The Sword And The Dragon by Mathias, M. R.
Author’s Note:
I would like to thank Cliff Ball for help with the initial edit, Derek Prior for the much needed proofread/edit, and author and photoshop guru Curt Schimmel, webmaster of www.dragon-city.org and www.photoshop-dragon.com, for the great work on the cover image.
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Enjoy, M.R. Mathias
This is for my mother and my father.
Chapter 1
Gerard Skyler used his free arm to wipe the sweat from his brow before it had a chance to drip into his eyes. Scaling the towering, nesting cliff for the second time was far harder than he had expected it to be. No one had attempted the climb two days in a row before. His body was still sore and raw from yesterday’s climb, but he could not afford to stop and rest. He was more than three hundred feet above a rocky canyon floor. A fall would undoubtedly be fatal. The last thing he needed at the moment was burning eyes and blurred vision.
A few dozen feet above him, was the wide, flat shelf they called the “Lip.” Once he was there, he could lie down, stretch out his aching body, and relax his muscles before continuing up into the nesting shelves to gather the precious hawkling eggs he sought.
Why the blasted birds nested so high on the cliff, and so late in the spring, he could never determine. All of the other avian species he knew had hatched their young and headed north already. Why he was foolishly climbing the cliff a second time was another question he kept asking himself. He already knew the answer though: he was doing it for his older brother, Hyden.
Gerard’s free hand reached up and slid snugly into a small gap above him. As he pulled his weight up, the hold suddenly crumbled. Dust and scree rained down on his upturned face. Luckily, his mouth was closed and he hadn’t moved his feet from their points of purchase yet. He didn’t slip, but he had to contend with his racing heart and the sandy grit that was collecting on his face.
“Damn it all, Hyden! You owe me a dozen pairs of boots now,” he muttered.
He shook his head, trying to face downward so that some of the crud might fall away. Then he stuck out his bottom lip and blew up at his eyes, shaking his head awkwardly. The thought of how silly he looked at that moment almost made him laugh. He had to fight to contain it. Having mixed with his sweat, most of the grainy dirt had turned to mud. He finally used the thumb and index finger of his free hand to rub his eyelids. Eventually, he cleared his vision and then reached up for a different handhold. This one held his weight.
Far below, Hyden Skyler paced the canyon floor, looking up nervously at his younger brother’s progress. He was supposed to be the one making this climb. Gerard had already made his own. Their father and uncles had decided that Hyden should stay on the ground this year. He was the Skyler clan’s best hope to win the coveted Summer’s Day archery competition, their best hope to come along in a generation.
Hyden had argued vehemently against not being allowed to claim a rightful share of the hawkling eggs. His Uncle Condlin had to physically restrain him when they told him that this year’s climb wasn’t going to happen. Hyden had called them all to the settling circle in his anger, even the Elders.
“Why can’t I do both?” he had argued.
The Elders had explained that it was because the archery competition and the egg harvest this year were too close together. Not even the most experienced climber could finish his grueling harvest without a tear or strain. The Elders, who consisted of Hyden’s grandfather, his father, and five of his uncles, wanted nothing to happen to him that might affect his ability to aim. Nothing.