Rundimahair: A new hero for a new adventure Larry Forkner (best ereader for pc TXT) 📖

but careful pace with the upcoming generation of gifted children and young adults. While the results were mostly gratifying, there were also disappointments, and there was much to do before they would be battle ready.

Testing had revealed that many of their students had the potential for gifts and powers that everyone had been unaware of until now. More than once, Ashling berated herself noisily because she’d neglected doing more in-depth testing on their youth in the past.

One evening she was bemoaning her failures when Eamon had heard enough. “Daughter of mine, hear me well. I won’t listen to another word from you on this subject. We all allowed ourselves to enjoy the years of peace and prosperity.”

“But I knew better, Da,” she replied earnestly.

“And I didn’t? Saints preserve us, Ashling, we all knew better. And it’s not like we didn’t take precautions against being discovered.”

“It appears that wasn’t enough,” Ashling said.

“It does appear so, my dear daughter. The point I’m trying to make is that we gave our all when we moved our beloved homeland to America. It was just a young, mostly undiscovered land, far from our own homeland. It took all we had to give to accomplish such a great task. We hoped it would be enough to keep us safe forever.”

“Or at least three hundred years,” Ashling said, nodding.

“Aye, that is true, my dear. With centuries of peace and plenty, I suppose we allowed ourselves to believe it would last forever. We should have been doing more and we both know it.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Ashling said.

“And I couldn’t agree with you more if I tried. My point is that berating yourself day after day is not helping. In truth, it’s hurting us. Our full attention needs to be on training our young’uns up so they can join with us in defending our new homeland.”

Ashling sighed heavily and slowly nodded. “You’re speaking truth, Da’. Sean’s already reminded me that it’s too late to change the past. My blubbering over lost opportunity is only slowing down our training.”

“That’s my girl,” Eamon said, as he pulled her into a gentle embrace. “You and Sean keep working with our youth, and the rest of the council will keep working on the more experienced among us.”

“You mean the old fogeys among us?” Ashling asked sweetly.

Eamon let her go and stepped back, as he said, “I prefer the term, experienced, my dear.”

She laughed and said, “Me too, Da. After all, I’m one of those “experienced” folk myself.”

“You don’t look a day over one hundred and fifty,” he said, ducking nimbly when she threw a couch pillow at him.

* * *

“Your sweet, old grandma can move faster than that!” Sean shouted from where he stood on the ground.

David, in his dragon form, evidently heard Sean’s snide remark. He quickly turned a graceful arch upward, before nose diving toward Sean at incredible speed. Just before he collided with Sean, David leveled off and singed the ground next to Sean with a decent-sized fireball.

“Not bad,” Sean shouted, as David turned and shot back into the air with another burst of speed.

“He’s really progressing fast,” someone said from behind Sean.

He turned and wasn’t a bit surprised to see it was Susan talking. Sean smiled and said, “That he is, Susan.”

“I bet no one else has learned to be a great dragon as fast as him,” she said, as her eyes followed his flight across the sky.

“He’s a special young fellow, no doubt about that,” Sean said.

Susan’s brow furrowed as she stepped up beside Sean and asked, “Then why are you always so hard on him?”

“For the same reason Ashling is hard on me in my training,” Sean said, smiling. “She wants to push me to be my very best, and I want to push David to be even better.”

Susan was quiet for a moment before nodding her head, as she said, “I get what you’re saying but isn’t there a gentler way to bring out the best in him?”

“This isn’t teaching them to play soccer or basketball,” Ashling said, as she came to stand beside Sean.

Susan look startled to see Ashling, and looked at the ground as she replied, “I understand that, but can’t we bring out our best in a more encouraging way,

Ashling sighed as she stepped over to stand by Susan. She put her arm around her shoulder and said, “We do encourage David, along with the rest of you. Everyone responds to encouragement differently. With you, all I have to do is suggest you try something and I know you’re going to bust a gut doing all you can and then some.”

Susan looked up at Ashling and slowly nodded her head. “You’re saying that David doesn’t necessarily do it that way.”

“As much time as you’ve spent with David, I’m quite sure you know that is true. He needs to be pushed and challenged, from time to time, if we’re going to make him the best dragon he can be.”

“I know you’re right, Ashling,” Susan said softly. “It just seems a little mean-spirited sometimes.”

“The rebels who are searching for us are as mean spirited as they come, Susan. It’s going to take the best each of us has to offer to defeat them. We’re in for the fight of our lives. How would Sean or I feel if we lost one of you in battle because we hadn’t done our very best to prepare you?”

Tears began to well up in Susan’s lovely blue eyes. She stepped forward and embraced Ashling without speaking. When she finally gained control of her emotions, she said, “I understand, Ashling.”

“Good, because I’m going to push you just as hard as I can too,” Ashling said.

Susan smiled and looked at Sean, as she said, “You yell at David all you want. I want him to be the best dragon that ever lived.”

Once Susan had returned to the group of trainees, Sean said, “It’s not fair that we have to be training these young kids to fight for