PARTICULARLY LIFE. IT IS INFUSED WITH EVIL, AND IS STIMULATED BY EVIL TO DESTROY LIFE.”
Indeed, it killed and destroyed far more than it consumed. Hundreds of people swarmed from it and around it, many bravely rescuing the fallen, fighting fires, and firing pitifully inadequate weapons at the creature. As they watched, the giant monster actually paused to watch them for a few minutes, perhaps amused by their antics, than kicked its feet this way and that, killing dozens of brave defenders and rescue people with each move and then sweeping them up and eating them! Next it stepped into a fire that raged through a warehouse. In seconds the fire flared higher than ever, then abruptly disappeared totally. Only blackened, smoking cinders remained. A normal fire would have raged for hours more, George realized. KraKara had somehow accelerated the burning process and then absorbed the fire’s heat energy at its peak.
“What can we do?” George asked.
“NOT YET AS MUCH AS I WISH,” answered the dragon. “I CAN NOT GIVE YOU ENOUGH STRENGTH TO FACE THIS CREATURE ALONE, SO I WILL HELP YOU UNTIL WE ARE BOTH STRENGTHENED BY THE BOMBS. THIS IS A CREATURE OF WANTON DESTRUCTION AND CHAOS. AS A MATTER OF BASIC PRINCIPLES, I OPPOSE IT. ‘MONSTER’ IS A GOOD NAME FOR IT. THE COMPLEX STRUCTURE OF NORMAL EARTH LIFE IS MUCH PREFERRED TO THIS NEAR MINDLESS ABOMINATION.”
The dragon swept lower, and flew into the monstrous flames of another nearby burning warehouse towards which KraKara was walking. The effect was immediate. The fire disappeared, and George could sense no more excessive heat emanating from it. Freedom than flew in a spiral away from the monster, into or near dozens of other, smaller fires, extinguishing each of them as he went.
The effect was startling. The monster stood motionless, apparently trying to figure out what was happening. The struggling populace watched the new arrivals with some hope but also with much apprehension. In this poor country, and during their national emergency, most had not seen them on American television. The sight of a dragon flying overhead was not immediately comforting; it signaled the arrival of yet another monster. The roar of fires and the thunder of explosions had stopped, but emergency sirens and the voices of injured and terrified people could be heard all the more clearer.
“Divert it while I help the people,” George said, as he sprang from Freedom’s back. In moments he was among them, freeing trapped people from ruble and smashed vehicles, carrying injured to ambulances, and clearing paths through wreckage for vehicles and people on foot to flee the scene. He also soon found that he could absorb fire exactly the way that Freedom could.
Meanwhile, Freedom landed atop a building near KraKara and faced the creature. “MY NAME IS FREEDOM,” he announced, aloud and telepathically. “GO BACK TO SLEEP OR I WILL DESTROY YOU.”
In response the giant attacked the dragon with surprising speed, swinging a titanic fist forward and down to strike and pulverize the building where Freedom had stood only a moment before. The earth shook from the blow, knocking down people and buildings, shattering windows, bursting gas pipes and starting new fires. The raw power of the creature was astounding.
Freedom shot a brief plume of green flame at the creature’s attacking arm as he flew out of reach. The arm sagged and smoldered, but moments later re-solidified and appeared to be as good as new.
Freedom and George repeated their tactics dozens of times, slowing the monster’s advance while saving lives. They established a sort of rhythm, and though they found that they couldn’t stop KraKara, by slowing the monster’s attack they were definitely saving thousands of lives. They couldn’t do this forever though. Dragon and Chosen were expending energy rapidly.
“MARY, WHERE ARE OUR NUKES?” George pathed as powerfully as he could, as he flew a small, terrified girl with a broken leg to an arriving ambulance. But he got no answer. Was she somehow out of range? He could hear dozens of other victims calling for help, and returned his attentions to them.
KraKara was increasingly aware that the new arrivals were costing it food; most potential victims had already fled far out of its immediate reach. It liked to absorb many types of energy, but more than anything it liked to consume living things. Over its long life it had also absorbed other elementals, and wasn’t particularly concerned about the smallish ones that it now faced. Ignoring the small dragon that hovered before it and the smaller human-shaped extension of it, KraKara stepped ponderously through the city yet again, crushing the next city block of shops and homes. The creature was compensating for the dragon's actions by accelerating its own attack.
After only a few steps by the monster, the hovering dragon attacked it again. Green flame washed over the monster’s head as the creature ducked, dodged, and screamed in rage, all to no avail. The monstrous head smoldered and glowed and finally itself burst into flame.
When Freedom paused to take a breath, the monster’s head stopped burning and began to visibly heal itself. This time though, KraKara’s arms also began to elongate, and additional appendages sprouted from the torso, and the legs became shorter. KraKara was changing tactics. In less than a minute, the elemental had transformed into what looked like a gigantic octopus with more than a dozen tentacles. Half the tentacles were used to lift the rounded center bulk of itself a hundred yards above the ground, and to again walk forward, like a gigantic spider. Half the remaining tentacles elongated even more and reached out for fleeing human prey and other food, still leaving several tentacles to swat at Freedom.
A four hundred foot length of tentacle slammed to the street near George and swept towards him and dozens of fleeing people. Close up, it looked like a giant two yard-thick roll of blackish mud, with objects imbedded in it that appeared to be melting, from bricks to human body parts. It stank of death and Evil.
Positioning himself between the tentacle and the fleeing people, George shouted at them to hurry, which was silly, as they were certainly already hurrying as quickly as they could. He carried an elderly couple out of reach but he quickly realized that several others would be caught by the monster before he could move them.
Drawing his elf sword, George charged. Though he was tiny compared to the monster’s tentacle, his glowing sword immediately cut half-way through it. His own body pushed and seared through the rest of it, cutting a fifty-foot section of tentacle completely off.
As quickly as the success of his attack registered with George, it was negated. The severed ends rejoined again in moments, and the tentacle continued its sweep with only a minor delay. Now finding himself behind its sweep, George pursued it, intending to cut it in half again. As he approached it he noticed part of a human face protruding from its surface. With horror, George realized that the face’s single eye was watching him.
Quicker that George would have thought possible, the tentacle reversed direction and increased in thickness. By the time it hit him the swelling of the tentacle was bus-sized. Again George sliced with his fiery sword, but the tentacle kept reforming and gathering more of itself around him, until his blows were sustaining a hollow within an ever enlarging mound of tentacle. “IT’S TRYING TO TRAP ME,” he pathed, but received no reply. He struck out in one direction and the creature’s flesh prison compensated in that direction, replenishing stricken away tentacle with fresh flesh. George was imprisoned!
Seconds later the prison melted away in flame, and strong white talons firmly grasped one of his shoulders and yanked him up and away. As Freedom flew them away, George looked back and saw the prison tentacle reforming itself, changing from a house-sized mound of singed flesh to a long thin tentacle again.
“WE NEED FAR MORE STRENGTH TO FIGHT THIS CREATURE,” Freedom said, as George flew onto his dragon’s shoulders and the two of them dodged and blasted tentacles that reached for them. “AS QUICKLY AS I BURN ITS TENTACLES THEY RECOVER. WHERE ARE THE BOMBS?” he asked Mary.
“WE’RE COMING SOON WITH THE BOMBS,” Mary pathed in reply. “KEEP SLOWING IT DOWN.”
George was very relieved to hear from her. “MARY, IT’S AWFUL,” he explained. “THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF PEO
PLE DYING AND WE CAN’T STOP THIS THING, IT’S TOO STRONG. AND WE’RE USING UP ALL OUR STRENGTH, ESPECIALLY FREEDOM. WE NEED THOSE BOMBS!”
“KEEP FIGHTING, WE’RE COMING,” said Mary.
“WHERE ARE YOU NOW?” George asked.
Mary didn’t answer. George reached out to her. He could dimly sense the airplane, but could scry nothing inside it. Some force was deflecting his scrying! He tried telepathy again, and again got no answer. “SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH MARY,” he told Freedom.
“I KNOW,” replied the dragon. “I TRIED TOO. THOUGH WEAKENED, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO SCRY MARY.”
“IT WASN’T LIKE HER, TO NOT ASK ABOUT HOW WE ARE DOING AND SO FORTH,” said George
“AND SHE SAID NOTHING OF THE WITCH,” noted Freedom.
“SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG! WE MUST GO TO HER,” said George.
“WAIT, THE BOMBS COME NOW,” said Freedom. "WE NEED STRENGTH."
Indeed, George could sense two airplanes high overhead, and the atomic bombs each carried.
“HOLD TIGHT,” the dragon said abruptly, as he suddenly veered to the left with such violence that George’s grip was nearly broken.
Thinking that the dragon had simply changed course to seek the bombs, George watched in amazement as a gigantic black bird larger than Freedom dove past them, screaming in rage when its massive talons missed them. It looked like some sort of giant eagle, but he sensed it was an elemental. Worse, he looked up and saw a dozen other monstrous black birds diving towards them with horrific speed. It had to be the creatures known as rocs that had appeared in Europe, George realized!
Instead of again dodging them, Freedom defied gravity and rose rapidly to meet them. A fiery green blast burst from his mouth, covering the leading half-dozen birds and melting away wings, legs and heads. Freedom dodged their falling, smoking bodies but additional unharmed monster birds were right behind them.
George could sense that Freedom lacked the strength to soon shoot such flame again. He drew his sword and sliced the talons off the next bird. It fell away screaming, but the next one’s talons grappled with Freedom’s and as dragon and bird fought with claw, fang and beak, two other birds grabbed Freedom by the neck and tail.
A forth bird attacked George, but he sliced it nearly in two with his sword, before flying after the three that were overpowering Freedom. The birds were formidable creatures in terms of brute strength, but not very intelligent or resilient, and completely lacking in magic. He quickly decapitated the one that had Freedom by the throat, and was moving towards another of them, when yet another bird grabbed him in its great talons. Completely enclosed, George was soon being squeezed with such painful crushing force that he couldn’t breathe.
He barely noticed when they all slammed to the ground, but the impact knocked out the bird that was attacking him and broke the creature's grip. The young Chosen One found himself lying on his back on the ground. His head and ribs ached and he felt weak as a kitten but he pushed himself up into a sitting position.
Giant bird bodies lay all around him, but they were not dead. Instead, they were visibly recovering. Burned and cut away limbs and feathers were reforming as he watched; many of the creatures would soon be in fighting form again! To his right, Freedom battled the last standing great bird. The dragon had wrapped itself around its larger foe, serpent like, with his great dragon jaws clamped onto its throat. The bird lunged and tore at the dragon, but with a small puff of green flame the creature was quickly decapitated. The bird’s limp body fell to the ground, with Freedom also stunned and still entangled with it. The dragon was absorbing energy from his surroundings, but was weakened and stunned nearly unconscious.
To George’s left, a tentacle of KraKara swept towards them. Already it was absorbing nearby bird bodies, and it would reach himself and Freedom in no more than half a minute. Not far from him, a new head had reformed on a decapitated bird, a head with eyes that were watching him while the creature gathered its strength. George tried to stand but was too weak.
Hope came in the form of a fighter-bomber, diving towards them. “The bombs come now,” George pathed.
“I SEE THEM,” replied Freedom weakly. “I AM READY FOR THEM.” Weakened as he was, the bombs would have to be directly on-target.
George watched as the two bombs separated from the airplane and dropped towards them. But the trajectory didn’t seem quite right. To his astonishment, both bombs slammed directly into the mid-section of KraKara. The creature’s central section trembled but otherwise didn’t react. Than it gradually grew to double its original size. The monster KraKara, not the dragon, had been fed by the bombs!
This couldn’t have been an accident. They had been betrayed!
Which would now kill him and Freedom, George wondered? The birds or the giant monster KraKara?
****
White Dragon's Chosen Page 33
