Fireheart
Scrap Town Number Sixteen
Merrow Kingdom
“Micah! Don’t stay out long if the wind’s rough! It’s not worth it!”
His brother Jory’s voice carried from the block of houses clustered at the edge of town. Micah ignored him for the moment and trudged up a low hill to get a look out over the meteor fields.
Clouds of pale green dust rose from dozens of craters. Nestled within them were strange treasures from other worlds. They had rained from the sky in a brilliant, destructive shower the night before, a full moon night when the boundary between worlds was thin. Today, wind howled across the barren ground, seizing the green clouds and swirling them into dust devils that danced across the fields. Pretty to look at from a distance, but up close they were dangerous, not because of the power of the wind but the poison in the dust.
Micah sighed and pulled his protective goggles over his eyes. He hated scrapping on dust storm days. He took his gloves out of his pockets and put them on, then wrapped a thick cloth around his mouth and nose. The mask was still dirty from his last outing. When he tied off the ends, his hand brushed a small scar at the back of his head, a cut from a meteor shard that had knocked him out and almost killed him. His heart kicked in his chest, but Micah turned and gave his big brother a thumbs-up, letting him know he’d heard the warning and wouldn’t be out long.
Given a better choice, he wouldn’t be out here at all.
Still, dangerous as they were, dust storms days were an ideal time to scavenge. Micah counted about a dozen scrappers combing the area as he entered the fields. They had a good mile head start on him, but there were usually three or four times as many out here. The storms had kept the timid ones at home and left the door open for valuable discoveries, artifacts that’d fetch a pretty price at the trade markets. People came from all over Solace to buy them from the scrappers, the men and women—and even some kids like him—who scavenged out a living at the edge of the meteor fields, under some of the harshest conditions in the world.
Micah slid down the slope of a deep crater, bracing his hands against the shifting earth for balance. He hit the bottom and immediately began sifting through the dirt. The impact of the meteorites sometimes buried the objects several feet down, leaving only their tops exposed.
But no sooner had he started his search than he noticed the shovel marks gouging the sides of the crater. Whatever object had crashed here had already been removed. A quicker scrapper had gotten to it first, maybe even someone who’d gone out to scavenge while the meteors were still falling from the sky. That was supposed to be illegal, but Micah had done it himself a few times in the past, up until the night of his injury.
Cutting that close to death made him question a few things.
After that night, Micah realized he had never found anything in the meteor fields worth enduring the hardships of scrapping. He used to believe his biggest discovery, the object that would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, was out there waiting for him. He just had to be patient. Now he wondered if he’d been fooling himself. Yet he still went out the day after every storm to try to find something valuable. His family might have enough money to get by without scrapping, but not to send Micah or his brother to the schools they wanted to go to, or give them opportunities in bigger cities like Noveen.
Scrambling up the opposite side of the crater, Micah emerged right in the path of one of the dust devils. Before he could react, a green cloud enveloped him, caking his goggles in an opaque film. He quickly went down on his belly, covering his head with his arms to wait for the storm to pass. The tails of his coat whipped against his back, grit from the dust stinging his exposed neck.
Lucky for him, it was over quickly, and the dust devil moved on across the fields. Micah waited another moment and then stood up, wiping off his clothes, goggles, and hair to get rid of the worst of the dust. He’d have to have Jory dunk a bucket of water over his head before his mother would let him in the house. His brother would love that.
When he was halfway clean, Micah pressed on, though he knew he couldn’t stay out much longer. His goggles were covered in smeared dust, which made visibility chancy in the already gritty air.
He started down into another, shallower crater when his foot caught on something that clanged. Micah stumbled, arms flapping, and fell on his knees. Gritting his teeth, he wiped his goggles again and looked around the crater to see what had tripped him.
Through the dust, he could just make out a long pipe, thick as an oak tree trunk and covered in strange, raised metal ridges. One end of the pipe connected to a rusted, pear-shaped dome of metal with similar ridges about twelve feet across that jutted out of the center of the crater. A second pipe extended off the opposite end of the dome. There was a small window in the middle of the dome about the size of Micah’s head.
“Seriously?” he grumbled, rubbing his sore knee. “Pipes and scrap metal! This is what I have to work with?”
He tipped his head back to look at the sky, which was still a sickly, pea green color from the meteor storms. Was he going to spend the rest of his life like this? Digging in the dirt, trying not to breathe in poison and always coming up with nothing to show for it?
Well, those dark thoughts weren’t getting him anywhere. To distract himself, Micah sat down next to the dome and leaned in to examine it, running his hand along the metal near the ground. His gloved fingers went deep into loose earth. That was interesting. Whatever the object was, most of it seemed to be buried. He guessed that once it was exposed, it would be quite large and bulky.
But if the object was that big, it should have made a much deeper crater when it came down from the sky.
Micah sprang to his feet and ran along the pipe at the back of the object. Squinting through the swirling dust, he found a trail of torn up earth in a long strip that started about a hundred yards away. It looked like the thing had skidded along the ground for some distance, ripping up everything in its wake before coming to rest half-buried in the dirt. By the looks of the trail, it was much, much bigger than he’d thought.
His curiosity growing, Micah followed the other pipe at the front of the body, which ended at a large, angular box. Jagged shards of metal speared from the top and bottom halves of the box, and there were two more glass windows in the front, smaller than the one on the body, but arranged in a way that made them look just like…
Eyes.
Behind his mask, Micah’s jaw dropped. He began backing away slowly, up the shallow slope of the crater. Not because he was scared, but because he thought he knew what the thing buried in the ground was. He just needed to see it from a little distance, to put things in perspective.
Two long metal pipes covered in ridges like scales, and a huge body in the middle. A head with glass eyes and jagged teeth. Micah had listened to his fair share of bedtime stories when he was little. If it hadn’t been for the dust storm impairing his vision and the main part of the body buried deep in the dirt, he would have known right away what he was looking at. And so would the other scrappers who’d passed the thing by, thinking, like Micah, that it was worthless scrap and pipes.
But it wasn’t worthless.
It was a dragon.
A huge, metal dragon.
Excitement thrummed in Micah’s veins, and a laugh bubbled up in his throat. It was all he could do not to let out a whoop. He forced himself to calm down and raced back to the window in the dragon’s body. He crouched down, pressing his face close to the glass to see if he could get a look inside the thing.
Was it some kind of sculpture? He’d certainly heard of stranger things ending up in the meteor fields. Surely, a stiff hip—someone with a lot of coin on his belt to spend—would pay to add this oddity to their collection, assuming Micah could figure out a way to dig it up.
A hand appeared on the other side of the glass, right in front of Micah’s face.
“Gah!” Micah scooted back from the window so fast his legs got tangled, but he caught himself before he fell. He stared at the small square of glass, hardly believing what he saw.
Someone was inside the dragon. A human someone, and young, judging by the size of the hand.
“H-hello?” Micah said, raising his voice over the roar of the wind. “Are you…all right in there?”
The hand slid down the glass, leaving a ghost print behind, and a face appeared in its place. It was a boy, maybe a couple years older than Micah. His wide blue eyes peered from beneath thick brown brows and messy, shoulder-length hair. The boy pressed his nose against the glass and studied Micah.
Micah studied him right back.
“It’s…it’s all right,” Micah said, recovering from his shock. “I’ll get you out of there.”
Easier said than done. There were no visible doors to get inside the dragon, and the window was a solid pane of glass. Maybe there was a trapdoor somewhere, but Micah suspected it was buried in the dirt.
Behind the glass, the boy’s brow furrowed. “You need to get out of here,” he said, his voice urgent despite being muffled by the glass. “Go. Leave me alone.”
“Leave you alone?” Micah shook his head in bewilderment. “You’re trapped in there!”
“I’m not!” But the boy’s gaze flicked away, and his voice wavered. “I just need to get the engine going, that’s all.”
The engine? The dragon was mechanical? Micah’s heart thumped. This was getting stranger—and more exciting—by the minute. Who was this boy and where had he come from?
Those questions could wait. Right now, he needed to dig the dragon out to free the boy. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it alone. It would take forever. He was going to need help, but he didn’t want to risk asking the other scrappers in the fields. Most of them were strangers, and they didn’t always respect each other’s finds. What if they tried to take the dragon? Not to mention, if the dragon did have an engine that was damaged, Micah was going to need help with that too.
He knew the perfect person to ask.
Piper.
She was his best friend, and in a great stroke of luck, she was scheduled to come in to the scrap town today on the 401 train for a visit. Piper was part of the crew, along with two other friends who would also be a great help.
His plans made, Micah adjusted his goggles and made sure his mask was secure for the trip back through the fields. “Listen,” he said, waving his hand in front of the window to get the boy’s attention. “I’m going to go away for a while, but I’ll be back soon with help. Just sit tight and don’t be afraid.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t want help,” he said. “You need to run. They’re coming.”
A chill crawled down Micah’s spine at those cryptic words. “Who?” he asked, frowning. “Is someone after you?”
The boy nodded. “Raiders,” he said. And then his face disappeared from the window.
“Hey!” Micah pounded the glass with the heel of his hand. “Come back! Who are you?”
He waited, but the boy didn’t return. Micah pressed his face against the window, but it was too dark to see into the belly of the beast.
He stood up, casting a quick glance around to make sure no other scrappers were approaching. Thankfully, the crater did a decent job of hiding him and the dragon from view, and most of the other scrappers had already moved much deeper into the fields. He didn’t want to leave the boy stranded like this, but he had to get to the train station to meet the 401 as soon as it arrived.
If raiders were coming, Micah needed to be ready.
**
“A dragon? Now this I have got to see!”
Piper raced down the steps of the depot alongside Micah, one arm flung over his shoulders, a broad smile stretching across her face.
“Want to say that a little louder?” Micah hissed, shooting a furtive glance over his shoulder at the passengers disembarking the train. “I don’t think everyone onboard heard you.”
Luckily, the only ones within earshot were Anna and Gee, Piper’s friends and crewmates onboard the 401. Micah steered the group around the corner of the depot for some privacy, but he kept them moving in the direction of the meteor fields. They didn’t have time to waste.
“I don’t even know if the four of us can dig it out,” he said, continuing the story of his discovery that he’d started when he met Piper and the others getting off the train. “But if it has an engine, then I thought maybe Piper could get it working again and we could move it that way.” That seemed to be the boy’s plan, after all.
“We’ll take a look,” Gee said, green eyes squinting as he gazed in the direction of the meteor fields. He was the 401’s security chief, and that meant he was always on alert for trouble. “I’m more worried about the kid’s warning. If there are raiders around, we need to be cautious.”
Micah nodded. Raiders were common throughout Solace, but the ones in this area were particularly numerous. They weren’t true scrappers either. Instead of scavenging, they preferred to attack from their gliders and steal whatever they wanted. Sometimes that meant objects other scrappers collected from the meteor fields or cargo carried on trains like the 401.
“But how did the boy know about the raiders if he and the dragon just crashed down in a meteor storm?” Anna asked. Her long braid flapped against her back as she trotted to keep up with the rest of the group.
“He spoke our language,” Micah said. “I don’t think he came down in the meteor storm. I think he’s from our world, and the raiders are after him. But we won’t know anything for sure until we get him out of the dragon.”
“This is going to be great,” Piper said, burrowing into her oversized brown coat for warmth. “Just like a storybook—brave heroes rescuing a princess from the jaws of a dragon.”
“Um, Piper,” Anna said, biting her lip, “Micah said it was a boy, remember?”
“Even better,” Piper said, winking at her. “Brave heroes rescuing the prince from the deadly jaws of a dragon!” She lowered her voice to a growl.
Gee rolled his eyes. “You are having way too much fun with this.” He turned to Micah. “I’m going to scout ahead and make sure the sky’s clear. I’ll circle back afterward and meet you at the crash site.”
With no more warning than that, Gee’s form blurred and grew, his arms lengthening and muscles bulging. The loose-fitting overalls he wore barely contained his new size. A pair of large green leathery wings sprang from his back, and his facial features became distinctly lizard-like, complete with a long green snout.
Micah had seen Gee shapeshift into his chamelin form a few times during Piper’s other visits, but the transformation still took his breath away. He watched as Gee bent his knees and flapped his bat-like wings with a great whooshing sound that launched him into the sky. He flew ahead of them and soon was nothing more than a speck of black in the distance.
Piper watched him go. Her forehead creased, and Micah could tell that despite her earlier humor, she was concerned about her friend and what lay ahead.
“We’re not that far from the dragon,” Micah said, and the group started off again.
After about a ten-minute walk, they arrived at the crash site. Luckily, the dust had finally settled, and the wind had calmed enough that they no longer needed masks or goggles to be in the fields. This late in the morning, the rest of the scrappers had finished scavenging for objects and abandoned their search, so the area was deserted.
Micah immediately went to the window in the dragon and tapped on it, hoping the boy would answer, but there was no response.
“It’s so big!” Anna squeaked. She made a quick circle around the dragon, but when she returned to the point she’d started from, she was frowning. “Just doing some quick calculations in my head, taking into account three to four rest breaks throughout the day and time to drink water, even if all four of us dig steadily for the next several hours, we still won’t have unearthed the buried portion of the dragon, making it far more likely the raiders will pinpoint our location and—”
“You’re saying we need to come up with a better plan,” Piper interrupted, shooting her a grin. “I agree.”
“Do you think you can fix it, Piper?” Micah asked hopefully.
“We’ll see.” Piper approached the dragon’s body, near what would probably be its hindquarters, and placed both her hands on the exposed metal. She closed her eyes.
Micah watched her, trying to be patient. Piper had a gift for working with machines, something that went far beyond an ordinary talent. He didn’t often ask her about it, even though he was terribly curious. He got the feeling she was uncomfortable talking about it. But Micah knew if anyone could solve this puzzle, it was she.
After a minute, Piper opened her eyes. “Anna, did you bring a screwdriver?” she asked. “There’s a hidden access panel here, and I want to open it up. This thing is definitely purring, but it’s not doing much of anything else.”
Micah fidgeted as Anna removed a screwdriver from a satchel she carried and handed it to Piper. She took it and went to work on the screws, her hands moving fast. When she’d finished removing them, she put the screws in her coat pocket and lifted the panel. Micah went over to stand next to her, looking down into a mess of unrecognizable machine parts.
“What do you think?” Micah asked. The components made no sense to him.
Slowly, Piper’s face lit up, and she let out an appreciative whistle. “Sweet baby gears and pistons,” she murmured. “What have we here?”
Before Micah could ask what she meant, the sound of wingbeats pulled his attention to the sky. “Incoming,” he said, just as Gee glided down and skidded to a halt, his clawed hands and feet tearing up the ground. He transformed into his human shape, wings shrinking and disappearing into his back.
“We’ve got trouble,” Gee said, breathing hard. “Raiders inbound.”
“How many?” Micah asked, gazing in the direction Gee had come from. In the distance, he spotted them, three dark, winged shapes flying their way fast.
“I counted three gliders with a pilot and a crossbowman on each one,” Gee said. “Two of the gliders have the biggest net I’ve ever seen strung between them. It’s a safe bet they’re here for your dragon.”
And for the boy, Micah thought. Well, they weren’t going to have either.
He ran back to the window, shouting to Piper as he went. “You have to get it working!”
“I’m trying!” Piper yelled back, never taking her eyes off the machine parts in front of her. She reached inside and began fiddling with something Micah couldn’t see.
Suddenly, the boy’s face appeared at the window, startling Micah all over again.
“He’s here!” Micah said. He leaned in so the boy could hear him. “I’ve brought help. We’re going to get you out of there.”
The boy’s face twisted into a scowl. “What are you doing to the engine core?” he shouted through the glass. “I can hear you fiddling with something back there, and I order you to stop right now!”
Micah blinked in surprise. “Of course we’re doing something,” he said in exasperation. “We’re trying to help. The raiders are coming.”
“I KNOW!” The boy rapped his knuckles against the glass in frustration. “That’s why I told you to get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you!” Micah said. Why was the boy being so difficult?
“Fine! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” The boy disappeared.
“Wait!” But Micah knew he was wasting his breath. The boy wasn’t coming back.
A loud crash shook the air.
Micah whirled and glanced up just in time to see Gee, back in his chamelin form, latched onto one of the incoming gliders. His weight pulled the craft sideways in the air. The pilot shouted and clung to the controls, but the raider on the back went tumbling off. He hit the ground and rolled onto his back, knocked unconscious by the impact.
“I think I’ve got something!” Piper shouted. “Just hold them off a little longer!”
The remaining two gliders with the net bore down on them.
“It’s too late!” Micah shouted. “Piper, get away from there!”
The raiders were going to get them all in the net. Micah sprang to his feet, calling to Anna to take cover. He ran to Piper, grabbed her by the back of her coat, and yanked her away from the dragon and into the dirt. They rolled to safety, Piper shouting something Micah couldn’t make out over the roar of the glider engines.
The raiders passed overhead, dropping the net over the exposed parts of the dragon.
“No!” Micah shouted, but in that moment, it looked like the raiders were going to win. They were going to take the boy and the dragon. The raiders, the dust, the meteor fields—they were all dangerous, they all took things, and there was never anything he could do about it.
Not this time, Micah vowed. No more.
Untangling himself from Piper, Micah reached down and grabbed the knife he knew she always kept strapped to her belt. Yanking it from its sheath, he ran to the dragon. He had only seconds to get the net off before the gliders circled around and came back to claim their prize.
Micah sliced and sawed with the knife, tearing the ropes as he ran right up the dragon’s back, dragging the net off it. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a flash of light, twin specks of orange flaring in the dirt. He turned to look and glimpsed a pair of glowing eyes.
The dragon was awake.
Hope surged in Micah’s chest. “Piper, you did it!”
But that was the last thing he was able to say as the ground pitched beneath him. The knife flew from his hand, and the sound of grinding metal filled the air.
The dragon heaved itself up, pulling free of the dirt as easily as if it were coming up out of water. Micah lost his balance and tumbled down the dragon’s back, falling to the ground off its tail. He rolled clear and watched in awe as two newly uncovered wings unfolded from either side of the dragon’s body, huge metal sheets that blocked out the sun.
With an ear-splitting creak, the dragon pulled itself the rest of the way out of its crater, sitting upright on a pair of thick, jointed legs ending in filed metal talons.
Micah couldn’t find his breath. It was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.
Shouts echoed around him. Gee had dragged the glider he’d attacked to the ground and was shredding its wings so that it would never fly again. Its pilot took one look at Gee’s fearsome chamelin form and set off running across the field. Piper climbed back to her feet, standing protectively in front of Anna. The other two gliders, just as Micah predicted, had swung around and were flying back for another attack, crossbows pointed at all of them.
Micah knew he should do something, but his mind was frozen. He couldn’t stop staring at the massive dragon.
Suddenly, the beast swept its left wing up and forward, batting the closest glider toward its partner. The other pilot swerved to avoid it, and the instant of distraction allowed Piper and Anna to dive deeper into the dragon’s crater for cover.
“Go!” Micah shouted up at the beast. He hoped the boy inside could still hear him. “If you can fly that thing, get out of here!”
The dragon pivoted, metal joints groaning, orange eyes fixed on Micah. Its jaws parted, and the head plunged down like a striking snake, hitting the ground right next to him.
“Hey!” Micah shouted, scrambling backwards in a shower of dirt. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Before he knew what was happening, the dragon’s neck arched, and its head dragged along the ground sideways toward Micah. The thing was fast, faster than he would have expected for something so big and bulky. Micah tried to dive out of the way, but it was too late. The ‘v’ of the dragon’s open mouth passed over his head, and the jaws clamped down, teeth coming together seamlessly so they didn’t cut him, instead trapping him inside the box-like space of the metal mouth.
The world went dark as the dragon scooped him up. Micah had a sudden sensation of weightlessness, and then he was tumbling head over heels. His stomach pitched. He was slipping, sliding down a dark tunnel. He cried out, but there was nothing he could do, nothing to grab hold of in the dark.
The dragon had swallowed him whole.
**
Piper clutched Anna’s shoulder as the dragon reared up and leaped into the sky, wings spread. The thing was so bulky, she thought it would come crashing right back down again, but at the last second, the engine caught and banged, releasing a cloud of black smoke from the engine core she’d been working on.
The dragon soared away with Micah trapped in its jaws.
“Piper, you’re squeezing too hard,” Anna said from beside her.
“I’m sorry.” Piper patted the girl’s arm in apology, but her gaze never left the retreating dragon. It was headed north, and it wasn’t alone. The remaining two gliders had managed to stay airborne, even after the dragon’s wing attack, and the raiders were giving chase.
“Okay,” Piper murmured, trying to stay calm while her thoughts raced. “Okay, this is a whole new thing now. We need to move. Gee!” she shouted. “Gee, are you all right?”
Her eyes found him across the field. Gee hurled aside the pieces of the glider he’d demolished and flew over to them, transforming back into his human form. “I’m all right,” he said. “I saw the dragon fly off.”
"Can you track them?” Anna asked anxiously. “They’re getting away.”
Gee nodded. “They can’t out-fly me,” he said. “It looks like the dragon’s heading for the mountains, probably looking for someplace to hide.”
“There are caves all over the lower slopes,” Piper agreed. “Some of them are pretty big, maybe even big enough to hide a dragon. Can you fly us all up there?”
“Of course,” Gee said. “But what’s the plan once we catch up to the raiders?”
Piper considered that. “We can try to draw them off, make them chase us for a bit and buy some time, but the rest is up to Micah,” she said. “He’s inside the dragon, so he’s in the best position to find the boy and see what his story is.”
“He has the dragon by the tail,” Anna said, biting her lip.
“What’s that mean?” Piper asked. “Something you read in a book?”
The younger girl nodded. “It means he’s in over his head.”
Piper sighed, a knot of worry clutching her stomach. “Sounds about right.”
**
Micah lost track of how long they flew. He was too busy slipping and sliding down the dragon’s throat, banging knees and elbows and finally tumbling out into an empty space, arms flailing for a handhold. He landed with a jolt on his backside at the same time the dragon came down with a loud thud.
Head swimming, Micah blinked a few times to adjust his vision to the darkness. When the disorientation passed, he realized there was a soft glow coming from just a few feet ahead of him. He crawled forward uncertainly on all fours, following the source of the light.
As he drew close and the details of the space became clear, his mouth dropped open in surprise.
At the back of what must have been the dragon’s belly, a small lantern hung from a peg on the wall. Next to it, there was a metal stool fastened to the floor. On it sat the boy Micah had seen through the window. On either side of him, two metal sleeves hung suspended by cables from the ceiling, covered in gears, wire and other mechanical parts he couldn’t identify. As Micah watched, the boy stuck his hands in the sleeves and shifted left and right on the stool, bringing his arms down toward his body. The cables extended, allowing the movement.
At the same time, outside the dragon, there came a high-pitched creaking and a boom that made the walls on either side of Micah shudder.
That must be the wings, Micah thought, drawing the connection between the sleeves the boy was manipulating and the corresponding movement from outside. He was controlling everything about the dragon from this spot.
"You shouldn’t have come back,” the boy said, taking his hands out of the sleeves. Hard callouses covered his palms, and a scowl spread across his face.
After the fear and chaos of the last few minutes, Micah’s temper was short. “We were trying to help!” he snapped. “You’re the one who swallowed me and flew off! You left my friends behind, and then jostled me like a peanut caught in this thing’s throat.” He thumped the metal wall with his fist.
“Where did you take us?”
“Somewhere safe,” the boy said, his scowl deflating in the face of Micah’s anger. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to grab your friends too.” He reached out to a box fastened to the wall by some kind of jointed metal arm. Swinging it out, he pressed his face to the box.
“What are you doing?” Micah asked. “What is that thing? Hey, talk to me—I want some answers!”
The boy let out a long sigh, the sound echoing in the quiet space. “It’s just a scope,” he said. “It lets me look outside so I can make sure we weren’t followed.”
Gee was the best tracker Micah had ever seen. He knew the chamelin would find them, no matter how well hidden they were, but he kept that information to himself.
“All right, let’s start over,” Micah said, trying to calm down. “Who are you, and how did you end up in the meteor fields inside a dragon?”
“I was escaping from the raiders,” the boy said, pushing the box back against the wall. “Last night. They were closing in on me, so I decided to fly into the meteor storm to try to lose them.”
Micah knew his mouth was hanging open again, but he couldn’t help it. “You flew this thing, this beast that pretty much screams, hit me, I’m a huge target, into a meteor storm?” He whistled. “You’re either the bravest person I’ve ever met or you’re out of your mind.”
“I knew it was a risk,” the boy said, frowning, “but I’d rather the storm crush the Fireheart than let the raiders have it.”
“Fireheart?” Micah repeated. “You mean the dragon?”
“It’s mine,” the boy said, lifting his chin slightly. “I built it. Well, the raiders helped,” he added grudgingly, “but mostly with the materials. They wanted a new type of glider, something to intimidate their targets. Only they didn’t tell me that while I was building it. I thought they wanted to sell it, and with the money we made, I could get out of here, start over somewhere else.”
“But what about your parents?” Micah asked. “How’d you fall in with the raiders?”
“My parents died,” the boy said, his voice dropping to a whisper. His eyes hardened. “The raiders found me after, gave me a place to stay and let me work on my inventions as much as I wanted, but then I overheard them say that once the dragon was finished, they were going to take it from me and use it to hurt people. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you ran,” Micah said, understanding now. It was one of the most common stories in the scrap towns. Parents died of sickness or were killed in the meteor storms, leaving children behind to fend for themselves. A similar thing had happened to Piper’s family before she found her place on the 401. But sometimes raiders took in these orphans, raised them to pilot gliders and attack the scrap towns or the train routes.
“I know it was a mistake to join the raiders,” the boy went on, shoulders slumping, “but I didn’t have a choice. I needed food. And once you join up with them, it’s almost impossible to get away.”
He looked so sad and lost that it made the last of Micah’s anger melt away. He scooted closer to the boy. “Listen,” he said, “what’s your name?”
“Dawes,” the boy said. “Well, it’s my last name, but that’s what the raiders kept calling me, and I got used to it.”
“Good enough, Dawes,” Micah said, smiling at him. “I think me and my friends can help you.”
Dawes narrowed his eyes. “How?”
“Well, you say you’re an inventor,” Micah said, “and you were willing to sell this dragon—Fireheart—to buy a new life, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then forget the raiders and sell it to the archivists,” Micah said. “They study the stuff that falls in the meteor storms, but they’re always looking for special things, no matter where they come from. They’ll see that’s exactly what you’ve made here.”
He knew, because Piper had known. She’d been so excited when she glimpsed the mechanical parts of the dragon. Whoever this boy was, he obviously knew his way around machines and inventions. The archivists would value that talent.
But Dawes shook his head. “As soon as I get the Fireheart out in the open sky, the raiders will chase me, and their gliders are faster. It’s hopeless.”
“You’re wrong,” Micah said. “We just have to get you back to the train station. Once we do, my friends and I can help you get the dragon to the archivists onboard the 401 on one of their big flatcars.” The plan was taking shape in his mind even as he spoke.
“But what’s in this for you?” Dawes asked skeptically. “Why would you help me?”
Micah blinked at him in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “You’re in trouble.”
The boy scoffed. “Scrappers never help people out. They’re too busy fighting over all that junk in the meteor fields.”
Micah sighed. Dawes had a point. Many of the people in the scrap towns were nomads. They stayed for a while to see what they could scavenge, and then they moved on to any one of the other numbered towns on the map, always looking for the next big find, never caring about anything except themselves. And the last time Dawes had trusted people, he’d been betrayed. He had every reason to be suspicious now.
But he was also trapped, and that was a terrible feeling Micah knew all too well.
He swallowed. “Look, I don’t have a whole lot of choices in my life right now,” Micah said. “But I can at least give you a choice, a chance to escape. You just have to let me.”
Dawes regarded him in silence. Micah couldn’t tell what he might be thinking. Finally, he nodded, though he still didn’t look quite convinced. “Tell me your plan,” he said. “Then I’ll decide.”
“Okay,” Micah said, rubbing his hands together. “We need to—”
“Wait,” Dawes interrupted, holding up a hand. “Did you hear that noise?”
Micah listened, and a low-level humming sound reached his ears, growing louder every second.
A glider engine.
Micah’s heart sank. “The raiders found us. Quick, is there anything you can use to hold them off, maybe disable their gliders? How about that wing trick again?”
Dawes shook his head. “There’s not enough room in the cave. The only other weapon is connected to the mouth, but the directional controls in the neck were damaged in the crash so I can’t aim.”
“What kind of weapon comes out of the mouth?” Micah asked curiously.
Dawes cocked his head. “Think about every story you’ve ever heard with a dragon in it,” he said.
A wide grin worked its way onto Micah’s face as he realized what Dawes meant. “Oh, we can work with that,” he said. “This will be great! What’s the quickest way out of this thing?”
Dawes leaned to the left to reveal a small alcove behind him. “There’s a trapdoor in there that goes down into the leg, and then there’s a door in the ankle. What are you going to do?”
“Make myself into a targeting system…and probably a target,” Micah said. “Get ready to fire that weapon!”
Crawling around Dawes, Micah raised the trapdoor and slid down another dark tunnel. At the bottom, he felt along the wall until he found the door latch and lifted it, opening the way to the outside.
Cool, damp air hit his face as he stared out into a large cave. Sunlight streamed in from the entrance about fifty feet away. Jagged furrows marred the stone all the way from the entrance to the spot where Fireheart had made its landing.
Micah circled around to the dragon’s tail and scrambled up its back, keeping to his hands and knees for balance on the slippery metal scales. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the box-like head. It was very high up here. He settled himself just behind the dragon’s ears, legs clamped around its neck to keep him steady.
No sooner had he gotten himself situated than a flurry of movement passed by the cave mouth. Micah caught a glimpse of green leathery wings, and suddenly a pair of objects came hurtling through the cave mouth at an alarming speed. The objects landed, skidded across the stone floor and came to rest in front of the dragon.
It was Piper and Anna.
Micah let out a whoop as Piper stood up, her overlong coat flapping in the wind from the cave mouth. She helped Anna to her feet and shot Micah a grin.
“Miss me, kid?” she asked.
Micah grinned back at his friend. “Depends. Are the raiders coming too?”
“Yes!” Anna said, out of breath and flushed from the flight. “The two from earlier are headed this way. Gee dropped us off—literally—and he’s going to see if there are any more.”
“Stand against the wall,” Micah said, angling the dragon’s head toward the cave entrance. “Whatever you do, keep the path in front of us clear.”
Piper and Anna hurried to press their backs against the cave wall. “You got this, Micah?” Piper called up to him.
Micah nodded, trying not to let his confidence falter. “We got this.”
There was no more time to talk as the dark shapes of the gliders filled the cave mouth. As soon as their pilots saw the dragon and Micah on its back, they let out a shout, and the crossbowmen raised their weapons.
“Dawes, fire!” Micah yanked the dragon’s head sharply to the right to get both gliders—and especially their silk wings—in his sights.
Fireheart’s jaws cracked open, and a surge of heat travelled all the way up its neck. Micah jerked his hands away at the last second as a stream of fire erupted from the dragon’s mouth, sending a line of bright orange flame across the cave to engulf the gliders. Both pilots and passengers ducked, but the gliders’ fragile wings went up at once, the fire eating away at them.
Micah flinched as the gliders careened sideways, crashing into the cave walls and dumping their occupants unceremoniously on the ground.
Piper, Anna, and Micah all let out triumphant shouts.
“Climb on!” Micah shouted down to the girls. “We’re getting out of here!”
Piper and Anna ran up the dragon’s back and held on to the ridges of its raised scales. When they were both secure, Micah called out, “Straight ahead, Dawes! We got a clear path!”
In response, Fireheart stood up and barreled forward to the edge of the cave mouth, past the ruined gliders, engine humming and wings ready to spread.
“Hold on!” Micah wrapped his hands around the dragon’s neck, and then they were airborne, soaring past rock and out into the open sky. The foothills of the Hiterian Mountains spread out below them, and beyond were the meteor fields and home. Breathless, Micah leaned over the side of Fireheart’s neck for a better view, the wind whooshing and whistling in his ears.
He wanted to remember this feeling forever. He’d never been more free in his life.
**
They touched down about a quarter mile away from the train station, where Gee met up with them. Laughing, Piper slid off the dragon’s back and into his arms. He swung her around and gave her a huge hug.
“You all looked like you were having fun up there,” Gee said, chuckling as he set Piper down on her feet.
“Best visit yet,” Piper agreed.
There was a clanging sound from within the dragon, and a moment later, the door in its ankle opened. Dawes stepped out. “Did any more of them follow us?” he asked anxiously.
Gee shook his head, and Micah laughed. “Your fire did the trick,” he said. “By the time they get around to sending more raiders after you—if they dare to—you’ll be long gone.”
He quickly explained his archivist plan to Piper, Anna, and Gee. Piper nodded thoughtfully.
“From what I saw of that engine earlier, I think the archivists would pay dearly for this thing,” she said, glancing at Dawes. “You’re using gas, not steam. Am I right?”
Dawes looked impressed. “That’s right. It’s something I’ve been working on. I’d been having some problems stabilizing it, but whatever you did, you fixed it.”
“I’ll go talk to Jeyne Steele, our engineer, about setting aside one of the flat cars and some tarps to transport the dragon in secret,” Gee said, heading for the 401.
Micah turned to Dawes. “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe with my friends, and the train’s route will get you to the Independent Nation of Archivists. They’ll take it from there.”
“But I don’t have money for a ticket,” Dawes said, flushing. “I had a little saved, but not that much.”
“Oh, Piper and I can handle that,” Anna said brightly. “You can stay with us in the crew quarters. Jeyne won’t mind”
The boy blinked in confusion at the three of them. “But…you don’t even know me.”
Anna shrugged. “You’re a friend of Micah’s. That’s all we need to know.”
“That pretty much covers it.” Piper slung an arm around Anna’s shoulders and turned her toward the station. "Come on. Let’s give these two a minute. And I want to see Jeyne’s face when Gee tells her we’re bringing a dragon aboard." She flashed Micah a quick, private smile.
“Thanks, Piper,” Micah said. “For everything.”
When they’d gone, Dawes cleared his throat nervously. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
Micah whistled, rocking back on his heels. “Are you kidding me? I got to ride a fire-breathing dragon and help fight off a bunch of raiders.” Before today, he never would have thought either of those things was possible. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever found in the meteor fields.”
They shared a chuckle. Micah thought it was the first time he’d seen Dawes even crack a smile since they’d met. That was a good sign.
Dawes looked at him with a thoughtful expression. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll do what you said. I’ll sell the Fireheart to the archivists, and we’ll split the money.”
Micah stopped grinning. He held up his hands. “You don’t need to do that—”
“I want to,” Dawes interrupted. “You earned it, and besides…” he hesitated. “It was nice to meet someone I can trust for a change. Maybe…maybe you could even come with me to meet the archivists, help me talk to them?”
Micah blinked. Go with Dawes? To meet the archivists? His stomach turned over. They were some of the smartest men and women in all of Solace, and he was just a scrapper. He started to shake his head. “You’re the inventor,” he said. “You’d know what to say better than I—”
Dawes interrupted. “But didn’t you tell me the archivists are always looking for special things, no matter where they come from?” he asked.
Micah shrugged, confused. “Yeah, so?”
Dawes smiled tentatively. “So, like you said, you jumped on the back of a dragon and faced down a bunch of raiders, all to save a stranger. Maybe the archivists will see that you’ve got something special too.”
Micah opened his mouth to argue, to say that there had never been anything particularly special about him, but then he hesitated. He had faced down the raiders. With his friends beside him, he’d fought back against the forces in the scrap towns that made him feel helpless.
They’d faced the impossible, and they’d won.
Nothing was certain, but the events of the day had changed things. Micah could feel it. They lit a flame inside his chest that burned as hot as the Fireheart’s breath. If he could do one impossible thing, maybe he could do more. Maybe Dawes was right, and the archivists would see the value in someone like him.
Slowly, he nodded. “I’ll have to talk to my parents,” he said, “but…yes, I’d like to go with you.”
Dawes’s expression brightened. “Good,” he said. “Good, it’s settled. We’ll go together.”
Just like that, Micah thought.
He looked up at the 401, the great old steam train that had taken its passengers on countless journeys in Solace. Maybe it could take him on a journey of his own. A journey filled with more choices, and more adventures, than he’d ever imagined.
Micah decided that was something worth fighting for.
The End
Merrow Kingdom
“Micah! Don’t stay out long if the wind’s rough! It’s not worth it!”
His brother Jory’s voice carried from the block of houses clustered at the edge of town. Micah ignored him for the moment and trudged up a low hill to get a look out over the meteor fields.
Clouds of pale green dust rose from dozens of craters. Nestled within them were strange treasures from other worlds. They had rained from the sky in a brilliant, destructive shower the night before, a full moon night when the boundary between worlds was thin. Today, wind howled across the barren ground, seizing the green clouds and swirling them into dust devils that danced across the fields. Pretty to look at from a distance, but up close they were dangerous, not because of the power of the wind but the poison in the dust.
Micah sighed and pulled his protective goggles over his eyes. He hated scrapping on dust storm days. He took his gloves out of his pockets and put them on, then wrapped a thick cloth around his mouth and nose. The mask was still dirty from his last outing. When he tied off the ends, his hand brushed a small scar at the back of his head, a cut from a meteor shard that had knocked him out and almost killed him. His heart kicked in his chest, but Micah turned and gave his big brother a thumbs-up, letting him know he’d heard the warning and wouldn’t be out long.
Given a better choice, he wouldn’t be out here at all.
Still, dangerous as they were, dust storms days were an ideal time to scavenge. Micah counted about a dozen scrappers combing the area as he entered the fields. They had a good mile head start on him, but there were usually three or four times as many out here. The storms had kept the timid ones at home and left the door open for valuable discoveries, artifacts that’d fetch a pretty price at the trade markets. People came from all over Solace to buy them from the scrappers, the men and women—and even some kids like him—who scavenged out a living at the edge of the meteor fields, under some of the harshest conditions in the world.
Micah slid down the slope of a deep crater, bracing his hands against the shifting earth for balance. He hit the bottom and immediately began sifting through the dirt. The impact of the meteorites sometimes buried the objects several feet down, leaving only their tops exposed.
But no sooner had he started his search than he noticed the shovel marks gouging the sides of the crater. Whatever object had crashed here had already been removed. A quicker scrapper had gotten to it first, maybe even someone who’d gone out to scavenge while the meteors were still falling from the sky. That was supposed to be illegal, but Micah had done it himself a few times in the past, up until the night of his injury.
Cutting that close to death made him question a few things.
After that night, Micah realized he had never found anything in the meteor fields worth enduring the hardships of scrapping. He used to believe his biggest discovery, the object that would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, was out there waiting for him. He just had to be patient. Now he wondered if he’d been fooling himself. Yet he still went out the day after every storm to try to find something valuable. His family might have enough money to get by without scrapping, but not to send Micah or his brother to the schools they wanted to go to, or give them opportunities in bigger cities like Noveen.
Scrambling up the opposite side of the crater, Micah emerged right in the path of one of the dust devils. Before he could react, a green cloud enveloped him, caking his goggles in an opaque film. He quickly went down on his belly, covering his head with his arms to wait for the storm to pass. The tails of his coat whipped against his back, grit from the dust stinging his exposed neck.
Lucky for him, it was over quickly, and the dust devil moved on across the fields. Micah waited another moment and then stood up, wiping off his clothes, goggles, and hair to get rid of the worst of the dust. He’d have to have Jory dunk a bucket of water over his head before his mother would let him in the house. His brother would love that.
When he was halfway clean, Micah pressed on, though he knew he couldn’t stay out much longer. His goggles were covered in smeared dust, which made visibility chancy in the already gritty air.
He started down into another, shallower crater when his foot caught on something that clanged. Micah stumbled, arms flapping, and fell on his knees. Gritting his teeth, he wiped his goggles again and looked around the crater to see what had tripped him.
Through the dust, he could just make out a long pipe, thick as an oak tree trunk and covered in strange, raised metal ridges. One end of the pipe connected to a rusted, pear-shaped dome of metal with similar ridges about twelve feet across that jutted out of the center of the crater. A second pipe extended off the opposite end of the dome. There was a small window in the middle of the dome about the size of Micah’s head.
“Seriously?” he grumbled, rubbing his sore knee. “Pipes and scrap metal! This is what I have to work with?”
He tipped his head back to look at the sky, which was still a sickly, pea green color from the meteor storms. Was he going to spend the rest of his life like this? Digging in the dirt, trying not to breathe in poison and always coming up with nothing to show for it?
Well, those dark thoughts weren’t getting him anywhere. To distract himself, Micah sat down next to the dome and leaned in to examine it, running his hand along the metal near the ground. His gloved fingers went deep into loose earth. That was interesting. Whatever the object was, most of it seemed to be buried. He guessed that once it was exposed, it would be quite large and bulky.
But if the object was that big, it should have made a much deeper crater when it came down from the sky.
Micah sprang to his feet and ran along the pipe at the back of the object. Squinting through the swirling dust, he found a trail of torn up earth in a long strip that started about a hundred yards away. It looked like the thing had skidded along the ground for some distance, ripping up everything in its wake before coming to rest half-buried in the dirt. By the looks of the trail, it was much, much bigger than he’d thought.
His curiosity growing, Micah followed the other pipe at the front of the body, which ended at a large, angular box. Jagged shards of metal speared from the top and bottom halves of the box, and there were two more glass windows in the front, smaller than the one on the body, but arranged in a way that made them look just like…
Eyes.
Behind his mask, Micah’s jaw dropped. He began backing away slowly, up the shallow slope of the crater. Not because he was scared, but because he thought he knew what the thing buried in the ground was. He just needed to see it from a little distance, to put things in perspective.
Two long metal pipes covered in ridges like scales, and a huge body in the middle. A head with glass eyes and jagged teeth. Micah had listened to his fair share of bedtime stories when he was little. If it hadn’t been for the dust storm impairing his vision and the main part of the body buried deep in the dirt, he would have known right away what he was looking at. And so would the other scrappers who’d passed the thing by, thinking, like Micah, that it was worthless scrap and pipes.
But it wasn’t worthless.
It was a dragon.
A huge, metal dragon.
Excitement thrummed in Micah’s veins, and a laugh bubbled up in his throat. It was all he could do not to let out a whoop. He forced himself to calm down and raced back to the window in the dragon’s body. He crouched down, pressing his face close to the glass to see if he could get a look inside the thing.
Was it some kind of sculpture? He’d certainly heard of stranger things ending up in the meteor fields. Surely, a stiff hip—someone with a lot of coin on his belt to spend—would pay to add this oddity to their collection, assuming Micah could figure out a way to dig it up.
A hand appeared on the other side of the glass, right in front of Micah’s face.
“Gah!” Micah scooted back from the window so fast his legs got tangled, but he caught himself before he fell. He stared at the small square of glass, hardly believing what he saw.
Someone was inside the dragon. A human someone, and young, judging by the size of the hand.
“H-hello?” Micah said, raising his voice over the roar of the wind. “Are you…all right in there?”
The hand slid down the glass, leaving a ghost print behind, and a face appeared in its place. It was a boy, maybe a couple years older than Micah. His wide blue eyes peered from beneath thick brown brows and messy, shoulder-length hair. The boy pressed his nose against the glass and studied Micah.
Micah studied him right back.
“It’s…it’s all right,” Micah said, recovering from his shock. “I’ll get you out of there.”
Easier said than done. There were no visible doors to get inside the dragon, and the window was a solid pane of glass. Maybe there was a trapdoor somewhere, but Micah suspected it was buried in the dirt.
Behind the glass, the boy’s brow furrowed. “You need to get out of here,” he said, his voice urgent despite being muffled by the glass. “Go. Leave me alone.”
“Leave you alone?” Micah shook his head in bewilderment. “You’re trapped in there!”
“I’m not!” But the boy’s gaze flicked away, and his voice wavered. “I just need to get the engine going, that’s all.”
The engine? The dragon was mechanical? Micah’s heart thumped. This was getting stranger—and more exciting—by the minute. Who was this boy and where had he come from?
Those questions could wait. Right now, he needed to dig the dragon out to free the boy. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it alone. It would take forever. He was going to need help, but he didn’t want to risk asking the other scrappers in the fields. Most of them were strangers, and they didn’t always respect each other’s finds. What if they tried to take the dragon? Not to mention, if the dragon did have an engine that was damaged, Micah was going to need help with that too.
He knew the perfect person to ask.
Piper.
She was his best friend, and in a great stroke of luck, she was scheduled to come in to the scrap town today on the 401 train for a visit. Piper was part of the crew, along with two other friends who would also be a great help.
His plans made, Micah adjusted his goggles and made sure his mask was secure for the trip back through the fields. “Listen,” he said, waving his hand in front of the window to get the boy’s attention. “I’m going to go away for a while, but I’ll be back soon with help. Just sit tight and don’t be afraid.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t want help,” he said. “You need to run. They’re coming.”
A chill crawled down Micah’s spine at those cryptic words. “Who?” he asked, frowning. “Is someone after you?”
The boy nodded. “Raiders,” he said. And then his face disappeared from the window.
“Hey!” Micah pounded the glass with the heel of his hand. “Come back! Who are you?”
He waited, but the boy didn’t return. Micah pressed his face against the window, but it was too dark to see into the belly of the beast.
He stood up, casting a quick glance around to make sure no other scrappers were approaching. Thankfully, the crater did a decent job of hiding him and the dragon from view, and most of the other scrappers had already moved much deeper into the fields. He didn’t want to leave the boy stranded like this, but he had to get to the train station to meet the 401 as soon as it arrived.
If raiders were coming, Micah needed to be ready.
**
“A dragon? Now this I have got to see!”
Piper raced down the steps of the depot alongside Micah, one arm flung over his shoulders, a broad smile stretching across her face.
“Want to say that a little louder?” Micah hissed, shooting a furtive glance over his shoulder at the passengers disembarking the train. “I don’t think everyone onboard heard you.”
Luckily, the only ones within earshot were Anna and Gee, Piper’s friends and crewmates onboard the 401. Micah steered the group around the corner of the depot for some privacy, but he kept them moving in the direction of the meteor fields. They didn’t have time to waste.
“I don’t even know if the four of us can dig it out,” he said, continuing the story of his discovery that he’d started when he met Piper and the others getting off the train. “But if it has an engine, then I thought maybe Piper could get it working again and we could move it that way.” That seemed to be the boy’s plan, after all.
“We’ll take a look,” Gee said, green eyes squinting as he gazed in the direction of the meteor fields. He was the 401’s security chief, and that meant he was always on alert for trouble. “I’m more worried about the kid’s warning. If there are raiders around, we need to be cautious.”
Micah nodded. Raiders were common throughout Solace, but the ones in this area were particularly numerous. They weren’t true scrappers either. Instead of scavenging, they preferred to attack from their gliders and steal whatever they wanted. Sometimes that meant objects other scrappers collected from the meteor fields or cargo carried on trains like the 401.
“But how did the boy know about the raiders if he and the dragon just crashed down in a meteor storm?” Anna asked. Her long braid flapped against her back as she trotted to keep up with the rest of the group.
“He spoke our language,” Micah said. “I don’t think he came down in the meteor storm. I think he’s from our world, and the raiders are after him. But we won’t know anything for sure until we get him out of the dragon.”
“This is going to be great,” Piper said, burrowing into her oversized brown coat for warmth. “Just like a storybook—brave heroes rescuing a princess from the jaws of a dragon.”
“Um, Piper,” Anna said, biting her lip, “Micah said it was a boy, remember?”
“Even better,” Piper said, winking at her. “Brave heroes rescuing the prince from the deadly jaws of a dragon!” She lowered her voice to a growl.
Gee rolled his eyes. “You are having way too much fun with this.” He turned to Micah. “I’m going to scout ahead and make sure the sky’s clear. I’ll circle back afterward and meet you at the crash site.”
With no more warning than that, Gee’s form blurred and grew, his arms lengthening and muscles bulging. The loose-fitting overalls he wore barely contained his new size. A pair of large green leathery wings sprang from his back, and his facial features became distinctly lizard-like, complete with a long green snout.
Micah had seen Gee shapeshift into his chamelin form a few times during Piper’s other visits, but the transformation still took his breath away. He watched as Gee bent his knees and flapped his bat-like wings with a great whooshing sound that launched him into the sky. He flew ahead of them and soon was nothing more than a speck of black in the distance.
Piper watched him go. Her forehead creased, and Micah could tell that despite her earlier humor, she was concerned about her friend and what lay ahead.
“We’re not that far from the dragon,” Micah said, and the group started off again.
After about a ten-minute walk, they arrived at the crash site. Luckily, the dust had finally settled, and the wind had calmed enough that they no longer needed masks or goggles to be in the fields. This late in the morning, the rest of the scrappers had finished scavenging for objects and abandoned their search, so the area was deserted.
Micah immediately went to the window in the dragon and tapped on it, hoping the boy would answer, but there was no response.
“It’s so big!” Anna squeaked. She made a quick circle around the dragon, but when she returned to the point she’d started from, she was frowning. “Just doing some quick calculations in my head, taking into account three to four rest breaks throughout the day and time to drink water, even if all four of us dig steadily for the next several hours, we still won’t have unearthed the buried portion of the dragon, making it far more likely the raiders will pinpoint our location and—”
“You’re saying we need to come up with a better plan,” Piper interrupted, shooting her a grin. “I agree.”
“Do you think you can fix it, Piper?” Micah asked hopefully.
“We’ll see.” Piper approached the dragon’s body, near what would probably be its hindquarters, and placed both her hands on the exposed metal. She closed her eyes.
Micah watched her, trying to be patient. Piper had a gift for working with machines, something that went far beyond an ordinary talent. He didn’t often ask her about it, even though he was terribly curious. He got the feeling she was uncomfortable talking about it. But Micah knew if anyone could solve this puzzle, it was she.
After a minute, Piper opened her eyes. “Anna, did you bring a screwdriver?” she asked. “There’s a hidden access panel here, and I want to open it up. This thing is definitely purring, but it’s not doing much of anything else.”
Micah fidgeted as Anna removed a screwdriver from a satchel she carried and handed it to Piper. She took it and went to work on the screws, her hands moving fast. When she’d finished removing them, she put the screws in her coat pocket and lifted the panel. Micah went over to stand next to her, looking down into a mess of unrecognizable machine parts.
“What do you think?” Micah asked. The components made no sense to him.
Slowly, Piper’s face lit up, and she let out an appreciative whistle. “Sweet baby gears and pistons,” she murmured. “What have we here?”
Before Micah could ask what she meant, the sound of wingbeats pulled his attention to the sky. “Incoming,” he said, just as Gee glided down and skidded to a halt, his clawed hands and feet tearing up the ground. He transformed into his human shape, wings shrinking and disappearing into his back.
“We’ve got trouble,” Gee said, breathing hard. “Raiders inbound.”
“How many?” Micah asked, gazing in the direction Gee had come from. In the distance, he spotted them, three dark, winged shapes flying their way fast.
“I counted three gliders with a pilot and a crossbowman on each one,” Gee said. “Two of the gliders have the biggest net I’ve ever seen strung between them. It’s a safe bet they’re here for your dragon.”
And for the boy, Micah thought. Well, they weren’t going to have either.
He ran back to the window, shouting to Piper as he went. “You have to get it working!”
“I’m trying!” Piper yelled back, never taking her eyes off the machine parts in front of her. She reached inside and began fiddling with something Micah couldn’t see.
Suddenly, the boy’s face appeared at the window, startling Micah all over again.
“He’s here!” Micah said. He leaned in so the boy could hear him. “I’ve brought help. We’re going to get you out of there.”
The boy’s face twisted into a scowl. “What are you doing to the engine core?” he shouted through the glass. “I can hear you fiddling with something back there, and I order you to stop right now!”
Micah blinked in surprise. “Of course we’re doing something,” he said in exasperation. “We’re trying to help. The raiders are coming.”
“I KNOW!” The boy rapped his knuckles against the glass in frustration. “That’s why I told you to get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you!” Micah said. Why was the boy being so difficult?
“Fine! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” The boy disappeared.
“Wait!” But Micah knew he was wasting his breath. The boy wasn’t coming back.
A loud crash shook the air.
Micah whirled and glanced up just in time to see Gee, back in his chamelin form, latched onto one of the incoming gliders. His weight pulled the craft sideways in the air. The pilot shouted and clung to the controls, but the raider on the back went tumbling off. He hit the ground and rolled onto his back, knocked unconscious by the impact.
“I think I’ve got something!” Piper shouted. “Just hold them off a little longer!”
The remaining two gliders with the net bore down on them.
“It’s too late!” Micah shouted. “Piper, get away from there!”
The raiders were going to get them all in the net. Micah sprang to his feet, calling to Anna to take cover. He ran to Piper, grabbed her by the back of her coat, and yanked her away from the dragon and into the dirt. They rolled to safety, Piper shouting something Micah couldn’t make out over the roar of the glider engines.
The raiders passed overhead, dropping the net over the exposed parts of the dragon.
“No!” Micah shouted, but in that moment, it looked like the raiders were going to win. They were going to take the boy and the dragon. The raiders, the dust, the meteor fields—they were all dangerous, they all took things, and there was never anything he could do about it.
Not this time, Micah vowed. No more.
Untangling himself from Piper, Micah reached down and grabbed the knife he knew she always kept strapped to her belt. Yanking it from its sheath, he ran to the dragon. He had only seconds to get the net off before the gliders circled around and came back to claim their prize.
Micah sliced and sawed with the knife, tearing the ropes as he ran right up the dragon’s back, dragging the net off it. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a flash of light, twin specks of orange flaring in the dirt. He turned to look and glimpsed a pair of glowing eyes.
The dragon was awake.
Hope surged in Micah’s chest. “Piper, you did it!”
But that was the last thing he was able to say as the ground pitched beneath him. The knife flew from his hand, and the sound of grinding metal filled the air.
The dragon heaved itself up, pulling free of the dirt as easily as if it were coming up out of water. Micah lost his balance and tumbled down the dragon’s back, falling to the ground off its tail. He rolled clear and watched in awe as two newly uncovered wings unfolded from either side of the dragon’s body, huge metal sheets that blocked out the sun.
With an ear-splitting creak, the dragon pulled itself the rest of the way out of its crater, sitting upright on a pair of thick, jointed legs ending in filed metal talons.
Micah couldn’t find his breath. It was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.
Shouts echoed around him. Gee had dragged the glider he’d attacked to the ground and was shredding its wings so that it would never fly again. Its pilot took one look at Gee’s fearsome chamelin form and set off running across the field. Piper climbed back to her feet, standing protectively in front of Anna. The other two gliders, just as Micah predicted, had swung around and were flying back for another attack, crossbows pointed at all of them.
Micah knew he should do something, but his mind was frozen. He couldn’t stop staring at the massive dragon.
Suddenly, the beast swept its left wing up and forward, batting the closest glider toward its partner. The other pilot swerved to avoid it, and the instant of distraction allowed Piper and Anna to dive deeper into the dragon’s crater for cover.
“Go!” Micah shouted up at the beast. He hoped the boy inside could still hear him. “If you can fly that thing, get out of here!”
The dragon pivoted, metal joints groaning, orange eyes fixed on Micah. Its jaws parted, and the head plunged down like a striking snake, hitting the ground right next to him.
“Hey!” Micah shouted, scrambling backwards in a shower of dirt. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Before he knew what was happening, the dragon’s neck arched, and its head dragged along the ground sideways toward Micah. The thing was fast, faster than he would have expected for something so big and bulky. Micah tried to dive out of the way, but it was too late. The ‘v’ of the dragon’s open mouth passed over his head, and the jaws clamped down, teeth coming together seamlessly so they didn’t cut him, instead trapping him inside the box-like space of the metal mouth.
The world went dark as the dragon scooped him up. Micah had a sudden sensation of weightlessness, and then he was tumbling head over heels. His stomach pitched. He was slipping, sliding down a dark tunnel. He cried out, but there was nothing he could do, nothing to grab hold of in the dark.
The dragon had swallowed him whole.
**
Piper clutched Anna’s shoulder as the dragon reared up and leaped into the sky, wings spread. The thing was so bulky, she thought it would come crashing right back down again, but at the last second, the engine caught and banged, releasing a cloud of black smoke from the engine core she’d been working on.
The dragon soared away with Micah trapped in its jaws.
“Piper, you’re squeezing too hard,” Anna said from beside her.
“I’m sorry.” Piper patted the girl’s arm in apology, but her gaze never left the retreating dragon. It was headed north, and it wasn’t alone. The remaining two gliders had managed to stay airborne, even after the dragon’s wing attack, and the raiders were giving chase.
“Okay,” Piper murmured, trying to stay calm while her thoughts raced. “Okay, this is a whole new thing now. We need to move. Gee!” she shouted. “Gee, are you all right?”
Her eyes found him across the field. Gee hurled aside the pieces of the glider he’d demolished and flew over to them, transforming back into his human form. “I’m all right,” he said. “I saw the dragon fly off.”
"Can you track them?” Anna asked anxiously. “They’re getting away.”
Gee nodded. “They can’t out-fly me,” he said. “It looks like the dragon’s heading for the mountains, probably looking for someplace to hide.”
“There are caves all over the lower slopes,” Piper agreed. “Some of them are pretty big, maybe even big enough to hide a dragon. Can you fly us all up there?”
“Of course,” Gee said. “But what’s the plan once we catch up to the raiders?”
Piper considered that. “We can try to draw them off, make them chase us for a bit and buy some time, but the rest is up to Micah,” she said. “He’s inside the dragon, so he’s in the best position to find the boy and see what his story is.”
“He has the dragon by the tail,” Anna said, biting her lip.
“What’s that mean?” Piper asked. “Something you read in a book?”
The younger girl nodded. “It means he’s in over his head.”
Piper sighed, a knot of worry clutching her stomach. “Sounds about right.”
**
Micah lost track of how long they flew. He was too busy slipping and sliding down the dragon’s throat, banging knees and elbows and finally tumbling out into an empty space, arms flailing for a handhold. He landed with a jolt on his backside at the same time the dragon came down with a loud thud.
Head swimming, Micah blinked a few times to adjust his vision to the darkness. When the disorientation passed, he realized there was a soft glow coming from just a few feet ahead of him. He crawled forward uncertainly on all fours, following the source of the light.
As he drew close and the details of the space became clear, his mouth dropped open in surprise.
At the back of what must have been the dragon’s belly, a small lantern hung from a peg on the wall. Next to it, there was a metal stool fastened to the floor. On it sat the boy Micah had seen through the window. On either side of him, two metal sleeves hung suspended by cables from the ceiling, covered in gears, wire and other mechanical parts he couldn’t identify. As Micah watched, the boy stuck his hands in the sleeves and shifted left and right on the stool, bringing his arms down toward his body. The cables extended, allowing the movement.
At the same time, outside the dragon, there came a high-pitched creaking and a boom that made the walls on either side of Micah shudder.
That must be the wings, Micah thought, drawing the connection between the sleeves the boy was manipulating and the corresponding movement from outside. He was controlling everything about the dragon from this spot.
"You shouldn’t have come back,” the boy said, taking his hands out of the sleeves. Hard callouses covered his palms, and a scowl spread across his face.
After the fear and chaos of the last few minutes, Micah’s temper was short. “We were trying to help!” he snapped. “You’re the one who swallowed me and flew off! You left my friends behind, and then jostled me like a peanut caught in this thing’s throat.” He thumped the metal wall with his fist.
“Where did you take us?”
“Somewhere safe,” the boy said, his scowl deflating in the face of Micah’s anger. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to grab your friends too.” He reached out to a box fastened to the wall by some kind of jointed metal arm. Swinging it out, he pressed his face to the box.
“What are you doing?” Micah asked. “What is that thing? Hey, talk to me—I want some answers!”
The boy let out a long sigh, the sound echoing in the quiet space. “It’s just a scope,” he said. “It lets me look outside so I can make sure we weren’t followed.”
Gee was the best tracker Micah had ever seen. He knew the chamelin would find them, no matter how well hidden they were, but he kept that information to himself.
“All right, let’s start over,” Micah said, trying to calm down. “Who are you, and how did you end up in the meteor fields inside a dragon?”
“I was escaping from the raiders,” the boy said, pushing the box back against the wall. “Last night. They were closing in on me, so I decided to fly into the meteor storm to try to lose them.”
Micah knew his mouth was hanging open again, but he couldn’t help it. “You flew this thing, this beast that pretty much screams, hit me, I’m a huge target, into a meteor storm?” He whistled. “You’re either the bravest person I’ve ever met or you’re out of your mind.”
“I knew it was a risk,” the boy said, frowning, “but I’d rather the storm crush the Fireheart than let the raiders have it.”
“Fireheart?” Micah repeated. “You mean the dragon?”
“It’s mine,” the boy said, lifting his chin slightly. “I built it. Well, the raiders helped,” he added grudgingly, “but mostly with the materials. They wanted a new type of glider, something to intimidate their targets. Only they didn’t tell me that while I was building it. I thought they wanted to sell it, and with the money we made, I could get out of here, start over somewhere else.”
“But what about your parents?” Micah asked. “How’d you fall in with the raiders?”
“My parents died,” the boy said, his voice dropping to a whisper. His eyes hardened. “The raiders found me after, gave me a place to stay and let me work on my inventions as much as I wanted, but then I overheard them say that once the dragon was finished, they were going to take it from me and use it to hurt people. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you ran,” Micah said, understanding now. It was one of the most common stories in the scrap towns. Parents died of sickness or were killed in the meteor storms, leaving children behind to fend for themselves. A similar thing had happened to Piper’s family before she found her place on the 401. But sometimes raiders took in these orphans, raised them to pilot gliders and attack the scrap towns or the train routes.
“I know it was a mistake to join the raiders,” the boy went on, shoulders slumping, “but I didn’t have a choice. I needed food. And once you join up with them, it’s almost impossible to get away.”
He looked so sad and lost that it made the last of Micah’s anger melt away. He scooted closer to the boy. “Listen,” he said, “what’s your name?”
“Dawes,” the boy said. “Well, it’s my last name, but that’s what the raiders kept calling me, and I got used to it.”
“Good enough, Dawes,” Micah said, smiling at him. “I think me and my friends can help you.”
Dawes narrowed his eyes. “How?”
“Well, you say you’re an inventor,” Micah said, “and you were willing to sell this dragon—Fireheart—to buy a new life, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then forget the raiders and sell it to the archivists,” Micah said. “They study the stuff that falls in the meteor storms, but they’re always looking for special things, no matter where they come from. They’ll see that’s exactly what you’ve made here.”
He knew, because Piper had known. She’d been so excited when she glimpsed the mechanical parts of the dragon. Whoever this boy was, he obviously knew his way around machines and inventions. The archivists would value that talent.
But Dawes shook his head. “As soon as I get the Fireheart out in the open sky, the raiders will chase me, and their gliders are faster. It’s hopeless.”
“You’re wrong,” Micah said. “We just have to get you back to the train station. Once we do, my friends and I can help you get the dragon to the archivists onboard the 401 on one of their big flatcars.” The plan was taking shape in his mind even as he spoke.
“But what’s in this for you?” Dawes asked skeptically. “Why would you help me?”
Micah blinked at him in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “You’re in trouble.”
The boy scoffed. “Scrappers never help people out. They’re too busy fighting over all that junk in the meteor fields.”
Micah sighed. Dawes had a point. Many of the people in the scrap towns were nomads. They stayed for a while to see what they could scavenge, and then they moved on to any one of the other numbered towns on the map, always looking for the next big find, never caring about anything except themselves. And the last time Dawes had trusted people, he’d been betrayed. He had every reason to be suspicious now.
But he was also trapped, and that was a terrible feeling Micah knew all too well.
He swallowed. “Look, I don’t have a whole lot of choices in my life right now,” Micah said. “But I can at least give you a choice, a chance to escape. You just have to let me.”
Dawes regarded him in silence. Micah couldn’t tell what he might be thinking. Finally, he nodded, though he still didn’t look quite convinced. “Tell me your plan,” he said. “Then I’ll decide.”
“Okay,” Micah said, rubbing his hands together. “We need to—”
“Wait,” Dawes interrupted, holding up a hand. “Did you hear that noise?”
Micah listened, and a low-level humming sound reached his ears, growing louder every second.
A glider engine.
Micah’s heart sank. “The raiders found us. Quick, is there anything you can use to hold them off, maybe disable their gliders? How about that wing trick again?”
Dawes shook his head. “There’s not enough room in the cave. The only other weapon is connected to the mouth, but the directional controls in the neck were damaged in the crash so I can’t aim.”
“What kind of weapon comes out of the mouth?” Micah asked curiously.
Dawes cocked his head. “Think about every story you’ve ever heard with a dragon in it,” he said.
A wide grin worked its way onto Micah’s face as he realized what Dawes meant. “Oh, we can work with that,” he said. “This will be great! What’s the quickest way out of this thing?”
Dawes leaned to the left to reveal a small alcove behind him. “There’s a trapdoor in there that goes down into the leg, and then there’s a door in the ankle. What are you going to do?”
“Make myself into a targeting system…and probably a target,” Micah said. “Get ready to fire that weapon!”
Crawling around Dawes, Micah raised the trapdoor and slid down another dark tunnel. At the bottom, he felt along the wall until he found the door latch and lifted it, opening the way to the outside.
Cool, damp air hit his face as he stared out into a large cave. Sunlight streamed in from the entrance about fifty feet away. Jagged furrows marred the stone all the way from the entrance to the spot where Fireheart had made its landing.
Micah circled around to the dragon’s tail and scrambled up its back, keeping to his hands and knees for balance on the slippery metal scales. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the box-like head. It was very high up here. He settled himself just behind the dragon’s ears, legs clamped around its neck to keep him steady.
No sooner had he gotten himself situated than a flurry of movement passed by the cave mouth. Micah caught a glimpse of green leathery wings, and suddenly a pair of objects came hurtling through the cave mouth at an alarming speed. The objects landed, skidded across the stone floor and came to rest in front of the dragon.
It was Piper and Anna.
Micah let out a whoop as Piper stood up, her overlong coat flapping in the wind from the cave mouth. She helped Anna to her feet and shot Micah a grin.
“Miss me, kid?” she asked.
Micah grinned back at his friend. “Depends. Are the raiders coming too?”
“Yes!” Anna said, out of breath and flushed from the flight. “The two from earlier are headed this way. Gee dropped us off—literally—and he’s going to see if there are any more.”
“Stand against the wall,” Micah said, angling the dragon’s head toward the cave entrance. “Whatever you do, keep the path in front of us clear.”
Piper and Anna hurried to press their backs against the cave wall. “You got this, Micah?” Piper called up to him.
Micah nodded, trying not to let his confidence falter. “We got this.”
There was no more time to talk as the dark shapes of the gliders filled the cave mouth. As soon as their pilots saw the dragon and Micah on its back, they let out a shout, and the crossbowmen raised their weapons.
“Dawes, fire!” Micah yanked the dragon’s head sharply to the right to get both gliders—and especially their silk wings—in his sights.
Fireheart’s jaws cracked open, and a surge of heat travelled all the way up its neck. Micah jerked his hands away at the last second as a stream of fire erupted from the dragon’s mouth, sending a line of bright orange flame across the cave to engulf the gliders. Both pilots and passengers ducked, but the gliders’ fragile wings went up at once, the fire eating away at them.
Micah flinched as the gliders careened sideways, crashing into the cave walls and dumping their occupants unceremoniously on the ground.
Piper, Anna, and Micah all let out triumphant shouts.
“Climb on!” Micah shouted down to the girls. “We’re getting out of here!”
Piper and Anna ran up the dragon’s back and held on to the ridges of its raised scales. When they were both secure, Micah called out, “Straight ahead, Dawes! We got a clear path!”
In response, Fireheart stood up and barreled forward to the edge of the cave mouth, past the ruined gliders, engine humming and wings ready to spread.
“Hold on!” Micah wrapped his hands around the dragon’s neck, and then they were airborne, soaring past rock and out into the open sky. The foothills of the Hiterian Mountains spread out below them, and beyond were the meteor fields and home. Breathless, Micah leaned over the side of Fireheart’s neck for a better view, the wind whooshing and whistling in his ears.
He wanted to remember this feeling forever. He’d never been more free in his life.
**
They touched down about a quarter mile away from the train station, where Gee met up with them. Laughing, Piper slid off the dragon’s back and into his arms. He swung her around and gave her a huge hug.
“You all looked like you were having fun up there,” Gee said, chuckling as he set Piper down on her feet.
“Best visit yet,” Piper agreed.
There was a clanging sound from within the dragon, and a moment later, the door in its ankle opened. Dawes stepped out. “Did any more of them follow us?” he asked anxiously.
Gee shook his head, and Micah laughed. “Your fire did the trick,” he said. “By the time they get around to sending more raiders after you—if they dare to—you’ll be long gone.”
He quickly explained his archivist plan to Piper, Anna, and Gee. Piper nodded thoughtfully.
“From what I saw of that engine earlier, I think the archivists would pay dearly for this thing,” she said, glancing at Dawes. “You’re using gas, not steam. Am I right?”
Dawes looked impressed. “That’s right. It’s something I’ve been working on. I’d been having some problems stabilizing it, but whatever you did, you fixed it.”
“I’ll go talk to Jeyne Steele, our engineer, about setting aside one of the flat cars and some tarps to transport the dragon in secret,” Gee said, heading for the 401.
Micah turned to Dawes. “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe with my friends, and the train’s route will get you to the Independent Nation of Archivists. They’ll take it from there.”
“But I don’t have money for a ticket,” Dawes said, flushing. “I had a little saved, but not that much.”
“Oh, Piper and I can handle that,” Anna said brightly. “You can stay with us in the crew quarters. Jeyne won’t mind”
The boy blinked in confusion at the three of them. “But…you don’t even know me.”
Anna shrugged. “You’re a friend of Micah’s. That’s all we need to know.”
“That pretty much covers it.” Piper slung an arm around Anna’s shoulders and turned her toward the station. "Come on. Let’s give these two a minute. And I want to see Jeyne’s face when Gee tells her we’re bringing a dragon aboard." She flashed Micah a quick, private smile.
“Thanks, Piper,” Micah said. “For everything.”
When they’d gone, Dawes cleared his throat nervously. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
Micah whistled, rocking back on his heels. “Are you kidding me? I got to ride a fire-breathing dragon and help fight off a bunch of raiders.” Before today, he never would have thought either of those things was possible. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever found in the meteor fields.”
They shared a chuckle. Micah thought it was the first time he’d seen Dawes even crack a smile since they’d met. That was a good sign.
Dawes looked at him with a thoughtful expression. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll do what you said. I’ll sell the Fireheart to the archivists, and we’ll split the money.”
Micah stopped grinning. He held up his hands. “You don’t need to do that—”
“I want to,” Dawes interrupted. “You earned it, and besides…” he hesitated. “It was nice to meet someone I can trust for a change. Maybe…maybe you could even come with me to meet the archivists, help me talk to them?”
Micah blinked. Go with Dawes? To meet the archivists? His stomach turned over. They were some of the smartest men and women in all of Solace, and he was just a scrapper. He started to shake his head. “You’re the inventor,” he said. “You’d know what to say better than I—”
Dawes interrupted. “But didn’t you tell me the archivists are always looking for special things, no matter where they come from?” he asked.
Micah shrugged, confused. “Yeah, so?”
Dawes smiled tentatively. “So, like you said, you jumped on the back of a dragon and faced down a bunch of raiders, all to save a stranger. Maybe the archivists will see that you’ve got something special too.”
Micah opened his mouth to argue, to say that there had never been anything particularly special about him, but then he hesitated. He had faced down the raiders. With his friends beside him, he’d fought back against the forces in the scrap towns that made him feel helpless.
They’d faced the impossible, and they’d won.
Nothing was certain, but the events of the day had changed things. Micah could feel it. They lit a flame inside his chest that burned as hot as the Fireheart’s breath. If he could do one impossible thing, maybe he could do more. Maybe Dawes was right, and the archivists would see the value in someone like him.
Slowly, he nodded. “I’ll have to talk to my parents,” he said, “but…yes, I’d like to go with you.”
Dawes’s expression brightened. “Good,” he said. “Good, it’s settled. We’ll go together.”
Just like that, Micah thought.
He looked up at the 401, the great old steam train that had taken its passengers on countless journeys in Solace. Maybe it could take him on a journey of his own. A journey filled with more choices, and more adventures, than he’d ever imagined.
Micah decided that was something worth fighting for.
The End