Page 53 of Realm of Thieves

He frowns at me and then looks around. “We better hurry. There’s still at least one more blooddrage out there.”

Grabbing his gear, he moves on to the next nest, and I start scanning the horizon again just in time to see another small black form appear in the distance.

“There she is,” I say. “Dead ahead.”

I start running ahead of Andor to the next nest, hoping that this time I’ll be able to take the blooddrage down before it comes for him. So far Lemi is proving to be more of a diversion than I am.

The blooddrage lets out a squawk, flying right for me, just as the other one did.

But as it gets closer, Lemi leaps up, trying to bite it in midair before he shifts, leaving the dragon confused and spiraling to the ground where it lands. It looks up at me, but it’s like it doesn’t see me at all. It only moves when Lemi reappears beside it, barking until it takes flight.

“Brynla!” I hear Andor yell from behind me, the panic in his voice making my blood run cold.

I whirl around to see a swarm of blooddrages, at least six of them, flying toward Andor from the direction we came in, only feet away.

I barely have time to act before all of them are on him, snapping jaws, flapping wings, and scratching claws.

And I know that the chance of escape I had been waiting for has finally arrived.

Chapter 16

Andor

One minute I think thatBrynla is going to leave me to a grisly fate.

I see her standing there, watching me in both horror and confliction, and I can almost see her being pulled in the opposite direction. Lemi, bless that hound, is barking, running toward me and the blooddrages as they scratch and claw at me, trying to bite at any exposed skin.

But a different fear strikes in my heart, greater than the fear of being maimed or even death.

The fear that she’s going to leave me here without a second thought.

And that she’ll never think of me again.

Then she starts running for me, full speed, swords out, and just seeing her coming for me gives me enough strength to straighten up. With a roar, I shake off as many of the dragons as I can, though one has thoroughly attached itself to my head. I grind my teeth against the pain of his claws as he scratches at my cheek, dangerously close to my eye, his mouth trying to bite my neck.

But then Lemi leaps up, grabbing the blooddrage by the tail andpulling him back off my head, which unfortunately makes the dragon dig his claws in deeper until warm blood flows down my cheeks.

I growl, whipping my dagger backward, hoping to stab him and the one that’s crawling up my chest, just as I see Brynla wave her swords around. She doesn’t seem so hesitant to kill them now and starts hacking away at the ones closest to her, her eyes fierce and her jaw set in grim determination.

The other dragons suddenly release me and fly off, as if Brynla has terrified them, leaving the three of us with a couple of dead blooddrages at our feet.

“You’re bleeding,” she says to me, her chest heaving from exertion.

“I’ll live,” I tell her, wiping away the blood. “We should start heading back. I don’t know what you did to make those dragons fly away, but they might come back with even more reinforcements next time.”

She nods and opens her pouch, peering inside. “So far none of them have cracked. I can grab a couple more.”

She goes to the next nest and starts grabbing the shiny eggs and popping them into her pouch. I look around to see the damage. Most of my eggs are broken but I can at least extract the suen.

I crouch down and take out the extractor, making quick work of the mess.

“Uh, Andor,” Brynla says. “We have a problem.”

Fuck, what now?

I get up, the wind buffeting me in the face, smelling of sulfur. Toward the volcanoes where the valley opens up, fire starts to lick around the ground, swirling up and up toward the sky.

“Fire tornadoes,” I say gruffly.

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