Khollo sliced off a portion of the fruit he was holding and ate it delicately. It was marvelously juicy, with a cool, tangy flavor to it that exploded in his mouth.
“That is good!” Khollo agreed, carving another slice and eating it. “Wha’ do ‘oo call i’?” he asked with his mouth full, spraying juice everywhere.
“Dunno,” Ezraan replied with a shrug. “I’ve never seen its equal anywhere in the world and I never named it myself.”
“Well, we can’t just call it the good fruit,” Khollo muttered, swallowing.
Ezraan shrugged again. “As long as there are plenty of them to eat, I don’t much care what they’re called.”
As Khollo was carving a third slice for himself, Kanin lumbered up, dripping wet. Are they good for dragons? He asked curiously, eyeing one of the fruit trees.
Khollo pondered this. “I have no idea. Why don’t you try one?”
Kanin thought about this, then reached out and plucked a fruit from the nearest tree. He considered it for a moment, then popped it into his mouth. The dragon’s eyes widened in surprise.
It is very juicy, he observed. And the flavor is not altogether unpleasant. I will need several more before I can make a final assessment of its qualities though. After all, one is hardly a mouthful for me. The dragon began selecting more fruits from the trees, chomping on them contentedly.
“Apparently they are good for dragons,” Ezraan observed wryly. He frowned suddenly. “There is one side effect of this fruit that I forgot to mention,” he said. “It did not matter when I lived alone, but if Kanin eats too many of these delectable little – ”
“What side effect?” Khollo asked quickly.
“Well, in humans, it produces uncontrollable belching,” Ezraan said a little sheepishly. “But in a dragon . . .”
“That could be bad,” Khollo agreed. “Kanin, if you feel the fire coming on, dive in the spring immediately.”
I can control my own flame, Kanin said haughtily. His statement was punctuated by a massive belch from Ezraan.
The older man shrugged. “See? I told you.”
But Khollo was watching Kanin. The dragon had eaten ten times as much fruit as Ezraan had. He was twitching slightly, sitting on his haunches. Suddenly, he looked down at his scaly stomach, eyes whirling in alarm. Oh no.
“Kanin!” Khollo shouted, diving for cover, “The spring!”
Kanin turned but before he could get to the spring a tremendous gout of flame shot from his mouth and blasted the surface of the water. Kanin shook his head, then another blast rocked him backwards, this one splashing on the shore and creating a glassy patch in the sand.
Khollo ran up to the dragon’s side. Are you – ?
The young warrior yelped and leapt back as a jet of fire rocketed over his head, splashing somewhere behind him. Kanin rubbed at his nose, growling in frustration.
“Into the spring!” Khollo shouted, shoving at the dragon’s flank.
Kanin obediently trundled into the water and promptly let loose another fireball. Then another. And a third. The surface of the spring boiled and a cloud of steam rose around the dragon, occasionally lit up gold and red and orange as another fireball erupted from Kanin’s mouth.
Khollo glared at Ezraan, hands on his hips. “It appears we will be spending the night here,” he said, grinding the words out.
Ezraan nodded. “Sorry about that. You’re sure we can’t fly back to the hold?”
Another fireball, larger than the others, set Kanin reeling again.
“You can risk it,” Khollo said. “But I think one of those might just launch us off Kanin’s back.”
Ezraan nodded slowly. “Quite right,” he mumbled. Then, he let go a monstrous belch of his own.
Khollo rolled his eyes. “It’s going to be a long night,” he groaned.
Chapter 36
“Steady, Kanin,” Khollo muttered, brow furrowed in concentration. “Hold it there.” He waited a half breath longer, then released his shot, sending the arrow buzzing towards the bundled ferns that served as a target.
“Perfect!” Khollo shouted. Kanin growled and launched into the next part of the routine, flipping and turning, then barreling towards the enemy line. Kanin flamed the stone pillar that marked the enemy position, then wheeled up and away, Khollo looking back to watch for return fire.
“Clean away!” he called.
Kanin returned to their starting point and hovered there expectantly, looking down at the disheveled, gray-haired figure sitting high in the branches of a tree.
“Eleven seconds!” he called. “Not bad, not bad at all. Perfect on targets as well.”
Khollo nodded, grinning. “We’re getting better every day,” he said, patting Kanin’s neck affectionately. The dragon rumbled in reply, then extended his wings and glided down to the ground. Ezraan began extricating himself from the tree, moving slowly down from branch to branch.
The old man sighed as he dropped to the ground. “I’m too old to be climbing trees,” he grunted. “We haven’t seen the tiger in more than two weeks now. Why not just forget about it and stop letting it dictate our lives?”
“Because as soon as we do, it will be back,” Khollo reminded his father, as he had at least a dozen times since the last attack. “If we maintain constant vigilance, the beast won’t come after us. But if we look vulnerable for even a moment, it might decide we look like a good breakfast.”
Tiger would never best me, Kanin sniffed. I would flame him to a crisp before he got close.
“I don’t doubt that you would,” Ezraan agreed. “Especially if we tossed you some of the belching fruits for extra firepower.”
“We don’t have any more of those, do we?” Khollo asked sternly, fixing Ezraan with a stare. Four days after the expedition to the spring, Khollo had found a cache of a dozen belching fruits in a next-door hold. He’d confiscated the lot and put them where neither Ezraan nor
