Dragon Breeder 3 by Dante King (e novels to read online .TXT) 📕

chunks of charcoaled bones, the scattering of bronze scales lying around like a giant’s loose change.

“Do not mourn the fallen,” Noctis’ deep, wizened voice said, echoing in my head. “The fate of that dragon is how all dragons should die. It is a test that we face each time we come together in battle. The one and only test that matters. The ultimate test. Win or die. It is the way of dragonkind.”

This mollified me somewhat.

“Ah!” Diggens exclaimed suddenly, as Ashrin and Jazmyn shrank and morphed and changed back into their normal forms. “Would that be that wisp you were yapping on about yesterday, Dragonmancer Noctis?”

I had spotted the thing at the same time that Diggens had let out his cry.

“That’s it,” I said, my eyes narrowing.

The will-o’-the-wisp hovered over to where the few remains of the wild dragon lay, still smoldering. At the same time, Rupert gave a great gasp of wonder and pushed his way through the gathered coterie members, leaving Ashrin’s squad members smiling bemusedly behind him.

“What is it?” I asked, my eyes flicking from the face of my medic to the wisp still hovering over the smoking dragon ruins.

Rupert moved forward in the dazed fashion of a somnambulist; his eyes glued to the greasy smear that had once been a full-grown dragon.

I followed him and, as I came up behind him, I saw what had caught his attention. Behind a three-foot-long blackened log that might have been a rib, there was a glittering pile of dust.

“What the hell is that?” I asked. The pile of dust, now that it had caught my eye, held it. There was something about it, the glittering pile of fine powder, that called to me. “And how did it survive the incineration of the rest of the beast?”

Rupert did not answer me. He staggered forward and dropped to his knees.

“Rupert…” I said. “This isn’t a crystal, but I think it’s important. I think whatever this is… I’ve got a feeling that maybe… Could it be the very thing that might bring back my potency?”

Without so much as offering any sort of exegesis or answer, Rupert Dyer pulled a stiletto from his boot, scraped a line of the powder toward him, and lowered his face to it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, partner!” Bjorn shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

Gabby stepped forward and jabbed pointedly at his own head, indicating, in as economical a way as I had ever seen, that Rupert must be crazy to go shoving some unknown powder from the inside of a smoking dragon corpse into his nose.

Rupert stared at Bjorn and Gabby with the same dreamy expression on his face, but said nothing. Then, before anyone else could say a word, he dropped his face to the greasy black floor and hoovered the line of powder up his nostril. It was as if the tweaked out little man had no choice in the matter.

"No!” Jazmyn yelled. “You stupid dumbass, it could be poisonous!"

Rupert turned and straightened up. His eyes had taken on this crazy glassy look, a wondrous haze filming them over. He got to his feet and spread his hands, a beatific smile lighting up his face. One eyelid twitched. In that fucking Robin Hood hat of his, he looked more than a little deranged.

“Boy oh boy,” Rupert crowed, “that stuff has some kick to it!”

Our entire company burst out laughing at the sight of the little, gangly medic. It did not take a genius to see why.

Rupert was sporting an absolutely enormous erection. Pitching the sort of tent that you might more reasonably expect to see on the great plains of North America during the 1700s.

"I may only be a j-j-journeyman apothecary,” Rupert said over the gales of laughter, “but I know legendary dragondust when I see it. This isn't poisonous. It’s nature’s finest and most heady aphrodisiac!”

Bjorn charged forward, completely forgetting himself in his eagerness to get a nostrilful of the dragondust, but Ashrin clamped an immovable hand on his massive bicep and stopped him in his tracks. She gave him a thin smile and shook her head.

“Let’s get this stuff gathered up,” she said. “We have one item already; one facet of the mission is complete. I can scarcely believe our luck. Not only have we found it, but we now know where to get it from and how to harvest it in the future.”

“But we still need the crystals,” Jazmyn said, speaking loud enough to be heard by everyone in the company. “Stay bright-eyed! Keep your head on a swivel! This is not over yet!”

I nodded. Jaz was right. We had what I needed to produce more dragons, but we were yet to find a crystal home for Wayne.

I set my jaw. We had been damned lucky to find this dragondust, but we still had a job to do. Finding one crystal was the key goal, but I’d need more if I was going to produce any more dragonlings.

And I sure as shit meant to do that.

The Empire was counting on me.

Chapter 13

After the battle with the wild dragon, Empire soldiers came marching from the Dodge City-like base at the main mine entrance of Galipolas Mountain. They also came from further down in the tunnel system. The sounds of fighting had drawn their attention.

Within half an hour of having recovered the dragondust, we were surrounded by a couple of companies of troopers, each and every one of them looking mildly shell-shocked by the state of the carnage that we had wrought in the chamber.

I doubted it was the sight of the bodies, per se, that shocked them—after all, the Mystocean Empire was a war-like realm surrounded by other war-like realms. What brought many of the seasoned fighting women and men up short, I thought, was the fact that such a