Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas

Author:Stephen Deas [Stephen Deas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9781101575499
Google: 8fQ-NnHHjmYC
Amazon: 0575083808
Goodreads: 8752933
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2011-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

20

War

As weddings went, Jehal decided, it could have been worse. He’d had enough wine to take down a horse and no one had murdered him. Hadn’t even had much of a hangover, somehow. Two pleasant surprises in the same day. So yes, as weddings went, it could have been worse.

The morning came, the sunlight unkindly bright. They flew south. No reason to wait.

And now the Adamantine Eyries were bursting. Hyrkallan’s dragons, Sirion’s dragons, Almiri’s dragons, his own, a few from Narghon that had escaped Valmeyan in the south. Some of Zafir’s, the ones she’d lost at Evenspire. Six or seven hundred, and that wasn’t counting the dragons that weren’t fully grown. You had to laugh at that, Jehal thought, not counting the dragons that weren’t fully grown. Give it a second or two to work out that it wasn’t an egg any more and even a hatchling could kill any man that crossed its path with ease. No sucking at its mother’s tit, no blind helpless mewling. They started as they meant to go on. Vicious, mean and hungry.

Which is why we wrap chains around their necks before they’re even out of their shells and fill them with potions at their first meal. Jehal had watched a hatching once. His father hadn’t wanted him to. Didn’t want to take the chance of Hatchling Disease. Just look at Jaslyn to see he was right about that one. But he’d never taken very well to doing as he was told. He’d probably gone to watch it just because he’d been told not to. And what I saw made me forget why I’d gone. The egg cracking, splitting open, a head shooting out like an arrow, black and glittering, jaws already open, clamping on the armoured arm of the nearest handler. He was a big man, but you flung him back and forth like a doll. Practically tore his arm out of its socket before the rest of them jumped on you. Six men and you were still half in your egg, only born seconds ago. And you shook them off. You let go of the first man and bit the hand clean off another one instead. I remember you knocked two of them over with a slash of your tail. The first one was the lucky one. You broke both his legs but at least his helmet stayed on. The second one lost his. I’ll never forget that, the gleam in your eye when you saw his face, the terror in his. There was nothing anyone could do to stop you. Jaws and claws and fire all at once. You ripped his head clean off. What was left of it. I remember the smell, the stink as he emptied his bowels, the reek of burnt skin and hair. You could have had the rest of them, I have to believe that because I was there and I saw what you did. But you paused then to admire what you’d done and that was when they got the chain around your neck.

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.