The Last Dragon: Book One

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I wanted to leap upon Alexis and ride at a gallop back across half the stone bridge, but the horse wanted no part of me. Her eyes were wild, and at my first step in her direction, she fled. Not at a gallop, but a full sprint. I shouted at Kendra to run with us. Instead, she stood and watched the gate.

“No,” I shouted, and grabbed her arm. That broke her concentration like a glass breaking on a stone floor.

Her eyes went as wild as Alexis’ had, and she ran, easily outdistancing me. I looked over my shoulder as the dragon fell from the sky and struck the far end of the bridge. It exploded like a sandcastle kicked by an angry boy. Blocks of granite flew. Worse, the bridge under my feet trembled.

No, trembled is the wrong word. It lurched with the first contact, then trembled and vibrated. Kendra and the horse had reached the safety of the land, but I had ten more steps. The roadway twisted and lurched to one side again. I managed to maintain enough balance to stay on my feet. Five more steps and the roadway began to drop. Two steps to safety and my toes gave warning I’d be running on air. Impulsively, I dived.

Kendra was there to grab my outstretched hands. She pulled me the last step, but I needed to get my feet on land. Alexis was almost out of sight, running down the road at full gallop.

Kendra pulled again, and my feet found solid ground. We ignored a hundred things we could have spoken of, as we watched the dragon take to the air again. It roared and spun in mid-air, to fall on the roof of one of the great houses. It crumbled and fell. The dragon used its head to butt the one remaining wall standing. After a snort of what I interpreted to be self-satisfaction at a job well done, it moved to a smaller house and pushed it over.

A blue shimmer at my side startled me.

“Are you satisfied with yourself?” The voice was familiar. It was the Blue Woman, although only a faint blue pulsated at my side.

“I am,” came an automatic response from me.

“Not you. You are nothing.”

“Don’t talk to my brother like that,” Kendra said. Another pair of houses were flattened by the dragon.

“You have no idea what you’ve unleashed on the world.”

A few more houses were destroyed as the dragon swung its tail in the short time it took to tell us that. I wondered if we’d done the right thing as if I had anything to do with the work of my sister. There were still no people running into the streets or trying to cross the bridge that no longer existed. The dragon walked on all four feet, using its chest or tail to ram into anything in its way.

“It is not over,” the voice threatened, then the blue shimmer faded into nothingness.

The dragon pushed against another of the great houses. It was one of those where the wealthy, influential, and royal lived. My thoughts turned to Lord Kent, Princess Anna, and Avery, the servant for the Heir Apparent. While none were truly my friends, I cared for all in some manner. Then my thinking shifted to the three missing mages. From there it went to the Blue Woman and the six mages she’d mentioned that were involved. Were the three mages from Crestfallen part of those six?

Kendra said, “Is it going to destroy everything in that whole damn part of the city?”

“Only in Mercia, I hope.”

“It has been penned in that cave for about four-hundred years. Can you imagine the horror?”

“How?” The single word I uttered asked several questions. How had it been placed in that cave, who had done it, why, and what kept it there? As well as who? Well, mages had been who, but that took me back to the other questions.

“There is no way to know right now,” she said. “Can you feel the anger and revenge?”

“No. You can?” Before she could answer, I said, “Do you know who kept it there? Are they trying to contain it again?”

“Mages are over there. At least ten, at a guess. They are trying to cast spells to regain control of it.”

“Will the dragon knock over the building they’re in and kill them?” Even to me, my voice sounded hopeful.

“No. They went into a basement and then into a connecting tunnel that has a way outside. They are really upset and threatening me. And you.”

We watched another of the grand houses fall, then the monster knocked down a row of smaller ones, taking care to place one of its four feet on each one, so it was flattened. All the buildings in the section of Mercia where it landed were nearly destroyed. It swung its tail, and three houses that remained intact broke apart as easily as a small boy breaking a toy house made of sticks.

The dragon stood on hind legs and bellowed what I’d call a cry of victory. Finished, it paused and looked at the wreckage of the bridge—then at us. Or Kendra. It spread its wings and took flight, passing directly over us before turning and flying to the next part of the city that lay beyond the next waterfall. When it had destroyed that one, I expected it to go to the other. It showed no signs of slowing or relenting.

“Beautiful,” Kendra said.”

“What it’s doing?”

“No silly. When it flew over us. I noticed you didn’t run. You didn’t even duck.”

She was right. The dragon was the size of a barn, and I’d just stupidly stood and watched as if it was a puppy playing with a bone, never once thinking of the danger. “Is it going to tear down the rest of the city?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t finish the subject. “Will it do the same to other towns and cities?”

That gave Kendra pause. Her answer came slowly and after consideration. “Maybe a few. If she senses a mage or evidence of strong magic, she might attack.”

“She?”

“It is a female. The last of her kind. She came here to lay her eggs in a cave where they would be safe and was trapped by the magic of mages who had set a trap.”

How could Kendra know all the things she had told me? Only a few days ago she had to look up dragons in a book to gain a rudimentary idea of them, but now she spoke in a way that revealed intimate knowledge. Her lack of fear was far beyond mine, almost as if she knew the dragon’s intentions.

To do that, Kendra would have to read the dragon’s mind. That was ridiculous. But Kendra knew the dragon was a “she” and how long it endured in that tunnel, as well as the reason the dragon had been seeking a tunnel so long ago. Kendra had not been out of my sight, so how could she have learned all that?

Worse, if she had, from where? From the dragon? If so, the dragon must have a method of communication, and to pass on that detailed information, it must be intelligent. Nothing I’d heard or read suggested that might be true.

The easy answer to all that might be to ask her. I spoke in a non-confrontational manner, trying to suggest a sudden idea that had entered my mind. “Say, how do you know it’s a female?”

She laughed softly before saying, “Come on Damon, you can be more subtle than that. No, we are not talking together. However, she is telling me things, in some way. Not words, but thoughts. Impressions. It's hard to explain but imagine hearing a mother coo to a baby. You just know it is a mother and not a man with a similar voice. It’s special and distinct.”

“I see how you can tell it is female. What about the rest?”

“Sort of the same thing. I feel hatred and fear of mages. She tells me they are mages by what they do and how they act.”

“Do you believe there have been mages in Mercia all that time? The same ones?”

Kendra paused again, considering how to answer. She faced me. “That may be the reason Mercia was built. Look around at the barren place this is. All food must be brought here. There is no reason for a city to exist here. Unless it is to house and care for mages to keep the dragon restrained.”

“Why didn’t they just kill it?”

“That is an answer I don’t know, but it has to do with essence. I think they steal her soul and use it.”

Her voice had taken on a sharp edge. A change of subject seemed in order. “Listen, Elizabeth and Tater are probably worried. We’d better return to them.”

We turned our backs as the dragon destroyed the rest of Mercia, building by building.