That the dragon had been willing to risk so much to stop us told me two things.
First, despite my luck penetrating its defenses—and that’s what it was, luck; my odds were greatly improved by overwhelming numbers of bullets—the dragon was a powerful sorcerer, far more powerful than I would have guessed or feared.
There were awesome magics protecting our world from interdimensional assault, the work of generations. Dark magics could penetrate this veil, but generally only enough to allow one or two demons through.
The dragon had managed to open a wound that would not readily close.
I had never heard of anyone capable of a similar feat.
Second, it was afraid of us.
This notion was more surprising than I might have originally thought.
Nothing scared a mature wyrm, certainly not five gun-toting mortals encroaching upon its established territory.
But, whatever the reason, we had the dragon spooked.
Unfortunately, it also had our number.
Drute was no longer counted among the living.
One of the hellbeasts had managed to shrug off enough bullets to bring down a starfarer and had torn him to shreds like so much tissue paper.
Fronus had not stopped wailing yet.
The dragon had the luxury of time and opportunity to set the terms for its guerilla assault.
If we did not cut its attacks off quickly, we would all fall into one trap or another.
We needed to find its lair, and quickly.
* * *
While Fronus did whatever it is that furers do to honor the dead, I spent the morning herding the surviving horses back to camp. They had bolted farther and faster than dust blown before a tempest.
Sadly, Scarlack’s impressive draft horse had been flayed and ripped inside out by one of the escapees from the torments of the nether realms.
I did not envy Drute’s horse now having to carry Scarlack’s weight. If anything, he should be carrying the horse.
* * *
When I finally returned to camp, I was greeted by a question. “Whaddya make o’ that?”
Eustace, as was his wont, skipped the formalities of civilized discourse. He was hunched over a stack of stones covering Drute’s body. Luerl stood off to the side, calmly scanning the horizon for another attack while Scarlack tended his weapons. Fronus moaned as he rocked back and forth next to the cairn that would be desecrated almost as soon as we left.
I answered in clipped bullet points. “The dragon is content to whittle us down one at a time.
“Our progress against it is slower than its attempts to undermine our advance.
“Things won’t be any easier ahead.
“We’re a little over a day out from the Hellfire Range and the beginning of our search for its lair.
“I would expect at least another attack between here and there.”
Eustace was absorbed, pensive. “Is there aught we can do ta stop it?”
“If Smoky and I fly overhead, that should offer some measure of deterrence. Failing that, perhaps a bit more warning.”
Eustace nodded shortly, his thick beard shedding the dust of days of riding as it brushed his armor beneath.
“And at night?”
“We prepare for more attacks.”
Before he could say anything else, I added firmly, “And your crew gets over whatever problems they have with me so we can survive this together.
“If we can’t work as one, we will die apart.”
Expecting resistance, I was surprised when he gave a simple nod. I could see the resignation in his eyes. If Eustace lost more, he might lose his men or even his life as someone else made a power play.
Responding in kind to his nod, I said, “Let’s get moving while there’s still daylight. We’ve already wasted almost half the day.
“I don’t expect night to be any easier.”
Before I took off in a cloud of dust to scout ahead, looking both for signs of the dragon and its lair, Luerl cast a series of complex enchantments meant to protect us from dragonfire, magical attack, and physical assault, allow us to communicate from afar, and help detect the dragon’s approach.
We did not want a repeat of last night’s debacle.
As the party faded into the distance beneath the steady beat of Smoky’s wings, I scanned the horizon and the looming Hellfire Range. The mountains’ jagged peaks loomed so high that the tops of the mounts thrust through the clouds skirting their flanks. Acrid smoke from many peaks formed another layer of dark, cloudy particulates above the pearlescent ones below.
If we kept a steady pace, I anticipated reaching the foot of the range tomorrow.
A Snake in the Grass
We did not have to wait until nightfall for the next attack.
* * *
With a muttered incantation, I channeled power to my eyes, sharpening my vision. Looking down, I could count the hairs on Eustace’s beard.
Or I could at least try.
His beard was so matted and tangled, unlike most well-groomed dwarven beards I had seen, that I would get lost in the twists and turns in the attempt. I would have better luck just shaving it off and counting the piles on the ground.
I smiled at the thought.
Eustace would not take kindly to my line of thinking.
Turning my gaze away from the riders strung in a loose, irregular line, making their way across the rocky Wastes, I surveyed the mountains ahead for potential caves or formations large enough to allow the passage of an ancient dragon and protected enough to draw one’s interest.
Surprisingly, there were far more candidates than I had anticipated.
The volcanic peaks were riddled with cracks, fissures, and gaps, any number of which might be suitable for a large dragon. These lava tubes and fissures were largely the work of volcanic activity, as opposed to the caves in other mountains that had been formed by the gradual wearing away of erosion processes.
I then cast a second spell to help winnow down the options. Despite being bathed in magical energies, concentrations and movements of magical forces were easily seen on Ilaeria if one knew how to look.
I knew how to look.
Letting the arcane resonances of my guns enhance my capabilities, I cast a second, far more complex spell over my eyes.
This invocation not only allowed me to see magical energies, it also helped me perceive those that were hidden.
Layers of light, complex webs of force in varying densities, hues, and intensities materialized across the land. The arcane light burned brightest within living things, for their very presence generated magical energies of a far greater magnitude than the ambient energies through which they moved or grew.
The company below appeared to be miniature constellations of power, each with his own textures, colors, and signatures, Luerl appearing like a galaxy of force to Scarlack’s far more subtle single star.
Despite the visual paucity of the Wastes, it, too, glowed with power under my augmented sight for living things, which, even when hidden, blanketed the land in a mosaic of brilliant, interconnected forces.
I looked down upon a cosmic fog of life.
The mountains ahead were no different. In fact, if anything, the elemental forces spewing forth from their depths only heightened the movements of eldritch power through the landscape.
Despite the wealth of magical energies ahead, there was a region, though cloaked, that stood out above the others. Angling southward, unnamed peaks defined the range to the limits of vision. One of these peaks showed a concentration of force below the cloudline that was, in all likelihood, the dragon’s home.
“Eustace. Adjust your heading to about ten o’clock southward.
“I think I’ve found the beast’s lair.”
“Ya’re certain?”
“Can’t you smell it?”
My jest fell on deaf ears. “Scarlack’s stench is enough ta bring tears. Beyond that, I smell nothin’.”
“We’re about a
day’s ride out.
“Then we climb.”
Eustace grunted. “We’ll try ta rein in our excitement.”
The thought of clamoring up a mountainside with a dragon looming overhead, ready to swoop down upon us when we were at our most vulnerable, was enough to dim anyone’s enthusiasm.
I had little more to offer, so I broke off our connection.
As little as I talked, Eustace talked less.
At least to me—which was, all things considered, to my liking.
I preferred the silence of my own thoughts.
* * *
The calm of my flight was shattered by an undeniable sense of wrongness.
My weira screamed.
My eyes flicked across the horizon, to the sky and then below, frantically trying to locate the disturbance.
The pull of awareness gravitated earthward, dragging me down, so I let it guide me.
There!
Beneath the rock, underneath the ground less than one hundred paces to the side of the trotting horses, a gathering power pooled like a swirling vermillion and indigo vortex as a spell took effect.
“Eustace! To your left!
“Move!
“Hostile magic underground!”
I could see Eustace urging the men ahead as they broke into a gallop to escape whatever trap had been triggered beneath the umber earth and scree.
I was too late.
Whatever it was roiled and rippled beneath the ground like the crest of a crashing wave.
“The dragon!
“The dragon is underground!”
I urged Smoky downward, plummeting in a dead fall as I drew my guns.
I opened fire.
Rock and loam showered the ground as the dragon wove smoothly underground, moving faster than a horse at full gallop, weaving to and fro as easily as a fish in water, sliding forward as sinuously as a snake on sand, leaving a furrowed trail of shattered earth in its wake.
Eustace and his crew banked in a tight circle, guns drawn, concussive booms riddling the earth in a storm of bullets, arcane blasts, and explosive bursts.
The dragon kept coming.
A red liquid wave erupted from the earth in a spume of rock and dirt, as effortlessly as a shark breaching the surface, and Fronus and his horse were gone.
Fronus didn’t even have time to scream.
Another burst of magical energies and the dragon disappeared, teleported back to wherever it went to gloat over our gradual destruction.
Almost the End
“We should abandon this fool quest.
“No gold is worth this.”
That was more than I had heard from Scarlack in days of travel.
We stood shocked amidst the churned earth, the dragon’s trail ending abruptly, just like Fronus’s life and his brother’s before him.
At least his mourning was over.
Luerl hissed. “If we leave now, Scar, the dragon will hunt us down while we retreat.
“As it is doing now while we move forward.
“We have come too far for anything else.
“Backward or forward, both paths lead to the same end.
“We are committed.”
Eustace growled. “If I’m ta die, I want this bastard dead with me.
“He can choke on my corpse as I go down his gullet kickin’ and screamin’.”
Honestly, I was quite surprised by Eustace’s gang.
I had expected them to break, to scatter with the loss of Fronus. After all, they were here committed to coin. They were not after vengeance or retribution. They were not here for closure or to grant some semblance of meaning or purpose to the ending of a life they held dear.
At least, they had not been until now.
Now they were wedded in blood.
“We are not dead yet.”
Their eyes turned toward me reluctantly, as though I had been eavesdropping on a personal conversation.
“We know our goal. It is in our sights. We just have to get there.
“We can do better.
“We can be better than this thing.
“We cannot let it break us.”
Scarlack cursed, then gave a grim smile. “I, too, will make it choke on my remains.”
Eustace actually laughed, a mad howl that made the hairs on my neck stand up on end. “That’s tha spirit!
“Tha dragon’ll choke on our hate!”
I kept my voice flat as I replied, “The dragon is playing with us, batting us around like a feline with a new toy.
“We’ve got its interest. We have to use that to our advantage.”
“And how d’ya propose doin’ that?” Eustace’s eyebrows knitted upward in a fearsome tangle with his query.
“We know what it’s doing.
“It’s trying to take us out one by one.
“To do that, it keeps coming for us, each time in a different way.
“But, regardless of how it comes, it comes.”
Luerl pursed his lips, his dark, angelic features contemplative. “We lay a trap contingent upon its arrival.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
Scarlack grinned, opening a foul rictus into a world of jagged, broken teeth. “The mouse bites back.”
* * *
I wasn’t exactly the sharpest sword in the smithy, but I could see what the dragon was doing.
The dragon attacked when we were separated, particularly when I was away or apart from the group, either scouting or ensconced in my camp.
When I was relatively close to my companions, it tended to strike from afar, staying at range.
For whatever reason, it seemed to respect my capabilities and gave me a wider berth.
Or maybe it just wanted to kill me last.
The solution, as I saw it, was to stay close together, sharing a common defensive cordon where it would have to face all of us as one.
We would also have to do a far better job tilting the odds in our favor.
* * *
Before we went any farther, we needed to be better prepared. “Luerl, can you cast enchantments that’re contingent upon the dragon’s arrival?”
Luerl smirked. “Of course. What do you have in mind?”
I told him.
When the dragon arrived, it was in for some nasty surprises.
An Eye for an Eye
The land got progressively rougher as the Hellfire Range loomed darkly ahead, cloaked in ash and ruin, growing from a destination at the day’s beginning to a reality by day’s end.
We would camp tonight at the range’s base, where the land was still relatively flat, and make for the dragon’s den tomorrow.
The jagged peaks above were capped in sooty snow beneath billowing plumes of smoke, ash, and lava.
This was a fire drake’s paradise.
As the sky darkened, the slow-roiling lava flows billowing from the volcanic craters above became more prominent, changing from a ruddy grime to glowing reddish-orange plumes.
The peaks were starkly, dangerously, beautiful.
In the fading daylight, sunset blocked by the menacing peaks above, we dismounted next to a large, weathered boulder that would at least afford us some protection from being flanked during an attack in the night.
The sky was an angry dark orange and gray that gradually faded to clear blue to the far east, toward Sky’s End.
“Be free, my friend.” I patted Smoky’s haunches, urging him to stretch his wings and leave us to go hunt in the gloaming.
He looked at me quizzically, questioning whether this was a good decision.
“Go on!” I whispered as I gathered some supplies for the evening and my bedroll from his saddle. “You need to stretch your wings. I’ll be here when you get back.”
With a nod of his head and a short whinny, Smoky took off into the twilight, prancing like a young colt.
With Smoky gone, I turned to Eustace and his men, who were already well into setting up camp.
I gave a brief tip of my hat to Eustace
as I set my kit down beside the scabrous rock and started laying out my wards around the camp.
We were all in this together…my wards included.
* * *
We sat around a pitiful campfire eating our suppers, me with dried jerky, nuts, and fruit, and Eustace and his gang with heaven knew what. Their gruel was foul, acrid, and smelled like death. It looked like volcanic sludge and probably tasted worse. If I didn’t know any better, I would guess it was their next line of defense against the dragon.
“Want some?”
A peace offering of sorts from Scarlack.
I grinned. “As much as I want to be sick, I’ll pass.”
Eustace shook his head in disbelief. “Suit yerself. Ol’ Scarlack’s gunte is tha best gruel ya’ll have between here and Sky’s End.”
That it was the only gruel between here and Sky’s End was left unsaid.
“Who wants first watch?” Luerl looked at me as though anticipating an argument.
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” I pointed up above as I set down the rest of my meal and drew my guns.
A trail of fire and superheated air arced sinuously from the mountainside as the dragon took flight from its perch.
Luerl dusted his hands as he stood and drew his preferred weapon, an elegant arcane rifle that looked to be crafted from something like silvery, living wood. His gun shone with the soft radiance of starlight in the gloom. “Looks like it’s given up on stealth.”
Scarlack grunted as he, too, stood and drew Degan’s eldritch rifle. “I’ll take the first watch… Look, the dragon!”
Eustace almost snorted his gunte out of his nose.
As it was, he had plenty of leftovers in his beard.
With that, we opened fire.
* * *
Tendrils of light and ricocheting sparks flew as our shots struck the dragon’s shield.
Sadly, none hit the dragon.
With my enhanced vision, I could see the beast’s vast maw opening in anticipation, incandescent flames licking its lips, its breath weapon at the ready as it birthed a flaming demonic star in its gullet.
Spellslinger--Legends of the Wild, Weird West Page 10