The stink of burning filled the wind, as with a hissing roar the dragon, turning to land on the shelf of rock, breathed out a sigh of fire. Its feet clashed on the rock. The thorny tail, writhing, rattled, and the wings stormed and rustled as they folded down to the mailed flanks. The head turned slowly. The dragon gazed straight at the woman from yellow eyes under armored carapaces wide-set above the narrow nose and flaring, fuming nostrils. And her small, soft face and dark eyes gazed straight at …
The stink of burning filled the wind, as with a hissing roar the dragon, turning to land on the shelf of rock, breathed out a sigh of fire. Its feet clashed on the rock. The thorny tail, writhing, rattled, and the wings stormed and rustled as they folded down to the mailed flanks. The head turned slowly. The dragon gazed straight at the woman from yellow eyes under armored carapaces wide-set above the narrow nose and flaring, fuming nostrils. And her small, soft face and dark eyes gazed straight at it.
The dragon turned its head aside a little so that she was not destroyed when it did speak, or perhaps it laughed — a great "Hah!" of orange flame.
Tenat saw then the man astride its back, his hands clenched on the rust-dark mail of the dragon's neck, his head bowed as if he were asleep.
The dragon lowered its body into a crouch and spoke. "Sobriost," it said, and that word of the Language of the Making she knew: Go up, the dragon said: Mount! and she saw the steps to mount. The taloned foot, the crooked elbow, the shoulder-joint, the first musculature of the wing: four steps.
She too said, "Hah!" but not in a laugh, only tring to get her breath. Then she went forward, past the talons and the long lipless mouth and the long yellow eye, and mounted the shoulder of the dragon. She took the man's arm. He did not move, but surely he was not dead. "Come on," she said, and then seeing his face as she loosened the clenched grip of his left hand, "Come on, Ged. Come on…."
