Read Online The First Dragoneer by M. R. Mathias - Free Book Online

had stretched
forty paces from tail to nose, and had a horned head the size of a
barrel keg. Its teeth were the size of dagger blades and twice as
sharp, and its fist-sized nostril holes were charred at the edges
from where it breathed its noxious fumes. Master Kember had guessed
its age at about five years, which made Jenka think that the dragon
he had just seen was probably little more than a yearling. He
decided that if he could master his fear, he might be able to sneak
back and kill it. If he did, he could claim the long-standing
bounty that King Blanchard paid for dragon heads, as well as bring
himself to notice so that he could begin his Forester
apprenticeship sooner.
    Jenka crawled to his feet and hesitantly
looked around. It was dark, but the trees up here in the hills
weren’t nearly as dense as they were in the lower forest. Enough
starlight filtered through the open canopy for him to see. He
started back the way he came, and when he neared the hungry young
dragon, he dropped to his knees and crawled as quietly as he could
manage, until he could plainly see the scaly thing feeding in the
firelight.
    It was amazing. Its scales glittered lime,
emerald, and turquoise in the wavering light as it ripped huge
chunks of bloody meat from Jenka’s kill. Its long, snaking tail
whisked around like a cat's as it raised its horned head high to
chug down the morsel it had torn from the carcass.
    Jenka decided that he couldn’t kill it with
his bow and arrow. He probably couldn’t even wound the thing.
Further consideration on the matter was rendered pointless when a
heavy, head-sized chunk of stone suddenly crashed into the young
dragon’s side. It screeched out horribly and flung its head and
body around just in time to claw a gash across the chest of a
filthy, green-skinned, pink-mouthed troll as leapt down from the
gully’s edge into the firelight.
    The troll fell into the smaller of Jenka’s
fires, sending a cloud of sparks swirling up into the air. Another
troll bellowed from the darkness, and from another direction a
second rock came flying in.
    The dragon leapt upward and brought its
leathery wings thumping down hard. It surged a few feet up, and
then pumped its wings again. It was trying to get clear of a troll
that was leaping up to grab at its hind legs. The dragon wasn’t
fast enough to get away.
    Like a wriggling anchor weight, the troll
began trying to pull the dragon out of the air. As hard as the
young wyrm flapped its wings, it could do little more than lift the
clinging troll a few feet from the ground.
    Jenka wasn’t sure why he did what he did
next, but it was done. He loosed the arrow he had intended for the
dragon at the dangling troll. The shaft struck true, and when the
troll clutched at its back, it let go of the dragon and fell into a
writhing heap. The dragon flapped madly up into the night, leaving
Jenka dumbfounded and looking frightfully at not two, but three
big, angry trolls.
    He turned to run, and actually made it about
ten strides back down the gully before one of the eight-foot-tall
trolls appeared from the darkness to block his way. It laid its
doggish ears back and gave a feral snarl full of jagged, rotten
teeth. Jenka whirled around to go back, but found another of the
yellow-eyed trolls waiting for him. He started a mad, scrabbling
climb up the side of the gulch, but found little purchase there in
the rocky, rain-scoured earth. He clawed and pulled with such
terror and urgency that the ends of his fingers tore open and some
of his fingernails ripped loose, but he couldn’t get away. He was
cornered.
    More of the huge, well-muscled trolls were
leaping down into the gully now. Their filthy, musky-scented bodies
were silhouetted by the dancing flames of the fire and they threw
long, menacing shadows before them as they came. Not knowing what
else to do, and as scared as he had ever been in his life, Jenka
put his back against the gully wall and turned to face the grizzly
death that