Rise of the Dragons Read Online Free PDF Page B

rough, unfamiliar voice—and her stomach dropped as she saw a
group of the Lord’s Men, distinctive in their scarlet armor, step forward
through the crowd, the villagers parting for them. They approached the boar,
eyeing it greedily, and Kyra saw that they wanted this trophy kill—not because
they needed it, but as a way to humiliate her people, to snatch away from them
this point of pride. Beside her, Leo snarled, and she laid a reassuring hand on
his neck, holding him back.
    “In the name of your Lord Governor,”
said the Lord’s Man, a portly soldier with a low brow, thick eyebrows, a large
belly, and a face bunched up in stupidity, “we claim this boar. He thanks you
in advance for your present on this holiday festival.”
    He gestured to his men and they stepped
toward the boar, as if to grab it.
    As they did, Anvin suddenly stepped
forward, Vidar by his side, and blocked their way.
    An astonished silence fell over the
crowd—no one ever confronted the Lord’s Men; it was an unwritten rule. No one
wanted to incite the wrath of Pandesia.
    “No one’s offered you a present, as far
as I can tell,” he said, his voice steel, “or your Lord Governor.”
    The crowd thickened, hundreds of
villagers gathering to watch the tense standoff, sensing a confrontation. At
the same time, others backed away, creating space around the two men, as the
tension in the air grew more intense.
    Kyra felt her heart pounding. She
unconsciously tightened her grip on her bow, knowing this was escalating. As
much as she wanted a fight, wanted her freedom, she also knew that her people
could not afford to incite the wrath of the Lord Governor; even if by some
miracle they defeated them, the Pandesian Empire stood behind them. They could
summon divisions of men as vast as the sea.
    Yet, at the same time, Kyra was so proud
of Anvin for standing up to them. Finally, somebody had.
    The soldier glowered, staring Anvin
down.
    “Do you dare defy your Lord Governor?”
he asked.
    Anvin held his ground.
    “That boar is ours—no one’s giving it to
you,” Anvin said.
    “It was yours,” the soldier
corrected, “and now it belongs to us.” He turned to his men. “Take the boar,”
he commanded.
    The Lord’s Men approached and as they
did, a dozen of her father’s men stepped forward, backing up Anvin and Vidar,
blocking the Lord’s Men’s way, hands on their weapons.
    The tension grew so thick, Kyra squeezed
her bow until her knuckles turned white, and as she stood there she felt awful,
felt as if somehow she were responsible for all this, given that she had killed
the boar. She sensed something very bad was about to happen, and she cursed her
brothers for bringing this bad omen into their village, especially on Winter
Moon. Strange things always happened on the holidays, mystical times when the
dead were said to be able to cross from one world to the other. Why had her
brothers had to provoke the spirits in this way?
    As the men faced off, her father’s men
preparing to draw their swords, all of them so close to bloodshed, a voice of
authority suddenly cut through the air, booming through the silence.
    “The kill is the girl’s!” came the
voice.
    It was a loud voice, filled with
confidence, a voice that commanded attention, a voice that Kyra admired and
respected more than any in the world: her father’s. Commander Duncan.
    All eyes turned as her father
approached, the crowd parting ways for him, giving him a wide berth of respect.
There he stood, a mountain of a man, twice as tall as the others, with
shoulders twice as wide, an untamed brown beard and longish brown hair both
streaked with gray, wearing furs over his shoulders and bearing two long swords
on his belt and a spear across his back. His armor, the black of Volis, had a
dragon carved into its breastplate, the sign of their house. His weapons bore
nicks and scrapes from one too many battle and he projected experience. He was
a man to be feared, a man to be admired, a