Dragons Lost Read Online Free Page A

dragonfire
blazed across her shield, and Mercy screamed. Tongues of fire reached around
the metal disk to lick her armor. Her firedrake shrieked, the flames cascading
across its scales.
    "You'll be the one to burn,
Mercy!" the golden dragon roared. An instant later, Cade's claws came slamming
down.
    Mercy gnashed her teeth
as she raised her shield. The dragon claws clattered against it. Mercy swung
her sword blindly, trying to hit Cade. He dodged the blade, grabbed her shield
in his claws, and yanked it free from her grip.
    For an instant, Mercy
stared up into the roaring jaws of the golden dragon, and she saw her death.
    For that instant,
terror, all-consuming, filled her.
    Cade plunged down,
prepared to snap his jaws around her.
    Mercy growled, rose in
her stirrups, and thrust up her sword.
    The blade drove into
Cade's palate, piercing him, and blood showered. The dragon screamed and beat
his wings, rising higher in the sky.
    "Burn him, Pyre!" Mercy
shouted.
    Her firedrake reared
beneath her and blasted flames upward. The other firedrakes joined in. One of
the beasts slammed into Cade, knocking the golden dragon aside. Another firedrake
thrust its claws, tearing at Cade's scales.
    The golden dragon cried
out and plunged down in the sky.
    As Cade tumbled down by
her, Mercy leaned sideways in her saddle and thrust her lance. The blade
cracked one of Cade's scales and drove into the flesh. Blood spurted.
    The golden dragon cried
out and lost his magic.
    Cade plunged down in
human form, a boy again.
    Mercy grinned.
    "Grab him, Pyre!"
    The firedrake swooped,
claws extended. As Cade fell toward the distant forest, Mercy rode her
firedrake down in pursuit, prepared to grab Cade and bloody him a few more
times before chaining him up.
    The land below—rocky
mountains covered in pines—raced up toward them. Pyre's claws stretched out
like an owl reaching for a mouse.
    The firedrake's claws grazed
the tumbling boy.
    Before the claws could grab
him, Cade became a dragon again.
    Mercy screamed. As Cade
shifted, he ballooned in size. The golden dragon slammed against Pyre, knocking
the firedrake back. Mercy nearly tumbled from the saddle.
    Cade's fire blasted
skyward, hit Pyre's belly, and exploded in a great fountain. Smoke blinded
Mercy. She grabbed the saddle's horn, pulling herself back into position.
Flames burned at her boots. She screamed and thrust her lance blindly, and her
firedrake swayed, and for a moment Mercy didn't know up from down. The other firedrakes
streamed around her.
    When Mercy finally
righted herself, she stared around, sneering and panting.
    "Where is he?" she
shouted.
    Cade was gone.
    Mercy rose in her
stirrups, staring from side to side. "Where's the boy?"
    The other paladins
seemed just as confused. They too stared from side to side, seeking Cade.
    The golden
dragon was gone.
    "He must have fallen,"
said Sir Castus, streaming across the sky to her right. He pointed his lance
down toward the mountains. "Probably dead between the pines."
    Mercy growled. No. No!
She would not let him die. She would kill him herself in the capital for the
multitudes to see, for her mother—the High Priestess herself—to smell the
blood.
    "Then find him!" she
cried. "Down into the forest. Uproot every tree if you must! Bring him to me
alive, or bring me his corpse!"
    The firedrakes swooped.
The wind roared, and the mountainsides rushed up toward them. With a shower of
shattering branches, the firedrakes crashed through the pine canopy and landed
on the rocky slopes. Mercy leaped from her saddle and gazed around, seeking
him. Nothing. No sign of him. She saw only trees, boulders, a rocky stream.
    Mercy trembled with
rage. How could he have vanished? He had flown right beneath her! Her firedrake
had burned him! How had he disappeared in the blink of an eye?
    The other paladins
dismounted. They gathered around her.
    "He's probably just
dead on a rock somewhere," said Sir Lancino, a gruff man with a cleft chin. He
snorted. "I say