by Josh Powell
“Clem confused,” Clem said, while Pellonia gnawed away. “Girl no fit in portal.”
“Hold on to her,” Risabh said. Risabh surveyed the scene. Pellonia was struggling in Clem’s arms, effectively removed from the battle. Gurken, beaten and bruised by Clem, lay on the ground next to Arthur, moaning. Arthur was unconscious from Clem’s blow to the head.
“Clem,” Risabh said, smiling. “You’ve been remarkably effective.” Clem grinned. Risabh said, “I’m really quite good at my work.” Clem frowned.
Risabh looked around some more. The dragon was struggling against the enormous Phage tentacle, no match for its superior leverage and strength. The giant tentacle was, unfortunately, also clogging the portal and preventing the Phage from getting into the world. The beholder floated aimlessly nearby, looking forlorn at having been forgotten in the chaos. Risabh smiled.
“It’s coming to the end, Pellonia. Watch as your last hope dies along with any chance to prevent this world from plunging into eternal war. It’s delightful. Hinenuitepo, kill the dragon if you please.”
The beholder blasted the tentacle ball enclosing the dragon, alternating blasts of ice, fire, and lightning. The tentacle danced, blindly attempting to avoid the painful blasts and opening a hole which the dragon slipped through.
Risabh rolled his eyes and gestured for the flesh golem wizard to help. It pulled out its wand and said, “Exhauriebat Vitae.” The words dripped from its mouth, as dead as the caster. A purple beam, ringed by a black pulsing thread, wriggled from the wand, striking the dragon in a smoky burst. The pulses reversed direction, pulling back toward the wand as if suckling energy from the beast.
The dragon shrank. At least, it shrank until the spherical body of the beholder drifted between the wand and the dragon. The orbish eyes of the beholder ceased firing on the dragon and acted to protect the beholder. Lightning discharged, striking the flesh golem wizard and knocking him back into the waiting blanket of Phage. Another wall of ice sprouted from the ground interspersed between the wand and the beholder, and a gout of flame incinerated the wand.
The dragon, having lost some size from the blast of the purple wand, squirmed out of the tentacle’s grasp before the tentacle could bear down on her. She leapt onto the beholder from behind and bit the eye-orb-ball of cold in a terrible ripping and gnashing of teeth. The tentacle holding the orb stretched and ripped, spurting a yellowish-green fluid as the dragon slurped the orb, tentacle and all, down its terrible craw.
The beholder’s orb eyes whipped around, firing erratic bursts of flame and lightning, trying in desperation to blast the dragon off its head. The dragon, however, had other ideas and clenched its powerful, gore-soaked jaw.
A growth sprouted from the base of the dragon’s neck and a second head burst forth, an ivory neck and head covered in blood. It roared and unleashed a blizzard of hail and frost. Clouds darkened and roiled overhead, snow sprinkling to the ground.
The dragon’s two heads, the fevered crimson of a raging inferno and the numbing ivory frost of icy oblivion, snapped up the two remaining orbs, rending enormous chunks of the beholder in the dragon’s dreadful bite.
Omumborombonga swelled in mass as she devoured the beholder, floating and squirming until Omumborombonga swallowed the last of its flesh. Another head burst from the base of the dragon’s neck, a fathomless yawning sapphire blue with torrents of erupting sparks. The original crimson neck and head broadened and stiffened, unleashing an unrestrained hellfire that made its preceding conflagration seem a languid campfire.
The icy walls evaporated in a puff of steam, and a fiery holocaust unfolded as Phage incinerated, ashes scattering in the wind in a final, desperate whisper.
“Ah. Get the dragon — before — it transforms,” Risadh said. “I see Arthur’s point now.”
The dragon turned to Risadh and the beast’s heads bellowed in turn, alternating the head that spoke with each word.
“YOU. SHALL. DIE. FOR. KILLING. APOCALYPSE.”
At that, the hatch in the floor opened and Maximina leapt through, attempting to close it behind her.
“Ha!” Pellonia yelled to Risadh. “What do you think about our odds now?”
“DO. NOT. THINK. YOU. WILL. ESCAPE. MY. WRATH. ELFLING.”
The ground shuddered as Omumborombonga stepped toward her.
Pellonia’s mouth dropped open in shocked amazement. “Me?”
“YOU. ARE. JUST. AS. RESPONSIBLE. FOR. APOCALYPSE’S. DEMISE.”
“What happened? You were so nice,” Pellonia asked.
“I. WILL. KILL. YOU. ALL.”
The air around Omumborombonga’s largest head seethed in the scorching heat of her crimson skin as her jaw enclosed around Arthur’s orb of light rolling about the ground. An amber head burst forth from the dragon, joining the other three, augmenting Omumborombonga’s dreadful might.
Maximina, sitting on top of the hatch, said, “The reports of Apocalypse’s demise may have been a tad premature.” The hatch and Maximina lurched up once, twice, and the hatch exploded. Maximina launched a dozen feet into the air as a flood of Apocalypsesii streamed through the hatch, a rushing torrent of flailing wings, and ascended into the shadowy half-light of the dusky evening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Pedant and the Berserker
ARTHUR TRIED TO scream, but his tongue was stretched and pulled so it came out as more of a “muuuuuuuh.” His tongue snapped back and he saw two large black orbs before his eyes. They turned to the side, and pincers gripped him about the head, shaking him back and forth.
“All right, all right!” Arthur said, the fog clouding his head receding. “Where en the deuce am I?” he said, tongue swollen. “Whath going on?”
The faint scent of honeysuckle lingered in the air as Antic nuzzled Arthur’s cheek. “Anthic! Ahm tho happy to thee you!” Arthur wrapped his arm around the ant and pulled him in close.
He saw Gurken lying on his belly next to him, his face a purple bruised mass. Gurken groaned and pushed his head up. He saw Antic cuddling Arthur and smiled tentatively. “Welcome back, pendant wizard.”
Arthur sighed. “It’s ‘pedant wizard.’ We’ve been over this.”
And Gurken knew his friend had returned.
A hideous shriek filled the air as the four-headed Omumborombonga disgorged bursts of flame, ice, lightning, and light, simultaneously incinerating, freezing, electrifying, and eviscerating Risabh. Risabh stood a moment, taking a lumbering, tentative step as if unable to decide which way he was to die, and said, “This isn’t over! I’ll be ba—” and burst into a charred, splintered icy explosion.
“Huzzah!” Arthur shouted in glee, until Omumborombonga turned toward Pellonia. “Oh, dear.” Arthur cast about for something he could use and spotted Gurken’s axe, which he tossed to his friend.
“Ow! Hey! Get a dwarf’s attention before throwing something at him!”
“It’s ‘get a dwarves’ attention, Gurken! Wait. No, you’ve actually got that one right. I’m impressed.”
“Now’s not the time to be debatin’ the details of grammar, Arthur. We’ve got dragons to kill, more than one, a… what do you call a bunch of dragons, anyway?”
“A gaggle of dragons?” Pellonia suggested.
“Too funny sounding,” Maximina said. “Perhaps a murder of dragons?”
“Not so,” Arthur said. “Those suggestions lack sufficient scope. It’s an apocalypse. A dragon apocaly—”
Arthur was interrupted as the twilight dimmed. The apocalypse of dragons blocked the sun and the sky. They screeched in an ear-piercing howl.
Pellonia pointed towards the dragons, and Omumborombonga raised her amber head skyward. A cone of light filled the void, illuminating the dragons overhead. Omumborombonga took flight, her wings spawning a mighty gale and knocking everyone to the ground as she took to the air.
Pellonia ran over to Gurken and Arthur. She saw Antic and jumped on Arthur, squeezing him tight. “Ireallymissedyouwehaven’tgotmuchtime. Omum
borombonga will be back. She’s not happy. What are we going to do?”
Maximina crawled over to them. “I’m out of ideas, and the apocalypse of Apocalypses ate everything in my magic sack.”
“We’ll talk about what you’ve done later,” Pellonia growled.
“Gurken can use his axe,” Arthur said.
“It hasn’t worked in a long time,” Gurken said.
“That’s because it’s got Dwarven runes, not Dwarfen runes,” Arthur said.
Gurken glared at Arthur, “What did I just say about debatin’ grammar?Don’t be telling me about my culture, wizard.”
“I’m not informing you about your culture, Gurken. I’m informing you about magic. I don’t remember much from the time I was controlled by the Phage, but one thing I do remember is visiting the hall of wizards and getting the assembled body to ratify that, magically speaking, the word “its” is now “it’s” and “it’s” is “its.” The usage of the apostrophe is flipped to confuse the magic of the world. I know, I know, it’s terrible wordplay that’s really only of interest to wizards. More importantly for you, the word describing an item as belonging to a dwarf has been ratified as dwarven. Being a properly assembled wizarding council, it’s mystically binding.”
There was a pause and Gurken said, “I’m sorry. I stopped listening at ‘hall of wizards.’”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “If you want your axe to work, the runes must be dwarven, not dwarfen.”
Omumborombonga reached the dragons overhead and sailed about with them, luxuriating in the return of her lost young.
“We haven’t got long, we’ve to do something,” Pellonia said, watching the sky.
“Well, that doesn’t help us,” Gurken said to Arthur. “I’ve got dwarfen runes.” He shook his axe towards the wizard.
“It’s a matter of semantics, Gurken. If the owner of the axe believes them to be dwarfen runes, the magic doesn’t work. If, on the other hand, you consent to calling them dwarven, they’ll work fine.”
Gurken glared at Arthur, “I’m afraid not, wizard. They’re dwarfen.”
“This is no time to be stubborn,” Maximina said.
The night sky bathed in the radiance of a rainbow of light, as Omumborombonga unleashed a hellfire of dragon’s breaths. One of the Apocalypses, the target of Omumborombonga’s fury, fell from the sky. Omumborombonga dove and ravaged the dragon in midair, tearing the scales and flesh from the beast and devouring them. Omumborombonga’s skin shimmered as tiny golden scales sprouted over her skin.
The ground tremored as Omumborombonga landed, the severed head of an Apocalypse at her feet, limp tentacle dangling out of its mouth. Omumborombonga’s heads bellowed, scalding steam and arctic mist streaming from her nostrils.
“THAT. IS. NOT. APOCALYPSE.”
“Dwarven, Gurken,” Arthur pleaded. “It’s Dwarven.”
“Dwarven!” Pellonia said, nodding.
“Dwarven,” Maximina agreed.
Gurken pushed himself up, using his axe for support. Upon standing, he clutched his axe in both hands. He glared at Omumborombonga, staring the dragon down. His leather gauntlets creaked against the leather grip of the axe, giving voice to the agony radiating throughout Gurken’s body.
“It will always be Dwarfen.” Gurken charged.
“Oh, no,” Arthur, Pellonia, and Maximina said together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Berserker and the Dragon Apocalypse
THE FOUR HEADS of Omumborombonga watched as Gurken closed on her, small clouds of dust drifting behind his footsteps. The heads contemplated the dwarf as he entered the range of her dragon breaths, sprinted within reach of her fangs, leapt within claw range, and drove the axe into her chest. The axe sparked against the dragon’s scales, and emitted a metallic sound as it ricocheted away. Pling!
The axe deflected off of her and dug into the hard, dirt ground. Omumborombonga flicked Gurken with a claw, lobbing him a not inconsiderable distance from her… and from his axe.
Omumborombonga inhaled. A tempest drove by Gurken, his beard fluttering in the wind, as the dragon sucked air into each of her mouths. Gurken bowled over as he attempted to stand and rolled towards her. They say the vengeance of the gods finds physical form in the breath of a dragon. They do not do justice to the cataclysmic devastation wrought at the center of this dragon’s four breaths.
The infernal fire of bitter animosity.
The glacial tempest of grief-stricken mourning.
The resplendent luster of majestic grandeur.
The electrically charged strike of unrelenting torment.
Arthur and Pellonia screamed as any evidence of their friend was surely consigned to oblivion by the storm of destruction surrounding him.
As the fires died, the chill lifted, the bright lights dimmed, and the lightning dissipated, in their wake stood an imposing, dignified, and more than a little impressive ebony-skinned half-underelven woman with brilliant white hair and glowing green eyes. She was defiant. She was glorious. The verdant jewel gleamed in the platinum tiara she’d acquired from the elven ship. Maximina and Gurken were wrapped in a shimmering protective shield. Maximina levitated in the air between Gurken and Omumborombonga, small jets of flame emanating from her magic boots.
“It’s “its” instead of “it’s”. Thanks for the tip, Arthur. The elven technology works now.”
“Elven MAGIC!” Pellonia said from back where they had been discussing such matters.
Omumborombonga withdrew in surprise. She stared at the little whip of a mortal woman who dared defy her.
“Halt, Ohm,” Maximina instructed. “Apocalypse is alive. He fought with courage and honor. He was instrumental in killing the Phage queen. He fulfilled his destiny. Then I resurrected him — possibly a little over-resurrected — but the Phage are the ones that hurt him. Where should your vengeance be directed?”
Omumborombonga huffed and stomped the ground; an earthquake trembled the region. The large tentacle protruding through the portal flipped around, trying to clutch onto anything in its reach. Well, almost anything. It seemed to be carefully avoiding the Sphere of Annihilation, having learned from the previous Phage’s mistakes.
The dragon huffed at Maximina, a short blast that would have been enough to eradicate her had she not been properly shielded. Omumborombonga turned to the tentacle and barreled towards it in a lumbering gait that, while not graceful, thundered and shook the ground with each step. Maximina’s boots blasted small gouts of flame and she flew beside the dragon.
Maximina readied her dual wands of light. The wands let out a dull whine as they filled with energy, a violet radiance illuminating the tips. Omumborombonga disgorged a hellstorm at the tentacle, breaking, melting, jolting, and slicing into it, severing it more than once. Large chunks fell to the ground and the stump retracted through the portal. Smaller Phage promptly piled into this world once more.
Maximina picked them off two at a time, short bursts of light from her wands burrowing into the Phage as they hit the ground. Omumborombonga took out enormous swaths with her flames, but even a dragon needs to pause and breathe. The Phage kept coming. The apocalypse of dragons overhead spread out, ignoring the battlefield and flying off without resistance. The Phage were spreading.
The crawling horde of individual Phage slurp-popped their way through the gate faster than Omumborombonga and Maximina could destroy them. Maximina blasted a couple of Phage as they leapt for her head. She levitated higher into the air, out of leaping range. The Phage gathered below her, jumping upwards and stretching to reach her. They began to pile up, climbing on top of one another in a pyramid of writhing, wriggling tentacles.
“A little help!” Maximina shouted to Pellonia.
“I’m on it,” Pellonia shouted back. She sprinted over to the Orb of Skzd.
“Wizard,” Gurken said to Arthur. “Perchance might you magic us something to kill the Phage?”
“I’m afraid not Gurken, though I do wish I could. I’m beref
t of orb once more.” Arthur shrugged. “That dragon ate all my orbs. I’m afraid I’m powerless. Perhaps Antic will come to the rescue...” Arthur looked at the little giant ant.
“I’m afraid not,” Gurken said. “Most of their warriors died fighting the Phage queen. We’re on our own.”
A swarm of Phage broke off from the main group and made their way toward Gurken and Arthur. If the Phage got past them, they would break free into the tunnels and into the world beyond. Every movement, every decision they made, took on a grand import. So with them, so with the world.
So, of course they ran. Gurken toward the oncoming Phage, in full acceptance of his fate and destiny, and Arthur over to Pellonia and the Orb of Skzd. Omumborombonga immersed the charging horde in a hoary blast of ice, coating Gurken’s beard and eyebrows in a thick frost. The Phage stiffened, frozen to the core. Gurken crushed and shattered them as he waded through.
Pellonia bustled up to the Orb of Skzd as fast as her feet could carry her.
Pellonia looked at the orb, reading the words next to the circular protrusions. The first one read: Power.
I know from previous experience that the protrusion next to the word Power does not, in fact, give us more power, Pellonia thought, skipping over that protrusion to seek out another.
She looked over the other words and came upon one that read: Portal.
“Aha!” Pellonia said, “that should turn the portal off.” She stabbed at the protrusion next to the word and the face of the orb rearranged itself, displaying a brief one-word question.
“Destination?”
Two rectangles were drawn underneath with words inside. “Current Location” and “Other”.
Pellonia scratched her head. She stabbed her finger at the one marked “Current Location” and looked up at the portal. Nothing happened. Phage continued to stream through, nearly overrunning Maximina and Omumborombonga.
Another question appeared on the orb, along with the same two rectangles.
