Read Online Dragons Rising by Daniel Arenson - Free Book Online Page B

began to rise in Gemini, but he stifled them.
Fear was his enemy now. He had to think calmly.
    He
needed to find medical supplies. But where? The nearest city had been
reduced to ash, and Gemini had no idea what other settlements existed
in this barbarous continent of savages. If he had a firedrake, he
could have explored from above, but even if he found some Horde
settlement that still stood, he was likely to find nothing but a
witch doctor.
    "I
need a battlefield surgeon," he muttered. "Like the ones
who always fly with the Temple to war. Like--"
    Of
course.
    He
stepped out of the cave and stood on the hill, staring west toward
the ravaged town.
    "They'll
have a surgeon," he whispered. "The Temple always brings a
few to war. He'll have needles and thread, ointments, bandages. He
can heal Domi's leg."
    He
returned to the cave to find Domi awake. She lay on her back, gazing
up at him weakly.
    "I
think I'll sleep in," she whispered. "Unless you have those
cakes out there."
    He
knelt beside her and stroked her hair, pulling out more needles. "I'm
going to leave for a while. Just a short while. To find supplies we
need. I'll be back very soon, I promise. Will you wait for me here?"
    She
glanced down at her bloody leg. "I'm not walking anywhere,
that's for sure, and if I'm too weak to walk, I'm certainly too weak
to turn into a dragon anytime soon."
    He
gave her the last of his lemons and carobs, then left the cave and
walked downhill. He had no plan. He had no weapons, no armor. But he
had his surname, and he had his pride, and he had Domi to save. Those
would carry him farther than any firedrake could.
    When
he crested the next hilltop, he gazed west again toward the burnt
city. Firedrakes still flew above, but Gemini saw no life on the
ground. The only movement came from the charred scraps of banners
that still billowed in the wind. That wind carried the stench of
death even up to these hills. South of the camp, however, sunlight
gleamed on metal, and little figures bustled back and forth. A group
of Templers seemed to garrison there, right on the rim of the
devastation--a camp to guard the coast, perhaps to treat those
wounded in the battle.
    I'll
find a healer there, Gemini thought. Or at least supplies.
    He
kept walking along the hills. Every step made his wounds blaze--worst
of all were the whip lashes across his back--but Gemini ignored the
pain, focusing instead on the landscape. Mint bushes rustled around
him, hives rose from the crumbly soil, and birds flittered between
the pines. Shattered flint rocks lay strewn around his feet, their
innards smooth and gleaming like stone mirrors. Cyclamens rustled in
the shade of chalk boulders, their leaves veined, their blossoms
lavender and pale. The sea whispered in the south, its water blue
splotched with green.
    It's
a beautiful place, Gemini thought. He looked back at the carob
tree; it was now small in the distance. He missed Domi already. He
didn't want to walk any farther away. He wanted to stay here with
her, in this beautiful place, not head back into war, fire, death.
    "Maybe
we should stay here forever," he whispered to the land. He gazed
at a hillside where anemones grew in a red carpet. "Maybe we can
forget about Requiem, forget about the Temple, and just live here,
Gemini and Domi, in our own world, a world of flowers, the song of
birds, the call of the sea."
    He
sighed. Yet walk back into ruin he must--to find a healer, to find
hope for Domi. And then he would keep walking through ruin, he knew,
for despite the beauty of this place, this peace and gentleness, the
call of power still overwhelmed all other voices. He could feel the
beacon of the Cured Temple, drawing him even from across the sea, and
he knew that he would not forget those crystal towers, not even in
this place, not even in the embrace of the woman he loved. Forever
the splendor of the Cured Temple shone in his dreams. An evil now
lived within those halls--the evil of his mother, his sister, an evil
he