The Verum Trilogy - Survivor

Chapter 11

Bree's feet flew as she rounded the corner past the dining facility, her heart thumping steadily against her chest. She just needed enough time to get to the river, then the dragons couldn't follow her scent.

The walls blurred around her, steps light and quick against cobbled stone. She slowed enough to quietly open the door that led from the compound to the combatives field, closing it behind her with a soft click. Then she took a sharp left and broke into a run, steps soundless against the soft earth. There was a storm drain just south of the flight field, tunneling in the direction of the river. It was just tall enough for her to stand in, and more importantly, too small for anything with wings to follow. It came into view moments later, partially obscured by mountain ferns with a steady trickle of water disappearing into the darkness. She quickly dropped to her knees at its mouth, scooping out handfuls of earth from beneath the metal grate. The rungs were not embedded deep, erosion creating just enough of a gap for a skinny fifteen-year-old to wiggle under. Once she had worked her way about halfway through, a shout behind her sent flooded her veins with adrenaline. She sat up just enough to see Lieutenant Fleming running at her from the other side of the ridgeline, shouting something she was too far to hear. She quickly shimmied herself the rest of the way through, ripping a long tear in her tunic, and scrambled to her feet, sprinting into the dark without looking back.

The narrow tunnel seemed to go on for hours, but it could have been minutes; she had no way of telling. Time lost all meaning in the absence of light. Eventually the black gave way to grey and the tunnel dipped, opening up into a wide cavern with a sloped floor. The sound of rushing water drew her eyes to the mouth, and a small gasp left her lips. The open cavern overlooked an enormous valley, lush with a verdant evergreen forest. Gently sloping hills were interrupted at uneven intervals by hundreds of caves, widely ranging in size. Water poured from over the lip of the tunnel mouth directly in front of her and dropped out of sight below, the spray blanketing the ground around her feet in a damp layer of mist. She glanced behind her at the storm drain she'd emerged from, noting with some annoyance that right next to the tunnel mouth was a perfectly good door, presumably for maintenance access. In the other direction, however... she crept toward the mouth of the tunnel, blinking in the spray of the waterfall. Her heart sank as she peered over the edge down a smooth, uninterrupted cliff side that dropped off well over a mile to the forest below. Even below the main compound she was well above ground level, the rest of the world unreachable to non-Riders. She pressed her hands to her forehead, staring down across the valley where the river was just a thin ribbon of reflected gold from her height. She had to think. There had to be a way.

A strange chittering sound filled the air and she dropped her hands, staring out at the valley. Spots of color interrupted the sea of green, making her blink and shake her head, confused. When it eventually dawned on her what she was seeing, she stopped breathing all together. Everywhere she looked, dragons of all colors and sizes roamed the valley freely, curled up in cavern mouths or climbing over perches and hissing when another got too close. The atmosphere was very different from her time spent with Aethos and the Corps' dragons. They made the dragons she had met before seem almost... tame.

The morning sun cast golden rays over the valley, reflecting off of scales and lighting up the waterfall in front of her. As she stared, entranced by the beauty of it all, one dragon tipped its snout to the air and delicately sniffed. Its head whipped around, eyes zeroing in on the ledge directly where she stood. She backed up a step, then another. She could tell just from the goosebumps raising on her skin that these were not creatures she'd be able to reason with.

The door slammed open behind her, and she didn't have to turn to sense Soren running toward her, trying to close the gap between them.

"Avery!" he yelled, and she stared at him, eyes wide.