Voyages of the Flying Dragon Read Online Free PDF

had died while they raced to Fronge? Was there even anyone left to save? And what would have happened if they hadn’t been passing at this exact moment?
    The HiryÅ« landed with a familiar thud that shook the entire vessel. Missy followed the others out to the deck. Looking over the fore railing she could just make out the top of the wall surrounding Fronge and the black smoke rising from behind it.
    â€˜Missy!’ Lenis had come up on deck. He had two of his Bestia with him – Aqua, who had an affinity for water, and Atrum, the Bestia of darkness.
    â€˜Lenis!’
    Missy grabbed her brother’s hand just as the captain started giving orders. ‘Our first concern must be the safety of the people of Fronge.’ As Missy looked around at her fellow crewmembers, she saw each of them nod, their faces grim in their determination. All of them had gathered to hear the captain’s orders. With the exception of Tenjin, they would all be going into Fronge. ‘Princess Anastasis, would you mind opening the gate?’
    The Ostian princess remained unmoved by what was happening in the town. Missy knew she didn’t care about the people dying behind the walls because she couldn’t. She had given too much of herself to Disma, the Lilim she was bonded to. Disma was sitting on Anastasis’s shoulder,whispering into her ear, flapping her wings and twitching her tail.
    Without warning the princess leapt over the railing, apparently spurred into action by whatever Disma had been saying to her. Anastasis held her giant hammer above her head and swung it down as she landed in front of the walls. Her weapon hit the wooden portion of the metal-bound gates and a dull boom echoed along the length of the wall, sending the HiryÅ« ’s deck shaking.
    Missy held her breath and squeezed Lenis’s hand tighter. Every moment they delayed, another person was consigned to the flames. She looked up into her brother’s face. He was pale; no doubt his empathic abilities were being overwhelmed by the terror and grief of the townspeople behind the wall. Aqua was pressed up against his leg, and Atrum was nestled in the crook of his arm. The blind, black-furred Bestia had wrapped his tail around her brother’s neck, but Lenis gave no sign that he even noticed. Missy shook his hand and he shivered, coming back to himself.
    â€˜The princess got their attention,’ he said to her and smiled, a bare lifting of the corners of his mouth. ‘They’ve stopped.’
    Missy didn’t need to ask what they had stopped doing. She knew all too well.
    Anastasis lifted her hammer and brought it down again, fracturing the wood within the metal bindings of the gate. Still, it held. She struck again and again, showing no signsof restraint or tiring. Missy could see the muscles in the princess’s neck and arms straining every time she lifted her mallet, but her face remained immobile, as though it cost her no effort at all. Each time her hammer connected with the gate, the wood and bindings gave a little more. Missy had seen the devastation Anastasis could inflict with her mallet before, back in the prison of Asheim. Then she had used her barrel-sized hammer to smash through the doors of the crewmembers’ cells in a single blow, and later she had helped fight off Lord Butin’s Demon, Nue. The gates of Fronge were proving resilient, but finally, with a sharp snap that tore through the crackling of the fires and the rushing of the wind, the gates split open.
    Lenis held Missy back as the others poured through the gate. He was looking at her oddly, and it took her a moment to realise he was trying to tell her something.
    Wait, she sent the thought into his mind. What was that?
    Let the others handle Karasu , he replied.
    But –
    We need to get the stones.
    What?
    Her brother went on, perfectly calm, You and I are going to find Karasu’s airship. It must be somewhere in the square. We’ve got to