by Dante King
Dragon Breeder 4
Dante King
Copyright © 2021 by Dante King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
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Chapter 1
The countryside streaked by below me. Fields, forest, and the river blurred and smeared. Trees and boulders changed from distinct objects into smudges of color as Noctis tucked his legs more tightly to his scaled flanks to gain even more speed. As the scenery flashed by while I rode the Onyx Dragon, I couldn’t help but let out a long whooping cry of exhilaration.
Soaring along at eighty miles per hour on dragonback—nothing came close to clearing the mind like that. Except for maybe fighting and fucking.
My heart rate was jacked, and a grin tugged at the corners of my mouth.
“Better slow up, bud,” I said to Noctis, slapping the sable dragon affectionately on his thickly muscled neck. “We’re in danger of losing the others.”
The dragon snorted in a satisfied fashion, sending forth sparks and smoke from his slitted nostrils which were whipped away by the wind.
“As you wish,” he replied, “but I was barely approaching a comfortable speed.”
Almost imperceptibly, I felt Noctis’s body relax. His wings, which had been tucked close to his body like those of a falcon, opened out. Our pace slackened, and we dropped smoothly through the air until his clawed feet were brushing the tops of the pine forest.
I imagined that the black Onyx Dragon must have cut quite the impressive figure as he descended. His cat-like eyes of bright yellow were bisected by a black pupil. His midnight-black scales carried a faint pearlescent sheen.
Noctis looked about as badass as any dragon you were likely to encounter in the Mystocean Empire and beyond. He radiated calculated lethality and deep cunning in the same way that a tiger did. Even if you had never heard of or seen a dragon before, you’d only need to spare Noctis one glance to know that here was a creature that it would be terminally foolish to try and mess with.
Not wanting to do my noble and impressive dragon a disservice by looking sloppy in return, I had dressed in full dragonmancer battle regalia for that morning’s excursion. I wore, over my standard crimson pants and sable shirt, a brigandine, which was a lightweight armor for the body. It was constructed from leather with tiny steel plates stitched into it. Elenari, my beautiful red-headed elven wife, had told me that it would stop a casual knife cut or thrust, or an arrow if I was lucky. Over my brigandine I also wore a hauberk, a thigh length mail shirt of incredibly fine mesh finished in a burnished bronze color.
It was far more flexible than the chainmail worn by the Mystocean Empire’s regular foot soldiers, but far stronger and more resilient to ranged weaponry too. A dragonmancer’s hauberk would stop a crossbow bolt if it wasn’t fired from point blank. It would also drastically reduce the damage done by a longbow arrow, which was the weapon of choice most often deployed by those enemies who wished to take down a dragon or its rider.
To finish off my ensemble, I wore leather and steel vambraces over both my forearms, mailed gauntlets covered my hands, and greaves and thigh guards protected my legs.
The only thing I was missing was the spear that Renji had issued to me on one of the first days I had spent at the Drako Academy. The six-foot-long ash spear had an eighteen-inch glaive tip, but it had been modified for dragonmancers by also having a billhook on the rear of the main blade. The resulting head of the weapon looked like the lovechild of a kitchen knife and a giant fishing hook. It could be used for stabbing certainly but was also the perfect instrument to use for pulling enemies from halls or archers out of watchtowers while the dragonmancer was in mid-flight.
The unmistakable sound of dragon wings snapping open turned my mind away from my gear. I blinked and looked to my right. The grin that was already stretching my face broadened still further.
What a sight.
Five other dragonmancers had dropped down to fly beside me; Elenari, Saya, Tamsin, Renji, and Penelope. Each woman was as unique as the dragon she rode upon. Each was as fierce and as determined as any woman I have ever met. I would have trusted any of them with my life, and I actually had done so on numerous occasions.
Elenari was closest to me, sitting easily atop her mount, Gharmon, the Emerald Dragon. Her dragon was the color of a new leaf – a bright and vivid green that seemed to exude vitality and life. Curiously, it was the same color green as Elenari’s almond shaped eyes. I had never seen any other dragonmancer share the color of their eyes with their dragon. Elenari was unique in this way. Elenari was elven, with milk white skin, flaming red hair that streamed behind her like a sheet of flame, and the pointed ears that were so indicative of her race. Elenari had been the first dragonmancer that I had ever met. She had scooped me off a Los Angeles alleyway and brought me through the portal that divided my old life on Earth and my new life in the Mystocean Empire.
I doubted whether the phrase ‘what a difference a day makes’ had ever rung truer than it had on that day: the day that my life had changed forever. One minute you’re running after a thief who has just stolen your phone, the next you’re being transported through space and time to another world by some mysterious redhead with the sort of lithe and petite body that would have been at home in the Olympic gymnastics arena.
Next to Elenari flew the beautiful blonde bombshell that was Saya. With a perfect tan, ashy blonde hair, and ice-chip blue eyes, Saya was the epitome of the American girl next door. Unlike the American girl next door, Saya was not especially sweet and wholesome. In fact, Saya was about as hot-blooded a woman as had ever walked under the sky. She might have looked like she had just stepped off the set of Baywatch, but the toned and well-muscled woman was also quite capable of tearing a man in half with her bare hands—literally, I had seen her do it before. She was flying on the back of her Gargoyle Dragon, Scopula, a low-slung gray beast with a thick tail and a blunt wedge-shaped head. Scopula had little dark eyes that smoldered like coals in her rough-skinned cement gray face.
On Saya’s right, flying along on her Rooster Dragon, Glizbe, was the Knowledge Sprite, Penelope. Penelope was dressed in her usual all-blue robes, the uniform of those who worked in the Grand Library of the Drako Academy. Everything about the sprite wa
s blue, from her long blue hair to her skin to her all–blue eyes. Penelope had, perhaps, the sharpest mind of any of the assembled dragonmancers. She had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and, shy as she was, she never left a question unasked if it meant learning something she did not already previously know.
Glizbe, her dragon, was one of the queerer looking dragons I had come across. She was a sleek snow-white beast, almost more avian than reptile. Her snout looked to be hard as bone, and her top jaw ended in a sort of curved beak. Under her bottom jaw, dangled a feathered wattle. Her wings looked more like the wings of some gigantic insect, than those of a typical dragon. They were similar, in fact, to the wings that Penelope had on her own back, which reminded me of a dragonfly.
Next to Penelope, flapping along on the back of her honey-colored male Force Dragon, Fyzos, was Tamsin. Tamsin was a hobgoblin. With her crimson skin, bright yellow eyes, and lustrous black hair, she caught the eye in no uncertain terms. She was a ruthless and skilled fighter who excelled with the spear. She was also the mother of Pan, the Tempest Dragon, and the latest dragonling that I had produced.
Last in the line of the five female dragonmancers was Renji. She was blue skinned like Penelope, but she was not a Knowledge Sprite. She was a djinn and, as all those folk were said to be, she was extremely proficient with numbers and riddles. This made her the perfect quartermaster for the armory back at the Drako Academy. Her hair was bright, gleaming silver and tied back tight to her scalp in braids. She was not quite as Amazonian in stature as Saya, but she was more heavily built than either Penelope, Tamsin, or Elenari. With the silver ring through her septum, which matched her bright silver teeth, the djinn was more than a little imposing. This was ironic in a way as Renji was, with the exception of Penelope, probably the most softly spoken and gentle of dragonmancers. This considerate and kind nature was quite endearing, but it did not extend to the battlefield, of course.
Renji sat astride her Steel Dragon, Corvar, and waved at me when she caught me looking at her. Her dragon did not have scales like dragons usually did. Instead, its silver hide was as smooth as a seal’s and reminded me of the mercurial body of the terminator out of Terminator 2. I was thankful that the day was slightly overcast as it meant that Corvar’s body was not as painful to gaze upon as it could be when the sunlight struck it just right. The brightness of the Steel Dragon’s hide bamboozled the eye and was something of a defensive measure during combat.
It had been a little over a fortnight since we had returned from the Subterranean Realms. A little over fourteen days since I had encountered a kobold army and had helped bring down three wild dragons that had penned in legion of the Mystocean Empire’s own forces. It had been a fucking wild ride and had culminated with me having to burst my way out of a dragon, using my magical abilities to explode the unfortunate creature’s head like a watermelon.
More importantly, it had been two weeks since the bearmancer envoys had arrived from the Vetruscan Kingdom. In all that time, they had been mostly closeted with General Shiloh in her tent. It was anyone’s guess what they had been chatting about, but no doubt it was something political.
Technically, the bearmancer, Hana, that I had helped capture in the Subterranean Realms, was still our prisoner. I wondered whether negotiating her freedom was what the three bearmancers had come to this outpost for. If they had, then they had made remarkably good time. However, something told me that Hana’s freedom was a secondary matter here. I guessed that, even if we had not encountered Hana, the three mysterious bearmancers still would have appeared to talk with the General.
Rumors circulated the military encampment. These rumors were mostly concerned with the mysterious appearance of the Overseer. Apparently, the enigmatic woman, whose sole responsibility was the upkeep and defense of the Drako Academy and the training of those soldiers and dragonmancers that inhabited it, had arrived the same night that the bearmancers had arrived.
None of the scouts on duty that evening had caught sight of her Platinum Dragon, which begged the question: how had she made the journey from the Drako Academy to the camp at the base of Galipolas Mountain?
Despite the fact that I had kept my head on a swivel and my eyes peeled, I had not seen a single sight of the woman who was probably the second most powerful figure in the Mystocean Empire.
Having come from Earth it was, perhaps, unsurprising that I was skeptical when it came to politicians or other people in power. If I had learned one thing, it was that they talked a far more impressive game than they played. However, there was something about the Overseer that I inherently trusted, hard to fathom as she was.
With the occult-looking tattoos that adorned her cinnamon-colored skin and peeked out of her sleeves, neckline, and the hem of her skirt, combined with her indeterminate age and her general beauty, the Overseer was an iceberg of a woman – cool and tranquil, with a mesmerizing grandeur to her that hinted at more beneath the surface.
“What’s on your mind, Mike?” Elenari asked from beside me as we cruised over the treetops. Part of the magic of riding on dragonback meant that our hearing was unaffected by the rushing wind that accompanied flight. I could hear Elenari just fine—at least I would have been able to if I had been paying attention.
I stirred out of my dreamy state and looked at the red-haired elf.
“What was that?” I asked.
Elenari laughed and shook her head. “I asked you what was on your mind?” she said.
“Oh, not so much,” I said. “Just wondering about whether the soldiers’ gossip around the taverns back at the camp holds any credence.”
“About the Overseer being in the camp, you mean?” Elenari asked me.
I nodded. “Yeah. Do you reckon it’s true?”
Elenari shrugged. “I can’t see why it wouldn’t be,” she said. “Having those three Vetruscans showing up here was a pretty big deal, you know. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least that the Overseer made the trip here in double-time.”
“But no one actually knows that she is here at all?” I said. “No one has even seen her for definite.”
Elenari shrugged again, a few strands of loose hair that had escaped her warrior’s tail whipping about her head as we flew.
“Wouldn’t be soldiers’ gossip if anyone had actually seen anything for definite now, would it?” she said.
“Fair point,” I said.
Our conversation was interrupted by Renji. The djinn, clinging to the back of Corvar with her muscular legs, executed a perfect, slow, sideways barrel roll that took her from the far side of our line up and put her next to me. I applauded politely as Renji leveled out and unclenched her legs from around Corvar’s flanks.
“How are things coming with your new spell slots, Mike?” the djinn asked me, flashing me one of her dazzling metallic smiles.
After we had come back from our jaunt in the Subterranean Realms, I had unlocked a series of new spells. I figured that being bonded with four dragons—three more than anyone had ever been bonded with before—meant that I would, obviously, have access to a greater range of spells and skills than your average dragonmancer.
Before we had entered the Subterranean Realms in search of the dragondust and Etherstones, these were my spell slots.
Head Slot: Noctis (Aura: BLINK)
Short range teleportation. Creates semi-translucent helmet complete with totally clear visor. Side-effects of this spell are smoked armor in far peripheral and the slight deadening of hearing.
Chest Slot: Noctis (Defensive Item / Offensive Spell: ONYX ARMOR)
Sleek, black armor that absorbs kinetic damage and transforms it into offensive chaos magic, which can then be fired at a chosen target through a conduit set into the breast plate.
Right Arm Slot: Noctis (Offensive Spell: SHADOW SPHERE)
Manifests and fires a ball of crackling black Chaos Magic. Vanishes whatever part of the body Shadow Sphere hits in a burst of black misty particles.
Right Arm Slot: Garth (Offensive Spel
l: FORCEWAVE)
Produces a concussive wave around the caster, which can hurl foes from their feet with enough force to kill. Can also cause massive structural damage to the local environment.
Weapon Slot A: Noctis (Chaos Spear)
Conjures a spear with a shaft that seems to be made of smooth, flawless ebony or some other dark wood. The tip is long and sharp, with a leaf-shaped blade. Crackling black, white and silver Chaos Magic will wreath and dance up and down the shaft like a heatwave. This occult spear will go through plate armor like a hot needle through lard.
There had been a lot of celebrating after our successful return from the Subterranean Realms – a lot of feasting, drinking, and fornicating. It had taken me a few days to get my head on straight enough to even realize that I had gained sufficient combat experience to open up these new slots. The feeling of elation warmed my blood like whisky.
Checking through my assorted itineraries on my four crystals, I had found four fresh spell slots opened and awaiting me.
Left Arm Slot: Noctis (Defensive / Offensive Spell: ENTROPIC MINE)
A mine that, when triggered, sucks everything in the nearby vicinity into a vortex and makes it implode.
Right Arm Slot: Garth (Offensive Item: REPEATING HAND CROSSBOW)
A repeating hand crossbow that shoots bolts.
Chest Slot: Wayne (Defensive Spell: SMOG FORM)
Turn into smog for a limited time. Makes the user’s body intangible.
Head Slot: Pan (Defensive / Offensive Spell: LIGHTNING SPEED)
A helmet that allows for short bursts of speed. Each burst uses a significant amount of mana.
As of yet I had only dabbled with a couple of them.
“I haven’t tested out all four of my new spells,” I admitted.
Renji raised one quizzical eyebrow at me, as if to ask why the hell not.
