What a Dragon Should Know

Dagmar held up the slim stick. “I got this from a witch. They know all sorts of things. It really is amazing what you learn when you become a … what was it you called me?”

She struck the slightly larger head of the stick against a rock and a small flame flared to life. “Ahh, yes. ‘Pet.’ ”

Dagmar held the burning stick over the pit.

“Don’t,” one of them begged.

“But as a fellow Northlander … you already know I will.” She opened her hand and the small stick fell. It grazed against the side of the pit—it, too, saturated with oil—and the tiny flame led to an eruption that tore down the wall and right into the pit.

The dragons screamed as the flames followed the oil under their scales to their flammable flesh beneath.

It was hard to hear over their screams, but the crackling told her to move and move now.

Dagmar did, standing and tripping backward on the hem of her gown.

Flames shot up into the sky and she turned to run, but scaled forearms grabbed her around the waist, pulling her close.

“Head down, love,” Addolgar ordered, and then his wings surrounded them as he turned and everything in the pit exploded in a shower of flame and lightning.

Talaith wasn’t surprised when Izzy got back to her feet so quickly. She’d, thankfully, taken after her birth father’s side of the family—all of them quite hearty. But the sight of Izzy springing back from her dance with lightning, did nothing but piss off the old dragon who’d barely avoided his own strikes coming back at him as they were reflected by the shield.

Wanting them both dead now, he attacked Izzy with his tail and unleashed more lightning strikes at Talaith. She raised her hand, the shielding spell coming to her immediately. It wasn’t as powerful as she would have liked and only absorbed the lightning strikes rather than turning them back on its sender. She didn’t have time to worry about that, though, as she grabbed her dagger from the sheath tied to her thigh. Oh, how she wished she could tell her daughter to run and hide, but they simply didn’t have that luxury.

The dragon swiped at Talaith with his claw and she dodged under and around it. He went for her again and Talaith neatly sidestepped the grasping appendage.

She was at his side now and she could see Izzy slam her foot on top of the dragon’s tail. With the heavy shield braced in her hands, Izzy looked at her mother.

Talaith nodded once and yelled up at the dragon, “That all you can do, you old bastard? That all you have in you?”

The dragon swung a fist at Talaith as Izzy held the Lightning’s tail in place long enough to bring the sharp edge of her shield down, severing the three-foot-long sharpened metal tip from the scale-covered muscled portion.

The dragon roared, his fist missing Talaith completely. Outraged, he slammed his bleeding tail down again and again, trying to crush a running and dodging Izzy.

Talaith thought he’d give his full attention to Izzy, but he was no fool. He reached down again, trying to grab Talaith. Debating her next move, she saw Izzy pick up the tip of the dragon’s tail, readying to use the spiked piece as her weapon.

Impressed beyond reason, she bellowed, “Izzy!” Talaith quickly leaned back as swiping talons came entirely too close, the tip of one grazing along her chin. “Run and jump!”

Gwenvael snatched the sword from the Lightning’s claw and stood, his tail still wrapped around the bastard’s cock. He used it to throw him across the glen. Charging after him, Gwenvael went up in the air and came down with the sword in both claws. The blade tore through the Lightning’s hard skull and out the back.

Twisting it, he yanked it free and ran back toward Izzy and Talaith, intent on saving them.

But as he slid to a stumbling stop beside Addolgar and his cousins, his mouth fell open. He’d be the first to admit this wasn’t what he expected to see. Nor did his kin, based on the way they watched but didn’t intervene.

He felt a small tap on his leg and looked down at Dagmar. Her clothes were covered in soot, which seemed strange, even for her, and his tail automatically wrapped around her legs as she took hold of one of his talons. Together they all stood and watched.

Talaith grabbed hold of Olgeir’s talon as it tried to rip her open, that damn blade of hers caught between her teeth as the Lightning’s claw rose. When he realized he had something attached, he lifted it to get a closer look and Talaith dropped from his talon to his snout. She landed on her knees and brought the blade down hard where two of his scales met tightly. Only a human as well trained as Talaith could hit that mark, the Lightning screaming in pain and rearing back on his haunches. Talaith stayed on his snout merely by holding onto the blade she’d impaled him with.

That’s when Gwenvael’s niece ran up the Lightning’s back, sliding down when he went on his haunches, but charging forward again when he slammed back down to the ground. She ran, and she kept running.

Up the Lightning’s back she charged until she’d reached the top of his head. That’s when she used her right foot to lift off, her body forced away from the Lightning. Then, in midair, she turned with her arm going back at the same time, then forward as she faced the bastard. Is that a … ? Yes. It was the tip of a dragon’s tail. That dragon’s tail. And she used it to tear into Olgeir’s eye, his roaring screams causing every dragon in an eighty league radius to flinch in empathy.

But Izzy always had strength and power and she used it to drive that tip straight past his eye and the bluntly hard dragon’s skull, right into Olgeir’s brain.