Free The Pygmy Dragon by Marc Secchia Page A

which he could do easily.
    “Strange man,” said Pip, releasing her fury with a shudder, until only hollowness was left within her soul. “See? He speak inside Pygmy girl’s head, not like normal person.”
    “He bad man?”
    Pip laid her hands on his paw. “Hunagu, Pip don’t know. Pip … worried.”
    “He speak magic,” said Hunagu.
    Magic. Pip fretted all day long about the creepy man with his sneaking voice. If he could speak inside her head, could he read her thoughts? Corrupt her mind? Enslave her in ways she had never been enslaved before? Now there was a thought to curdle the stomach.
    She watched the crysglass windows, but he did not return before evening, when the park shut to visitors. She felt no relief, only endless Cloudlands of despair. Why?
    Pensively, Pip pulled out the razor ribbons Arosia had gifted her–a gift the zoo owner should not know about–and tucked them beneath the rolled-up rajal fur she used for a pillow. If only she could have spoken to Arosia or Balthion for reassurance. Hunagu acted unconcerned, but she did notice that when he crept beneath their shelter, he moved closer to her than usual and tucked her protectively into the crook of his arm. She felt as jumpy as a locust tossed into a frying pan. Pip willed herself to settle down. The pressure behind her ears was just a headache. She had not drunk enough water. Or bathed for several weeks, she reminded herself.
    The wind rose. Her sniff brought her knowledge of a hint of moisture in the air and a metallic tang. Perhaps a storm was brewing. That was it. Finally, Pip’s eyes lidded. After last night’s disturbed sleep she could do with a good, deep … what was that? Her eyes popped wide open as the net lifted off their enclosure. Ropes groaned and tore out of their moorings. Two of the supporting poles disappeared with the net, up into the air, past the roof of their shelter and out of sight.
    “Hunagu. Wake up.”
    “Hmm?”
    She felt a jolt pass through his body. Hunagu’s danger-sense, like hers, had just come awake–screaming awake.
    “Stay down,” growled the Ape. “Hunagu protect Pygmy girl.”
    Pip scrabbled for the ribbon daggers. She had never felt so terrified, so aware that something huge was lowering out of the sky and it was not a bird, nor a Dragonship, but a creature whose unseen presence made her feel like an ant crawling beneath a gigantic jungle tree.
    Was it the hunting shadow, which had found her at last?
    The grass swayed. Wind blasted dust into the air. Four enormous, gnarled paws thudded into the ground she had so often walked, followed by a dark red belly as broad as a Dragonship, and a spiked tail so heavy she felt its impact through her feet. With awful inevitability, a jaw descended toward them, furnished with fangs in the lower jawbone which were comfortably as tall as she was, and a neck as thick as Hunagu’s waist, and finally, a slit red eye that fixed their little shelter with a burning gaze.
    Pip was certain her heart would never beat again. A Dragon!
    Hunagu shrank against her. Pip had never known him to be cowed before, but the beast out there had to be ten times his size. Hunagu was a plant-eater. He was brave. But this was an enemy neither of them could possibly fight.
    The fiery reptilian eye measured her with an ancient and terrible knowing, with a weight so forceful that her knees buckled and Pip had to catch herself before she fell prone. She wished the ground would snatch her into its depths, to hide her from that reaming gaze. Yet she lived. The Dragon did not attack her. He did not destroy her body or her soul.
    For many breaths, there was only a silence which rang in her ears. Pip realised that she could hear a complicated rhythm nearby, a muffled drumbeat of Dragon-hearts. Three hearts, according to the legends. Some part of her mind was a gibbering, screaming wreck. Another seemed preternaturally calm. Perhaps that was the part which knew she was about to die, and nothing she