Ambergris

Pablo felt a rush of adrenaline as he dropped into freefall. His stomach rose into his chest. He waited one… two… three… four seconds, and yanked up on the lever. Canvas wings sprung to life on either side of the cockpit. The engine came alive, and the ornithopter swung upwards.

“Whoop! Here we go!” Pablo shouted. He leveled off the craft, dragonfly-shaped. Its wings buzzed in a blur, propelling him forward.

The view was astounding. A palace hovered above a sea of glass dunes. It was suspended hundreds of feet above the ground. High towers glistened against the blue sky. Holes gaped where walls had crumbled, and windows hung open, stained glass blown out decades before. The land below used to be a desert before the dragons arrived. Now, it was a wasteland of glass, like an ocean frozen in time.

Swimming through the air between Pablo and the castle, a giant serpent snapped at glittering specks: other ornithopters. It glided through the air with astounding grace. The flying machines had tamed the wind, but this creature was born of it. Pablo had never seen a dragon before.

“Don’t get too excited kid,” came a voice over the radio. “We’re just getting started.”

Pablo looped around, falling in line with a formation of six other ornithopters. He looked to his side, and one of the other pilots nodded to him.

“What do you think is keeping it up?” asked Pablo.

“Don’t know,” the radio buzzed. “Ancient tech. I’ve seen some old airships drifting on the wind. They float up high enough that we can’t reach ‘em. We can deal with the castle once we’ve downed the dragon.”

“She’s an awfully big monster,” came a different voice. “Gotta be full of ambergris.”

Dragon ambergris was the most valuable material known to man. It was a byproduct of their digestive system, and it built up in a series of bladders across their bodies. When it solidified, the mucus-like substance became a waxy stone. The substance was extremely light and buoyant. Nobody had ever recovered a piece that was still liquid. Its exact use was a mystery, but myth held ambergris gave dragons the power of flight.

“Gotta survive if you want your share,” came the first voice. “Everyone ready?”

Five “Aye”s came over the radio, and Pablo followed them up with an “Aye” of his own.

“Move in to strike!”

The seven of them lunged upwards. They reached a height level to one of the lower towers of the palace. One at a time, they dived.

Pablo pushed the stick forward, placing the dragon in his sights. He squeezed the trigger, and machine-gun fire erupted from his craft. The bullets pinged off of the dragon’s scales, but they got its attention. The serpent swooped upwards, crushing one of the ornithopters in its jaws. Pablo spiraled to the side, and a giant fin whipped past the cockpit.

“That was close,” muttered Pablo.

“Another pass!” came the commander’s voice. “Target the eyes if you can!”

They pulled back into formation and did a loop around the castle, rising through the air. Pablo was amazed by the architecture on display: rising towers bursting from terraced landings and courtyards. It looked like the palace had been grown rather than built.

Emerging on the other side, the dragon was charging straight at Pablo’s squad.

“Pull up!” shouted the commander.

Pablo yanked back on the stick. Sharp teeth snapped shut just below him, and he felt a jetty of hot air lifting him faster than he’d anticipated. The dragon shot past, setting its gaze on a cluster of ornithopters. It reached out with one of its clawed legs and snatched the pilot out of the sky.

The rest were too close together. The dragon roared and a billowing plume of fire erupted from its mouth, consuming eight of the remaining crafts.

Pablo breathed slowly, trying to shake his fear of this monster. It reacted with more intelligence and strategy than he had expected. Pablo knew that dragons were smart, but he figured that anything that large would be slow and cumbersome.

The drop ship was in the distance, and he saw the last squad depart. Huge cannons rotated slowly atop the flight deck. Each time they fired, the dragon was already past the target, and the round slammed into the desert hundreds of feet away.

Then he had an idea. He watched another squad of attackers dive at the dragon and watch their bullets continue to bounce off of the dragon’s scales. The dragon swiped at the pilots, and pursued them one at a time. It was stupid, but Pablo thought his idea might work.

“I’m breaking formation, going in for a solo strike,” Pablo said.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Giving the Vesper an opening,” he said, “tell them to be ready.”

The commander started to object, but Pablo switched off the radio. He dove.

A cloud of ornithopters shot past him, and the ground was approaching fast. Pablo leveled off, and piloted himself below the dragon.

“This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid,” he said, and he pulled up on the stick. The ornithopter shot into the air. In a moment, he was flying next to the dragon’s tail. It whipped up chaotic currents, and the ornithopter spun wildly. Pablo struggled to maintain control while also trying to dodge the tail itself.

Zipping past the tail, Pablo flew along the dragon’s underbelly. He squeezed the trigger again, and saw a line of sparks where his bullets collided with the dragon. Its head turned down, and Pablo saw a single eye staring straight back at him.

Pablo dodged as the dragon swiped at him. He pulled around to the back of the dragon, and it spun to face him. Now, he just needed to go up, and fast.

Pablo opened the throttle all the way and yanked back as hard as he could on the stick. The sun filled his vision as he flew upwards almost perpendicular to the ground. The dragon followed, seeming to dance around Pablo’s ornithopter. The towers of the palace disappeared below them, and Pablo felt the ornithopter beginning to stall.

He cut the throttle, and the wings of the ornithopter froze. There was a lurching sensation in his stomach as Pablo was weightless for a moment.

A rush of wind and scaled flew past him. The dragon tried to stop and turn around, but Pablo was already falling away. For a couple of seconds, the dragon was held in the same place. It turned its head toward Pablo, but at that moment a shell collided with its chest.

An explosion ripped through the sky. Pablo saw scales falling from the cloud of smoke. Then, the dragon was chasing him again.

Pablo started the ornithopter again as it flipped into a dive. The wings fluttered, but a moment later were clamped within giant claws.

The craft jerked to the side, and Pablo helmet cracked into a bar as cockpit began to buckle. The glass shattered. But a moment later, the dragon let go, and Pablo was spinning.

He could see a blur of the palace below him, and he pulled at the stick. To his right and left, he could see the flaps moving on the immobile wings. He couldn’t fly, but he was still gliding.

Pablo straightened the craft out as best as he could. The wings were buckling. They wouldn’t make it all the way to the ground. So, Pablo aimed for one of the courtyards on the floating palace. As he approached, ancient buildings and towers whipped past the shattered windshield.

There was a loud crack! as the ornithopter collided with the ground. The wings were shorn free, and the cockpit shook as it skidded along the platform. Eventually, it came to a stop.

Pablo smelled something burning. He turned to see smoke pouring out of the engine compartment. In a couple of seconds, Pablo had unclipped himself, kicked open the door, and ran free of the craft. It caught flames a few moments later.

Pablo looked out at the battle. The ornithopters were still flying at and around the dragon. As he looked closer, though, Pablo noticed a gaping wound in the dragon’s side. A mist of blood was leaking into the air. It seemed to be moving slower as well.

He watched for several more minutes as the battle continued. Then, he looked up and around at the castle he had landed on. It was incredible, like nothing he’d ever seen. Much of the structure had crumbled away over time, but most of the core structure remained intact.

Pablo wandered away from the courtyard, and entered one of the buildings through a large, open archway. There were scratches along the sides of the arch, like something had scraped against them multiple times. Inside, he found a marvel.

The chamber was like the inside of a cathedral. A massive, domed ceiling soared overhead. It was decorated with lavish paintings of men and mythical beasts, intertwined and battling one another in distinct scenes. The floor was smooth marble, and all along the walls were opening where massive windows had once stood.

In the center, a single column rose from the floor to the ceiling. It was carved from a strange, organic substance and inlaid with gold. The base of the column spread out like roots across the floor, and where it met the ceiling, it extended in branches.

There was something else at the base of the column. It was round and about the size of Pablo’s forearm. Pablo stepped closer, and then he gasped. The exterior was like marbled stone, but there was no mistaking the oblong shape. It was an egg.

Now that he was closer, he could see what the column was made out of, and he was amazed. It looked gray and waxy. Pablo had never seen dragon ambergris before, but this matched the description. He hadn’t thought of it at first, because there was so much. What’s more, it seemed to be flowing, not solid as he’d always heard. Pablo didn’t understand how this much ambergris had not solidified after all these years.

He had little time to wonder at the room and the egg, however. Suddenly, a crashing sound thundered behind him. He turned to see a section of the dome give way, and the dragon burst into the chamber.

Pablo shrieked, and thought to run away, but there was nowhere to hide. The dragon collapsed to the floor. Its eyes had a far-off look, and a large pool of blood began to collect and steam beneath its body. It struggled to stay on its feet, but couldn’t manage it. With a thud, the dragon’s slender torso fell. One of its eyes met Pablo’s.

Pablo felt a wave of sorrow choking out his fear. A few minutes earlier, this monster had been trying to crush him or burn him to death, and now he felt sad that it was dying.

Holding his hands in the air, Pablo stepped closer to the dragon egg. The dragon bared its teeth, but allowed Pablo to proceed.

“It’s alright,” Pablo said. He placed a hand on the egg, and the dragon’s glare softened. “I’ll keep it safe.”

The dragon’s eyes flickered. Pablo didn’t know if it had understood him. It rested its head along the floor of the looming chamber, and exhaled a plume of smoke from its massive nostrils.

Pablo waited, and watched the dead creature for several minutes. The silence was broken by the buzzing of approaching ornithopters. Pablo scrambled to the egg and scooped it into his satchel.

He didn’t know how he would keep it hidden, or what to do when it hatched, but he was determined to protect the egg as long as he was alive.