Crossroads 04 - The Dragon Isles

by Sullivan, Stephen D (v1. 1)

  She looked at him skeptically. “What are you planning?”

  “I’m going for Kell’s lance. If it can kill Shimmer, maybe it can kill Tempest as well.”

  “Shimmer’s not dead,” she replied. “At least, he wasn’t when I pulled the lance from his side.”

  “Can he help us?”

  She shook her head, sadness flashing across her green eyes. “I’ll be surprised if he lives.”

  “It’s up to us, then,” Mik said. “Give me the key. We’ve seen its power. Maybe between it and the lance, we can kill this bitch.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Ula said. She undid the chain fastening the key to her waist and gave them both to Mik. “Good luck,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Stay alive,” he replied.

  Tempest surfaced a hundred yards away and scanned the waves for her enemies. Mik and Ula ducked under the surface as the dragon’s baleful yellow gaze turned in their direction.

  Trip’s small form leaped from the breakers. Tempest lunged at the kender, her massive jaws snapping shut mere inches from the hem of his sea serpent cloak. The two of them dove out of sight again.

  Mik swam as fast as he could toward the Isle of Fire. He surfaced only a few yards from the silver stairs. He felt bone-weary, and his muscles ached as he paddled the last strokes to the volcano’s rocky face. Fighting against the pounding surf, he dragged himself out of the water and onto the silver stairway.

  Instantly, his chest felt as though someone were sitting on it. Mik gasped for air, but none came. Something cold squeezed tight around his neck, choking him. He brought his hands to his throat and felt the pockmarked metal of his enchanted fish necklace.

  He pulled the necklace off, and it crumbled in his hands— its magic finally exhausted. Mik drew a deep breath and forced his legs to carry him up the stairs to the plaza below the temple.

  When he arrived, he spotted Shimmer and Lord Kell sitting to one side, their backs against a pillar. A huge pool of blood lay on the flagstones beneath them; both the bronze knight and the brass lord appeared dead.

  Mik spotted Kell’s coral lance on the far stairs, where it had fallen after striking Tempest. It lay close to the landing. Mik sprinted across slippery stones and seized the weapon in his aching hands, looking around for the sea dragon. Lightning flashed, casting the pounding sea into sharp relief, but Tempest was nowhere to be seen.

  A cold chill gripped Mik’s heart. Had the monster found and killed his friends?

  Lightning flashed again and, in the plaza below, the bronze knight’s eyes flickered open. “Vardan . . . !” Shimmer whispered.

  Mik skidded down the steps and ran to the wounded dragon’s side. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Not quite,” Shimmer replied. “Not yet. Dragons are hard to kill. Apparently you are as well. Kell, though ...” He pointed wanly toward the unmoving brass lord. “His spirit was strong, but his body . . .’’He took a ragged breath. “Where’s Ula?”

  “Below the waves somewhere, trying to distract Tempest.”

  “Not dead, then.”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Slowly, the dragon in human form struggled to his feet. “We must help her, then.”

  “The best help we can give her is killing Tempest,” Mik said. “Can you fly?”

  Shimmer nodded grimly. “One last time, I think.”

  A hard smile cracked Mikal Vardan’s bearded face. “Then let’s take that sea dragon down.” He pulled the key from his belt and fastened it around his neck with the chain from Ula’s waist. The key glistened in the storm- clouded darkness.

  Out to sea, Tempest surfaced once more, chasing the slender form of Ula Drakenvaal.

  Shimmer groaned and stretched his arms out to each side. Fresh blood oozed from his wounds as his body grew and lengthened. Tangled, misshapen muscle piled up on his shoulders as his wings sprouted. His jaws became long and pointed, showing row upon row of sharp fangs.

  The bronze dragon gritted his teeth and suppressed a scream. His entire, scaly body shook with pain. He swelled up to his full size—huge, but not nearly as huge as the sea dragon.

  Tempest had her hack to them as she focused every evil fiber of her being upon destroying Ula. She didn’t notice the bronze dragon growing on the temple stairs, or the man with the lance standing at the dragon’s side.

  Shimanloreth gasped and extended his right forearm to Mik. The sailor scrambled up onto the dragon’s back. He perched himself in front of the shoulders, just above Shimmer’s deformed wing. Shimmer winced as Mik got a good grip on the bronze dragon’s rain-slick back.

  The sailor hefted the dead lord’s coral lance. “Let’s save our friends,” he said.

  “Yes,” Shimmer hissed through gritted fangs.

  Lightning crashed, and thunder shook the ancient island.

  Slowly, painfully, Shimmer took to the air.

  * * * * *

  Trip burst out of the water directly in front of the enraged sea dragon. He fastened his tiny hands on Tempest’s mane of Turbidus leeches and yanked hard. The snakelike creatures squealed in pain. Their enormous mistress shook her head to free herself of the annoying kender.

  She turned just enough that Ula avoided her deadly plunge. As the sea dragon passed by, surging into the deep, the Dargonesti drove one of her two spears into the monster’s magic-scorched shoulder.

  The spear pierced the dragon’s blackened scales, and Tempest howled in pain. She plunged into the swirling darkness with the kender clinging to her mane and Ula hanging tightly onto the spear. The water around them swirled as Tempest twisted back on herself, snaking her reptilian head toward her shoulder.

  The sea elf planted her feet against the dragon’s scales and reeled back with the second spear—the bronze one Mog had once used.

  As Tempest lunged toward them, Ula threw the bronze spear into the dragon’s yellow eye.

  Tempest roared and shot to the surface once more.

  She breached, arcing high into the sky and shaking her head like a wounded dog.

  Several of the Turbidus leeches clinging to her neck came loose, and Trip lost his grip along with them. He sailed into the air, only to have Tempest’s flailing skull smash into him.

  The kender cartwheeled end over end, hit the water hard, and disappeared below the raging surf.

  Ula regained her footing on the dragon’s scaly hide. She pulled on the shaft of her spear, then shoved it back in, putting all her weight behind die blow.

  Tempest roared in pain, and dark blood gushed from the wound.

  Ula stabbed her again. Tempest writhed through the waves, sending spray high into the rainswept air, faying to shake the elf from her back.

  Tempest dove under again, but Ula clung tenaciously to the spear. She wedged her toes under the dragon’s scales and hung on as the monster gyrated through the deep.

  When the dragon broke surface, Ula yanked on the spear with one hand while clinging to the dragon with the other. Again she stabbed the spear into the wound. Again and again. Black blood spouted from the dragon’s shoulder, covering the Dargonesti in gore.

  Tempest howled with pain. She writhed and bucked, diving repeatedly into the heaving ocean, only to leap into the air once more.

  Ula reeled back for one final deadly thrust.

  The dragon snapped her neck to one side and, suddenly, Ula lost her grip. The elf soared into the sky then crashed to the storm-tossed ocean below.

  * * * * *

  Mik and the bronze dragon angled up toward the clouds, gaining height for one desperate attack. Shimmer turned into the heart of the storm.

  Mik lowered the ancient coral lance, the key to the Temple of the Sky glowed brightly at his neck. “For lost friends!” he said.

  Shimmer nodded and hissed, “For the Dragon Isles!”

  Forty-Three

  The Coral Lance

  Lightning flashed as Mik and Shimmer dived out of the rain toward Tempest’s exposed back. The sea dragon cast her gaze
across the surface of the sea, seeking the bodies of her foes, or perhaps Mik himself.

  In the pulsating light of the storm, she spotted Shimmer’s shadow streaking across the surging waves toward her. Tempest turned just as the sailor and the bronze dragon closed in—but she couldn’t avoid the allies’ desperate charge.

  Sparks shot into the rainswept air as Mik drove the coral lance deep into the sea dragon’s throat, just below her long neck.

  Tempest squealed in surprise and pain, then bellowed with rage.

  Mik and the bronze dragon lunged forward again, driving the coral lance deeper into the wound. Mik twisted the lance, trying to hit some vital area; the key dangling at his neck glowed, adding its power to the magic of the lance.

  The enraged sea dragon wheeled and smashed her fin- like foretalon into Shimmer’s side. Her claws ripped through the scarred and battered membrane of his wing. Shimmer roared in pain. Scintillating magical energy blazed from his mouth and shook the air with the sound of thunder.

  The electricity blasted through Tempest’s mane of Turbidus leeches and scarred and burned her titanic scales. She toppled back into the water, nearly pulling the lance from Mik’s hands.

  Tempest’s body smashed into the sea at the base of the silver stairs. Her stupendous weight sent a huge wave surging across the ocean’s surface. Floundering off shore, Red Wake tipped and almost rolled over. Brine splashed high into the rain-clotted air, nearly reaching the Temple of the Sky. The sea dragon rolled across the base of the volcano, thrashing like a titanic beached fish.

  Tempest’s black blood dripped from Kell’s lance, spattering Mik’s face and arms. Hanging over his heart, the bejeweled key glowed brightly. He grabbed onto a bronze spike in front of him as Shimanloreth wobbled in the air.

  Shimmer struggled to stay aloft. The wind whistled through the tears in his wing, and his wounds filled the air with a fine spray of blood. Mik clung precariously to the bronze dragon’s scaly back. Bracing themselves for a final attack, they spiraled down toward their enemy on the mountainside below.

  * * * * *

  Ula thrust her head above water. Every bone in her body ached, and lights danced before her eyes. The entire world seemed distant and unreal—some nightmare reality unconnected to her.

  Lighting crashed into the sea, and the waves heaved up like mountains. Red Wake, not so terribly far away, listed horribly, as though it might sink at any moment.

  From the sky above, Shimmer fluttered down toward Tempest, who writhed upon the steep slopes of the Isle of Fire. The bronze dragon looked worse than Ula had ever seen him, but somehow he persevered. And was that Mik on Shimmer’s back?

  Yes, it was! The sailor held Kell’s coral lance in his hands, poised to strike Tempest’s black heart.

  As Ula’s friends drew near the sea dragon, though, Tempest turned toward them, steam leaking from between her hideous teeth.

  “Look out!” Ula cried, though the crashing of the waves and the din of the storm smothered her warning.

  *****

  Tempest threw her jaws wide and belched a cloud of boiling steam at the bronze dragon and his rider.

  Shimmer thrust the remnants of his tattered wings wide, trying to shield Mik from Tempest’s scalding blast. The bronze dragon’s eyes and scales blistered, and the membranes covering his wings sizzled away, but his stratagem worked.

  Mik gasped for breath, and his skin scorched, but he held on. “Shimmer!” he cried, but the bronze dragon could not hear him. Blindly, Shimanloreth fell toward the Isle of Fire.

  Tempest snapped at them, but missed, as they passed her awful head.

  Shimmer crashed heavily into the plaza below the Temple of the Sky.

  Forty-Four

  The Isle of Fire

  The bronze dragon’s weight shook the 1 courtyard and smashed the marble flagstones into shards. The landing’s decorative columns toppled like ninepins, but the silver stair persevered.

  The bone-jarring impact of the landing threw Mik from Shimmer’s back. The sailor twisted in the air and hit hard in the rubble near the base of the final stair. Thunder roared in Mik’s ears; he fought to keep from blacking out.

  Shimmer, slowly shrinking into a smaller, half-human form, lay broken and bleeding amid the remnants of the plaza. He breathed in ragged, shallow gasps, but otherwise did not move. Rain cascaded down around them, pelting Mik’s scorched skin like a thousand tiny needles.

  The coral lance lay near the mariner’s right hand, and he picked it up. Groggily, he got to his feet and peered toward the ocean below. What he saw froze his heart.

  Half-blinded and maimed, but not nearly dead, the immense form of Tempest crawled up the silver stair toward them. In her remaining yellow eye burned all the fires of hatred within the evil dragon’s soul.

  “Thank you ... for bringing me . . . my key . . . little man!” she hissed, her voice shaking the mountain.

  She belched another gout of boiling steam, but Mik ducked back toward the upper stairway, and the angle of the plaza shielded him from the blast.

  He turned and ran up the stairs toward the temple, his exhausted muscles burning with every step.

  Tempest reached the shattered landing and glowered up at him. A long trail of her blood covered the stairs below, and her heaving breath shook the broken flagstones. With barely a sideways glance, she batted Shimmer’s body off the plaza. The bronze knight sailed through the air, trailing streamers of blood, and crashed into the sea at the mountain’s base.

  Mik reached the Temple of the Sky. The ancient key burned on his chest, and the great diamond flared in its presence. The cornerstone of the Veil shown nearly as bright as the sun, chasing away the storm’s dark shadows.

  The sailor cursed himself. He was no magician, as Karista had once been. He didn’t know how to turn the power of the gem or the key against the monster pursuing him. He had already used every trick he knew. Before him lurked the sea dragon, at his back, the fiery maw of the volcano. All his friends were dead, and he had no place left to turn.

  The coral lance throbbed within his grasp and Mik fought to maintain his grip. His scorched, blood-stained hands looked ghostly pale—almost white in the blinding light from the glittering diamond. The key hanging at his chest burned almost as brightly. He could not bear to look at either of them.

  A deadly smile drew slowly over Mik Vardan’s battered and bloody face.

  Roaring her pain and rage, Tempest lumbered up the steps and into the temple. She cast her undamaged baleful eye around the temple plaza, seeking her foe, but did not see him.

  The great diamond burned at the center of the temple, bright as the sun. She could not look at it and turned away. As she did, Mikal Vardan stepped from behind the diamond and thrust the coral lance into her remaining eye.

  Tempest shrieked and thrashed her head, yanking the lance from Mik’s hand. The weapon shot out of her punctured eye and soared through the air into the surf far below. The weapon, though, had done its work.

  Blinded, Tempest surged toward Mik, smashing the temple’s columns as she came.

  The sailor grabbed the keystone diamond and dove out of her way—not quite fast enough.

  Tempest’s body hit him hard, and he flew through the courtyard into a fallen column. Agony like lightning shot up his back, and the huge diamond slipped from his grasp.

  The sea dragon barreled on, unaware in her agony that she had already struck her enemy. She thundered through the temple, howling in rage and pain. By the time her webbed foretalons hit the rim of the volcano, she had too much momentum to stop.

  With a startled shriek, Tempest fell over the edge of the crater and into the volcano’s fiery heart. In an instant, the lava consumed her.

  Dazed and bleeding, Mik rose to his feet.

  The island shuddered with the dragon’s passing, and the volcano stirred to life.

  Though the Temple of the Sky lay in ruins, miraculously, the rune-carved column at its center remained standing. Mik retrieved the
great diamond—glowing only dimly now—and placed it back on its pedestal.

  He took a long, deep breath, but it cleared his head only a little. The temple floor trembled again, and the red glow from the crater beyond increased.

  Mik gazed down at the key hanging around his neck. Its bejeweled surface sparkled seductively, and a picture formed in his mind—a monstrous, glittering diamond, not nearly so precious now as the friends he had lost.

  The treasures in the pit surrounding the pedestal glowed bright red—the color of blood. The diamonds and jewels whispered to him. In his mind’s eye, Mikal Vardan saw himself surrounded by wealth, he saw the Veil fading into the mists of time, and he saw the Dragon Isles fall.

  “No,” Mik said sofdy.

  He pulled the jeweled key from around his neck and cast it into the rising lava.

  As the key’s magic abated, the temple around him grew transparent, like a mirage that disappears when approached. Mik felt the flagstones under his feet quiver. He cursed himself for a fool and sprinted toward the stairs.

  “Serves me right for not understanding more about magic,” he said to no one in particular.

  Mik leaped down the silver stairway, taking three or four steps at a time. As he neared the plaza below, though, the stairs seemed less like stone and more like clouds beneath his feet.

  Knowing he had little time left before the silver stair disappeared altogether, he raced to the precipice and threw himself over the edge. He cleared the volcano’s cliff-like face easily enough, but his mind was still groggy, and the ocean below seemed to be rushing up to greet him awfully fast.

  Mik hit the surging waves like a sack of bricks; the ocean smashed the breath from his weary body.

  He tumbled head over heels through the breakers and sank below the surface. Instinctively, he reached for his enchanted fish necklace, only then remembering it was gone.

  The brine crushed in around him. He clawed frantically, seeking air but finding only more water. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down.