The Princess's Dragon (10 page)

“You don’t want to know the human wizard, little one. He is a pest and unlike the other humans might actually pose a minor threat to you.”

“Can you take me to him?” The sparks grew into full-blown skyfire zipping over her body.

54

✥ Susan Trombley ✥

“No. Now accept my offer to train you, or leave my territory over the mountain, not through the valley.”

The female seemed to think about it. The electricity died out, and she grew calm again. Finally she turned to him. “Very well, I don’t want to cause problems for the—for you. I will accept your offer and I thank you for it.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You have a great deal to learn and I am not patient.” He glowered at her for a moment, and then turned away. “We will meet back here after I have hunted. You should hunt as well.”

“Hunt?” She looked at him, panic in her eyes even as her stomach growled audibly.

“Ohh, noo. How have you managed to feed yourself?”

“Um—I don’t seem to need to eat very often, I guess.” She bowed her head, her claws digging grooves into the rocky dirt.

“Very well, it seems that your lessons begin now. Let’s go.” Tolmac didn’t bother to take wing, knowing the female wouldn’t follow. Instead, he did something he hadn’t done since he was a flightless chick and prepared to hunt on the ground. He couldn’t believe how badly this cycle was going. He’d just saddled himself with a young, helpless female. How could he possibly be so unlucky?

Sondra had concerns of her own, beginning with finding a way to convince the black dragon to divulge the location of the wizard and ending with the problem of concealing her true identity from a monster that spoke casually of killing humans and had just offered to help her learn to be a dragon.

78

Y 7

CHAPTER 7

✥

Sondra learned many important lessons in the cycles that followed her encounter with Tolmac. Most importantly, she learned to guard her mind well because the telepathic communication used by the dragons allowed them to detect stray thoughts, images, and memories that the other dragon failed to conceal. Fortunately for Sondra, she’d spent her entire life hiding behind a mask, so covering her deepest thoughts and secrets proved easier than she had feared. She couldn’t determine how Tolmac might react if he sensed the truth, that she was really a princess in the guise of a dragon. She didn’t imagine such an absurd idea even occurred to him, and she certainly didn’t plan to be the one putting the thought into his head.

The first few cycles Tolmac spent teaching her the fine art of hunting.

Sondra didn’t find the experience pleasant in the beginning. Never in her life had she needed to hunt her own food, nor did she enjoy terrorizing a small animal simply for the sport of it, so she didn’t even join the many hunts that nobles at court and in their country estate often engaged in. However, hunting to assuage the unending hunger that gnawed at her gut proved a different matter entirely. Apparently, dragons possessed a voracious appetite during the times they remained awake. Sondra discovered early on that dragons spent a great deal of time hibernating. Most likely they did so to avoid consuming every living creature in the world.

To Sondra’s relief, humans didn’t find their way onto Tolmac’s menu. It seemed that, despite popular belief, dragons did not prefer nor even particularly like eating humans, virgins included. When questioned about eating humans because Sondra just had to know, Tolmac confessed that he’d eaten one or two 55

56

✥ Susan Trombley ✥

when he was young and inexperienced. He found them completely unpalatable and vowed never to eat one again.

Instead, they hunted the range beasts that Sondra recalled Sir Pilphragm referring to as equinos. The creatures appeared similar to the domestic horse save for the set of lethal horns that extended up and back from their heads.

They ran on cloven hoof and boasted a long, thin tail that ended in a puff of soft hair. Sondra found them absolutely beautiful and she hated to kill such magnificent creatures, but Tolmac insisted impatiently that she catch one and eat it. When Sondra did so, she found that they tasted as lovely as they looked.

Sondra soon discovered the joy of the hunt. It wasn’t the cruel torment of those nobles who harried a tiny and helpless woodland beast to death. She hunted for survival and, though singly the equinos posed little threat to a dragon, as a herd, they could wound even one such as she had become. Each meal became a challenge, a hard chase over rolling grasslands. Still reluctantly learning to fly, Sondra hunted primarily on the ground and found the sport far more dangerous than Tolmac’s method of swooping out of the sky and snatching prey before the herd even sensed him. Sondra sparked off many stampedes before she learned the stealth and ambush methods Tolmac claimed most dragons learned shortly after hatching. Tolmac, though often sarcastic and impatient, proved very effective as a teacher.

By the third cycle, Sondra discovered that the normally serious and reticent dragon also possessed a sense of humor. Unfortunately, his humor came at her expense. He’d selected a training ground as far from any human settlement as he could find. Northeast of Ariva and Thunder Mountain, sheltered by the cluster of mountain ranges that spread almost all the way to the Frozen Sea, laid a secret valley, accessible only from the air or a very long hike. Tolmac assisted Sondra to the valley, and that first flight, only a few cycles after becoming a dragon, left Sondra with nightmares. The unicorn really did it though.

Sondra had just finished a hunt and allowed the sedative effect of a full belly to lull her into a state of intense relaxation. The next thing she knew, she sat snout to horn with a pure white unicorn. The beast appeared almost as surprised as she to find itself facing a dragon and it reared up. Sondra reacted in predictable fashion, shrieking and jumping backward. Unfortunately, she forgot the dimensions and additions of her new form and tripped over her own tail, rolling it under her foot and slamming head first into the only rock to be

✥ Th e Princess’s Dragon ✥

57

found for miles around. As she lay there dazed, the angry unicorn recovered from its fright. None too happy to find dragons invading its territory, it chose that moment to jump on her head and perform a painful and not very rhythmic dance on her skull in a fit of pique. It polished off its message with a very nasty plop of something foul before dismounting and prancing off, tail in the air and equine nose out of joint. Then Sondra heard the laughter. Do dragons cackle?

Oh no, they simply roll around in the grass roaring with laughter and clutching their sides, unconcerned by how foolish they look, snorting and snuffling and lighting portions of the meadow on fire.

Sondra picked herself up, shook off the dust and the other revolting thing she didn’t want to dwell on, and stalked past the idiot dragon even now crushing an entire field of flowers and grasses with his mirth. She debated mentioning just how silly he looked, burying his head beneath one wing to stifle his howls of laughter, but decided it didn’t pay to antagonize the only dragon capable of flying away from this valley. Instead, she huffed over to the mountain-fed stream that supplied the valley with bitterly cold water and dunked her head in to rinse it off. Then she sulked in grand royal fashion, pointedly ignoring the occasional snickers that drifted her way from the shadows beneath the mountain. She fell asleep irritated and not the least bit pleased at her first meeting with a unicorn. She always expected she would find them awe-inspiring and beautiful. She discovered that, like dragons, unicorns didn’t behave the way humans anticipated.

Sondra listened in fascination as in the next cycle Tolmac deigned to explain how the unicorn appeared out of thin air and wound up face to face with Sondra. Apparently, unicorns traveled by moving between two planes of existence. They used what Tolmac called a planar corridor to escape from threats, move past obstacles such as massive mountain ranges, and generally appear wherever it pleased them. Unfortunately for Sondra, the unicorn didn’t pay careful attention when exiting the corridor, certainly not expecting to find a dragon relaxing in its valley.

Tolmac explained that his territory encompassed the entire northern reach from the southern pass of Terroc’s Ring to the Frozen Sea, and other dragons didn’t trespass if they valued their continued existence. Since he rarely ever left his lair anymore, the unicorn didn’t expect him or any other large creature to seek rest and food in his territory.

58

✥ Susan Trombley ✥

“But unicorns are supposed to be gentle, good, and kind!” Sondra claimed, still disenchanted by the unpleasant encounter.

Tolmac barely contained his laughter in his reply, but Sondra saw golden sparkles dancing through his aura anyway. “I don’t know where you heard that nonsense. In every world I’ve seen, the unicorns never change. They are nasty, mean-spirited, and ill-tempered beasts. Humans are the only creatures that seem to find those beasts fascinating. In one world the people worshipped them as harbingers of goodness and purity. Imagine that!”

“But—I don’t know—they just look like they should be nice.”

“Oh, yes, of course. The lethal, two-foot-long horn just shouts peace and love.”

“Stop it,” Sondra couldn’t help her own laughter now. “I’m serious,” she laughed. “They are pure white, they are related to horses, which are noble beasts, and they only suffer the touch of the purest maiden.”

“You spout asinine myths developed by the lesser races. Horses are simple herbivores, there is nothing truly noble about them, though they taste delicious, I might add. Only humans care about the state of their female’s virtue, I assure you. No animal, magic or mundane, cares in the least for human virgins. Where did you hear these tales? Were you raised by humans? Never mind, I think I understand; somewhere in your short and ill-informed life, you came across some human anthology of mythical beasts—am I close?”

“Um … yes! After I … hatched, I found a book in my … um … nest, and I read it from cover to cover. That’s how I learned about unicorns.”

“Yes, the human written word is a simple runic formula; even a hatchling would have no problem deciphering their language. I wonder what your brood mother wanted with a human bestiary.”

“I don’t know; I never met her, remember.”

“Yes, I remember. I just cannot fathom how you managed to survive to adulthood without any guidance at all. You are fortunate those withered old lizards in the Circle never found you. Nothing would please them more than the addition of a storm dragon to their number. Well, almost nothing would please them more.”

“You mentioned the Circle before. Who are they? Why are they so dangerous?”

“When I first arrived in this world after my last migration …”

“What’s a migration?”

✥ Th e Princess’s Dragon ✥

59

“One thing at a time, little one, I will explain migration later. I am not even certain if you can perform such a feat. Only dragons of certain heritage can migrate across worlds. But I digress.” He cast a wry look at Sondra, her boundless curiosity literally sparking off her scales and across her wings. “The native dragons of this world choose to live together in linked lairs, though I cannot imagine why. They occupy this cave city for the majority of their lives, and a circle of ancient, withered females controls all of their actions from the main caverns where they make their own lairs.”

“It isn’t normal for dragons to congregate?”

“Apparently on this world it is, but no, I have never seen the practice before and I have met many dragons on many worlds. They have all lived as I do; they claim a territory and choose a lair, fighting for the privilege if they must. They live alone unless they choose to seek a mate to spread their bloodline.”

“Then do they live together with their mate?”

“Of course not, why would they do that? Once they assure themselves that the female is heavy with eggs, they return to their lair and continue living out their days in peace and quiet.”

“It sounds lonely.”

“You think it is better to live under the thumb of the Circle, puppet to their never-ending machinations? Would you choose crowded living conditions and over-hunted territories over a bountiful and spacious territory?”

“Well, not when you put it that way. But the humans live in cities and it doesn’t seem like such a bad life for them.”

“Dragons are not humans and should not seek to live like them. Humans cluster together the way the equinos do and for the same reasons. A dragon does not need the safety of numbers for survival. The Circle draws dragons to them for power; they demand tribute from the humans in their lands, and they indoctrinate or kill any dragon not of their kin. They play games with other dragons, humans, and beasts, bending them all to their perverted whims.

Do not mistake the way they live as a means of interacting with others and benefiting from company the way the humans seem to. The Circle sucks the life from their followers and gives nothing in return.”

“I never thought of it that way. Why don’t the other dragons rise up against the old females that control them? Surely they are strong enough?”

“The Circle raises most dragons into their kin from the moment they hatch; in fact, they are selectively bred. These chicks never have a chance to 60

✥ Susan Trombley ✥

break away and live as natural dragons. Those that are born free, like you, are hunted down and forced to join the Circle kin or die.”

“So they would see me as a prize because I am a … what did you call me, a storm dragon?”

“Yes, little one, you are smaller than most dragons, but you possess the power of skyfire and no dragons’ scales can resist the heat of that flame.”

“I don’t think I want to put that to the test!”

“No, you are not a killer, anyone can see that. That is why the Circle must never gain control of you; they would destroy your spirit and force you to kill your own kind.”

“I would never let that happen. I would choose death first!”

“Very brave of you, but the ancient dragons of the Circle are very powerful telempaths and often use mind control on dragons untrained in mental battle.