Dragon War: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Three by James Wyatt Page A

of air past the ship as she descended. The air smelled of burning wood, with a lingering hint of the acrid scent of the dragon’s caustic breath. Finally the ground came into view, painted in pale orange light.
    “Sovereigns help us,” she breathed, before she called to Jordhan, “We’re still a bowshot above the ground, but it’s going to be a rough landing.” The charred skeletons of the forest thrust jagged stumps and branches up toward them, as if reaching up to pull them down.
    “It always is,” Jordhan said. “Airships aren’t meant to be landed.”
    “To starboard, just a bit,” she called. “Fewer trees. Gently!”
    The airship drifted downward at Jordhan’s command, floating a few yards to starboard, then a few more when Rienne shouted a warning. Rienne marveled at the precision of its movement—unlike a seagoing galleon, which had to obey the ocean currents and winds as well as the pilot’s commands, the airship went exactly where Jordhan willed it to go.
    “Dragon!” Jordhan shouted.
    Rienne whirled, then darkness swallowed her. The airship’s burning ring, the distant glow of fire in the forest, even the dim scattering of starsthat had shone through the cloud-burdened sky—all light disappeared. For an instant, Rienne thought she was floating alone in a void, then she heard Jordhan’s sputtering curse, the continuing roar of the flaming ring, and the flap of the dragon’s heavy wings, very close above her. The dragon must have conjured the darkness to blind its prey.
    “Just take her straight down,” Rienne said, “as fast as you can without crashing.” She slid Maelstrom from its sheath and stepped to the center of the deck, bracing herself to meet the dragon. She heard the beat of its wings, and its slow intake of breath, and she realized her mistake.
    As the roaring sound of the dragon’s breath erupted overhead, she dove for the wheelhouse but hit the deck harder than she intended, sending Maelstrom skittering from her hand. She rolled several times before the acidic spray splattered over her, searing her back and left side. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she lifted herself to her hands and knees before the airship tilted sharply to port with a splintering crash of wood, sending her rolling across the deck again.
    The airship slowed, then stopped, listing to port. Rienne heard the clatter of Maelstrom sliding down the deck and crawled after it. The dragon’s wings beat once, twice, closer … a third time, and then it slammed into the ship. The airship tore free from the trees that had held it in place and fell through splintering branches until it settled again, this time slanted to front and starboard. As the hull settled into its new position, though, the darkness fell away—Rienne saw the dragon in all its terrible majesty, filling the deck, ready to spring. Beyond it, she could see the charred branches that held the airship in place, just above the ground, outlined against the fires on the horizon. The airship’s own fiery ring was extinguished, probably at Jordhan’s command, to avoid reigniting the trees around them.
    Terror coursed through Rienne’s body as she looked up at the dragon. It dwarfed the ones she had faced before—if it had stretched its legs and arched its back, she could have walked under its belly without stooping. Its scales were gleaming black, resembling polished jet, though its wings were like great cloaks of utter darkness draped across its flanks. Two ridged horns curved forward around a face that seemed almost skeletal, with leathery black skin stretched over its skull. Its tail lashed behind it, tipped with a serrated blade that scratched long cuts into the airship’s deck. Its mouth opened and emitted a long, low hiss that only slowly registered on Rienne’s mind as a series of changing sounds, presumably Draconic words she couldn’t understand.
    This story would be better, she thought, if I could report on the witty banter I exchanged