“No chickens?” Vorik asked. “They’re closer to dragons than hounds and horses.”
Chickens!Agrevlari rose to all fours, so indignant that his tail straightened, smacking against the side of the lighthouse. Fortunately, it was constructed from solid stone and didn’t crumble.
“Anatomically speaking,” Vorik said, “you’re closer to a chicken than you are a dog.”
Dragons are like neither of those inferioranimals.I shall make you walk back to Sixteen Talons headquarters, Vorik.
“Since there’s a lot of water between here and there, walking would be difficult.”
Most difficult.
Syla had removed her pack and rummaged in it. She appeared to be ignoring the conversation. Vorik thought she was younger than he—perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six years of age to his thirty?—but wondered if she might be more mature. Probably. Many people were.
Our anatomy is closer to lizards,Wreylith stated,but since wewere, like wyverns, yetis, yarveni, and takrons, designed by the storm god, and we didn’t evolve naturally on this world, we have no direct relatives on a phylogenetic tree.
Lizards.Agrevlari huffed, but when his tail smacked the lighthouse again, it was with less force.
“Ah, here we go.” Syla pulled out a small cylindrical tube. “I almost didn’t grab it. It’ll be useful, of course, if I visit, ah…” She glanced at Vorik. “Other islands with venomous snakes. But perhaps it can be useful here.”
She had travel in mind, did she? To acquire a shielder from another island? As the general had suggested?
“There are venomous snakes on the gardener islands?” was all Vorik asked. “I didn’t think there was anything dangerous here in paradise.”
“They live among the rocks in some places.”
“Death strikers? Basilisks? Murder asps?”
“Rattlesnakes, mostly.”
“Oh.” Vorik laughed and waved a hand. Such snakes hardly counted as dangerous.
Syla bristled at his dismissal. “As a healer who’s treated rattlesnake bite wounds when I’ve traveled to other islands, I assure you, they can kill.”
Realizing he’d offended her, Vorik bowed an apology. “Yes, of course.”
What is that? Wreylith asked as Syla popped the lid of the cylinder and withdrew an instrument.
“An antique vacuum venom extractor. I have three in my collection.” Syla hesitated, then softly corrected, “Ihadthree.”
She blinked away tears, then shook her head. After all the people she’d lost, a collection of physical items couldn’t be as devastating, but the reminder had to rub sand in the broken blister on one’s sword hand.
Vorik bowed another apology, but she’d turned back to thedragon. Closing her eyes, she lifted the tool and her hand to Wreylith’s exposed foot.
Vorik sensed her drawing upon power, and the birthmark on the back of her hand glowed slightly, but he couldn’t tell how she was applying it. Could she remove the magically tenacious basilisk fang? If Wreylith hadn’t been able to take it out, doing so couldn’t be easy.
As he watched the glow of her moon-mark, his fingers strayed to the back of his hand, to the spot where a dragon-shaped tattoo lay hidden under his black glove. His mark didn’t glow when he drew upon his power, but it was the sign of his link to Agrevlari and the dragon power that had infused Vorik since they’d bonded. Only some riders, those who’d been invited by a dragon to go through the bonding ceremony, had such tattoos, but all of those who flew in the Sixteen Talons wore the fingerless black gloves. It had started as tradition and then become a part of the uniform, a way to keep those with tattoos from being singled out by enemies. It also ensured that enemies never knew for certain if the rider they faced had enhanced abilities, often not until it was too late.
Are you not concerned about allowing one with healing magic to tend to your wound, Mighty Wreylith?Agrevlari asked.
Certainly not, the red dragon replied.
You’re aware of the gods-gift that the line of those humans marked by the moon have, aren’t you?
Gods-gift. What a term for such puny magic.
As the dragons conversed telepathically, including Vorik and presumably Syla, Vorik watched her, wondering if it concerned her to be at the center of their discussion. She’d closed her eyes behind her glass lenses, and her face was set with concentration. If she could ignore them while focusing on healing, that was impressive. It had to be hard to concentrate with a dragon scant feet away, breathing hot air around one’s head.
The magic,Agrevlari continued,that is used for healing is knownto be particularly powerful. It can bind a being to the healer for many days or even weeks until the effects wear off.
