Free Fight And The Fury (Book 8) by Craig Halloran Page A

cat’s. Pinning it down, he kept twisting.
    “Yield!” Nath said. “Yield or die!”
    The muscles inside its scaly neck strained and resisted.
    Muscles pumping, Nath twisted harder. Its claws scraped all over his body. Blood dripped in his eyes. It’s me or him. He heaved.
    Crack!
    The grey scaler went limp. The glow in its eyes extinguished.
    Lathered in sweat, he raised his fist into the air and yelled up to the other dragons, “Which one of you traitors is next!”
    He shoved the dragon off the ledge.
    “No mercy for him! No mercy for any of you!”
    Nath had had enough. These dragons were vicious killers. Controlled or not. And he wasn’t about to risk any more of his friends dying if he could help it. He spat blood. Eyed the dragons. Some circled. Some dove into a volley of arrows and stones. Torn, he rushed for the nearest cave, calling for the gnomes.
    ***
    Shum dashed along the narrow ledges, ducking in and out of the small caves. He hollered, whistled, and crept inside, but so far all of the shallow caves were empty. Fleet of foot, he sped to the next cave. A grey scaler dropped out of the sky, hovering in the air by the blustering power of its wings, cutting him off. Swords first, Shum darted in. Elven steel struck in a fury, driving the beast backward out of range.
    Shum slid by and into the next cave.
    In a second, the dragon had hemmed him inside. A stream of liquid fire spewed from its mouth.
    Shum twisted away, lunged forward, and hacked into its nose.
    The dragon retreated, filled its lungs again, and spewed dark smoke into the hole.
    Blinded, Shum started coughing and hacking. He chopped his swords at any sound of movement. He fought to hold his breath but couldn’t. His coughing increased, and his eyes began to burn. His elven hearing picked up the sound of claws getting near. He focused on what he’d already seen and readied his elven blades.
    His coughing stopped.
    All fell quiet.
    He hacked again.
    The dragon pounced right on top of him.
    ***
    From horseback, Hoven removed a short spear packed behind his saddle. He flipped it hand over hand once, lengthening it. A second time it lengthened once more, extending over six feet in length. It was a special weapon of the Roaming Rangers, elven made magic called a Dragon Needle.
    Trotting through the forest with the ongoing battle ringing in his ears, Hoven scanned the ground. There were no tracks of the monster he believed killed one of his brothers, nor any strange impressions in the ground, just a gentle wind with the smell of death in it.
    His steed snorted and nickered to a halt before moving forward again.
    Hoven, heavy and well-built like his brother Shum, towered in the saddle. He was everything a Wilder Elf represented: stalwart, alert, formidable. An extension of the wild land he thrived in. Covered in skins, leather, and light elven armor, there wasn’t anything the wilderness soldier was unprepared for—until today.
    Something had slaughtered one of his brethren. Something he could not track. It was as allusive as Sansla Libor. His mind ran through the catalog of everything he had tracked and hunted over the centuries. Giants and orcs. Witches and warlocks. Pixlyns and nymphs. Dragons and dalumphs. But nothing as curious as this.
    He tugged on the reins. Something had pushed through the underbrush, and there were fresh drops of blood on the ground. He lowered his spear, poked it into the thicket, and pushed it aside. There were blood stains on the leaves. There had been blood on Chaldun’s blades as well. It was Hoven’s hope that the creature bled, but how had it come this far without letting blood until now? Perhaps it was Chaldun’s blood he saw instead.
    He poked the brush and scanned the higher branches. Horse hooves stamped beneath him. The supple muscles in his back tightened. He could feel a heavy gaze on his neck. He eased his head around.
    Large burning cat’s eyes locked on his, sending a chill through Hoven’s bones.
    He