The Dragon Delasangre by Alan F. Troop Page A

I fold my wings, plummet toward her.
    She turns and swoops out of my way, flies between two hills, then another two—each one a dark mound jutting from the ground, looking like a half-buried giant egg. I follow and she drops out of sight. I descend until the treetops scrape my underbelly, follow her course without catching sight of her. Only her scent remains.
    â€œWhere are you?” I call as I regain altitude and spiral in search of her. “Where are you?”
    No answer. No laughter. Only the sky scented with her aroma. I continue my search, strain my eyes to see into the irregular shadows of the terrain below me, unaware of any other presence nearby.
    Something hard, heavy, hits me from above, five thousand feet in the air, wrapping around me, folding my wings. Stunned by the impact, I struggle to regain the use of my wings. I can’t understand what holds them in place, why they won’t unfold. Frustrated, desperate, I twist and turn and roar as I fall, trying to break free.
    A deep roar answers mine and I freeze, finally recognizing my attacker as one of my own kind, his body above me, his wings wrapped over mine, riding me as we plunge toward earth.
    â€œWhy?” I ask him.
    â€œFor her,” he mindspeaks.
    â€œBut you’re going to die too.”
    He laughs, tightens his grip as the air whistles past us. “I think not,” he says, holding me a few more long moments, then releasing me. He darts away as I struggle to spread my wings.
    I just begin to catch the air when the first tree top crashes into me, knocks the breath from my lungs. I gasp for air, curlmy body tight, to protect myself as much as possible as I hurtle toward the ground, and put my mind elsewhere—concentrate on the sound of her laughter, the silver bells ringing in my mind and think of the memory of the pale, white flash of her underbody against the black star-studded background of the evening sky.

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    I cry out as I thud into the earth, roar in surprise when it cracks open beneath me like a breaking eggshell, and drops me into a shallow, subterranean pool of water twenty-six feet below.
    The silver-bell pealing of her laughter fills my mind and I stare up through the jagged hole my fall just created, at the moonlit sky above. The pale flash of her underbelly passes by a few hundred feet overhead. “You’re in Cockpit Country,” she says. “Here the ground is not always as solid as you think.”
    â€œGood thing,” I say. Water sloshes around me as I flex my wings, move my arms, my legs and tail. Everything hurts but nothing seems broken. Relieved, I stretch, breathe large gulps of air, will my heart to beat faster, focus internally on speeding oxygenated blood to my injured parts so the cells can draw on its nourishment as they mend. After the first, almost-painful twinge of healing begins, I give way to the rage building within me.
    â€œWho’s your friend?” I demand.
    â€œHe’s a stranger like you. I think he’s nearby, waiting for you to take to the sky again.”
    â€œLucky me,” I say, still stretching and mending my body parts. “At least tell me your name.”
    â€œMaybe later,” she says, laughing, the sound of it deeper this time, somehow promising to me.
    â€œLater, after what?”
    â€œYou’ll see.” She laughs again—deep rich tones that resonate in my mind as she flies away.
    Another shape, darker, larger, flies over the hole. “Are you finished hiding yet? Are you ready to come out and face your death?” he asks.
    I stand, water dripping from my body. My jaw clenched, I hold back a roar. I am a thinking being, I tell myself, a creature of reason. I force myself not to take to the sky, and ask instead, “Who are you to appoint yourself my executioner?”
    He flies lower, so I can see the size of him, larger than me, his wingspread reaching at least five feet more. “I use the name Emil