Rhiannon - Dragonrider

Chapter Fourty Two - Rapier

I had to be a bit careful about deciding how much I was going to say in my lecture. I mean... I knew the stuff pretty well by now but I didn't want to give too much away in case I ever found myself riding in the race again. In the end, I was pretty pleased with how it came out and the rest of the primes seemed happy enough.

Mind you, they probably didn't want to get on my bad side by asking too many tricky questions. They'd seen what I'd done to the Armenclethyfur in the cage, the Saturday before!

Zalibar must have been pretty pleased too because, afterwards, he invited me to join him and a couple of the senior nonda primes for a drink.

The door to his private rooms was just across the entrance hall from the Great Hall. I'd walked past it plenty of times but I'd never been inside. I wasn't all that surprised to find the place was simply furnished. There were a couple of severe looking armchairs over by the fireplace and a solid writing desk in front of the window. I guess he wanted to keep an eye on what was going on in the quad whilst he was working.

But there were a couple of interesting maps mounted on the walls so I went over to have a look at one of them.

Zalibar appeared behind me and put a glass of dark red wine in my hand. "It's the eastern part of the Gobi Desert," he said as I cautiously sipped the stuff. It had an intense, fruity sort of a taste. "People say that there are wild dragons in the area."

"I'd wondered about that," I said. "Are there any other groups of dragons out there?"

"Well..." he said with a pause sort of a thing... unusual for him... "there are persistent rumours of a group out on an island in the Atlantic somewhere but, apart from that, there are just a few solitary wild dragons and small family groups scattered around. If you have two dragons in any one place for any length of time, one of 'em usually ends up dead. It's only the Precepts that keep the Edifice from tearing itself apart."

I thought about that for a moment then nodded. I guess it was probably true. I mean... the Precepts were astonishingly severe, with duals to the death common and obliteration of your entire family line the standard punishment for major rule breaking. But I suppose they made it possible for the ruthless creatures to live together within such a small space.

He was about to walk away when I realised I was about to miss my chance. "I've heard about some people using a lighter sort of sword..." I said, trying to keep my voice casual... "a rapier, I think they're called... But I've never seen one about."

"There's a reason you don't see many of 'em about," he replied gruffly. "Dragon hide is tough. Unless you keep your will on your blade all the time, you're going to find yourself in a shower of steel splinters in five seconds and dead in ten. That's what happens to most of the arrogant idiots who try to use the things."

But then he sort of studied me for a bit... kind of inside my head and out. "Mind you..." he said at last with a bit of a nod, "you might just get one of the things to work for you. You've got the right balance of speed and cerebral capacity. Let me have a think about it." He turned and stalked away, leaving me standing on my own in front of the map.

I had another sip of wine and was about to make my excuses and run away when Han-nonda, the Armenclethyfur, came over to join me. "Your lecture seemed to go rather well," he said.

"I know quite a lot about the subject," I answered. "I had to study it quite hard recently." I sighed and my eyes started to glaze over as I thought back to the gates race.

"If you carry on at this rate, you're not going to be here in the academy for much longer," he said. I guess he wanted to give me something else to think about. "I can understand that Zalibar doesn't want to lose you but there's a limit to how long he can keep you hanging around here as some sort of extra teacher."