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

the unknown depths of the Subterranean Realms alone after that line. We’d never hear the end of it.”

I grinned, and we all started to scramble to get our gear together.

“Seriously,” I heard Rupert say from somewhere in our throng, “what the f-f-fuck could be worse than wild dragons?”

Chapter 14

The tunnel looked like it had been hewn and excavated not with shovels and pickaxes, but by the busy scrambling of a thousand strong, clawed hands. There were other marks too; the marks of shield-tough scales, where the wild dragon had forced its way up the tunnel behind the legions of the ratfolk.

“The ratfolk can actually burrow through this solid rock?” I asked in amazement, to no one in particular.

My voice bounced and echoed off the rocky walls, rebounding back the cavern that we had just left behind and forward to who-knew-where. I made a mental note to whisper from now on.

“So it would seem,” Ashrin said in a low voice from where she stalked along on my right.

Now that we were heading into properly hostile and unmapped territory, my bodyguards were taking their responsibilities a lot more seriously. Ashrin hung close on my right, Jazmyn on my left. In front of us were the combined strengths of their two coteries. Behind me came Bjorn, Rupert, and Gabby. Behind the trio were Tamsin and Renji, and their coteries.

“That’s the thing I’ve been thinking about,” Bjorn’s bass voice rumbled from behind me. “These ratfolk are obviously a hard and doughty bunch o’ bastards. If it wasn’t for their lack of intelligence, they might have proved a bit more of a handful to deal with.”

“My hypothesis would incline to lean m-m-more toward this particular nest of ratfolk never having to have dealt with intruders before,” Rupert said as we trudged ever downward. “I don’t think they had any idea of what to expect. I imagine that if they ever had t-t-to fight, against other clans or other denizens of the Subterranean Realms, then their numbers would usually suffice.”

Before long we had left the torchlight of the chamber behind and were quickly enveloped in that special and incomparable darkness that only lies under mountains. Thankfully, Will the wisp bobbed along in front of us, lighting the way.

For us dragonmancers, the slow-motion plunge into almost total blackness was not so bad. Our dragon-enhanced senses allowed us to see the world with only a little less clarity than we might ordinarily do up on the surface.

With the dragon blood flowing through my veins, I could clearly form a mental picture of my surroundings by combining my senses of smell and hearing, in a way that I could barely describe or explain even to myself.

The will-o’-the-wisp shed a cold, ghostly light ahead of us, acting like a moving flashlight to guide the coteries without the benefit of shared dragon’s blood. Just behind Will, using the wisp’s light like a miner might hold up a lamp, trod Diggens Azee.

The stumpy gnoll had taken it upon himself to act as our scout. He had lit the candle sitting on the brim of his leather hat and stomped along like someone enjoying a pleasant ramble through the wilderness. Gnoll and wisp moved about twenty paces ahead of the main body of our little company, the gnoll tapping the floors and wall of the tunnel periodically. Every now and then, Diggens would strike a wall or a stone with the handle of his pick.

When Rupert asked Diggens what he was doing, the gnoll answered drily, “Not sure if you noticed, fella, but a big-ass lizard came up these ways not too long ago. The ratfolk burrowed, moved the rock and soil aside and took it away, shoving it backward, probably to wherever the hell they came from. A dragon though… Well, a dragon is bloody raw power, isn’t it? A dragon simply shoves the earth aside, compacts it.”

“And what the fuck difference does that make?” Bjorn asked gruffly.

There came the dull sound, which I had come to recognize now, of Gabby smacking his forehead with his palm.

“Well, the earth is like you I imagine, big man,” Diggens said. “Likes a gentle touch. Doesn't like to be shoved aside unceremoniously. It gets pissed off having to put up with that sort of rough treatment. Throws tantrums. Throws wobblers—earthquakes. Lays pitfalls in a bloke’s path. I’m just being respectful like, going on ahead and sweet talking Galipolas, the cranky old bitch. Making sure that she doesn’t dump a million tons of igneous rock on our heads.”

So, the gnoll went on ahead, seemingly loving life. Basking in the danger and the thrill of potentially being crushed. Keeping up with the wisp that led us onward and downward.

The tunnel did not deviate. It ran straight and true, never changing in the angle of its downward trajectory.

“The ratfolk might be about as much use as a third armpit when it comes to warfare,” Diggens said, when I mentioned this to him during his smoko stop, “but the little ass-wipes sure know their shit when it comes to tunneling. Straight and level, taking the path of the least resistance in the rock so that they can get to grips with whoever has pissed them off as quickly as possible.”

After a half day of marching, Diggens told us to halt while he crept on ahead and looked around. He disappeared into the thick gloom, the candle on his hat brim quickly dispelled by the thick blackness. Will stayed with us, bobbing up and down like he was being carried on an invisible sea.

Within about half an hour, Diggens was back, his face lit by the candle and the promise of adventure.

“There’s another cavern further down there, and the tunnel ends,” he said as the dragonmancers gathered around him to hear his report. “Fucking big cavern. There’s a massive heap of earth and stone,