A Sword for a Dragon by Christopher Rowley Read Free Book Online Page A

in the unit unless he was careful. He resolved to put it away and keep it hidden. It was an awesome responsibility. He was no longer Relkin Orphanboy, child of nature, dragoneer and adventurer. Or rather, he was those things, but he was something more. He was now a figure of legend, someone whose every deed would be scrutinized by thousands. He saw that the lady had done this to force him to take life more seriously.
    “Now,” said Kessetra, “tell me all about yourself. Where are you from?”
    She was ravishingly beautiful, Relkin found his head almost swimming with the allure and he barely mumbled a reply.
    “Where’s that?” she said, looking off into the distance and shading her eyes from the sun.
    “A village in Blue Stone.”
    “A village in Blue Stone…” she murmured, and then she laughed. “I knew a boy from Blue Stone once.” She spoke as if it had been decades before. “He was a count, a very silly one. He tried to hurt me.”
    “What happened?”
    “I had to teach him a lesson about love…”
    “Ah, love,” said Relkin.
    “Yes love, isn’t it wonderful. To be so in love with someone that you can think of nothing but that person’s desires and wishes…”
    She leaned close to ensure that her perfume enveloped him. Her eyes gleamed dangerously.
    “Have you ever been in love, Dragoneer Relkin?”
    He blushed, for he had loved Lagdalen of the Tarcho. But he knew better now. He had learned one of life’s sad lessons. Lagdalen was several years older than he, and from one of the greatest families in Marneri. Tarchos had even been kings of Marneri in the past. He had no family except for a leatherback dragon of uncertain temper.
    And, of course, Lagdalen was now wed to Captain Hollein Kesepton, whom Relkin admired as a soldier and a man.
    “I was in love once,” he stammered.
    The girl’s lush red lips settled into a tiny pout.
    “Oh yes, puppy love?”
    Her petulance annoyed him, and he spoke rashly.
    “Not at all, I loved Lagdalen of the Tarcho.”
    Kessetra laughed gaily and nudged his elbow with hers.
    “And you, a dragonboy and an orphan from Blue Stone. You aimed high there.” She giggled and glanced away at the horizon.
    Relkin felt his dignity under assault.
    “We served together at Tummuz Orgmeen. We were alone there, in the vaults of the Doom. She proved herself a true soldier of Argonath.”
    Relkin tried to imagine this spoiled young woman in those dark tunnels. It was impossible.
    “Oh, how awful, I never want to think about that place again. I never look that way,” she gestured toward the bleak plains of the Northwest.
    Relkin would have liked to be able to forget so easily. His mouth settled into a grim line, and he fell silent.
    They faced east and as predicted, the day was so clear one could see the Malgun Mountains, a row of distant dark smudges on the horizon.
    She pointed to the southern peaks. “Down there is Mt. Kohon. Way past that lies my home, Kadein. Have you ever been there, Relkin of Quosh?”
    “No Kessetra, I have never been to Kadein.” She groaned and tapped her folded fan against her lips. Relkin imagined kissing those lips, they were spectacular.
    “The city is so grand, so beautiful.” She sighed and crossed her hands over her breast. “How I wish I was there, walking up Slyte Hill or riding down the Avenue of Oaks.”
    She sighed again. Stuck out here in this appalling frontier fort because her father had been denied the post of tower captain in Kadein City. Oh yes, she knew very well what had happened, even if Father refused to tell her a thing. He’d lost out to Major Steenhur, and they’d been posted out here to this wilderness of bumpkins and soldiers. The best years of her life were going by, and she was far from the grand salons and balls and parties where real life was going on!
    “Have you ever wished you were in Kadein, Relkin of Blue Stone?”
    “I will go to Kadein some day. I want to see all the world’s cities. I have been to