Dragons- Worlds Afire

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Pray it is a yawn, then,” said Donegan, “and one announcing that the beast is ready for a long and sound nap.” He looked around at his soldiers, grinning from ear to ear beneath his upraised visor. “One from which it will never awaken.”

  That brought a host of nods and grins from the rank and file.

  Off to the side, Maryin neither nodded nor grinned. She knew what was coming, and what her role would be, before Sir Donegan even motioned to her to enter the pit. It occurred to her that perhaps she would do well to don her heavier plate mail and hire an elf to handle the scouting.

  Under the water, Zhengyi nodded with contentment as he watched the troop disappear over the pit’s rim. His spell mimicking the dragon’s roar had been well placed through use of his complimentary enchantment of ventriloquism, or so it would seem.

  The Witch-King knew that he should be away at once—back to the south and Damara, where the battle raged—but he lingered a bit longer in the pond, and when all of the soldiers had gone into the pit save those few left to guard the horses, he emerged again on the northeastern bank.

  The three fools standing with the horses still stared at the pit, oblivious to the danger, when the Witch-King came calling.

  She knew that her elven cloak could protect her from prying eyes, but still Maryin felt vulnerable as she edged her way down the enormous tunnel—certainly high and wide enough for a dragon to charge through it. Lichen covered the walls, emitting a soft light, like starlight in a forest clearing. Though thankful for that illumination—for it meant she had to carry no torch—at the same time she feared the glow might make her just as plain to the wyrm’s clever eyes.

  She felt the beast’s presence before she smelled or heard it—a pervasive aura of fear hung in the air.

  Maryin went down to all fours and crawled along. No retreat would be fast enough if the beast spotted her, so her only hope lay in not being detected at all.

  She rounded a bend and held her breath as she peered into a distant chamber. There it was, and it was not the beast that had recently attacked Palishchuk. For even in the dim light, she could see that its scales glistened black, and not white.

  She retreated slowly for some time, inching out backward. Then she turned and ran, two hundred yards or more up the tunnel, to where Donegan and the others waited, including the armored horses of the knights Donegan and Bevell.

  “A large black,” she explained in as soft a voice as possible while she drew the chamber’s layout for them in a patch of soft dirt.

  Fisticus and the other wizards went to work, coordinating the spells they would need to fend off the acidic breath of a black dragon.

  “A white would present fewer challenges,” the lead wizard complained. “Our spells to defeat its freezing breath are more specialized and complete.”

  “Perhaps I can borrow some fence paint and change the beast’s color while it sleeps,” came Maryin’s sarcastic reply.

  “That would be helpful,” Fisticus shot back without hesitation.

  “Enough,” Donegan scolded them both. “Black dragons are comparable to whites—at least it’s not an ancient red awaiting us.”

  “We have spells specifically to defeat the fiery breath of a—” Fisticus began.

  “And any red worth its scales would have mighty spells to dwarf your own,” Donegan interrupted. “In this case we need only defeat the black’s initial spray and get our forces in close. Once by its side, we will take the beast down quickly.”

  Fisticus nodded and moved to stand next to Maryin’s map. “The distance from the tunnel to the beast?” he asked. “And where in the approach are we likely to be engaged?”

  Getting into the heart of the dragon’s lair was little challenge for the Witch-King. In his two-dimensional shadow form, Zhengyi merely slipped into a crack in the stone and slithered his way down. Now he stood off to the side of the main floor, not far from Urshula but concealed by the nature of his form and by enchantments so that the dragon did not sense him.

  He watched with great amusement as the stealthy female knight crept back down again to observe the dragon. A pair of wizards followed, magically shielded and hidden.

  “Pathetic,” Zhengyi mouthed under his breath.

  He raised his bony hand and added an illusion—from the dragon’s perspective—to further hide the intruders, for he did not want Urshula to detect the approaching force too soon.

  The wizards cast their spell and hustled away, and as he considered their creation, Zhengyi had to admit their cleverness. Nodding, he knew what was coming next. He waved his hand again, and his illusion disappeared.

  Urshula’s eye opened just a bit. Zhengyi watched the muscles along the dragon’s great forelegs tighten with readiness. Down the tunnel came the warriors in a sudden charge, weapons and armor clattering.

  Urshula sprang into a crouch, his great horned head swiveling in line.

  Zhengyi marveled that the soldiers did not break ranks. Not one of them fled from the sight of a great dragon. Glad he was that he had come back to the dragon’s lair, for the fortitude of the troop of knights could not be underestimated.

  Urshula crouched back, and Zhengyi felt the beast’s rumbling inhalation, the preparation for its first devastating strike. The warriors did not slow, approaching the place where the wizards had set their enchantment. Urshula’s neck shot forward, his jaws opening wide, a cone of acidic spittle bursting forth.

  It hit a barrier—a solid, impenetrable wall of magical force—and spattered and sizzled. Only a bit of it splashed over the wall, stinging a few of the warriors. But their charge was not slowed. They parted and flowed around the edges of the magical barrier in perfect unison. On the near side, their troop flowed back together, guided by the armored knights, and closed in on the confused dragon.

  Urshula reared and lifted his head high—and was promptly engulfed by a fireball, then a second and a third before he could even react. And when he ducked back down, the warriors were there, slashing, stabbing, and hacking away with abandon. They filtered around the wyrm, cheering and shouting, trying to overwhelm the beast with sudden and brutal fury.

  But Urshula was a dragon, after all, the beast of beasts. A sudden frenzy of stamping legs, raking claws, swiping tail, and battering wings quickly stole the advantage.

  One knight stood above the fray, barking out orders, lifting his sword high and calling for the warriors to rally around him.

  The dragon’s maw closed over him to the waist, and lifted him high for all to see. Warriors cried out for him as his armored legs thrashed helplessly.

  Urshula clamped down, and the knight’s lower torso dropped to the floor. The rest came flying free as well, as Urshula snapped his head about, the knight serving as a missile to crash through several ranks of warriors. Those who fell farthest aside proved the fortunate ones for the time being, though, for the armored missile was fast followed by a second blast of acidic spittle.

  Men melted and died.

  Before he could begin to applaud the wyrm, Zhengyi looked around to see a barrage of energy bolts—green, blue, and violet—swarming the dragon’s way. Urshula’s victory roar became a cry of pain as the bolts burned into him, stabbing through scales that could not protect the beast from such attacks.

  The dragon spotted the wizards, grouped inside the tunnel entrance just to the left. Ignoring the stabs from the warriors still thrashing as his sides, Urshula spat again.

  Stones all around the wizards sizzled and popped, but the three were protected. One did wince in pain, though he still managed to join his companions in the next missile barrage.

  Zhengyi, fearing that the dragon would be overwhelmed too quickly, thought he should intervene.

  But Urshula reared on his hind legs and spread wide his wings. He beat them furiously, lifting dust, coins, and pebbles from the floor to fly at the distant wizards. The debris did no real damage, but it prevented any further casting—and more importantly, Zhengyi realized, it worked through the pro
tection limits of their magical shielding.

  “Brilliant,” the Witch-King applauded.

  The dragon’s reaction was not a surprise to Sir Donegan. Trained by Gareth Dragonsbane himself—a man who had well-earned his surname—Donegan had designed the attack in four specific phases: first, the defeat of the beast’s initial killing breath. Second, the charge. Third, a barrage of magic that should force the dragon’s attention away from the last part, the most deadly part.

  The knights Donegan and Bevell sat on their horses back up the tunnel awaiting the dragon’s reaction. As it reared, they spurred their mounts to charge. Lances lowered, the two skilled knights swerved left and right around the magical wall of force, rejoined on the far side of the barrier, and thundered in together at the still-oblivious dragon.

  They caught the beast side-by-side in the belly, the weakest point of a dragon’s natural armor. With the weight of their huge steeds driving them on, and the enchantments placed upon those lances, the weapons struck home, cracking through the hard shell of scales and driving deep into the beast’s soft innards.

  Down came the roaring beast. But Donegan and Bevell were already moving, turning their mounts aside and leaving their lances quivering in the dragon’s belly. As one, the skilled knights drew forth swords from over their shoulders. Bevell’s broadsword flared with fire at his silent command, while Donegan brought forth a two-handed blade that gleamed with an inner, magical light. As the dragon’s wing descended over him, Donegan clenched his legs tightly and thrust his weapon up with both hands. The beast howled again and retracted.

  Bevell found less success against the opposite wing, and though he landed a solid slash, the limb buffeted him and sent him tumbling from his mount and sprawling to the floor.

  “Rally to me!” Donegan called his warriors, and those still capable of battle did just that.

  The dragon spun to face him, and Donegan nearly swooned, thinking the moment of his death at hand.

  But the wizards struck again, a fireball engulfing the beast’s head and a host of magical missiles disappearing into the flaming sphere.

  Donegan used the moment to charge his rushing mount in hard against the dragon’s side. He dismounted and slapped his horse away, then took up his sword in both hands and drove a mighty slash against the beast’s scales. All around him, his warriors cheered and attacked, stabbing and hacking with abandon.

  The beast was hurt; the beast swayed.

  “Be done with it!” Sir Donegan cried, thinking the moment of victory upon them.

  But the dragon spun, its tail flying across, slapping Donegan and the others aside, launching them across the stone and dirt floor.

  The knight tried to rise. His helm had turned, stealing his vision, and his sword had flown from his grasp. He fumbled about before a hand grabbed his shoulder and steadied him.

  He adjusted his helm and saw Maryin grinning at him and nodding. She handed him his sword.

  “Let us be done with this,” she said.

  Zhengyi enjoyed the spectacle. He marveled at the troop’s preparation and fortitude; few men could stand so long in the face of an angry wyrm. Impressive, too, was Urshula’s resilience and ferocity.

  But the dragon was sorely wounded, the Witch-King realized. One of the lances had snapped off, and blood poured from the hole—and no doubt the remaining lance head tore at the creature’s insides.

  And those wizards came on again, relentless, their fireballs and energy bolts taking a heavy toll.

  Zhengyi had come to serve as an equalizer, but surprised he was to find that it was Urshula, and not the humans, who needed his efforts. He could not allow it to be so easy for them.

  The Witch-King slipped back into his shadow form and slid into a crack in the wall.

  “Fire, this time,” Fisticus the wizard told his two companions. “When the wyrm lifts high its head, engulf it.”

  All three wizards readied their spells, watching intently as Fisticus determined the pattern of the dragon’s movements.

  “One…” he counted, “two…”

  “Do say ‘three,’ ” a raspy voice behind the trio interrupted.

  Zhengyi watched the trio stiffen, and he grinned as he imagined the expressions on their faces. He didn’t let that distract him, though, as he began casting his favorite spell.

  The wizards whirled around, right in the face of a sudden burst of intertwined multicolored beams of shimmering light.

  Fisticus threw his arm up before his eyes while the wizard to his left was bathed in blue. That unfortunate man, blinded by the brilliance of Zhengyi’s spell, tried to scream, but his skin hardened to stone, and he froze in place with his mouth agape.

  Purple light engulfed Fisticus and he was gone, just gone, removed from the Prime Material Plane and launched randomly through the multiverse, though at least his abrupt departure allowed him to avoid the blast of lightning that jolted and seared the man to his right. The bolt arced through where Fisticus had been standing and crackled against the wizard statue across the way. The solid rock he had become exploded under the pressure of the lightning, sending finger pebbles and elbow rocks flying.

  And a second hue washed over the wizard who had borne the initial shock of the lightning strike. Already down and near death, he mustered all of his remaining energy for one final shriek of agony as a red glow washed over him and he erupted in flames. He couldn’t even manage to roll on the floor, however, so he just lay there burning.

  Zhengyi gave a raspy sigh and shook his head.

  “Appreciation, dear Urshula?” he whispered as he turned his attention back to the dragon and the larger fight, to find that his intrusion had not gone unnoticed.

  “The Witch-King!” one man yelled.

  At the dragon’s side, Sir Donegan grimaced at the thought that such a foe had come against them at so desperate a time. He could only pray that his soldier was wrong and could only hope that they could be done with the beast quickly.

  “Fisticus, finish it!” he yelled as he struck his great sword again against the dragon’s flank.

  He managed a roll as he completed the strike to gain a view of the wizards—or of what remained of them. Donegan took note of a shadowy figure against the stone, but he couldn’t pause long enough to consider it at any length.

  “Fight on, my warriors! The wyrm is failing!” he cried, rallying his troops and throwing himself with abandon against the great beast.

  Urshula heard that claim, and couldn’t rightly dismiss it. The wizards’ strikes had wounded him badly, and he could feel the tip of a lance rattling around beneath his scaly armor, tearing up his insides.

  “Zhengyi? My ally?” Urshula grumbled in the course of his continuing growl, and he was glad indeed to see one of the wizards smoldering on the floor, and the remaining piece of a second standing as stone, blasted to nothingness from the waist up.

  But where was Zhengyi?

  A sting in Urshula’s side brought him from his contemplation and reminded him of his immediate concerns. He thrashed and stomped a man flat with his hind leg then battered down with his wing, knocking aside several others. His tail whipped out the other way, driving back yet another group of the stubborn warriors.

  Zhengyi watched patiently from within a crack in the stone, the material components for several spells ready in hand. He silently applauded Urshula’s ferocity as the dragon scooped up a man in his jaws and crunched him flat. Then the dragon snapped his head and let fly the human missile, bowling several men over.

  In that instant, Zhengyi thought the dragon might prevail.

  But Urshula lurched to the side, and Zhengyi spied the great knight who had struck the devastating blow. Urshula tried to turn at the man, too, but a second warrior, the same female scout Zhengyi had first seen enter the dragon’s lair, had cunningly made her way to the dragon’s back and up his neck. When the distracted wyrm focused on the knight, she drove a slender sword under the back of the dragon’s skull.

  Zhengyi sho
ok his head and produced the dragon skull phylactery.

  “Witch-King!” Urshula bellowed in a great voice that echoed through the chamber.

  Then the wyrm reminded Zhengyi and all of the others exactly why dragons were so rightly feared. Urshula leaped up, snapping his head back, forward, then down. The motion flipped the female warrior right over the crown of the dragon’s head spikes so violently that she could never have held on. The fall from twenty feet to the stone might have killed her, but the dragon never let it get that far. Biting out, his maw covered her so that her head, feet, and one flailing arm fell free from her body.

  And through all of that, the dragon continued his leap and mid air roll. Urshula’s size became his primary weapon as he crashed down atop the bulk of the remaining force, crushing them under his great weight.

  Zhengyi grimaced as the black dragon’s eyes tightened in pain, for that crushing attack forced weapons and ridges of armor through the dragon’s scales, injuring him badly as he crushed and thrashed the life from many of his enemies.

  But not from the resourceful and valiant knight with the huge sword, Zhengyi saw, as that man danced out from under the tumbling wyrm and spun, slashing hard at the dragon’s flailing foreleg then moving past the limb to stab hard at the beast’s torso.

  He tried to, at least, before an invisible force grabbed at the knight, the hand of telekinesis. As he leaped at the wyrm, he rose up over the beast and kept climbing into the air.

  Zhengyi, quite pleased with himself, kept the man climbing.

  Sir Donegan whipped around with great ferocity, trying to break free of the magical grasp. Rage gripped him as surely as the dragon’s spell as he saw again and again that image of the great wyrm biting Maryin apart. He went up twenty feet, fifty feet, and more, helpless as the dragon continued to slaughter his warriors, many of whom stared up at their flying leader, mouths hanging open, hope flying from their widened eyes.