The creature was long and muscled, with claws, fangs and horns bigger than any beast she had ever seen. She was terrified and fascinated all at once. It was not quite like the dragons she had seen depicted in paintings – it was leaner, fiercer and mightier than she ever could have ever imagined. Its body radiated heat and power.
‘Alinore!’ Cressyda cried.
But Alinore did not take her eyes off the dragon. She held her sword high, swinging it through the air.
The creature stared at her. Its forked tail flicked to one side.
Alinore’s horse side-stepped with a screeching whinny. It had taken all of her skill to force the gelding on to the ridge against the animal’s every instinct to flee danger. The blast of fire they had spotted while thundering through the scrubland below had led them upthe slope, and all the way, the horse had snorted and shied, sensing what terrible beast lay ahead.
The dragon lifted its snout and snarled: a low, menacing boom.
The gelding reared up, eyes rolling back in his head.
Alinore snatched at the reins, but they slid through her fingers and she tumbled from the saddle, landing with a thump on the hard ground.
‘Alinore!’ Cressyda screamed again.
The gelding charged off into the undergrowth, disappearing into darkness. Alinore scrambled on to her hands and knees in time to see the dragon lifting its head, a bright, ominous redness pulsing in the webbed skin at its throat. Fire. She flung herself to the side, tucking into a desperate roll just as a blaze roared past, turning the grass behind her into a wall of flickering flame.
Heat seared the chilled air and clouds of smoke billowed.
Gasping, Alinore clambered to her feet. She had always envisioned doing something like that in battle against an enemy – and even practised it as part of her training – but the reality was more frightening than she ever could have guessed.
The dragon growled, a low, deep rumble.
It darted forward and instinctively Alinore swung her sword high. The tip of her blade hit its scaled shoulder, ricocheting off with achink. The force of the impact almost knocked the hilt from her hand and Alinore had to clutch it tightly, panting from the shock. She had spent most of her training practising fighting against an imagined swordman – human-sized, predictable, flesh and bone. Not this. Not a creature whose hide deflected steel like rain off stone, whose movements were too fast and too fluid. The realization settled heavily in her gut: this was no sparring match. This was survival.
The dragon wheeled around, rising on to its haunches. The leathery wings on its back shuddered open, as if it was preparing to leap.
Alinore gulped, her throat dry, never taking her eyes off its curled, lithe form. She gripped the hilt of her sword with both hands and flicked it upwards as the dragon pounced.
Again, her blade rebounded off its scaled chest and she stumbled back, almost losing her footing.
The dragon turned and the forked end of its tail whipped around, slashing her left forearm.
She gasped, feeling blood ooze. Panic flared and though she tried to stamp it down, it flooded her body, turning to terror.
The dragon wanted to kill her.
If she lost, she would die.
The dragon thrashed its tail again and Alinore only just managed to spin away in time.
She feigned an attack to the left, then jabbed her sword right at the last moment, beating the dragon on the snout with the flat of her blade.
Shrieking, it spewed a thin stream of orange fire that shot too close to Alinore’s face, singeing her collar and throwing her off balance.
She stumbled again and the sword slipped from her grasp, clanging against a nearby rock.
The dragon leapt forward.
Alinore’s head smacked the ground, her whole body jarring with the impact. Pain exploded at the base of her skull, blooming outward in waves that made her vision blur and her breath hitch. A cry tore from her throat, raw and involuntary, before she collapsed fully, limbs splayed and trembling. She lay still, gasping shallowly, the night spinning around her in a haze of sound and colour.
The dragon reared up, its wings unfurling. Two red eyes fixed upon her and fire glowed at its throat, surging up to its jaw.
It was ready to strike.
The knowledge of what was about to happen froze Alinore in place, every muscle locked by terror. Her breath caught, and her heartbeat seemed to stutter.
