The Best Dragon Rider by Tami Veldura

Author:Tami Veldura [Veldura, Tami]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tami Veldura
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

--//--

20 Years Later

Stablemaster Neron snapped his fingers at a teenager he caught leaning against the hallway as he rounded the corner. Everything had to be in perfect shape, every grain of sand in its place, every dragon on her best behavior. And every worthless child hidden away in their dorm except for the few oldest teens required to keep the stables running. The boy he'd caught scowled at him, but jogged away promptly toward the dorm.

Neron understood their curiosity, but he couldn't risk it ruining his plans. If all went well he would be the richest stablemaster outside of Ferro Amier this afternoon.

A dragon racer was coming to inspect his dams personally. If she liked what she saw, Neron was positioned to give her exclusive access to any and all of the racing lines he had bred to perfection. Rumor had it she'd raced a dragon from this very stable in her first rise to the podium. Neron was hoping to capitalize on that nostalgia with every hatchling he had.

Neron found his manager in the butchering room with a small board and a checklist. Seager's scowl was a permanent fixture, at the moment focused on the two young women working in tandem to butcher and feed a hatchery and stable full of nearly fifty prime stock racing dragons. Several sheep were quartered and stacked onto sleds, several more in their pen awaiting slaughter, and Seager slowly counted off the dams that had been fed.

"You've fallen behind," he said as Neron approached. "Move faster or you'll miss dinner."

"We need more help," one of the girls replied. "There's only two of us."

"Shut your yap or you'll miss breakfast too." Seager made a note on his checklist and turned away.

Neron caught his shoulder. "Seager I need you to change into a clean shirt and meet me at the front gate."

Seager looked down at his rough-hewn, stained shirt. It had two holes down one side and a tear in the hem. "What's wrong with this one, boss?"

Neron tried not to sigh. Seager was good for keeping the others in line, but he wasn't much use for anything else. "Your best shirt, Seager. We have an important guest."

"Ok, boss."

Neron eyed the two girls who had stopped work at the sight of him. Perhaps his new suit had been worth the money by the look of their wide eyes. "Keep yourselves out of sight," he said. "I don't want you interrupting this meeting."

"Yes, Stablemaster," one of them said, elbowing the other. She parroted the line.

Neron left them to their work.

He straightened his light-colored jacket from it's hem at the bottom and flicked a grain of sand off of his pale slacks. All of his fabrics had been chosen for their airflow, which allowed Neron to step into the blazing afternoon sun without immediately swimming in sweat.

As requested, Seager met him at the gate in what Neron suspected really was his best shirt. The fabric had twisted out of shape some time ago and now sagged awkwardly in the middle, but it was free of holes and mostly of stains.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.