Dragons of Summer Tide (The Dragons of Hwandor) by Robert Barton Page B

deeper into the hills? The ones we are looking for must have gone that way. You also said the Talenger gave you something to give to the Rangers in the capital and a message for the king. It must have been about these foreigners.”
    Veer sighed. “I just want to find the rest of the ones who killed my people. My family was there and my friends. There were little kids and they just killed them all and burned them.” In anger Veer kicked a rough spot along side of the trail. The little human eyed dragon had walked up next to the two young people and he spread his wings and shook them while he let out a little grunt of anger. Veer looked at the little dragon which was now knee high to him and was the size of a medium dog. “See, even he wants to find them because they killed his mother.”
    Shira smirked. “I don’t think that he even knows we are hunting the strangers who killed his mother. He is angry because you are angry. He’s your dragon, and I think that when you get angry he does too.”
    “My dragon – my dragon!” Veer snapped at the girl letting his temper go just a bit as his voice raised. “Will you stop with the stuff about bonding dragons like some old stories?” As Veer raised his voice the human eyed dragon that had become so attached to him started to rear up and screech at Shira also.
    As quickly as a rabbit runs the slightly smaller dragon which had bonded with Shira jumped in front of the screeching dragonet and reared up on her hind legs spreading her wings and hissing at her larger sibling. The two young people stood there in amazement as the young dragons snapped and hissed at one another. Veer was so shocked that as his own anger slid from him, the larger dragon seemed to calm down and stopped threatening. The smaller dragon then settled down but remained protectively sitting at the feet of the girl. Without a word Veer climbed in his saddle and started heading south along the trail. “So I guess it is south then?” Said Shira, but Veer didn’t answer.
    After another quarter hour of riding Veer said. “We can’t fight an army, but if we can take this message to the Rangers and let the flatlander king know what is happening he might send an army.”
    “He’s our king too,” Shira responded.
    “No he isn’t. I’m from the Hillfolk and we are a free people. That king only rules flatlanders. We don’t pay taxes to him and we don’t ask anything from him.”
    “I’ve heard it all before ,” Shira said. “But it seems to me we are heading to ask something now.” With that statement tense silence stood for a while.
    After a few minutes of riding Shira broke the silence. “Look we are on the northern end of the middle Furway so we will have to travel the whole middle which takes trappers more than a week and then the lower Furway takes a couple of weeks to ride. Then we hit the new mountains and have to go flatland on one of the highways to the capital. If we ride out of the hills and go flatland now we can head west and take the Mainway down to the capital and it is a lot faster with inns and supplies.”
    “Do you want to do that with a bunch of baby dragons following us?” Veer asked. “Hundreds of people will be passing us going north and south on the busiest highway in the flatlander kingdom? That will be good. They can just ignore the dragons and we’ll be fine.” 
    “I don’t think that people see dragons when they look at them ,” answered Shira. “I think that people see ponies and puppies or birds. I think that people see what they expect to see. I don’t even know for sure if the horses see dragons. Maybe these horses think that we have some dogs with us.” They rode on in a silence that extended for some hours.
    “Ok look, I don’t really like crowds of people, it’s strange. Even the harvest gatherings in the hills have too many people for me. I had to go with my grandfather on a flatland trip last year. We got out of the hills and there were these big