The Dragons

Chapter 23

2693 PC

Aurican teleported by memory, bringing himself not directly to Silvanost, but over the northern forests of the elven realm. He wanted to approach the capital with a plan, so now he flew as an eagle over the woodlands, winging steadily southward. His great feathered wings bore him quickly, and if he was spotted, the enemy wouldn’t know that a dragon approached.

The evidence of war was everywhere across the landscape below, and it was with grief that the gold dragon thought of the lives lost, the destruction wrought by the Dark Queen’s legions. A mighty rage swelled within him, and he desperately wanted to find Crematia and kill her. Yet almost immediately the anger passed, replaced by a wave of melancholy as he thought of his precious charges back at the grotto.

They’re too young-all of them! The ancient dragon all but groaned at the prosect of renewed warfare, knowing of the vicious and implacable foe awaiting them. Even the mightiest of his youngsters, Callak and Auricus, were mere neophytes at magic, lacking all but the most insignificant of spells. Too, they didn’t possess the size and power needed to face a full-fledged serpent of the Dark Queen in open battle. Any mature black or green would be able to blast one of those wyrmlings from the sky with a single lethal expulsion of breath!

That was why he kept them there, where, at the very least, they would be safe. Deep in his heart, he knew that even if the elven nation fell, if he himself were killed, the race of metal dragonkind would survive.

But how could the elves hope to stand? It broke Aurican’s heart to see the wrack of war, the horrors he had thought vanquished more than five hundred winters earlier. But now fires had again ravaged the lush woods, and towns and farms were torched into ruin. In places, the ground was black and utterly dead, marking the killing swath of an evil dragon’s breath-be it acid, frost, or any of the other lethal assails of the chromatic wyrms. Trees were splintered, and though fires still smoldered here and there, he could see that, for the most part, the war that had claimed this borderland had moved relentlessly on.

Aurican flew at a very high altitude, for the gold knew he would need surprise and speed to accomplish anything against his deadly foes. He winged steadily onward, seeing that the devastation was sweeping, even worse than it had been in the first war. The dragon soared over the ruin of a crystal-walled town whose stone barrier had been melted into shapeless muck by infernal heat. The buildings had been smashed into splinters, and areas that must have once been serene gardens were now trampled expanses of mud and ruin.

Flying onward, he found more smoke, sensed that war still raged in this region. He saw columns of troops marching through the wrack, great files that must certainly be ogres. Fury flared again, and he forced himself to resist the urge to dive, to incinerate a hundred ogres with an expulsion of his fiery breath. He would be patient, retaining the eagle’s body, saving his first appearance for an opportunity to strike at the crucial enemy: Crematia.

As he flew, the gold dragon’s eyes swept the ravaged forest, seeking some sign of a target. Finally he saw the crystal towers of Silvanost rising to the south and took some comfort from the fact that the elven city still stood. Magic shimmered in the distant air, and he knew that the three wizards had sustained some kind of defense, a barrier against the city’s ultimate collapse and destruction. The tenuous protection seemed to ring the island city but left the rest of the realm vulnerable to the invaders.

And then he saw a flash of crimson scales, a scarlet shape flying low and fast above the river leading toward Silvanost. He followed the serpentine form, saw the huge size of his target, the winged shadow flickering over the murky waters of the river. Aurican expanded into his true form, spread his golden wings, and made ready to dive. The blood-red dragon was Crematia, he knew, and the knowledge brought his hatred surging into a consuming emotion, a boiling fire in his guts.

The majestic gold tucked his wings and leaned forward, forming the deadly missile that was a diving dragon. Neck extended, belly rumbling with the pressure of surging flame, Aurican plunged swiftly downward. He watched the serenely gliding red grow larger in his vision. The wind whistled past his head as he descended, and his forelegs reached with unconscious tension, straining to rip sharp talons through crimson scales, to rend Crematia’s hateful flesh with the sudden onslaught of his attack.

The red dragon flew with a curious lack of caution, as if contemptuous of the very notion of danger. She glided without effort, crocodilian head swinging back and forth with arrogant unconcern. Auri thought he knew the reason: Everywhere Crematia looked, she saw only devastation and destruction, proof that her armies held sway over all this vast forestland.

Closer plunged the gold dragon, gases of angry fire now building irresistibly, seething toward inevitable release. A moment before collision, Aurican’s eruption of flame sizzled forward in a jet of searing fire, roaring like an inferno around the crimson form. He knew the blast-lethal to almost any creature alive-wouldn’t seriously injure this monstrous wyrm, but he hoped the surprising onslaught would give him an initial advantage when the two great bodies met. The gold dragon hurled himself into the dissipating fireball, clawing and striking, slashing talon and fang against-

Air! The massive crimson form had disappeared! There was no target here, only…

In that instant’s reflection, Aurican recognized the trap and acted with the speed of his thought. He whipped his head upward, arching his back to pull out of the dive as the space below him suddenly erupted with a hellish fireball of hissing, crackling flame. Crematia swept past, her deadly ambush foiled by his instantaneous evasion.

But then another crimson form smashed into Aurican from the other side, powerful jaws rending his wing, claws tearing golden scales from his flank. Flames roared, masking his vision even though the heat could not penetrate his golden scales. He bellowed and twisted, his reaction too slow to clamp his jaws into the supple red dragon that pushed away, Auri’s blood trailing from his claws and teeth.

The gold flipped onto his back, pitching desperately through a roll to come out in pursuit of Crematia. His wing was torn, but he could still fly, impelled as much by a monstrous, consuming rage as he was by the strength of his aging limbs. The other red, a creature that was much smaller than Crematia, fell rapidly behind as the gold’s plummeting speed carried him away. There were more of them now, a half dozen young red dragons swarming in pursuit.

Aurican muttered a quick spell, teleporting himself in front of the evil matriarch, avoiding another slashing attack by the youngsters. He reared, wings spread, jaws gaping, ready to meet his ancient foe.

Crematia and Aurican crashed together in a tangle of rending fangs and slashing talons. Clenched in a lethal embrace, the two serpents tumbled through the air, rolling and plunging toward the ground. Grimly Aurican seized the red’s neck in his foreclaws, ignoring the stabbing jolts of pain as her rear legs ripped into his belly.

Only at the last minute did Crematia break away, throwing herself outward and flailing her wings in a desperate attempt to gain altitude. Sensing his enemy’s desperation, Aurican cast another spell, an enchantment that went against the very nature of his enemy’s being.

A cone of cold blasted outward, searing the fire-loving red in a shivering onslaught of deadly frost. Crematia shrieked, straining to stay aloft, but by then Aurican flexed his own wings, trying to pull himself out of the headlong dive. Breaking away, Aurican saw the ancient red smash into the treetops, plunging downward to crash into the ground. She lay in a shady grove, twitching spasmodically, then growing still.

And then there were chromatic dragons coming from everywhere, blue and black, green, white and red. Aurican quickly masked himself with invisibility, but he knew that wouldn’t long deter the magic-using wyrms. Changing shape quickly into the body of a tiny hummingbird, he dived toward the ground and darted under a frond of leafy fern near the great crimson body.

Soon the clearing was crowded with dragons, a seething nest of bright scales slithering and coiling around Crematia’s motionless body. The wyrms were shocked, trembling with fury, growling and hissing as they glared here and there.

“Where’s Deathfyre?” asked one, a black.

“I come.”

Now there was another red dragon here, a surprisingly huge wyrm that was nevertheless as sleekly muscled as a young adult. He came to rest beside Crematia, and the other chromatic dragons fell back. The hummingbird that was Aurican, still and soundless, watched from beneath his leafy concealment.

“My matriarch!” groaned the red dragon, laying his neck alongside Crematia’s bleeding form as that great serpent stirred slightly, moaning in pain. This newcomer was Deathfyre, Aurican knew, and he realized with a shudder that the ancient red had left behind a very powerful heir.

“We shall have our revenge!” the one called Deathfyre declared, his voice a wicked and hateful hiss. “For I have found the grotto of the good dragons. I followed a fool of a copper until he showed me the entrance. Now we go there, and we kill!”

“I am proud of you, my son,” gasped the dying red. “Strike your blow swiftly, and then return here. Remember, find your strongest enemy… kill him. Mercy is weakness…”

“… and weakness is death!” hissed Deathfyre.

“Good, my son… Kill as many of the metal wyrms as you can… but then return here. The elves, with their magic, are mighty, and you dare not leave them unguarded for long.”

“We shall complete the revenge,” Deathfyre promised.

He might have said more, but by then Aurican had already teleported back to the cavern in the High Kharolis.