Page 234 of Dragon Outcast (Age of Fire 3)

He’s toying with me. He’s going to let me die by scores of small cuts rather than a fatal blow.

Dribbles of blood made strange spiral traces in the sand beneath the Copper as he sidestepped, protecting his wounded underside. The man sliced a piece of skin from the Copper’s haunch the size of his shield. Naked muscle gleamed red.

“I need a new shield-leather anyway,” he said.

The Copper’s fire bladder pulsed with his pain, and he vomited up its contents.

This, too, the Dragonblade was ready for. He crouched behind his shield and the thin liquid just splattered his shield, him, and the sand around. The liquid dripped off his shield like rain off a wide jungle leaf.

“Not even any fire? Let’s end it; this is no contest at all,” the Dragonblade said. He slashed the Copper’s good leg, and the Copper collapsed face-first into the sand.

A man’s voice shouted from the entrance. The Copper didn’t understand the words, but the dragon-riders jumped to their feet and fought one another to the exit.

The dragons were coming at last!

He raised his head to see the audience in flight, and the Dragonblade kicked him behind the jaw. He saw stars and his whole neck went numb. He fought to regain control of his head and neck as painful, prickling electricity danced up and down his spine.

The Dragonblade planted himself in front of his snout, just out of reach. He pointed the tip of his sword at the Copper’s eye.

If you died fighting, were you still vanquished?

A trickle of oily-smelling liquid dribbled out of the Dragonblade’s scale greaves, spotting the sand. The Copper traced its source with his eye. It came from beneath the armor.

“Mercy,” the Copper whispered, as Jizara had. Perhaps the Dragonblade had changed. Perhaps this time he’d grant mercy to a vanquished foe.

The man just snorted and adjusted the aim of his sword tip. “Not to such as you. Last words?”

The Copper refused to waste his final breath in a curse. With what wind he had left he forced a gob out of his mouth.

A flaming torf. Pitiful. Hardly bigger than a lump of coal.

A flaming torf that struck the Dragonblade on the boot.

A flaming torf that struck the Dragonblade on the boot and set his whole leg aflame.

Which set his hips on fire.

Which crawled up his torso and yes, even flickered out the slits in his face mask.

He died rather more noisily than Mother.

A blur of gold and SiMevolant landed heavily in the sand. He stormed toward the Copper, shining like the sun itself come to earth. “What have you done? Don’t you understand? Our age is over! We must ally with men, or our flame will be extinguished forever.”

“Not yet,” the Copper gasped.

SiMevolant raised his tail. Along with the strange black stripes, a silver barb had been added to the end.

It dripped.

Open jaws and claws bounded out of the darkness. Nilrasha seized SiMevolant’s tail in her jaws and yanked, tearing a third of it off. She threw the dismembered tail away, and it rolled and twitched in the sand.

SiMevolant forgot about the injured Copper—someone had done that before, to his regret, the Copper vaguely remembered with a tickle of pride—and turned on Nilrasha, rising and spreading his wings a little, showing this backbiting female how big he truly was!

The fool. He should have kept to his cowardly ways. Don’t fight if you know nothing about fighting. He didn’t even lower himself to protect his belly.

The Copper lashed out with a saa and opened SiMevolant wide and deep.

The would-be Tyr looked down at the coils spilling from his belly, writhing like a horde of unleashed snakes.

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