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

dragon. Many great dragonriders, it had been said, had been thrown from their dragons by a single lucky shaft. It was commonly believed that an arrowstorm was one of the greatest dangers that faced any dragonmancer.

The flurry of shafts arched into the air. With twin roars of fury, the gold and silver dragon swooped away out of the path of the arrows.

“Proud and dangerous,” Garth said, within my head. “But not fucking stupid, hey Dad?”

“Unfortunately not,” I agreed.

The wild dragons flew around, coming at the wall again. Once more, arrows leapt skyward, and the dragons banked away. This time, the golden beast let loose a jet of terribly beautiful fire that splashed up the ruined wall like gnawing, burning paint.

I expected the wall to simply crumble where the dragonfire made contact but, miraculously, the fire splashed and ran off it like water off a duck’s back.

“What the…?” Renji gasped.

“Goodness me!” Penelope squeaked, her love for all that was new and interesting eclipsing her caution so that I had to pull her back down into the cover of the shadows.

“What is it?” I asked the wide-eyed Knowledge Sprite.

Penelope’s skin was flushed a darker blue in her excitement.

“It looks like the stone with which that fortress was constructed is impervious to dragonfire!” she hissed excitedly, patting her pockets for a fragment of parchment or a notebook, I had no doubt. “I have heard of such things, heard theories for the kinds of spells that were said to be able to do such things, but never seen evidence of them!”

“How can that old-ass building deflect dragonfire and yet still be close to falling down?” Saya asked, her bright blue eyes glued on the action taking place before us.

Penelope shrugged. “If I had to postulate, I would say that it is simply that things might well be protected from all sorts of degradation, but nothing can be effectively protected from the ravages of time. It is the great winner.”

The golden dragon swept away to land, thwarted for the time being by the defenders, although I did see a couple of sad little burning figures plummet from the top of the wall where they had been caught by a splash of the beast’s flames.

The silver dragon turned a back somersault in the air and headed toward a stretch of wall that was less well manned than the section that had been attacked at first.

“Oh gods,” Renji muttered to herself.

A few desultory arrows shot out to meet the oncoming threat, but the silver dragon was a fantastic flyer and corkscrewed out of danger, so that the arrows deflected off its spinning flanks. It opened its mouth to let loose a torrent of deadly fire.

Gharmon, Elenari’s Emerald Dragon, appeared out of nowhere, shooting unexpectedly up from the edges of the wall and flew out to meet the silver.

“Elenari!” I said to nobody in particular.

I could see the elf’s red head, sitting in between Gharmon’s wing joints.

The two dragons met each other in mid-air, above the screeching hordes of the kobolds, and each beast let loose a burst of fire. Mercurial silver fire met a frosty blast of cold air. The torrents of dragonfire fought against each other, like two opposing laser beams. The dragons circled and maneuvered, each striving to force the other dragon’s flame back down its owner’s throat.

More arrows leapt up and rattled along the silver’s side. With the silver dragon being totally distracted by Elenari and Gharmon’s attack, it could spare no thought for dodging the unforgiving projectiles. I saw two shafts hit the great silver wings and pierce them.

The silver flinched, and Gharmon’s frosty breath raked it across its shoulder.

There was a hiss of steam, and a rending bellow of pain. The silver dragon dropped and sped away from the walls. Glittering scales fell like rain onto the kobolds below.

A ragged cheer went up from the defenders on the wall, as Elenari turned Gharmon back to safety and disappeared again behind the curtain of stone.

I let out the breath that I had not realized I had been holding. I punched a fist into my palm and only just resisted crowing Elenari’s name in triumph.

“We’re going to take these damned dragons,” I said vehemently. “And their fucking pet kobolds!”

“I hope those lizardy kobold shits have given their hearts to whatever dragons or gods it is that they worship,” Saya growled, “because their asses are mine.”

During the exchange of dragonfire, I had noticed Ashrin and Jazmyn minutely scoping out the battlefield. The two members of the Twelve were crouched next to one another and muttering into one another’s ears. Keeping as low as I could, I scooted over next to them, leaving Penelope scribbling feverishly away with a bit of charcoal in a notebook she had obtained from somewhere in her blue robes.

“What do your expert eyes see?” I asked the two women, without preamble.

“A fuckin’ mess,” Jazmyn said grimly.

Ashrin sighed. “Battle always looks like a shitfight turned up to eleven,” she said. “All of us know that. Any commander who tries and tells you that there’s ever some sort of order to it once the killing starts is lying like a dog with no legs. What we have down here though, looks messy. Real messy.”

I scanned the gathered mass of kobolds pressing forward, sandwiched between the wall in front and the wild dragons behind. Near the back of the army of lizard-men, I could see scaling ladders being pushed through the ranks.

“So, the walls can’t be breached by dragonfire,” I said. “That’s something, but as soon as those scaling ladders start finding purchase, Elenari’s troops are going to last all of ten minutes. The attackers have the numbers. Once they start scaling the walls, our soldiers will have to divide their time, and their own numbers, between the dragons in the