Page 46 of Lady Dragon
Neitherof them was holding back this time.
“The lady dragon in human flesh,” he said with a disbelieving laugh. “My, what teeth you have! Though your companion’s are the more worrisome.”
Companion.So he either didn’t know that the red dragon was Samansa, or he was good at hiding it.
Or maybe he simply couldn’t believe whatever he’d seen. Kirek barely could; it was an absurd and dangerous predicament the broken Heartstone had left them in. Masking the truth might protect Samansa, so Kirek decided not to disabuse him of any assumptions—except for one.
“I’m not a lady,” Kirek said with a grin that stretched her face nearly tight enough to split her cheeks. She might as well have breathed fire for how the soldiers suddenly faltered at the sight of her, their fear making them uncertain. Even Branon blanched. “And you have yet to meet my teeth. But I’mveryhungry.”
And then she was upon him. Branon barely managed to parry her blows. Once more, Kirek didn’t play by his rules of swordsmanship. He’d faced her in the tourney, but now she was unleashed. She was everywhere, all at once, an erratic lightning storm. And she was far,farstronger than him. Soon, a desperatesheen rose to his face, and he was panting with exertion, his steps retreating from the sheer force of her onslaught, even though he was free to cut her as he willed.
Kirek heard another screech from the dragon. Archers were lining up, beginning to fire.
Branon backed away quickly, stepping out of her reach. She could go after him or…Samansa.
Snarling, Kirek spun away from him, and ran for the dragon. She bypassed most of the taut rope that pulled on the dragon’s wing, sprinting until she’d reached the spear that caught it. She cleaved the wooden shaft in half with her sword, pulled the barbed tip free, and leaped onto the dragon’s back in nearly the same motion.
“Go, Samansa, go!” she cried, sheathing her sword.
After one last terrible roar and a keening moan as the dragon bent her head toward the body on the ground—Jamsens, Kirek saw, feeling something like despair, if only through the pair-bond— huge sweeps of the dragon’s wings lifted them above the trees, and then took them sailing beyond. Any arrows that tried to follow missed or fell short, until the two of them left the whole burning encampment behind.
They finally touched down in a field as dusk settled in like a blanket over the land, far away from the edge of the forest or even a wisp of smoke in the air. The red dragon had been flying erratically, and not just because of the weeping hole in her wing.
Despair, despair, rage, despair—
Kirek tried to shut out Samansa’s incoherent voice, but tearswere already streaking from her eyes, and not just because of the bracing wind.
“Samansa,” she gasped, as soon as her voice could carry. She could hear cows lowing at startled volume in the field, after they’d scattered from their landing. “I’m sorry.”
The red dragon suddenly bucked and thrashed, nearly throwing Kirek from her back. She only had time to stumble to the ground before Samansa turned at her androared, blasting back her hair and heating her cheeks.
“I’m sorry!” Kirek shouted this time. “I tried—!”
But any excuses were lost to the wind as the red dragon suddenly turned toward the frightened huddle of cows andthrewherself at them with a massive lunge. Careening into the herd, she tore individuals up from the field and rent their bodies in half, blood and entrails flying. She torched the rest as they tried to run, leaving only burning, thrashing figures in the dying light.
“Samansa…,” Kirek murmured, grimacing despite herself. She had seen violence aplenty, but this felt like a wound in her own chest, one fierce enough to rival the shattering of the Heartstone. At leastthathad somewhat healed—transforming into a dragon had buried the shard deeper in her flesh, smoothed over her torn skin, she now realized. She hadn’t noticed before, in the heat of battle. The spot was still tender, throbbing dully, but the pain was far more bearable than it had been.
She had new pains with which to contend. So did Samansa, even though there was no evidence of her own wound under the scales of her breast. Some hurts went far deeper, and Kirek could do naught but witness the princess’s throes of agony and feel the echo in her own heart.
The red dragon turned from the carnage only for her bright golden eyes to latch on to the farmhouse.
“No!” Kirek cried, but the dragon was already winging off in that direction. Kirek sprinted after her, cursing the lumpy field as she stumbled and nearly fell. “Don’t!” she called, scrabbling over the ground using whatever limbs would carry her. “They didn’t do this!”
She didn’t precisely care about bystanders, other than that Samansa would care, Kirek knew, if she hurt innocent humans. And thus their mutual pain would grow. But Kirek was so small, so slow in comparison to her. A torrential blast of flame shot out and lit the farmhouse roof like a torch. Kirek heard screams rising inside as the dragon circled in the air.
“Samansa,stop!” she shouted.
The red dragon pulled up, the last of the sun making her wings translucent as she spread them wide. Beneath her, someone opened the farmhouse door and began hurrying out the others that were inside—small figures.Children.Even dragons generally drew the line against hurting children, the closest thing to hatchlings that humans had.
They began to run. Silhouetted against the sky, that huge, triangular head swiveled toward them.
“Samansa, if you care for me,do not do this,” Kirek shrieked. “If you care for me—as I care for you—then you willstop.” Her seemingly useless words drifted away on the evening breeze, and yet…
Samansa stopped, only flapping her great wings slowly to keep her aloft. The red dragon’s eyes were trained on Kirek now, as the humans fled. Kirek could see the children and their parents make it to the road and start running down it.
“You know I care for you,” she said, dropping down into an undignified seat on the ground, putting her head in her hands. “Or at least youshouldknow that.”
Kirek felt, rather than saw, the dragon touch down next to her, the ground trembling beneath her. Heard a low moan emanate from within that cavernous chest. Kirek definitely had Samansa’s attention now, and she needed to keep it.
