Chapter Three

He stared at the man atop the dragon, his face twisted with hatred. The dragon was magnificent, it was a deep scarlet colour, its teeth were bared, they shone ivory white, its eyes were black, its wings folded alongside its body, it walked with a deathly grace. The soldiers behind it kept their distance, even though the dragon was on their side they were still wary of it. The man atop the dragon raised a fist and the soldiers stopped. The man wore a shoulder free breastplate, showing off his scarred muscled arms.

"Flynn." The woman who had stayed to fight breathed. The young man glanced at her, fear was in her eyes.

"We can do this." He said and raised his blade a bit, angling it as if to drive it through yet another mans heart. "We can do this." He repeated more to himself that the others. The man on the dragon spoke, though he was still quite far they could hear him just fine, his voice amplified by magic.

"Surrender and your families will live!" the mans voice almost drowned out the sound of the rain. Flynn laughed, the other workers looked at him, was he insane?

"I have no relatives!" He shouted. "This is my family!" He gestured to the workers of the labour camp around him, his longish black hair stuck to his face and he wiped it out his eyes. "These people are all I have and if we surrender you make them slaves again! I'd rather die!" He reached for the womans hand, she took it. They were all prisoners of war, some of them had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time, but still fate had brought them together.

"Together?" She asked, her blue eyes bright, Flynn looked at her.

"Together!" He repeated. The workers of the labour camp let out a battle cry and charged for the waiting soldiers. As Flynn ran forward he could have sworn that the dragon smiled at him as it raised a paw and grabbed a handful of the workers the tore off their heads. But then he reached the soldiers and nothing else mattered, as he tore through one man after another, he killed and killed and killed. The screams of men and women around him grew quieter as he shut it all out, the ground grew muddy under all their feet and the rain continued to fall,lightening flashed. Flynn turned to find the scarred man before him. He smiled and shook his hair out his face, the dragon was nowhere to be seen. The scarred man held a vicious looking battle axe in his hands, Flynns sword felt like a letter opener in comparison. All the soldiers were dead and the workers surrounded the man with the scars, he glanced around himself and seemed to realise he was outnumbered, he gave a piercing whistle and the rain stopped over them, Flynn looked up and saw the dragon, it stretched out its claws and the scarred man held onto them as the dragon flew off.

"Coward!" Flynn shouted after him. The workers shivered an the rain continued to pour so they hid in the barracks until it stopped, then they stepped out, into the carnage of the battle field, to see if anyone had survived.

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Yuana sat in her cell in the dungeons of Koro, a healer had healed her wounds while she was unconscious she didn't know what had happened in the courtyard after she had fainted, she had woken up in this cell, she had listened to the guards conversations and had learned a pieced together a bit about this place, Koro, she had learnt that that was what the castles name, it was a kind of school for the dragon riders, this was the place where they learnt to capture dragons and force them to do their bidding, this was the place where they learnt to recognise shape-shifters, this was the place where they had tortured Yuanas mother and sister to death for information about the resistance, her mothers body had never been recovered but if they killed her sister and her mother had been taken to that same place, there was no hope that she would ever see her mother again. Yuana still remembered the day they left her sister body for her to find, it had been on her ninth birthday.

Flashback:

Yuana ran through the forest, dodging trees and bushes, jumping over the logs and boulders.

She heard the laughter of Lilia as she ran next to Yuana, they were running from Farren and Tenra, as they had just stolen an apple pie from the kitchen.

Yuana and Lilia ducked behind a cluster of boulders trying to muffle their laughter.

A few minutes later the pie was but a memory and the girls brushed the crumbs off their laps.

"Let's go wash our hands in the river." Lilia said throwing her dark red locks over her shoulder, they stood up and made their way down the hill to the river.

"Race you!" Yuana shouted and started running again, when she reached the river she turned round waiting for Lilia to arrive, but she didn't, Yuana ran back the way she had come.

"Lilia!" She called.

No answer.

"Lilia!?" She called again.

A blood curdling scream echoed through the forest.

"Lilia!" Yuana shouted and ran toward the scream, suddenly it was cut off and forest was silent once again.

Yuana burst into the clearing just in time to see a boy a few years older than her drop Lilia to the ground, her throat was slit from ear to ear and she wasn't moving.

The boy laughed then turned and ran into the forest leaving Yuana alone with Lilia's body.

Just as Yuana was about to run to Lilia she saw another body lying on the ground, with horror she realised she knew this person, she rushed over to the limp body of Verenya her sister, her face was barely recognisable it was covered in bruises and cuts, her black hair was matted with blood and her blue eyes were staring up, unseeing and glazed over.

Yuana let out a cry of pain, sorrow and rage. She swore to herself that she would kill the one who did this!

End of flashback:

Yuana woke up in her cell sobbing and curled into the ball.

"Get up!" A cold voice snapped it was Jay. "We are going to the arena."

Yuana got to her feet and glared at him, she hated that he had seen her crying, she hated him for the look he gave her, she hated him for being alive.

The arena turned out to be the riders idea of fun. It was outside but quite sheltered. There was a ring drawn on the ground with chalk and two or three riders stood in the circle and faced off against a prisoner, it was an unfair fight everyone knew that but no one cared. The prisoners were bound to stakes like the ones in the courtyard. Dylan was unbound and shoved into the the ring.

"Choose your weapon!" Manok, one of the older riders, said, Dylan choose a pair of twin swords. They werent allowed to kill but if a prisoner did kill a rider they would be tortured till the begged for death. As the other prisoners fought the riders Yuana watched them, looking for weak spots. Ben had a weak left knee, Ian left his right side unguarded when he fought. Finally it was Yuanas turn, she was unbound and dragged into the circle, there stood Jay, Robin the rider who had killed Risun, Yuri and Ben.

Robin, so that's that's his name, Yuana thought, such a human name for beast like him!

"If you kill any of us," Robin spat. "We will torture and kill three of your little friends."

"Oh I won't kill any of you, my lord!" Yuana said mockingly, she wouldn't kill them then, not this time, but one day she would.

"Don't talk to him like that!" Ben snapped.

"And why not?" Yuana said sweetly. "Is he your boyfriend?" She laughed. "Are you going to kill me? Have fun with that, you may be stronger and bigger that I am but you'll never be the better fighter." Yuana smiled seeing that she had hit a soft spot, she could tell that Ben loved to train and fight, he was broad shouldered and unbelievably tall.

"Don't let her get to you Ben." Jay said, watching her carefully, she threw him a grin, one day she would kill him too.

"Choose your weapon." Manok said who had been watching the exchange with amusement.

"I fight with a dagger." Yuana said, she'd show them, she didn't need much to bring them down, she would show them that they would only leave this ring alive because she wished it so. She was handed a dagger, how stupid of them to just hand her a weapon, she grinned, as soon as the dagger touched her hand Robin attacked, she jumped back and Yuri slashed his sword towards her chest, she leant backwards and didn't stop leaning until her hand reached the ground in a bridge then she flipped her legs up kicking Yuri under his jaw knocking him out, she simultaneously struck Ben behind his left knee with her free hand that wasn't holding the dagger. The students of Koro watched in disbelief, Yuri was crumpled to the ground and Ben, big muscular Ben was laying sprawled on the cold stone floor. Yuana spun round to face Jay and Robin. Robin grinned and stabbed at her legs She jumped over the blade towards Robin and rolled she was now behind him, Yuana held the dagger to his throat then remembered what he had said, she him him in the temple and knocked him out.

"Just you and me now, assassin!" Jay laughed coldly, Yuana froze, froze she knew that laugh, she still woke up hearing, even after four years.

"It was you!" She gasped as the realisation hit. "You killed Lilia, you left Verenyas body there for me to find!"

Jay just laughed. But he had forgotten something, the iron collar, it lay underground, hanging on a hook next to Yuanas cell. He had forgotten who Yuana was and as her eyes began to glow his laughter died, he began to back away. Now it was Yuana turn to laugh as the magic exploded out of her.