I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2)

Citadels? L’baru or V’naruk would be my best guesses.”
There they were! Six more Dragons, rather than the four they had expected. Four reds, an orange and a brown. Each had a handler seated upon his or her back. The rest of the army had been trying to dig down as the Princess had suggested, laying their cloaks over shallow holes dug in the sand. How could this strategy possibly work according to the laws of physics – if not by magic?
Azania patted his neck. “Let’s do this.”
Unhooking the additional claws that gripped his scales, Dragon passed his novel spectacles back to the Princess. “Thanks.”
She stowed them efficiently. “Roar?”
“Raw meat?”
“A raw roar, if you please.”
Cracking open his jaw, he thundered with roar-some power, I – AAMM – DRRAAGOONN!!
Cloth and sand ripped up before them, hurling a windstorm across the encampment. Perhaps seven hundred soldiers had camped here with the Dragons; the rest must have marched further on, he concluded. Dragon swooped sharply, searching for that familiar pain behind the massive keel bone of his chest that anchored his flight muscles. Skartunese warriors scrambled before them, crying out and trying to shield their eyes as the blast of his wings added to the mayhem.
For a second, all was fear. His fires had vanished. It had been a one-off; his familiar penchant for failure must of course take over – and then, with a detonation that jolted him to the core, white lightning skittered across his scales and forked off his tail, his wingtips, even his fangs.
Weird enough?
“Princess!”
“I’m –”
GRRRAAAOOORRRGGGH!!
A firestorm billowed out of his agape jaw. He had no control. No idea of what he was actually doing, only that the geyser of flame pouring out of this throat had to go somewhere other than back inside his body. Great waves of pearlescent white flame gushed over the soldiers arrayed around the Dragon thralls, a devastating sweep of destruction.
“Circle!” cried the voice from his back.
Her bowstring twanged at the same time. One of the Dragon handlers slumped in his saddle, a shaft jutting from his stomach. Orange fire billowed toward them. Immediately, he jinked in flight, whisking his Princess safely away from the blast. Most Dragon fire was limited in range to about twenty feet. His own – he had no idea. Nor the slightest yearning to help his pernickety brain develop an accurate estimate just now.
You’re in a battle, Dragon!
Following the plan, he swirled around the captive Dragons, clearing as wide a sweep as he could. Isolate the handlers. Pick them off.
Azania cursed unhappily as she missed her next shot. The handlers responded by urging their Dragons to scatter. The Princess shot another handler in the neck; he followed that up with a cunning tail strike, smashing one of the men off the orange Dragoness’ back.
“Stall,” she rapped.
Flaring his wings, he braked hard. His Rider steadied herself and then placed an arrow square in another handler’s back.
The problem was that the captive Dragons kept obeying their last command. Several tried to track his flight with their flame. All the years they had spent in captivity, however, made them slow to react. He shot over a red Dragon’s head before he could swing his fire onto target, performing another stall-and-shoot manoeuver with the Princess. The red clearly had no clue where his aerial foe had vanished to, for his eyes were further hampered by metal blinkers affixed to his head cage.
One handler left. Arrows spat around them as the Skartunese troops responded to the attack. Several men ran for the Dragons they had already cleared, while others sidled forward in groups, hefting their javelins.
“We’ll be picking them off all day like this,” he growled. “Let’s collect ourselves a few Dragons. Ready to give the orders, Princess?”
“Remember, my leg’s still in a cast –”
“Noted.”
Picking a red Dragon who faced entirely the wrong direction, he shot over and helped his Princess land on its back. Grabbing the silver inductor handles which were attached to the head harnesses by cords, she squeezed them to burn the Dragon’s ear canals. Brutal, but this was the only reliable method they had found so far. These lifelong slaves to the Skartun regime understood nothing but pain.
She said, “Dragon, the men in armour are your enemy. Protect your brother Dragons from them, including this flying one and his Rider. You will respond only to our verbal commands from now on.”
The Dragon lumbered off to attack the Skartunese troops with their black-feathered helmets, careless of any arrows they directed his way.
“Next,” he called, snaffling her back into his paw.
Two more successful raids later, and the tide began to turn in their favour. The Dragons blindly followed orders, attacking any Skartunese warriors who came into their line of sight. The enemy warriors viewed this betrayal in the dimmest of light, but many of them carried injuries and a massed Dragon attack was no laughing matter.
Together, Dragon and Rider hunted down the next two Dragons. Azania collapsed on the back of the second, clutching her leg. “Aah! That’s –” with a low scream, she pulled a dagger out of that same thigh. “What is this?”
What were the chances of another hit in the same place? Rounding upon the soldier who had struck with a chance throw, Dragon barbecued him in a stream of white flame.
“Die! Princess, are you –”
“I’m good.”
“Right, and I’m a bushy-tailed –”
“Shut up, Dragon. One more and the job’s done. Let’s do this.”
Snatching her up in his right paw, they chased the final handler who was goading a red Dragon into running away. Azania growled something unintelligible as she had to duck behind his paw to avoid a flurry of arrows and javelins, and dropped her bow by accident. She drew her Dragon talon dagger instead.
“Upside-down!” came the cry.
Chortling in