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

was beaded with perspiration. “It means ‘Formidable’ in my native tongue.”

“Well, if he’s anything like his mother,” I said.

The dragonling, Pan, seemed to have no qualms about roasting the Etherstone into liquid with a stream of bright red fire. It reminded me of a laser beam that would have been used to dissect James Bond by one of his villainous foes.

Pan liquified the crystal in a matter of seconds, looked curiously at me and Tamsin, and then got down to slurping it up off the dirt floor. In far less time than it had taken the enervated Wayne, Pan had siphoned up the dissolved Etherstone and curled up to await his transformation.

“Before he gets going, before he metamorphoses,” Tamsin said, “would you mind getting him the hell out of this tent. I’m not eager to have this tent blown away and me left with my ass out for the whole world to see.”

“But it’s such a great ass,” I said.

Tamsin threw a pillow at me and settled back into the furry hides she was reclining on.

“I’m going, I’m going,” I said.

I put Pan in the fringes of the wood that our little dragonmancer camp backed onto and left him to make his great change. While I waited, I went and sat on a fallen log not too far away.

The night was balmy, with a fresh breeze that stirred my hair and ran a cooling finger across my booze-flushed cheek. It was nice, simply sitting there and listening to the sounds of the night and the distant uproar of the festival in the street further off. I realized then, that I had not simply taken some time to be alone with my thoughts for a long time—too long.

A crunching of feet on the underbrush made me turn my head a fraction.

“Do you m-m-mind if I join you, Mike?” Rupert asked.

I patted the log next to me. “Pull up a pew, my man,” I said.

“Thanks very much,” the twitchy medic said. “I find myself in n-n-n-need of a little fresh air.”

“Well, this air is definitely fresher than the stuff available in the main camp,” I said.

We sat in companionable silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Occasionally, Rupert would give a little flurry of twitches or one of his sharper spasms that came when he was doing some serious thinking.

My lips had just parted to ask the highly intelligent medic what sort of dragon he believed Pan might turn into, when the trees around us were lit with a blue light of such fierceness that Rupert tumbled backward off the log with a squawk.

Lightning crackled through the edge of the wood, leaping from branch to branch, setting off a few little spot fires in the underbrush that quickly burned themselves out. A wind whipped up, and there was a sudden rush of cool air as the atmosphere in our immediate vicinity changed. If there had been a barometer present, it would have been going all over the place.

Pan emerged from the trees, moving on wide legs. He was the pure, lovely color of cobalt. As sleek and smooth and shiny as a bullet train. There were a pair of curling ram’s horns protruding from his head, dull silver in color. Two dark blue tusks jutted down from his upper jaw and past his lower one. His wings lightened from dark blue at the joints to sky blue at the tips.

He was, in short, a handsome and totally captivating creature.

I cocked my head to one side and looked up at the sky. Overhead, three black shapes wheeled.

“Go on,” I said aloud to Pan. “Go on and meet your brethren. I’ll explain it to your mother.”

Pan spread his wings, let out a shrieking cry of pure delight, and launched himself into the air. The trees around him bent backward, as the air pressure changed. Lighting crackled once more, forks of electricity running across the ground and leaving scorch marks on tree trunks.

“So, that would b-b-be a Tempest Dragon, then,” Rupert said in a small voice.

“A Tempest Dragon?” I asked.

Rupert nodded. “A dragon that can harness the power of the storm.”

High above, clouds gathered and obscured the proud, bright face of the moon. Within them, thunder rolled, and dragons roared.

* * *

The next day, I was the recipient of one of the world’s all-time great hangovers. Thankfully, the cure arrived with a visit from Old Sleazy, who came bearing a meaty sandwich dripping in melted cheese and with a side of perfectly fried onion rings.

From the quietness and the air of delicateness that pervaded the camp, I was far from alone in this respect. When I finally left my pallet to breathe the fresh air and pour myself a coffee, I saw men and women walking about with the feeble gait of people who felt like their heads were about to fall off.

The day ended up passing quite nicely, once everyone was sure that General Shiloh was not going to ask us to do anything. We stayed wrapped in our blankets, sat around the campfire, and got to know the newest member of our rapidly growing dragon family.

The day was overcast, and there was that heavy, brooding feeling that precedes a humdinger of a storm. I had no idea if Pan was responsible for this temperamental weather or if it was just the mountain’s usual capriciousness.

All the dragons had been released from their crystals by their respective dragonmancers, and they lounged around the campfire, snapping scraps from out of the air, and napping. Toward dusk, the dragons took to the air to go hunting, taking advantage of the downtime to build their strength and hone their killing skills.

I called it a night early. I must have imbibed more than my fair share because it took a lot of grog to