Page 13 of Dragon Fight

“We’re on leave… Highness.” Ged tacked the prince’s honorific on, belatedly. “I was thinking sipping some tea by the fireside, perhaps playing some dice?” He looked hopefully around the table.

“No one’s touching your dice,” Flynn said with a dark look. “You’ve had them enchanted, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, no matter what we do, I need to get some food for Glimmer. Lady Emberly—” I said.

“Kay, please.” Her smile was warm and genuine.

“Kay then. Would it be possible to get some meat scraps from the kitchen?”

“An old chicken long past its laying days would be more appropriate,” Soren said with a look at me. “Glimmer’s growing awfully fast and she’s pulling away from you, wanting to spend more time with the adult dragons. Past time she learned how to kill her own food, I’m thinking.”

My mouth hung open, wanting—needing—to protest, but then I realised I couldn’t, could I? Glimmer wasn’t a tiny dog to spend her life languishing on my lap. She would soon be just as big, if not bigger, than the other dragons and she needed to develop her prey drive if she was to survive.

“The young dragon’s first hunt?” Kay said with some excitement. “We’d be honoured to provide her with a bird.”

9

Glimmer seemed equally pleased by the idea. We’d gone out after breakfast to tell her what we were doing today and she and the other dragons had all perked up at the news. From the buzzing feeling in my head I could tell the males were all talking to my dragon, giving her advice. And when she approached me, she did with a jaunty attitude.

I will kill a pig?she asked.They are very tasty and I will enjoy that.

No, a chicken first. Pigs can be bloody hard to kill.

Hmm…

I showed her my memories of killing pigs when it was my job, but that didn’t seem to placate her.

If humans can do it, surely I can.

You will, when you’re bigger.I had a feeling this would be a common conversation in the next few months.By the time you’re fully grown, nothing will stand in your path.

She sniffed at that, then followed Brom as he led us to the chicken coop where Kay was waiting.

“Poor old Flossie is looking a little ragged and hasn’t laid an egg for several weeks,” she said, indicating a bedraggled-looking chicken scratching at the ground, clucking to herself. But any calm the chickens might have possessed was quickly dispelled as five massive dragons landed around the coop, Darkspire having chosen to join them. All of the chickens instantly started to flap and run around the enclosure emitting shrill shrieks as the dragons settled down to watch.

“You bloody idiots,” Soren said with a shake of his head. “Now we’ll have to wait for the stupid things to calm down before Glimmer is to have a chance of hunting the chicken.”

The dragons all flattened themselves against the ground in response, as if that would dispel the threat they posed to the birds. But Glimmer was already wending her way past my legs and pushing herself forward, her head low, her steps slow and purposeful.

“Though it looks like she knows what she’s doing.”

Both Soren and I beamed with pride as we watched her move with such precision, ignoring the antics of the other chickens in favour of stalking the comparatively more lethargic Flossie.

Be careful—

I know what I’m doing, she told me sharply and I shut up. Glimmer wasn’t the same as me. Whereas I’d have to talk myself into wielding a weapon and diving into a pen of pigs with an intent to kill, I could feel it throbbing within her, that predator sense of purpose. Find prey, stalk it and then kill and eat it. The process was as easy as breathing for Glimmer.

Her wings flapped out helping carry her further as she launched her body at the chicken. Before I could even take a breath, her claws were in the bird’s flesh, her jaws had snapped around its neck and then she neatly severed its head from its neck, resulting in a fountain of blood spurting into the air.

“Why do I feel like we should’ve done this before breakfast?” I groaned, my hand going to my mouth as I felt the bile rise. Soren stepped in and wrapped an arm around my shoulders to give me a squeeze.

“You should be pleased. She caught the bird in the first strike. Bloody Wraith took three goes his first time. Blood went everywhere.” His purple dragon lifted his head to make a grumbling sound. “Yes, you, you big lunk. Claws and fangs went everywhere but around the chicken’s neck. I had to put the poor thing out of its misery, and then Wraith ate it like he’d caught it himself.”

Something Glimmer was preparing to do. Oblivious to the chaos around her, she was wrenching feathers out, sending clouds of them spiralling up into the air before she revealed a big enough patch of skin to start tearing into the carcass.

“Approach her now, while her bloodlust is up,” Soren prompted.

When I did, Glimmer eyed me like I was a stranger, sinking her fangs into her chicken to protect it, and a low growl forming in her throat as I got closer.

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