Gods, he was definitely not at his best if he was forgetting the battle strategies of the Lightnings. Especially when it came to rounding up females. He’d always heard there was a lot of arguing about that strategy among the Lightnings. Most came head-on because they had a better chance of getting hold of the most hearty females. Those females not afraid to attack, although there was always the risk of mortally wounding them during battle. At the same time, other Lightnings would go in the back way, where they often found the ones too young to take, the old She-dragons—which could be ridiculously dangerous at those advanced ages, especially if they were the ones minding the hatchlings—and the weaker She-dragons too afraid to run. The weaker She-dragons were also the ones the Lightnings could make use of.
Addolgar knew that somewhere in this cave the Penardduns had hidden the hatchlings. He may not be able to help Braith, but he wouldn’t let anything happen to her young cousins while the Lightnings were searching for other females. Turning, he started to hop over to his ax when a flash of purple flashed by him. But it was too late. He was already flying across the chamber and crashing into the opposite wall.
“Look what we have here, lads!” he heard a Lightning announce. “A lonely little Fire Breather!”
One Lightning was holding her down while the other pulled out his ax. “Flip her over!”
Not liking the sound of that one gods-damn bit, Braith got one forearm out from under her attacker, bent it, and brought it up. Her elbow collided with the Lightning’s jaw, stunning him, but he still wouldn’t loosen his hold. So she brought her elbow across his snout again. That knocked him out and she pushed his body off her. She tried to scramble away, to get her hammer, but a claw grabbed her by the ankle, dragging her back.
“Oh, no you don’t,” a male said. He didn’t seem to care what she’d done to his comrade.
Braith tried to grab something she could hold on to, but her talons tore through nothing but dirt and stone.
She was yanked back to the Lightning and, desperate, she kicked out, hitting him in the chest. With an “oof!” he flew back several feet, and Braith tried again to get to her claws.
“Get that one!” someone yelled, and Braith knew they were talking about her.
Addolgar slid down the wall and landed on his ass. He could already hear his father telling him this was his fault because he wasn’t paying attention! And knowing the old bastard was right, yet again, did nothing but piss Addolgar off.
An ax head slipped under Addolgar’s chin and lifted. “Hello there, darlin’,” the Lightning taunted. “Those females leave you in here to protect you from the big, bad Northlanders?”
“Poor thing,” another one tossed in as the ten or so Lightnings laughed. “What should we do with him?”
“Make it quick, I think. Wouldn’t be right to let him linger in shame.”
A clawed foot was placed against Addolgar’s shoulder to keep him sitting up and the dragon pulled his ax back, readying to swing and remove Addolgar’s head. A part of his body he was quite attached to.
“Give us your name, darlin’,” the Lightning told him, “so we can tell the females we take that you died with your head up.”
“Name’s Addolgar the Cheerful,” Addolgar replied over the hearty laughter of the Lightnings.
“What a lovely name. It’ll look good on your funeral pyre.”
Then Addolgar added, “Of the Cadwaladr Clan.”
The ax, in mid-swing, stopped and the laughter died. The moment lasted no more than two, maybe three, seconds, but that was all Addolgar needed. He grabbed the claw pressed against his shoulder and yanked the Lightning down and close, their snouts inches from each other.
“Nice to meet ya, daaaaarlin’,” Addolgar shot back, mimicking the Lightning’s accent. Then he snatched the ax from the Lightning’s claw and rammed the blade into his neck. Blood spurted and Addolgar got up, bringing the Lightning with him. The ax had only gone in halfway, so the Lightning was still putting up a bit of a fight, but it was easy enough to hold on to him, which Addolgar did.
“Now, let’s be clear, shall we?” He pulled the ax out of the dragon he held in his claws, and placed the blood-covered weapon on the ground beside him. “There’s only one way this can go, darlin’s,” Addolgar teased. “You know it.... I know it.”
And to prove it, Addolgar put his claws into the wound and proceeded to tear the screaming head of the Lightning the rest of the way off until he stopped screaming.
Addolgar dropped the body and held the head in one claw while he grabbed the weapon with the other.
“So, darlin’s . . . what’s your pleasure?”
That’s when they all charged Addolgar at once.
Braith scrambled a few feet away from the one who’d grabbed her leg and then dived the rest of the way to get her hammer.
She’d just wrapped her claws around the handle when her legs were grabbed again and she was dragged back. Once she stopped, Braith flipped onto her back and raised her hammer in time to block the sword trying to cut off her wing. She shoved, pushing the sword away from her, and rammed the head of her weapon into the Lightning’s chest. He lurched back and looked down at what was now a concave pit where his ribs used to be.
He lifted his gaze to Braith and raised his claw. “Please—” he managed to squeak out, but Braith ignored his plea, running forward and bringing the hammer down on the Lightning’s head. He dropped to his knees, his head flat, his neck compressed.
Panting, Braith sensed there were more Lightnings behind her and she spun around, now ready to fight. But it wasn’t Lightnings; it was her three aunts, watching her while the cousins fought alongside their own daughters and nieces.
“Wait . . .” Braith took a breath, tried to understand. “You didn’t help me?”
“We wanted to see if you could help yourself,” Crystin explained. “And you did. Nice one, niece.”
“Nice . . . ? Are you . . . ? You . . . you treacherous cows!”
“Where’s the loyalty?”
“Shut up!”
“Oy!” a male voice called from outside the cavern. The sound of it was so disconcerting, all of Braith’s kin and the Lightnings stopped fighting, and Braith and her aunts walked toward the cave opening.
An older Lightning who was missing the scales and skin on the left side of his face so it seemed like he was perpetually smiling, stood in front of the cave opening, his gaze hungrily examining Braith’s kin.
“Southland females,” he growled out, and that’s when Braith realized he was also missing the scales and skin on the right side of his neck. The area was so damaged, his words seemed to be torn from his throat. “There is no need to fight us. To risk your lives. Come with us now of your own free will and we swear on our honor that we won’t harm you. We’ll take you to our land and treat you like the queens you are.” His expression turned hard, even while it still looked like he smiled. “But fight us now—and your regret will be great.”
“Take our wings, will you?” Owena asked him. “I thought you lot didn’t do that anymore.”
“We do what we must. Now come. Join us, so we can stop all this fighting. We’d hate to risk so much . . . beauty.”
Owena looked around at her kin. “What do you say, Penardduns? Do we give ourselves to these Lightnings? Or stand our ground?”
Funny. Braith was tired of giving herself to dragons she didn’t respect, like her father and the Queen. But she was also tired of being proud and standing her ground like a good little She-dragon.
So she did neither. Instead she ran. Using rage, annoyance, and outright viciousness, Braith of the Darkness ran out of the cave and right toward the Lightning leader. He saw her coming and smiled until she raised Addolgar’s hammer. The leader reared back, but Braith just kept coming. She couldn’t stop herself and, to be honest, she wouldn’t. This felt . . . right. So very, very right.
As she neared the Lightning leader, Braith unleashed her wings and rose up in the air, bringing the hammer up and over with both front claws and then down until it collided with the Lightning leader’s head. He let out a roar when the hammer hit him, but that’s when Braith rammed her back claws into the Lightning’s chest and forced him to the ground. She dug her talons past his scales and kept him pinned to the ground with the strength of her legs while she brought the hammer up and over, again and again and again, until she’d beaten the Lightning leader’s already damaged head into a blood-and-bone pulp.
Covered in the Lightning’s blood, she turned around and faced her kin.
Her aunts gawked at her, tears in their eyes, until Crystin said through barely held-back sobs, “Your mother . . . would be so proud!”
“Then let’s do this in my mother’s honor,” Braith suggested. “And kill . . . all of them!”
Chapter 18
Braith liked Addolgar’s hammer. She liked it a lot. It fit her somehow. Knives, swords . . . no. All that slashing steel and shoving pointy ends into things did nothing for her. But battering that hammer onto a Lightning’s head gave her a perverse pleasure. She got hit a few times. A couple of cuts. But nothing she couldn’t handle.
At one point she stopped and took a look around. Her aunts were mostly delegating. Ordering their daughters on which Lightnings to kill and, sometimes, how. Heledd walked among the bodies, looking at each one. Braith didn’t know what her cousin was looking for until she saw her gaze move back to the cave opening.
“What is it?” Braith asked her cousin.
“There’s some missing.”
There were so many, Braith wondered how she knew. If she truly knew. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
From what Braith understood, the Lightnings would have no interest in the hatchlings, even the female ones. They at least respected that particular boundary. But they were probably more than happy to come around and attack from behind . . . and yet they hadn’t.
“Addolgar,” she said, looking to Crystin. “Addolgar!”
Braith raced past her kin and back into the cave. She heard Crystin behind her, yelling at her daughters and Owena to follow. Braith didn’t wait for them. She couldn’t.
She charged down passage after passage, trying not to think too much about poor, defenseless Addolgar. She never should have left him. She never should have deserted him!
She finally hit the passage that would lead her to the main chamber, and ran full out around that last corner—where she stumbled to an awkward stop, her kin running into the back of her and nearly knocking her on her face.
Together, they stood and stared, watching Addolgar—on one leg only—swing his ax down, taking the head off some Lightning. Then using his wings to move, he spun, and swung his ax again, cutting into the side of another Lightning. He tore the blade out, swung again, this time into the Lightning’s neck. Another Lightning came up behind him, but Addolgar threw his wings out, knocking his enemy into the wall. He turned, brought the ax up, tearing the stunned Lightning open from groin to belly. Addolgar yanked the blade out, and the Lightning’s intestines fell to the floor in a nasty pile.