Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

beg you not to, but you were never happier than when someone you could beat up wandered near Dauva. You’re incorrigible, do you know that? I bet you even found a sword to use while you dealt with the ouroboros dragons, didn’t you?”
    “Where would I find a sword?” he asked, his voice suddenly persuasive as he held up his hands to show they were empty. “ Chérie , you are overset. You must calm yourself and lead our son to safety while I distract the attackers.”
    “Baltic, you left your sword upstairs,” Pavel said somewhat breathlessly as he thumped down the stairs, two swords in his hands. “You will want it, yes?”
    I glared at the love of my multiple lives.
    “Two of the ouroboros had them,” Baltic said, not meeting my eye. “Go with the half dragon, mate.”
    “My name is Maura. Maura Lo. You can even call me Mo if you like, although no one but my mother calls me that.”
    “Mo Lo?” Savian asked, his lips twitching.
    “You do, and I’ll deck you,” she said, shaking a fist at him and jerking her handcuffed arm again.
    I poked Baltic a second time. “If you think I’m going to leave you here to face at least a hundred negrets armed with nothing but a sword, you can think again.”
    A metallic clang sounded from the gate. Baltic shoved Brom and me toward Maura, before he snatched the sword from Pavel, and raced toward the gate. “Go!” he yelled over his shoulder as he shifted into dragon form, the rosy morning light burnishing the white scales that covered his body.
    I didn’t argue. I wanted to stay and help him, but he was right-I had to get Brom to safety first. I took Brom’s hand and ran after Maura and Savian.
    “This way,” Maura cried as they dashed around the side of the tower. “The bolt-hole is in the chapel’s crypt.”
    Out of nowhere, two blue dragons in their respective dragon forms burst from the chapel, snarling various obscenities.
    Maura yelled something at them when one of them raised a gun toward us. The dragon hesitated, which was his undoing. Before he could blink, Savian and Maura were on them, Savian handily disarming the gun-toting dragon, before knocking him senseless with a swift move that had me more than a little envious. Maura, naturally, had to move with Savian, but she took me by surprise when she leaped on the second dragon, somewhat hampered by being tethered to Savian. Her surprise attack took the second dragon off guard enough that before he could do more than slash through the air with his tail and splash a little dragon fire around, he was on the ground, bleeding and unconscious, but alive.
    “That felt good,” Maura said, sucking her knuckles after grinning at Savian.
    “Friends of yours?” he asked with an answering grin.
    “Hardly. This way.”
    We ducked to avoid the low lintel of the chapel, the cool, musty air inside making my nose wrinkle with the need to sneeze.
    “The crypt isn’t big-really, I think it was just put there simply to disguise the secret exit-but finding the right bit of stone to push can be tricky if you don’t know the pattern.”
    The chapel was obviously not used much by Thala’s dragons; it was full of rubble, with bits of broken masonry, antique painted statues of various saints, and carved reliefs piled up on one side. Two arched windows let in some of the morning light, but it had a hard time fighting its way through the general air of abandonment.
    “There,” Maura said, climbing over a stone altar and pointing. We scrambled after her, peering down at stairs cut into the stone that faded into blackness. “Watch your step-some of the stairs are broken.”
    “I’ll go first,” Savian said, pulling out a penlight from an inner pocket. “Ysolde?”
    “Right behind you.” I pushed Brom in front of me, my hands on his shoulders as he followed Savian and Maura. Before taking a step into the black maw of the crypt, I glanced over my shoulder, but the two dragons were still flaked out on the ground. “Careful of the steps, lovey.”
    Brom made a noise of profound disgust and disappeared into the darkness. I followed, clutching the rough stone wall as I picked my way down the uneven steps. A few of them were partially crumbled into nothing, but after a few tense minutes, we were all on the floor of the crypt.
    “There are four tombs down here.” Maura’s voice echoed eerily in the darkness. “The first three are genuine. The fourth one isn’t. To the left, Bart.”
    “Bartholomew. As in Savian