Dragon Strike by E. E. Knight

Author:E. E. Knight
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-04-28T17:41:19+00:00

Chapter 13

AuRon cursed the map he’d been given. The farther he traveled from Ghioz the worse it became. It was clearly the work of a cartographer with poor sense of direction and worse sense of scale. He found landmarks that were supposed to be on the east side of a mountain on the west side, rivers flowing the wrong way, and meadows flourishing where snowcaps were supposed to reside.

He would have blamed it on a careless hominid with a taste for wine with his work, save that some of the landmarks made sense only when viewed from the air, like a lake shaped like a dragon’s sii or a mountain crevice with stunted brush growing in the sheltered crack. Had a dragon advised them, or some roc-rider with altitude-frost fogging his brain?

The map had a mark in the corner, a little design that resembled a cloverleaf with some scrawls within. AuRon decided that when he claimed his reward, he would ask which titleor was responsible for her surveys and pay him a visit. The dwarves of the Chartered Company would never have allowed such sloppy mapwork.

On one of his backtracks over the mountain forests to the south—rugged, tree-filled canyons pierced by needles of stone—a waterfall in three steps was simply not to be found. While searching for it he marked a line of those roc-riders, flying in a V-formation like migrating geese. AuRon counted nine.

Perhaps the fliers knew where the waterfall could be found.

He turned and flew hard to catch up to them. Low clouds dotted the sky and the riders wove in and out of them.

AuRon flew closer and saw that the birds held bodies in their claws—they looked like cow carcasses, but something was wrong with the shapes, both stunted and bloated.

They flew with purpose. The map, erroneous as it was, indicated that he was flying somewhere over the slopes of the Hypatian side of the Red Mountains.

He slowed, wondering if he should interfere. They might even attack him.

They altered course, dipping and rising, changing directions but keeping northward along what was some of the most difficult-looking ground AuRon had ever seen—steep slopes, tight canyons, woods thick as wolf’s fur.

The lead flier dipped. They turned a slow circle. They must see him now! But they gave no sign of it. One more circle and they dove.

They folded their wings, falling, in succession, releasing the carcasses exactly where the leader had. The burdens spun as they fell. Again AuRon could think only of small cattle or sheepskins, tied off and filled to bulging with water.

He saw them burst when they hit, splattering flame in all directions. Flame that burned momentarily with a fierce greenish light before fading to a more usual orange and yellow as it caught or died, depending on the character of the surface it landed upon.

AuRon could not tell that this pocket of forest was much different than any other patch. The trees were perhaps a little thinner.

The fliers rose back into the clouds, and smoke pulsed from the forest.

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