Twice Drowned Dragon (The Gryphonpike Chronicles Book 2) Read Online Free

honey, I took my arrow bag and my quiver out onto the shallow steps in front of the monastery. I’d lost arrows in the fight with the spider and if we were to fight a dragon or even just a nasty wild animal today, I wanted to make sure I was full up. The dawn air was still cool but with a thickness to it that promised another warm summer day ahead. The monastery walls were nearly overgrown with wishvines, the tiny white blooms opening to greet the sunlight that crept over the trees like a bashful child coming home from a night of mischief.
    I slid arrows from my bag and checked them for damage to the fletching and straightness. The best ones I put into my quiver to take with me. I figured I’d leave the arrow bag with our packs. We had a short distance to travel with a likely fight at the end. Seemed little point in taking more than I’d need.
    Drake came out a few moments after I did and started limbering up. He pulled his kukri and began a flashing dance across the open area between the monastery and the bee hives. I glanced up the steps and saw two of the monks watching him. Showing off, then.
    Still, this seemed as good a moment as any to approach Drake about an idea that had been building in my mind for weeks now. I slid the arrow I was holding into my quiver and stood up. Crossing to where Drake had paused in his movements, I drew my dagger and imitated his stance. I had never had much use for a blade when I’d been able to speak. Having the ability to shape the world with magic via words of power made using a knife in self-defense or aggression a moot point. Easier to tear something limb from limb with a simple song. I had only learned to use a bow as a physical exercise, the same as I had learned to ride a horse or send and call a hunting raptor from my hand.
    Here in the mortal realms, however, I’d found myself using my dagger in moments when fights grew too close for bow work. I had no skill at it. I knew it. I could see the difference between the way that Drake’s short blade flicked and slashed and my own Good Tree get it off me now wild stabbing. I had many deeds left to perform before I regained my voice and with it my power. Many fights ahead of me. It was time I shoved aside the tattered rags of my pride and learned how to fight better with something other than Thorn.
    Drake stared at me and raised a dark brow. I waved the blade around a little, trying to tell him to start moving again without actually telling him. My curse was fooled, I think, since no headache overtook me.
    “Killer?” Drake kept staring at me like I’d grown a horn.
    Frustrated, I started trying to copy what I’d seen him doing. Step forward in a half-lunge, thrust with the dagger, slash sideways while moving other foot forward, slash. I stopped as I heard Drake’s laughter and turned to glare at him.
    “Oi. I get it. You want me to show you some moves, eh?” My glare managed to quiet his laugh down to a chuckle. “First, you are holding that wrong.”
    He walked over to me and reached for my hand. I flinched away and brought the blade up. I wasn’t sure if him touching me would count as communication, but I wouldn’t learn anything if I were knocked unconscious or made sick by my curse before we had even begun.
    “Whoa, okay. No touching. I got it. Here.” He sheathed his kukri and drew a smaller dagger from one of his tall boots. “Like so.”
    Drake led by example and showed me some basic ways to move and cut. When he approved of how I was moving, I switched hands and started again. He paused for a moment and then shook his head with a little smile.
    “Definitely more to you than meets the eye, eh, Killer,” he said.
    You have no idea. Besides, why be good with one hand when you might be injured and lose its use?
    Of course, I guessed that none of our little group was all that met the eye, as Drake put it. All I knew about him was that he hailed from the southern kingdoms and shot down any talk of ever traveling that