Dragonslayer by Matthew Lang

Author:Matthew Lang [Lang, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy
ISBN: 978-1-64080-389-3
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-09-25T05:00:00+00:00

ADAM HEARD Esmeralda’s footsteps move away from him, pause, and then continue, almost as if she’d stopped to pick something up. With the sound of her footsteps receding up the corridor and the pad-pad-pad-swish of Zoul’s six-legged gait following, Adam was left in the silence of the dead. There was little blood, most of it having been consumed by Xavier’s flames, along with the bodies of Darius and whichever lizard it was that had attacked him. Indeed the entire room smelled more like a burned roast than an abandoned mortuary. Absently he wondered if he should close Xavier’s eyes or possibly move the necromancer’s sprawled form into a more dignified pose. Everyone deserved dignity in death, and in giving that to Xavier, Adam could demonstrate that he was the better person. Of course, that would require him to actually be a better person, which he wasn’t. He considered giving Darius some dignity in death, but he couldn’t actually bring himself to touch the body. Or rather the ashes that had once been the body. Had once been Darius. Bile rose in his throat, but there was nothing left to throw up.

When his stomach stopped heaving, he climbed back up the rubble pile to stare at the bones. Unlike the fossilized bones of dinosaurs he had always been fascinated by, these bones weren’t the smooth black of fossils. These were the heavily stained brown of old bones buried in the dirt while various creepy-crawlies ate away the flesh one scale and muscle fiber at a time. He pushed at the lower jaw with his foot, the reptilian V of the bone as long as his torso, and the entire maw easily big enough to swallow him whole. He reached down, plucked one of the large fangs from its socket, and turned it over and over in his hands, looking at the grooves in the still-sharp teeth that in other circumstances could probably be sharpened further into a serviceable blade. Looking at the rest of the skull, he noticed the eye sockets were big enough for him to fit his head into, and in a fit of pique, he clambered up farther and attempted to stick his head in. Then he revised his estimate of the size to nearly big enough to fit his head into.

Adam had assumed the dragon had been crested, just like Zoul and the other lizards were. Thinking back, he couldn’t recall if the dragon Khalivibra had a crest or not. Somehow he’d been too busy focusing on other things when he’d seen her—like the great wings, sharp teeth, and the running away really fast. The blackened spike he had taken for a crest-bone was actually the pitted blade of a sword, and reaching under the skull, Adam closed his hand over the hilt of an ancient weapon. Yanking hard, he tumbled to the floor, falling flat on his back and narrowly avoiding cracking his head open.

The sword itself was a bit of a let-down, the blade scarred

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