“That’s assuming we can kill him in the first place.” Timmy rolled his eyes. “It’s also clear that the Council doesn’t understand necromancy. Katie, why don’t you explain to Gerald here why his suggestion is a no go?”
“Of course.” Katie went into lecturing mode. “Dragons are extremely powerful magical creatures, and their souls are often tightly bound to their bodies. Bringing them back using necromancy is possible, but sometimes they come back with their wills intact. A dragon as old and powerful as Black Scales is almost certainly going to come back knowing who we are and what we did. That won’t end well. Our best bet is to split the body apart and sell off the remains. That will help break the bond between his spirit and his remains. It should also make us a very handy profit.” She paused. “And I’ve been meaning to redecorate the castle. It’s kind of gloomy.”
“I see.” Gerald made several notes in one of his notebooks. “The Council did give us leave to sell his remains if we couldn’t bring him back. We can share the profits.”
“You keep saying ‘we’.” Avraniel rubbed her hands together gleefully. Timmy studied her. Interesting, she was greedy and a pyromaniac. “Does that include me?”
“You get to keep 15% of the profits.”
“Make it 30%?” Avraniel growled.
“20%.”
“Give me 25%, hand another 25% to the necromancer, and give the other 50% to the Council, unless you want a share.” Avraniel folded her arms over her chest. “Agree to that, and I’ll help you kill your dragon.” She caught the disbelieving looks from Katie and Timmy. “What? I agreed to help you, but I need to have some more money in my retirement fund if I ever want to buy my own tropical island.” She paused. “Why not try and negotiate with Black Scales? If the Council is so worried about a war, he’d be a great help.”
“We’ve tried. We offered him a mountain of gold the last time. He ate our negotiators.”
“That does put a dampener on things.” Avraniel chuckled. “He always was an angry bastard. By the way, when are you going to take these suppressors off me? You do realise that I can’t fight a dragon like this.”
“When we’re closer.” Timmy was fairly sure that she wasn’t going to betray them, but she had tried to stab him with a spoon during breakfast when he’d laughed about her spilling her stew.
“Oh, what’s the matter?” Avraniel sneered. “Did the wooden spoon scare the big, bad necromancer?”
Timmy glanced at Gerald. “Do you think I can hit her with my shovel again? We could always wake her up when we get closer.”
“No. We’re trying to win her trust. I don’t think hitting her with a shovel will help.”
“I’m right here, you know.” Avraniel took to the trees again. “And if I wanted to kill you, I could still do it. The bureaucrat can’t fight his way out of a paper bag, and that shovel of yours isn’t so great if I know it’s coming. As for the girl and her rats… I have my ways.”
“Anyway,” Gerald said. “It would also be breaking the rules if I let you hit her.”
“I’ve read the rules –”
“No, you made me read them,” Katie said.
“There’s nothing against us practicing with each other.” Timmy nodded sagely. “I’d be practicing my shovel technique, and I’d only hit her a little bit.”
Katie muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘idiots’. Avraniel laughed. Let Timmy do his worst. He wouldn’t get her with that shovel again. No way.
“If bludgeoning each other isn’t an option, what can you tell us about the dragon?” Timmy asked.
“Black Scales is old.” The elf dropped back into the saddle behind Katie. Monet tried to poke her in the eye with his grappling hook but missed. “As in very, very old. But that works in our favour. He’s well past his prime although he’s still incredibly dangerous. He’s big, sure, but he’s not as strong or as fast as he once was, and his vision isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. Think of him as a crotchety old man, only he’s giant, flies, has incredibly tough armour, and breathes fire.”
“So… we’ve got a chance?”
“Not much of one, but it is better than it would have been three or four centuries ago. We’ve still got another few days before we reach the edge of his domain. They call it the Forest of Woe. I can tell you more on the way.”
“The Forest of Woe?” Timmy hadn’t been this far north before. Few humans had. “Doesn’t that sound delightful? What can you tell us about that?”
“Ah, the Forest of Woe.” Avraniel grinned and reached over to ruffle Katie’s hair again. This time, however, Rembrandt was waiting with his sword drawn. She smirked at the rat and then pulled her hand back. “Imagine a forest of dark, towering trees, a place where the reign of a very angry dragon with corrupting magic has lasted so long that no one in their right mind lives or travels there anymore. Imagine a place where all the animals are a little too big and have a little too many teeth and claws, and all of them want nothing more than to rip you limb from limb in the most horrific way imaginable. Can you do that?” The others nodded, and she laughed. “Now multiply that by a million.”
“Woah…” Katie said.
“Yes, woe.” Avraniel patted Rembrandt on the head and leaned to the side to avoid a swipe of his sword. “So keep your guard up. You’ll know when we get there. Believe me, there’s no missing it.”
Avraniel was right.
When they finally reached the outskirts of the Forest of Woe, the reaction from the others was, as Avraniel had predicted, one of awe.
“Woah.”
“Yes, woe.”
Katie scowled at the elf. “No, I mean… woah.”
“Whatever.”
The trees here towered over even the other trees of the forest, most of them rising up hundreds of feet into the air. They were even thicker too, and their branches were heavy with large, misshapen leaves that were a sickly brown colour. Their trunks were dark, almost black, but they hadn’t been burnt. It was like the shadows themselves were clinging to the trees. Even the sun was different, weaker and a strange orange, and the constant scurrying of things in the shadows did not bode well for them. At their feet, the snow was a dirty grey, mottled with brown. An unpleasant smell filled the air, not unlike rotting flesh, and the few tufts of grass that poked out of the snow were grey, twisted stalks of brittle material.
Timmy was not the least bit happy about being here. The whole place felt more like a graveyard than a forest. He’d also caught a glimpse of something watching them from the shadows, something with a vaguely lupine head, but it was far too large and had far too many legs. Above them, something with wings fluttered past. It was about the size of an eagle, but instead of feathers, he saw the gleam of scales and an arachnid carapace.
“Okay, we’re here. Where is the dragon?” Timmy could make out the sky, a vast carpet of steel grey, through a massive gap in the tree line. Something big had come this way, tearing up trees and tossing them aside like matchsticks. The earth here was scorched, and the smell of rotting flesh was even stronger than before. That feeling of corruption, of something utterly and completely wrong, was also present. The sky above them darkened, and it began to rain. Wonderful.
“There is a mountain range north of here. Black Scales lives there. It’s several more days journey. But if we hurry –” Avraniel trailed off as a titanic, winged shape tore through one of the clouds. Her eyes narrowed, and then her face paled. Steam billowed across the horizon. “Oh crap.”
“Oh crap? What does that mean?” Timmy grabbed his shovel and tried to follow Avraniel’s gaze, but his eyes weren’t nearly as keen. “What does that mean?”
“It means that the old bastard we’re here to kill is on his way right now. I don’t know how he noticed us, but we’ve got a couple of minutes, tops, before he gets here.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in. Then Timmy said what everyone else was thinking. “Well… crap.”
Crap was inde
ed the best way to put it. Timmy had seen many dragons over the years, most of them dead. But none of them had approached the sheer size of the behemoth tearing toward them. Black Scales had to be at least five hundred feet long, all black scales, burning red eyes, and an aura of choking, mind-breaking malevolence that made it difficult to even breathe and rotted all the foliage nearby.
“Please tell me that you have a plan.” Katie’s shadows stirred restlessly, and the rats on her shoulders trembled. “Otherwise, we’re about to die horribly, and I really, really don’t want to die horribly.”
“Maybe he hasn’t actually seen us,” Timmy said. “We could be overreacting.” Naturally, the dragon chose that exact moment to bank toward them and roar. “Never mind. First things first – run!”
They didn’t need to be told twice. Black Scales hurtled overhead, and there was a sound like every hurricane in the world put together before everything caught fire. Flame the colour of pitch and hotter than the sun poured down from the sky. Timmy urged his horse into a wild gallop through the trees. A quick look behind him told him all he needed to know. The dragon’s fire was impossibly hot, simply obliterating everything it touched. The concussive force of it tore up the earth and sent up a shower of molten rock and stone.
Katie’s horse galloped at full speed as she did her best to hold on. Nearby, Gerald was also riding for his life as Avraniel bounded madly from tree to tree.
“Get these damn suppressors off me!”
“Katie,” Gerald shouted. “Cut them off.”
Katie’s shadows flicked out. She missed on her first few attempts before finally cutting off the strength and magic suppressors. In a flash of movement, the elf leapt off into the trees – in the opposite direction to the rest of them. Timmy spat a curse as the dragon banked over them again. The wind of his passage was enough to throw them off their horses, and the animals bolted for freedom.
“Damn it.” Timmy clutched at his shoulder. He’d definitely done something to it, but there was no time to worry about it now. “Run! Run!”
Gerald glanced over his shoulder, and the terrified expression on his face before he tripped and slid down a hill was all the warning Timmy needed. Black Scales was right there, his cavernous maw opened to swallow them whole as he dove low to the ground. There was no way he could dodge, and he wasn’t about to leave Katie to die. So he did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed Katie and drove his shovel into the ground. The earth lurched upward and hurled them up onto the dragon’s snout.
For a second, he could only stare into the gigantic eyes of the dragon, each one of them bigger than he was. Then he and Katie did what they did best against a stronger opponent – they fought dirty. Katie stabbed the dragon in the eyes with her shadows while Timmy tried to bash its skull in with his shovel.
“Die, dragon!” Timmy roared. “Taste shovel!” He’d killed a zombie dragon before. This was no different. Oh, whom was he kidding? This was very different. He’d be lucky if he managed to make it through the next ten minutes without getting eaten.
Alas, not even his mighty shovel could crack the dragon’s skull. Dragons were largely impervious to magic, and their scales and bones were extremely durable. He would have broken through solid granite by now, but he wasn’t sure if he’d done anything more than get the dragon angrier. Even the dragon’s eyes weren’t really weak spots since they were covered in a thick film that could stand up to most of Katie’s shadows, and the dragon’s eyelids were covered in the same scales that covered the rest of its body. But all the blinking Black Scales had to do had definitely begun to annoy him. He tossed his head from side to side, and Timmy would have fallen off were it not for one of Katie’s shadows and Monet’s grappling hook. He flashed the rat a smile. He was going to have to give him a raise when they got back, along with whatever he wanted out of the kitchens.
“What now?” Katie shouted. The dragon flicked its head to try and shake them loose, but they clung on for dear life. It was almost impossible to move with the wind and rain rushing past. Meanwhile, the forest beneath them had turned into a vast sea of black fire and steam.
His master would have loved the property damage. Heck, he’d have fanned the flames and then turned all the elves into zombies afterward. Timmy, however, had bigger concerns, like how to deal with the fact that they were several hundred feet off the ground on the snout of an angry dragon. It was tempting to jump, but they wouldn’t survive a fall from this height.
“I’m not sure. I was going to hit it with my shovel some more.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.”
Katie screamed as her shadows lost their grip on the dragon. Timmy managed to grab her by the edge of her robes and throw her up onto a safer perch.
“Hold on.” Timmy clambered after her using Monet’s grappling hook. “Wait… what’s that?”
There was an enormous flare of magic from the ground below – more magic than Timmy had felt in years. It was also very familiar. It was Avraniel, and the elf was truly flexing her magical muscles. The elf wasn’t holding back anymore, and she’d clearly been holding back against them. A cloud of white flame formed on a hilltop, collapsing and condensing until it was too bright to look at. Then a blast of incredible, searing heat roared up into the sky. It was enough power to vaporise a large hill, enough, maybe, to hurt even a dragon if it was aimed right.
There was only one problem: it was aimed at the dragon’s head, and he and Katie were still on top of the dragon’s head.
“Jump!” Timmy shouted. “Jump now!”
“Are you crazy?” Katie grabbed onto him as both her rats bonked him over the head. Then she noticed the incoming attack. Her eyes widened. “Never mind! Jump, master! Jump!”
“That’s what I said.” Timmy grabbed Katie and jumped.
The attack hit the dragon squarely on the head, and the force of it rocked the sky. Flame billowed outward, white hot, and Timmy and Katie tumbled through the air.
“Wings, Katie.” Timmy wrapped his arms around his apprentice. “Make wings!”
The girl’s magic flared to life, and the darkness inside her sleeves rippled outward to form vast, shadowy wings. “Now what?”
“What do you mean? Flap your wings!”
Katie flapped her newly made wings frantically, but it soon became evident that gravity was, as usual, going to win. “It’s not working, master! We’re still falling.”
“But we are slowing down.” Timmy took a deep breath and gathered his magic. “Strengthen your wings as much as you can, Katie. Try to glide.”
“Right.” Katie poured more magic into her makeshift wings, and they grew larger and more solid. But they were still headed for the ground. “It’s still not working.”
“Brace yourself.” Timmy hurled his shovel toward the area where they were about to land. The hard earth liquefied, and a geyser of mud shot forward to catch them and slow their descent. They tumbled through it, and Katie gave a strangled squawk of outrage. She hated to get her robes dirty. But she still had the presence of mind to dispel her wings and use her shadows to try and grab hold of the trees nearby. It wasn’t enough. Timmy wrapped his arms around her and twisted to take the worst of it.
They hit the muddy ground hard and rolled, kicking up a spray of muck. Timmy hissed as his injured shoulder scraped off a rock, and a stray branch clipped his forehead. They came to a stop beside an old tree stump, and Timmy waited for the world to stop spinning. At least they were alive. He lifted one hand, and his shovel flew toward him.
“When we get back home,” Timmy said, stumbling back to his feet and helping Katie up. “You’re going to practice making wings and flying because I am not doing that again.”
Katie didn’t reply. Instead, she tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the sky.
He looked up.
Uh oh.
Avraniel’s attack had stunned the dragon. It was falling out of the sky – right toward them.
“Seriously?” Timmy took
a few valuable seconds to shake his fist at the sky. “Seriously?” Then it was time to run. “Come on, Katie.”
Katie turned and promptly tripped over her own feet. Timmy cursed. Katie might act like an adult, but she was still a child. She’d used up enough of her magic that she’d begun to feel the effects. She’d never been a fast runner, so there was no way she’d be fast enough now. Timmy muttered one last thing about troublesome apprentices and then grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder, and ran down the hill as fast as his feet could carry him. That still wasn’t fast enough, so he used his shovel to turn the ground ahead of them into a muddy trench. He could slide downhill faster than he could ever run.
Black Scales hit the ground with a tremendous crash as he cracked several hills, smashed dozens of trees, and sent up a plume of steam and ash. Timmy and Katie hit the bottom of the hill and immediately began climbing up the side of the next one to try to get a better view. The dragon was already recovering, shaking his great head back and forth. Avraniel appeared on another hill nearby, and Timmy saw her gather her power for another attack. He didn’t know how many more of those she could use, but he doubted it would be many. That last attack had taken an incredible amount of magic. It had even managed to crack and melt some of the scales on the dragon’s head. The dragon spotted her and swung his head around to unleash a blast of fire at close range.
The trees around the dragon withered and died, and black flame gathered in his jaws. There was a dark flash, and day turned to night. Black fire swept forward, a tidal wave of raw destructive power. He might have cried out – Katie did – but things did not go as he expected. At the heart of the blast, a sphere of white fire remained. Avraniel was still alive.
As the dragon’s flame grew hotter and darker, tendrils of white fire began to creep through the attack. It took Timmy a few moments to understand what he was seeing. Avraniel wasn’t trying to block the attack – she was trying to take control of it. There was a crack of thunder as all the fire suddenly switched from pitch black to blinding white, and then the elf hurled the attack back at the dragon. Black Scales reeled away, crushing everything around him, and Timmy saw Avraniel standing atop the hill, wreathed in white, her eyes pools of molten gold, as strong and solid as any mountain.
Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf Page 9
