Page 13 of Of Scale and Blood

He released the spear; it shot with unnatural speed toward us, forcing Kaia to bank sharply away. As she swung back around, the rider raised a tube.

Kaia bellowed again, this time in fury, and with a fast flick of her wings, her body rolled up and over the stream and the rider. It happened so fast I barely even left her back. The brown liquid shot past us, splashing lightly across my arm and the spine directly in front of me. As the shit began to eat into clothes and bone, I swore and spun more fire at the banking rider. It wasn’t as fierce as my previous lance but didn’t need to be—human flesh was far easier to burn than metal-feathered bird. The latter spun away from us as its rider was crisped, but Kaia used her tail as a whip and flicked the bird hard into the black surface just above the cavern’s entrance.

It fell, broken but not dead, to the tongue. A burnished gold drakkon appeared and, with a snarl that was filled with fury, ripped out the bird’s exposed underbelly then kicked its remains off the tongue.

It was then I saw the raw and smoking wound across her chest. She’d been hit by the liquid shit.

Kaia, you need to tell that female?—

Queen. Yara.

Are all queens a burnished gold color?

No. Just special ones.

Fair enough, I thought with a smile.Tell Yara, Dree, and any other drakkon who has been hit to follow us into the sea to neutralize the acid.

Kaia roared in response—I think more to catch everyone’s attention—then passed on my message. As Yara lumbered out onto the tongue, we swung around and arrowed toward the sea. The ominous cloud was now dissipating, and while I didn’t know a lot about spell craft, I suspected it was happening because the men who’d formed it were now dead. Still, enough of it remained to be problematic, so Kaia flew well under it and told the other drakkons to do the same.

I twisted around to check them. There were five behind us—six when Dree tucked in behind a youngish-looking red female—and my inner kid who’d dreamed of drakkons for so damn long couldn’t help grinning widely. If Khuld’s eternal garden—the realm where those souls not claimed by Vahree went to await rebirth—really did exist, then this would probably be my perfect version of it.

Not that I wanted those drakkons or indeed anyone else I knew to find themselves in such a place. Not for many, many decades yet, anyway.

By the time we reached the rocky shoreline lining Sinopa’s calf, the exposed part of my face was beginning to sting, and small holes were appearing in my clothes as well as in the external sections of Kaia’s wing membrane that hadn’t been tucked close to her body when she’d dived—all the confirmation we needed that the cloud was indeed acidic. These bastards certainly had a wide range of dangerous magics at their disposal.

Kaia banked and extended her rear claws, landing gracefully but nevertheless sending rocks scattering. As the six younger drakkons flew over our heads and landed on the beach farther down, Kaia extended a leg so I could clamber down. I unclipped myself, grabbed my backpack, quiver, and sword, and then slid down to the beach. She immediately lumbered into the water, having learned from past encounters with the riders and their liquid weapon that it was the best way to stop the acid burning further. Three of the six other drakkons followed her somewhat reluctantly in, while those who hadn’t been hit regarded me from a safe distance, curiosity and wariness evident.

They no touch, Kaia said.Warned them. You kin.

Did you explain what that actually meant?I asked, amused. She’d started referring to me as kin after I’d explained that I didn’t need her to carry me back to Esan that fatal day she and her drakklings had been attacked because my kin were coming to get me. After discovering it meant family, she’d decided I now was.

Yes. They curious. Answered many questions.

I dropped my pack up the shoreline, well out of the reach of the incoming tide, then walked fully clothed into the sea. My flame might be reduced but it would still be strong enough to dry my silk undergarments and the leathers, although the latter would take much longer.No doubt most of them being “why the hell are you allowing a human on your back?”

They saw flame. Know reason.

You told them about the attack on Gria and Ebrus?

Yes. They fly to our aerie. Safer.

Meaning you’re now in charge of a second aerie, but what of your own flight?

A flight was what we called a grace, and it basically meant there were twenty breeding drakkons in each aerie, consisting of a queen—the grace’s main protector—five to eight younger, breeding females, a gaggle of males who vied for the attention of the smaller females, and the elders who helped tend and protect the eggs and the drakklings. Kaia’s grace was one of the largest within the Red Ochre Range—as benefittingthequeen, I guess—and had close to twenty-five adults and fourteen drakklings in various stages of growth.

Too many young to move.

Then let’s hope we can stop these bastards before they ever reach those mountains.

Will. Trust.

I sucked in a breath that was as much to do with the sheer weight of the trust she was now placing on me as much as the icy water reaching my nether regions. I hoped,reallyhoped, that none of my actions ever betrayed that trust.

I continued on into the sea, stopping only when the depth reached my chin, allowing the gentle waves to wash over my head and hair. The salt stung like blazes when it hit the multitude of pin-prick wounds that littered my face, but that was better than allowing that acidic cloud muck to burrow ever deeper.

The longer I stayed, the more the water’s chill began to invade my bones; when the shivering got bad enough, I ramped up the inner flames and stayed in for as long as I could. It took another twenty minutes or so before the stinging stopped and I was able to climb out. After squeezing the worst of the water from my plaited hair, I dripped over to my backpack and tugged out a meal sack. It was little more than dried meats, nuts, and fruit-encrusted bread, but right now it felt like a feast.

Kaia climbed out of the water just as I’d finished and, after shaking the worst of the water from her long body, extended her leg. I hastily tucked the meal sack away then slung the bow back over my shoulder, gathered everything else, and ran over. After scrambling up her leg and edging past her wing spine, I clipped on once again.

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