by T.A. Barron
“Absolutely.” She twirled the ax in her hands. “I have some more work to do.”
“As do I,” thundered the dragon.
Urnalda scowled again. “Basilgarrad,” she said, her voice suddenly sounding worried, “beware of that evil-looking tower, will you? The one shaped like a pyramid. Never have I seen it before in battle. And I fear it is meant for . . .”
“What?”
“For you.” The dwarf’s eyes shone like fire coals. “For harming—even destroying—you.”
Despite his own concerns about the tower, Basilgarrad merely snorted.
Her scowl deepened, filling her face with lines. “We need you to survive, great friend. For Avalon.”
Now it was the dragon’s turn to frown. “To finally save Avalon, there is one last battle I will need to fight. In the Haunted Marsh.”
She shook her head, clattering her crystals. “The Marsh? What could be there but rot and poison and certain death?”
“Someone I must destroy,” he answered with a snarl.
Urnalda peered at him for a few seconds, as his wings continued to pump, carrying her to another part of the battlefield. “You dragons,” she said at last, “do strange business.”
“Stranger than you know,” replied Basilgarrad.
He tilted his wings, gliding slightly to the left. With one claw, he pointed at a grassy hill. “How does that spot look to you?”
Both of them gazed at the hill. Only yesterday, a pure spring had flowed from its slope, cascading down to the meadow below, carelessly splashing on rocks and spraying bluebell flowers. Today, though, the rise was smeared with mud, blood, and the wreckage of a toppled catapult. Atop the hill stood a bedraggled band of elves. Though expert archers, they were weak and wounded—and down to their very last arrows. One of them, Basilgarrad noticed, was Tressimir, who had shown him the magical map just before the battle began.
“That spot will do fine,” answered the dwarf. Grimly, she eyed the flamelon warriors who had gathered at the base of the hill. Smelling a slaughter, they pressed toward the struggling elves, marching higher as the arrows grew scarcer.
The dragon swooped down. Tressimir, the first elf to see him, shouted with jubilation. Before most of the other elves knew what was happening, Basilgarrad landed with a tremendous thud beside the hill, skidding across the grass and crushing more than fifty flamelons.
Several surviving warriors scurried away, tripping over themselves to escape this gargantuan beast from the sky. Urnalda, meanwhile, hopped down to the ground. She started to chase after them, waving her battle-ax, then stopped and turned back to the dragon who had saved her life. For an instant their gazes met. She nodded, then spun around and raced after the flamelons.
“Now,” declared the dragon, “back to work.”
He leaped into the air, just as a vat of boiling oil exploded on the ground. The scalding hot liquid sprayed everywhere, hitting several of the elves. A few drops spattered Basilgarrad’s eye. He roared in sudden pain and blinked away the oil. Then, as his vision cleared, he focused his gaze on the catapult that had hurled the vat.
Two wingbeats later, he plunged from the sky above the catapult. Swinging his tail like a massive hammer, he smashed the structure into countless pieces. Wood chips, cables, and the unlucky flamelons who had been on top of the frame flew in all directions.
Satisfied that the catapult would do no more damage, he flew off again. Just then he spotted, not far away, the evil tower. Scores of flamelons were working hard, moving the giant structure into place at the middle of the battlefield.
Still other warriors climbed onto the three massive ridgepoles of the triangular frame that rose to a point high above the ground. Each of those ridgepoles had been made from dozens of ironwood trees joined end to end—trees whose reddish-brown trunks, both sturdy and straight, gleamed with a metallic sheen. At the very top, the ridgepoles had been spliced into a perfect point and wrapped with iron cable for maximum strength. The whole structure looked like the skeleton of a huge pyramid.
Coasting for a wingbeat, the dragon scrutinized the tower, watching the soldiers string webs of wires along the frame. Those wires attached to hundreds of spiky levers that ran the full length of the ridgepoles, forming a complex rigging. Far below, more soldiers worked on the huge wooden crate at the base, hammering planks, tying ropes, and affixing more wires to its edges.
Basilgarrad’s ears swiveled doubtfully. What could that tower be? And what did its crate contain? His huge wings beat the air as he swept toward the mysterious structure.
Suddenly he caught sight of a small creature at the edge of the battlefield. Though he couldn’t tell what sort of being it was, its plight was unmistakable—and dire. Trapped in the highest branches of an old, gnarled oak tree, it was being pelted by stones and spears hurled by more than twenty flamelons gathered around the trunk. From their raucous laughter and boisterous antics, it was clear that they weren’t so much attacking the little creature as bullying it. They wouldn’t stop until it fell to the ground where they could stomp and stab it to death.
I hate bullies! he thought. Always have. Shifting direction, he pumped his wings to race to the creature’s rescue.
As he flapped those huge wings—so big they could embrace an entire lake—he grinned, recalling that he’d once been as small as that little animal. Or even smaller. But no more! He certainly wasn’t small now. And he would never be small again!
Nearing the tree, he raised his head in surprise. Wait! Do I know that little fellow?
His wingbeats slowed as he peered more closely. Sure enough, it was an immature dragon, whose bony wings looked as thin as paper, and whose scarlet and purple scales were as tiny as acorns. Why, yes. That’s Ganta, the spunky young rascal!
Basilgarrad blinked his wide eyes. He couldn’t possibly forget his own nephew, who was always eager—too eager—to fight. Or their first meeting, when Basilgarrad was still small, which had nearly turned into a battle to the death. Now here he was, in the midst of the fight for Avalon, a fight that had set both land and sky aflame.
Just as he reached the oak tree, the green dragon spun a sharp turn. He dipped one wing so low it scraped against the ground, scooping up turf, swords, helmets, a few dead birds—and almost all the flamelons under the tree. The few who escaped capture sprinted away as fast as they could. Their companions, meanwhile, rolled into a heap in the cupped wing, unable to do more than shriek in terror.
Basilgarrad didn’t have time to listen. Raising his wing, he flung those flamelons across the forest, all the way to the horizon and beyond. Wherever they landed, it must have been brutally painful. The dragon watched their flailing bodies vanish from sight, then nodded in satisfaction.
He veered lower and landed thunderously, bowling over some nearby trees and sending tremors across the battlefield. Slowly, he stretched his head toward the tree, meeting the incredulous gaze of Ganta. The young dragon, no bigger than one of Basilgarrad’s scales, could only stare with his orange-hued eyes.
“Hello, Ganta.”
“Er . . . hello, master Basil.” Nervously, the youngster rubbed his snout with his little wing.
Noting the slender scar on the tip of Ganta’s nose, a souvenir from their first meeting, Basilgarrad resisted a grin and spoke firmly. “This is a dangerous place to be. Where is your mother?”
Scampering a bit farther out on his branch, the young dragon answered, “She’s back at the lair in Stoneroot with my brothers and sisters. But I”—he swallowed, causing a ripple to roll down his thin neck—“I wanted to fight. For Avalon.”
“Really? You didn’t just want to join a big battle, whatever it was about?”
Ganta shook his wings indignantly. “No, master Basil. Truly! I do like a fight, it’s true. But this time . . . it’s, well . . . a chance to be big.”
His uncle’s gigantic eyebrow lifted. “Big?”
“Don’t you remember?” piped Ganta eagerly. “That day we met in the dragongrass by t
he geyser? You said something I’d never heard before, something I needed time to understand. You said . . . being big isn’t about what you weigh—but about what you do.”
Basilgarrad couldn’t suppress a grin any longer. Maybe there’s hope for this young troublemaker after all. His voice, however, remained stern. “You’ve got to go home, Ganta. It’s dangerous here. Too dangerous for a youngster who is barely old enough to fly.”
“But I can fly, master Basil! I can fly almost as fast as my mother. And someday I’ll be able to breathe fire, too, just like her!”
The great head shook from side to side. “Go now, Ganta. When you can finally breathe fire, then at least you’ll be able to defend yourself. That’s when you can join this kind of fight.”
“That could be years and years!” he squealed. “This battle will probably be over by then.”
“I certainly hope so,” declared Basilgarrad. “And now”—he backed his massive body away from the tree, preparing to leap skyward—“I must get back to work.”
The greatest dragon in Avalon stretched his wings and gave a mighty flap, causing a rush of wind that shook every branch of the oak tree. As he rose into the sky, Ganta watched in awe. The little fellow held tight to his swaying branch, refusing to blink so he wouldn’t miss even a single stroke of those mighty wings. They belonged, after all, to the biggest creature he’d ever seen.
4: A NEW GLEAM
Vision, even for a dragon, is woefully unreliable. What you see with great clarity may not be real; what you cannot see may be the ultimate reality.
Soaring over the battlefield, Basilgarrad seemed everywhere at once. His wing tip smashed another catapult, sending up an explosion of splinters. Then, for good measure, his claws scooped up the catapult’s supply of boulders (along with a few unwary soldiers) and dropped them on top of a column of flamelons. He plucked a young priest out of danger, only an instant before a poison-tipped spear flew through the same spot—then circled back to save the feisty squirrel who normally rode in the priest’s tunic pocket, but who had fallen out during the rescue. He slammed his tail into groups of flamelons, scattering soldiers and weapons across the grass.
Just one swipe of that tail was all it took to destroy a pair of flamethrowers, whose metal frames buckled on impact and whose fiery cauldrons exploded into shards. The soldiers who operated them fared no better. And it took only one heavy stamp of his foot to grind all their burning bales of oil-soaked hay (plus a few more soldiers) into the ground.
Today, thought Basilgarrad grimly, I don’t really deserve the name Wings of Peace.
Some of the defenders whose lives he saved were so exhausted from battle that they fell limp to the ground the instant he set them down. Others reacted somewhat differently. As soon as he put down the haggard old warrior Babd Catha—whose full name, earned over years of hunting murderous ogres, was Babd Catha, the Ogres’ Bane—she started cursing him fiercely for interrupting her sword fight with six flamelon soldiers. It was as if he’d stopped her from chowing down a slice of strawberry pie, or silenced her in the middle of singing a cherished tune. Just to make sure he fully understood her outrage, she concluded her curses by swatting his gigantic chin with her sword.
“Never do that again, ye scaly upstart!” she admonished, her brown eyes ablaze. “Now I need to go find all six of them pests an’ finish the job!”
The dragon, who had heard many stories about this old warrior, grinned at her fighting spirit. He couldn’t even begin to guess her age, although he knew that she’d lived a very long time, possibly due to a few drops of wizard’s blood that Merlin once gave her to heal her wounds. Legends told that she had been one of the first people to help Elen, Merlin’s mother, found the new order of Avalon. And that she had started her battles against ogres when only a child, after a marauding band killed both her parents.
He remembered something else. Some bards claimed that since that brutal attack on her family occurred in a snowstorm, the only thing in the world that Babd Catha actually feared was snow. A few went even further and said that the touch of a single snowflake would force her to retreat. Basilgarrad seriously doubted the truth of those stories, especially now that he’d seen all the scars on her face and arms from a lifetime of battles. Tempted as he was to ask her how she really felt about snow, he knew this was not the best time.
Instead, he bowed his huge ears and said, “My apologies, great warrior.”
Such humble words are most unusual from a dragon, but Babd Catha didn’t show any trace of surprise. After all, to her mind, an apology was certainly due. She merely grumbled, “All right, dragon. Jest don’t interrupt me again.”
With that, the feisty old warrior spun around, raised her broadsword, and plunged back into the fray.
As he watched Babd Catha charge back into battle, Basilgarrad turned his head toward the dark tower in the center of the fighting—the only flamelon contraption he hadn’t yet destroyed. Was it perhaps some sort of catapult? That might explain the web of wires and levers along its pyramidal frame. Yet would a catapult so huge actually work? And what would it throw? The structure didn’t seem to hold any stones, oil vats, or other dangerous objects. In fact, it held nothing but that massive wooden crate at its base.
Truth was, the structure didn’t look dangerous. Nothing about its actual appearance gave any genuine cause for alarm. It merely smelled somehow dangerous.
Peering at it from across the battlefield, he shifted his bulk on the muddy ground. Then he noticed something strange. All the flamelon soldiers he’d seen crawling over the tower, working on its various components, had vanished. Now not a single warrior could be found anywhere on its frame, wires, or base. Even the soldiers fighting near the tower’s base seemed to keep their distance—ignoring it, as if the whole contraption was not there.
That’s curious, he thought, scrunching his massive nose in puzzlement.
Glancing at the sky above, he searched again for Lo Valdearg, the only target even more tempting than the strange tower. Seeing no sign of the fire dragon, not even a stray trail of black smoke, he growled furiously and thumped his gargantuan tail on the ground. Time to destroy that tower! He rustled his great wings, preparing to fly. The flamelons’ weapons have killed too many people already.
His own words prompted him to scan the battlefield one more time—more closely than he’d done before. Everywhere, amidst the frenzied battle, he saw the corpses of his allies, more than he wanted to count. Fallen eagles and owls, trampled by flamelons’ boots, peppered the ground. Brawny bears, once so powerful, lay forever still. Men and women, elves and dwarves, and more than a few sturdy centaurs, were now mud-splattered bodies left to rot.
The memory of a dark, writhing monster filled his mind, obscuring the carnage at least for a moment. The monster whose wicked schemes had spawned this war. The monster whose lair was deep in the Haunted Marsh.
When this battle is over, he thought with a savage snarl, I will hunt you down! And end your horrors once and for all.
Yet . . . would even that vengeance, that triumph, outweigh all these losses? All these needless, innocent deaths? Basilgarrad surveyed the corpses, bloody and maimed, that surrounded him. There were so many people—good people—who, despite all his efforts, he hadn’t been able to save!
He ground his jaws together, scraping his titanic teeth. Had those fallen warriors died in vain? What could possibly justify so many deaths?
“Nothing,” he grumbled aloud, his voice as bitter as his mood. “They were fools—just like me. And I’ve been the worst fool of all. Thinking all this time I was fighting for something more than myself—for my friends, my world.”
He snorted. “Well, most of my friends—Merlin, Rhia, Aylah—have left. And my world, what’s left of it, reeks of death. The truth is, I’m alone in this. Fighting for what I want: revenge, and a life of my own.”
Basilgarrad tensed his legs, ready to leap skyward as he’d done so many times before. There was, however, a new gle
am in his eye. He would keep fighting this battle to the end; he would still hunt down Lo Valdearg and that monster in the Haunted Marsh. Yet now he would do those things not for some high ideal—but for sweet revenge. To repay those terrible foes for all the suffering, agony, and death they’d caused.
He nodded grimly. I’ll smash them all! Then, when I’m through, I’ll finally do something I’ve been meaning to do for a very long time. I’ll go find Marnya . . . and see what kind of future we might have.
The memory of the water dragon’s azure blue eyes—and her eagerness to be the first of her kind ever to fly—made his heart pound within his vast chest. Would Marnya feel the same way? Would she want to be with such a fool as him? It was time to find out. Yes, and high time he started thinking about what was best for his own life!
He focused his gaze on the strange, unmanned tower. He’d quickly destroy it—and then do the same to the rest of his enemies. Because, out of sheer anger and vengeance, that was what he wanted to do.
Basilgarrad leaped into the sky, flapped his wide wings, and flew toward the tower.
5: THE TOWER
Ah, life’s little surprises! They can make any day unforgettable . . . or make it your last.
One flick of my tail should do it,” said Basilgarrad confidently as he neared the flamelons’ mysterious tower. Wind whistled past his ears, vibrating the countless green hairs that grew within them.
He gave his wings another powerful flap. Where, he wondered, would be the best place to strike? At the top of the pyramidal frame, where so many wires were attached? Or down lower, at the immense crate that seemed to be the tower’s foundation?
At the top, he decided. Right at the point. That will smash the whole thing to splinters.
Yet even as he made his decision, unanswered questions bubbled in the cauldron of his mind. Why, unlike the rest of the flamelons’ towers, were no soldiers anywhere on this contraption? And why, in all this fighting, hadn’t it been used? Especially now, he puzzled, when the flamelons need every weapon they have?
