Free Dragon Thief by Marc Secchia Page A

“Tazi, I believe we should consider turning around.”
    The expected fireball did not blister his nose. Instead, she hissed, “Explain your lack of trust, Kal. You and your vast experience of flying Dragonback, and your astounding expertise in the magical enhancement of draconic flight aerodynamics–”
    “This is not a trust issue!”
    She snorted, “Then exactly what flavour of windroc droppings is it, little Human? Explain yourself in words of one syllable so that even a stupid animal can understand.”
    Kal slammed his hands against the saddle, mouthing a word better suited to the dregs of the Sylakian brothel business. Confounded mud-grubbing pile of old lizard bones! Aye, she was a Dragoness, never more alien to his understanding. He had handled Tazi about as well as a thief who volunteered to be locked away in a local jail and left to rot. Still, no amount of kicking his deserving backside would undo the damage. Her poisonous expression demanded answers.
    “Look, you’re neither stupid nor an animal. I’ve a feeling, a fatuous feeling or premonition–” his voice grew smaller the higher her lip curled in scorn “–that flying into this storm’s a bad idea. Alright? I’m the one with the stupid feelings. That’s all it was. Fear, premonition, I don’t know.”
    “You disrespect me.”
    Tazithiel said no more, but Kal sensed the outrage pouring into every wingbeat as the winds freshened and the first hint of moisture tickled his nostrils. How could he explain what he himself did not understand? Most females in the Island-World, Dragon and Human alike, would rightly laugh his supposed powers of intuition into the proverbial Cloudlands soup. Yet instinct had always underpinned his pilfering prowess. He saw traps–poisoned arrows, trip wires, hidden switches and false floors–where others did not. He sensed when eyes were watching, and when attention wandered. He had sneaked beneath the noses of dozens of guard-Dragons and not been summarily incinerated.
    Touchy Dragoness. So distinct from Human-Tazithiel. Pondering this connection turned his headache into a throbbing Crescent Isles log drum.
    So, what magic had his involuntary oath triggered? It was Hualiama Dragonfriend who had conceived the Dragon Rider oath, he recalled learning. Once made, the oath bound Dragon and Rider in ways he could barely imagine. Many Dragon Riders apparently spoke fluent Dragonish and even acquired a smattering of draconic magic. Whatever they had unleashed, it had caused an unseen, Island-sized Dragon’s paw to smash an Indigo Dragoness right in the pearly fangs. Thank the heavens Tazithiel had recovered more quickly than him.
    Now, an impulsive oath shackled him to this beast. How bad, or how foolish, would this prove?
    Romancing a Shapeshifter was definitely wine of an unexpected vintage. Kal stifled a wry laugh, but the jerk in Tazi’s wingbeat told him her superior Dragon hearing had picked up the perceived insult. A menacing growl rose from his mount as Tazi plunged headlong into the storm-front.
    Dragon and Rider spent the balance of the night, already far advanced, driving deep into a never-ending, unyielding world of wind, cloud and hail. At first, Kal thought Tazi’s flight-strengthening Kinetic power would see them through, but the storm perversely intensified as the Indigo Dragoness began to show signs of strain. He dared not interfere. Gritting her fangs and blowing hard, she climbed steadily into a gap between the boiling thunderheads. The swirling gale seemed bent on attack from every conceivable direction, making Kal’s stomach-gyrations resemble dragonets frisking about on his native Fra’anior Island. They flew high, but the storm rose still higher, and not a prickle of starlight could be seen through the murky billows racing overhead.
    Lightning! Kal ducked as jagged after-images played across his retinae. That had surely struck …
    “Struck my left wing, Kal,” Tazi said. And she wasn’t a