by Mark Acres
George looked up to the sky, and terror struck his heart. For there, high above, coming one from the far right and one from the far left, were two seemingly tiny, winged creatures who were the source of this awesome wind. In his heart of hearts, George knew at once.
Dragons.
“By all the gods,” George shouted to the kings. “Look! ‘E’s brought us dragons!”
All along the front, pandemonium broke out. Men began to scream in terror. Many fell to earth, hugging it, weeping with fear. Others tried to run, but the winds kept knocking them about so that they flew across the field like tumbleweeds in a storm.
George kicked the flanks of his horse and rode forward full tilt, struggling to keep his body on the steed as the winds continued to increase.
“It’s fire from ‘eaven, boys! Fire from ‘eaven! And it’s on our side. It’s on our side!” he shouted, again and again, stopping now and then to scream his message into the ear of an officer, who could pass it along.
The fire came down.
Bagsby’s mount swooped low over the field, heading straight toward the two legions that moments before had been about to embrace the Alliance only fifty yards away. Scratch opened his mighty jaws, and the greatest stream of flame the dragon had yet breathed came forth in an enormous, streaming gout—rolling and licking down the line of the Heilesheim pike blocks, incinerating everything in its path, spreading with the speed of lightning until, in a matter of seconds, the flames fanned by the intense winds had burned through the entire force of ten thousand men.
The Heilesheimers screamed in fear and panic, then they became silent as the flames sucked the very air from their seared lungs. Bodies burst into flames, and the stench of charred flesh, whipped by the winds, rose from the field and made its way toward the rear ranks of both armies where horses, spooked by the scent, began to bolt in panic.
On the Alliance right, Lifefire and Shulana dealt similar treatment to the enemy, until the two great dragons passed one another at a height of a mere fifty feet above the field.
Bagsby screamed into the din, with no hope of being heard, “The day is ours! The day is ours!”
“Valdaimon, you must do something! Do something!” Ruprecht cried in panic and rage as he saw the magnificent, fire-breathing beasts consume his legions.
“Retreat!” Culdus ordered curtly, waving back the cavalry.
“No!” Ruprecht screamed. “No! Wizard, kill those dragons! I know you have the power! Use it!”
Valdaimon stood silent, gazing in undisguised awe at the spectacle of the fiery field and soaring, red-hued beasts of whom he had, for countless centuries of his undead existence, only dreamed. They were, he thought, magnificent. They were beyond his wildest expectations. They were the secret of the Treasure of Parona, the fire from heaven, the source of limitless power. They were everything for which he had schemed and dreamed for centuries. It was only a matter of chance circumstance that they were, at the moment, arrayed against him. He could change that—he could make a plan ...
“Kill them!” Ruprecht screamed at the old mage.
“Kill them?” Valdaimon shouted back. “You stupid upstart pup! I will not kill them! They shall be mine! They must be mine!”
“How in ten thousand hells can those ever be yours?” Ruprecht cried.
“Make peace!” the wizard screamed back. “Make peace! We shall win them over yet!”
An explosion of brilliant light suddenly illuminated Valdaimon and his king, and from that light—teleported instantly from the Great Temple of Wojan in Hamblen—Sigurt the high priest stepped forth.
“Valdaimon!” the high priest called. “You have broken your oath to the God of War. Your healing is revoked.”
“No!” Valdaimon screamed, his single, extended syllable becoming unintelligible as the wizard’s arm withered and his face appeared to melt before the horrified eyes of the king.
“Ruuuuppp ...” Valdaimon called. “Oooomuss em meee ...”
“Now, evil one, learn the price of disobedience to the gods,” Sigurt continued in a loud monotone. “Valdaimon of Heilesheim, in the name of Wojan, I command you ...”
A horrible wail arose from the stinking disfigured form as Sigurt’s hand reached forth to touch Valdaimon lightly on what was once his shoulder.
“Live!” Sigurt said.
Ruprecht watched in horror as the body of Valdaimon crumbled to dust before his eyes, to be scattered by the great wind still sweeping from the field, where Scratch and Lifefire, Bagsby and Shulana were finishing the destruction of the army of Heilesheim.
Far from the continuing din of battle, on the field where the astonished Alliance troops consolidated their victory and their knights were at last unleashed to pursue the panicked, routing cavalry of Heilesheim, Bagsby stood by Scratch’s side and watched Shulana slide down from Lifefire’s back.
“I thank you, friends,” Bagsby said. “I assure you, I will see that the peace I promised you is yours.”
“As for the rest of your promise...” Lifefire began.
“It will be kept,” replied the voice of Elrond.
Shulana whirled to see the old elf—the leader of the Elven Council, her blood kinsman, the oldest of his kind—slowly walking toward Scratch.
“I hear you are called Scratch,” Elrond said, “and you are Lifefire.”
“True, elf,” Scratch grumbled.
Shulana ran forward, throwing her arms around Elrond.
“You can’t,” she said.
“It will be all right,” Bagsby said lightly. “Tell me, Scratch, who was it that the elf killed? You know, the Ancient One she’s called, but what was her real name? Bet you don’t even know it!”
Scratch bellowed in anger, a word unintelligible to human ears. “There, you see, I do know it,” the dragon roared.
“Thank you, Scratch,” Bagsby said. “Now that we know the name, we can lift the curse she placed on the elves, proclaiming their destruction.”
“Enough!” Lifefire bellowed, her voice for once even deeper than that of Scratch, and the volume so great that Bagsby and Elrond were thrown to the ground by the blast. “Scratch, be silent! The old ways will no longer do. We have a race to create—we need peace,” Lifefire said.
The dragon turned her huge neck and lowered her head over Elrond’s prone body. The old elf looked up into the dragon’s eyes.
“Tell me, elf,” Lifefire demanded, “how are you called?”
“My name,” Elrond said, revealing his true name in the magical language of elves, “is Lelolan.”
“Then, Lelolan, let there be peace between your kind and mine.”
“Yeah,” Bagsby said with a weary sigh. “But what peace will there be between us humans once we get this mess cleaned up?”
“Perhaps,” Shulana suggested, “you can come up with some mad scheme that will help. You’re usually pretty successful with those ...”
“Sometimes,” Bagsby said, smiling. “Sometimes.”
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