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

passage, so the drake relayed, and found a lightly held fortress—mostly in ruins, but once strong and proud. The report is brief, but it mentions a small garrison of ratfolk and kobolds holding it. The two dragonmancers and their forces took the garrison.”

Renji stepped up from behind me and, without saying a word to interrupt the General, pressed something hard and warm into my palm. Looking down, I saw that it was another ring: a blue stone flecked with light blue veins held in silver.

The stone of Pan, Tempest Dragon, and my third son.

“That doesn’t sound so bad, if they managed to defeat the force holding this ruined fortress,” I said, slipping the ring onto the ring finger of my right hand, next to where Wayne’s stone sat on my pinky finger.

The General snorted; a mirthless sound.

“No, that doesn’t,” she said. “However, shortly after taking the fortress and securing it, Elenari and Antou were attacked by a force issuing from yet another tunnel. A far larger force made up of kobolds, well supplied, well-armed, and well-organized.”

“An ambush?” I breathed.

The General jerked her head, which I took as a nod.

“The second messenger-drake though, is what concerned me most,” she said. “The poor little creature had been pierced with a crossbow bolt and expired shortly after relaying its communication. What it said though was this: ‘Three wild ones’...”

“Three wild ones…” I said. My eyes narrowed and, almost, I grabbed General Shiloh by the shoulder and shook her.

“You don’t mean three fucking wild dragons?” Tamsin blurted from behind me. “General,” she added.

Ignoring the lack of propriety, General Shiloh nodded again.

No one said anything, but there were looks exchanged that conveyed more than words could have done. Mostly, those looks said ‘Fuuuuuuck, did you see the fight that one of those things put up against two members of the Empress’ Twelve in Titan form?’

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, almost in answer to this unspoken question. “It doesn’t matter what is waiting for us. Elenari is down there. Antou, while I haven’t met her, is one of us too. That’s enough for me. Should be enough for all of us.”

Resolve hardened in the assembled dragonmancers standing around me. Jaws took on a stubborn cast. Hands crept to weapons.

I had not even acknowledged or taken notice of what time it was. Only now, as I regarded the brave and steadfast women standing around me, did I realize that the first light of dawn was being reflected in the armor they were hastily strapping on.

The eastern sky was washed with watery pink and mauve. The tips of the teeth of the mountains were beginning to flush with the light of day, but the fir trees covering their knees still stood like black spikes in the night that lingered on the lower slopes. A few early birds, clearly intent on getting to the worm early, were clearing their throats in the hedgerows were sending out a few tentative warblings. I could smell crushed lavender nearby.

Looked and smelled like it was going to be a beautiful day. Incongruously clement, what with the foul news we were all having to digest for breakfast.

“I admire your determination and bulldog spirit, Dragonmancer Noctis,” General Shiloh said approvingly. “It’s the sort of thing that can’t be taught to a dragonmancer, only learned. However, boldness and pertinacity alone cannot carry you all the way against such long odds.”

“Which is why we’ll be coming with you, Mike,” Ashrin said as she and Jazmyn stepped out of the shadows and into the flickering firelight.

I regarded the two dragonmancers, clad in their all-black armor, as I pulled on my own hauberk and fastened my greaves to my legs. There wasn’t anything I could say.

We were, all of us, dragonmancers, and that alone was enough to merit risking our necks to save those of our comrades.

I smiled a tight, grim smile. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day, sure you’re happy to waste it going underground?”

Jazmyn shrugged. Her dark eyes were hidden in pools of shadow.

“Meh,” she said, with that brand of casual dryness that was unique to soldiers about to head out into mortal peril. “It’s probably going to rain later, and I’ve got nothing much else on.”

There was a little brittle laughter from the rest of the gathered dragonmancers at this. The kind of laughter that snaps off at the edges and leaves sharp, uncomfortable shards of silence in its wake.

Silently, Penelope handed me my gauntlets, and I fastened them to my forearms.

“Right then,” General Shiloh said, “now that that’s settled. All of you get the hell out of here and bring our girls and their troopers home. There’ll be no time for your squads to follow, so you’ll be on your own. Get in, get out, and stay alive. That’s what the mission objective is today: preserving the life of your compatriots. Might sound easy, what with your capabilities, but it’s just when the easy route opens up that life can prove to be the most vengeful.”

“If it’s survival of the fittest, General, then there are none fitter,” Penelope said, her shy voice quavering more because she was stepping forward to be the center of attention, rather than because she was scared.

General Shiloh grimaced. “I don’t think it’s going to be a case of survival of the fittest today, dragonmancer,” she said in a low and thoughtful voice. “More likely it’s going to be a case of survival of the smartest, and the most heavily armed. Now, go!”

* * *

The seven of us—Penelope, Saya, Tamsin, Renji, Jazmyn, Ashrin and myself—raced on dragonback back into the bowels of the Subterranean Realms.

Our dragons, inculcated with the same urgency that drove us, ran like a pack of tireless greyhounds. We flashed through the heart of the sleepy encampment like ghosts. The dragons made little