Simon just returned its gaze as steadily as he could.
“Oh come now,” the primal said in a jocular tone. “We both know how this is going to end, do we not? You never stood a chance against me. But you are brave. You and your paladin friend. Very brave. I admire that. So let us make a bargain, shall we? You tell me the secret of how an insect like you destroyed two primal dragons and I will make your end quick and painless. And hers as well. Now how's that for a fair trade, hmm?”
“And if I don't tell you?”
Simon groaned as the fingers around his body tightened. He actually heard his ribs creak and for a moment he couldn't breathe. Then he gasped as the pressure was released.
“Well, if you don't,” the primal said in a mockingly sad voice, “then I shall have no choice but to make you suffer. I will pull off your limbs one by one, the way a man would pull the wings off of a fly. If you do not die at once, well then I think you will eventually tell me what I want to know. Either way, I win, so why choose the hard path?”
Simon was thinking frantically. There was no secret, of course, and if the primal's mind hadn't been twisted by its transformation, it probably would have seen the ruse for what it was; the wizard playing for time. But he knew that his time was almost up.
A breath of wind blew past his ear and a whisper of a voice, barely audible, said “Now.”
“Okay then. I guess since I'm going to die anyway, I might as well tell you. Who's it going to hurt, right?”
“Exactly!” the primal said with a broad smile. “What difference will it make in the grand scheme of things, hmm? The dragons will wipe out your species anyway and you won't be there to try and save them. May as well save yourself some pain.”
“Yes. Fair point. Let's see now. It has to do with a name.”
Simon frowned as if thinking deeply.
“A name? What sort of name? A magical word perhaps?”
The primal pulled him closer eagerly and the wizard found himself only a few feet away from its gaping maw.
“Yeah, a magical word. That's it. And the word is...”
He smiled at the enormous face staring at him.
“Incendus!” he cried.
“What? What kind of a word is that?” the primal asked blankly.
A burst of red light straight over their heads made both Simon and the primal look up. A streak of fire shot out of the sky and down toward them. At the last moment, it spun at right angles, turned and slammed into the injured leg of the dragon.
The primal bellowed and fell back, flinging Simon high into the air. He began to fall toward the plateau below.
Oh, this is going to hurt, he thought grimly and then he found himself floating, skipping across the sky like a leaf in the wind.
“I've got you, sir wizard,” came a familiar voice.
“Aethos?”
“Of course. Sorry for the delay. Are you all right?”
“For now. Liliana is injured though.
Simon reached the ground and was deposited gently on to his feet. The air elemental appeared, a misty man-shape that glowed in the darkness.
“Not to worry. Kassus has transported her to safety below.”
Another bellow from the primal made Simon spin around.
The monster's knee was shattered. The wizard could see bone peeking out of the smoking flesh where the fire elemental had slammed into it. And yet the creature was once again getting to its feet.
“You tricked me, wizard!” it shrieked as its blazing eyes spotted him.
“What can I say,” Simon yelled up at it. “It's what I do.”
“Now you die!”
The wizard chanted quickly and threw up his shield just as the primal pointed a clawed finger at him. A bolt of lightning smashed into the shield, driving Simon to his knees, but the barrier held.
“Hold strong, wizard,” Aethos said. “I go to direct my forces.”
“Good luck!”
The elemental disappeared just as the primal pulled back its head. Simon heard it drawing in a great breath.
“Crap, it's going to hit me with a blast of frost,” he said to himself and began to run for the shelter of the nearest boulder.
A sudden gasp from the creature made him stop and look over his shoulder. And then he grinned.
The rocky ground beneath the feet of the primal was climbing up its legs like a living thing, holding it fast. The monster roared and began battering at the rock with it fists. But as soon as it shattered one layer, a new one would form.
And then things began to happen quickly.
To Simon's right, a stream of incandescent missiles shot from the ground and slammed into the primal's left arm. It roared and twisted to face the new threat just as jagged bolts of lightning hit the creature's right arm.
The wizard squinted into the darkness, which was rapidly getting thicker as the air was filled with smoke and dust. More magic missiles hit the primal and Simon could finally see their source. It was Tamara.
Her hands were raised and the brilliant bolts of energy shot from her palms. Her expression was dreadful; a mixture of pain and pleasure and the wizard shivered a bit when he saw it.
More lightning splashed against the dragon and Simon could see that Sebastian was casting on the far side of the beast. Unlike his sister, the flashes from his spells showed him looking calm, almost reflective as he attacked.
What an odd pair they are, Simon thought fleetingly.
Streams of blood were coursing down the primal's arms and legs now, but it didn't seem to be weakening it significantly. They needed more firepower.
At that moment, a burst of flame appeared several feet away and hovered over the ground, raising steam from the frozen rock.
“Thank you for coming, Incendus,” Simon said to the living fire.
“A pleasure. Now, meaning no disrespect, but it might be a good time to summon my brethren to join in the fight.”
“Oh right. I'd almost forgotten about them.”
“Focus, wizard. We are in the midst of a battle here and our victory is hardly assured.”
“Got it, got it.”
Simon fished a sheet of paper from inside his robe and squinted, trying to read.
“Um, could you brighten up a little bit. It's a bit hard to read here.”
The fire elemental's flame turned from a deep red to a bright yellow, and Simon felt a wave of heat wash over him.
“Ah, thanks so much.”
“My pleasure,” Incendus replied dryly. “I do not believe that I've ever been used as a light source before.”
“Uh yeah, sorry about that. Here we go.”
Simon stared up at the primal and marked the position in his mind where he wanted the elementals to appear. Then he read out each name quickly and clearly and slipped the paper back inside his robe.
“Thank you, wizard. I go to join the fight.”
The flame disappeared with a loud thump and Simon stood alone, blinking into the darkness.
He had focused on the head of the primal as the target for the fire elementals. He hoped that a concentrated attack on its head would bring the monster down more quickly. Unfortunately, he was mistaken.
The streaks of fire rained down on the monster in rapid succession. For all of its size and its many wounds, the primal was much quicker than Simon gave it credit for. As the elementals shot down at it, the dragon twisted and turned, ducked and weaved and was only struck twice, each blow slamming its head to one side or the other, but doing little damage to its scaled hide.
Fireproof, Simon thought as he kicked himself mentally. He should have had the elementals attack the creature's open wounds instead.
Nevertheless, the fire elementals streaked around the primal, smashing into it again and again. They were doing some damage, but it was taking too long. And the monster was fighting back.
As he watched, the primal whipped its arm around and backhanded a fire elemental that was shooting toward its chest. The elemental disappeared in a sh
ower of sparks and embers and Simon heard a single shriek of despair. The primal had destroyed it.
Appalled, the wizard saw the dragon shatter several other elementals as they attacked. He turned to look at Tamara and felt a wave of fear as he saw her strained expression. Her missiles were taking longer to cast and weren't doing as much damage.
Simon looked to her brother and saw him cast another lightning bolt and then stagger back and fall to his knees in exhaustion.
My God, he thought. The damned primal could actually win just by waiting them out.
He stiffened his resolve.
Well, let's see what kind of damage I can do.
He scurried around for a few minutes, frantically looking for his staff. Finally, with some relief, he found it half buried under some rubble. He moved back to a safe distance and looked up at the primal.
The dragon was still fighting, bellowing in rage but then, as Simon watched, it stopped and looked down at the forces arrayed against it. And strangely, it smiled.
“Enough of these games!” it boomed. “I grow weary of this amusement.”
It chanted some strange words in an unknown tongue and pointed toward the gap where the portal had once stood.
Oh crap, Simon thought. It's casting a Gate spell.
A round pulsing field of energy appeared, cracking with power. It looked delicate and translucent and faded in and out of sight. But it was enough.
A figure leapt out of the Gate. Twelve feet tall, with broad wings and carrying a wickedly sharp sword. It was a dragonoid.
Behind it appeared another, and then another.
I've got to close that portal, Simon thought desperately.
He looked up at the primal and saw that it was still pointing at the Gate and muttering to itself.
It's holding the portal open, he thought. How can I break the spell?
He scanned through the spells he had locked in his memory and then smiled. Yes, that might work.
The incantation came easily to mind and as he chanted, Simon pointed his staff directly at the primal's face. And then he unleashed the spell.
“Blizzard!” he yelled and felt the power running from his chest, down his arm and into the staff. An almost invisible dart of light shot from the end of the staff upward toward the primal and vanished.
For an anxious moment, Simon wasn't sure that the spell had worked. And then a swirling fog enveloped the primal's head, thickening to a roaring vortex of intense cold.
The primal shrieked and grabbed at its face with both hands. At the same time, the portal collapsed just as a dragonoid was coming through. It sliced the monster in half.
Simon tore his gaze away from the primal dragon and looked around. He felt a moment of panic as he counted a dozen dragonoids, all armed with massive spears and swords, moving forward as a group. Their nearest target was Sebastian.
“Bastion!” he heard Tamara scream. “Run!”
The young man took one look over his shoulder, struggled to his feet and staggered into an exhausted lope, heading toward his sister.
The dragonoids all laughed and shook their weapons. They were obviously in no hurry and moved forward with frightening deliberation.
They were perhaps a hundred feet away from Simon and he began to retreat toward the opposite end of the mesa. A quick glance up at the primal showed him that the spell was fading but that the monster was still holding its face in its hands. He ignored it for the moment and watched the advancing dragonoids.
The ground between Simon and the dozen mutated dragons suddenly bulged upward, as if it had turned to rubber.
The dragonoids all stopped and stared at it in confusion. More bulges appeared and then all shattered at once into dust.
“Archers! Fire a volley!”
It was Ethmira's voice.
The hum of fifty enchanted arrows filled the air and Simon watched as they rained down on to the dragonoids.
As one, the creatures roared in confused rage. Several dropped at once, the arrows shearing through their skulls and into their brains.
The rest, those who could still move, drew their wings up behind them and began to trot forward as quickly as they could.
“Fire at will,” Ethmira shouted and the air became thick with missiles. The monsters never even got close to the elves.
As the last one fell, Simon rushed forward until he spotted the elvish maiden.
“You came back!” he said gratefully.
“Gather your arrows,” she said to the archers. “This battle isn't over yet.”
She turned to Simon and grinned impishly.
“Don't be silly, sir wizard. We never left. Aeris told me that you were staying behind, just in case the primal was still in the area. So I had my people wait down below, on the off chance that you were right.”
She looked up at the primal in distaste.
“Obviously you were. How goes the battle?”
“I'm not sure. We can wound the thing, but we can't seem to deliver a killing blow. How the hell do you bring down something that tough?”
She looked at the creature with narrowed eyes.
“I don't know,” she finally admitted. “It's hide is too thick to penetrate and unless we can wound it on the inside, we may end up having to withdraw and fight another day.”
“Leaving it alive to continue creating its twisted mutations,” Simon said bitterly.
“I'm afraid so.”
The archers had gathered up all of their spent arrows and now stood quietly, awaiting orders.
“But we aren't done yet,” Ethmira said and patted his arm. “Let's see how much damage we can do before we admit defeat, shall we?”
She turned to her people.
“Follow me. We are going to give that abomination a taste of elvish steel.”
She smiled at Simon and then trotted away with her people following in ordered ranks.
The wizard watched them move across the plateau but his mind was focused on something the elf had just said.
“Unless we can wound it on the inside,” Simon said under his breath. “On the inside.”
He looked up and saw that the primal had recovered from his spell. It was still being struck randomly by the fire elementals, but except for flinching, it was paying little attention to them. Instead, it was staring straight down at him.
Simon had never seen such malevolence in the eyes of any creature before. The primal glanced at the slaughtered dragonoids, at the smashed eggs and twisted corpses of its lesser dragons and then back at him.
“You have much to answer for, insect,” it growled at him, its yellow eyes burning with fury.
A fire elemental shot toward it and it smashed it from the air without even looking away from Simon. Its legs were still encased in solid rock but it ignored that too, as well as its seeping wounds.
“When this is over, and I am free once more, I am coming for you. There is no place in this world that I cannot find you. And once I do, and you are destroyed, I will personally hunt down every friend, every ally, every person that you have ever known, and destroy them as well. That is the consequence of what you have done here today. I hope you are proud of yourself, little wizard. You have doomed everyone and everything that you hold dear.”
Simon could feel his knees shaking and it was almost impossible for him to tear his eyes away from that dreadful gaze.
I have to do something, he thought frantically. Here. Now. Tonight. He had no doubt that the primal would do exactly as it said it would do. With its Gate spell, it could travel anywhere, attack anyone.
This ends now, he said to himself. And that phrase bubbled up in his mind again. Wound it on the inside,
Oh Simon, you are truly crazy.
He walked toward the primal, stepping over small stones and around larger rocks. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on its vicious yellow orbs as he went.
Vaguely he could hear someone yelling at him. Maybe it was Tamara, or Ethmira. Possibly one of the elementals. He didn't kno
w. He only knew that this had to end, tonight, or they would all die and it would be his fault.
When he was within a few dozen yards of the primal, he muttered a quick incantation and held it firmly in his mind. Then he forced a smirk on to his face and cocked his head as he watched the creature above him.
“You know, you've got a big mouth,” he yelled up at it. “I don't remember the other primals being so full of hot air. They had dignity. They had majesty. They didn't threaten or boast. In fact, the primal green told me that its victory over me would be a proud moment. It said that consuming me, absorbing my magic into itself would be its highest achievement. The black said much the same thing. Imagine that. And here you are, bleating and whining. Threatening to tear me apart, kill my friends, blah blah blah.”
He shrugged, feeling a cold sweat running down his spine.
“I guess that's the difference between them and you. They were true leaders of dragons. You? You're just some dark god's bitch.”
“What!”
The primal dragon screeched, It ripped its legs from the solid stone around them and took a single huge step forward. And bending down, it grabbed Simon in its massive hand again and raised him high above the ground.
There were distant screams and winds began shrieking and swirling around the monster, but it ignored them. Simon heard the ping of arrows bouncing off of dragon hide, but the primal ignored those too. It was focused solely on him.
“So, I have you again, worm. You think you can insult me? Belittle me? I have more power in one hand than my siblings had in their entire bodies. No wonder they wanted to absorb your power. They were weak! But I, I am strong. With your magic added to my own, I will be able to challenge the primal red itself! And once I do, I shall rule this world, as is my right!”
The primal was panting in its fury but then a look of anticipation came over its twisted face and it smiled evilly at Simon.
“Thank you for giving me the idea to consume your power, insect. And just to make your slow end even more agonizing, when I am done with you, I shall still destroy all that you ever loved. Consider it a repayment for all the pain you've caused me. Now, prepare to become one...with a god.”
The hideous maw of the primal gaped open, wider and wider. And then Simon was pulled back and tossed directly down the throat of the dragon.
The Dragons of Ice and Snow Page 40
