Read Online Dragon Coast by Greg van Eekhout - Free Book Online

want to disable it?”
    â€œDon’t you know what the dragon’s been up to?”
    â€œRaising hell, from the sounds of it.”
    â€œIt just annihilated a whole neighborhood,” Sam said. “There must be hundreds dead.”
    â€œAnd that wasn’t your aim? To burn everything down?”
    â€œNo,” Sam said, outraged. “Why would I want that?”
    â€œHm. My mistake. I thought it was you piloting. Who’s up in the cockpit, then?”
    â€œWell, me, usually. But I’m not in control.”
    She puffed out air. “This train’s a runaway volcano, that’s for sure. Well, mind if I have a look upstairs? I’ve been dying to know what’s up there.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you just come up?”
    â€œI tried to find it a few dozen times. Always got turned around and lost. How long did it take you to make your way down here?”
    â€œI don’t know. Not very long, I don’t think.” The journey from the cockpit to the fire belly seemed like a half hour or so, but without a way to keep time, he couldn’t be sure. He’d heard of people being trapped in coal mines for weeks and thinking only a few days had passed.
    This wasn’t fun to think about. If he ever managed to get out of here, would Em and Daniel still be around? Maybe they’d be long dead and crumbled to dust.
    â€œWell,” Sam said, “come see my part of the world.”
    *   *   *
    The earth was in shadow and the sun hung on the far western horizon, bathing the sky with purples and pinks and golds. Granite ridges dusted with snow loomed ahead. Pine trees fringed the base of the mountain, and beyond them sprawled a valley of dry, fissured desert.
    Annabel cast her gaze over Sam’s control panel, clucking and humming in a way that could mean she was impressed with what she saw, or else just the opposite. She squinted at the view outside the dragon’s eyes.
    â€œWhat are we doing over the Sierras?”
    â€œThe dragon roosts here sometimes,” Sam said.
    Annabel took this in, knowing and worried, like an old mariner witnessing the early warnings of a typhoon. “You ever read Yang’s treatise on the transitive essences of dragon species?”
    â€œThat one must have been checked out of the library.”
    â€œWhere were you schooled, anyway? You’re not an academy brat?”
    â€œNo. I learned from…” He almost said Daniel’s name. Probably not a good idea. “I had a private tutor. What about you?”
    â€œI’m self-taught. No money in my family for academies. But I found an old osteomancer’s library and workshop in a locked-up building my grandfather used to rent out, and that was enough to get me started.”
    â€œThat must have been a hell of a good library,” he said.
    She shrugged. “Came with everything I needed.”
    Sam would bet her education was a little more complicated than that. A lot of osteomancers began their careers by feeding on other osteomancers. Finding yourself a nice, old, juicy sorcerer to eat could give you a good leg up.
    â€œSo what does Yang say about dragons?”
    â€œFiredrakes like mountaintops,” Annabel said. “Even the ocean-born. They like to perch on high and search out suitable prey.”
    â€œIt can’t be hungry again already. We just ate a gray whale.”
    â€œFood’s not the only thing dragons hunt.”
    Just as Sam began to wonder what else the dragon might be after, a blast of air rushed into the cockpit, strong enough to flap Sam’s pant legs.
    â€œIt’s scenting,” Annabel said, and her face looked grave. “It wants something bad.” She took three sharp sniffs. “You smell that? That’s some strong osteomancy.”
    Sam did. Not just magic, but a magic as familiar to him as his own. He’d grown up with that smell, and it brought a mix of emotions: comfort,