A Laird to Hold by Angeline Fortin (free children's ebooks online .TXT) 📕

the battle. “Go!” Ashling growled loudly. Susan knew better than to argue and meekly flew toward the cover of the woods.

Sean and David came at the unsuspecting dragons, hovering over the castle, and blasted them from both sides. The grays didn’t even have time to fight back before they were spiraling toward the ground, like twin balls of fire.

“You’d think they might look up once in a while,” David said.

“I’d rather fight a dumb dragon any day,” Sean said. “Let’s head for the woods and get ready to cover our warriors when they start the ground attack.”

* * *

Grainne felt a rush of scalding heat rush past her, as she continued her desperate climb into the sky. It was very hot, and the heat seemed to steal the air from her lungs.

The explosive strength of her spell was even more powerful than she’d anticipated. It buffeted her with burning hurricane-force winds. If she survived this explosion, there was no doubt in her mind that Rundimahair would be fatally wounded by such immense power.

She managed to soar high enough into the sky that she finally outran the reach of the incredibly powerful blast. Despite her great power, Grainne felt a bit weak and unsteady, as she leveled off and looked down at the valley below.

“It worked even better than I thought it would!” she cried out, as she looked at the cracked and burning magical shield. Everywhere she looked there were signs of the splintering and cracking of Ashling’s powerful shield.

Grainne circled away from the center of the blast and dove for the edges of the shield. It was apparent that it would soon be falling apart under the strain of the explosion. She forced herself to be calm and patient. This moment had been centuries in the making. She wanted to enjoy the success of her powerful shield busting spell.

She touched the minds of her squadron leaders and told them to advance on the shielded valley. As soon as the shield fell apart, Grainne wanted her troops attacking from all sides.

She instructed them to stay on the perimeter for now and not let anyone escape. She would lead the dragons on a sweep of the center of the city and force survivors out into the clutches of her ground forces.

When she reached the center of the shield, she could see large, jagged cracks, which were quickly spreading in all directions. She unleashed a series of powerful spells against the weakest points of the magical shield, anxious to see if finally collapse.

With her mind-to-mind communication, she warned her squadron leaders to be ready to fight. There would be desperate survivors trying to flee the city. Grainne didn’t want any resident of Rundimahair to escape.

With the unrelenting attack on the critically damaged shield, it finally broke open and collapsed from the center outward. Even from her height, Grainne could now hear the shouts and screams of her sworn blood enemies down below. It was like music to her evil, twisted soul.

* * *

Ashling had treated Susan’s severe burns with her best healing spells. She’d been surprised by the damage done to the young dragon’s back. A passing blast of fire from a gray dragon shouldn’t have done so much damage.

When she began exploring the wound more carefully, she felt a chill of dread touch her heart. There was more to the wound than just burns. This had the markings of a flesh-eating spell. Somehow, Grainne had embedded this spell into her dragon’s fire.

She’d quickly warned Sean and the other dragons to watch out for this if any other dragons appeared. They couldn’t allow their fire to touch them.

The other dragons and warriors were making quick work of destroying the rest of the complex. Now that the enemy dragon defenders were slain, it was only a matter of time.

After healing the damage from the flesh-eating spell, Ashling left their medics in charge of Susan, and the other wounded. She took to the skies as her dragon self. The scene below her was at once satisfying and heartbreaking.

The once beautiful and secure complex of housing, commercial and military structures, was going up in flames. She could also see desperate hand-to- hand combat going on below.

Ashling felt satisfaction in destroying the headquarters of an enemy bent on the destruction of her people. She also couldn’t help but feel great sorrow for the needless loss of life and property.

Even though the enemy was committed to destroying Ashling’s people, at one time they’d all been part of the same angelic Sidhe. The terrible waste broke her heart.

She and the other dragons searched for enemy troops that were not engaged in close up fighting with her warriors. Wherever there was sufficient space, they would sweep down from the sky and blast the bitter enemy with fiery destruction.

It was turning into a rout as their enemy began to flee. The dragons could have destroyed them to the last person, but Ashling couldn’t bring herself to kill unarmed, fleeing soldiers.

“Enough!” she called out forcefully, mind-to-mind, to her squadron leaders. “Gather our warriors to our planned point of departure.”

When Sean landed at the wooded departure point, he quickly joined with her in opening the portal that would take them home. Despite the weariness they both felt, the portal opened smoothly and began to grow. They would soon be on their way home.

* * *

Something was not right about what was emerging from the smoky destruction below her. She could hear the screams of her enemy and see shadowy forms running in all directions in apparent panic. What was wrong was that she couldn’t feel their fear.

Grainne had reached out to touch the minds of the long-hated enemy. While there was a general feeling of panic and despair, she couldn’t pin down individual fear or terror. It just felt wrong to her. A growing fear and anger began to build in her black heart as she finally shouted, “No!”

Without waiting for the smoky haze to clear