Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [81]
Still, he lay there, unable to see, his own breath wheezing horribly in his ears, writhing in a feeble effort to flip over and get his knees under him.
He heard the Thyzarene swear, then a thud, then the swift, crunching sound of running footsteps across the snow.
Fear propelled Caelan up. Dragging his forearm across his eyes, he cleared most of the dragon’s blood away, ungluing his eyelids in time to see the Thyzarene running straight at him with an upraised javelin. The Thyzarene’s swarthy face was contorted with fury. He screamed curses as he ran.
Caelan met the man’s attack on his knees. His sword blade connected with the thrusting javelin point, and sparks flew from metal. Despite the other’s advantage in standing, Caelan was strong enough to hold their locked weapons and even push himself to his feet. This close, he saw that his opponent was only a boy, grown but not yet filled out, with a scraggly beard fuzzing his lean cheeks. Grief and rage blazed from his eyes.
It was said that Thyzarenes who flew the dragons had some kind of special bond with the creatures. Caelan glanced at the dead dragon tying in the bloody snow, then back to the Thyzarene straining against him. Rage could strengthen a man, but blind rage made him vulnerable and foolish.
Almost contemptuously, Caelan pushed the boy away and circled him, waiting to pick his moment.
Tears were running down the boy’s cheeks, but he was still cursing Caelan in his own tongue. Heedlessly, he swarmed Caelan in a frenzied, almost mindless attack, jabbing and flailing.
Caelan parried strongly, sidestepped another furious thrust of the javelin, and ignored the chance to cleave the boy in half. Instead he leaped behind the boy and got one arm around the boy’s throat.
The boy kicked and flailed, but the javelin was useless at such close quarters. Caelan knocked the weapon from his hand, and it plunged into a snowdrift.
Yanking the boy around bodily, Caelan forced him to stand where he could look at his dead dragon.
“Look at it!” he shouted in Lingua. “Look at it!”
The boy twisted and struggled, but Caelan tightened his hold until he heard the boy choke. Then he pushed the Thyzarene to the ground and planted his foot on the boy’s back to hold him pinned.
“That’s what is going to happen to you,” Caelan said.
The boy heaved in an effort to get to his knees, but Caelan stamped him flat again. Sheathing his sword, he drew his dagger instead and tested its edge with his thumb. It needed honing, but it would be sharp enough for what he intended to do.
His mind flooded with the memories of that long ago day at E’nonhold when the dragons had set the buildings on fire. He remembered dear old Anya’s face as she ran for her life, only to be burned beyond recognition. He remembered the screams, remembered his own helpless feeling of rage and frustration, remembered the laughter and exultant shouts of the raiders. He remembered lying on the ground, trussed in a net, while one of the raiders slit his father’s throat.
Gripping a handful of the boy’s dark curls, Caelan jerked him up to his knees and held his dagger in front of the boy’s terrified eyes.
“Stop! Stop!” the boy said desperately in heavily accented Lingua. “By the gods, stop!”
Caelan took grim pleasure in hearing the boy beg for his life.
“A Thyzarene afraid?” he jeered. “You are going to die out here. One quick slash, and you’ll be as dead as your dragon.”
“Wait! I can offer you money,” the boy babbled. “Take my bracelets. They are gold. Take my—”
“Shut up,” Caelan said, contemptuous of this whining. “When you are dead, I will take everything I want anyway.”
“No, please! You don’t—”
“That’s the Thyzarene way,” Caelan broke in. “You live off plunder. You dance in the ashes of your victim’s houses. You cart out all their possessions and pick them over. Bloodsucker!