“I’ll take you back.”
Cian looked at the hand Larkin offered. Humans, he thought, trusting and optimistic. He took it, pulled himself to his feet. “No, we’ll go on. I need to hunt something.”
He’d won the battle, Cian thought as they rose into the air again. But he wouldn’t deny he was relieved to be heading away from that ground.
And he was darkly thrilled when he spotted the movements below.
A dozen troops, he noted, on foot and moving with that fluid swiftness of his kind. For all the speed, there was a precision to it, an order in the ranks that told him they were trained and seasoned soldiers.
He felt the shift of the dragon’s body when Larkin saw them, and once again Cian leaned down.
“Why don’t we try out Glenna’s newest weapon? When they cross the next field, fly directly over the center of the squad. They’ve got archers, so once the shit hits, you’ll have to go into evasive maneuvers.”
As Larkin flew into position, Cian reached into the harness pocket and took out the ball.
How is a dragon like a plane? he considered, and put his centuries of experience as a pilot to use gauging airspeed, distance, velocity.
“Bomb’s away,” he murmured, and let the ball drop.
It smashed into the ground, causing the baffled squad to stop, draw weapons. Cian was about to chalk Glenna’s experiment up to a loss when there was a towering burst of flame. Those closest to it were simply obliterated, while a few others caught fire.
Watching the panic, hearing the screams, Cian notched an arrow. Ducks in a barrel, he mused, and picked off what was left.
Once again Larkin touched down, and changed. “Well.” He kicked carelessly at a pile of ash. “That was quick.”
“I feel better for having killed something, but it was detached, impersonal. Human style. Doesn’t have the same kick as a true hunt. Same reason we don’t use guns or modern weaponry,” Cian added. “There’s just no thrill in it.”
“I’m sorry for that, but the results of it suit me well enough. And Glenna’s fireball worked a treat, didn’t it now?”
Larkin began to gather the weapons scattered over the ground. As he bent down, an arrow whizzed over his back, and planted itself in Cian’s hip.
“Oh well, bugger it! I must have missed one.”
“Take the harness.” Larkin tossed it at Cian. “And get on.”
He flashed to dragon, and since he considered the arrow might slow him down a little on foot, Cian vaulted up. He caught the next arrow in the air before it could strike. Then Larkin was rising and diving and swerving.
“There, I see them. Second party entirely. Likely a hunting party looking for stray humans or whatever comes to hand.”
He used the bow again, taking out a few as they scattered and took cover.
“It’s just no fun this way,” he decided. Drawing his sword, he leaped off Larkin and dropped thirty feet to the ground.
If dragon’s could curse, Larkin would have turned the air blue.
They came at Cian like the points of a triangle, two male, three female. He sliced the arrow coming at him in two with his sword, then spun the blade back to block the oncoming attack.
The dregs of what he’d felt on the battleground were in him, and he used them. That need for blood, if not to drink, then to shed it. He fought at first to wound, so he could smell it—the rich copper of it, and ride on it as he hacked and sliced.
The dragon’s tail whipped down, slapped one of the females back as she lifted her bow again. Then its claws raked at the throat.
To amuse himself, Cian flipped back, shot a vicious kick into the face of an opponent. When it stumbled he took its head even as he yanked the arrow from its hip and plunged it into the heart of the one coming from his left.
He spun around, saw that Larkin had changed and was ramming a spent arrow in the heart of the last one.
“Is that it then?” Larkin said breathlessly. “Is that the last of them?”
“By my count.”