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My mind hadn’t been addled by the fine drink—it had been cleared. Despite the binding rune carved onto my chest, no human commanded me.
what I had been almost since birth: a slave dragon. Somehow, I had been set free.
Foremost among my complaints: there was no ale. I missed it. Next, I had a human on my back rather than in my mouth. Even if he had been in my mouth, all that metal armor would’ve made him a lousy meal, and I doubted this particular human was worth eating anyway. He was my ryder, Jona.
Humans called me Bayloo. I knew it wasn’t my real name because it sounded so strange to me. I had to stretch my jaw to say it properly.
Of course, there were plenty of noises dragons could make that humans couldn’t have uttered if their lives depended on it. For example: our roar. Humans sounded ridiculous when they tried. A human roar was less fearsome than a dragon’s fart.
could’ve plucked a couple of big humans out of the water for tasting, but that would’ve given the game away to Jona. Slave dragons didn’t feast on humans due to a reasonable fear of starting bad habits. Fine.
I had been the last ash dragon taken from Veralon. Rarely, if ever, had I heard a human speak of that. No one cared for the future of my race. Perhaps that was a duty that fell to me.
Rann had the look of a dragon about her, with a wonderfully longish nose (at least by human standards), dark olive skin, and eyes the color of the sun, not unlike those of an ash dragon. Her movements were catlike, sparse and quick.
One of my first acts as a free dragon had been to get a person killed. How very human of me.
We didn’t believe in Haven or the Sisters who supposedly dwelled there. Still, I think Jona had believed in some higher power. For his sake, I hoped he had made it to the Haven the humans talked about and was having a fine meal there, including pommice fruit if it suited him.
Through the magical bond, he showed me his thirst for blood, his hunger for power. There was no bend in this human. He did not desire friendship or a partner. He only wanted obedience. I was an animal, his to command. I wondered what he could sense from me, and it added to my fear.
For three days and nights, Brindisi was my constant companion (mercifully, he’d resumed wearing his dark scale armor over his chest runes after that first, horrible bare skin morning). Sometimes, in the evening, when I was free from the intensity of Brindisi’s will, I vainly listened for any sign of Jona, even though I knew he was dead. During the long nights, I wondered if he had truly died of his injuries or if Brindisi had killed him so that he might claim me.
acknowledging the gravity of the prince’s promise. I was tempted to release the gas in my bowels at that solemn moment while the prince’s pledge hung in the air, but that would’ve been a waste of some fine flatulence, as well as a unique opportunity.
I had a mind, and I needed to start using it. My plan required a fool, and he had delivered himself to me. I flashed my eyes at Dayne. I can’t do sapphire, but I managed my darkest shade of amber. I put on a display of my finest Rolman speech. “Destiny.” Dayne’s eyes bulged as a malevolent grin split his face. “Aye, destiny. You feel it too, dragon. Excellent.”
But all of Rolm is ours to protect. If it was them, we shall make them pay for their mistake.” Brindisi said it aloud, with relish, as if I’d be impressed. He sounded idiotic, even for a human. Humans really should learn how to muster a decent roar.
I locked onto two of the largest koa trees in the vicinity, one with each of my hind legs. I gave a mighty beat of my wings, ripping both trees up from the ground, roots as well. It reminded me of the way human farmers harvested potatoes, only way more impressive because I was doing it.
But they couldn’t help that they were human and I was a dragon. I could hear better than them and my nose was way more impressive. Size matters, despite what some humans claim.
The human had positioned himself behind two trees that were thick with branches, but the scale armor on my head was strong. I just shoved myself through the obstacle until my jaw reached the Mizu, cracking any branches in my way. The Mizu screamed in agony as my teeth shut on him, his armor making a satisfying crunch as my mouth closed.
“You must believe.” She made a difficult swallow. “You must believe, my child.” My chest nearly exploded upon hearing those words. I couldn’t breathe; I forgot my pain. I must’ve not understood her. My child. My child. But there was no mistake, no delirium. With a single sniff, my nose confirmed that I sat beside my own blood. The world spun as my mind raced. I had found my
After all my waiting, it turned out that humans tasted like chicken. What a disappointment.
I released a deafening roar, a sound of mourning and loss, of longing for what might have been. I hollered until my lungs were empty. At the very end, my rage turned to something like a song, my tone turning from grief to anger about what had been taken from me—stolen by the humans. When I finally stopped, and the valley became quiet again, I realized I was not alone. Other creatures had gathered. A dozen wolf-eagles, their heads a beautiful shade of silver, perched above on the rim of the mountain, staring down at the scene. Those birds were dangerous, even to a dragon if they attacked as a
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I rose to take a last look at my mother. She had freed me, but my kin were not so fortunate. They would live out their lives as slaves, unless I changed that.
Of the dozen wolf-eagles, eleven continued on their path without interruption. One disappeared into nothingness. No predator had claimed her—one moment she flew, the next she had vanished into the horizon. Then she appeared again, untouched and seemingly unaware of what had just transpired. But I knew: another of the wizard’s illusions.
“He said you were rolling around in your cave, singing about sheep bones. Badly. At one point you began dodging non-existent potatoes.”
That seemed to please him. “Legends are made swiftly, but spread slowly,” he muttered to himself. Whatever. Fools are made slowly but die swiftly.
I’d been around humans long enough to know that they were happiest living in their fantasies.
