“Saarilmor nukal o nusaak taasili kuniase mu'unia a rolinmor purta!” Flying metal, hot as fire, seek head and heart as I desire!
The words from Matt caused a hail of metal shards to pelt Nir’lion, whose head swiveled from Eric to him, a blast of flames roaring around him and Anna again. When her flames stopped, Matt conjured his own from the staff. Even as the fire raced toward the dragon, she kicked out at the priestess and sent Anna tumbling across the ground. Matt’s spell faltered, but then fury tore through him and the flames strengthened. The dragon leapt into the air, wings beating furiously as she escaped his attack. Eric ran across the ground to reach Anna, who wasn’t moving. Looking for blood, Matt saw none on her white robes and wondered just how badly she was hurt. Ryan hadn’t moved from where he lay. A growing anger grew within. The dragon flew over the nearby peaks and disappeared, but he knew it wouldn’t last.
Matt heard Eric quietly calling Anna’s name while holding her. That meant she was unconscious. “Get her out of sight,” he called, watching for Nir’lion. Eric seemed to agree, for he carefully picked her up over one shoulder and made for the tree line. Matt raised his shield.
Where is she? he thought, eyes scanning the sky. He looked at his friends and all of them were seemingly out of harm’s way. Matt was the lone target remaining and felt confident his shield would hold. He stood alone in the clearing, the Dragon Gate off to one side. If Nir’lion had been smart, she would’ve brought help, for they’d never have beaten two dragons at once. It didn’t look like they were going to beat one.
A subtle sound of a wing flapping caught his ears, but he still saw nothing. He checked each mountain around them, wondering which one she’d come out from behind. He gazed straight up. Nothing. A sound of rustling leaves caught his ears to one side, but there was nothing there. The wind? He felt no motion. The sound grew louder and he turned to the direction, suddenly seeing the treetops sway violently right at the clearing’s edge.
Invisible! he realized. A blow of some kind. That had to be the reason.
He ran to one side as a whoosh of air reached him, the snapping shut of giant jaws just feet away. The dragon appeared to him now, for the illusion of invisibility only worked if he didn’t know of her spell. The sight of her golden body passing overhead, claws haphazardly swiping at him, stunned him. As she passed him, the staff in one of his hands violently flew away. He watched in horror as it tumbled end over end, up and above the trees for a hundred yards before falling among the boles. The dragon’s tail had struck it. The way to close the gate was gone. The way to shield himself was gone. The source of aid he needed for every spell that stood a chance of stopping Nir’lion was gone. Matt watched in terror as the golden dragon turned, a whorl of fire already brewing in her opening mouth, a look of triumph dawning in the golden eyes.
“Time to die,” she growled, banking toward him.
Matt eyed the distance. Ten seconds, if that, before he died. Then Anna, Eric, and Ryan died. Then everyone on Honyn. And maybe everyone back on Earth if the dragons figured out that’s where they came from. Or thought that’s where the Ellorians were hiding. Andier. Eriana. Korrin.
Soliander.
Before he understood why, his hand reached into a pocket and pulled out a dagger, images of a spell he’d never seen before popping into his head. As if he’d cast it before, the words came to his mind and out his mouth, the hand with the blade held up, pointing toward the dragon that was hurtling at him. He saw her lungs expand. He saw the words on the page of a spell book. He saw what was supposed to happen when he finished the words. Matt searched around him for every source of energy to draw from. With the staff gone, that meant everything that lived. As if the staff had blinded him to other sources of power before, he suddenly saw and felt them all, trees, plants, insects, birds, mammals. With a rush of ecstasy mixed with fury, the power roared into him.
“Kuniali mu'unia a narosmor likaa a rarkimor kiapan. Mu'oste aatsum!” Fly true this steel, as light as air, as fast as light, a fate you seal/steal!
The dagger in his hand erupted into flames and leapt from his outstretched hand. Leaving a trail of fire behind it, the blade arced through the air at Nir’lion, who began spraying her own fire toward Matt. She turned to evade the flaming dagger, but it moved with her like a heat seeking missile, slamming into her chest and passing right through the golden scales. With a look of shock, surprise, and horror, Nir’lion stopped flapping her wings. The flames in her mouth drew back in as if she’d inhaled them. Matt began to topple backwards, his last sight an enormous golden dragon that appeared to be dead in the air slamming into the clearing with a thunderous crash and tumbling into the trees, where she burst into flames.
Chapter 19 – Firestorm
Eric shielded himself and the unconscious Anna from the roaring flames as Nir’lion burned. He finally tore his eyes away to see Matt on his back. None of his friends were moving. He ran to the wizard, stopping above him in shock. Matt’s hair had gone grey. Deep lines creased his face like he’d aged forty years. His breath came in ragged gasps. Thinking quickly, he knelt and looked at the wizard’s Trinity Ring. It had one spell left. He knew that his and Ryan’s were spent. Rather than healing Matt, he removed the item and ran to Anna, whom he used it on. Her eyes fluttered open and he quickly filled her in, noting that her protective spell must have shielded her quite a bit from the dragon’s blow. She nodded and felt strong enough to stand. He helped over to Matt.
“Oh my God!” Anna said, kneeling and laying her hands on the wizard. “What happened to him?”
“You’ve got to do something,” Eric urged her.
She closed her eyes. While Eric waited, he looked over at Ryan, the dragon, and then finally noticed several dead birds on the ground. The grass that hadn’t long since been burnt by dragon fire had withered and died. So had all the trees near the clearing’s edge. Everything nearby but them appeared to be dead. The mostly untrained wizard had drained the energy from everything, killing it all. What had kept him from drawing energy from them, too?
His gaze returned to Matt. The lines in the wizard’s face disappeared as his features returned to normal and his eyes opened. Anna looked fatigued. Being a vessel of a god’s power was not without its drawbacks.
“You’re getting better at this,” Eric remarked.
“It’s getting easier to reach her each time.”
Eric helped her up.
Matt sat up slowly, eyes on the nearby flaming dragon, then the knight. “What about Ryan? Is he okay?”
Eric extended a hand and helped him to his feet. “Time to find out.”
They headed over and found the knight on his back, awake, and in tremendous pain.
“Can you tell us what’s wrong?” Eric asked him.
“I’ll be able to tell,” said Anna, closing her eyes as she knelt beside him. It started sooner this time, Eric thought, but took longer, for Ryan had been more badly hurt. Several bones had been broken and the armor had to be loosened to prevent the dents from digging into him. Anna was so fatigued that she refused to get up. Knowing she needed rest, Eric suggested the others remain together while he went in search of Soliander’s staff and Korrin’s less important lance. It took more than an hour to retrieve them, and by then, Anna felt well enough to walk with assistance. They headed for the Dragon Gate, eager to put all of this behind them.
Matt couldn’t help eyeing the dragon. The dagger spell wasn’t supposed to include fire. It just should’ve sent the dagger at his target and followed any evasion until the blade pierced the heart. He had clearly overdone the drawing of power and nearly killed himself. If he ever had the chance to do magic again, he really needed to learn control. But he’d killed Nir’lion. He’d outsmarted her, too, much of that improvised battle plan being his. He’d never felt so formidable and proud, the memory of that power coursing through him and its utter destruction on someone trying kill him and his friends bringing a smile to his face.
Burn, bitch, burn.
For a few moments, nothing else happened and they stood exchanging glances at each other and back at the sky. Then the first dragon came into view, being pulled backward by an invisible force, its wings beating uselessly. It looked back then, the motion making it tumble over so that it now appeared to be flying forward, but all four legs and its wings showed signs of fighting the inevitable. With a roar of defiance, hatred, and anger, it hurtled down toward the gate and then disappeared with a whoosh and a puff, air buffeting the amazed champions. Eric suggested everyone but Matt step away in case a stray wing, claw, or tail managed to hit one of them. That’s when Matt realized a shield protected him, so he felt safe, having a front row seat to the spectacle.
Dragon after dragon lost control as the gate wrested them from whatever act of destruction they were engaged in. Pulled across the sky, they shrieked in defiant outrage as they plummeted into the castle and through the Dragon Gate, a blur of silvers, reds, blues, and other colors. Matt lost count of how many as the numbers rose to the thousands, the champions their last sight as they were violently flung from Honyn once more. No sooner had the last of their kind gone through than the gate closed with a flash. The champions stood breathless, eyeing each other wordlessly until Matt pulled the staff free.
“Wow,” said the wizard. “That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.” He turned away and saw the queen’s collapsed tower through the ceiling’s hole. The others followed his gaze as he added, “We’d better get up there.”
“Let’s get Lorian first,” suggested Eric.
And so they did, finding an empty prison, the elf abandoned inside by mercenaries and cult members who’d already fled, no one wanting to face those who’d closed the Dragon Gate. They gave him the bag of soclarin ore for safe keeping and wasted no time climbing the queen’s tower, giant cracks in it raising fears that worsened on seeing blocks of dislodged stone on the stairs. The fallen guard had disappeared, but the two unconscious guards remained at the top. Anna knelt beside each and with a quick prayer brought them awake, Ryan’s sword point indicating they ought to flee down the steps as fast as their legs would allow. They quickly disappeared.
As Matt watched, Eric and Lorian clambered over the loose stone blocking the doorway, the outside wall of the tower in ruins, a gaping hole revealing the quieting storm outside and wind tearing at the walls. The fallen ceiling had buried almost everything but the adjacent room with the mirror. As Eric stepped into the opening there, a wooden table leg came straight at his head. He barely blocked it with his hand.
Queen Lorella, no longer invisible, gasped. “Oh! I thought you were…”
“I know,” he replied, relaxing. “It’s over. Let’s get out of here.”
“Gladly.”
Lorian saw the portal the dragon had used to visit her captive. “An elven Mirror of Sulinae,” he said in surprise, moving toward it. “Do you know where it leads?”
“Yes,” answered Matt from the doorway, “to Castle Olliana somewhere.”
“Good. Then let’s use it.” The elf stroked its edge and spoke magic words as the others joined them. It had never occurred to Matt that Lorian might know how to use it. In moments, the frame filled with an image of the queen’s royal chambers, empty. The elf gestured for them to go through, Eric first, then Anna, the queen, and Ryan, all disappearing from Castle Darlonon in relief. Even as Matt left the ruin, the tower began to tremble ominously. Lorian shoved him through and leapt after as the tower collapsed in a shower of debris, taking the other mirror with it. This one shut off abruptly. A moment of silence followed before everyone realized they were safe.
The next day, Ryan felt a mixture of relief and regret that they were going home. For the most part, he was eager, but he’d finally had time to think about the reality of this quest, for the first time since arriving. Dragons. Elves. Magic. It was all real. It seemed almost strange to finally marvel now, but danger, fear, and the unknown had taken any potential fun or amusement right out of this whole thing. He’d heard himself sighing repeatedly since arriving back in Olliana, where they’d taken care of various issues, including a good bath, warm meal, and a little too much wine and mead, followed by a long sleep.
They reached an agreement with Sonneri and the queen on how to deal with Honyn’s questions about why the dragons had appeared after the quest’s apparent completion. The story was that the Ellorians needed to spring Nir’lion’s trap on purpose as the only way to discover and rescue the queen, held prisoner in an unknown location with the dragon taking her place. Revealing this also helped Queen Lorella avoid explaining some questionable decisions Nir’lion had made while posing as her, even as she quickly reversed those orders. Since they couldn’t admit the real Soliander opened the gate, they claimed Raith had done it without giving his name so that neither Cirion nor Nola would counter this. The pair hadn’t been seen and couldn’t be trusted to keep secrets either way. To prevent further trouble with the Dragon Gate, a protective force would guard what remained of Castle Darlonon indefinitely.
Most of Honyn had seen the dramatic display of dragons pulled across the sky, knowing what it meant, but few cheers had erupted due to the devastation. Months, even years of rebuilding and burying the dead lay ahead. This time no fanfare accompanied their quiet departure, everyone feeling it was inappropriate. It almost seemed like they’d failed Honyn and were skulking off in secret, their accomplishment diminished by destruction.
Now Matt stood in the throne room with the others, atop the dais, the Quest Ring around them beginning to light up with words of blue fire. They hadn’t seen the ring since arriving and hadn’t previously noticed the hole on one pillar, for the top of Soliander’s staff, which would trigger the return spell if the quest was done. In the back of his mind, he prayed they were truly headed home, not to the home worlds of the four champions they’d replaced. It would be especially bad in Matt’s case, arriving right into Soliander’s grip. They hadn’t spoken of it, but Eric had quietly told him not to speculate aloud about it so as not to worry the techie. If it happened, it happened, and there wouldn’t be much they could do about it. There was only one way to tell what was going to happen.
Hoping for the best, Ryan let his thoughts turn to home. Were people looking for them? What should they say about their absence when asked? More importantly, what, if anything, had Soliander done to their friends and family while they’d remained here?
Moments later, the vortex of light and sound ended and the four friends stood in the dark countryside, a black sky above, a familiar moon to one side, and giant stone monoliths beside them. Stonehenge looked just like it had when they left and caused an audible sigh of relief from all of them, which made them start to laugh.
“We’re home!” Ryan said, noticing that Eric was not only dressed as before, but holding the SUV’s flashlight in his hands. It was on, too.
“Thank God,” said Anna.
“It’s cold,” Matt observed.
Ryan nodded. The air seemed a bit too cool for what they wore – the same Earth clothes they’d been wearing several weeks earlier. “I don’t think we’re dressed for the weather anymore.”
Eric remarked, “I guess the spell just returns you to how you were before the quest, not change your clothes to something appropriate like it does when you’re summoned.”
“I hope we’re never summoned while na
ked,” Matt joked. “That could be awkward on returning.”
“Let’s hope we’re never summoned again,” said Anna.
“I’m just glad to be back in my own clothes,” remarked Ryan. He pulled out his iPhone but still had no signal. Checking in on Daniel, or giving him the good news that they were back, would have to wait.
“It’s good we didn’t return in those outfits we had on,” said Matt. “That might’ve been hard to explain. I wish I had the spell books, though.”
“Speaking of explanations,” started Ryan, “we need to get our story straight.”
“Can we get out of here first?” Anna asked, shivering. “I’m freezing.”
Ryan gestured to where the SUV had been parked. It was gone. “Yeah, but how? We need to start walking, I guess.”
“Then let’s go,” she replied, starting off and looking at the pendant in her hand, unable to put it on because the necklace clasp had broken. “I’ll guess we’ll never know if this pendant had anything to do with the quest. Matt, maybe you can look at the words within it to see what they say.”
He agreed to do it once they had a chance. They compared suggestions on a story about their disappearance as they walked, from alien abduction to getting lost in the countryside, but each invited more questions and lies they all had to keep straight. It wasn’t going to work and they knew it.
Finally Eric suggested, “Maybe we should just say we don’t know. We came back for the necklace, found it, and when we turned back to the SUV, it was gone. We didn’t hear it leave and just don’t know what happened. We still had the keys.” He looked at Ryan. “You still have them?”
The big man felt in his pockets and pulled them out. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Eric continued, “so we started walking back, hitched a ride or whatever, and only when we got to your aunt’s house and your aunt freaked out did we know something was wrong, besides the SUV being stolen, I mean. That’s when we heard we’d been gone however many days it turns out to be. I think I lost track.”
The Dragon Gate (The Dragon Gate Series Book 1) Page 27