Dragon Breeder 3 by Dante King (motivational books for students txt) 📗

veins. The Frost Giants were a hardy bunch by all accounts, and there were few warriors tougher than Bjorn. The motherfucker was as hard as a coffin nail.

Another of Gabby’s arrows struck the man who had cut Bjorn. The projectile took the enemy warrior through the eye and punched out the back of his skull, a piece of his brain stuck to the arrowhead.

Bjorn spun and cut and slashed, nailing the rest of the wildmen. All apart from one: a slinking fellow who had snuck around his back and looked set on cutting Bjorn’s throat wide open.

That slinking bastard had not reckoned, however, on our coterie’s slinking bastard.

Rupert materialized behind the wildman and thrust a finger-wide stiletto into the would-be killer’s ear canal. Even over the din of the battle, it made a crunching noise that made me wince. As the man fell away, rigid as a board, Gabby shot him in the kidney with an arrow.

“Oh c-c-come on, Gabby!” Rupert said, spinning to wag a reproving finger at the mute man with his curtains of auburn hair hanging across his face. “He was mine. You’re not going to try and claim another k-k-kill from me, are you? You’re better than that, aren’t you?”

Gabby shrugged, winked one hawk-like, yellow eye at Rupert, and then pulled the finger at him.

Rupert flushed, ripped off his hat, and pointed the ridiculous bit of headgear at Gabby. “That’s g-g-going on my tally, damn it!”

“Ladies, ladies,” I said, interjecting myself, “don’t squabble. There are plenty to go around.”

Bjorn prodded at the cut on his shoulder and looked about us.

“Not entirely true, boss,” he said.

I glanced around. There was a reverberating thump that rattled my bones, as the last giant was brought crashing over. The giant thrashed like a wounded bull elephant as Penelope’s vines twined inexorably around its limbs. Even in its death throes, the giant still managed to lash out with a massive horny foot and snap an Academy infantryman backward, bending his spine in the wrong direction so that it broke with the sound of a shotgun going off. Eventually though, the giant was put to the sword, overcome by sheer numbers.

Bjorn wasn’t wrong though, I realized. In the thrill of battle, I had lost track of just how we were doing overall. Once we dragonmancers had gotten the unexpected giant problem under control, the reduced wildmen had slowly been worn away by the better trained, more level-headed troopers of the Drako Academy.

Even as I gazed about, hefting my Chaos Spear in my hand, I saw that our foot soldiers were mopping up the last clusters of wildmen resistance.

I saw the last of the wildmen overpowered and slain by Saya and Tamsin. Tamsin backhanded the final warrior through the air toward Saya, and the Amazonian blonde smashed the man away with her warhammer, batting him away like you might do a baseball so that he landed in a broken heap some fifty yards away.

A cheer went up from the weary, battered, and bloody soldiers as the last of our foes was dispatched.

I felt a swell of pride in my chest as I stood there with my squad in the mess of ruptured earth and spilled blood, tattered body parts and twisted corpses of friends and foes. The caravan was, basically, still intact—apart from the cart that had been flattened by that naked giant. Judging by the men and women extricating themselves from where they had been hiding under the wagons, most of the traveling merchants had survived.

“All in all,” I said to Bjorn and Gabby, “I think we did ourselves proud. Showed grit and balls.”

Gabby nodded once; his version of high-five. Bjorn grunted.

“Speaking of b-b-balls,” Rupert said from behind us, “how about we take one of these home as a trophy?”

I turned.

Rupert had something long and floppy held above his head. It was about the length of a two-seater sofa and was bleeding from one end.

“Is that… Is that a giant’s meat whistle?” I asked in a disbelieving voice.

“Y-y-yes!” Rupert said triumphantly.

“Good gods, man,” Bjorn said, shaking his head, “you cut off the poor fucker’s cock? You’ve got problems, my friend.”

Gabby shook his head.

“What?” Rupert said. “I thought w-w-we could get it stuffed and put it over the fireplace or something?”

Bjorn barked a laugh. He stepped forward and clapped our friend on the shoulder so that the enormous severed pecker tumbled into the dust.

“But we already have one massive knob at our place,” the half-Jotunn warrior said. “Why don’t we just stick you above the fireplace?”

I laughed as Rupert leapt at Bjorn while Gabby watched on.

A sudden rush of power unexpectedly charged through my body.

Garth’s eager voice echoed through my head as this strange surging feeling of power ebbed away.

“Yes, it is about time, Dad,” he said. “Looks like you can slip my power into a new slot now!”

This was the wrong thing to hear from your offspring on so many levels that, for a moment, I simply went blank. Then, I replied, “Do me a favor and never word it like that again, will you?”

I pulled Garth’s crystal from out of the neck of my brigandine and looked at the inventory. The young Pearl Dragon was right: I had a new available slot into which I could harness his power.

Right Arm Slot: Garth (Offensive Spell: FORCEWAVE) – produces a concussive wave around the caster.

“Wayne will have some catching up to do, if he wishes to be as powerful and as helpful a member of our team as me,” Garth said delightedly as the two of us thought about the uses of this spell.

It wasn’t a boast. It wasn’t a dig at the other dragonling who was still back at the Seer’s orchard home. It was simply a statement made with a dragon’s characteristic matter-of-factness.

Garth’s