Free The Dragondain by Richard Due

home, Rel’ Kah, hiding behind Taw.”
    Meeri pushed the dragon into Jasper’s face.
    “Good dragon!” she said.
    Ridley lurched forward, as though he had been pricked, looking about quickly to see if anyone was listening.
    “Shhhh!” he said to Meeri. “Easy on that, we’re not at home.”
    “But Morgot’s real!” said Meeri.
    Ridley laughed a little and patted Meeri on top of her head. “Right, dragons made of fairy dust and magic, conjured by a Faerie Queen,” and he laughed some more.
    Meeri’s face soured. “Morgot is real,” she said to Ridley. “You’ll see.”
    Meeri turned her attention to Jasper, suddenly looking at him in that oddly grown-up way, which made him shift uncomfortably on the bench. “And you’ll see, too,” she said slowly, “right before the very end.”
    A shiver shot up Jasper’s spine, and then Meeri’s face turned childlike again, and she ran off happily, flying her dragon, to play with Min and Jin.
    “Are all the dragons of Dain bad?” Jasper asked Ridley, keeping his voice low. “When I talked to Darce—”
    “Whoa! You asked Darce if all dragons were bad?” Ridley made a quick inspection of Jasper’s face. “Do you not bruise, or something?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Seriously, where’d she hit you?”
    Then the crowds roared. The tent nearer them had opened. Annora was striding purposefully onto the turf; Bree was smiling, waving, working the crowd. A moment later, the tent at the other end of the field opened, and out walked the Lintel boys. After a lot of waving and bowing, the contestants met in the middle of the arena, where a purple-robed lunamancer briefed them. Annora listened attentively while Bree twisted her fingers in her hair and smiled vacantly at Newlin.
    Ridley leaned over to Jasper. “They’re declaring who’ll be the defender and who’ll be the attacker.”
    “They’re going to attack each other?”
    “Lunamancers aren’t very effective at attacking other lunamancers, but if they’re good, they can deconstruct another’s work into something more harmless. In a contest like this, each side has a defender and an attacker. Today, Bree will defend, her job being to dissipate, or render harmless anything Beck creates. Annora, on the other hand, will be creating things for Newlin to deal with. They’ll continue to do this until one side or the other fails.”
    “And neither side will get hurt?”
    “Right. Magic works the best on the non-magical, except for the Dragondain. The real Dragondain, that is,” he added.
    “There are unreal Dragondain?”
    “Yes. About half the King’s guard. You see, since Wrengfoul attacked, no King has been able to consecrate new Dragondain who are resistant to magic. Only the old bloodlines hold true, and many of those have been lost to . . . royal favoritism, my dad says.”
    Jasper wanted to ask more about the Dragondain, but he didn’t want to lose track of what was going on here and now.
    “How long does a contest like this go on?”
    “That’s up to them.”
    Annora, Bree, and the Lintel brothers walked back to opposite ends of the field.
    “Is Annora good at this?” asked Jasper.
    Ridley smiled. “You could say that.”
    “Who goes first?” asked Jasper.
    “Normally, it would be decided by luck, but these four face off a lot. And since Annora and Bree lost last time, they’ll get to go first.”
    “So this is like an ongoing tournament?”
    “Yes. There’s supposed to be one every year, but with the dragons about, they mostly just meet after one’s been dealt with. Most years at least one’s been terrorizing us. Lots of rivalries get formed. Not many people move away from Bairne, although I remember once a caravan came from the coastal city of Warsh. That was a big deal, and more people left with them than came to stay.”
    “How far away is Warsh?”
    “I don’t really know. The roads between us can only be used during the really dry years, when the river is easier to ford.