Frenzied chirps of birds rose up into the air. They entered the dragon’s ears and went into the dragon’s brain, where Assa took them up in her own brain and did not know what to do with them. They were a cacophony of sound, a symphony of pain. She longed for the cool calming sound of the creek at her house, its waters flowing past in a kind of reverie that always calmed her.
Nothing here was calming. She had been responsible for the death of one dragon, and now, it seemed, she was going to be instrumental in the death of another. The dragons were, as a group, a nuisance and dangerous, but that did not mean she needed to see to it that they all died.
Assa felt under barrage herself, just as the dragon was being assaulted by the birds.
The dragon pushed out a meager flame. It scorched the
