Chapter 57 — The Last Rider

Chapter 57: Chapter 57 — The Last Rider

Chapter 57 — The Last Rider

The black doors opened without resistance.

Morning light from the gallery reached only partway into the command hall. Owen lit wall lamps using ordinary oil, and their flames revealed pillars, collapsed banners and a floor marked by old blood.

The skeleton sat upon the raised command chair.

Ancient armor covered its chest, arms and legs. The helm rested on the floor beside one foot, and bone showed through the broken neck guard. One hand remained wrapped around the arm of the chair.

Beside it leaned a lance.

The weapon was taller than two men, its shaft appearing to be made from dark bone wrapped in metal bands. The blade had the pale sheen of a fang and carried thin red lines beneath its surface.

Pressure filled the hall — not Dragon Prestige, but something shaped and sharpened, the remaining imprint of a weapon built to carry immense power.

Godfrey stopped ten paces away.

"The case below was empty," Walter said.

"Not empty," Christopher replied. "Connected."

The clear case in the lance hall had preserved the weapon through the floor while allowing it to remain beside its owner.

No one touched it.

Owen examined the floor from several paces away. Stone had sunk slightly beneath the lance’s base, proving that its impossible weight was physical rather than an illusion, and thin formation lines connected it to the preservation case below and the command chair.

"If we move it," he said, "the supporting stone may crack."

Christopher abandoned any thought of carrying it immediately. A weapon that required reinforced flooring would not travel through the valley on a person’s shoulder.

At the skeleton’s other side rested a red crystal set into the command chair. It glowed when Christopher entered, and the pendant became hot.

Light gathered before the throne. An armored man appeared as a transparent red silhouette, standing straight despite a wound cutting through one side of his body. His face remained blurred, damaged by missing parts of the recording.

The figure looked directly at Christopher.

"Blood acknowledged," it said.

The voice came from the chair rather than the image.

"If you see this, one of our blood survived."

The silhouette flickered. Behind it appeared a brief image of the courtyard: the dragon lay there alive but dying, its dark scales split by wounds.

"My partner returned after the western line fell. I could not save him."

The image changed. Armored riders moved through the castle while eggs were carried toward a lower hall. Soldiers stacked weapons into armories; others destroyed maps.

"We lost. The Mage hosts broke our remaining bastions. I sealed the last eggs, our arms and what knowledge survived."

The recording skipped.

"...created us for their war against the gods. When the gods fell, the plane remained wounded. They would not leave. We turned against our makers because another war would finish what the first had begun."

The man’s bitterness survived even in the damaged image.

"They called it betrayal. Perhaps it was. Obedience would have killed the world more slowly."

The image changed. For several breaths, Christopher saw a plain of broken towers. Dragons flew through storms of light while armored riders fought below. One dragon fell; the recording skipped before it struck the ground.

"We won when the war was small," the commander said. "It did not remain small. They had towers, constructs and numbers. We had partners we could not replace."

The commander’s shoulders sagged as he spoke, whatever pride he once carried worn down to exhaustion.

Christopher listened without moving.

The recording jumped again. When the silhouette steadied, part of his left side had vanished into pale static.

"The eggs below are independently sealed. Wake none without food, shelter and a rider worthy of the bond. A dragon is not a horse. It will not carry a coward because you command it."

The image pointed toward the lance.

"My armament remains. It was made from the remains of one who reached Myth. Without a Dragon Heart Contract, it is only weight and death in your hands."

The silhouette faltered.

"I sent my child away with the key before the final siege. If that line returned, then House and name may have changed. Blood has not."

Christopher’s hand closed around the pendant.

House Drake descended from the child who escaped. The dead commander before him was an ancestor whose name the family had forgotten.

The Drake family memories Christopher had inherited surfaced: Osbert reciting patriarchs until the written records became uncertain. None matched this man. The earliest ancestor was known only as the Watcher who returned south.

That must have been the child.

Christopher felt grief that did not belong wholly to either life. The family had preserved the pendant while forgetting the person who sent it away.

"Use what remains to protect the plane. Do not mistake my hatred for your duty. You live after my ending. Choose with the knowledge I lacked."

The final words came more softly.

"Tell my child I held the gate."

Behind the silhouette, the final scene showed the command hall as it had been. The dragon’s cries shook the walls outside. The wounded man placed the lance beside the throne, sat and activated the image stone.

No enemy entered before the recording ended.

The image disappeared, and silence filled the hall.

Christopher stared at the skeleton. The child had died centuries ago; no message could reach them. House Drake had preserved only a pendant and a story stripped of its truth.

Bennet wiped his eyes and pretended dust caused it.

Godfrey approached the throne first and bowed to the skeleton — not deeply, but with the respect given to a fallen commander. Christopher followed.

The old armor bore the winged spear and a smaller crest shaped like a drake curled around a lance. House Drake’s modern crest had simplified the same animal until nobody remembered why it held that pose.

"Proof," Bennet said.

"Proof we keep here," Christopher replied.

The image stone had answered his blood. They would not remove it.

Christopher approached the Dragon Lance. Godfrey let him try this time.

He wrapped both hands around the shaft and pulled. The weapon barely moved. It stood loose on the floor. It was simply far heavier than its size suggested. A violent pressure travelled into Christopher’s arms, forcing him to release it, pain remaining in his palms.

"No lock," he said.

"The message warned you," Godfrey replied.

"I needed to know whether it was exaggerating."

Walter studied the lance. "Was it?"

"It was not this heavy."

Godfrey tested it next. Silver strength lifted the base several inches before the lance’s imprint pressed against him, and he lowered it carefully. Without a contract, even Godfrey could not wield it.

They searched the command hall while leaving the skeleton untouched. Metal cabinets contained campaign records, tactical maps and sealed image stones. A side room held armor sized for the dead commander. Another contained personal letters too fragile to open.

Bennet sealed the fragile letters inside their cabinet. The campaign records could survive handling better, but their script still required study.

One metal tablet used pictures to list the castle’s emergency stores. Most food marks had been crossed out. Weapons and armor remained. Seven egg symbols were marked as sealed, and a lance symbol ended beside the command throne.

The inventory agreed with what they had already seen, which made its unexplored entries more credible.

Bennet found a floor map carved beside the throne. One route descended toward a hall marked by seven oval symbols; another led to a library, alchemical workshop and training chamber.

Christopher considered the seven ovals.

"The eggs," Mabel said.

The message had confirmed they survived. Seven dragons waited somewhere below the castle, each sealed since the war.

"We don’t open anything," Christopher said.

Godfrey nodded. They would find the chamber and inspect the seals.

Before leaving, Christopher placed one hand against the command chair.

"Your child lived," he said to the dead man.

No ghost answered. The image stone remained dark.

Bennet asked whether they should bury the ancestor beside his dragon. Godfrey turned toward the command chair, but Christopher answered first.

"We bury him," Christopher said. "He waited long enough."

The rider had chosen the throne so a descendant would find his message. Christopher decided that his duty had ended and his bones deserved burial.

They moved him with careful hands. Mabel examined the remains first while Owen studied the armor’s clasps: the plates carried formations and materials none of them understood. After centuries in the preserved hall, leather beneath the metal had become brittle, but the armor itself remained whole.

They removed it piece by piece and laid it beside the helm. It was an inheritance, not something to be left underground to rust, and Christopher ordered it stored in the command hall until they understood how it worked.

The Dragon Lance remained beside the throne. Moving it required preparation, reinforced transport and someone capable of carrying more than its weight.

They wrapped the bones in clean cloth taken from the castle stores. No name had survived in the recording, so Christopher could not give the ancestor back the identity history had taken from him.

They carried him into the courtyard.

The dead dragon still lay where it had fallen. Burying such an enormous body was impossible, and Christopher would not allow anyone to cut it apart. Near one folded wing, the courtyard wall sheltered a patch of bare ground from the wind.

Walter and Owen opened the earth while the others gathered flat stones. They dug slowly and found black soil beneath the surface gravel. When the grave was deep enough, Christopher lowered the wrapped remains with Godfrey’s help.

Christopher stood at the head of the grave.

"Your child lived," he said again. "Your blood survived. You held the gate."

They covered the grave and raised a low stone marker over it. Bennet carved only what they knew to be true.

LAST RIDER OF DRAGONWATCH

ANCESTOR OF HOUSE DRAKE

Godfrey saluted. Walter bowed his head. The others followed in silence.

They could not undo the ancient defeat, but they could at least give its last defender a grave.

The last Dragon Knight had delivered every word he still possessed. His armor and lance remained for the living.

Christopher would have to decide what those words — and those weapons — meant for them.

The stair beneath the throne room descended into warm stone.

Christopher led with the pendant exposed. Godfrey followed at his shoulder. Walter, Mabel, Bennet and Owen came behind them with lamps, rope and chalk.

No apprentices entered the lower level.

The path had been built for authorized people to use regularly. Doors opened through simple handles. Lamps remained dark, but lines beneath the floor carried faint energy from the small plane.

The first chamber held records. Metal tablets filled shelves from floor to ceiling, their cases marked with symbols that matched the seven ovals carved beside the throne. Bennet opened none until he recorded their positions.

Mabel found diagrams showing eggs inside separate circles. Other tablets depicted feeding, growth and injuries. A set of larger plates showed humans and dragons joined by lines between their chests.

Christopher remembered the image in the old medical room.

"Contracts," he said.

They carried nothing away.

The next room contained equipment sized for young dragons: broad harness sections, feeding tools and reinforced chains. Dust covered everything. The chains served a gentler purpose — their padded fittings suggested they had been used to guide frightened or injured hatchlings.

Godfrey examined the scale of the largest piece. "Even young ones were not small."

The final door stood open.

Warm light came through it.

The egg chamber was circular and larger than Dragonwatch’s great hall. Seven sealed platforms stood around its edge, each holding one egg inside a transparent formation.

Christopher stopped breathing.

The others halted behind him. Even sealed and motionless, the seven eggs changed the chamber. Walter had faced orcs without stepping back, yet his hand settled on his sword. Mabel held her lamp with both hands. Bennet stared at the platforms and forgot the tablet he had been preparing to record.

The eggs differed in size and color. One was deep red, with faint light moving beneath its shell like fire behind stone. One was pale blue and covered in frost that never spread beyond its seal. One was dark violet, marked by thin lines of silver that flashed silently. Two were heavy grey, their shells resembling layered iron. One shone with muted gold. The final egg was crimson and clear along several edges, a shell like ruby.

Seven. Exactly as the dead ancestor had recorded.

No egg moved. The seals made the eggs quiet, but never harmless. Every person in the room had grown up with stories of dragons; standing before seven surviving eggs made those stories seem smaller than the truth.

Mabel checked the chamber air and temperature. Warmth remained even across the floor, though each formation kept separate conditions: frost around the ice egg, dry heat around the fire egg and a faint metallic smell near the iron pair.

Owen found no cracks in the platforms. The seals had preserved this chamber better than the inhabited rooms.

"If one fails?" he asked.

No readable warning answered him. They marked every line and touched none.

No Dragon Prestige escaped the formations. The chamber felt quiet rather than occupied by seven creatures capable of becoming monsters of legend.

Christopher still felt the urge to lower his voice. None of them had seen a living true dragon, but all of them understood that the beings inside these shells belonged above the wyrms and magical beasts they knew.

Christopher approached the thunder-marked egg first. Its silver lines brightened.

Godfrey caught his sleeve before he reached the formation.

"We inspect before touching."

Christopher stopped.

Each platform carried a blood channel similar to the one in the buried bastion: a single drop from an awakened bloodline would open one seal, and each formation operated on its own.

Bennet found a metal instruction plate near the entrance. Most writing remained unreadable, but the pictures were clear enough: blood entered one seal, the egg awakened, and a dragon later emerged. A separate sequence showed rider and dragon facing one another before the lines joined their chests.

Opening a seal and forming a contract were different acts.

The distinction changed Christopher’s first assumption. His blood could wake an egg, but the dragon would still choose its rider. If the hatchling rejected him, feared the castle or attacked after waking, the seal would already be gone.

Godfrey faced the nursery tunnel. "Before releasing one, we clear that route and prepare a place outside. A frightened hatchling should not be trapped beside the other seals."

Mabel added food, water and medical records. Owen added barriers strong enough to guide without injuring it.

The list grew quickly.

"If you open it, does it hatch immediately?" Mabel asked.

"The picture shows time passing," Bennet said. "How much, I can’t tell."

"Then we assume we cannot put it back."

Christopher looked around the chamber. His first impulse was to open the thunder egg, since he had awakened the bloodline, found the castle and inherited the responsibility. The answer appeared obvious because he wanted it.

Then he remembered the kitchens.

One adult dragon had required slaughter rooms, livestock stores and halls built around its needs. A hatchling would be smaller, but not harmless or cheap. Dragonwatch struggled to feed additional workers, and the small plane possessed game, yet they had not established regular hunting or livestock production.

The ancestor’s message had warned them directly: wake none without food, shelter and a worthy rider.

"We open nothing today," Christopher said.

Godfrey released his sleeve.

They inspected the chamber for damage. All seven formations remained stable. Owen found separate energy channels running beneath each platform; the small plane itself appeared to sustain them, and no crystal sockets required replacement.

Mabel examined the surrounding rooms and found preparation chambers, drains and stone basins. A nearby nursery hall connected to an exterior tunnel large enough for a young dragon to reach the valley without crossing the castle’s human rooms.

The Dragon Knights had planned for the eggs to hatch eventually. They had not survived to do it.

In a side archive, Bennet discovered a set of simpler teaching plates. Pictures showed a dragon looking at people surrounded by colors. Grey and white figures were dismissed. Green figures rarely passed. Blue figures approached. Purple and gold stood closest.

Christopher understood before anyone explained.

Dragons could see potential. He was Green. Godfrey was Blue. Bram was Purple. Meg was Gold.

The images also showed several high-potential candidates being rejected. A dragon still chose its rider. One picture showed a blue candidate accepted while a purple candidate was turned away. Another showed two gold figures facing different dragons, with only one bond forming. Potential was a minimum consideration, not a command the dragons obeyed.

Christopher thought of Godfrey, Walter, Ivo, Bram and Meg. Their colors differed, as did the time they had spent proving themselves. The choice would ultimately belong to each dragon.

One final plate showed a person beneath crushing waves of light. Some remained standing. Others fell before reaching the dragon.

"A test," Walter said.

"Prestige," Christopher replied.

The word had appeared in a partial record beside the dead dragon’s diagram. A dragon tested whether a candidate could endure its presence before considering a contract.

Christopher looked again at the thunder egg. Its lines had dimmed after he stepped away.

They sealed the chamber door with an ordinary bar from the outside. Access to the lower stair remained restricted.

Owen pressed a small lump of wax across one hinge; if the door moved, the seal would break.

Bennet recorded the chamber as Lower Store Seven in his private inventory and sealed the detailed copy inside the command hall.

"Knowledge of this chamber stays with the people in this room," Christopher said. "Anyone else must receive my permission before coming below."

Walter accepted the restriction without offense.

On the return to the throne room, they stopped before the ancestor’s skeleton. Christopher looked at the Dragon Lance.

Christopher had inherited seven dragons. He left all seven seals closed.

On the walk back, Godfrey asked which egg Christopher had approached first.

"I approached the Thunder egg."

"Why did you choose that one?"

"It noticed me."

"Or its formation reacted to your bloodline."

Christopher looked back toward the barred door. "That’s why we read the records before opening it."

Christopher looked once more at the barred door before they left.

That evening, Christopher sat in Bennet’s workroom with a blank sheet of paper before him.

His last letter to his grandfather dated from before he left the south. At first there had been no safe messenger; after reaching Dragonwatch, every day had brought another problem. The longer he waited, the harder the first sentence became.

He kept the letter short.

He reported that they had reached Dragonwatch, cleared the men occupying it and begun repairing the stronghold. The settlers had roofs, the first fields were being worked, and hunting and fishing were helping their stores. He asked whether House Drake could help locate craftsmen, livestock, medicine and more cold-resistant seed.

At the end, he thanked his grandfather for his father’s sword and for the pendant entrusted to him. That line made Christopher pause. He could not say what the pendant had opened, and he did not know whether Osbert knew anything himself.

Christopher sealed the letter with ordinary Drake wax. Bennet would give it to the next trusted courier travelling south from Northgate, along with a second page containing a list of requested supplies.

For the first time since leaving the viscount’s castle, Christopher had something resembling good news to send home.