Blood and Scales

by Kevin Potter

  Gravv turned back toward the entrance to his chamber and there stood Balhamuut, the platinum terror himself. He stood in the open doorway, watching Gravv with a broad smile.

  Gravv swallowed, focusing his mind on keeping his expression neutral. He lowered his eyes deferentially and nodded, forcing down the panic fighting its way up his throat. “Uncle,” he said, forcing a pleasant tone.

  “I see you are fully cognizant and functional again. That is good. We need your help.”

  “My help?” Gravv asked in surprise. “With what?”

  “Your brother is in danger. Come. We have little time.”

  Gravv leaped forward, racing for the archway before the platinum finished speaking.

  Balhamuut turned and led Gravv away from his chamber.

  He wanted to ask why the Lord had been standing there grinning like an idiot if his brother was in danger, wanted to ask how long the Lord had been there.

  But asking questions of Balhamuut which had the potential to be taken as mistrustful interrogation was rarely wise. The platinum’s temper was not a force to trifle with, as Gravv had learned long ago. And it didn’t matter, anyway. If Balhalumuut needed him, he would help. Regardless of anything his uncle said or did.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It is better if you see,” the Lord said tersely.

  “But if I had an idea of–“

  “I said you will see.”

  Gravv quieted. He knew that tone. If he didn’t keep quiet right now, this would not go well for him. At certain times, Balhamuut was prone to short tempers and violent outbursts. During those times, or even the threat of one of those times, it was much better to mind his own business and keep quiet around the wyrm.

  Within minutes, they came to the open archway which led into the Audience Chamber. The Lord motioned Gravv to stop.

  What are we doing here?

  Raised voices carried to him from within, negating the need for his question.

  “You must,” said a low, familiar voice.

  “I will not,” Balhalumuut said, his voice fierce.

  “You must!” the voice implored, its tone going up an octave and sounding desperate. “He can no longer be trus–“

  “DO NOT SPEAK ILL OF HIM!” Balhalumuut roared.

  Two voices roared back, speaking in unison, “DO NOT SPEAK TO YOUR–“ but the roar was cut off by a loud thunk followed by the horrid sound of shattering scales and ripping dragonflesh.

  “Now! We must come to his defense!” Balhamuut snapped and leaped to the air, pumping his wings through the archway and into the chamber.

  In a blind fury, Gravv dashed forward into the chamber and leaped toward the pair of silvery forms rolling around on the chamber floor, shattered scales and silvery blood flying in all directions.

  Gravv didn’t spend time thinking, he didn’t worry about strategy. He leaped immediately in and swiped claws and snapped teeth at the form which was too large to be his brother.

  Balhamuut flashed in at his side, slashing with claws and pounding with his massive tail. A high voice shrieked in pain, a deeper, far off one roared in fury. Gravv kept slashing and biting, ripping away scales and splattering silvery blood with every strike.

  An inferno overtook them from above and Balhamuut laughed. The battling dragons separated and Gravv’s jaw fell open. Whatever he had thought was going on, it wasn’t this.

  A massive garnet dragon touched down next to the female platinum wyrm and Gravv’s astonishment was too much for his mind to process.

  His vision darkened, and the chamber seemed to waver before him. The walls around him began to spin, his mind whirling in circles, twisting upon itself in incredulity.

  After what seemed a very long time, Gravv blinked and his vision came back into focus. Reality came crashing down on his mind. He couldn’t understand how, but his eyes told him it was so. Impossibly, it was so.

  Before him stood his parents. Graayyyavalll appeared unscathed, but Kwallindauria bled freely from dozens of wounds, many of them caused by Gravv himself.

  His sire stomped a thick paw into the stone floor and roared, “WHAT IN INFERNALIS ARE YOU DOING?!”

  “You expect me to kill him!” Balhalumuut shrieked in accusation. “But I won’t do it. If you want him dead, you’ll have to do it yourself, Dam. I won’t be your assassin!”

  What?

  Between heavy breaths, his dam said, “No. Son. You. Misunderstand. We want. To help. Him. He’s confused. We need. You. Son.”

  “Never!” Balhalumuut shrieked.

  “Die, assassin!” Balhamuut roared and the two of them launched themselves at Dauria.

  Gravv’s sire offered him a momentary glance full of sadness, then leaped toward Balhamuut, claws flashing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Shock and indecision froze Gravv in place.

  How can this be happening? Did Dam truly attack Balhalumuut? Or did he attack her? Did he attack her because she tried to get him to kill Balhamuut?

  After their brief conversation that morning, this final piece of the puzzle was the most confusing of all. If she wanted him to kill Balhamuut, why would he refuse? Wasn’t that what they had started to discuss earlier?

  What is going on? he wondered again. None of it made sense.

  Unless I misread him this morning, Balhalumuut is as anxious as I am to escape this place. Maybe even to kill Balhamuut as well. So why would he now fight so hard to save the wyrm’s life?

  Gravv tried a dozen different ways to put the pieces of the puzzle together, but none of them made sense. Not one bit of this made any sense.

  How had his parents found them? How had they gotten in to speak with Balhalumuut in the first place? Had Balhamuut known they were here? Did he let them in? Did he invite them? And why would they want his brother to kill their uncle, anyway? Why not just do it themselves?

  I have to be missing something, he thought, frustrated.

  Then the gravity of the situation dawned on him. He realized he had a difficult choice to make and not much time in which to make it. Who do I help? he thought, frantic. What do I do?

  “Gravv!” Balhalumuut called. “Help us!”

  “Gravvy!” his sire roared as he slashed his claws across Balhamuut’s belly. “Son, don’t do it! Balhamuut is the enemy here!”

  He’s right, Gravv thought. But I can’t turn on my brother. He needs me.

  “Fight, you sniveling whelp!” Balhamuut growled, then snapped his jaws down on Dauria’s right wing, close to the shoulder, dragging her to the cavern floor.

  “Graavvyynaustaiur!” Balhalumuut shrieked from the other side of Dauria, pulling Gravv’s attention to him. “It’s Dam! She wants me to kill you, brother! Not just Balhamuut! She wants you dead! You must help us! It’s our only chance!”

  Dauria snarled and snapped her jaws down on Balhalumuut’s shoulder, pulling a yelp from his throat which turned almost instantly into a shriek. With a twist of his body, he slammed his tail into her face, knocking her toward Balhamuut.

  “No,” Gravv muttered, still hesitating. “He has to be mistaken. There’s no way Dam would want me dead. He has to have misunderstood her.”

  I can’t let her die, he finally decided. I won’t turn on Balhalumuut, but neither will I help that murderous bastard!

  Moving forward with quick, jerking steps as though coming out of a daze, he ran and leaped onto Balhamuut’s massive back, digging all four claws into the platinum’s flesh while the wyrm struggled against Gravv’s sire and dam both.

  The platinum seemed to ignore him and plunged both foreclaws into Dauria’s belly, slashing in again and again as she shrieked in agony and raked her own claws across Balhamuut’s body.

  Graayyyavalll slammed his tail into the platinum’s chest, who staggered back, then leaped into the garnet’s broad neck, rending and ripping at his flesh with all four claws as they fell.

  In the instant before they stru
ck the cave floor, the Platinum Lord twisted his body, nearly dislodging Gravv, and threw Graayyy dozens of wingspans across the chamber.

  Gravv stabbed his claws into Balhamuut’s back and flank over and over as he climbed up the wyrm’s back toward the more tender flesh of the long, serpentine neck.

  With nothing else to impede him, Balhamuut flipped Dauria onto her back and used both his foreclaws to gouge deep furrows down her chest and into her belly. Silvery blood gushed from the wounds and she shrieked in agonized terror. She slashed at his flanks and snapped at his neck, but to almost no effect. Gravv roared in fury, continuing to stab his way up the platinum’s back.

  “NOOOOO!” Graayyyavalll roared from somewhere to Gravv’s left. The sound was equal parts pain, fury, and helpless despair.

  Gravv raced up Balhamuut’s back. He was so close now!

  With a triumphant roar, Balhamuut snaked his head down and plunged his teeth into Dauria’s neck, just above her chest. Her shriek of pain died in a froth of silvery blood and Balhamuut jerked his head back from her, taking a mouthful of flesh with him.

  Graayyyavalll roared all the louder in pure fury and a loud crack sounded from the other side of the chamber.

  Gravv finally hooked his claws into the connective muscles between Balhamuut’s neck and his back. The platinum’s muscles went almost slack and his scales shone with the light of immense arcane power being drawn forth.

  Gravv recognized it as the effect of beginning the transference ritual.

  Why in the name of Ryujin would he do that now?! Gravv thought in furious confusion. With me on his back and Sire right behind him, why would he make himself so vulnerable? Is he an idiot? Or will her spirit truly grant that much strength?

  But won’t the transference result is his unconsciousness? he wondered. Or has he found a way around that?

  Gravv climbed another foreleg-length higher and stabbed his claws deep into the huge wyrm’s neck. With a grunt, he climbed higher and yanked his claws across the platinum’s throat, opening a series of deep, bloody gashes.

  Balhamuut continued the ritual as though he didn’t feel the wound, or even Gravv on his back. With a growl, Gravv clenched his teeth and reached across again, this time scrunching his claws together to make a single wide, cutting tool. He plunged his claws together into the deepest of the furrows in the platinum’s neck and pulled them across the flesh, opening the slash wider and deeper. Silvery blood spurted from Balhamuut’s throat.

  Suppressing the anguished roar fighting for release from his throat, Gravv repeated the attack, gouging deeper into the platinum’s throat. A stronger stream of silver blood gushed forth from the wound, but even that was not enough to stop the ritual.

  Gravv stretched upward to stab his claws even higher into the platinum’s body and pulled himself farther up. Stretching his own neck around, he reached up and plunged his snout into the open wound in the wyrm’s throat. He opened his jaws wide to bite into the open, inner throat with as much force as his garnet jaws could muster.

  Clenching his teeth as hard as he could, Gravv yanked out with all the power of his body and leaped forward from the wyrm’s back, taking the innards of the platinum’s throat with him.

  As he had hoped, the force of his weight pulling on them was just enough to dislodge the insides of Balhamuut’s throat, ripping them from his body.

  The fall to the cavern floor, with the insides of the great platinum’s throat dangling from his mouth, seemed to take forever.

  Gravv’s blood thundered through his veins, tinging his vision with bloody crimson. His breath came in ragged gasps. Oddly, though, his breathing seemed the only sound in the cavern. The world had gone silent.

  When he finally landed, all four paws touching the cavern floor at once, there were more than three wingspans of bloody, pulpy, stringy gore hanging from his mouth. He spat the mass to the floor and looked up at the platinum terror.

  Incredibly, the beast still stood. The wound in his neck began to seal itself.

  Oh, no! Gravv thought. It’s too late! He completed the ritual!

  Several stomping footfalls from behind the Platinum Lord shook the chamber, knocking Gravv to the floor.

  What now?

  Graayyyavalll’s head appeared over the platinum’s shoulder, larger than Gravv remembered, and massive garnet claws reached up to cut into the platinum’s neck just beneath his head.

  Again, garnet claws slashed into the platinum throat.

  And again, from both sides. The attacks came so swiftly, it was almost as though he were sawing at Balhamuut’s throat.

  The strange gray and crimson eyes rolled up into his head and his muscles slackened once more, though he still stood.

  Garnet claws continued to slash repeatedly, silvery blood spraying across the cavern with each attack. Over and over, slash, spray, slash, spray.

  Finally, Graayyyavalll bent his neck and lowered his head in a rush to snap at the platinum’s throat from the side.

  The too-red garnet teeth dug into the platinum neck and snapped closed, severing muscle, tendon, and even bone.

  Again, he bit down, teeth passing all the way through Balhamuut’s neck.

  Again. And again.

  On the fifth massive chomp, Graayyy’s garnet teeth bit into the final section of the platinum’s neck. With a yank, he pulled back from the platinum neck and let his jaws fall open.

  Huge chunks of platinum flesh and scales fell to the floor while the still-grinning head of the Platinum Terror was flung away from the garnet, to the far side of the cavern.

  With a wet sound halfway between a slurp and a thud, the head struck the wall. It hung there, eyes toward the floor, for several moments before it fell, tumbling to the cavern floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Graayyyavalll raised his head, snout pointing to the ceiling, and roared, guttural and inarticulate. The deafening sound went on and on, shaking the cavern walls in a powerful imitation of an Earthquake.

  The agony of the sound brought crimson tears to Gravv’s eyes.

  After what seemed an eternity, the immense wyrm lowered his head and his ragged voice died away. He turned to glare, golden eyes shining with rage, first at Gravv and then at Balhalumuut.

  Gravv stared at his sire, eyes wide, feeling helpless.

  Without warning, what remained of the Platinum Lord’s body toppled toward Gravv. He scrabbled backward, watching the platinum corpse falling straight toward him. He glanced to his sides, but there was no cover to be found. Leaping up from the floor, he threw himself to the side and only narrowly avoided the crushing weight of the falling body.

  The headless corpse struck the cavern floor next to Gravv, scales splintering, and the cavern shook with the force of it. Graayyyavalll turned his gaze on the inert form and the fury seemed to melt from his golden eyes, replaced by a flood of crimson tears.

  A tingling in the air drew Gravv’s gaze away from his sire. Looking to his brother, he roared in furious outrage, “NOOO! Don’t you dare do it, Balhalumuut!”

  He knew the pose, knew the contradictory relaxed, yet tense posture. Knew the reckless flow of arcane energy Balhalumuut directed.

  More important, however, he knew he could not allow it to happen. He could not allow his brother to absorb the essence of the wyrm who had not only killed his dam, but also absorbed her spirit. As well as the spirit of the only friend he’d ever had.

  He could not allow this to happen.

  Gravv leaped into the air, intent on flying toward his brother, but a long, wide tail wrapped around his body and pulled him back down.

  He slammed into the cave floor, the wind knocked from his lungs. His sire stared down at him with grim determination.

  “No, son,” Graayyy said, tears staining his voice. “He’s too far away. You can’t stop him. He’s made his choice and now we are all going to have to live with it.”

  Gravv heard the words, but couldn’t make sense of t
hem. There was no possible way his sire had said the words he thought he’d heard. Graayyy would never allow his eldest wyrmling to commit such a sacrilege.

  Gravv struggled against his sire’s tail, pushing to rise up and deal with his treacherous brother. He had to free Abby’s spirit. And his dam’s.

  “No, son,” Graayyy repeated, his voice stronger now.

  “Let. Me. Go!” Gravv growled.

  “Are you truly so lost that you would murder your own brother?” Graayyy’s voice had become a flat monotone.

  “Not Murder. Revenge upon.”

  “Revenge for what?” Graayyyavalll’s voice was entirely too calm, too accepting. Too emotionless. What was wrong with him?

  Gravv struggled against the bond again and again, though it availed him nothing. “For stealing Dam’s spirit. And Abby’s. And hundreds of others!”

  “Son, your brother didn’t do any of that. It was your uncle who did those things. Your brother has only ever protected you.”

  “NO!” Gravv roared. “He’s taking that fat bastard’s spirit, and taking all the others along with it. And it was that bastard he was protecting, not me!”

  “No, son,” Graayyy said, a hint of anger coloring his voice. “It was you! Your dam thought you had joined Balhamuut and wanted you dead for it! There’s no explanation I can give you that will make sense. For now, let it suffice that she was not in her right mind and was determined that you should die.”

  The wind blew out of Gravv all at once. His raging blood plummeted into his tail. “No,” he whispered. “That can’t be.”

  “I’m sorry, son,” Graayyy said gently.

  “NO!” Gravv shouted.

  “I’m sorry, brother,” Balhalumuut said, his eyes wide. Gravv knew that look. It was the euphoria of the completion of the ritual.

  How had he heard everything they had said? Of all the times Gravv had used the ritual, the hurricane of power always overpowered his senses.

  “It’s true,” Balhalumuut continued. “She wanted me to kill you. She didn’t think you’d let her get close enough to you to do it herself. She was convinced you had joined with our uncle.”