I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2) Marc Secchia (most read books .TXT) 📖

legs, Dragon sprang sideways and then ran up the steep side of the gulley, throwing them off their aim, before leaping free with a violent, exuberant twist that brought him down atop the gully-spanning wall. Four-pawed catch.

He bared his fangs in fury. BBRRROOOARRRGGHH!!

White fire blasted out of his jaw, bathing the length of the battlement in blistering flames. Several men leaped away before the fire reached them, but a fall from this height for a Human was no trivial matter, he had learned. Dull thuds proclaimed their demise. That left this gate unguarded. Next, he must deal with whatever trouble had beset Azania and Yardi. Ripping the huge crossbeam out of its slots with a violent flexion, Dragon hefted the wood onto his shoulder and rushed toward the innermost gate, where Chalice’s flame flared bright through the cracks.

“Get that net secured!”

“Ballistae – load up, you fools!” another voice cursed.

Clong! “Take that!” Yardi’s voice, no doubt punctuated by the fine ring of her hammer.

He loved grammar, especially when an exclaiming enemy came to a full stop.

One must always be sure to hammer a point home.

Thundering in rage, Dragon leaped for the top of the final battlement, and came up short. The crossbeam slewed off his shoulder, knocking three soldiers off the wall.

Why had he even been carrying the beam?

Bruised ribs, scraped belly and a wrenched knee later, he was over. Fire! White hosed from his mouth, bathing the battlements, the courtyard and the castle itself as he used the brightness of his fires to target the enemy wherever they moved. Chalice squirmed beneath a heavy reinforced net, while a squad of soldiers tried to fight their way into a narrow stone doorway that must lead to the portcullis mechanism.

Dragon slapped them aside with the flat of his paw. “Leave my women alone!”

Whirling, he tail-lashed them on the fly, crumpling the squad against their own battlement. “Stuff that up your semicolon!”

Erm … whatever.

“Princess, alright in there?”

“Now we are, thank you. Yardi’s hurt but alright. Safe to come –”

Whurr-whap!

Dragon roared as a ballista quarrel slashed through his upraised wing, missing the arch of his spine by a talon’s breadth. Trying for the disabling shot, were they? Consumed by a blind fury, he sprang twenty feet into the air and clawed his way up the side of the castle, beating his wings to help him reach the ballistae set on a pair of turrets. The quickness of the second crew saw a quarrel embedded shallowly in his right flank, a long wound but not deep, as he dealt with the first ballista. He sprang over and smashed the second off its mount.

By then, Chalice had thrashed free of the net and was making merry down below, clearing the courtyard area.

Yardi called, “Smashed the mechanism. Just the gate now, Dragon.”

Rushing down the side of the castle, he paused briefly to aim fire at several faces he glimpsed in the narrow windows.

Little dots in stone parentheses.

He landed hard but safely and stalked over to the castle’s main doors. They had been barred at multiple levels, as best he could tell.

“Fire them!” Azania ordered, rushing up to his neck.

Pure white billowed before him. Thirty seconds. A minute. The Princess picked off an archer, while Chalice amused herself by setting the keep’s door and then the wooden storage sheds inside the battlements on fire.

His white stream guttered.

“Oh! That hasn’t happened before.”

The main gates were burning merrily now, however. He hoped he could produce an artistically charred ruin for the King’s forces to admire on their way in.

Dragon cracked open his jaw. No fire at all. He had a raging –

“Drink from the fountain?” Azania suggested.

“Good idea.”

He drank thirstily, while the Princess helped Yardi to secure a temporary bandage around her left forearm. Sword cut. He gulped hard as with a dull whomp inside his chest somewhere, the ignition process restarted and he had to gush fire once more at the gate, or something inside of him might tear all over again. Imagining himself to be a blacksmith, he played the stream against the crossbeams and locks, experimenting with where the fire was hottest. Metal dripped and ran like water.

Grr! Chalice snarled. GNARR! “Stupid door!”

A loud crash advertised more destruction. Having a merry old time, Dragoness? He saw darkness through the massive timbers now. Turning about, Dragon cocked his hind paw and smashed the wood apart with a powerful kick. GRABOOM!

“Maybe rip that one off its hinges?” Azania suggested politely.

He wanted to warn the little Human not to sneak up on a Dragon while he was engaged in honourable pillaging, but realised that would only sound foolish and ungrateful. Instead, he said, “I think you could do it at this stage, Princess.”

He pressed through the stone archway and finished the job, heaping up the burning timbers in order to maximise the damage.

“Yardi? Princess? Let’s mount up.”

Chalice purred, “Just when I was getting started.”

“I left an entire gate for you to tear apart,” he grinned back. “Yardi, I dropped that outer portcullis by mistake. Shall we take a stroll out of Lord Varlan’s castle, tidying up a few items along the way?”

After all, one would not like to leave any participles – or particles – dangling.

Dragons preferred complete sentences. So erudite.

Chapter 16: Beginning of the End

SMOKE STILL BILLOWED OUT of the castle by the next morning. Something must have caught in there. Unlucky. A nice, thick and symmetrical plume, however. Rather tasteful, all things considered. To his left, the Princess changed Yardi’s bandages.

He sidled over to admire her stitches. “See? You can do fine needlework, Princess.”

“Hardly a skill I prized until now. Still, all that instruction does seem to have come in useful, especially as pertains to sewing up your mouth –