at ten years old, she's always known she was born a hunter, a warrior, a fighter. Being Selected for Se

Twelve children in beige desert garb were lined up in two rows of six, standing in perfect formation before the mouth of a sandy desert gorge. Towering and narrow, the passage that snaked through it was far darker than it should have been in the rising light of the dawn, but not a single one of the children betrayed even the slightest shade of fear. Instead, they looked straight ahead with wide, alert eyes, a few of them even looking eager for what was to come."There are a dozen of you, but none of you will make it to the end. It has been done only once, and I expect will never happen again. Not when it's your first time, anyway." A bald man in hardened leather armor began pacing slowly before them, first to the left, then to the right, then back to the left again as he stared hard at each small head he passed. "But this will teach you endurance. To harden your mind as well as your body, that no matter how many bruises and falls you take, you will always rise up and try agai

Well, this was unfortunate.Anzi had expected the wyrm because there'd been one when she first ran the Gauntlet herself, but what she hadn't expected was a nearly full grown beast that had been ready to eat whatever it could manage to sink its teeth into.Was the quartermaster insane? These kids were only twelve years old, just as she had been on her First Run, and there was no way any of them could outpace a creature of this size. And the chances of surviving the attack? Laughably low. If she hadn't sneaked down in the first place for other reasons entirely, she would never have been here to stop the beast in time. It had exploded out of the sand like a lightning strike and gone straight for the closest children hanging from the rock wall, and if she had been even a half-second slower in leaping on its head to throw off its aim, at least one of the recruits would have surely been maimed or dead.Idiot quartermaster! She would report this to her regiment captain

Anzi remembered this place. Every bend, every dip, every shadow. Or so she wanted to think, but that was impossible. This was part of the desert, which changed day by day. Nothing was ever the same, especially not after almost five years.She had been brought here when she was twelve, just like the children back there. After two years of rigorous training and advancement through the ranks upon being Selected for service, she had been one of the dozen most promising ones, and she had been put through her First Run just like everyone else.She had completed it on the first try. Despite it being so long ago, she remembered it all too clearly, the memory of stumbling over and slapping her hands down on the tower of circular stones that marked the finish point, bleeding and heaving with two broken ribs. How she had managed to fight off the Chasers and make it to the end, none of the officers knew - until the four soldiers had come trotting out of the gorge a few minutes lat

The instant Doufan tensed his legs, Anzi followed suit and did the same, but she was the first to take the leap. With her spear in hand, she lunged with the spear tip pointed at his chest, knowing that he was too lithe and agile to be struck any other way. She guessed that it would land on nothing but air even then, however, and she was far from surprised when he disappeared and left only a blur of brown leather in his place.He was wearing flexible armor as well, which meant all the more trouble for her. He was dangerous with the halberd, unacceptably so. Under ordinary circumstances, she wouldn't have tried to match his weapon head to head with a weakened spear like this, even a magicked one, but she had no choice. He was forcing her hand, and Aimee was in the back still aiming rocks at her with alarmingly deadly aim.They were playing it safe, with her using her potshots to limit Anzi's mobility while Doufan chipped away at her stamina with

 "You look like shit."Anzi looked up to see Pierro standing in the hallway just outside her open door. She hadn't noticed his approach because of the irritating noise that this barracks building tolerated, the humming of constant conversation leaking through the cabin walls and even occasional shouting. In the Imperial City, noise beyond a whisper was never tolerated in sleeping quarters. If soldiers wanted to socialize and speak freely, they went to the recreational buildings.No discipline here at all. Desert garrisons really were this disorganized."You don't look so good either," she told the other soldier, making sure to look him up and down with a deliberate, pointed expression from where she sat on her low cot. "You could have left the trash talking behind when I knocked you out, by the way."He sidled into the tiny room with his hands clasped behind his back, looking around from left to right and floor to ceiling with casual innocence. She s

 "Sir!"Anzi shoved herself off the cot and leaped to her feet to stand attention, arms locked at her sides and back ramrod straight in military fashion. She faced the doorway where the colonel stood in all his imposing, white-haired dignity. He was clothed in his formal, dark blue and white Service regalia as always - of course he would never strip himself of any of it, even in this sweltering heat.Colonel Alexandre Bisset, dragon rider. His bristling white brow suggested advanced age, and yet his face was smooth and unlined. He looked not a day over forty, if that, and yet it was well known that the man had been a loyal member of the Service for over eighty years. This was the youth imbued by a deep bond with an immortal dragon, evidence of his unwavering devotion and prodigious skill."Get dressed and prepare to leave," he said, voice curt and raspy as he stared at her with his usual glower. "We're returning to the Imperial City."She answered wi

 The Imperial City, from whence every good thing flowed. This was the cradle of the nation that had unified every divided territory from the western edge of the Adaraat Desert all the way to the sea. This was the birthplace of all things just and fair, all things meant for greatness.And of course, the seat of the Emperor's power could be nothing less than grand and breathtakingly beautiful. Far below in the distance, Anzi could see the colors of the sprawling city blend and ripple into each other like threads in a tapestry, the red banners of the various districts twining with the green of the thick vines that grew freely around every building, every structure. This was two hundred kilometers from the desert, well into the fertile range, and the mages of the Imperium always made sure to keep the earth here thriving.Many generations before, this place once had another name, but the Emperor had decreed long ago that it would give it up and simply become the Imperi

"Anzi, greet the Emperor's guest."Colonel Bisset's voice grated in her ear as if he were speaking right into it, and the gravelly anger buried there managed to bring her out of her stunned reverie. Dark hells, what was she doing?Still disoriented, she nearly presented Kaizat with a military salute, only managing to catch herself in time because she saw Bisset's twitch out of the corner of her eye. He was a foreign guest, a chieftain, not an officer - with a smooth flourish, she quickly brought her hand down from where it had been raised halfway and stepped back so that she could bend at the waist in a respectful bow.There was no doubt that the colonel had spotted her near-mistake. He was going to have something to say about that later. She grimaced, then returned her face to a neutral expression before rising again.To her utter distaste, however, Kaizat bowed as well. Not at the waist, thankfully, but with his golden gaze fixed on her, he inclined his

Anzi had never been in the palace before, but once traveled, she never forgot a path. With all of its winding hallways and endless rooms, it was better to simply retrace her steps and go back the way she had come in. From the courtyard, she was sure she would be able to find a straight path that cut through the palace to the outside.What worried her more was whether the guards would open one of the massive gates for her in the first place, but with an important foreign chieftain at her side, perhaps they would let her through without demanding an extensive explanation. Besides, getting out of here was sure to be easier than getting back in.Maybe she should have asked about that before leaving the throne room in such a hurry."How long have you been a soldier?"She looked back at the man and resisted the urge to take a sidling step away from him as they walked down the hallway. She had pulled her hand out of his grasp long ago, but he was sticking too cl