The foremost thundered, So, you dare to return to Gi’ishior, Grandion?
Shut your fangs, you puny toady to a traitor! Grandion roared back. Lia shook her head. Clearly her draconic companion’s skills in diplomacy could stand a little polishing.
Fawning bootlicker of a Human witch! another of the Reds ground out. Does she force you to crawl on your belly like a worm?
Hualiama sensed a new power building in that body above her, a power born in the insults being traded by the incensed Dragons. There would be no negotiating with these. Raising her Nuyallith blades, she settled into the ready position. Breathe out. Focus …
Grandion’s already impressive chest swelled as he declared, This is my Dragon Rider, Hualiama of Fra’anior. Address her with respect, or perish like the snivelling cowards you are.
Hualiama gaped at her concentration-wrecking draconic companion. Grandion? Was this the Dragon she knew, melting her emotions into a puddle of amazement?
At once, two Red Dragons charged Grandion with mighty, ringing challenges, firing fireballs from their glowing maws as they came. The Tourmaline countered with a lightning strike which knocked the foremost Red spinning. Just a hundred feet overhead, the second Red, brawnier than his brother, smacked into Grandion’s shoulder with a thud that the Human girl felt in her bones. She whirled, following the third assailant with her eyes. How could she help Grandion? It was three against one. Lia was ground-bound, useless in a fight between Dragons. Just overhead, Grandion tore into his opponent, snarling in a maddened rage as the Dragons traded pugnacious blows of their talons and smashed their muzzles together, scrapping for a disabling bite.
Down! Hualiama dived at the last instant, sensing movement behind her. The attacking Red Dragon missed his target by a whisker, ending his dive with a desperate slew as he realised he was beneath Grandion–an unhappy mistake for him. The Tourmaline kicked out viciously with his hind paws, opening huge gashes in the Red Dragon’s wings and flank.
“Ha,” Lia snorted. “Serves you–”
A massive weight slammed into her back, propelling her helplessly into the air. “Catch!” roared a Dragon.
Mercy! A Red swept toward her flying body, smirking with the air of a gleeful cat eyeing up a wounded rat. Play time for Dragons, Lia sensed. She was the plaything.
Just then, a Dragon’s wing slapped her backside from beneath. A glint of blue assured her that this was Grandion. Lightning seared her vision, spearing perfectly into one of the Red Dragons, seizing up all of his muscles for a vital moment as he crashed into Grandion’s hindquarters. The impact toppled Lia off the Tourmaline Dragon’s wing-surface, even as Grandion savaged the Red with a terrible bite to the base of his neck.
Hualiama could not tell the Reds apart in the thundering melee. She did not know which direction to look as she tumbled through the air. A Red Dragon’s muzzle thrust toward her, mouth agape as the Dragon tried to snap her in half. The picture in her mind was perfect, a dainty dance-step upon his lower lip, which would propel her out of the way … “Oof!” Lia smacked into the Dragon’s nose, right between his flaring nostrils. Somehow, she still gripped her blades. Thrusting instinctively from the hip, Hualiama ran her right arm right up to the elbow into the Red’s left nostril before she struck something soft and evidently sensitive. His head snapped about, rattling Lia like a monkey testing a nut for ripeness, before her arm suddenly worked loose in a spray of hot, golden Dragon blood.
With a warbling scream, the powerful Red flicked her high into the air.
Up she flew. Jaws, yawning open from beneath! Instinct saved her. Hualiama stretched out her legs in a dancer’s splits, bridging the Dragon’s gaping fangs from nostrils to lower lip as he pursued her skyward.
“Huh?” grunted the Red Dragon, evidently confused that his snack was misbehaving itself.
Lia had an insane split second to appreciate what damage a fireball might do to her delicate underparts, before Grandion came raging in to slap the Red open-clawed in the stomach. He ripped out a length of bluish entrails. “Lia!” Grandion roared.
The impact of the Tourmaline Dragon’s attack jolted her off the Dragon’s lips. Dropping on all fours upon the Red’s rotating shoulder, Lia crouched, coiled and ready, for less than a second before her second move was forced upon her by the Red chasing her off with a vicious nip. An agile leap took her onto the upper surface of the Red Dragon’s