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

eye. “He’s one of your brother’s dragon-blooded bats.”
    “Then he can leave off begging us and go to work on your wound,” Wistala said. “No opening up a fresh vein while you’re in there, either, you little flying rat, or I’ll toast you with some mushrooms.”
    “No need for threats, now,” Larb said, scuttling behind Yefkoa’s crest for cover. “I’ll lick the wound clean, I will. It’s just that I’m so stiff and sore from the cold of the airs.”
    The bat scooted across Yefkoa’s flank and buried its nose in the wound, licking and snipping ragged flesh with sharp little snaggleteeth.
    Bat saliva, Wistala had learned, brought a pleasant numbness to minor wounds.
    “We’ll need to close that up as soon as possible, dwarfsbeard or no,” DharSii said. “Perhaps, Yefkoa, you can make it out into the light. Fresh air and what passes for sunlight around here will help keep it clean until we can get you stitched up. I know instinct is to retreat to a cave to lick your wounds, but in the interests of hygiene—”
    “My love,” Wistala interrupted. “Your turn to run for help. Go back to the hall and get some blighters who can stitch wounds, won’t you?”
    “Of course,” DharSii said. “I shall return with help before the sun peaks.”
    He exited and Wistala listened to the fading beats of his wings before returning to Yefkoa. She nosed more dwarfsbeard into the trail left by the cleaning bat.
    Yefkoa winced as the bat incautiously planted a wing on raw muscle beneath torn-away skin. The bat’s tongue quickened, dabbing up blood and bits of ragged flesh.
    “What brought you such a distance, through cold and winter storm and danger?” Wistala asked, both curious and eager to divert her relative-by-mating from the bat’s not-so-tender ministrations.
    Yefkoa managed to raise her head. “Another civil war’s begun. Struggle for power between NiVom and Imfamnia against the twins. Skotl kills wyrr. Assassin hominids kill Protectors in their resorts. It will be the death of all of us.”
    It all sounded dreadfully familiar.
    More war, more deaths, more pain. RuGaard would be in agony of the fate of poor Nilrasha. And AuRon, on his way to one of his secret meetings with Natasatch—what was he flying into?
    All that could wait. Once more, she had duty to attend. It wouldn’t do to have Yefkoa fly all this way just to die on their doorstep.

Chapter 2
     
    T he Copper dragon, formerly Tyr of Two Worlds Upper and Lower, Protector of the Three Lines of Drag-onhood, Grand Commander of the Aerial Host, Patron and Solace to the Firemaids, Lord of the Imperial Rock, and Guardian of Clutch, Hatchling, and Youth, probed a loose tooth with his tongue.
    The bad tooth had occupied him of late. If it weren’t for the annoying, dull ache, he would have welcomed its irritation.
    The proper course to take with a rotting tooth was to rip it out. A sudden, sharp pain and the task was done. If Miki were still alive he could have done it in a moment with his viselike beak. You’d taste blood for a day or so and then wait for a new tooth to grow in. Plenty more in the mouth, after all. Hardly miss it. But the Copper, deep in his funk, preferred to take his time with the pain.
    The ache of the tooth ate up other, older aches. His loneliness for his mate, Nilrasha, held hostage against his continued good behavior, for example. Or the nagging doubts about his decisions the last few weeks when he’d occupied Imperial Rock in the Lavadome. That, too, nagged at him, before the sore tooth’s preoccupative power revealed itself.
    Miki’s absence bothered him more than he let on. The old bird had been his last reminder of the formalities and honors of being Tyr. Now that what he’d always thought of as traditional nonsense was gone, he found himself missing it more than he would have believed possible, sitting upon his throne in the Lavadome.
    Poor old bird. He wished he’d saved the feathers, instead of giving them to