Dragon Rule - E. E. Knight [2]
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, December
Copyright © Eric Frisch, 2009
All rights reserved
Map by Thomas Manning and Eric Frisch
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Knight, E. E.
Dragon rule/E. E. Knight. p. cm.—(The age of fire ; bk. 5)
eISBN : 978-1-101-15568-4
1. Dragons—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3611.N564D’.6—dc22 2009025261
Set in Granjon
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TO THE MEMORY OF SAM,
MY FAITHFUL ALLY IN GOOD TIMES AND IN BAD
BOOK ONE
Faiths
“INTENT AND RESULT ARE TWO ALLIES WHO RARELY MEET.”
—Aphorism engraved on the south wall of the
Hypatian Directory
Chapter 1
The Copper dragon, Tyr of Worlds Upper and Lower, Exalted Protector of the Grand Alliance, tried not to show the pain.
The velvet darkness of the warm air over the Inland Ocean might have been that of summer instead of late autumn. The oceanic currents near the nighted shore swirled with the balm of the shallower waters of the delta country to the south. Heat rising from the phosphorescent waters, alive with tiny glowing creatures riding the warmth, caressed his wings and underbelly as he flew.
He couldn’t remember the last time he enjoyed such a perfect night for flying.
Not that there was time to enjoy an idyll. The moon had vanished below the horizon; it was time for hard flying to Swayport, rocky fastness of the Pirate Lords on the Western Shores of the Inland Ocean. The soft air, seemingly made to beckon young dragons into the sky to chase and turn and embrace at last as mates, was cut instead by wings bound for war.
Healthy wings with intact joints, that is. The Copper dragon’s pinioned right wing was held together by cable and gear, and tonight the contraption that allowed him to fly chafed and pinched. Terrible time to come up wingfelled, with a battle to be fought.
He’d been trying for the last hour not to think about the rising pain in his wing, but a raw nerve under torn flesh would not be ignored. The pain was like an arrow tearing through his joint at each reverse of the wing. The topstroke and bottom both brought stabbing agony, alike as twins.
Having given up not thinking about the pain, he fell back to his second line of defense, as one of his captains might have put it. He tried not showing it, to keep his appearance to the other dragons in the flight line that of a Tyr eager for battle in the coming red dawn.
If the second line fell, he would just have