The Ice Dragon Page 3
It touched the left wing of the coal-black dragon beneath them, and the dark beast gave a shrill cry of pain, and when it beat its wings again, the frost-covered wing broke in two. Dragon and dragonrider began to fall.
The ice dragon breathed again.
They were frozen and dead before they hit the ground.
The rust-colored dragon was flying at them, and the dragon the color of blood with its bare-chested rider. Adara’s ears were filled with their angry roaring, and she could feel their hot breath around her, and see the air shimmering with heat, and smell the stink of sulfur.
Two long swords of fire crossed in midair, but neither touched the ice dragon, though it shriveled in the heat, and water flew from it like rain whenever it beat its wings.
The blood-colored dragon flew too close, and the breath of the ice dragon blasted the rider. His bare chest turned blue before Adara’s eyes, and moisture condensed on him in an instant, covering him with frost. He screamed, and died, and fell from his mount, though his harness remained behind, frozen to the neck of his dragon. The ice dragon closed on it, wings screaming the secret song of winter, and a blast of flame met a blast of cold. The ice dragon shuddered once again, and twisted away, dripping. The other dragon died.
But the last dragonrider was behind them now, the enemy in full armor on the dragon whose scales were the brown of rust. Adara screamed, and even as she did the fire enveloped the ice dragon’s wing. It was gone in less than an instant, but the wing was gone with it, melted, destroyed.
The ice dragon’s remaining wing beat wildly to slow its plunge, but it came to earth with an awful crash. Its legs shattered beneath it, and its wing snapped in two places, and the impact of the landing threw Adara from its back. She tumbled to the soft earth of the field, and rolled, and struggled up, bruised but whole.
The ice dragon seemed very small now, very broken. Its long neck sank wearily to the ground, and its head rested amid the wheat.
The enemy dragonrider came swooping in, roaring with triumph. The dragon’s eyes burned. The man flourished his lance and shouted.
The ice dragon painfully raised its head once more, and made the only sound that Adara ever heard it make: a terrible thin cry full of melancholy, like the sound the north wind makes when it moves around the towers and battlements of the white castle that stands empty in the land of always-winter.
When the cry had faded, the ice dragon sent cold into the world one final time: a long smoking blue-white stream of cold that was full of snow and stillness and the end of all living things. The dragonrider flew right into it, still brandishing whip and lance. Adara watched him crash.
Then she was running, away from the fields, back to the house and her family within, running as fast as she could, running and panting and crying all the while like a seven-year-old.
Adara did not know what to do, but she found Teri, whose tears had dried by then, and they freed Geoff, and then untied their father. Teri nursed him, and cleaned out his wounds. When his eyes opened and he saw Adara he smiled. She hugged him very hard, and cried for him.
By night he said he was fit enough to travel. They crept away under cover of darkness, and took the king’s road south.
Her family asked no questions then, in those hours of darkness and fear. But later, when they were safe in the south, there were questions endlessly. Adara gave them the best answers she could. But none of them ever believed her, except for Geoff, and he grew out of it when he got older. She was only seven, after all, and she did not understand that ice dragons are never seen in summer, and cannot be tamed nor ridden.
Besides, when they left the house that night, there was no ice dragon to be seen. Only the huge dark corpses of three war dragons and the smaller bodies of three dragonriders in black and orange. And a pond that had never been there before, a small quiet pool where the water was very cold. They had walked around it carefully, headed towards the road.
THEIR father worked for another farmer for three years in the south. He saved whatever he could, and he seemed happy. “Hal is gone, and my land,” he would tell Adara, “and I am sad for that. But it is all right. I have my daughter back.” For the winter was gone from her now, and she smiled and laughed and even wept like other little girls.
Three years after they had fled, the king’s army routed the enemy in a great battle, and the king’s dragons burned the foreign capital. In the peace that followed, the northern provinces changed hands once more. Teri had recaptured her spirit and married a young trader, and she remained in the south. Geoff and Adara returned with their father to the farm.
When the first frost came, all the ice lizards came out, just as they had always done. Adara watched them with a smile on her face, remembering the way it had been. But she did not try to touch them. They were cold and fragile little things, and the warmth of her hands would hurt them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author of the New York Times bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire series that begins with A Game of Thrones, called “the American Tolkien” by Time magazine, GEORGE R. R. MARTIN is one of the leading authors of fantasy today.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
LUIS ROYO is a prolific Spanish artist best known for his lush fantasy illustrations. Over thirty books of his collected art have been published, including Women, Dead Moon, Visions, and the Malefic Time series. Royo’s artwork was featured in Spectrum 3 and has been exhibited in Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, New York, Seattle, and St. Petersburg. Visit him online at www.luisroyo.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE ICE DRAGON
Copyright © 1980 by George R. R. Martin
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Luis Royo
All rights reserved.
A Tor Teen Book
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7877-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-7924-5 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9780765379245
Originally published by Ace Books in the volume Dragons of Light
First Edition: October 2006
First Tor Teen Edition: October 2014