The Onyx Dragon Read Free Page B

pile of interconnected halls and walkways and turrets that comprised the famous Dragon Rider Academy.
    Once, a loincloth-clad Pygmy girl had sneaked into these buildings and surprised Master Kassik. Pip grinned. Now, she even understood what these big people meant by the word ‘naked’. How far a jungle girl had come.
    Yet her greatest dream had also been shattered upon these dark volcanic slopes. Stolen from her jungle home at a young age and caged in a Sylakian zoo with Oraial Apes and monkeys, Pip had dreamed of being Human. She wished to be like the people who had traipsed in their tens and hundreds past her window to gawk at a dirty little savage. Sylakian law labelled her an animal. Now she knew she was a Shapeshifter, capable of manifesting in her Onyx Dragoness or Pygmy forms at a thought. No, not even a Shapeshifter. A poison-crippled half-being.
    Rising, only to fall. Was this to be her life’s song?

Chapter 2: To War!
     
    J YOSS CLEAVED THE warm volcanic air with silken wing-strokes, maintaining a Dragon’s-length lead on Tazzaral during the three-quarters of a mile ascent to the Master’s office. Pip saw from afar that the windows had been thrown wide open to the volcanic breezes, as if in anticipation of their arrival. The Dragoness’ paw clamped around her body was as warm as suns-baked sand, a hot shackle that encased her from chest to ankle. Perfectly safe. Perfectly deadly. Jyoss’ two backward-facing and three forward-facing digits formed a dextrous paw similar in some respects to a Human hand, with retractable claws neatly sheathed–but one flexion of her talons could pulp Pip’s torso like an overripe prekki fruit. Such was the strength of even a young Dragon.
    Shortly, the Dragons back-winged to land neatly on the broad balcony outside Master Kassik’s office. Pip alighted on stones scored by generations of talons, and for several seconds, gazed over the volcano with its open, steaming lava pits wreathing the peaks and rim walls in ever-shifting gaseous veils, seeking to imprint the scene upon her heart. This was the place she called home. The Academy had become a bastion of hope for the Dragonkind with the defeat of the Marshal’s advance forces the week before. In trouncing the formidable Silver, Pip had won not only a victory, but a boyfriend. Ah, boy-Dragon. Boy monster–what should she call him? Villain, foul enemy and the throbbing log drum of her heart?
    Monkey droppings, she was about as comfortable with her new relationship as she was with her habitual spot front and centre of the Master’s desk. The Brown Shapeshifter Dragon was not renowned for his kindly ways when he chewed out, shredded and pulverised errant students shuffling their bare toes on his rug. Pip and the spot of shame were well acquainted.
    Thankfully, as they shambled within like a clanking flock of sheep, the quintet of students found the large office quite empty.
    “You. Ay, you, your unroyal draconic feistiness.” Maylin made a mess of trying to hit Pip, and settled for bunting her hip-to-hip instead. “What’s with the chains? How did you–”
    Pip tapped her nose knowingly.
    Maylin made a disgusted noise, but Yaethi drowned her out with a bright laugh. “Another magnificent Maylin plan sinks into the Cloudlands. Quite the flair for execution, eh?”
    While her friends bickered, Pip watched the courting Dragon couple sharing a private nuzzle on the balcony. Jyoss still had the slender, compact frame of a youngster, although at six years old she was well into her fledgling years. She was a delicate rose colour with a striking hot pink trim upon her spine-spikes, claws, wing struts, and exquisite detailing across her brow ridges and muzzle. Tazzaral, at sixty-six feet long from muzzle to tail-tip according to his latest measure, was thirteen feet longer than Jyoss, head and shoulders taller, and beginning to bulge at the seams with the imposing musculature of an adult male Dragon. His deep copper tones