The wizard shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz that seemed to be packed between his ears. Then he glared at the dragon, embarrassed that he'd let down his guard.
“Oh, a wise one,” the dragon said, tilting its head slightly. “What are you, I wonder? Cleric? No, no. Not a cleric. A paladin! Yes. A holy warrior.”
A deep-throated chuckle escaped its twisted maw.
“You chose the wrong side, paladin. If you had followed the gods of Chaos, your powers would have been unimaginable. But now? Now you shall die in a nameless forest on a conquered world. No glory, no songs of your deeds, nothing to mark that you were ever here at all.”
“Ready,” Ethmira said from behind them.
“I'm not the one that's going to die, monster,” Liliana yelled angrily.
The dragon's thin lips pulled back to expose its twisted fangs.
“I admire your spirit. And what about your companion? The robed one. Surely a magic-user of some sort. Come now, speak up while you can, little human.”
Simon felt sweat trickle down inside his robe and could almost feel the elf straining to hold the portal open. Strangely, the primal didn't seem aware that she'd opened a conduit to the Earth.
“You primals claim to be the strongest and smartest of your kind,” he shouted, knowing his young voice was squeaking weakly.
“Of course we are,” the dragon rumbled. “And I, I am the strongest of all of my siblings. Even the red dragon cannot claim to be mightier, though he tries. Fool.”
“Then how is it, oh wise one, that you don't even recognize the wizard that killed your brothers?” Simon said, trying to give his voice a sarcastic twist.
This is, he thought fleetingly, the craziest thing I've ever done.
The primal's cat-like eyes narrowed and he pushed his snout forward, his gaze almost as blinding as headlights.
He sniffed loudly causing the robe to swirl around Simon's ankles.
Then that hideous head reared up high again and the dragon bellowed in fury.
“Now I know you!” it screamed, acid spraying in all directions.
Simon hastily stepped back and rattled off his shield spell. It snapped into place just in time to block the acidic rain, which ran off the translucent barrier in all directions.
He looked over his shoulder in a panic, afraid that Ethmira had been caught in that corrosive shower. But no, she had retreated to the far side of the glade. Her arms were raised and he could see the distortion in the air where the portal flickered and wavered.
“Time's running out,” she shouted at him and he nodded his understanding.
“You dare to come here, to my domain!” the primal screamed with insane wrath. It dropped its massive head and spread its jaws.
“Now you die!”
“Simon, get through the portal!” Liliana shouted at him. Around her, a nimbus of white, like and yet unlike his own shield, had protected her from the dragon's acid breath.
“I'll keep it off of you until you are clear!”
She turned her head and glared at the dragon, which was ignoring her completely as it sucked in a huge lungful of air.
“I may not be remembered, monster,” she screamed as she began to run right at the dragon. “But neither will you!”
And then she launched her body in a leap that Simon would not have believed was humanly possible.
She cleared those gaping jaws, landed on top of the primal's snout and plunged her glowing sword into one of its blazing eyes.
The bellow of pain from the dragon was so loud that Simon was knocked off of his feet. He rolled over several times and then looked up in disbelief.
The dragon had reared back again and its head was so high that the wizard could not even see Liliana any more. He pushed himself to his feet and gaped upward as the dragon's head whipped from side to side, trying to dislodge the paladin and the sword that was buried deep in its eye socket.
“Simon, get through the portal!” Ethmira shouted at him. “I can't hold it much longer.”
“What about Liliana? I can't just leave her!” he yelled back at her.
“Damn you, wizard! Do you want to dishonor her sacrifice? Get through the portal and ready your trap. The dragon will be hot on your heels. Now move!”
Simon stared at her and then looked up, torn by his loyalty. Then with a cry of frustration and grief, he ran as fast as he could toward the portal, locked eyes with Ethmira for a fleeting second and then dove through.
There was a moment of complete darkness and then he tumbling through low brush and grass. He stopped rolling face down, tears of frustration streaking his dirty cheeks.
With a huge effort, he heaved himself to his feet and looked around.
He was standing on a flat plain with scrub brush, small trees and grasses blowing in the wind. On the horizon he could see the flicker and whitecaps of the ocean crashing on the shore.
I must be back in Florida, he thought vaguely. He turned in a circle and saw with relief that the new town was nowhere to be seen. At least they wouldn't be in the line of fire.
The portal was easy to see, like a wall of water rippling uneasily. It grew and shrank, grew and shrank and he could tell that it wouldn't last much longer.
What happens if it fails before the primal comes through, he thought frantically. Worse still, what if the dragon doesn't follow me at all?
He couldn't think about that. Simon turned and ran as fast as he could away from the portal, his breath coming in loud gasps and his head swimming with fatigue.
When he'd run perhaps a hundred yards, he whirled around, blinked sweat out of his eyes and stared at the ground in front of him. He opened his mouth to speak and then with a roar of earth-shaking rage, the primal brown dragon stepped out of nothingness and stood there, glaring down at him with one good eye. The other was a ruined mass of running puss and green blood.
“I have you now,” it rumbled and stepped toward him.
Chapter 30
Simon stared up at the enormous beast. Without the forest to shelter its body, the creature was so huge that he couldn't quite comprehend it.
It blotted out the sky and, as it spread it massive wings, a foul stench blowing from it as they unfurled, the wizard felt a sense of despair.
How the hell could I ever believe that this behemoth could be defeated, he wondered hopelessly. It was like a confrontation between a man and an ant. He wondered that the dragon had even bothered to follow him. It couldn't possibly conceive of him as a threat.
He looked up at the snarling, glaring visage and at its ruined eye and saw it hesitate before striking.
Maybe it did think he was a danger, a small voice of wonder said from deep inside of him. After all, he'd killed three of the dragon's siblings. Not all alone, of course, but he was involved in all three defeats. Was it possible that the primal brown was just a tiny bit frightened?
A gigantic clawed foot slammed down on the ground and sent shudders across the plain, creating its own earthquake. Fifty feet above him, the dragon shook its head, gore and acidic goop flying everywhere.
“Your puny attempt to surprise me has failed, as you can see,” the dragon rumbled. “Your little paladin wasted her life for nothing.”
A hissing laugh as shrill as a train whistle assaulted Simon's ears but he barely heard it.
Liliana? Dead?
A cold block of ice formed in his guts as he pictured his friend giving her life just to let him escape; just to give him an extra minute in his futile attempt to destroy the primal brown dragon.
Don't let her sacrifice be in vain, you fool, that little voice snapped at him. Get on with it.
Simon looked up bleakly and matched the dragon's one-eyed glare with his own.
“Not exactly for nothing, you bastard!” he shouted up at it. “You're blind on one side now. How does that feel?”
The dragon's head dropped down until it was just above ground level and it narrowed its good eye at the wizard.
“You fool. W
hat do you truly know of my kind? This wound is simply a nuisance. It will heal in time and then I shall see as well as ever. Do you really think that pain inconveniences a being as ancient as I? Bah. You know nothing.”
“I know a few things,” Simon yelled. “I know that your arrogance will be your undoing, just as it was for the other primals.”
A deep rumble in the dragon's chest made the wizard back up hurriedly. He chanted quickly and cast his Shield spell again. It had collapsed when he'd leaped through the portal.
But the dragon wasn't attacking; it was laughing. The sound shook the ground under Simon's feet.
“Arrogance? Yes, we are arrogant, but then we deserve to be, do we not? You are an idiot, little wizard. Do you truly think that I mourn the deaths of my siblings?”
The dragon chuckled and acid sprayed from its mouth, splattering the small bushes and grasses and leaving smoking, decaying pools behind.
“Now that they are gone, this world shall be divided between my brother, the primal red, and myself. We will ravage it, drench it in blood and claim it for our own. I shall take great pleasure in hunting down the remnants of your annoying race. Their death throes shall be exquisite. And when we have cleansed this planet of all of you and those little rat people, the dwarves, the gods of Chaos will come forth and plunge all into darkness.”
It closed its lone eye and almost seemed to smile in contemplation of the future.
The wizard backed away further, pushing away his fury and concentrating on what he had to do. This was his chance, while the primal was lost in its wicked dreams.
“Kassus, it is time,” he said quietly, watching the ground under the dragon's massive paws. “Come forth and bring your brethren.”
In the distance, a rumbling began. It sped toward Simon's location, first as a mere hint of sound, then as a vibration that the wizard felt through his shoes. Finally the ground began to heave in earnest.
The dragon, shaken out of its reverie, opened its eye and glared around, snorting in confusion.
“What is this?” it cried, spittle dribbling from its jaws. “What is happening?”
Its eye blazed as it looked down at Simon.
“What are you trying to do, human? There is no trick, no magic of yours that can harm me!”
“You're right, there isn't,” the wizard yelled up at it. He shrugged innocently. “Earthquake maybe?”
The primal spread its enormous wings as the shaking continued. The ground was actually rolling now, as if it had turned into a kind of liquid; waves undulating across the plain like combers on the ocean.
Simon fell to his knees, hanging on desperately to his staff, and rattled off a spell.
“Invectis!” he said loudly, unable to hear his own voice over the groaning of the earth underneath him.
His skin tightened and felt cool and he glanced down at himself. A metallic coating had replaced his flesh and he felt some relief that the Steel Skin spell had actually worked. But he felt his energy drain at the same time and he knew that he was running out of time.
The dragon hadn't even noticed. It was looking at the ground beneath it with an almost comical expression of confusion, and then began to flap its wings, creating huge gusts of wind that nearly knocked Simon over.
“Don't let it take off!” the wizard muttered. “Please don't let it take off.”
And then the huge body began to sink into the grassy plain under its own enormous weight as if the earth had turned to quicksand. The primal's feet and legs were engulfed in sticky mud that started pulling it down.
“What!” it bellowed and flapped its wings even harder, trying to break free. “Stop that! How dare you try to hold me!”
It blasted the ground with gallons of acid; sticky liquid that covered the grass and sent clouds of dirty gray smoke billowing into the sky. It made no difference. The monster kept sinking.
Its belly touched the ground and the muddy surface rose up its sides, seemingly almost eager to embrace the dragon. It held its wings up high but could no longer flap them because the ground was now up to its chest. The hideous, twisted visage snapped at the mud and then withered it with a blast of flame.
But the earth was indifferent. It kept pulling the beast lower and lower until the dragon's wings were pushed up and plastered to its sides.
“Now, sir wizard,” a voice rumbled up from below.
“I know,” Simon muttered and began to chant. He'd never tried to do this before but, in theory, it should work. In theory.
He finished the incantation and felt the spell hovering around him, waiting for him to invoke it. But the wizard paused and stared at the primal, watching its desperate convulsions as it tried in vain to free itself.
Now most of the enormous body had sunk out of sight. All that was left were the tips of its wings and its neck and head. The single eye had finally taken on a look of panic and it thrashed and whipped in all directions, frantic as it was pulled under.
The primal suddenly stopped struggling and turned to looked directly at Simon.
“You did this, you insignificant little worm,” it screamed at him.
Simon shrugged.
“Actually I didn't,” he called back. “I'd say that the Earth itself has tired of you and your evil kind. Payback time, I guess.”
“I will get free,” the dragon hissed, dribbling streams of acid. “Burying me beneath the earth will not stop me for long. You seem to forget how powerful I truly am.”
It sunk lower and the wings disappeared entirely.
Time to make it truly angry, Simon thought with a shiver.
“Maybe you will, in time,” he yelled at it with a sneer. “But by then, the primal red will have taken over the entire Earth and you'll be seen by it and the gods as a dismal failure. You allowed your servants to be trapped in the elven plane and yourself to be captured underground. How will that look?”
The dragon's eye widened and it snarled and snapped at him.
One more little push, the wizard thought.
“Your great mother is going to be disgusted by you, isn't she?”
“How dare you!” it bellowed and the head reared back as far as it could, maw gaping. The primal dragon sucked in a tremendous breath and then it lurched forward to spew acid directly at its puny foe.
“Invectis!” Simon shouted and leaped to the side in a vain attempt to avoid the attack.
But the attack never came. He rolled over and pushed himself on to his hands and knees, looking at the thrashing head of the dragon. A head now enveloped in the strongest Shield spell that the wizard could cast.
The globe of distortion was so thick that it looked like frosted glass and it totally covered the primal's head. Inside, an enormous gout of acid was vomited out by the dragon, which seemed to have no way to stop its own attack. But instead of covering the wizard, it filled the round shield to the brim and made it look like the primal was wearing some sort of bizarre space helmet. A helmet filled with black, sticky acid.
The dragon slammed its head against the ground in its agony, as its own weapon began to dissolve its face, its jaws, its eye. Simon stood up shakily, leaning on his staff and trying not to collapse. His shield dissipated and his skin spell faded away and he stood there in the stinking wind that blew by the acid pools around the dragon and watch its head dissolve.
“Eat that, you bastard,” he whispered, too exhausted to even revel in his victory.
The shield didn't last; it couldn't contain that much acid for long. But then it didn't have to. A few minutes later, it disappeared with a loud pop and gallons of sticky black liquid sprayed in all directions and the dragon's neck flopped on to the ground, a smoking tube of flesh writhing mindlessly where the head used to be.
Simon sat down heavily and dropped his staff. He pulled his legs up under him and rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. He was completely drained.
In the space between the dragon's remains and where the wizard sat, the ground rumbled again and la
rge mounds of dirt were pushed out of the earth. Nine of them. And then, climbing out of the soil, tall, blocky figures emerged and stared down at him.
One stepped forward and bowed. It looked like it was made of black lava rock and its glowing red eyes looked at Simon with something like admiration.
“It worked, sir wizard,” it said simply and Simon nodded wearily.
“It did, didn't it?” he replied quietly. “You and your fellow earthen did well, Kassus.”
Now all nine of the earth elementals bowed low.
“We pledged to come whenever you needed us,” Kassus said. “After the defeat of the primal white dragon, I thought that you would have a use for us again.”
“You were right about that. I'm just glad that you were waiting for my call and that our hurried little plan worked.”
“For you, sir wizard, we would wait for an eternity.”
Kassus turned and stared at what had once been the primal brown dragon.
“To have aided in the defeat of a second primal is a source of pride for us. It will make for a great story to tell our people in ages to come.”
“I'm glad you think so.”
Simon wiped off the dirt and sweat from his face and pushed himself to his feet, using his staff to brace against.
“Thank you all again for your service. You may return home now if you wish. If I need you again in the future, would you be willing to help me?”
“Any time, sir wizard. Just call my name and I and these others will be at your side. Have no doubt of that.”
Simon nodded and the elementals sank into the earth again and were gone.
He stood alone on the grassy plain and looked reflectively at the smoking neck of the dragon. The acid around it was still chewing at the soil and plants but he doubted that it would go far. He pushed his hair back, grimaced at the old habit as his hand met no resistance and then turned away to look at the distant shoreline.
He had no energy left for a Gate spell, or any other spell at the moment, and would have to wait until his magic recharged a bit. In the meantime, he began to walk slowly toward the ocean, eager to get away from the scene of carnage at his back.
Tales from the New Earth: Volume One Page 160
