Shadow Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

She found King Beran, babe on arm, staring at his map table in deep concentration. “Hey, Dad.”
    “Hey, Sparky. Couldn’t sleep?”
    “No. You? Leanya’s keeping you awake?”
    He chuckled. “Just a little. It’s Silha’s turn to sleep. Two busy twin boys to run after in a couple of hours and this baby girl … what was that shout I heard?”
    “An assassin,” said Aranya. King Beran blanched paler than the ice of an Immadian winter. “Dad–I’m fine.”
    “A– what? ” Boots thumped down the corridor outside. “Aranya … I’ll kill–”
    “Dad, I’m not hurt. Can we talk?”
    With an evident effort, the King uncurled his white-knuckled fingers from his dagger hilt. He sighed, “Aye. An assassin, you say?”
    “Or a crazy man.”
    “Forgive me, one moment.” Beran stalked over to the door and yanked it open. Aranya winced at the low-voiced but acerbic tenor of his interrogation of the duty guard. But when he returned, all he said was, “A trusted insider. It’s almost impossible to defend against such an attack. Are you truly unharmed?”
    “Not a scratch.”
    Aranya decided not to bother him with the question of the magic she may or may not have glimpsed. Seeing his daughter apparently rise from the dead was more than enough for a father to deal with for one week, wasn’t it? She touched her upper arm pensively. Not an inkling of magic.
    On cue, King Beran said, “Apart from assassins, what’s on your mind, Aranyi?”
    Aranyi–the intimate form of her name. She always considered it a special sign of his affection for her. She wondered what he had called her mother, Izariela. Izari? Izi?
    She stared at the map table, which depicted the northern part of the Island-World from the northernmost Islands, the frozen spits of rock north even of Immadia, to a thousand leagues south of Remoy. The surface was a square thirty-six feet across, but separated into nine parts so that a person could walk between the segments rather than trying to reach across that width. It modelled every known Island and significant spire of rock. Each was meticulously labelled in Beran’s own hand. Aranya noticed that the volcano and the Dragon’s Foot had been added, near a label for Immadior’s Sea. Zuziana, with her obsession for maps, had probably added that detail.
    But the disposition of Beran’s forces was what trapped her attention. Model Dragonships, Sylakian outposts … King Beran had been strategizing. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she grasped his intent.
    Find me the Dragon of the Western Isles.
    Trying to disguise her discomfort, Aranya held out her hands. “Let me cuddle Leanya for a bit, Dad, while you explain this two-front strategy. Do I not recall–”
    “That I swore never to fight on two fronts? Indeed.”
    Beran passed over Aranya’s baby sister–her half-sister, although she did not think of Leanya that way. She cradled the babe in the crook of her left arm. Her Dad was not fooled by her calm demeanour, she knew.
    He turned to the table, saying, “I’ve been toying with this two-prong strategy ever since we defeated the Sylakians, Sparky. Let’s be clear. Despite the severe reverse we handed them, we still need to deal with the Sylakian Southern Dragonship fleet, currently under First War-Hammer Ignathion.”
    “Given as we stole Ignathion’s son,” Aranya put in.
    “Exactly. Even disregarding the remnants of the Northern fleet, we still face a force greater than any we can assemble.”
    “There’s at least one more Shapeshifter Dragon.”
    “Aye, that too.” He swept his hand across the map. “You see, the problem has always been that there are two viable routes to attack Immadia Island. One from the south, the other from the far Western Isles. There are sizeable enemy strongholds placed along both routes. The time to strike is now, while they are disorganised and dismayed. But we need to balance readiness against capability. Our forces are severely depleted. The