2: Armor

In the diner on the main street of the town Anna is pacing back and forth, smoke rising from her nostrils, she slams her folder down on the counter so hard that claws extend from her nails and sink into the soft paper. “I can’t believe I got paired with him! Being paired with a boy was bad enough, but Kaden? I bet my twin is off planning my eternal embarrassment with his human pet.”

Anna and Aerouant’s mother walks out of the kitchen of the quiet diner and comes out from behind the counter; she tugs the file out from under Anna’s hand and flips it open. After reading the first page she looks up at her daughter, “I don’t see anything wrong with him dear…”

“That’s the problem, he’s perfect and handsome, it’s like there is no good reason for me to want to eat him.” Anna starts smoking from her nose again. As the smoke thickens, Anna storms out the door and plants herself on the bench out front.

Kaden and his friend see the smoke rising from the diner and decide to take a detour past to make sure everything is okay, upon seeing Anna blowing smoke out front of the place, they take a back route to avoid encountering the enraged young woman. As they pull up outside Kaden’s home, Kaden leans the bike down on its kickstand and helps Aerouant off. The young dragon starts to walk circles around the bike as Kaden disembarks and starts to dispel the bike.

“That is why I don’t like that thing, if something happens to you, no more bike. Then I’ll be flying through the air at Jormungand knows what speed, with no wings or scales.” Aerouant bends down and touches his toes, then bends completely in the other direction and grabs his heels.

Kaden walks to the door and pokes his head into the small house; no one is home yet so he closes the door again and locks it again. Kaden signals to Aerouant to follow him and they walk around the block to the smithy, a tall, shiny building with a large lens protruding from the domed roof. As the two start to climb the stairs, a dragon master, resplendent in his newly forged sun steel plate bursts through the door and tromps down the stairs.

The two young men pass the dragon master on their way up the stairs. As he reaches the street, his armor disappears, a well-tailored suit takes its place and he steps out into the street. As he takes his first step a low, white saloon car rolls to a stop and the rear door pops out and lifts up in a gull wing, the dragon master slides into the car and the door swings back down into place. Aerouant stares after the car until it turns off the main street into the access lane for the freeway.

Kaden waves his hand in front of his friend’s face, but cannot get his attention until he snaps his fingers in front of his eyes. “Let’s head inside. We can do some work on my armor in a few hours when the moon rises.” The two young men climb the rest of the stairs to the tall double doors of the smithy, intricate carvings of dragons and knights cover the doors, across the curved tops of both doors, a great drake spreads its wings and on its back, a dragon rider is perched between the great drake’s wings.

As the young men push through the doors a call comes from behind a glimmering steel wall, “I’ll be right out, feel free to look around.”

Kaden calls back immediately, “what I seek cannot be forged, but by a union of days’ light and nights shadow.”

“The only creation that is forged in the night and tempered in daylight is a child.” A goggled face pops out from behind the steel wall and a massive smile erupts from under a giant bushy imperial mustache. “Son, how are you?”

“I’m good father; Aerouant and I are trying to prep for my exam tomorrow.” Kaden hops the counter and gives his father a hug, soot and slag from his father’s apron fouls and stains his school uniform.

“Who did you draw? Do you know them?” His father lifts the goggles from his eyes and digs a pair of dragon horn rimmed glasses from a pocket.

“I drew two great drakes, Aerouant and Anna Dracareas.” Kaden tells his father as he tries to wipe the powder from his shirt, he only succeeds in smearing the bright blue and black grime further.

“Two Drakes!” The older man’s bushy eyebrows shoot up, “That would make you a dragon lord if you pass.”

“Kaden has been putting a lot of emphasis on the ‘if’ but we’ll get enough practice in tonight to be well prepared.” Aerouant claps Kaden on the back and smiles wide, his pointed teeth flash for a second, then his eyes meet the older man’s, “So how does the forging process work? I have read up on some of the special runes and implants used to harness mental power into solid armor, but I have never seen it done.”

“Well, my lad, you are in luck, I am in the middle of constructing something marvelous.” The old man motions with his head for Aerouant to follow him; his mustache bounces as he turns to his son, “this work is a surprise for you, so I will have to ask you not to follow.”

Kaden nods and heads upstairs to the offices, his mind set on finding the strongest fire resistance rune he can.

Aerouant follows Kaden’s father back into the work area, a cone descends from the ceiling above a stone workbench in the middle of the room. The walls, lined with various tongs and other tools of the black smith’s trade, close and confining. On the workbench, there is a tangle of wires hooked to a small black box. A small string of light connects the black box to a golden rod. The cone emits a ray of light onto the table, lenses and prisms are suspended from a framework below the cone.

“You have been in Kaden’s sparing matches, what weapon has he used most often?” Kaden’s Father walks towards a row of goggles and pulls a pair from a brass hook; he tosses them to the young dragon. Aerouant fastens the leather strap behind his head, through the goggles the world takes on a silvery tinge.

“He usually used a combination of short sword and heavy mace, but he cherishes his long sword, he says it’s the best piece he has.” The young dragon walks to the table and inspects the golden rod resting there.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I was you, but then again, you are a dragon so it might not burn you. That rod is made of solid sunlight. Hotter than any dragon fire, I have to use special gloves when I handle it.” The old man focuses his mind and large gauntlets form around his hands and forearms. “I guess we will make him a new short sword, then, if you could grab the small and large hammers of the wall you can help me.”

Aerouant walks to the wall and grabs the pair of hammers inscribed with the same runes as some of those on the old smith’s gauntlets. He hands the small hammer to the smith and hefts the heavier one.

“Now, where I hit, you hit.” The smith says as he pulls his goggles down over his eyes.

Within minutes the round bar of sunlight is flattened into a wicked looking blade, four feet of double edged sunlight with a leaf shaped swell halfway up the blade shows its use to be more for slashing, but tapers to a wedge for parting armor.

The old smith gestures towards the cone above the table “This scope leads all the way to the ceiling, where the lens follows the sun in the day and the moon at night. A series of mirrors and lenses directs the light into this room and the room across the hall.” He rotates a cluster of prisms and lenses into the beam of light; the light bounces around inside the apparatus then falls from the bottom like hot wax. The old smith picks up the forged blade and holds it under the slow drip of sunlight, with a pick in his other hand, he slowly starts to form a cross guard for the sword, carving intricate patterns with the pick. After another fifteen minutes or so, the hilt has formed and the smith turns his attention to the pommel. He places a cut gemstone on a puddle of liquid light, once the gem is in place he starts to shape the rest of the pommel, the smith forms three scaled claws that curl around the gem and hold it in place.

Once the claws have been carved in exquisite detail the smith sets the blade down again, he proceeds to pull a small hammer and chisel from a joint of his gauntlet. With the diminutive tools he sets to work, carving small symbols into the blade, the glow of the symbols a little darker once they are completed.

Aerouant leans over the table to inspect the tiny symbols, he recognizes the first two from his studies, but the rest are unknown to him. He looks to the smith with a question on his lips, but the older man is deep in concentration, Aerouant wonders if the smith even remembers if he is there.

Upstairs, Kaden is looking through thick and dusty tomes, searching for a rune that will enable him to stand in dragon fire. He turns the page in a leather bound book and looks at the beautifully illuminated picture of a dragon master lifting a boulder the size of a small house, the runes on his armor glow bright blue. He turns the page of another tome, this one bound in steel and much older, this one shows a dragon master whose sword is absorbing the fire of a wyvern, the scales on the dragon’s throat turning from a blazing red to a dull gray. Kaden copies the rune and conditions onto a scrap of paper and turns another page and a smile spreads across his face.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” He asks himself as he writes down the rune, and its conditions. He then closes the leather bound book and hoists it back onto its shelf and dashes from the room, in the steel bound book sitting on the table is an illuminated depiction of an armor smith, pouring pure sunlight through the fingers of his gauntlets.