Dragon Binder: Book One of the Dragonblood Priestess Series (First Draft)

Chapter 37: Broken Calm

Body leaving the ground was enough to startle Yina awake as she slid into a almost crouched position her eyes wide with shock.  Nyssa's body was coating in electricity something that she had not seen in the dragon.  They were far more alike then even she had realized, since that happened to her all the time.  "Send me up."  Yina sent mentally.  

Taking a single step Nyssa's tail slid under her foot and then flicked upwards.  Yina's body went several hundred feet into the air.  Her loose hair whipping around as she momentarily felt the weightlessness as the upward momentum died down.  Scanning the area she saw what had caused the disturbance, another ship was in the distance.  Landing roughly back onto the dragon raft another cannonball slammed into the water near them sending her scrambling to keep her footing.  

"Adar."  Yina roared as she mounted Nyssa and the two shot into the air combining their magic to appear above the ship in a flash of lightning.  From this vantage she could tell that the ship was heading there way far faster then it should be moving.  Looking down she saw Adar sliding down his own chain to get to his dragon.  

Not wanting to wait on him the two took off over the water staying high enough that logically the canons should not reach them.  Still Yina made sure to navigate them in a more serpentine path so if they were being aimed at it would be far harder to hit them.  Half the distance to the ship and her enhanced sight finally saw the black flag flapping int he wind.  

"Pirates, I thought they were just stories."  She muttered to herself, showing truly how much she did not know about the real world again.  A figure stood on the very front of the ship wind causing the cape he wore to beat around like crazy.  "Now who are you?"  Yina asked herself as they continued to close in, glancing back to see Adar closing in frantically waving his arms.

Before she could even think about why he was acting that way, water burst underneath her as a tornado of water surrounded the two of them.  "What in the hell."  Nyssa send out mentally as she tried to pull back her claws dipping into the tornado and being pulled to the left nearly falling out of the sky.  

A shadow fell over Yina as she glanced up just in time to see a dragon diving down towards them.  Yanking onto her magic she screamed in pain as she pulled both her and Nyssa upwards in the form of electricity.  They did not travel far but it was enough to shoot past the dragon and be above it.  

Panting and holding her side, pain shooting through her body she shot a glare downwards.  "You okay Yina?"  Nyssa asked as she tried to keep herself flying in the small space the tornado had created.  The other dragon dashed through the water as if it was nothing vanishing from sight.  Water ripped from the tornado forming into what looked like a spike, luck was all that saved them as it barely missed Nyssa's flapping wings.  

"No, I am not.  We need to get out of here now."  Taking a deep breath she tried to center herself.  "You up for one more burst?"  Yina asked into her dragon, trying to push the pain aside, they still needed to work on so much.  

"Already ahead of you."  Nyssa stated as her body was surrounded in lighting and the two shot through the tornado sending a current through the entire thing.  A screech could be heard as they solidified.  The dragon must have been in the tornado as they passed through it causing some damage.  Yina doubted it would be much as that was a lot of water for the lightning to travel through.  

The worst part of lighting travel was being able to adjust to reappearing.  There was no real proper way to see while in that form.  So when the two appeared again it was like being thrust into a random place, having to take in everything as fast as they could.  The two were almost above the ship the man still standing at the bow, being this close Yina could see water hovering around the man.  

"Shit a dragon bound who can control water."  Normally that would be a great thing for the duo being lightning and all but this man seemed to have far more experience then they did.  It did not matter if you had the advantage if you could not out think your opponent.  

A cruel smirk was on the man's face.  "You are quite inexperienced, such a shame with such powerful magic."  Lifting up his hand the water underneath him swelled up lifting the ship up and twisting it so that side was pointing at the duo.  The sailors on the ship cackled as they placed torches to the canons.  

With a thunderous eruption the cannons burst out, Nyssa took evasive maneuvers but there were to many as one slammed right into her side.  Yina screamed as pieces of scales broke off and were flying into the air.  Red and black flashed in front of them as Astir grabbed a hold of Nyssa as she started to fall.  

Grieve and anger were fighting inside Yina as lightning burst around her sporadically as her control was quickly vanishing.  "Snap out of it, this is not over yet."  Adar stated as he grabbed her shoulder lightning flashing through his body.  His jaw clenched he did not let it phase him, their eyes locked and the calm in Adar's eyes flooded her with calm.  

"You are right."  Yina stated, before she could say anything anything else he gripped her shoulder harder and then threw her as hard as he could towards the ship.  Astir took off climbing higher as he jumped off causally let the wind rush past him.  Yina slammed into the deck rolling across it rather roughly sliding into a crouch.  

Looking up to see Adar slam his dagger into the sail easily landing to his feet sliding it back into its sheath behind his back.  "Well, guess its time to take care of this problem.  I will get the captain."  He was so stoic and nonchalant about it that she could not even voice a argument as he drew his sword cutting his way through the men and women in his way.  

"Show off."  Yina stated, "You okay Nyssa?"  She sent worried that yet again her dragon had been hurt by her own stupidity. 

"I am fine, we are going to take care of this dragon, you worry about them."  She took a deep breath, knowing that Nyssa was okay definitely helped her relax.  The issue was, she was running very low on magic now after so many lightning jumps.  Lifting her arms in front of her body the blades snapped free from the sides of her gauntlets.  

"Watch out, she is a bound."  One of the pirates stated as at least ten of them circled her, carrying mostly swords but a few had just regular staffs.  It was a interesting bunch, she expected them to be more rough and well homeless looking.  They however wore matching uniforms, withe a few flares each to let some of their personality show through.  

The adrenaline of a fight started to cycle through her body, it was something she hated to admit but she loved it.  Sliding into her normal stance she just waited seeing what they would do, her one fear in the back of her head was that they were used to fighting as a large group.  If they could she was in trouble, but hopefully they were not able to work quite as well and would end up in each other way more often then not.  

"I commend you on your bravery."  Yina stated as she slammed her hands together pushing all her magic out of her body.  Until this moment she had never used this application, but she had high hopes it would work.  Lightning burst from her body in all directions in a bubble slamming into the ring of people sending a few of them flying away.  As she watched though, some of lightning seemed to be attracted to the ones first hit and would focus on them and not the full group.  

Half of them fell to the ground smoking, the other half stood there with a bit of visible damage, but otherwise looking fine.  "Well worth a try."  She stated with a shrug charging towards the one who had warned the rest of her being a bound.  Trying to use her increased speed to her advantage swinging up one of her blades.  Quick movements easily blocked the attack shifting Yina past him.  

Stumbling to catch her balance she slid to a stop just in time to block two who had rushed in to take advantage of her momentary weakness.  "Our Captain is bound, do you not think he taught us how to react to their increased physical abilities."  Pushing the two back she dropped low tripping one, sending a small bolt of lightning into his chest sending him flying towards the others causing them to scatter a bit more.  

"Well, good otherwise it would not have been worth my time or effort."  Sweat slid down her face, she was not going to admit just how in trouble she felt.  Magic low, fighting people who could handle her enhanced speed and power.  Adar was trusting her to take care of these people, and so she had to prove she could...