The Dragon's Price (Transference #1)(47)
My knees tremble, and my hands grow damp against the wood of my staff. “You will die by your own hand, Sorrowlynn,” I whisper to myself. I find enough courage to call, “Leave me alone, and I will never breathe a word.”
The dragon hisses and swings its tail, slamming it into a canary-yellow wagon. The side of the wagon is smashed to bits, and it tips over. A man and woman and three children climb out of the ruined wagon and run to another, but the dragon’s eye doesn’t even glance toward them.
The problem with humans is they never keep their promises. Pain and money are the great tools to make a fool talk. If I have learned one thing in my long life, it is to never trust a human, it says, and my mind is filled with so much hatred that I gag on the vile taste of it.
The glass dragon’s muscles flex beneath its thick green scales, and it lashes its tail at me. I dive to the side and roll out of the way, and then spring back to my feet, brandishing my flimsy pine staff like it actually might be a formidable weapon against a dragon.
The creature laughs again, a sound so loud and grating that I throw my hands over my ears and whimper, but the laughter is coming from inside of my head. I cannot stop it no matter how I try. The laughter quiets, and I peer at the dragon just in time to see it pull its head backward and then thrust it at me, mouth open so wide I can see past its rows of fangs, deep into the blackness of its throat.
My body acts without a thought. I lift my arm over my shoulder and throw my staff as hard as I can, right at the deepest part of the dragon’s throat. As the weapon leaves my hand, I fall to the ground, swinging the cloak over me and pulling it tight around my head and shoulders.
The smell of winter engulfs me. Icy air whips at the cloak, blowing it from my ankles. Searing cold bites at my bare skin, and I scream. The cloak grows tighter, pressing on me, squeezing against my body until my bones want to crack, and I cannot move. The ground beneath my forehead turns frigid as a fine dusting of ice crawls over it like hair-thin veins, and then my hair freezes. I struggle to breathe against the pressure of the cloak but can barely inhale.
Someone yells something, and I recognize Golmarr’s voice. “Help!” I gasp. The sound stays trapped in the cloak. I dig my fingers into the frosty ground and push against the cloak with all my strength, but I cannot move.
The cloak shudders around me, and then I feel it crack and split, allowing me to gasp a breath of air so cold I feel it stab into the deepest part of my lungs. The cloak cracks again and is tugged away from my head. Warm hands claw at my shoulders, and I stare into the frantic face of Edemond. “Hurry, lass!” he barks. He is holding a frost-tipped ax in his hand.
I try to move, but my feet are stuck. Edemond pulls harder against my shoulders, and I feel ice scrape my bare, numb ankles, feel the leather shoes torn from my feet, and then I can move. I crawl out of the frozen cloak and let Edemond drag me to the wagon I slept in. He shoves me inside and pulls the door shut behind us, slipping a wooden bar in place to lock it. “The young Antharian horse lord,” Edemond says, his voice filled with excitement. He presses his face to the window and motions me over. “Look! The creature fears him!”
Trembling with cold, I stand beside Edemond at the small window. The clearing looks like something from a fairy tale. The foliage and wildflowers have been perfectly preserved beneath a thick layer of crystal-clear ice, and the trees look made of colored glass. I see my green cloak, frozen to the ground like the cracked shell of a turtle, and shudder.
At the farthest edge of the clearing, Golmarr is standing before the glass dragon, his curved sword held in both of his hands. The blade gleams a pale blue in the light of dawn. The beast’s head is lowered so it is level with Golmarr, and it is circling him, its massive claws shattering the ice with every step. It pulls its head back to blast him with cold air, but Golmarr uses the motion to his advantage, leaping forward and slashing.
The dragon stumbles backward, crashing into two wagons and knocking them onto their sides. Golmarr dives toward the beast and rolls between its feet. When he tries to stand, he slips on the ice and slams down onto his back. Even through the window, I can hear the crunch of his head against the frozen ground.
“No!” I shriek, and turn from the window. With unsteady hands, I fumble with the lock, then throw the door wide and run back out into the clearing. The scene before me freezes my blood. Golmarr is flat on his back, his sword arm motionless on the ground, and the dragon is lifting its great, clawed foot over him.
“Golmarr!” I scream, and try to run, but the ice is too slick. My bare feet move, but they do not carry me forward. The dragon splays its claws, and as its foot comes down, Golmarr bursts into action, rolling to the side as the talons shatter the ice where he was a moment before. Golmarr holds his sword in both his hands and swings his blade at the back of the dragon’s ankle.
The creature shrieks and stumbles to the side, and Golmarr climbs back to his feet. He swings his sword over his head and stabs forward, aiming for the dragon’s chest. An intense hatred grips my head so strongly that I grab my hair in my hands and scream. Suddenly, I know what this dragon’s treasure is. “Don’t kill it!” I shriek. “Don’t kill it, Golmarr!” Just as the tip of his sword pierces one of the scales on the creature’s wide chest, the dragon opens its black wings and lifts its body into the air. Great drops of crimson blood rain down from its injured leg as it flies over the clearing and disappears behind a shield of leaves. Where the dragon’s blood has landed on the ground, the ice is bright red and steam is rising up into the air.