City of the Lost

25 Battle of the Dragon’s Lair

Silent as a shadow, Varia waited in a tree close to the high wall that formed part of the slave pens built by the mercenaries. Pressed against the trunk, she was nearly invisible to all but the most intense scrutiny. She had been silent for some time except for one sleepy-sounding cry that alerted Leonidas and Phoulos to her presence. The two centaurs stood close by, their hides dark with sweat and dust. Several other captured centaurs waited with them. Varia watched them and listened.

When the sound of the war horns came, the clarion calls swept loud and long on the hot morning wind. The denizens of the pens, civilians and warriors alike, stirred and looked around at each other, at the guards, and at the thin line of trees that blocked the view to the north.

Varia saw the two centaurs lift their heads then move side by side to remove the knives hidden in each other’s tails.

War horns sounded again from a different direction—Tarmak horns, sharp and fierce.

It was time.

Although some people knew Varia could talk, no one but Linsha knew what a virtuoso of sound the owl truly was. As soon as the sounds of the horns dissipated, she burst into a wild cacophony of shrieks, shouts, and bloodcurdling screams that burst out of the tree line as if the very skirts of battle were about to sweep over the land. She flew from tree to tree, bellowing and screeching.

In the slave pens, chaos erupted. Prisoners ran frantically, looking for a way out. The guards drew their swords and tried to restore order, but they kept looking at the trees or back to the palace as if they didn’t know what to think about the uproar. Under the cover of the confusion and noise, the centaurs moved close to the big wooden gates.

Varia paused in her shrieking long enough to take a quick look toward the palace. She saw the mercenaries form ranks in the courtyard and march out to find the militia. Only a few guards remained behind. Oddly, she did not see any of the Brute warriors leave with them.

Giving one more ululating scream, Varia launched herself from the tree and shot like an arrow over the heads of the captives.

“Arise and flee!” she screeched. “War comes again!”

Only Leonidas and Phoulos knew who gave that eldritch shriek. Everyone else shouted and ducked as the winged shape shot overhead.

The guards at the gate also flinched and ducked from the frightening apparition. In that moment of inattention, Leonidas and Phoulos turned and proved that centaurs are well armed even without swords or crossbows. Two sets of hooves driven by powerful hind legs slammed into the wooden gate with a resounding crash. The wooden gate held through the first blow, but a third centaur joined them, and on the second strike the gates exploded open. Leonidas took out the closest guard with his throwing knife, then the centaurs wheeled and attacked the guards.

The remaining slaves saw the open gateway and bolted for freedom. Some simply kept running into the gardens or fled back toward the city. Others, especially the captured militia and fighting men, joined the centaurs in a vicious hand to hand battle with the guards.

Varia circled overhead, watching in satisfaction. The two young centaurs fought well and led their forces slowly in the direction of the palace.

Suddenly, she saw the dark centaur rear, his front legs flailing the air. A spear protruded from his neck.

“Phoulos!” Leonidas bellowed.

Varia swooped low over the centaur as he struggled toward his friend and caught Phoulos’ hand. The wounded horseman staggered to his knees.

Phoulos collapsed to his side into a growing pool of blood. The owl sadly watched Leonidas clasp his friend’s hand hard. Fighting raged around him, but Leonidas took no notice. He and Varia waited until the gleam of life faded from Phoulos’ eyes and the body sagged motionless on the ground. Only then did Leonidas pick up a sword and, with a yell of rage, plunge back into the fighting.

Varia sang a soft word of farewell to the spirit of the dead centaur then flapped her wings and rose high to view the palace. They were close, but they had to get inside. Time was moving swiftly, and the ragged forces of the militia were not strong enough to engage in an extended battle.

Beyond the collapsed stone walls, the green overgrowth, and the old ruined foundations that lay between the slave pens and the palace, Varia noticed new warriors had appeared—Brutes, many of them. They were not marching to the north to join the mercenaries but toward the palace. Grim and intent, they moved toward their goal with the same speed and efficiency they had shown in their invasion of the city.

The owl squawked and spiraled higher. More Brutes, led by their general, appeared from the south road. They strode into the palace courtyard. Swords flashed in the sunlight, and Varia heard the shouts of frightened men and the screams of the dying.

“Those vultures!” she hissed.

The Brutes were attacking their own allies.

Thunder’s massive presence filled the great chamber. He roared again and sent a bolt of lightning searing across the roof.

“Crucible! You grubby worm! You can go no further! Come out!”

He did not see the bronze hiding behind the corpse, but he spotted the egg lying on the mound and hurried toward it. He reached for it then stopped and swept his gaze over the dead dragon in the back of the cave.

“Hurry!” rasped Crucible.

Linsha, using a strength born of terror and fury, scrambled frantically up his scaled shoulder to the saddle they had rigged between his wings. She settled herself into the seat and leaned over to reach for the lance.

Azurale handed it up to her butt first so she get it seated in the pommel.

“Here he comes!” warned Crucible.

“No!” Linsha cried, still leaning over the dragon’s side. “I’m not ready!”

The heavy lance dangled precariously in her grasp. She had not yet gained a firm grip on it, and if Crucible moved now, she knew she would drop it.

Azurale knew it too, and he knew he was not tall enough to help her put it in place. All he could do was give her a moment or two. Forcing hack his terror, he yanked off his crossbow and bolted out of the shadows into the open directly in the path of the blue dragon. The war cry of his clan cut through the heavy air. He fired his crossbow in the general direction of the dragon’s head and charged around the mound.

Thunder leaped, thrusting his massive head to snatch the centaur in his crushing teeth, but Azurale was young, agile, and desperate. He swerved, and Thunder’s fangs clashed on empty air.

Linsha watched the centaur’s frantic run for just an instant, then she wasted no more of his precious gift. She closed her eyes and marshaled all of her strength, all the spiritual energy of her heart, every vestige of power she had ever had and focused it all into one final lift with her tired, aching muscles. Her hands tightened around the handle, her arm muscles cramping at the weight of the lance. The weapon rose and settled neatly into place by her right knee, the butt resting on the support by the saddle pommel, the cowl shielding her right arm, shoulder, and the right side of her torso. Now all she had to do was hold on while Crucible maneuvered them close enough to drive the point into Thunder. If it didn’t work, she didn’t think they need worry about a second chance.

“Hold on!” the bronze said.

Linsha could do little else. Holding on with all her strength, she clung to Crucible as he charged out from behind the dead brass into the open.

Thunder did not see them immediately. His attention was still on the fleeing centaur. Azurale had reached the opposite side of the sand mound from Thunder and was dashing back and forth around the base of the high mound, trying to avoid the dragon’s attack.

The blue tired of the cat and mouse game and changed tactics. Instead of lunging around the side of the mound, he threw his massive body over it. The great weight of his chest crushed the brass dragon egg into the sand, while his neck and head snaked over the edge of the mound and caught Azurale just as the young centaur wheeled to escape. The dragon’s teeth closed around his human torso and crushed him. Azurale never had time to scream.

Thunder tossed back his head and ripped the centaur in half. Blood sprayed across the sand. He swallowed, snatched up the horse half, and gulped that down too. Only then did he turn his head around to see the bronze behind him.

Linsha had only a glimpse of the blue crouched on the torn and bloody mound. She saw the blood on his muzzle and the mess on his chest that was egg albumen mixed with shards of egg, sand, and the bloody gore that was once a dragon embryo. She screamed once in fury and protest, then tightened her muscles and clamped the black lance in place as Crucible sprang on the blue. They drove the rust-red tip into the dragon’s back just below the base of his neck.

Thunder bellowed in agony. No one had ever inflicted such pain on him before. He twisted away and whipped his blunt tail around to slam the bronze to the ground.

Linsha, still clinging to the lance, was pulled out of the saddle. To her horror, she found herself dangling from the barbed shaft buried in the Thunder’s back. The blow had been a serious one, but it obviously hadn’t killed him, and now she was swinging from the back of an infuriated dragon.

“Crucible!” she screamed. She flung up her legs and wrapped them around the shaft, so she wasn’t just hanging.

Thunder heard her, peered around, and recognized the curly-haired human who had flown with Iyesta. The air hissed from his nostrils, yet he did not dare use his lightning weapon. The blue’s lightning was more random, and he did not want to use it so close to his own back. He tried to reach around with a taloned forefoot to snatch her off, but the lance swung out of his reach and the pain from the barbed head buried between his shoulders was agony. He flapped his wings and roared in fury.

Another pain seared across his left haunch and lower wing as Crucible ducked in close and shot a beam low against Thunder’s body.

In that frantic moment after the Abyssal Lance pierced the blue’s tough scales, the dark spells incorporated in the wood and steel reacted with the dragon’s blood and began to work their evil purpose. It did not matter that the dragon afflicted was an evil dragon himself. Good or Evil, the lance was made to kill.

Linsha felt the change first. The wood became hot beneath her fingers and legs—so hot she could barely tolerate the pain of the heat burning into her skin. She shot a look at the sandy floor, figured her chances of surviving a fall and Thunder’s attack, and decided they weren’t much worse than clinging to a burning lance stuck in an enraged dragon’s back.

Thunder screeched in fearful pain. Within his neck and shoulders a terrific heat spread from the barbs of the lance. He shook himself fiercely, but with every move of his muscles the barbs slid deeper and deeper past his spinal chord and into his chest. Insane with pain, he lunged at Crucible, intending to crush the smaller dragon beneath his greater weight.

For Varia, the sight of the Brute warriors slaughtering the mercenary guards in the palace courtyard was enough to drive out all thoughts of sending the escaped prisoners and slaves into the throne room for a look. She would be sending them to their deaths. Instead she swooped close to Leonidas.

“Leave!” she shouted over the fighting. “Go north! Find the militia! The Brutes are attacking the palace!”

He shot her a look of bitter anger and sadness, but he nodded his understanding.

Most of the guards were dead by that time, so it took only a matter of minutes for the captives to complete their small victory, gather their mixed company, and follow Leonidas out of the ruined palace grounds toward the Artisan’s District.

Varia watched them long enough to see them on their way before she flew toward the throne room. If she couldn’t bring human hands and centaur muscles to help find the eggs, at least she could bring owl eyes to look for them. On noiseless wings, she swept down through the shattered roof and found a perch in a shadowy niche where several chunks of stone had fallen from the roof. She settled into her hiding place just as the Tarmak general strode into the throne room.

A few mercenaries, furious at the violent intrusion, fired arrows and crossbow bolts from behind a pile of rubble, but the Brutes swiftly dealt with them and dragged their bodies out to join their comrades in a pile by the door.

“Clear it out!” the general told his men.

The Brutes spread out into the remains of the throne room and down into the lower chamber.

“The eggs are down here,” another voice called from the stairs leading down to the treasure chamber. Varia’s pointed ear feathers popped up with excitement. She couldn’t see into the lower chamber from where she stood, so she slowly sidled across a beam and floated down to a lower perch. From there she could dip her head down and peer down the scorched stairway into the depths of the treasure chamber. Her eyes widened. What arrogance! Did they believe Thunder was dead?

The Brutes were hard at work shoveling Iyesta’s accumulated treasure into crates. Apparently they decided to help themselves rather than wait for the mercenaries to share. Other Brutes carried pickaxes and sledge hammers down the stairs. Varia wondered what they were going to do with those until she leaned a little further down and saw the edge of the dragon skull totem. The first Brute to the neatly stacked pile raised his sledge hammer and brought it down hard on the dragon skull at his feet. The bone shattered and flew in all directions.

“The eggs!” Varia cried softly. “Don’t smash the eggs!”

More skulls cracked and smashed under the impact of those relentless axes. The totem began to sway; skulls toppled down with hard, cracking sounds and exploded as sledge hammers came down on the brittle bone.

Varia could only stare in astonishment. Weren’t these Brutes supposed to be Thunder’s allies?

“General! There’s that owl!”

Varia started at the words. She hadn’t realized that in her agitation, she’d crept out of her hiding place and was visible to the men in the throne room.

The Brute general stared up at her through his golden mask then said, “Kill it.”

Varia did not wait to see if these soldiers would obey this order. She dove off her ledge in a hunting dive and arrowed out the wide doors before the Brutes could get an aim on her. She did not hesitate or pause to see what they would do next, but flew out of their sight as quickly as her wings could carry her.

Linsha tried to wait for the right moment to let go of the lance. She wanted to be able to control her descent, but the heat in the shaft and Thunder’s frenzied movements were more than she could handle. Her hands slipped and for just a heartbeat she hung upside down by her ankles. One more strong shake of the dragon’s back loosened her hold, and she broke free and fell head down along the dragon’s side to the ground.

“Linsha!” Crucible sprang to meet Thunder head to head.

The huge blue felt the weight slip from the lance, but he was already moving too fast to change his intentions. He met Crucible with a thunderous clash of teeth, claws, scales and wings that smashed them both into the nesting mound and bore the smaller dragon deep into the crumbling sand. The bronze snarled with pain as his injured foreleg and wing were pressed under Thunder’s greater mass. The blue snapped and tore at Crucible’s head, trying to get a grip on the bronze’s throat, ignoring the ferocious agony in his back.

It was the sand that saved Linsha’s life. Instead of crashing headfirst into the ground, she tumbled off Thunder into a pile of sand beside his thrashing body.

She lay winded for a moment while the dragons struggled and heaved above her. She took a deep breath and scrambled up before they crushed her. Linsha fumbled for her boot with a silent plea of hope. The Brutes had disarmed her earlier but she could not remember if they had checked her boot. Her fingers sought the handle of the slim stiletto down the inside of her right boot, found it, and pulled. May the gods of the afterlife bless that dead mercenary!

She looked up at Thunder’s bulk rising above her and leaped for the wing folded against his side. A grappling hook and a rope would have been better for what she intended, but the stiletto was all she had. As she reached the apex of her jump, she jammed the blade into his wing with one hand and used it to hold her weight while she scrabbled for the nearest pinion that would help her climb the struggling dragon. She had to get back on him. The lance was working—it would kill Thunder—but it was not working fast enough to save the bronze. Linsha could only hope that she could get back onto Thunder before he noticed her.

She scrambled higher, jamming her small blade into the blue’s leathery wing membrane and climbing up the folds. She was so intent on her desperate climb that she did not see Crucible’s eye lock on her or the dulled glow of desperation that filled his eyes. Nor did she notice that he struggled harder to keep the monstrous blue’s attention away from her precarious position.

She was scrambling over Thunder’s wing bone and onto the ridge of his back when she felt the dragon abruptly still. Her slight weight must have finally registered in his fevered brain, for he whipped his head around in time to see her clamber along the ridges of his back toward the black lance that bored into his shoulders. He hissed in sudden fear and hate.

Linsha focused on the black lance. She leaped and shoved it down deeper into his body. Thunder’s screech almost shattered Linsha’s eardrums. Sweat and tears of pain ran down her face, and she felt her hands burning around the haft of the lance. She shifted her stance and pushed on the shaft again, forcing the barbs to move faster through Thunder’s lung toward his heart. Thunder’s last mortal cry shook his dying body. Disbelief and terror drowned the furious glow of his eyes. His legs swayed under his weight.

Linsha stared up into the gaping holes of his nostrils and his slack mouth so close to her. She smelled the stink of his breath and thought her time had come to die.

Frantic, Crucible snapped at the blue’s neck. His weakened bite caused little damage to the blue’s tough scales, but he succeeded in drawing Thunder’s fading attention back to himself. The blue dragon’s head slammed around and pushed aside Crucible’s weakening defenses. His heavy jaws closed around the bronze’s neck just under the jaw, and he began to crush Crucible’s throat.

Linsha pushed on the lance once more, and this time dark blood bubbled up around the wound. The barbs had torn Thunder’s heart. She felt him shudder. As the life drained from the dragon’s body, his wings sagged, his muscles lost their strength, and his great body slowly collapsed to the earth.

Linsha stood for a moment, hauling air into her lungs and reveling with intense relief. Then, in the sudden silence of the cavern, she heard a strange gasping, rattling noise, and her fear returned tenfold. Crucible was still underneath the massive corpse. She scrambled down Thunder’s back, dropped to the ground, and hurried around the mound to the dragons’ heads. Sick with fear, she found Crucible nearly buried in the sand of the nest and trapped under the dead blue. Worst of all Thunder’s jaws were still locked around his throat. The bronze struggled, unable to breathe beneath the sinking dead weight of the enormous blue crushing into his chest and throat. Blood oozed from wounds on his neck and trickled down into the sand. His amber eyes darkened and bulged in his efforts to breath.

Linsha took one look and knew she could not help him alone. She had no sword to pry open Thunder’s jaws, nor did she have enough strength to lift the weight of the dragon’s head from Crucible’s throat. He would have to do something to help himself.

“Crucible!” she cried. She grabbed Thunder’s jaw and tried to wrench the head loose from the bronze’s throat. It barely budged. “Listen to me! Look at me! I am here. But I need your help. I can’t lift this. Crucible!”

The bronze’s pain-filled eye rolled toward her. She yanked again at the blue’s jaw. If she couldn’t move it, maybe she could just loosen it enough for Crucible to breathe.

“Can you shapeshift? Change to a man! To a cat! Change to a shrimp for all I care! Just get out from under this!”

Would he have enough strength left? Would he have enough conscious thought left to control the magic? He could shapeshift to a cat under Thunder’s body and be crushed before he knew what happened.

“Crucible!” she tried again. “Can you shapeshift to a cat? Right here? Where I can get you?”

She tugged at Thunder’s huge head. The blue’s dull, lifeless eye stared back her, but she thought she felt the head move slightly. She tried again and again until her vision swam and her arms trembled with fatigue. Crucible’s throat rattled. She dropped down by his head and felt for some sign of life.

“No, you don’t!” she yelled at the bronze. “You stay with me!”

Grasping his nose, she tugged at his head just enough to tilt it back. His nostrils twitched ever so slightly, and he took a gasp of air. It rattled down his throat into his starved lungs. All at once he began to glow with soft golden light. Linsha moved back but kept her hands ready to snatch him the moment he transformed. The spell took longer than usual, and his shape seemed to waver in the glimmering light—once long and human-like, then large, then small and four-legged. It finally settled on small and furry.

Thunder’s body settled deeper into the sand as Crucible’s large form disappeared and reappeared as a battered, bloody orange-striped cat pinned under Thunder’s head.

That was a shape Linsha could manage. She dug the sand out from under the cat and pulled him away from the dragon. Cradling him in her arms, she began the long walk back to daylight.