The Redundant Dragons by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Author:Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magic, trolls, dragons, pirates, curse, brothel, mermaids, sailors, eilzabeth ann scarborough, sunken treasure ship
Publisher: Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC

Chapter 14: Verity and Devent Off-Road Trip

They walked along companionably enough, considering that the dragon was multiple tail lengths ahead of her. This disparity in strides made talking difficult for her since even with her longer-than-average-for-a-girl legs, she couldn’t keep up with his hops.

“I don’t suppose you brought a map or a compass or anything like that?” she asked, and immediately felt silly since she knew dragons didn’t bother with such items, even if they knew what they were.

“No, but a friend of mine and I stopped at a ruined castle on a high prominence, where I heard the siren’s song. If we keep walking the ridges, we’re sure to come upon it again.”

Verity thought it a splendid idea. The stormy night had given way to a day calm and bright, the sun warm, and the view clear. After the freezing wet perch on the rocks in a storm in the dark, it felt wonderful to walk on the high mountain ridges and see so much land before her, instead of only the sea.

When a mountain sheep appeared on the opposite ridge, Devent decisively flapped his wings and hopped, flew. and pounced like a cat on the hapless animal.

Verity hadn’t realized quite how hungry she was until she smelled the cooking meat. She would have preferred not to smell the innards roasting. She knew that proper hunters removed some of the organs, but she wasn’t sure which ones, so she took slices that still had singed hair attached and ate around it.

Water was no problem. Melted snow pools were plentiful. Animals sloshed out of them and bounded away.

At night they sang. Verity felt an unaccustomed freedom traveling with Devent, because who was going to attack them? Devent was quite a well-grown dragon, with a strong voice and strengthening wings. Though Verity’s feet were tired, her spirits were high going into their fourth night on the road.

Devent made a fire and they sat by it singing, their bellies full of another mountain sheep he had dispatched before the stars came out.

They sang together, and she felt they were becoming very good friends, better friends than she had ever been with a dragon—perhaps better friends than she had been with anyone. Dragons didn’t judge. They seemed to demonstrate their estimation of your value by not eating you.

The ghost cats flickered in and out, sleeping on Devent’s back or in the curl of his quite warm belly. Sometimes they disappeared altogether, and she wondered if they were visiting their fellows who now traveled with Clodagh, wherever she might be.

Verity tried teaching Devent some songs she knew that she thought might be suitable for his voice.

They talked as if they were two human friends or, as it probably seemed to Devent, two dragon friends. Devent had never known a human female before, much less a queen, as it turned out Verity was.

She was much more interested than he expected anyone to be in the life of a mine dragon, in his work and Auld Smelt’s.

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