The Dragonbards

Начало книги

I think there are no more singing dragons on Tirror. I have searched with my restless thoughts as surely as if I flew, myself, across Tirror’s winds.

—From the diary of Meriden, Queen of Auric, written ten years before the battle at Dacia.

*

The swamp shone dark green, a steamy tangle of knotted, ancient trees thrusting up from sucking mud. It stank of rotting leaves and small decaying animals. Heavy moss hung down, and between the twisted trees, small pools of water shone. All was silence, the only sound the hushing whisper of insects, as if this land had lain untouched for a thousand years.

But suddenly screams shattered the stillness. The shadows flew apart and the quiet water heaved as a white dragon came plunging through, bellowing with terror.

Her iridescent scales shone with sky colors, and her wings were sculptured for flight. But she could not fly. One wing dragged, bloody and broken. Blood coursed down her gashed neck and shoulder staining a trail on the mud. The shouting behind her grew louder. She could hear the pursuing horses splashing and heaving. She fled between trees so dense that the arrow shafts sticking from her sides caught at them, jarring her with pain. Her broken wing pulled her sideways, and her great head swung as she reared to free herself from sucking mud. The shouts of the riders thundered just behind her. She tried again to fly, beating her wings in despair. Then she spun to face her pursuers, belching flame at the dark warriors.

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