Dragonforge A Novel of the Drag James Maxey

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The wind of her wake washed across his cheek.He could smell a faint aura of blackberries.The second valkyrie darted past, then the third, close enough that he could see his gray eyes reflected in the large silvered plates that studded her leather breast armor.A pair of iron manacles dangling from her thick belt threatened to clip his cheek.He tilted his head a fraction of an inch, allowing the chains to pass without touching.Graxen possessed a keen mind for spaces and vectors.In contests of speed and reflexes he had no peer.Yet was he known as Graxen the Swift? Graxen the Nimble?“Graxen the Gray!” the lead valkyrie shouted as she circled, coming to rest on the stone that jutted from the river before him.“Your kind has no business here! Begone!”“I am a representative of the king,” said Graxen, half-surprised she recognized him, half-fatalistically accepting it.As the only gray-scaled sky-dragon ever to survive birth, he had little hope of anonymity.“I come as a courier of important news.I’m charged with delivering this message to the matriarch herself.”A second valkyrie landed to his right.“We care nothing of your mission,” she growled.“The king’s domain ends at the lake’s edge.” Graxen noted this valkyrie was younger than her companions, perhaps still a teen.Despite the normal female advantage of size, Graxen judged himself taller.“Fortunately, I haven’t reached the lake’s edge,” said Graxen.“I ask that you read the scroll I carry before you judge the importance of my mission.”The third valkyrie, the one with the manacles on her belt, landed to his left.She was larger than her two companions and, to his eyes, more relaxed.The other two stood in stances that indicated they were prepared to defend themselves from a sudden attack by Graxen.This last valkyrie didn’t look concerned.He turned his attention back to the leader as she spoke once more.“If the message is important, give us the scroll and be gone.We will see it reaches the matriarch.”“The king would be disappointed if I failed to speak to with her personally.”“Would the king be disappointed if your body was discovered on the rocks downriver?” the young valkyrie to his right asked.“Perhaps he could take comfort in knowing that we found your satchel and delivered the scroll without you.”A silence fell as the valkyries allowed the implied threat to settle into Graxen’s mind.Graxen studied the youngest valkyrie.Her eyes were full of scorn, with perhaps a touch of fear.She looked ready to run him through with the long spear she carried in her fore-talons.He turned back to the leader.Her face was a cool mask, impossible to read.He tilted his head to study the final valkyrie.Her eyes were cold little slivers of copper.Graxen caught his breath as he noticed a slight discoloration against her cheek.A single scale of gray, the color of fresh-cut granite, sat below her left eye like a tear.The rest of her hide was flawless; she seemed sculpted from sapphire, her lean and well-muscled body sporting graceful lines and symmetry that rivaled the statues that adorned the College of Spires.This valkyrie continued to regard him with a look that approached boredom.With one guard showing disinterest and another looking prepared to run him through, Graxen knew his best course of action was to win the leader over to his cause.He said, “As a commander, you are obviously a dragon of proven judgment.Perhaps you should examine the scroll yourself.” Graxen reached into his satchel and produced the scroll.He stretched his wing across the watery gap to offer the message to the leader.Her fore-talon brushed his as she took the rolled parchment.This brief touch was his first adult contact with a female.He found the experience…unsatisfying.The leader unrolled the scroll.She tilted her head and furrowed her brow, attempting to decipher its jagged calligraphy.The message had been scribed by Shandrazel, a sun-dragon.With talons twice the thickness of a sky-dragon’s nimble digits, sun-dragons seldom earned praise for their penmanship.“What does it say, Arifiel?” the youngest valkyrie asked, impatient.“Quiet, Sparrow,” said the dragon with the teardrop scale.Graxen guessed that Sparrow was a nickname.It was rare to encounter a dragon whose name corresponded to something in the physical world.All sky-dragons names were drawn from the Ballad of Belpantheron.The two-thousand-page poem was the oldest document verified to have been drafted by a dragon.Unfortunately, it was also a document that had defied ten centuries of scholarly attempts to decipher its mysterious language.Tradition held that it told the story of how the young race of dragons slew the older race of angels.Less poetically inclined scholars speculated that the work was schizophrenic babble granted sacred status by the passage of time.“It does say he is to be given safe passage,” Arifiel said, rotating the scroll to a thirty-degree angle as she puzzled out the script, “but, this isn’t Albekizan’s mark.”“Albekizan is no longer king,” said Graxen.“He died at the hands of Bitterwood following an uprising of humans in the Free City.His scion, Shandrazel, charged me with this mission.”Arifiel tilted the scroll in the counterclockwise direction.“I guess that could be an ‘s.’ That’s probably an ‘h’ and an ‘a.’ Shandrazel is…plausible.However, all that’s here is the order of safe passage.I see no further message.”Graxen raised his fore-talon to tap his brow.“I have the message up here.It’s too important to be entrusted to mere parchment.This is why you should provide me with an escort for the rest of the journey.”“I see,” said Arifiel [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne