Parts

 Adam Knight

The dragon loomed over Lysis, too large to see all at once. Though shadows clung to the corners of the cavern, torchlight shimmered on the dragon’s panoply of scales, the jeweled underbelly glittering like a thousand glassy stars on a frigid winter night. Lysis was unmoved. He knew too much about dragons to feel poetic about them.

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As he sized up his target, preparing to drive his steel blade through gristle and muscle, he thought of the dragon’s parts. The luminescent scales, he could sell to an armorer in Brightpoint Bay. Dragon claws made daggers that never dulled, so a weaponsmith would pay well for one, and extra for a full set of four. Dragon flesh was foul to eat, but the Nuvalii people fed it to their warriors, and would pay in ivory for it. The genitals, well, herbalists and healers drew extracts from them and made potions to grant terrifying levels of virility. Every little gland and fluid had some use, and thus some potential buyer who Lysis could exploit when he visited the Grand Market at Thildevault. The most potent, and therefore most profitable part was the eye of the dragon. It was said the Spellmaster of Ixa offered fistfuls of rubies and emeralds for just one eye. Even the skeleton, stripped and bleached, could be a prize trophy in the hall of whichever duke or earl was willing to buy it. Lysis grinned, held his sword aloft, and rushed at the dragon’s belly.

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The dragon’s mate, lurking in the shadows, swiped out a single claw, piercing Lysis through his collarbone. He sprawled and twitched and gushed blood on the cavern floor. He was still conscious as the two dragons closed in. The last thing he heard was dragonspeak, a sort of telepathy that purred and crackled in Lysis’s mind.

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“No, love, I am not a bit hungry. But I wanted one of their skulls. I fancy the way they rattle. Don’t you think the whelps will find it to be the most charming little toy?”

Author bio: Adam Knight is an author and teacher living in northern New Jersey. His debut novel, At The Trough, was published by NineStar Press last year and is available at all major booksellers.

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