Dragon Fate: Book Six of The Age of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    “Go’ eh,” DharSii said through locked teeth. Go ahead.
    She heard him spit something out and opened the eye facing him. The troll-tadpole lay on the floor, giving a residual twitch now and then.
    “And I thought the smell was bad! I shall never get this out of my mouth,” DharSii said, spitting torfs of flame in an effort to burn out the taste. “They taste like no other flesh.”
    “Better in your mouth than my hide,” Yefkoa managed.
    “I’d rather eat poison ants,” DharSii said. He kept extending and retracting his tongue. The flapping tongue reminded Wistala of a dirty rug being shaken out by a blighter.
    Wistala shifted the rock.
    “Thank you,” Yefkoa groaned, able to raise her head.
    “Wistala, find some dwarfsbeard for this,” DharSii said. “I believe I saw some on the downed tree where we first saw the troll-tracks. Who knows what kind of filth this thing left in the wound.”
    “In a moment. What do you need to tell us, Yefkoa? Why did you come here? What’s happened to the Firemaids?”
    “Lavadome. Tearing itself . . . apart. Firemaids . . . broken up. Ayafeeia begs your help . . . and attendance,” Yefkoa managed to say.
    Had she gone mad from the pain?
    “We can talk later,” DharSii said. “Let’s see to the wound.”
    Wistala squeezed herself out of the troll-cave and flew downslope.
    She, who as Queen-Consort had once directed the defense of the Lavadome against an invasion, who had held the Red Mountain pass with a handful of Firemaids against the Ironrider hordes, now waged campaigns against trolls and hurried to find dwarfsbeard to patch a painful but minor wound.
    The terrible methodology of war, the chaos and life-and-death decision making, the ceremonies over the dead and the praise to the heroic living . . .
    She didn’t miss any of it one bit.
    She would so much rather be trading philosophy with DharSii after a good dinner, or watching birds go about their clockwork routines, or trying her voice at poetry.
    Alighting at the fallen tree, she searched for the ropy mass of dwarfsbeard. Yes, there it was, a thick tangle of hair run wild on an ancient dwarf. When broken and pulled apart, the thick white glue, like a thicker and stickier dandelion milk, acted on wounds, both cleaning them and speeding healing.
    Unlike on her long-ago errands with her father to gather dwarfsbeard, now she simply broke off the rooted end of the trunk, thick with water that was pooling and rotting out the wood, and flew back, holding the piece of tree tight under her chest. They could pluck it off the stump at leisure.
    She returned and found Yefkoa unconscious.
    “Just as well,” DharSii said. “With that skin missing and torn, it must be painful. She won’t have an easy recovery.”
    “I doubt she’ll be able to move,” Wistala said. “We’ll have to fly some blighters up here to tend to her wounds and sew her up again.”
    “She endangered her life to bring us this news,” DharSii said. “A brave dragonelle. Yefkoa. She’s an important dragonelle, I believe.”
    “A member of the Firemaids. Ayafeeia’s personal messenger, I believe.”
    “Strange of her to ask for you, then, if there’s war building,” DharSii said. “She’s breaking the Tyr’s law. That could be used against her.”
    “No, she’s too popular. Ayafeeia has an irreproachable reputation for fairness. The new Tyr and his Queen would be fools to go against her.”
    “Oooh, glad that’s over,” a new, high-pitched voice squeaked.
    DharSii and Wistala turned and sniffed.
    A huge leathery bat emerged from behind Yefkoa’s ear like a groundhog coming out of its hole.
    “Beggin’ your pardon, your worship. M’name’s Larb, one of Tyr RuGaard’s faithful servants. Oooh, I’m chilled. No bat was ever meant to fly so high. I’m frozen from ear-tip to fantail. I’m not askin’ too much by supposin’ you could—”
    “Don’t listen to him,” the exhausted dragonelle said, opening a bloodshot