Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [105]
LAUDI: Brave and glorious deeds in a dragon’s life that make it into the lifesong.
PRRUM: The low thrumming sound a dragon makes when it is pleased or particularly content.
SAA: The rear legs of a dragon. The three rear true-toes are able to grip, but the fighting spur is little more than decoration.
SII: The front legs of a dragon. The claws are shorter and the fighting spur on the rear leg is closer to the other digits and is opposable. The digits are more elegantly formed for manipulation.
TORF: A small gob from the firebladder, used to provide a few moments of illumination.
Hypatian
VESK: A Hypatian mark of distance based on the amount of distance light infantry can cover in an hour: about three-and-a-half miles.
Draconic Personae
AETHLEETHIA—Daughter of Scabia
AUSURATH—AuRon and Natasatch’s red offspring
AYAFEEIA—Leader of the Firemaids, daughter of Ibidio
BAMELPHISTRAN—Assistant to the Aerial Host, later leader
CUREMOM—Ankelene with idea for selling dragon parts
FEHAZATHANT—Former Tyr, now dead
IBIDIO—Elderly female dragon, mate to AgGriffopse, Tyr FeHazathant’s only male offspring
ISTACH—Striped daughter of AuRon and Natasatch
HALAFLORA—Tyr RuGaard’s first mate, now dead
NASTIRATH—A dragon of the Sadda-Vale. A very silly dragon indeed.
NATASATCH—AuRon’s mate
VARATHEELA—AuRon’s daughter
NOFAROUK—A dragon of the Tyr’s court
NOFHYRITICUS—Gray Protector of Hypatia
OUISTRELA—Cantankerous old female on the Isle of Ice
REGALIA—Green twin
SCABIA—Ruler of the Sadda-Vale
SIDRAKKON—Former Tyr, successor to Tyr FeHazathant, now dead
SIHAZATHANT—Red twin
SIMEVOLANT—Former Tyr, successor to Tyr SiDrakkon, now dead
SOROLATAN—Former Protector of Dairuss
YEFKOA—A swift-flying Firemaid
About the Author
E. E. Knight graduated from Northern Illinois University with a double major in history and political science, then made his way through a number of jobs that had nothing to do with history or political science. He resides in Chicago. For more information on the author and his worlds, E. E. Knight invites you to visit his Web site at vampjac.com.
Read on for an excerpt from the stunning
conclusion to the
Age of Fire
series by E. E. KNIGHT
Dragon Fate
Available soon from Roc in trade paperback.
Wistala, newly mated dragon-dame, might have been living an idle, romantic dream, save that she was eyesore from searching mountainside crevices and frostbitten about the nostrils.
She was out hunting trolls with her secret mate DharSii in the chill air among the peaks of the Sadda-Vale. They’d been up before the sun.
There were things she’d rather be doing with her mate, of course. Swimming in the steaming pools at the north end of the Sadda-Vale, for a start, rather than fighting winds that threatened to freeze her blood. The remote fastness of the Sadda-Vale, resting like a twisted skeleton on the vast plains east of the Red Mountains, had a pleasant microclimate in the snake-track vale between two short mountain chains, a gift of the mild volcanic activity in the area—along with an occasional earthquake.
Ancient ruins filled with highly stylized artwork, much of it featuring dragons, their prey, and cowering hominids, still waited to be explored. Their were secrets to be discovered in abandoned old tunnels and sub-chambers, icons to be discerned in high corners, ancient relics of dragon history.
DharSii, a powerful yet thoughtful dragon whose scale color reminded her of the tigers she’d seen in jungles to the south, had some interesting theories about the old structures of the Sadda-Vale and she wanted to hear them again, this time while looking at the art and iconography that had inspired such ideas. Wistala had developed her taste for pedantry while doing what her fellow librarians called “outwork.” She’d seen hints here and there of an ancient golden age of dragons and DharSii shared her interest in that time.
When conversation became too dull among their