Page 25 of Lady Dragon
KIREK
The chains and straps abruptly fell away from Kirek.
Rather, she fell through them. Because she was no longer shaped like a dragon, but rather a human, crouched on all fours on the forest floor, in the spot where her much larger body had just been chained.
The links and coils lay in useless lines on the ground all around her, and her body was clad in leathers, not scales.
The only claws and fangs she possessed were her daggers and sword.
Which must mean …
She heard the roar ripping through the makeshift camp before she saw the largest of the tents burst into shreds of canvas. Before her eyes, a huge, red dragon rose from the scraps, breathing fire and screeching with earsplitting agony. Samansa.
“Samansa!”
Kirek realized she was shouting her name aloud.
But all the soldiers that had been standing guard around her were far more interested in the new dragon that had suddenly appeared from nowhere than in the strange girl in their midst, however well armed, who had replaced the restrained dragon.
Kirek took advantage of their confusion and ran from them, stumbling.
Not away , exactly, but she dove into a line of horses where she could hide and gather her wits.
Her head was cloudy, her limbs aching with the phantom pain of her pinioned wing and the imprint of chains.
Cursed dragonsbane. And yet she had a human body now, and the fumes didn’t bother her anymore.
Only the effects lingered, but she shook them off and looked toward the screams.
The red dragon was decimating the camp. She towered above it all, wings spread and flames blasting in terrific gouts that consumed smaller tents and running, shouting figures alike, leaving only heaps of sizzling ash.
Horses were squealing and rearing, even those in Kirek’s more distant group—though perhaps that was because they realized Kirek didn’t smell quite human, either.
“Don’t worry, I’m not after you,” she muttered to them, blinking away the last of her haze.
And then she strode out into the chaos.
She could see the humans readying their weapons, but not for her. Those cruel, tethered iron balls, the smoking cauldrons of dragonsbane oil, and the bristling arrows—they were all meant for Samansa.
Kirek would kill them all.
She marched up behind the first soldier and broke his neck before he even sensed her coming.
She relieved him of his sword and dagger just as quickly, not even bothering to unsheathe her own yet.
A few humans were beginning to notice her, but that didn’t stop her.
She tore into the next group of soldiers like a hurricane.
She ducked swinging swords and parried others as she twirled, slicing and stabbing all the while.
Men screamed and fell around her like autumn leaves to a winter wind.
Except she wasn’t cold and implacable as such.
She was fury incarnate, and wanted to burn them to ash and crush them beneath huge, clawed feet. She wanted to bring them fire.
But Samansa was big enough and breathing fire enough for them both. Her flames were even beginning to set the woods alight as the dragon spun and crouched, roaring over a body on the ground beneath her, as if protecting it. Kirek couldn’t tell who the downed figure was.
But Kirek recognized another figure at this distance—with red hair like Samansa’s, shouting orders.
Branon.
At first, soldiers readied bolas and tried to drag the cauldrons of dragonsbane closer to the red dragon, but Kirek swept into them and brought them down before they could.
A row of three archers raised their bows and let loose their arrows, but a spinning sword thrown from Kirek’s hand cleaved the shafts from the sky before they went more than an arm’s length.
The archers turned on her in shock, and died with surprise on their faces.
Kirek was dragon flame in human form, and she wanted to consume them all.
Rather, she felt such rage until she heard a shriek from the red dragon, which stopped her in her tracks.
She spun and again spotted Branon’s red hair—so like Samansa’s but not —and saw that he had thrown a lance that had pierced through the dragon’s wing.
A line was attached to the end of the shaft, and he’d looped it around an anchor in the ground and a string of men had pulled it tight, dragging Samansa into a sideways lurch.
The red dragon tried to blow fire at him, but her wing was in the way.
Kirek would have simply righted herself and charged him, had she been in the dragon’s place, but Samansa didn’t seem to know what to do in her obvious pain and confusion—and perhaps awkwardness in this new form—and kept trying to pull away.
So Kirek charged him. He didn’t see her coming until her sword nearly took his head from his shoulders.
Branon was skilled—he proved it not only by living, but by pivoting and bringing his own sword to bear before she could try again.
Neither of them was holding back this time.
“The lady dragon in human flesh,” he said with a disbelieving laugh. “My, what teeth you have! Though your companion’s are the more worrisome.”
Companion. So he either didn’t know that the red dragon was Samansa, or he was good at hiding it.
Or maybe he simply couldn’t believe whatever he’d seen. Kirek barely could; it was an absurd and dangerous predicament the broken Heartstone had left them in. Masking the truth might protect Samansa, so Kirek decided not to disabuse him of any assumptions—except for one.
“I’m not a lady,” Kirek said with a grin that stretched her face nearly tight enough to split her cheeks.
She might as well have breathed fire for how the soldiers suddenly faltered at the sight of her, their fear making them uncertain.
Even Branon blanched. “And you have yet to meet my teeth. But I’m very hungry. ”
And then she was upon him. Branon barely managed to parry her blows.
Once more, Kirek didn’t play by his rules of swordsmanship.
He’d faced her in the tourney, but now she was unleashed.
She was everywhere, all at once, an erratic lightning storm.
And she was far, far stronger than him. Soon, a desperate sheen rose to his face, and he was panting with exertion, his steps retreating from the sheer force of her onslaught, even though he was free to cut her as he willed.
Kirek heard another screech from the dragon. Archers were lining up, beginning to fire.
Branon backed away quickly, stepping out of her reach. She could go after him or… Samansa .
Snarling, Kirek spun away from him, and ran for the dragon.
She bypassed most of the taut rope that pulled on the dragon’s wing, sprinting until she’d reached the spear that caught it.
She cleaved the wooden shaft in half with her sword, pulled the barbed tip free, and leaped onto the dragon’s back in nearly the same motion.
“Go, Samansa, go!” she cried, sheathing her sword.
After one last terrible roar and a keening moan as the dragon bent her head toward the body on the ground— Jamsens , Kirek saw, feeling something like despair, if only through the pair-bond— huge sweeps of the dragon’s wings lifted them above the trees, and then took them sailing beyond.
Any arrows that tried to follow missed or fell short, until the two of them left the whole burning encampment behind.
They finally touched down in a field as dusk settled in like a blanket over the land, far away from the edge of the forest or even a wisp of smoke in the air. The red dragon had been flying erratically, and not just because of the weeping hole in her wing.
Despair, despair, rage, despair—
Kirek tried to shut out Samansa’s incoherent voice, but tears were already streaking from her eyes, and not just because of the bracing wind.
“Samansa,” she gasped, as soon as her voice could carry. She could hear cows lowing at startled volume in the field, after they’d scattered from their landing. “I’m sorry.”
The red dragon suddenly bucked and thrashed, nearly throwing Kirek from her back. She only had time to stumble to the ground before Samansa turned at her and roared , blasting back her hair and heating her cheeks.
“I’m sorry!” Kirek shouted this time. “I tried—!”
But any excuses were lost to the wind as the red dragon suddenly turned toward the frightened huddle of cows and threw herself at them with a massive lunge.
Careening into the herd, she tore individuals up from the field and rent their bodies in half, blood and entrails flying.
She torched the rest as they tried to run, leaving only burning, thrashing figures in the dying light.
“Samansa…,” Kirek murmured, grimacing despite herself.
She had seen violence aplenty, but this felt like a wound in her own chest, one fierce enough to rival the shattering of the Heartstone.
At least that had somewhat healed—transforming into a dragon had buried the shard deeper in her flesh, smoothed over her torn skin, she now realized.
She hadn’t noticed before, in the heat of battle.
The spot was still tender, throbbing dully, but the pain was far more bearable than it had been.
She had new pains with which to contend. So did Samansa, even though there was no evidence of her own wound under the scales of her breast. Some hurts went far deeper, and Kirek could do naught but witness the princess’s throes of agony and feel the echo in her own heart .
The red dragon turned from the carnage only for her bright golden eyes to latch on to the farmhouse.
“No!” Kirek cried, but the dragon was already winging off in that direction. Kirek sprinted after her, cursing the lumpy field as she stumbled and nearly fell. “Don’t!” she called, scrabbling over the ground using whatever limbs would carry her. “They didn’t do this!”