by J H G Foss
Tankle and Arrin, their bodies pressed together, edged away from Floran’s corpse and stepped backwards until the flames of the circle was right at their backs. Tankle held her spear before them, but Arrin only had the bottom half of the shaft of his spear, three feet of useless broken wood, to defend himself with.
The injured troll advanced slowly towards them. Arrin marvelled at how dead its eyes were, like it was drugged. Its mouth was closed and its long nose reached almost to its chin. It would feel nothing as it killed them, he could see that. There was no mercy in a being such as this.
It was limping though, and its right arm was so badly burnt, it wielded its club in its left hand.
Bravely Tankle thrust the spear at the troll and it bit into its side. The troll grasped the haft of the spear with its right hand then struck Tankle in the right arm with its club. She screamed as she fell, landed badly and fell silent. Arrin, in his terror, wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to. Even if he was crazy enough to run through the roaring flames of the fire wall he could see that there were still many trolls, mounted on yales, waiting on the other side.
The troll didn’t see a young man armed with half a broom handle as much of a threat though and seemed to prefer to finish off Tankle first. It raised its club to deliver the killing blow. Arrin finally found his courage and ran towards the monster, sticking the broken end of his spear into its armpit.
The troll snarled and changed the direction of its blow to hit Arrin. The club caught him on its upswing, on the left elbow, shattering it and sending jarring pain through his body that made him instantly sick. He fell to the ground and vomited.
He clutched his left arm with his right hand. The pain was terrible and he could feel that the bones were just all over the place underneath his coat. He looked up as the troll loomed over him, raising its club once again.
As the club descended, the troll was suddenly swept away by a green dragon. Arrin looked up to see the disappearing tail and haunches of the dragon, its wings beating down the flames of the magic circle as it passed. The troll was in its claws, and as it gained height it almost casually tossed the screaming creature down the side of the mountain.
The dragon then returned to visit destruction on more of the war band, breathing a thick line of fire that incinerated three of them in an instant, sending up billowing clouds of steam from the melting snow.
Arrin ground his teeth as pain coursed through his body. He felt sick again and nearly lost consciousness. He shut his eyes and curled up into a ball, grunting and weeping as waves of pain went up his arm. He didn’t know how long he was like that until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘Let me look at that,’ said a calm voice.
He opened his eyes to see Ghene looking down at him. The elf touched his shattered arm and immediately the pain began to ease.
‘You’ll live,’ said Ghene. ‘Just wait while I go check on Floran.’
Arrin was sitting up now, cradling his left arm with his right. The pain was still intense, but felt manageable. He watched as Ghene approached the wizard and lifted his head up into his lap. Not far away Meggelaine was tending to Tankle.
‘He lives,’ said Ghene looking over to Arrin with a smile.
‘Floran,’ he continued, returning his attention to his friend. ‘You can dispel the wall of fire now.’
The wizard groaned, waved his left hand dismissively, and the flames died down. After a few heart beats they were all but gone, the only fire that remained burned on the bodies of dead trolls and yales.
Arrin stood up, despite the pain, to look around. He saw that over on the western side of the valley the battle raged on. Broddor was still out there, a one dwarf army, taking on any troll that was brave enough to face him. It was Roztov that was doing most of the damage though, strafing up and down the valley, burning up trolls and yales that couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough.
The bulk of the troll war band still survived, and while they scattered the first few times the dragon went overhead, they soon realised that they would be killed off one by one if they didn’t fight back. On the dragon’s next pass they stood their ground, throwing their axes and clubs up in the air in a vain attempt to bring him down. While more of them died, Roztov was hit by a shower of their thrown weapons in return. The dragon roared and snapped its teeth, swooping back up into the sky to escape the missiles.
Arrin got the impression that the druid was not used to flying as such a large creature, as he was ungainly and not as elegant in his flight as the other’s Arrin had seen on the island. It took Roztov a while to turn, then glide around and down for the next attack. As he had done on all the previous passes he then had to lower his head to breath fire on the trolls, a procedure that unbalanced him. It was perhaps that which caused him to crash to the snow when an axe hit him in the wing. It was not a strong blow, as its power was spent by the time it had gained enough height to reach the dragon, but it was enough to cause him to veer off to the side. Roztov tried to regain his balance, failed and came careening down right into the midst of the trolls.
He lurched to his feet, but a club struck him in the neck and his head slammed down into the snow once again. A gout of flame came from his mouth, but the trolls easily side-stepped it. Roztov rolled and struck out with his claws, tearing one of his attackers near in half, but the others closed in, frantically trying to land a telling blow on the dragon.
Ghene gently put Floran’s head down on the ground, stood up and turned into a hippogriff. The battle was some distance away now, but that gave him enough time to reach a speed fast enough to knock the nearest troll out of its saddle and batter it to the ground. As he tangled with his victim he felt a club land heavily on his back, making him rear up in pain. Another club came swinging in, but he ducked to the side then lashed out at the troll’s face with his claws. More clubs came at him and Ghene realised that he was surrounded. As he thrashed about, rearing and clawing, it was all he could do to hold off the attackers that circled him. There was certainly nothing he could do to help Roztov even though it was him that was being attacked by the bulk of the war band. Roztov, try as he might, could not get airborne again. Every time he managed to beat some of them off and fold out his wings to escape upwards he was beaten back down again by a hail of thrown clubs and axes.
Meggelaine stopped tending to Arrin and Tankle and stood up on tip-toes to try and see what was going on. Turning back into a bear would not be enough to be of any help, she realised. The truth was she hadn’t done much in the initial charge anyway. She’d only dealt a few minor injuries to the trolls as they had charged past. Try as she might she could never turn into a bear any bigger than a Great Forest copperback. She didn’t even turn into a copperback though, to be honest. Whatever species she it was, it wasn’t known to man, elf or torm. She was hopeless at shape-shifting, she was the first to admit it. The others always mocked her about it, in fact...
‘Oh, none of that matters right now!’ she shouted. ‘Stop distracting yourself and think, you stupid woman!’
Was there anything she could do at all? She bit down on her thumbnail savagely as she watched the battle. There was nothing. Where was Broddor? She looked around to her left. There were three trolls about fifty yards away that were acting like a bunch of children sitting on a bag of angry cats. She suspected that Broddor was underneath them then, so perhaps if she could rescue Broddor first...
As she took her first tentative steps towards the three trolls, another dragon passed overhead and burnt the trolls that were atop Broddor to a crisp with a long line of flame that started more or less at Meggelaine’s feet. The dragon then continued to fly further along and incinerated several of the trolls that were attacking Roztov.
Meggelaine had been thrown back by the flames, but as she shield her eyes from the smoke and steam she could see Broddor, clad in armour that was impervious to flame, clamber up from the ash and bones of the troll remains and stagger back towards the battle.
&nb
sp; The other dragon was green like Roztov, although maybe a shade darker than the druid. It killed more of the trolls, turning them into flailing, screaming candles, five and six at a time. Those that remained alive evidently decided that two dragons was one too many to do battle with and turned their yales around and galloped back up the slope of the valley into the clouds of steam. Those of them that were on foot tried to catch and mount any stray yale they could find as quickly as they could. The two dragons tore through the retreating ranks of the war band with their fire, and the new dragon caught a troll in its mouth and bit its arm off. Meggelaine grimaced at the sound of crunching bones. Broddor hacked at one of them as it fled, cutting a deep gouge in its side, but he was too slow to offer any further pursuit. As the last few troll survivors mounted and fled, the dragons stopped their attack, arched their necks and took a long look at each other.
As the two creatures eyed each other up, Meggelaine moved closer to where they were and crouched down behind the steaming corpse of a yale. She noticed that one of Roztov’s wings had been pinned to the ground by an axe. The other dragon, which was longer and larger than Roztov reached with a claw and pulled out the weapon. The larger dragon then sniffed at Roztov, reared and roared.
Roztov said something in Draconic.
Meggelaine realised the larger dragon was Shumakkak the Green, one of the dragons that they had first seen back at the Chasm. She was the one known as the Huntress, a raid leader.
She settled back down onto all fours and folded in her wings, then began to converse with Roztov.
Floran crept up to join Meggelaine and crouching, watched from over the wet pelt of the dead yale.
‘What are they talking about?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ replied Floran. ‘Basically, she is chatting him up.’
‘What?’
‘He’s trying to make up a story about who we are and what we are doing here.’
‘Is she buying it?’
‘I don’t think she cares,’ said Floran with a smile. ‘She is saying that she has never seen another green dragon before.’
The dragons continued to talk. Roztov was up on his feet now. He was almost as tall as Shumakkak, but not as long. Broddor flopped down beside them. ‘She’s well up for it,’ he laughed.
‘What?’ said Meggelaine yet again.
‘That dragon wants Roztov to give her a right good seeing to. You know what that lad is like. He has an eye for the ladies.’
‘Oh Etruna,’ said Meggelaine, lowering her eyes to the back of the dead yale. When she raised them again she could see that Roztov was looking over at them. He seemed to have a look of bewilderment that managed to show on his face even though he was a dragon.
He spoke again and Floran translated. ‘He is telling her – not here. Elsewhere.’
Shumakkak unfolded her wings and flew off down the mountainside. After a few moments hesitation Roztov did the same.
‘Well, looks like Roztov is in for some fun!’ laughed Broddor as he stood up and slapped his thigh.
Floran stood and shook his head. ‘I don’t know what it was we just saw happen.’
‘Never mind lad,’ replied the dwarf. ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older.’
‘Uch,’ growled Meggelaine. ‘I’d better check on the others.’
As she got back to where Arrin and Tankle were lying she could see that Ghene was there tending to them. ‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘Roztov has gone off with Shumakkak.’
‘To do what?’
Meggelaine rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older.’
Roztov returned three hours later. By that time they had made a shelter in the slope of the mountain, dug out of the side of a rock and they were resting and healing their injuries. Tankle’s arm was just bruised, but she had struck her head on a rock when she fell and was still groggy despite the attentions of the druids. Ghene had splinted Arrin’s arm and he felt no pain, just a tingling as the druid magic worked through him.
He had turned to Floran earlier and asked, ‘how did you survive that blow? I thought it took your head off.’
‘Need you ask?’ replied Floran pulling back his shirt to reveal the medallions and amulets that he wore around his neck. ‘I have many magic charms on my person to lessen the blows that strike me. You cannot see it, but I am protected by armour almost as strong as Broddor’s.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Arrin. He pondered for a moment then asked, ‘can anyone learn magic?’
‘Well,’ replied Floran, ‘that’s an interesting question. There are lots of different kinds, as you understand, the druid magic of nature, Broddor’s divine magic and then there is mine. To we of Hyadna the magic is, in theory, open to all. There are a few scholars that are not ugari, although none spring to mind at this moment in time.’
‘So I could learn?’
‘I don’t see why not. If you wanted. It’s very far away, but I suppose we could sail there once we get back to the continent.’
Floran turned to Tankle hopefully. ‘We could all go perhaps? Would you like to see my home?’
Tankle smiled and nodded. She didn’t look like she was following the conversation at all.
‘Well, that would be very nice indeed,’ said Floran with a broad smile. ‘It would be lovely to introduce you to my family. We shall all go, at the first opportunity. Roztov may even want to come. How about you Broddor?’
‘Don’t plan your holidays just yet,’ chuckled the dwarf. ‘We’ve still to get off this bastard island.’
Floran was about to reply, but at that point Roztov the dragon poked his head in the freshly dug cave, giving everyone a shock.
As they recovered themselves Meggelaine began to scold him. ‘You are unbelievable! We’ve only been here about a month and already you have two dragon girlfriends! Shumakkak, and what was that other one? Lori, Lora...’
‘Lorkuvan,’ said Roztov in Draconic.
‘Oh, can you speak?’ asked Meggelaine.
Roztov rumbled a few words in Draconian, then coughed.
‘If I concentrate,’ he said slowly, ‘I can turn the Draconic into Enttish.’
‘Well?’ asked Meggelaine as she looked him in the large yellow eyes. ‘What are you going to tell your wife?’
‘Are you crazy? Nothing of course.’
‘Huh,’ said the little fressle, patting him on the nose. ‘Can you even change back or are you stuck like that forever now?’
The dragon sighed. Meggelaine turned to look at the others. Arrin and Tankle were sat with their mouths open in astonishment, Ghene and Floran looked concerned, while Broddor was smiling.
‘It’s going to be difficult to shift back, but I flew over a mountain lake on the way here. It gave me an idea.’
‘What idea?’ asked Meggelaine turning back to look at him sternly.
‘Do you remember when Festos was a wolf and he fell backwards into the river behind the Council hall?’ asked Roztov.
‘No.’
‘Well, the shock changed him back. He climbed out the river in his normal form.’
‘He was drunk that night,’ said Meggelaine sharply, now remembering the evening in question. ‘We’ve not any beer left. We’d need more than half a dozen bottles of beer to get a dragon drunk anyway, that’s a fact.’
‘Beer or not, it’s worth a try,’ said the dragon pulling its head out of the cave. There was the sound of dragon wings flapping and a flurry of snow entered the cave as Roztov left.
It was early afternoon by the time the others reached the lake. It was indeed high in the mountains, above the clouds and ringed by snow covered peaks. They settled down to eat their lunch at its shore while Roztov circled it. There were other dragons in the sky, but they were a good distance away and paid him no attention.
Roztov had already melted much of the ice of the lake with his dragon fire, enough to make a hole about fifty yards wide when they arrived and once he had spotted them he swooped low over their heads, ro
ared, then soared up into the sky. The others shielded their eyes from the sun to follow his progress upwards. After he’d gained enough height, the dragon seemed to shut its eyes, then roll over backwards, its wings folded around its body. With its head pointing downwards it plunged into the lake like a giant arrow.
‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Broddor as the others gasped at the impressive splash that followed. ‘This will make a fine tale to tell, even if he doesn’t survive it.’
Meggelaine slapped the dwarf’s arm. ‘Don’t talk like that!’
After a full minute, Roztov the man breached the surface of the water, gasped, choked, shock his head then started to swim for the edge of the ice. Ghene and Floran ran out to meet him. The water that lapped at the sides of the hole was warm and steaming. They dragged Roztov out in a slippery and undignified fashion and helped him to shore. Once there, everyone helped him dry himself and his clothes by the camp fire. He sat, shivering and coughing up blood.
‘Oh no,’ groaned Meggelaine as she applied her healing magic to him.
‘I’m fine. I feel fine,’ said Roztov as a shudder passed through his body.
‘If you do that again, it will kill you.’
Ghene was stood a short distance away from the fire. He pointed with his spear. ‘Look.’
There were five trolls mounted on yales, on a nearby ridge, watching them.
Broddor stood up, unsheathed his sword and joined the elf. ‘Back for more, the buggers.’
‘I don’t think they’ll attack,’ said Ghene. ‘They probably think our presence here is sanctioned by the dragons now.’
‘Could be,’ grunted the dwarf. ‘We killed a fair few of them right enough. What’s the plan?’
Ghene turned to the dwarf and raised an eyebrow. ‘You, Broddor, speak of plans?’
‘Yes yes,’ said the dwarf realising what he’d just said, ‘I mean, we don’t attack?’
‘I think I’ll scout north,’ replied the elf. ‘I’ve a feeling we’ll be able to see the city from the other side of this lake. It’s away from the trolls as well. Get the others moving. Probably best to look like we’re leaving . I’ll come back and join you once I’ve had a look over that ridge.’
