The Erth Dragons Book 1: The Wearle Read Free Page A

he didn’t lift his head and do something with his wings he was destined to become a permanent feature of the valley floor. He heard roars of relief as he rolled three times and found the strength to enter a glide. It wasn’t enough to prevent him hitting an escarpment and tumbling even further down the valley, gathering snow like a falling seed. Any sensible dragon might have accepted defeat. But Gabrial wasn’t ready for surrender. He was stunned and pained all over his body, but the hurt had merely sharpened his senses. He flipped himself upright, roared for good measure, shook off the snow and looked around for G’vard.
    The white dragon had landed behind him. G’vard had risen to his full height, just over a flame’s length away. His jaws were open, his multiple, hooked incisors glistening and sharp against the smoke-stained pink of his mouth. It was a posture that would have made most dragons cower, and a ripple of fear ran through the blue now. When dragons grappled on the ground, rarely did the smaller beast triumph. Gabrial was strong, of good weight for his age, but G’vard was huge in comparison; the hardened veins in his formidable wings were almost as thick as Gabrial’s front legs. But it was the eyes that Gabrial knew he must avoid. G’vard was fully jewelled and an expert in glamouring , the ability to mesmerise opponents with a stare. Yet it was a subtle glance at the eyes that saved the blue dragon and prolonged the fight. Something wasn’t right with them. The eyes were shaped like jewels, with many angled sides, but they weren’t glittering. That could only mean they weren’t real . Gabrial was looking at an i:mage.
    Of the many gifts dragons possessed, the ability to i:mage was the most prized – simply because the technique was so difficult to master. As early as the wearling stage, young dragons were encouraged to make structures outside their heads of the shapes they created inside them. These ‘floating pictures’, as they were sometimes called, had no substance and dissolved as the dragon’s concentration wavered. Gabrial could still recall many of the ‘blobs’ he’d produced as a wearling. He had struggled in his youth to make anything worthwhile (his mother had called his first creations ‘disturbingly different’), but had steadily improved with his father’s guidance until he could make convincing i:mages that looked so perfect they had to be prodded to determine whether they were real or not. That was exactly what G’vard had done here, used his ability to create a duplicate i:mage of himself, even drawing some snow into the structure to give it depth. Gabrial took a chance and flew straight at it. The fake G’vard exploded in a burst of snow, hiding the blue just long enough to avoid the swing of real claws concealed behind the i:mage. Once again, G’vard was left frustrated and the young contender escaped.
    And now Gabrial had a minor advantage. G’vard had used up his chance to i:mage. If he tried again he would be disqualified and the contest would default to Gabrial. What’s more, Gabrial was in the air again, where he was more at ease. On a straight flight, G’vard would have left him behind in five wingbeats. But in aerial combat, Gabrial was easily more agile, and he proved it several times in the next few clashes. Twice the white dragon closed on him at speed, and twice Gabrial deftly swooped away. At one point, he cleverly folded his wings and darted between the white’s stout legs, almost nicking a scale from his belly. The watching dragons hurred in appreciation. The blue was proving an entertaining adversary. Was it possible he could actually win ?
    Gabrial believed he could. But he was also aware that if the aerial exchanges continued for too long he was going to tire. One sloppy wingbeat, one miscalculated roll, and G’vard would have him. And so he moved into his final stage, which was to use his right to i:mage. First, it involved a little deceit.