Dragon Princess Read Online Free Page B

at some point. But they didn’t have Dracheslayer.”
    The sword wasn’t reassuring me.
    Think of the hoard,
I thought. I’d taken bigger risks for smaller reward before.
    No I haven’t,
went my contrary internal monologue.
    The cave resonated with the snoring from Elhared’s “small” dragon. I could feel sulfur-tainted breath brush my cheek as it exhaled. I couldn’t see it in the darkness within the cave, but I already knew that “small” would not be the word I’d use to describe this thing.
    Run,
I thought,
or do what you came to do.
    Standing around waiting for the lizard to wake up wasn’t really an option. I also thought it’d be a waste of my efforts if I ran away without actually seeing what I was running from, so I grabbed the pommel of
Dracheslayer
and slowly drew it from its scabbard as quietly as I could manage and eased forward into the lair of the beast.
    I trod carefully, watching so each step came down on stone rather than animal or human remains. And once I stepped out of the light, I stopped so my eyes could readjust to the dimness within the shadows. Now that I was out of the sun, and the light was all behind me, the shapes within the cave began to resolve themselves.
    As I began to see, I edged to the wall of the cave so my silhouette did not form such an obvious target against the daylight. Even as I did so, I realized that strategy was rendered moot because of the glowing sword in my hand. I silently sighed at the magical glowing target in my hand, but I wasn’t going into the dragon’s den without having
Dracheslayer
ready for action.
    I followed the wall farther in, leaning against it as it curved deeper into the cave, holding the glowing sword down so my body was between the glowing red runes and the rest of the cave. Even so, as the daylight lost itself behind me,
Dracheslayer
’s hellish glow gave enough light to see immediately around me. Fortunately not so much that it woke the slumbering dragon sprawled in front of me.
    The dragon snored and I was blasted with the smell of sulfur and devil farts.
    Small dragon my ass.
    Its head alone was as long as I was, half of that mouth, and three-quarters of
that
, teeth. The muscular jaws looked like they could bite a warhorse in half. It rested its head on its forelimbs, and its serpentine neck curved around to a huge body that merged into the darkness where
Dracheslayer
’s
glow did not reach. I saw hints of vast demonic wings before I realized I had gone from assessing the situation to freezing in panic.
    It’s asleep, there’s its neck, here’s a dragon-slaying sword. . . .
    It was going about as well as it could possibly go, which meant I shouldn’t have been at all surprised when I took a step forward and heard a sharp intake of breath from above. A glance told me that Princess Lucille was alive, unhurt, and a bit shorter than her portrait would lead you to believe. She gaped at me in shock from a niche in the rock wall above me, bound hand and foot but, unfortunately, not gagged.
    I turned back toward the dragon before she said, “Look out!”
    I hoped she was talking to me.
    In front of me the snore had come to a choked conclusion, and a lid slowly drew up from a golden eye the size of my head. I was already committed. My slow stealthy advance had drawn me in too close for any quick withdrawal.
    When you can’t go back, go forward.
    I rushed, swinging
Dracheslayer
above my head, and brought the magic runesword down on the beast’s unprotected neck with a visceral scream of premature triumph.
    Every second thought I had been having, every suspicion, every sense that all was not right with Elhared’s proposal, all of that was confirmed as
Dracheslayer
,

magic dragon-slaying sword forged by the blind dwarves of Grundar, hit the dragon’s neck with a bone-wrenching impact and crumbled like week-old cheese.
    Yeah, I was right, bad idea.
    The loss of the magic blade plunged the cavern back into darkness, and for a few