Dragonseed

Amused, I should say.'

The man in the high window released an arrow. It landed not in Chapelion, however, but in the valkyrie who stood beside him. She fell to her back, the green-fletched bolt jutting from the round disk of her right ear.

Before any of the dragons could react, loud voices echoed up the staircase leading to the tower. 'Find Chapelion! He must know!' Chapelion turned his head upon hearing his name.

'Your love of books is legendary, Chapelion. I could place an arrow in your brain, but that would rob me of the satisfaction of imagining you standing in the remnants of the Grand Library with all its millions of books nothing more than ash and smoke.'

Chapelion shuddered as his eyes grew wide. An earth-dragon ran up the stairs, stumbling to a halt in the doorway. 'The Grand Library!' he shouted. 'Fire!'

Chapelion silenced him by raising his fore-talon.

'Take your guards,' said the archer. 'Leave this place. Perhaps a book or two may still be saved. Jandra and the others will remain. They're mine now.'

'Who are you?' Chapelion growled.

'You know who I am.'

Jandra knew as well: Bant Bitterwood, dragon-hunter, god-slayer, psychopath. His sense of timing, as always, was impeccable.

Chapelion looked as if he were in physical pain as he motioned to his guards. 'We can waste no more time. Leave the humans. Go to the library.'

'Hurry,' said Bitterwood. 'Old paper burns so quickly.'

Chapelion looked up as the dragons filed past him.

'You'll never escape this castle!' he snarled, before turning and marching from the room, leaving the humans alone. The door to the tower slammed shut.

'Seal it!' Chapelion barked from the stairs. 'Have every member of the aerial guard surround the tower! They must not escape!'

Anza danced across the net. Jandra flinched as Anza's sword slashed out at her, again and again. Seconds later, the net fell away. Anza turned to free Shay.

Bitterwood dropped from the high window into the room. He looked at Jandra as Lizard climbed back onto her shoulder. 'Is that an earth-dragon child? He can't come with us.'

'He can and he will,' said Jandra.

Bitterwood opened his mouth, but Jandra cut him off. 'You always lose these arguments, so let's skip over the banter and get out of here.'

Bitterwood glowered at her and nodded.

Shay shook free of the cut ropes that draped him as Anza stepped back. His voice was trembling as he walked toward the man who'd just saved them. 'Did… did you… did you really set fire to the Grand Library?'

'Of course,' Bitterwood answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if Shay had asked something trivial.

'Monster!' Shay swung out his lanky right arm in a furious arc, planting his balled up fist directly into the teeth of the dragon-slayer.

Bitterwood's head snapped sideways, but he wasn't knocked off balance. He calmly wiped his lips with the back of his hand as he stared at Shay. Shay was trembling with rage, his fists clenched, raising his arms to strike again.

Bitterwood kneed Shay in the groin. Shay doubled over and Bitterwood brought both of his fists down onto the back of Shay's skull. The former slave slammed down onto the net, completely still.

Bitterwood looked down and spit. His saliva was pink with blood as it splashed onto Shay's neck. 'He looks familiar,' he said. 'Did I save his life somewhere?'

'You can ask him after he wakes up,' said Jandra, rushing over to her wardrobe and swinging its doors open. 'Since you knocked him out, you'll be carrying him.'

'Like hell I will,' said Bitterwood. Jandra gave him a stern glance. Bitterwood shook his head in disgust as he leaned down and grabbed Shay's collar.

CHAPTER NINE:

A TORCH TO VANQUISH THE NIGHT

SHAY COUGHED HIMSELF awake; smoke scoured his lungs. At least, he felt like he was awake, though the evidence of his eyes argued that he was trapped within a nightmare. He was a hundred feet in the air on the exterior of a stone tower, slung over a white saddle on the back of a fifty foot long, copper-colored serpent. He should be falling-the beast he rode was moving along the vertical wall of the tower, racing across it as easily as if it were flat ground, gripping the walls with dozens of sharp-clawed legs. Fortunately, the saddle felt as if it were coated with glue-his stomach was held firmly against it in defiance of gravity.

Craning his neck and squinting to see through the haze of smoke, he found that the copper serpent was studded with riders both familiar and strange. Jandra sat on the saddle in front of him with Lizard standing on her shoulder, hissing loudly as he shook his small fist at the flock of sky-dragons wheeling toward them. Behind him Anza crouched upon a white saddle, her fingers bristling with throwing knives. He felt a sense of vertigo… given the angle at which she was perched, she should be falling. Behind her, near the tail of the beast, a black and white pig wore a silver visor that hid his eyes. It sat upon the saddle serenely, oblivious to the swaying, lurching gait of the serpent as it undulated across the tower. Beyond the pig sat a little blonde girl, perhaps ten years old, thin even by Shay's scarecrowish standard. She, too, wore a metal visor that hid her eyes.

At the beast's head Bitterwood stood in his saddle, his bow drawn, firing arrow after arrow into the swarm of dragons that dove toward them. Shay stared at the legendary dragon-slayer. He was a good deal shorter than Shay, and not particularly heroic in his stance or gestures. He looked like one of the field slaves at middle age, weathered, wizened, and worn out. The deep wrinkles around his eyes twitched as they flickered from target to target. His hands moved with inhuman speed back and forth from quiver to bow. The bowstring sang with a musical rhythm, humming for a few seconds until an arrow was placed against it once more, zuum, zuum, zuum, zuum. The arrows, he noted, had the same bright green leaves fletching them as the arrows that had killed the slavecatchers by the river.

Shay tried to rise, if 'rise' had any true meaning in this strange sideways world he'd woke in. As he moved, his center of gravity began to spin. He felt the ground below calling to him. He grabbed at the beast's scales, overlapping thin disks, metallic in their chill. He found himself slipping.

'Don't struggle,' the blonde girl called out. 'The saddle will hold you if you let it.'

Shay struggled. His legs were now dangling straight down.

He was looking toward Anza, who rolled her eyes. She hurled her throwing knives heavenward and a sky- dragon suddenly tilted and fell, its wings limp. Anza pulled her long sword from the scabbard over her back. She raised it over her head, and swung the flat of the blade at Shay.

Thunder cracked somewhere near the base of his skull and the world went dark once more.

SHAY WOKE TO the slightly sweet stink of manure and hay. He was flat on his back on a large bale of straw, his head pounding with each heart beat. He raised his hand to discover a knot the size of walnut on the back of his scalp. He sat up, trying to remember where and why he'd gotten the injury. He was in a barn, with horses in stalls staring at him lazily. It was distantly familiar; he knew he'd been here before. This barn was attached to an inn on the edge of Richmond. It was where they had left their horses before going to the Dragon Palace.

He rose on trembling legs. There were voices outside, familiar ones. He stumbled toward the barn door. It hurt to walk. He remembered Bitterwood's ungentlemanly assault. Kicking someone in the balls wasn't behavior he would have expected from a legendary champion of humanity.

Shay pushed the barn door open and his eyes were instantly drawn toward the horizon. Flames shot into the air in a huge inferno that reached to the stars themselves. The Grand Library, housing a thousand years of history and literature, was now the world's largest bonfire. He dropped to his knees in the barnyard muck, feeling ill. Not more than ten feet away, sitting on the edge of a rain barrel, Jandra watched the flames as well. Squatting on the ground