Page 49 of Fortune's Blade

I had no idea how well it would work in these, and decided not to find out. I kept my eyes fixed on the jagged hole of slightly less dark up ahead and fought my way through the surf—and the leftovers of the dragon’s last meal, the bones of which were large enough to have not completely dissolved and kept slamming into me like trees in a rapids-filled river. I went down more than once, my head spinning, but kept on fighting, because what choice was there?

Finally, in pain and nearing exhaustion, I made it to the edge of the no longer burning hole. And grasped hold of the ragged top, which was hot enough to make the shield smoke and hiss. And hiked myself up enough to get out of the acidic flood, while I fought my way across the gap from the ruined, rubbery stomach to the ruined, fleshy hide.

And then lay there, on a ledge of smoking meat and fat, gasping and laughing and half disbelieving that I’d made it this far.

Only to look over the side and almost immediately wish that I hadn’t.

Because my captor hadn’t been challenged by a single dragon, or even two. He and his people had been pursued by what had to be half a castle’s worth of them, all of whom had just caught up with us. And were lighting up the night with glowing eyes and bursts of flame that seared my vision—and my skin.

None of the flames touched me, as I was merely an insignificant, dark lump clinging to the side of the great creature I rode. But I was quickly sweating anyway, both from panic and from the amount of heat that was being tossed around. And which was being fanned by the speed of the bodies whizzing by so close as to almost blow me off with the wind of their passing.

Yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Giant wings were silvered by moonlight as they sliced through the air, throats and eyes glowed golden yellow and fiery red, and scales glittered like shards of precious jewels in the firelight—ruby, dark emerald, sapphire, amethyst and topaz. But they moved as sinuously as the flames themselves, set against a backdrop of night and moon and snow-covered mountains framed by pale green, diaphanous scarves of what looked like aurora borealis.

Fire made flesh, I thought dizzily. Claire had told me that her people were called that by other fey, and I’d never seen a clearer demonstration of why. They looked like sparks darting up into the sky from a campfire, just as fast, just as deadly, just as beautiful.

I would have probably sat there for longer, transfixed and in awe, with their heat and the cold wind alternately freezing and cooking me—except they decided to play a game. Suddenly, I knew how the pigs had felt at dinner, when the corpse I was riding was snagged by something I couldn’t see, except for a massive, reaching claw. And flung across the heavens like a fleshy football.

I was caught by someone else before I could so much as gasp out a breath, who was almost immediately attacked by a dozen others. So, he threw his prize to another player in this weird game of keep away, or maybe hot potato, because nobody kept me for more than a minute. In quick succession, the dragon’s corpse was flung to a third and then a fourth combatant, twisting and turning all the while as if trying to shake me loose.

And doing a damned fine job! Some of the scales around me were blackened and broken, or melted by the blasts I’d shot at them, but not nearly as many as I’d have liked. They were strong and slick, and hard as hell to grasp, with my only saving grace being the shield, which allowed me to grip the knife-edged shards without slicing myself to pieces.

It ensured that I was still in place when another screaming behemoth latched hold.

He was enormous, this one, a scarred old bastard that looked as ancient and rugged as the hills. Some of his scales were missing, cut away in long furrows down one side as if something had gotten claws into him and gotten them in deep. But that must have been years ago, as the healed skin underneath looked as gnarled and solid as stone.

He was hard to see except for those scars, as his coloring was mostly green, but not sleek and shiny like the others. More like a dragon shaped piece of the mountainside had been cut out and molded onto his hide. There were ridges everywhere, but not in any neat alignment, but as haphazard as the striations and fissures in rock. And the mottled color, which varied from every shade of green through every shade of gray to black in the crevasses, gave off a very convincing mossy vibe.

I could imagine him lying in wait on a mountain somewhere, unseen by his prey, until they literally stumbled across him, and maybe not even then.

But there was nothing subtle about his eyes, which were a blazing yellow that shed a radiance onto the space around them like twin suns. I got a good look at them when he suddenly curved the great neck around to stare at me, as if he'd known exactly where I was. I stared back, at flaring nostrils larger than my head; at red-tinged teeth longer than my body; and at glowing, sun-lit eyes that were going to enslave my mind, any second now, if I didn’t look away!

Yet I found myself unable to, even though staring a dragon in the face was as intimidating as hell.

I’d done it once with Claire in her transformed state, but this was worse since I didn’t know whether I was facing friend or foe. And still didn’t, when the eyes narrowed and hot, hot breath washed over me, like a blast straight off a furnace. But if he was an enemy, he could have eaten me already and there wouldn’t have been a damned thing that I could do about it, so I must be looking at a friend.

Right?

I guessed so. Because a voice rumbled through me a moment later, so deep and dark and primal that it felt like a mountain was speaking. “Hold on, little one.”

I held on, completely incapable at that moment of doing anything else, including answering back. But that seemed to be enough. The huge neck curved away and he took off for the castle, the immense black wings above us rending the sky as if they were giant claws themselves.

Yet this time, I didn’t feel as if I was about to fall to my death. He was huge, just mind-numbingly big, and he moved like a bat straight out of hell. But he managed to do it with a serpentine grace that made it possible for me to cling on despite the ridiculous speed.

We outpaced everyone else, with me getting the definite impression that the others didn’t want to mess with this one. Two smaller dragons scattered in front of us, contorting their bodies in almost comically undignified movements to get out of the way. And another, who was closer to our size, sailed off with a bit more elegance but no less speed, becoming a speck on the horizon in the time it took for me to blink.

For brief moment, I thought we were home free, as it seemed that nobody was willing to take on my champion alone. And they didn’t. They took him together, with three of them attacking at once from different directions, and a fourth joining a moment later, claws out and shrieking, from directly overhead.

And I guessed that last one was too much, even for my behemoth of a rescuer.

Because a second later, because he dropped me.

I would have screamed then, if I hadn’t been choking on my stomach, which was suddenly trying to leave my body through my throat, and if there’d been any point. But I’d had so many shocks today that it seemed almost trite. Like, you’re screaming now?

Instead, I clutched a protruding rib and hung on for dear life as the huge corpse slowly rolled over. The enormous spine, which I guessed was what the dragons had been latching hold of, was heavy enough to flip us. And leave me clinging to my rib bone upside down as the ground rushed up to meet me.

Even worse, the dead dragon’s wing, which had been protecting me a little from the winds in front, wrapped around the body and flapped upward, doing exactly nothing except deafening me from the ungodly sound. And knocking against me painfully, jolting my body and making it almost impossible to focus on my indicator, the lighted, watch-like piece on my wrist that paired with the shield and told me how much protection I had left. And when I finally did catch a glimpse . . ..

Shit!

---