by R. E. Fisher
He searched the walls, looking for the breech that he was supposed to find; it didn’t take long for him to find it. It was a huge gaping maw of black against the various blue-black hues of the stone floor and remaining walls. He crept toward it and was soon able to see within. He looked to the ground and noticed that rubble lay scattered on the floor.
That would be noisy if kicked, he thought, stepping over and around all the loose stones and pebbles, moving into the opening. He looked about the unfamiliar surroundings, noticing that the area appeared to be an old natural cavern; hundreds of stalactites and stalagmites covered the floor and ceiling. After examining the cavern for a short period, he noticed a pattern within them. It seemed to be a path of some sort that had been broken through the stalactites by something large. He began following it, minding his steps and looking for loose rubble. He did his best not to disturb any of it, knowing that any sound would echo about the large cavern and alert its inhabitants of his presence.
After making his way deeper into the darkness, he saw the slight glow of a living being ahead of him and began making his way toward it. The pattern was interrupted by a couple of the vertical stone columns that hadn’t been knocked to the ground. Upon realizing how far from the beast he was, he realized that they were in for a fight, and that some would not be making it home.
With little effort, he glided toward the beast to get as close as he dared, stalking the darkness like a shadow himself. He surveyed the area and began hanging the thin line in a pattern that was parallel to the beast’s; he hung torches from it every few feet, cutting it when he finished. As he worked the line, he picked up any small stones he found, placing them in the top of his boots to keep them from making noises caused by him or by others who would come along later.
After hanging all the torches onto the line, he had strung, he went back to the center of that line and tied the remaining string to it. The torches were far enough apart to keep from rattling against one another as the line shifted. Helor smiled, knowing that the worst was over for the time being.
Pulling the line taut, he tied it off on the stalactite nearest the entrance. At the opening to the main tunnel, he began the tedious task of removing any loose rubble that might signal their presence if disturbed. He completed the mundane task several hours later, after many trips to remove the stones from his boots and having to set them quietly onto the floor on the far side of the opening. Feeling that he had accomplished all that had been asked of him, Helor made his way back toward the access tunnel quietly.
As promised, the men had all been lined up against the wall, the order different than it had been during their trek in. The new order of travel had Helor leading, followed by Dumas, then Sterling, Ollie, Laz, and Lightbeard. Winston followed him, and then the remaining dwarves were lined up with Jehosaa bringing up the rear. They all stood by in the near darkness, with one torch lit and Sterling holding it while they waited for him. Helor walked up to Sterling, lighting one more torch and receiving a small item from the dwarf. The half-elven placed it into a small pouch on his knife belt. “I found it. It’s all set up,” Helor advised them.
Sterling nodded in response, but turned and passed his torch back to Ollie, where it was then passed all the way back to Jehosaa one man at a time. Helor kept the other for himself and took the lead, guiding them toward the passage opening. They traveled back to the opening by the dim light of the two torches in complete silence. As they neared it, Helor stopped and signaled for Jehosaa to extinguish his torch; he did so, but not before every man in line put his hand on the person in front of him. Sterling took hold of Dumas’s tail uncomfortably, not sure if the bear would take that as some sort of an affront.
Helor looked at Dumas, who leaned forward slightly, allowing Helor to place his hand on his head to guide him. Helor told each of them to draw their weapons quietly, then rubbed his torch out on the floor. After his eyes adjusted, he led the group to the tether line that he had erected earlier. In the absolute blackness, Helor guided Dumas to the line; the bear then began to follow it by running his ear along it to feel where it led. Helor then guided Sterling to the line and placed his hand onto it; each man then placed the hand of the man behind him onto it as he located it. Running their hands along the line, they followed it, careful to avoid disturbing any stones Helor may have missed. Helor moved back in front of Dumas, guiding them to the crossing line holding the torches. He then sent each man in alternating directions as they arrived, where they counted down the torches as they had been instructed.
The fear within each of them grew as they waited for the rest of them to get into position. Laz and Ollie had been separated at the line, one sent in each direction; Winston found himself standing next to Laz, grinning in the darkness. After Helor saw that they were all in position and holding the line, he tugged on the line three times. Except for Winston, each of them lifted their torches and stepped under the line, ensuring that the torches didn’t hit their armor.
They lowered the torches, again letting them hang behind them, holding their position. Winston stepped around and then in front of his torch, waiting now with the rest of them. Helor leaned under the line of torches and stepped behind Dumas, pulling the item that Sterling had given him from his belt. He looked at it and examined the small metal box, remembering what he had been shown. He flipped it open, the click echoing throughout the chamber. He hurriedly put his thumb on the small wheel, spinning it.
The bright spark and small flame were extremely bright after all the hours in the dim light. Helor ran down the line of torches, lighting each of them as he rushed past. Everyone then rushed toward the dragon as it woke from the disturbance occurring within his home.
Jeresette watched all this with fascination. They were actually going to attack a dragon! That was foolish, as they were clearly outmatched by the behemoth. Jeresette decided that he could get closer to the monster’s treasure while they were fighting the beast and seek out the Sword of Jerrous. Still in his corporeal form, he drifted toward the pile of treasure that dragon was rising from and began searching for the sword he sought, trying to locate its magic.
As all the torches became lit, the glow from them provided more than enough light for the men to see what they faced. In the light of the torches, the beast appeared to be an ancient black dragon, its hide and scales having turned mostly gray or white by this point in its life. The dragon turned its head toward the light, seeing several dwarves and men rushing toward it. It suddenly felt that there was more there than what it was seeing, but it needed to get rid of the immediate threats first; opening its mouth, it spewed a gout of acid at them. The men managed to avoid the stream of vile fluid, most of it having fallen well short of them. It had been centuries since the dragon had fought any of those races, and it hadn’t anticipated the need to ever again. They had grown frightened of it when in its prime and had avoided it, and as it had grown older, it had avoided all of them. Their numbers were always a threat to its kind, with their hammers and axes. Why could they not just leave me alone? the beast asked himself as he rose and began moving toward them.
The dwarves rushed gleefully toward the battle, anxious to begin. With their weapons raised, they stormed toward the beast, diverting to either side of it. Jehosaa was the only one who had been forced to dodge the acid as the beast continued to spit at them, and he did so by diving ahead of the viscous fluid. He was determined to strike the first blow with his greatsword, so he rushed out ahead of the group of warriors. The rest of them were attempting to stay away from its giant mouth and its rows of razor-sharp teeth by running to its sides and haunches. As they neared the beast from different sides, both Laz and Ollie were already feeling overwhelmed by its sheer size, suffering from dragonfear.
Though many of the dwarves felt it as well, their lust for battle outweighed the fears its presence was generating within each of them. Dumas, having fought dragons before and being the fleetest, had managed to get past the beast’s shoulder even before it had
turned its head. He rushed up the pile of coin and valuables and launched himself at the dragon, his claws unable to penetrate the dragon’s scales. He landed hard against the dragon’s left rear thigh, his great weight and speed causing a loud popping noise within its body. The dragon let loose a howl of pain and turned its head to see the cause of it. It tried to turn its body as well; although its leg responded, it was not working as it should have. The dragon’s great weight and age, along with the damage Dumas had done, wouldn’t let it push off to turn toward the threat. Ollie had tried to keep up with Dumas, but the bear was faster than he’d imagined. He arrived at the edge of the dragon’s pile of treasure and looked up just as it turned its head to search for Dumas. He froze, unable to move closer now that he could see its unbridled ferocity.
Jeresette moved up over the pile of gold and treasure behind the dragon, and he watched as it now whipped its long, powerful tail toward the bear that had caused it so much pain. The tail passed through Jeresette, as he knew it would, missing the bear and striking the man next to him. Ollie was knocked from his feet and from the pile of gold. Jeresette ignored the blow to the outworlder and continued searching for the sword. Ollie landed on his back, his breath knocked from him, but he struggled to his feet to try and resume the fight.
Arriving at the dragon and heedless of the warning to avoid the beast’s mouth, Jehosaa Leotaa shouted the battle cry of his forefathers and leapt upward toward the wyrm. He brought his sword down, intending to drive the sword’s point in between two of the dragon’s scales on its breast. The sword tip slid off the beast, the force of his blow driving it down into the pile of coins and causing little harm to its scales, much less to the dragon itself. The force of the missed blow also caused Jehosaa to lose his footing on the unstable surface. With the sound of coins ringing as they were dislodged, he began sliding down the pile and barely managed to hang onto his sword while struggling to keep his balance. That left him open for attack, and the dragon swiped Jehosaa away with a lightning-fast thrust of its foreleg, sending the barbarian rolling down the pile of its glistening treasure.
Having seen the dragon turn its head toward Dumas on the other side, Sterling continued rushing at the beast. The dwarf, having fought such a monster before, wasn’t affected as much by the dragonfear. However, the man next to him wasn’t so fortunate; he watched as Laz slowed and came to a halt, staring in awe at the dragon.
“Keep moving!” he shouted at Laz, but Laz didn’t hear him. So, Sterling continued rushing toward the opening at the beast’s right flank and struck a heavy blow on the dragon’s leg with his battle-axe. The scales where he struck his blow cracked apart, causing but a small amount of damage. It was a start. He continued striking at the same spot, trying to expand the new wound, but it was tricky; the beast kept moving and striking out at him with its foot to rip him open with his razor-sharp talons.
Laz was unable to process the size of the beast. Back at the camp, Sterling and Dumas had told them what to expect and how to attack the monster once the torches had been lit. But as he found himself rushing toward it, he calculated that it stood taller than twenty feet at the shoulder, and he was only able to see about sixty feet of its head, neck, and body. He couldn’t see how they were going to harm the gigantic creature. Everything seemed to slow down for him as he watched while Sterling slowly looked to him and said something that he couldn’t hear. He decided to follow him, but as he tried to move forward, he realized that the ground beneath his feet wasn’t solid. He looked down and saw the gold coins that were causing him to slide everywhere. A loud, slow, rumbling roar was making his body vibrate. For some reason, it reminded him of what it had felt like when he had once stood next to a set of railroad tracks as a train had gone by him. This rumbling wasn’t ending, either. He stopped, unable to move. He watched as several dwarves, including Winston with his tiny daggers, moved slowly past him on his right. Laz was unable to act for some reason. Why is everyone moving so slow? he asked himself.
After hearing Sterling and the other dwarves shouting at Laz to keep moving, Winston looked back and saw that Laz had become frozen with fear. Winston realized that Laz was doomed if he didn’t start moving forward. In a heartbeat, the diminutive thief snatched up one of the gold coins and hurled it at him. As he tossed it toward the head of his friend, trying to get his attention, the ground below his feet shifted and he missed. Realizing that he himself was still at risk from the dragon, he leapt to his feet. He then darted toward the dragon’s flank. He knew that as stupid as it sounded, the safest place was up close, away from its teeth and breath; Dumas had told all of them that. He rushed forward, thrusting his daggers at the beast. Threefingers, Stonebeard, Twobeards, and Hammerheart managed to close on the dragon, and they began pounding on the beast with their axes and hammers. They rained wave after wave of blows upon it as if they were working the forges at home, each of them smiling while doing so.
On the other side of the beast, Sawbeard, Threebeards, Redbeard, Nightbeard, Grimbeard, and Lightbeard all closed on the dragon each within seconds of one another, and they, too, began raining blow after blow onto the hard scales of the beast. Their heavy, blunt hammers also hurt the dragon. The force of their blows on that side of the beast’s body inflamed the pain that he already felt because of Dumas’s blow as they repeatedly struck the beast’s hind leg. With each blow, he became more and more unable to move his leg; it wasn’t ripping at them with its claws as he intended it to do. But the dwarves saw that he was raising his wings, and they knew those could hurt or kill as well. Yet they continued to grin as they slammed their steel weapons onto the monster while waiting for the breeze that they knew was coming.
The pain that these creatures were causing the dragon was increasing. He realized that he had to move; these were no ordinary peasants, but warriors, and they intended to kill him. For what, he didn’t know; but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He pulled his tail back to strike at them again, and because he couldn’t put his full weight on his leg to turn, he held it back. He then raised his wings and began to use them to pummel the dwarves on the side that his pain was greatest while using his one good leg to shift himself away from them, all while snapping his jaws at them. He wanted to draw a deep breath so that he could spit his poison at them, but something was pounding away at his chest so hard it was preventing him from drawing the deep breath he needed.
He glanced down to see the cause and saw a single man with a single sword and an elf now heading toward him. He sensed no magic about its weapon, so how could that be causing his increasing pain? He felt the others striking him, too, and flipped his hind leg forward, trying to push Sterling and his group away from his body. He used his wing to move further away from Dumas, who had managed to rip one of the scales from his body and was using his claws and teeth to tear more of them from it, covering the bear in his blood in the process.
After lighting the torches, Helor drew his sword and dagger, rushed up beside his friend, and began striking at the beast, trying to drive his weapons under its scales. Helor’s natural agility allowed him to maintain his balance much better than his friend. As he closed in, he saw that the dragon was dropping its head to strike at Dumas and his group of dwarves. He leapt up onto the dragon’s left foreleg and then toward its mouth; he drove his sword into the soft flesh under its jaw, opening a gaping wound just before he fell to the ground in front of the beast. As he hit the ground, he rolled; coming up, he saw Ollie, who had just risen to his feet after the dragon had knocked him to the ground. Helor grabbed Ollie, pulling him with him. His quick decision caused the dragon to narrowly miss them both as it tried to grab them with its mouth.
The dragon roared its frustration, but the roar was short-lived, as it was out of breath and unable to continue. Not realizing what was happening, it started to collapse, rolling to its right. Winston, who had just managed to slip one of his daggers under one of its scales, had to let go of the valuable blade as the dragon’s body began rolling and sliding tow
ard him, threatening to crush the shelfling. He was forced to dart out of the beast’s way to keep the beast from rolling on top of him. Cursing, he ran and jumped down the hill of coins, following the dwarves, who were having to abandon their positions as well. Being toward the back of the beast, Sterling was able to rush under the tail of the dragon as its body began to roll and slide down its mountain of treasure.
Unsure of the reason he was having trouble controlling his body and unaware that his venerable age had caught up to him, the dragon saw that one of the humans wasn’t moving. Foolish of it, he thought. It stood, just watching him. The dragon turned his head toward the human and with what little breath he could muster, he hurled his poison at it. The cloud of acid struck the human about its head and shoulders. The dragon watched as it screamed in agony, collapsing as its flesh began melting. Sallowfeer was satisfied that he had killed at least one of the monsters that were attacking him.
Realizing the danger, he was in, Laz dropped his sword and pulled out his service weapon. He pointed it at the dragon’s head and began squeezing the trigger; he watched in horror as the trigger fell forward as it should, but the round didn’t fire. It had misfired! After he brought the failed weapon up to shoot the beast, he saw the dragon’s huge, hate-filled eyes staring at him, his mouth open, teeth exposed. The scent of cinnamon hit Laz just before the spray of acid did, eating into his exposed flesh. His screams of pain, however brief they were, echoed throughout the dark cavern as the caustic cloud burned most of his lungs, damaging them beyond use. His right eye turned to liquid as it melted and began streaming down his cheek. Still able to see from his one remaining eye, he realized that he was falling, because his legs weren’t responding. He watched as everything began moving in slow motion. He saw the foreleg of the dragon swiping toward him as a cat would a mouse, and as he was struck in the chest, its sharp claws tore the acid-rotted leather from his body. It lifted him high into the air, then threw him to the ground.
