Lillianna tried to calm the agitated reaver down. She didn’t need the powerful drake bucking her off in the middle of the desert while a rogue dragon was near. The animal shifted on the high dune sending cascades of sand down the steep sides. His neck bristled with spines and he chattered a series of clicking growls as he skittered side to side. Pieces of some unrecognizable carcass were strewn over the sands. But from the decay she determined it was more than a day old.
With a quick visual sweep of the horizon of the pale blue skies she swung off the squawking reaver. Well trained despite its nervous nature, the drake reacted to the movement by slinging downward and leaning to the side for the young woman to dismount. Her tall leather boots sank ankle deep in the silty sand. The hot air still felt cool on her sweat dampened leggings. She slogged through sand over to one of the larger boney chunks of former dragon food and kicked it over. The bones were deeply furrowed from large teeth spaced widely apart. It was definitely a mature dragon and probably male. One that knew better… one that knew he wasn’t in home territory… and one that didn’t care. She needed to get back to Bonner’s Fast and report the intrusion.
She quickly climbed the slippery dune back to Dart, her reaver drake and favorite mount. While Dart was quite large, roughly 50 wingspan, he wouldn’t last long against a mature dragon. Physically, the reavers looked like young dragons, but there couldn’t be a larger difference in cunning, intelligence and ferocity. Wild reavers were quite dangerous, but you could count on them to react like other animals—attack when hungry or threatened, but not for sport. This dragon was probing. He wanted to see who was home and if there was chink in the defenses on this fringe outpost. If he sensed weakness he would not hesitated to wipe out the Fast and set up a roost for himself. He probably wasn’t far away. Dart chattered and leaned one wing down again so she could mount. Then she heard it and her heart skipped.
The unmistakable challenging roar of a dragon rolled like thunder over the dunes. He was a lot closer than her estimate. Too close.
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