Dragon Bone Read online

  Dragon Bone

  J.D. Cavalida

  Table of Contents

  Copyrights Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Copyrights Page

  Disclaimer: The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. To the extent any real names of individuals, locations, or organizations are included in the book, they are used fictitiously and not intended to be taken otherwise.

  Copyright © 2018 by Author J.D. Cavalida

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher and author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the copyright holder or publisher.

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Chapter 1

  "You wanna know something, huh, cocksucker? You're fucking disgusting."

  Elstrin White struggled back to his feet and didn't bother to come up with a reply as he smashed his fist into the big guy's nose, feeling cartilage shatter beneath his knuckles. The boy reeled back and his cronies immediately took his place, thick slabs of muscle trying to block his way out. Elstrin got a kick in the shin for his troubles and was beginning to panic slightly. There was no gap in the ring of six older boys surrounding him, and behind him was the unmoving dead end of a wall.

  "Don't you dare try that again, you weak little faggot," the one with the broken nose hissed. One of his friends pounced and Elstrin crouched down low, throwing his body onto the legs of the smallest one there. Caught off-guard, the boy went down in a messy pile, and Elstrin took his chance to step on his face and sprint as fast as he could to the mouth of the alleyway. He stopped long enough to snatch up his bag lying on the dust, and bolted.

  "Fucking fag!" a boy shouted. The sound of heavy footsteps followed him as he slipped this way

  and that through the stinking alleys. It was nearly dusk and light was fading fast, but he could make

  it, even though his lungs burnt and his knuckles stung and there might've been a fractured rib hidden

  somewhere in his left side. He'd gotten worse before. He concentrated on getting out of there,

  pushing all other thoughts aside. Mernot was too large a city for the cops to take care of

  everything—he guaranteed a poor sixteen-year-old who went missing one day wouldn't get much of

  a reaction at all.

  Someone screamed an expletive from behind him, but the voice was far away and Elstrin knew he was escaping. He wriggled through a narrow gap between a fence and a wall, dust and rust sticking to his ruined shirt, and burst out into the main neighbourhood, where the streetlights were brighter and the road was lined with houses. He slowed down to a jog, panting as he made his way down to the end of the street. He stepped up to the dim porch of his house and knocked wearily.

  It was at least two minutes before the peeling door swung open to reveal an angry, red-faced man with a beer belly who called himself his stepfather. "You're late, boy!" the man roared. Elstrin muttered an apology, went in and tried to vaporise into his room, but a large beefy hand grabbed him by his shirt and threw him back. "Why are your clothes dirty?"

  "Fell over," he said, righting his balance. He shot his stepfather the most honest look he could muster and went into his room, shutting and locking the door before anyone could interfere.

  Then he turned to his bag and began to do homework.

  It was how most of his nights went: return from school, find some kind of abuse on the way home (sometimes just a little name-calling, sometimes violence like tonight or worse), come home to more abuse from his so-called family, finish his homework and crash.

  By the time he was done, it was almost ten. His stepfather was outside watching television loudly, most likely accompanied by several empty beer bottles. Elstrin slipped quietly past him, took a quick shower and snuck back to his room.

  He pulled out the sparse first-aid kit from under his lumpy bed and dabbed his knuckles with alcohol. It stung but he ignored it. He stretched carefully, wincing, and examined his ribs in more detail, where two of the boys had kicked him while he was down. His skin was a dirty mess of purple and red bruising, but nothing seemed broken. He cleaned that as well and put everything away.

  Waiting for his hair to dry, he sat down and tried to ignore his rumbling stomach. He was usually too busy getting beaten up and shouted at for dinner. Sighing, he reached under his pillow and brought out the crumpled notice he had ripped off a wall, a notice that had cropped up everywhere lately.

  All males aged 15-20 encouraged to join the Mernot Army

  Living quarters, meals and selective financial compensation will be provided

  Volunteers must submit legal identification documents

  Volunteers may be submitted to questioning

  Contact the Mernot Army Base Headquarters for more information

  He had always wanted to become a soldier. Maybe it was every boy's dream, but Elstrin—he wanted the distraction more than anything. He thrived on challenges, but the current one with the bullies had gotten stale long ago, and there was a depressing voice in the back of his mind telling him he couldn't win, that the odds against him were stacked too high. He didn't want to wait for graduation day to inch closer so that people would leave him alone: that was escape, not fighting. He wanted to show them that the sissy little faggot could bite back. And three years was too long—he needed to do something now, prove to everybody that he wouldn't stay down for another fucking second.

  He had pondered over the poster for three nights, weighed the pros and cons, and now he could hardly wait for the entry date to arrive. Sure, people there might not accept his sexuality either. Sure, the trainers might be crueller than his stepfather, and the actual training would definitely be difficult. The notice didn't even say much—for all he knew, the place could be akin to a prison.

  But he didn't care. A military life couldn't be worse than the life he was currently leading. In the army, he would be forever away from school and family, get three meals a day, and he'd be kept too busy with physical work to worry about anything. There was nothing to lose here—but there, he had a chance to start over again, to become someone new. And he'd heard good things about the Mernot Army, how it had decent facilities and programs that eased you into the harshness of soldiership rather than throw it at you all at once. If it did turn out worse than he expected, at least he knew how to be careful, how to take care of himself. He'd been doing it for practically his entire life.

  He folded the notice up, stuffed it away and went to bed. He couldn't stop thinking about it.

  Chapter 2

  Elstrin stood in the waiting room of the Mernot Army Base Headquarters (why it had such a long name remained a mystery to him), clutching a bag with his possessions: all the money he had, a single photograph of his childhoo
d friends, his best clothes, and sanitary and personal products. The rest of the boys in the room—some older, some slightly younger—were fidgeting. Some sat on the fold-out chairs while others wandered around examining old awards and bulletin boards. Heads would crane whenever a name was called and someone stepped through the other door.

  He waited patiently, reading a dusty copy of the Mernot Army Code of Conduct he found lying around to pass the time. This was his final choice. He had ditched school at lunch break, eating his last bland cafeteria meal before grabbing his bag from his locker. Sneaking out was no big feat, and apparently many other schoolboys had done the same. He was half-relieved, half-disappointed that he recognised none of the soldiers-to-be here.

  Soldier. It sounded like such a big word. Like a heavy, muscled, war-painted, helmeted man dressed in camouflaged clothes with a huge gun slung over his back. He tried to imagine himself like that and nearly laughed at the absurdity. He was too small, too lithe. Though skinny, his cheeks retained a bit of baby fat. He wasn't weak, but he was untrained; all he knew was sloppy and spontaneous fighting, something thrown together without rules, something that would get him home in one piece while being surrounded and harassed. His hazel eyes hadn't seen the horrors of battlefields; his chestnut hair hadn't felt the heavy weight of a helmet or the sweat of intense exertion. He was aware of all this. And he was going to work to become a real soldier.

  "Elstrin White."

  Jumping, he put the Code down and hurried forward, pushing the heavy wooden door open when it unlocked with a click. The room held a hasty arrangement of desks on which sat stacks of files; a coffee maker balanced precariously amongst the mess. Sitting with his boots on the table was a soldier who looked to be in his early thirties, shuffling through some papers and looking bored. He glanced up to see Elstrin standing there and motioned towards the other chair. Elstrin sat as determinedly as he could.

  The soldier smirked at his confident posture and took a sip of coffee. "God knows we sit like that enough to last us a lifetime," he muttered. "Loosen up while you can, kid. Ask questions if you want to."

  Elstrin relaxed a bit. "Who are you?"

  "Colonel Stag. Funny title, hm? We use codenames in the Mernot Army when we're addressing those of higher rank, so I can call you Elstrin but you gotta call me Stag."

  He nodded.

  "It says here you've got reasonable grades but you've been in a few schoolyard fights before, and your parents are divorced twice, which leaves you in the care of your stepfather. True?"

  Nod.

  "Care to explain the fights?"

  "Not really." Stag shot him a careful look, as if sizing him up, and Elstrin continued tersely, "Just some guys picking on me, they weren't anything serious." Stag snorted. "Right. It also says here that once you got beaten up so bad you received a broken collarbone, a black eye, two fractured ribs, lacerations on your arms, legs and face, and three broken fingers." He waited for Elstrin to speak.

  "I was different," he finally said quietly, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "And they didn't like that."

  Stag sat back with understanding in his eyes, as if he'd known all along. He probably had. "Well, kid, rest assured that—"

  "Don't call me kid."

  He paused again, more amused than anything. "I'm twice your age, I think I have the liberty to call you kid, kid. Anyway. HQ is a mostly all-male compound, and we don't discriminate. If something like that happens here, people will get punished. Simple as that. And if they keep doing it, we keep punishing them until they stop."

  "Oh. Um, it said on the poster that we get living arrangements assigned to us, does it mean—"

  "This isn't a sleepover. Tolerance is important. If you get an asshole for a roommate, tolerate him. If someone who's disgusted by you ends up rooming with you, he'll have to tolerate you. If I'm annoying you, tolerate me. Remember that. Any more questions?"

  "What kind of training will—"

  "All the details about training, meals, timetables, HQ layout and your instructors will be covered once you get in," Stag interrupted. He seemed to really enjoy cutting in.

  Elstrin huffed. "Can we leave the army?"

  "Ah, good question, and the short answer is no—for cadet training, at least. So I hope you've already thought about this pretty thoroughly, because once you walk through that door, you are quite literally unable to turn back. Deserters are stripped of their honour unless they have a really good reason for leaving. Mernot has a powerful army, and we work hard to keep it that way. We get holidays once in a while, but otherwise it's all work and training for the cadets."

  "Okay," Elstrin said, lowering his eyes to think… but he had done all his thinking days and weeks ago. He hadn't even bothered to leave a note for his stepfather, but it wasn't like he cared at all. He didn't have friends at school. His life was in the bag resting against the cold steel table. He raised his gaze to find Stag drinking his coffee, regarding him with a calm stare. No doubt the soldier had watched countless boys go through the same deliberation in this very room, on this very chair. "Okay," Elstrin said again. "I'm in."

  Stag grinned, signed and stamped some documents, asked him to sign at two places, stapled all

  the loose papers together and slipped everything in one of the bulging files laid out across the desks. "All right, kiddo, welcome to HQ. Leave your bag here; you'll get it back at your dorm. Good luck."

  ---

  He went through the plain door and was immediately filed into a group of ten. They were out in

  the open, in a bare field that served no purpose other than being a marshalling area. To their left was a high fence topped with barbed wire and security cameras.

  Behind them was the barred entrance to HQ, and on the right was the rest of the compound, sprawled across the land in a large mess of beige-coloured buildings and dusty training grounds, gently nestled into the roots of the snow-capped mountains Mernot was known for. There was a thick, high wall that separated the larger part of the army base from its outer regions. The place was huge; but against the mountains, it looked like nothing.

  A young soldier stepped up and clapped his hands briskly. "Good afternoon, cadets, and welcome to the Mernot Army. I'm Lieutenant Snow. Now, keep this in mind before we get started: always play fair and always do your best. Understood? This way, then."

  Lieutenant Snow led them to the fringe of the compound. Elstrin could definitely see where the name came from—the soldier's hair was bone-white and bright in the sunlight, though he looked much younger than Stag. He wasn't an albino: his eyes were pale blue. Strange. Elstrin wondered where he was from.

  He hurried up to walk beside Snow, abandoning the rest of the group. "Lieutenant? Are we really not allowed to choose roommates?"

  Snow looked at Elstrin and didn't break stride. "No, cadet. Get back in line."

  "But sir, what if our roommate's… abusive, and threatens us into not telling anyone?"

  Frowning, the lieutenant kept his eyes focused upon the building they were heading for. "We'll know. What's your name, cadet?"

  "Elstrin White, sir."

  Snow glanced back down with a small amount of amusement. He really looked quite young— maybe in his mid-twenties. Not bad-looking at all, either. Actually, this man had the most beautiful face Elstrin had ever seen. He promptly stomped the thoughts down. This was a completely inappropriate time to develop a crush on anyone, never mind a hot white-haired lieutenant.

  "Colonel Stag mentioned you in passing. Don't let that mouth of yours run too loose. Watch your words carefully."

  "I am careful, sir," Elstrin said. Snow smiled faintly and stopped at the front of a building; its door looked high-tech and very bomb-proof. He pressed his thumb to a small scanner on the wall, punched in a quick password, and the doors slid open smoothly.

  "This is the outer hall," he said to the group at large, sweeping a hand behind him to indicate the empty, auditorium-sized room they were standing in. The once-polished floo
rboards were worn with use and the walls were stained and chipped, but the hall had a certain ancient grandeur to it, even if it was just a large, vacated room. "Soldiers come and go through here for quick briefing before they set out for missions or war. It's the building closest to the main gates, and there—" he pointed to a noticeboard at the end of the hall, "—is a map of HQ. Check it out later if you want to." He pointed to the other set of doors next to the noticeboard, which was also protected with a keypad and a scanner. "New cadets will be issued with key cards and a password which will allow you to access the non-restricted areas, highlighted in blue on the map."

  He crossed the length of the hall and opened the door, the rest of the boys trailing after him with Elstrin by his side—Snow didn't seem to mind his lack of formation any more. He found it kind of weird how none of the other cadets asked any questions, but then he noticed that they looked nervous and a little uncertain. A few guys seemed pissed and were shooting annoyed glances at him. Oh well; no place was trouble free unless you believed in paradise. He would handle disagreements when they came.