Dragonbound: Blue Dragon by Rebecca Shelley

lack of air, and water sucked in through his nose. I could die! The thought spurred him to thrash harder in an attempt to reach the surface now he was sure he was beyond range of Dharanidhar's fire. Chandran's earnest voice played in his mind. You won't last a day out there .
    Rage filled Kanvar. He'd fought so hard to stay alive and take care of himself ever since his mother turned against him. He could not fail now.
    He would not die here under the murky black water.
    Something clammy swam past his arm, but he was fighting too hard to reach the surface to see what it was. It came again. Something big that caught Kanvar in its wake and pressed him up against the underside of the river bank. A sparkling black coil flashed past Kanvar's face.
    Kanvar's fingers brushed a tree root dangling over the edge into the water. He grabbed it and yanked, pulling himself upward.
    His head broke the surface.
    He coughed the water out of his throat and gasped for air.
    In the last bit of twilight he looked up on the bank above him and into the raging face of the blue dragon. Dharanidhar had followed him downriver.
    Fool , Dharanidhar growled. Do you think I don't know which way water runs. Even blind I can find my way downhill . He swiped a claw toward Kanvar.
    The form of a Great Black serpent shot out of the water and struck Dharanidhar's claw. The serpent's two long fangs sank past the scales into Dharanidhar's flesh.
    Great Black dragon venom was deadly to humans, who could expect painful cramping, then convulsions, followed by an excruciating death. Kanvar didn't know what the poison would do to a Great Blue.
    Dharanidhar bellowed in outraged and struck at the Great Black with his other claw, intent on catching it and squeezing the life out of it. But the Black dragon was fast. He'd bitten Dharanidhar's claw and shot back down into the water before the blue could catch him.
    Foam bubbled up between Dharanidhar's jaws. He bit at his claw, enlarging the wound, sucking out the poison and spitting it toward Kanvar.
    A black coil wrapped around Kanvar's chest, jerked him loose from the root that held him up, and dragged him back under the water. The Great Black kept its coils locked around Kanvar as it sped downstream. It moved through the water faster than a Maranie schooner. Its body undulated in the water so that the coils which held Kanvar rose above the surface every few moments allowing Kanvar a desperate gasp for breath now and again.
    Terror rose in Kanvar every time the coils drug him back under the water. The dark jungle flashed past above him, fallen into night. Trees became nothing more than towering monsters in the darkness. A thunderous crashing sound came from up ahead. The last time the coils brought Kanvar to the surface, he realized that the serpent was dragging him with great speed toward a cliff, over which the river spilled in a frothy roar.
    The coils tightened in one last surge, and the Great Black serpent shot over the edge of the cliff. The water fell nearly two hundred feet straight down below Kanvar.
    The serpent spread webbed spines that ran along both sides of the front half of his body. They had been slicked down against its torso in the water, but now spread out into wings. Not like a Great Blue or Great Gold dragon's wings that could lift them off the ground in flight. The Great Black could not fly, but at this speed from that height, it could glide out away from the pounding waterfall and deadly rocks at its base. It tucked its four stubby legs tight against its body to aid in the glide. Its trajectory took them out and down in a stomach wrenching drop that landed them in a deep pool of the river. The spines flattened back against the black serpent's sides just before it hit the water.
    The momentum carried Kanvar, still clutched in its coils, down into suffocating blackness.
    Kanvar panicked, and struggled to break free of his captor.
    Be still, little Naga . The serpent's voice came into his mind. You don't