Twice Drowned Dragon (The Gryphonpike Chronicles Book 2) Read Free Page A

strange creature up again.
    “It’s a Fachen. We named it Peggy, on account of it only having the one leg.” He chuckled at that and we obliged him by smiling around our food.
    Rahiel hadn’t, for once, been exaggerating. The honey was divine. It was thick and sweet but light, melting into the dark bread and then again on my tongue. I wanted to grab the honey pot sitting on the table and guzzle it. I caught Drake’s eye as I stared longingly at the pot and he smiled like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
    “Why not just kill it?” Makha asked.
    “Kill Peggy?” The Abbot shook his head. “We try not to harm living things. Apinir teaches that the divine spark inhabits even the mosquitoes that bite our skin and the ants that steal our honey. A creature as unique as a Fachen probably has a great spark inside it. Besides, she’s lived down in the old orchard as long as I’ve been Abbot, and until recently never bothered a one of us.”
    “It’s that dragon,” said one of the other monks, a thin fellow with hunched shoulders who walked with a slight limp.
    “Dragon?” Azyrin set down his mug.
    “There is no dragon.” The Abbot glared down the table. “It’s a story. Back in the centuries after the Ancient Imperium crumbled.”
    I hid another smile. Ancient Imperium? Saliidruin is their proper name . A name now mostly forgotten. Even among the Elemental Elves, the world-breakers, as the name translated to, were almost more myth than history.
    “The Barrows got their name from that, you know,” said the thin monk. “Whole place was a burial site for the Imperials.”
    The Abbot shot him another glare. “They don’t care about old stories, Marto.”
    “We do care,” Azyrin assured him. “Old stories are meat to adventurers.” He smiled at the thin monk, who smiled wanly back, eyeing the half-orc’s sharp white teeth.
    “There’s a story about a dragon. How Coldragon got its name. Involves Wood Elves like your friend, actually.” The Abbot sighed and took a drink from his mug, settling in to tell the story. His blue eyes had a smile in them, as though his protests had been only for our sake. I imagined he didn’t get to tell the old stories much.
    Of course, he was dead wrong about one thing already. Whatever this story was, it involved no Wood Elves like me. I was no Wood Elf. You might be an old man , I thought, but you would’ve needed to live ten thousand lifetimes to know what sort of Elf I am . Everyone guessed Wood Elf on account of my brown hair and green eyes. I wondered what would happen if we ever encountered an actual Wood Elf. Fortunately, my far distant descendents were very reclusive and stayed within the Woodland Reach far to the north and east of here.
    “So they had to drown it twice?” Rahiel asked.
    I blinked. I’d been lost in thought about my people and the other elves and missed much of the story. The heavy food, warm fire, and long day were catching up to me.
    “Aye. They drowned the dragon a second time and this time the great black brute stayed dead. He’s supposed to be buried in a mound somewhere in these parts, but if so, it has long since sunk into the swamps.”
    “Or maybe not,” the thin monk insisted. “Nabbe saw it down near the orchard. Says it was big and black with rotted scales hanging off its bones.”
    The Abbot banged his empty mug on the table. “Enough. Nabbe craves more excitement than our quiet life gives, I’m afraid. Ever the curse of the young, eh?”
    “Well, something drove old Peggy out of its tower,” muttered the thin monk.
    “Tower?” Drake swiped his finger around his empty plate to get at the last drips of honey.
    “There’s an old keep out in the orchard. Whole land used to belong to some wizard-knight. Family fell on hard times, sold the fief to the Duke of Barrows, and eventually he deeded it to the monastery. The orchard has gone wild, but the bees like the flowers, so we let it stay as is. Plus Peggy lairs in the keep and