Ash Princess (The Deviant Future #6) - Eve Langlais Page 0,23
been allowed to care for him, a man, alone. If Casey found someone, he’d have been standing over them to make sure they understood she wasn’t to be touched. Yet no one appeared to be nearby, and Kayda didn’t seem concerned at all.
“They eat anything that moves. When they fight us on the ground, they like to lunge with their heads, but that’s often a feint for their tails. Knocking their prey down allows them to pounce and tear with their teeth and claws,”
“They obviously like to carry their prey away,” he said wryly, his shoulders twinging in remembrance.
“That’s because they don’t eat on the ground where it’s ashy. They usually take their dinner back to their lairs.”
“Lairs?” He snorted. “It was a ledge on a mountain covered in bones.”
“Call it what you like, then. The supper table. Nest,” she hotly retorted. The spots of color in her cheeks contrasted the paleness of her skin. Had it ever been kissed by sunlight?
“So they don’t eat where they hunt and are savage when they attack.” Which he knew firsthand. “What kills them?”
“Their biggest threat is each other. Dragons like to fight in the air, to the death. The loser is the one that falls to the ground and then gets ripped to pieces.”
“Savage.”
“By our observations, they are territorial.”
“You’ve dealt with them yourself?” he asked.
“A few times. Less than I used to.” Her lips once more turned down. “We don’t have the numbers to go after them intentionally anymore. Not to mention, every time we kill one, another soon takes its place.”
“But they can die?” It seemed important to clarify.
She nodded. “Yes.
“What’s their weaknesses?” Because the next time he encountered one, he intended to be the one walking away.
“Damaging the wings will obviously ground them. Their necks are the softest part, but that said, the skin is still very tough. Proper impact is needed to penetrate. Eyes, of course, are vulnerable. But even if you blind them, they are still dangerous. When it opens its mouth, a well-thrown projectile can lodge itself in the palate and cause it to panic.”
The more Kayda told him, the more intrigued he became. She obviously either had the experience she claimed or at least studied the knowledge available.
“What’s the best way to take them down?”
“In the early days, there used to be hunters who went after them with spears. Three for each side to pin the wings and then they shot it in the head with guns.”
“Was it effective?”
“Only until the bullets ran out. Then they had to use daggers and swords.” Her lips turned down.
He got the feeling things didn’t end well.
“Sounds like they’re tough, but not impossible to kill. I don’t suppose you have a stash of grenades?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head.
“Machine gun? Rifle? Spear?” Each query saw more shaking.
“What do you have in way of defense?”
She pointed to the sheath at her hip. It held a pitted machete.
He stared before saying incredulously, “That’s all you have?”
“When people die outside the tunnels, their weapons don’t magically return,” she snapped. “And it’s not as if we have the means to make new ones.”
“Fuck.” He said the word slowly. The situation was even more dire than he could have imagined. No wonder she claimed they were fucked if all they had were dull blades to fight with. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”
She snorted. A derisive sound. “Go right ahead and make all the plans you like. But I should warn you they will fail. We fought hard when the dragons started killing us. Daily hunting parties went out with one purpose. Eliminate the dragons.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say it didn’t work.”
A sad shake of her head. “When the snow melted and the air turned to poison, they spilled from the lava rifts, so many of them, as if they’d been thriving underground.”
“And now they’re thriving above it. Fuck.” The threat to the Marshes and everyone in it had just increased, and they didn’t even know it. “I am going to assume, given all you’ve told me, that there isn’t a way to get a message out of here.”
She arched a brow.
“Yeah, I guess not.” His brow creased in thought.
He had to stop the spread of the ash poison and now also keep a dragon—of all the fucking things—from claiming new territory. Both problems appeared to have one root cause. The volcano. But how did one stop a force of nature? And even if he did, would that solve the