The Gullwing Colony

By Antonio Simon, Jr.

The dragon islands are no place for a human messenger, as Marco knows only too well. Tensions run high following a recent war with the realms of men. As Princess Dria struggles to calm her subjects, an invasion of a different sort menaces her shores. Human colonists have arrived to strip her land of its natural resources and pepper it with tacky beach resorts. Meanwhile, rebel factions threaten to split her empire asunder from within. Once again, Marco is swept up into a fight for his life as he and his companions strike back on both fronts. With danger on all sides and a safe trip home out of the question, Marco would think himself lucky if everyone kindly refrained from shooting the messenger—him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darkwater Media Group, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9781954619463

Book preview

Dedication

Look, Apara—a sequel! This one’s for you too.

The World

Itudaeia

Colony: Land that belonged to someone before it belonged to someone else.

One

Marco ran for the granary at the end of the street and dove headlong through its window. Scrambling to his feet, he bolted for the staircase at the building’s far end. He was not halfway there when the front door burst open. The mob of angry dragons chasing him flooded inside. Their leader let up a high-pitched trill, whipping the crowd into a frenzy.

Bounding up stairs two at a time, Marco reached the second-story landing and dug his heels in to stop. The catwalk ahead was a rickety put-together of wood and frayed rope. How it supported its own weight was beyond him.

Another trill from below set his heart racing. He ducked under the staircase bannister as the air went thick with hurled stones.

Glancing across the walkway, he spied a ceiling window built into the corner of the pitched roof. Head down, he pumped his legs hard for the end of the catwalk, as he could feel the platform yielding under the weight of his pursuers.

At full pelt his foot came down onto a rotted plank, snapping it under his tread. The walkway split in two before and behind him, its boards coming apart in rapid succession as their support ropes gave out. Just before he lost all traction, he took a diving leap. Marco soared through the air—legs thrashing, arms flailing—for the ceiling truss beneath the window. The truss struck his chest with tremendous force. He bounced off it and fell backward, hitting every crossbeam on the way down, coming to rest at last atop a pile of rice sacks.

Still reeling from the fall, Marco rolled onto all fours and stood. Something wet and squishy struck his head from behind, nearly pitching him over. A group of elderly lady dragons, too old to give chase with the mob, had gathered at the front stoop and began pelting him with rotten guavas. Shielding his face as he pushed past them, Marco hoped to Kandensa that none was armed with coconuts.

Once past, he made for the road headed out of the village, putting a quarter-hour’s run behind him before slowing to catch his breath. The soreness in his chest came on in full force. Now that he was out of immediate danger, he had time to limp.

And to think.

Under different circumstances, he might have laughed at his bad luck. Here he was, far from home, living among the dragons. Humans were such a rare sight here that he knew each of them by name. It also did not help matters that a month ago an army of Hazaranthi men-at-arms had invaded the dragon homeland.

The invasion hardly lasted a day. News of the attack quickly became as old as the news that the dragons had prevailed. That last bit of information had been slower in arriving. Marco knew this better than anyone, as it was his duty to deliver the mail. More so, perhaps, because the dragons had so far chased him out of every town on his mail route. The unfairness of it all twisted his guts into knots. He had fought on the defenders’ side but few dragons knew this, and most who did cared not a whit. In their minds, he was guilty by association because he was not one of them.

He clawed through his messenger bag for his route map. As he traced the path to his next stop, a fat raindrop struck the map, startling him. Dark clouds threatened heavy rain. He glanced one way down the road, then at his map, and then the other way. The path to the next town led through the village he had just been chased out of. Thinking to cut his losses, he folded his map and marched for home.

The storm arrived within moments of his having set out, bringing rain that poured down in sheets. He felt foolish to think he could beat the rain home. This was a rainforest—it rained every day here.

He backed against the frilly palms growing along the side of the road. While their fronds sheltered him from the downpour, they did little toward keeping him dry. Their branches provided manifold channels for the rainwater to find its way to him. He was drenched in short order.

Then, as quickly as they had come, the clouds moved on, giving way to stifling tropical heat. Grumbling, Marco resumed his footslog. Mud clung to his legs as high as his knees. He wondered whether, during their five thousand years of recorded history, the dragons could not have come up with better roads.

He snickered grimly at this thought, knowing he could not expect much. The dragons were an isolated people. When seafaring men first encountered them, these explorers annotated their maps with the phrase: Here be dragons. It said much about the dragons that they revised their maps by ringing their home islands with the phrase: Creatures with big boats live out there.

He arrived at the outskirts of Damicyan by early afternoon. The capital city fanned out before him, built at the mouth of a sweeping bay. A knotted mass of charred pilings stuck out of the water like the teeth of a giant sea monster. The city’s harbor was gone—the invaders had set it ablaze on making landfall.

While the harbor had never been much more than a place to dock fishing boats, the city had suffered greatly without it. Buildings that once housed vast fishing enterprises now stood derelict. The dragons who depended on those businesses for their daily meals went hungry. In a span of only a few weeks, the capital city had largely been abandoned.

He steeled himself for what he knew awaited him in town—the dragon islands were no place for a human messenger.

Feeling the weight of dragons’ stares as he trudged along the waterside, he kept his head down as he marched along. Conversations among the dragons halted mid-syllable as they turned to watch him plod by. They did not resume speaking until after he had moved on, except to mutter impolite phrases at him.

Three foreign caravels rocked in the waves a fair distance offshore, each flying Avignarian pennants. With the port facilities destroyed, the only way one could debark from an inbound ship was to pull into the bay as close as its depth would allow and then take a rowboat to shore. It was a long way to row, and an even longer swim. With each passing day, Marco convinced himself a little more that he could make it out there and beg the ships’ captains to ferry him home. That the ships were so close and yet so far produced an irony that stung him to the marrow of his bones.

He brushed his sopping wet hair out of his face and tied it into a ponytail. His hair had become a knotted mess in the stretch since last he had gotten it trimmed, saying nothing of the rough stubble that covered his face. He could never grow a beard to save his life, and he was thankful, as it would have itched furiously in the heat.

Shaves and haircuts were unheard of here. Dragons, lacking body hair, had no need for barbers. And with the current anti-human sentiment, Marco was in no position to trust just any dragon to hold a blade so close to his face.

His musing was cut short when a tiny dragon girl with blue scales darted into his path. Her eyes—amber, wide, and fearful—locked on his. Claws held together with cupped palms upward, she extended her arms. Even without words, Marco could tell what she wanted. She was so thin that each of her ribs was visible.

Her father snatched her away by her wrist, baring his fangs at Marco all the while. Hands up by his shoulders, Marco took a step back to indicate that he was no threat. The girl’s father trudged past him, not breaking eye contact until he had gone on a few paces.

He knew he had reached the market district when a thrown tomato sailed into his shoulder, spattering him with acrid juice. It said plenty about what the dragons thought of him that in times of famine they pelted him with things they could be eating.

Another wet splatter caked his chest with sticky-sweet paste. The confectioner dragoness gave him a look so pointed it might qualify as a knife crime. Feigning innocence, she nonchalantly resumed stirring her pot of banana pudding, though her stern expression alone was evidence enough of her actions. Marco gritted his teeth and pressed on, making sure to give a wide berth to those few fishmonger stalls that remained.

His only friend in the market district was a young dragon girl who ran a modest fruit stand. He passed her stall every day along his route; every day she would stop him on his return trek. Today was no exception. She left her stall to meet him in the roadway.

Marco frowned. He said nothing, but his face conveyed how he felt better than words could. It served him just as well, as each knew nothing of the other’s language.

Hesitantly, she brushed off gobs of pudding that clung to his waistcoat.

Don’t, Marco sighed, batting her claw away.

She nodded. Then, returning to her stall, she put an orange in his hands.

Thank you, he muttered, stuffing it into his messenger bag. He never ate these, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. It meant there was at least one dragon on this island who did not want him dead.

I have to go, he said.

She bowed shallowly at the waist, returning to her stall once Marco continued on his way.

Two

Emperor Rao sat at his desk, wondering what grievous harm he had inflicted upon the world to deserve the burden of supreme executive authority. Being the emperor of Itudaeia was hard work. If he had known that so trivial an act as marrying the reigning empress might by happenstance make him emperor, then he would have thought twice about marriage. These were dark days. The pressure he was under was enough to turn his red scales pink.

Fat stacks of mail from his provincial governors covered his desk. He skimmed to the end of the petition in his claws, picking up every other word. As it proposed nothing terribly egregious, he concluded that whatever it called for must therefore be good for his people. He struck this one with his Approved stamp and set it in the corresponding pile. The next petition he struck as Denied without reviewing it. Were the volume of mail he received daily a tidal wave, he would be in over his head if he did not skip reading a few. This aside, no one could accuse him of being unjust if he granted as many as he denied.

Progress. These days, it was all anyone ever spoke about.

It was a frustrating concept.

Everyone wanted it, but no one could agree on how to attain it.

His governors grasped the idea, if the sheer number of petitions they sent him was any indicator. They knew what progress meant at least as well as the rebels; though, if Rao could credit the rebels anything, they were more united in purpose than his governors. The rebels also had more direct, albeit impolite, ways of asking for what they wanted.

He rubbed his eyes. Both claws on the desktop, he pushed away from his work and stood.

War was not unheard of in Itudaeia, but last month’s invasion marked the first time that a hostile foreign power had breached their shores. It did not help matters that the attackers were of a completely dissimilar species. Panic shot through the empire like a thunderbolt. The rebels wasted no time in using this event to undermine Rao’s authority. With each passing day, fewer of his subjects trusted his ability to keep them safe.

He left the desk, headed for the balcony. Arms folded behind his back, he paced to the railing as a breeze swept the platform. The sun’s warmth prickled his scales.

Below was the palace lawn with its snaking path of river pebbles. The trail cut a meandering circuit through the neatly manicured grass. Ahead was the palm tree grove where he had breakfast each morning. Further along was a plot of open land where all manner of fruit trees grew. To one side of the path were planted bananas, papayas, mangoes, and oranges. The other side, from end to end, was reserved for pineapples—his daughter’s favorite.

The palace garden flourished under his care. Much as he delighted in always having fresh fruit with meals, he took greater satisfaction in knowing that the garden was his handiwork. This was for him a guilty pleasure. Ever since he made the palace his home, he had spent more time gardening than at statecraft—Rao made no illusions about where his strengths lay. Though, it did seem all the more unfair that his wife died much too soon, especially considering that, with her passing, responsibilities of state immediately fell to him.

Irina, he breathed her name.

It was all so terribly unfair. The problems his reign faced were not of his making. He had been emperor for scarcely a decade; his wife’s family had governed the realm for over four hundred years. That his subjects now would take up arms against him was a silly way to show their thanks.

And then there were the rumors, insidious old lies that would not stay buried.

In light of the challenges the empire faced, many of his subjects had taken to looking backward, to better times gone by. This necessarily led to comparisons. Empress Irina had possessed the mettle for rulership. During her reign, the people’s coffers and bellies were full. Such was to be expected, as she had been tutored since infancy for the role she would take on.

This was not so with Rao. Despite his family’s status as minor nobility, his upbringing had been decidedly modest. The youngest of three sons, Rao had contented himself with the knowledge that he would never amount to much. The least he expected was to surpass his brothers in rank, saying nothing of becoming emperor.

Irina’s sudden illness and demise raised pointed questions about Rao’s motives. Murder had been the word on everyone’s lips, though none dared speak it within earshot of him as he had since ascended the throne. Nonetheless, rumors persisted that his family had too much to gain to not do away with the empress regnant. These same rumors were at the heart of the trouble the rebels had been fomenting across the island.

He dragged himself back into his chair, sighing at the piles of work still to be done. Even when he worked his hardest, he never could clear more petitions than as came in. The worst part of commanding unquestionable decision-making authority was making decisions.

A knock at the door snagged his attention.

He yawned. Come in.

Dria pushed through the door, her arms piled high with petitions.

Good afternoon, father.

The sight of her brought a tired smile to his face. Dria was the spitting-image of her mother, and just as stubborn. Despite her tutors’ best efforts, no amount of etiquette training could distill away Dria’s determined walk. The hems of her red skirt whipped at her ankles as she strode up.

Good afternoon to you too, he said. I see you’ve been busy. What is on today’s agenda?

Plenty, she was keen to say. She set her petitions down atop a stack on his desk, doubling the height of the pile. Mild sadness panged within him on seeing how close he was to finishing that stack, and how far back she had put him.

She pulled a notepad from her cloak. Whenever you’re ready.

I’m ready, said Rao, discreetly placing his Denied stamp in the drawer.

Item one, she read aloud. Harbor expansion plans.

Hmm, Rao murmured, pretending to sound interested. He struck the petition with his Approved stamp.

Item two, Dria went on, proposed road-building projects. Item three…

Working at a steady pace, Rao approved all of her recommendations before she could finish her list. Admittedly, these were not her best. Dria was a bright girl, but she was prone to fanciful ideas—what use were roads when one had wings? Rao considered rescinding her petitions once she left his office but decided against that, as it might break her heart if she discovered what he had done. Also, busy as he was, he could not be bothered to put in the effort of overstriking each of the petitions he had just approved.

Item seven. Dria paused, her mouth setting into a tight line.

Is something wrong, my dear?

Father… Her gaze hung on her notepad, weighed down by the gravity of what she wished to express. Locking eyes with him, she said, I propose we invade Hazaranth.

His claws flew to clutch at his face in alarm, inadvertently swatting himself with the stamp. It saved him some embarrassment that his red scales were about the same color as the ink, or else he would be hard-pressed to explain how the word Approved ended up on his left cheek.

You can’t be serious! Rao said. Didn’t we just go to war with them?

No, father, they attacked us. Our people are uneasy because they doubt the strength of our defenses. The only way to win them over is by striking back at the Hazaranthis.

He could barely hear her over the sound of blood sluicing through his veins.

But the Hazaranthis don’t pose a threat to us anymore! he sputtered. They’re an ocean away and they don’t have a navy. And, and—aren’t they landlocked?

She smiled, showing a glint of fang. That’s been taken care of. Alexis has been hard at work on a secret engineering project. It’s a massive flying ship bedecked with cannons and impenetrable broadsides. The sight of it alone should scare them into surrendering.

Without taking his horrified eyes off his daughter, Rao fumbled through the clutter in his drawer for his Denied stamp.

Dria dear, you know I don’t often disagree with you, but I cannot in good conscience approve this.

Her eyes narrowed. I understand, father.

He thumbed through the stack on his desk, yanking out the offending dossier. No sooner was it in the clear than his Denied stamp overstruck it where once it had read Approved. He struck it again for good measure before putting the stamp back in the drawer.

"And please, he went on, the next time you propose something so… um, serious, please let me know ahead of time—two weeks advance notice, at least!"

I am sorry, father, she said, her tone icily cordial.

Thank you, he spoke through a sigh of relief. Is… He hesitated, clearing his throat. Is there anything further?

She flipped through her notes. Item eight, expansion of the Imperial Office of Post-Wartime Communications.

Rao cringed. All that office ever did was bring him mail. More mail meant more work. He put his stamp down atop the desk.

Didn’t we just pass an edict expanding that office? he asked.

"Yes, if