Cursed Ice

by Ann Gimpel

  “Take her back to the sixth world,” Nikolai ordered in the dragons’ tongue.

  “I can go on my own,” the deer said. Snatching up her detached body part in her mouth, magic flickered around her, and she was gone.

  Johan landed next to Katya. “Nice work.”

  “Someone had to catch her,” Katya replied. She turned in a circle, surveying the area around them. Impossibly, hybrids kept right on coming. They’d killed hundreds. Maybe thousands, and hadn’t made a dent.

  “We need a different strategy,” Nikolai said and gathered the eleven of them close. “This one isn’t working fast enough.”

  Sudden insight rocked her. “Serpents are here,” she told everyone. “One was piloting the troll. It was never more than illusion cobbled together with dark magic. It’s why he turned to stone after we destroyed his eyes.”

  “Ha! Of course! Wonder if we rendered the serpent blind as well?” Nikolai shot a jet of fire skyward.

  “Probably not,” Katya told him.

  “What about the rest of these?” a dinosaur asked and stomped on one of the poison spider things.

  “Yeah,” another boomed. “We’ve got to go for the source. Or they’ll never stop coming.”

  “Exactly, but how?” Nikolai snapped off the words. More fire blasted from his open jaws. The latest batch of weasels did an abrupt about-face, leaving flaming contrails as they ran. “Ideas, people. Now!”

  Chapter 15

  Almost as an afterthought, I killed something that had sunk its teeth into me, adding to the slime and muck beneath my huge back feet. “If these are not really hybrids,” I said, “but illusion built of dirt and rocks and whatever else the serpents have patched together, can we attack the flow of magic?”

  “Some of them are flesh and blood, but you might be onto something, Johan.” A triceratops lashed its head back and forth. “If we locate the source of magic and follow it, we should find the serpents.”

  Excitement built within me. My dragon loved the idea. Almost as much as it adored killing. “We need more dragons if we are going after the serpents,” I said.

  “We do not.” My bondmate made his position abundantly clear.

  Fortunately, I was the only one listening to him.

  “And more dinosaurs,” a pterodactyl cawed.

  “We can’t be the only ones who are just now figuring this out,” Katya said.

  Two of the wolves pounced on an unrecognizable hybrid with a long, bloated body and a reptilian head. It burst, showering us with poison that stung like a bitch even through my scales.

  The dinosaur was right about not all of them being made of dirt. I considered Katya’s premise about the troll being remotely controlled. The concept of piloted horrors wasn’t new to me since drones and model planes had been around for a long while.

  My bondmate spread our wings, intent on flight, but I held him back. “We lack a cohesive plan. Until we have one, we aren’t flying anywhere,” I told him.

  Ash blatted from my mouth. I turned my head so it did some good, coating the nearest of the ungainly poison bags with their alligator heads. At least twenty stubby legs propelled them forward.

  Roaring filled my ears. Beneath me, the ground bucked and heaved as if in the throes of an earthquake. Katya bugled. She’d done a nice piece of work ferrying the deer to safety. I was proud of her fearlessness and her spirit.

  Nikolai trumpeted. The wolves howled. The dinosaurs kicked up an unbelievable racket. I expected the quake to play itself out. They never lasted long, but this one kept right on rolling. It might have been my imagination—I wasn’t the one linked to the land, after all—but I could have sworn I heard the earth squealing in outrage beneath my feet.

  Katya prodded me with a shoulder and jerked her jaws at a hazy spot a few meters away. I’d figured it was dust from the earthquake, but it didn’t act like blowing dirt. It hung in the air, puffing in and out of view almost as if it was alive.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “A gateway,” multiple voices answered me.

  Great. Everyone but me recognized magic at work. I was certain my dragon had known as well. No one posited a theory about where the gateway led. My hunch was it went straight to a bunch of serpents. But how many? They hadn’t kept any on the world where dragons incubated their hatchlings, so my guess was there wouldn’t be many here.

  It didn’t matter. Even one would stretch our resources. Unless the dinosaurs possessed some tricks I wasn’t aware of.

  Crackling and an odd whistling behind us brought me around fast. Konstantin and four other dragons stepped through a shimmery spot rimmed with fire. That was the fizzing noise. The whistling intensified until a different spot punched through. Half a dozen dinosaurs plodded into view.

  The earthquake intensified until keeping my balance required attention. I turned back toward the hazy spot, except it had changed. No longer blurry, a full-on gateway hung a meter off the ground. A weird kind of vine, black with red leaves, wove around the portal. I couldn’t tell if it was holding the thing open or had been tacked on as an afterthought.

  “Your call.” Nikolai deferred to Konstantin.

  I wondered how he’d known to show up, but probably either Katya or Nikolai had summoned him. The dinosaurs must have done something similar. We all edged toward the gateway. Something hypnotic pulsed from it that challenged my beast.

  “Wait!” Kon trumpeted. “No one enters. It is a trap, but one seeded with dragon magic.”

  “Not possible,” my dragon announced. “None of us would join with evil.” It took a step toward the inviting portal, now flowing in a rainbow of colors that soaked into the pastel-shaded earth and then circled around again.

  Before I could stop my beast, he bugled a challenge at Konstantin.

  The black dragon glided next to us, displacing Katya, and I stared into Kon’s whirling eyes. “Sorry,” I told Kon. “I will do a better job controlling my bondmate.”

  “See that you do,” he thundered. “We have bigger problems than a dragon who didn’t care for my assessment.” He edged so close to the portal, the stream of color washed over his black hide, turning it rainbow-esque. The roaring noise, which had lessened, deepened until my ears ached. Cracks formed in the restless earth, falling away into deep fissures in spots.

  Maybe this world was just now waking up to the evil attacking its bones. Or perhaps Kon had enlisted its aid. I’d assumed the earthquake was the serpents’ doing, but I might have been wrong.

  Fire formed a circle around Kon, burning bright white.

  “Purification spell.” Katya was next to me again.

  Meanwhile, the flow of hybrids had finally slowed. We still killed them, but the dead weren’t automatically replaced by ten more. Gateways popped open all around us, and more shifters emerged.

  “We heard Konstantin’s summons,” many said.

  It sank in that my group had accidentally been assigned the location housing the epicenter of evil on the ninth world.

  The magic around Konstantin thickened. I moved nearer him with all the other dragons, and we added our power to his working. I seemed to have control over my beast again, but I remained vigilant. Just in case.

  With zero warning, three dragons shot through the portal. Two reds and a blue. All male. Somehow, they evaded Kon’s spell and winged above us, bugling defiantly.

  Serpents weren’t the enemy here. Dragons were. I blinked stupidly at the three flying above us, assimilating their treachery. I’d assumed Loran was the only traitor. I’d been wrong.

  My beast proved I wasn’t truly in control of anything because he slipped his leash and we leapt skyward. But the other dragons were right there with us, flying, bugling, shooting fire at the three traitors. They shot flames right back at us.

  My bondmate’s fury was like a live thing, coiled within us. No wonder my will hadn’t been sufficient to contain him. “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Loran’s brothers. Disloyal scum.”

>   Christ! Had there been a conspiracy to erode dragonkind? I wanted to dig until I got to the bottom, but right now, we had dragons to kill. Except they were immortal. Last time, we’d had the dragon god to help us. This time, all we had was ourselves.

  The three dragons, who’d apparently been responsible for turning the ninth world into a macabre breeding ground for evil, blanketed the skies with fire and smoke. Magically stronger than serpents, they’d had access to an enhanced range of ability. No wonder the land hadn’t tried to drive them out. It had assumed—wrongly—that all dragons were a force for good.

  Kon, Katya, Nikolai, and all the other dragons were incensed. And ashamed. To be betrayed by their own—twice—was beyond comprehension. I bet something like this had never happened before.

  The bunch of us shot fire, dodged fire, and did it again. My beast was having a grand time, but he wasn’t a tactician. I understood soon enough no one could win this fight. Konstantin knew it too. He flew above one of Loran’s brothers and laid his body across the red dragon, pushing him out of the sky.

  “This way,” two of the dinosaurs yelled. “We have a plan.”

  Below us, the dinosaurs apparently stood ready, but what could they do besides crush the dragon, who would use magic to bounce right back.

  Unfamiliar magic built around the dinosaurs. Wind soughed, increasing until it was strong enough to whip rocks around. I copied Konstantin’s actions and flattened my body across the other red dragon. He fought me, tried to twist and turn beneath my beast’s bulk, but I moved fast, holding him in place.

  My beast was good at anticipating his moves and stymieing them.

  I felt the renegade dragon trying to push into my mind. Keeping him out was paramount. Whatever he had to say, whatever inducements he had to offer, I didn’t wish to hear them.

  Next to me, Katya had tackled the other dragon. Maybe because her beast was smaller, she was struggling. The blue dragon kept escaping from beneath her and blasting her in the face with fire. Incensed, she bugled her outrage and tried to get her body above his again.

  So far, he was evading her, but I had my hands full. I couldn’t help her and make sure my captive didn’t twist out from beneath me. A flurry of copper wings told me Nikolai was on his way to aid Katya. It should be me, but she’d want me to finish what I began.

  Because my attention had shifted momentarily, the red dragon beneath me broke through my mental shielding. “Join us,” it exhorted.

  “Never!” My bondmate spoke for us. “I knew you long ago. You’re a disgrace to all dragons.”

  “You’ll be sorry you refused. We will win.” The red dragon sounded certain, and I wanted to know more.

  “Why do you think so?” I cut in. So long as it was talking with me, I may as well find out as much as I could.

  Below us, Kon drove his captive into the midst of a circle of dinosaurs. I’d figured they’d use brute force, but instead a web of magic closed over the red dragon, wrapping tendrils around it. He writhed, thrashed, bugled. He bit at the amorphous bonds tucked around him, but they grew thicker despite all his efforts.

  The dragon trapped beneath me upped the ante on his struggles. Twisting, he scored the front of my chest with fire. I thought scales were supposed to be impervious to burning, but pain ratcheted through me. The stench of burning flesh thickened in my nostrils.

  At first, I didn’t understand it was mine.

  My beast reacted by sinking its teeth into the red’s neck. Scales and bones crunched, and we pushed the red lower still until I felt the pull of whatever the hell the dinosaurs were doing.

  “Let go!” I screeched at my dragon, but he wouldn’t release the red. Dragon anger flashed through my mind, scorching fury that knew no bounds. The burnt meat smell was stronger, and smoke stung my eyes. God only knows how, but I was on fire. How the hell had the red dragon managed to burn through my scales?

  Hot blood spilled down my chest. There had to be a way to fix it with magic, but not as long as we held onto the renegade dragon. It took all my will—and Konstantin, who flew next to us shouting curses in dragonspeak—before my bondmate finally released the red. He plummeted downward, landing on top of his brother.

  I was panting, and I tasted blood. Had my lungs been punctured? How could that be? Katya and Nikolai were still fighting the blue dragon. Somehow, he’d escaped both of them and zipped this way and that, bugling his disdain.

  Intent on bringing him down—I assumed my injuries would fix themselves—I pushed my wings to perform, but they were sluggish. A wave of dizziness unbalanced me.

  “Land!” Konstantin ordered.

  “No!” my dragon trumpeted back. “We must help Katya.”

  “If you do not land, you’ll never help anyone again.” Kon’s words were grim enough, they got through my beast’s thick skull. Mine too.

  I crashed more than landed, thudding into the ground and missing one of the newly formed fissures by centimeters. It was big enough, we’d have fallen a long way. Blood gushed down my front, a shocking amount. What had happened to our magic? Why wasn’t it healing us?

  “Do something,” I exhorted my bondmate.

  “I’m trying.” His reply was appallingly weak.

  Kon plopped down next to me. “This will hurt, but I must move quickly.”

  “What happened to me?”

  “Later.”

  He angled his head until it lay alongside mine. Dragon magic burned as it augured into me. More than burned. Indescribable agony started in my head and raced to the tips of my hind legs. I bellowed. I screamed. It hurt too much for me to be ashamed I’d fallen headfirst off the stoic pedestal.

  Something ripped from between my chest and stomach and hovered in front of me. Dark and slimy and putrid-smelling, it mocked me and kept trying to dive back into the hole it had made in my middle when Kon dragged it out. He blasted it with dragonfire, but it didn’t catch right away. For long moments, it just pulsed as if it were laughing at us.

  “Die!” Kon exhorted in a language I’d never heard before, but I understood his meaning well enough.

  The black blob finally exploded, the bits burning as they scattered around us.

  As harsh as the pain had been, it lessened to a dull throb. Blood still dribbled from the gash down my sternum, but it wasn’t draining my life away. I felt the bite of Konstantin’s magic as he examined me. He must have been satisfied with what he found because he said, “Remain here.”

  He didn’t explain himself, but then he didn’t have to. He leapt skyward, fury streaming from him as he aimed straight for the blue dragon still laughing his head off at our inability to corral him.

  He took Katya’s place, and she touched down next to me. “By all the dragon gods who ever walked, I’m so grateful you’re not dead. I didn’t know what to do. I saw what was happening, but Nikolai and I were all that was keeping the blue from teleporting out of here.”

  “Dead? How could I have been dead? Are we not immortal?”

  Her eyes spun faster. “These dragons, they figured out how to merge serpent magic in with their own. It’s made them more powerful than we are. The one you were trying to push out of the sky managed to introduce insidious magic inside you. It was eating you up from within. Fighting the good parts of dragon power with its serpent-dragon mix of evil.”

  I shuttled my horror aside. “How?”

  “It’s a very good question, and one we will need to find an answer—and an antidote—for before we take on the serpents back on Earth.”

  “They were not stronger than you,” I reminded her.

  “Not then. But we found four corrupt dragons in this system of borderworlds alone. Four of them. It doesn’t bode well.”

  I supposed not. I hadn’t known how close I’d come to dying. I hated to admit I’d talked with the dragon, but I had to know if I’d inadvertently given the bastard some kind of access. “I made an attempt to talk with him—” I began

  “Not important.” She pointed upward.


  I followed her talon and saw Kon and the blue facing off against each other. Fire lit the skies. Nikolai swooped in from one side, running into the blue dragon and knocking him sideways. It looked like a coordinated attack because Kon dove onto the blue’s back. Nikolai added his weight.

  Between the two of them, they herded the last of Loran’s brothers into the dinosaurs’ net.

  “How are they holding them?” I asked Katya.

  “Another thing I don’t know,” she said. “Seemingly, they possess magic that can immobilize dragons. Who would have guessed?”

  Who would have guessed, indeed? Would Kon have been so eager to partner with them if he’d known how dangerous they were to dragonkind?

  “We are healing,” my bondmate informed me. “I apologize. He should never have penetrated my warding. That he did says I must be more careful during future engagements.”

  “We are still here. It is all that matters.”

  Steam puffed from my jaws. Dragon apologies.

  I took a deep breath, gratified my lungs were working and only a slight residual soreness remained down my midline. When I glanced around, the gateway was gone. The infernal roaring had ceased quite a while back as had the earthquake.

  Not a hybrid in sight, but I wasn’t convinced there weren’t hatchlings somewhere. I wanted to be done on the ninth world, but a few tasks remained.

  I motioned to Katya and lumbered over to the circle of dinosaurs. “Impressive work. How long will your enchantment contain them?” I used the dragons’ tongue since it allowed me to talk out loud in my current form.

  “We were just discussing that,” a brontosaurus mumbled. It seemed odd to hear modern words from a prehistoric monster, but no more unusual than dragons talking.

  “If Konstantin can harness the land’s power, we believe we can create a spell that will hold them in perpetuity.” A pterodactyl clacked its jaws together, sounding satisfied.

  “What if serpents arrive?” I asked.

  “They can’t undo our magic.” A triceratops snorted laughter. “Now, if it was your spell, yes, but our magic has a different source.”