Dragonlove (Dragonfriend Book 2) by Marc Secchia

Author:Marc Secchia [Secchia, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-08-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20: To Rise on Wings

TWo days of skulking through a foetid swamp wearing two large holes in his hide was enough to make any Dragon snappish. Grandion knew that Lia had been right to force him to dig the crossbow quarrels free with his own talons. The Dragon ate well, supping on three anacondas, any one of which would have made a tidy meal of his tiny companion. She picked off eager swarms of swamp leeches attracted by the scent of his blood in the water, and ignored him otherwise.

That third morning, as a misty dawn leached unwillingly through the trees–the Dragon imagined such a dawn, straining to touch his hide with a breath of heat tempered by the damp–Lia muttered, “I sense giants.”

“All passengers aboard,” Grandion said cheerfully.

Hualiama sighed and climbed up his thigh, eschewing a proffered paw.

“May I use your sight?”

She sighed again. “If you must.”

“I won’t touch anything else.”

“Sure. I trust you.”

Never had words rung hollower. Grandion’s belly-fires declared his frustration all too eloquently. The Dragon reached for her sight as the pint-sized paragon of vexation who masqueraded as a Dragon Rider clambered up to his shoulders.

With serpentine undulations of his body, the Dragon navigated the waterways, using his tail as a rudder and for propulsion, and his mighty paws as additional paddles to push through the reeds, muck and rotten vegetation. He swam the deeper parts. Thirty-foot giant salamanders and toothy reptiles Grandion recognised from a scroll attacked them repeatedly. “Crocodiles,” he said. “One of Dramagon’s misadventures.” Drawing no response from his Rider, he added, “It seems Dramagon did not encourage visitors.”

She said, “These three years, the spirit of Dramagon has been your mentor.”

The Tourmaline Dragon choked on his own fires.

He stared unseeing into the swamp-mists. Misery. A mighty Dragon, reduced to borrowing a Human’s inferior eyesight–and he should be grateful for the pittance. Bitter dark-fires soured his stomach. When a crocodile snapped at his left thigh, Grandion crushed it with a single bite, thinking how impossible it was to fathom that Lia’s words could wound worse than a Dragon’s claws or fangs. He had never imagined … she was speaking. His Dragon hearing brought her speech to his ear-canals with perfect clarity.

Hualiama said, “Before he died, Amaryllion Fireborn spoke to me at length. One thing I remember is what he said about love, that some creatures–he meant me–are given the power to love with such power and purity, that no taboo can stand against. He did not warn me that love can make us vulnerable. In my life, I’ve made terrible mistakes. But I have always allowed love its way, no matter the anguish and suffering it might cost.”

Why did she speak of love, the Dragon wondered? He knew many words for love. Did she mean kinship-love, sacred-love, roost-love, or heavens forbid–

“You and I are taboo-breakers, Grandion. We’ve broken, and continue to break, one of the oldest taboos in existence on this Island-World.”

What they had done was to obey the obligation of oaths recklessly taken, but grave in their consequence! Yet, he would never recant.

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