Dragon Weather Read Online Free Page B

both survive.
    Survival did not seem very likely for either of them, though. The smoke was growing denser, the roar of the flames louder, and Arlian thought the whole cellar might yet cave in upon him.
    And that thick red trickle moved slowly down Grandsir’s cheek, and finally dripped down, the first fat drop landing squarely in Arlian’s open, gasping mouth.

3
    Lord Dragon
    The shock of that impact on his parched tongue, the indescribably vile taste, the unbearable stench, the corrosive burning that seemed to be tearing the lining from his mouth and throat, the knowledge of what was happening, was more than Arlian could bear; he fainted.
    He awoke choking in the dark, coughing up slime, and in his convulsions threw his grandfather’s body off him; the ladder that had pinned them both down snapped free and rattled to one side, one rail broken off short.
    Arlian rolled over and vomited up everything he could bring up, vomited until his chin dripped with stinking ooze and his elbows rested in a widening pool of acidic detritus. His eyes filled with tears, both from the agony in his gut and the awareness of utter disaster, the knowledge that his home and his family had been destroyed. He pulled himself clear, away from the corruption his body had expelled, away from the ladder and Grandsir, into relatively cool darkness and sweeter air. There he fainted again.
    He was awakened again, after how long he did not know, by voices, by laughter. He blinked and lay still, trying to remember where he was, what had happened.
    He was in the cellars, he remembered. He could see that he was still in the cellars, looking at the bottom shelf of one rack of preserves. Daylight filtered down from above, daylight thick with drifting dust.
    He was alive—the fire had passed over him and the cellars had not fallen in.
    He heard footsteps somewhere above, heavy footsteps that crunched as if walking on the black ash the volcano sometimes spewed.
    Daylight in the cellars—the roof was gone. Arlian remembered the fire, the smoke, the heat. He remembered the dragons; he remembered the third one’s face when it peered into the pantry, its eyes huge and alien and knowing.
    It had been the eyes that frightened him into stepping back and falling, far more than anything else. The fangs, the jaws, the dripping venom—he had hardly noticed those. He had seen only those great dark eyes, bottomless and terrifying.
    He had fallen; he remembered that now. And his grandfather had fallen.
    And Grandsir had been struck by the dragon’s acid venom.
    Arlian sat up, moving convulsively. He gulped air, choked and gasping, and turned.
    Grandsir lay beside him on the stone floor—or rather, Grandsir’s corpse lay there.
    There could be no doubt that he was dead; the venom had eaten his flesh away, exposing bone in half a dozen places, from a patch of skull where his forehead should be to the protruding parallel curves of bare ribs above the blackened, ruined remains of his chest.
    Arlian’s empty stomach contracted painfully. He had nothing left to bring up. He moaned, and blinked as his eyes filled anew with tears.
    His grandfather was dead. His parents were gone, almost certainly dead. His brother, as well. His entire life had been destroyed, suddenly and swiftly, with no warning—at least, none beyond a spell of bad weather.
    Something burned deep within him—not pain, not an emotion, but a strange sensation he had never felt before. He remembered how he had lain trapped while his grandfather’s venom-corrupted blood dripped into his mouth.
    He moaned again, slightly louder.
    The footsteps overhead stopped.
    â€œDid you hear something?” an unfamiliar voice asked—not the voice of any villager, Arlian was sure.
    Arlian could hear another voice respond, but could make out none of the words. He looked up, startled, and blinked the tears from his eyes.
    Who was up there? He had assumed there were survivors,