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Dominic C James [Reiki Man 03 A Sacred Storm (retail) (epub)
Arlene James City Girl [SR 141] (v1.0) (epub
Cobb James Amanda Garrett 002 Operacja Burzowy Smok
Blish James Miasta w galaktyc Zycie wsrod gwiazd
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Cobb James Amanda Garrett 004 Podwojny cel
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Dosa, Dav

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.Perhaps her armor would deflect the blow, but could he take that chance?Graxen grabbed the shaft of the spear, using the full weight of his body to halt its forward path.He jerked the spear backward.Sparrow let go, her hind-talons skittering on the wet rock.Before she could spread her wings to steady herself, Graxen jabbed the butt of the spear between her legs, tripping her.She landed in the water with an angry shriek.Arifiel, perhaps mistaking his act of protection for an attack, released the scroll and readied her own weapon.Graxen dropped the spear, crouched, and then sprung into the air, whipping his tail forward to knock the falling letter upward before it hit the water.He grabbed the document in his hind-claws as he beat his wings, climbing into the sky with all his might.“Stop!” Arifiel shouted, drawing back to throw her spear.“Stop me,” Graxen called back, climbing higher.Arifiel grunted, hurling her weapon, but Graxen didn’t bother to look down.The weapon had been designed for a thrusting attack, not for throwing.He was practically straight over her, fifty feet up.The anatomy of a sky-dragon’s wings simply wouldn’t allow the weapon to reach him.Seconds later, he heard the spear clatter against the rocks.He kept flapping, turning the fifty-foot gap into a hundred feet, two hundred, more.He glanced down to see Arifiel and the dragon he thought of as Teardrop chasing after him.Teardrop proved as strong as she looked, and was leading Arifiel by several body lengths.Indeed, if she weren’t slowed by her leather breastplate and heavy spear, Graxen had every reason to think she might have gotten close to him.After a minute, Graxen judged he was over a hundred yards above her, and half that distance again above Arifiel.Graxen grimaced as he saw that Arifiel was no longer chasing him.Instead she was drifting in a circle as she used a hind-talon to free the hood on her alarm bell.Graxen folded his wings back and held his body straight, plunging toward Teardrop.It was time to show these valkyries what he knew of the subtle art of falling.Teardrop looked up, her eyes wide as he shot toward her.She drew her body back, raising the spear she carried in her hind-talons to catch Graxen.As Graxen hurtled down, the wind felt like water.His feather-scales were a thousand tiny paddles with which he pushed the current, controlling the angle of his fall.At the last second, Graxen curved his tail in a gentle arc, steering away from a collision.Her spear point flashed past his eyes.For a lightning instant he glimpsed the valkyrie’s face with its single scale of gray, then her long serpentine neck flickered past, then her armored torso, and then there was her belt.In his right hind-talon he held Shandrazel’s letter of passage.With his left, he snatched the manacles, ripping free the metal hook that held them.The sudden jolt threw Teardrop into a spin.As she flapped her wings for balance, Graxen shifted his tail once more to delicately adjust his fall.Off to his side, on a parallel course, a bright gleam caught his eye—a spear point.Teardrop had dropped her weapon.The spear now fell toward Arifiel on a path that would run her through.He kicked out with the manacles and clipped the tip of the spear, knocking it into a path that would do no damage.By now Graxen had reached terminal velocity, words that possessed a double meaning.He could fall no faster, but if he collided with Arifiel at this speed, it would kill them both.He opened his wings into twin parachutes, tilting his hind-talons down.He dropped the scroll and craned his neck to catch it in his teeth as it flew upward.In the space of a heartbeat the distance between Arifiel and himself vanished as his hind-talons reached her left wing.Graxen grabbed Arifiel’s fore-talon, the three-clawed hand that sat at the middle joint of her wing.In a fluid motion, he snapped the first cuff of the manacle around her talon.The impact caused his body to flip, as his legs tarried at her wing while his head snaked downward.He reached out his fore-talons and grabbed her left hind-talon.She tried to kick him free.Arifiel’s sharp teeth sank into Graxen’s thigh, but the awkward angle of her bite kept her from doing real damage.She growled and shook her head as they tumbled, free-falling a hundred feet in a blur of gray and blue.She opened her jaws, perhaps in search of a more vital body part.Graxen spread his wings and darted away, leaving Arifiel with her left wing manacled to her left leg.For a sun-dragon, this would have been a death sentence.Fortunately, sky-dragons were masters of the air.Arifiel spread her free wing to its maximum capacity and pulled her body into a tight ball.She became a blue whirligig, descending toward the forest in a dizzying spiral.Her landing wouldn’t be delicate, but she’d survive.Graxen tossed away the bell he’d stolen from her belt, the leather hood once more covering the clapper.From the time he’d started his dive to the time he’d shackled Arifiel, no more than ten seconds had passed.Something fell past him, barely glimpsed from the corner of his eye.At first, he had difficulty identifying it as it tumbled.Then a silver disk flashed as it caught the sun.It was a valkyrie’s empty breast plate.He looked over his shoulder to find Teardrop barely ten yards behind him.She’d shed her armor, even her helmet, leaving her groomed for speed.Her breast muscles moved like mighty machinery beneath her scales.Graxen’s heart beat joyously.He always enjoyed a good race.Graxen turned away from his pursuer and dove once more, aiming for the river.He pulled from his dive to skim along the surface.The spray from the whitewater moistened his face in welcome relief.If not for the letter in his teeth, he would have risked a quick drink.He banked toward the forest, the jagged tree trunks looming before him like a maze.Beating his wings for a further burst of speed he plunged into the woods.Flying above the treetops was one thing.Flying amid the branches of an unfamiliar forest was a feat most dragons would regard as suicide.His eyes tracked every limb and shadow as momentum carried him forward.He beat his wings to stay aloft in the gaps between the trees.The tips of his wings knocked away twigs and vines.A whirlwind of dry leaves followed in his wake.Ahead, he spotted a bright patch on the forest floor—a clearing three times his body length.With a sharp, hard burst of energy he zoomed heavenward, flitting back above the trees.Only now did he allow himself to glance over his shoulder.He was certain the valkyrie had been stubborn enough to follow, even though her longer wings would have made the feat impossible.He hoped she hadn’t injured herself too badly when she snared in the branches [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]