by Aaron Crash
Then the fairy girl knew no more.
Chapter Forty-Four
YMIR FELT HIS SHARREB up on the Flow Courtyard, thanks to Charibda reaching out to him. They were close enough that he could use the Gather Breath Ring to tap into their duszas, and he could feel each of them—Ribby, Jennybelle, Lillee, and Tori. Gatha was there as well; the she-orc’s huge soul burned like her swords burned, with an unquenchable inferno of life.
Ymir hadn’t been able to keep the dragon distracted, but Ziziva had. She’d saved the Librarium and Della’s life. Ymir was a little dismayed not to feel the fairy’s soul, but she was new to them, or it could be she’d flown off.
Regardless, the barbarian drew in magical energy from his sharreb—he felt his heart swell. Then he focused on the Black Ice Ring, and he shattered time like stomping a boot onto a frozen tundra puddle.
Anny Prettytoad’s big sword stopped just as it brushed his head. He’d almost had his skull split like an autumn melon.
Ymir stood. Surrounding him was the Sea Stair Market, or most of it. Smoke hung in the air. Molten rock still glowed in places. He smelled the stink of burning and wet stone. The number of deaths would be devastating, though the curfew would’ve helped many survive. Not people in the top level of the Flow apartments, but everyone else.
Ymir created a dagger of ice, slammed it into the fairy girl’s chest, and walked away from her. When he started time again, she would fall, she would bleed, she would die. Good. She’d fed Jacinta Sugartime to the dragon without a second thought. She’d allied herself with someone who murdered children. She deserved to die.
Ymir strode onto the Flow Courtyard to see the battle paused—the figures were moving, but they were moving almost imperceptibly slow.
Lillee stood back, firing the ice arrows from her water bow. Such a nice piece of prolium magic.
The dragon bristled with her arrows, but Unger would be able to heal that damage. Just as he would heal Tori’s hammer blow, which had crushed his front leg and bashed out a few of his teeth. Around its head was a dark mist of noxious air—that would be Jennybelle’s new Bloodcross Mist attack, a spell she’d perfected not unlike her Lover’s Knot. It was swamp magic elevated to a higher level.
She held the Sapphire Fang, but the Josentown witch wasn’t about to get close enough to use it. No, and she didn’t need to.
Gatha was there, floating off the ground. One sword had carved off one of the dragon’s horns, while the other sword was poised to do an equal amount of damage, if not kill the beast outright.
Unger had found himself at the heart of Ymir’s sharreb, and he was being beaten.
Ymir found some satisfaction about that. He wanted to savor the destruction his wives had wrought on the worm, but they were running out of dusza. Using the Black Ice Ring was an expensive proposition.
Della stood in the ruins of the Librarium Citadel’s entryway. She had one of her swords drawn, and she stood in Sunfire armor. Clutched in her other fist was the apple-shaped fruit she’d plucked from the plant they’d grown on his epic poem.
She hadn’t opened the fruit, and from a distance, it looked a bit too green. She’d had to wait to let it ripen, which explained why it had taken her so long to join the fight. Had she picked it too soon? Ymir hoped not.
Ymir walked past Queen Deedee and Professor Lola, in their Verum Selves, lying against the Flow tower. In the queen’s lap lay the tiny, bloody body of Ziziva. Her flesh had been scorched and her stomach pierced—such wounds had to be fatal. Her skin was gray. She’d fought the dragon but had sacrificed her life to do it.
Ymir knelt and touched her. He used some of his precious dusza to cast a spell, but it wasn’t just his, it was Jennybelle’s, Lillee’s, Tori’s, Gatha’s, and Ribby’s. Five extraordinary princesses, with powerful souls and even more powerful hearts.
“Jelu devocho,” Ymir whispered, using the more powerful version of the cure spell. He wasn’t a healer, he didn’t know if what he did worked, and with time running so slowly, he couldn’t tell if her color was better or not.
Ymir’s heart broke as he was forced to leave her. He had to finish this last task. To honor her death if that was the case.
He slipped on the Veil Tear Ring. He was betting with time moving so slowly, Fluffy the hellhound would take a bit longer to catch up with him.
He’d get the truth of the dragon, get why he wanted the Flesh Steal Ring and what the damn thing did in the first place, and then Ymir would kill the thing like he’d killed Anny Prettytoad. It was easy to murder when you had time in your pocket.
Ymir found himself in the noise and light beyond the veil. The Akkir Akkor hissed at him. USING THE RINGS TO DO WHAT YOU WOULD DO. WE CAN SEE YOU. WE KNOW YOU. THE GATHER BREATH GAVE YOU POWER THAT IS NOT YOUR OWN. THE BLACK ICE WILL SLOW THE HOUND AS YOU TEAR AWAY THE VEIL ONE MORE TIME. DO WHAT YOU MUST. SEE WHAT YOU DARE. AS YOU LIVE YOUR MINUTES. AS YOU WALK YOUR MILES. AS WE WAIT FOR THE SLEEPER TO AWAKE FROM THE DREAM.
Ymir ignored the whisper and tried to delve into the dragon’s past, but whatever warding spells Unger had, they were too strong to overcome from a distance. He ran to the dragon. He touched its thick scales and entered the life of Unger, and suddenly, Ymir saw a problem. This being was tens of thousands of years old, if not older. A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? It was an ancient thing that flew between worlds, that used portals to travel vast distances instantly.
Ymir didn’t hear the hellhound, nor did he smell it, so he had a bit, but he was fighting two battles—having enough power to keep time moving slowly and fighting to sift through Unger’s impossibly long life.
Ymir saw the dragon coming to Raxid to blend in. Unger acquired wealth, created aeries, and bedded thousands of women. He didn’t want wives. Wives meant children, and this dragon, this Alpheros, was infertile. There would be no children for Unger.
That bitterness drove him through the millennia, as empires rose and fell and as wars blistered the land and shattered lives. As he grew in magic. He’d learned to replenish his Animus energy with dusza energy, though it made his orange eyes burn bright and scorched his face. At times, he fixed the defect with FleshForge, one of the dragon’s many abilities. Other times, he let the scorch marks show so people would be afraid of him.
Unger had come to Raxid to hide among the races of people. He was frightened of the Shadows of Teeth and Talon, and Ymir had a vague sense that these demons had destroyed Unger’s home. But now, those demons were dead, killed by heroes on other worlds.
Ymir felt the energy draining out of his dusza, quickly, so quickly. He had to hurry.
He wanted to see what this dragon knew about the Akkiric Rings and the death of Aegel Akkridor.
Ymir found it—he found the Night of Fire.
Suddenly, Ymir was in Four Roads, at Castle SkyReach, and he saw the Vempor Aegel Akkridor, with his seven Corvidae, his personal guard.
They were at the top of the castle, on the parapets, and Unger had made a deal with someone, an Ohlyrran woman, with flashing purple eyes and inky black hair. Llennala Hana wore crackling electrical armor, and she wielded a spear like it was a finger of lightning. She was the leader. She was the heroic woman who wanted the vempor dead for what he’d done to her family.
And Llennala Hana hadn’t come alone.
Ymir got a flash of her comrades, their names, their races, their skills.
Bachman Saltrock was a dwarf in shining steel armor gripping a single-bladed ax.
Prince Zath of Kreenn was a lesser prince of the Sorrow Coast, who’d lost his wife in the wars against the vempor.
Grull and Grantha of Goyyoat, a black-haired Gruul couple, both man and woman wielding the curved swords of the orcs. They were married, but their children had been murdered by the vempor, and nothing could slake their thirst for vengeance.
There was a fairy girl, Ezri Whisperkiss, who fought in her Verum Self with a silver spear. Scars twisted her face and ruined her body. She’d experience torture at Aegel Akkri
dor’s own hands, but she never betrayed the secrets of the Fayee.
Lastly, there was Kerssawk Kirrooth, one of the Wingkin, a woman warrior with bright white wings who wielded two short swords.
All of these heroes were fighting the Corvidae, figures in black armor with crimson eyes wielding all sorts of weapons.
But it was the man who fought the vempor himself that gave Ymir pause.
He was tall, thickly built, wearing the cured leather of an elk. He had a square-cut mane of black hair and smoldering blue eyes. He fought with an ax, and from the look of it, it was a weapon from the Ax Tundra clans.
His name was Fionn Ymaol. Why he’d come down from the north, Unger didn’t know, but Llennala Hana knew that the barbarian was critical to killing the vempor.
Ymir, lost in the vision, had to smile. This was so very much like the epic poem he’d written, only Fionn Ymaol had come alone.
Unger had melted much of the rock of the castle, and he’d taken blows from Aegel Akkridor and his Corvidae. The dragon had joined Llennala Hana’s desperate quest to kill the vempor for a very specific reason—to get the Flesh Steal Ring.
The vempor had been trying to use it, but Unger had been able to dispel the magic using something called Magica Incanto. The enchantment had left the dragon weak, though, and he was running out of Animus.
A blink later, Ymir watched as Fionn Ymaol cut off the hands of the Vempor, first with one hack and then another.
Unger was bathing the entire rooftop in ShadowFlame. The dragon didn’t give a fuck. He would kill hero and villain just to get to the vempor, just to get the Flesh Steal Ring.
Fionn Ymaol realized they’d been betrayed. He had a final revenge. He tossed both of the vempor’s severed hands into the ShadowFlame. The rings were destroyed.
Then Fionn took off Aegel Akkridor’s helmeted head.
Unger turned his breath on the clansman.
Nothing and no one was left alive on the ramparts of Castle SkyReach.
Ymir felt Unger’s fury. The Flesh Steal Ring had been destroyed, and the dragon couldn’t forge a new one. He had his own magic, something called Animus, but it was far different from the sorcery on Raxid. He would have to wait. For a thousand years, Unger would have to wait for a new ring to be forged.
Ymir was given the last piece of the puzzle. The Flesh Steal Ring could steal the abilities and bodies of others and give them to the wielder. Unger planned to use the ring to take the fertility of a fairy, in this case, Anny Prettytoad. Unger would then get that fairy pregnant with her own magic. And so, Unger would finally get the children that had been denied him all the millennia of his long life.
Ymir heard the growls of the hellhound, could feel the wet slap of its tentacles on the stone, could smell the graveyard toilet stink of the thing. It was close, right on top of him. Ymir’s little trick with the Black Ice Ring might’ve worked the one time, but it wouldn’t work again.
He slipped the Veil Tear Ring off his hand.
Ymir then drew a spear of ice from the air and hammered it into the heart of the dragon. If this fucking murderer had killed Ziziva, then he didn’t deserve any kind of good death. He just deserved the darkness and eternal damnation.
The barbarian stepped back and started time again.
He expected the dragon to scream in pain.
Instead, the dragon laughed. “A good wound, one that should’ve killed me, but I am Alpheros. I am eternal! Magica Incanto Enchantrix Cura!” An orange light exploded around the dragon.
Ymir had to put up his hands against the glare.
Being closer, Gatha and Tori were thrown to the ground.
Lillee staggered back, dropping her water bow and ice arrow.
Jennybelle was sent to her knees, cursing. “What the fucking shit?”
The dragon leapt into the air, wings outstretched, hovering above them. Every wound had been repaired, though the horn Gatha had cut off hadn’t been restored. Ymir took some grim satisfaction in that.
“This has grown tiresome!” the dragon thundered. “Magica Defensio!”
A rectangle of orange light appeared over Gatha. She was lifted into the air and slammed against the outside of the Librarium Citadel. The she-orc was being crushed to death by the unforgiving light so she couldn’t cast a spell to dispel the magic.
“Magica Impetim!” Unger hurled orange missiles into Lillee. She went down with her ice armor sizzling.
The dragon then hit Tori with his ElectroArc Exhalant. She let out a cry as pieces of her stone armor were shattered by the attack. She wailed and went down, leveled by the electricity ripping through her body.
ElectroArc Exhalant—how did Ymir know it was called that? He realized he had a fairly clear picture of what Unger’s abilities were called thanks to his time inside the dragon’s life. The only reason Unger was still alive was because he’d created a special enchantment to protect his heart from something called HeartStrike. The special dragon magic also cured almost any wound. Ymir took note.
Della called out, “Ignis ignarum!” It was a simple Sunfire cantrip, but it was enough to remove the magic pinning Gatha to the wall. She fell, seemingly lifeless, into the moat.
Unger’s ElectroArc Exhalant crackled across the stone and struck Della. Her sword went clattering across the stone courtyard. The Princept was brought to her knees, but not before she hurled the fruit to Ymir. He caught it, then flung himself down to escape more lightning.
In seconds, Unger had leveled everyone on the battle. Ribby was powerless to do a thing to help from where she swam in the moat. She might’ve been able to attack the dragon’s dusza using her mermaid magic, but he didn’t have one.
Ymir crouched on one knee and pressed his thumbs into the soft flesh of the fruit. Yes, it was ripe. He fished the ring out and slipped it on. Suddenly, instead of feeling Unger’s strange Animus core, he could feel the dragon’s body scales, skin, meat, and bone.
Ymir didn’t pause. He drank in Unger’s flesh, not stealing it, but altering his own skin. He felt the wings rip through his robes, sprouting from his back. His pants split and dropped from him. He was growing, changing, and yet, he still had the rings on his hands, though he couldn’t see them on what was now a scaled hand tipped with talons.
Ymir wasn’t going to try flying—he wasn’t a damn dragon, though he was the size of one now. Instead, he hurled himself up and latched onto Unger, bringing him down until both were on the Flow Courtyard.
Ymir’s women fled from the two giant dragons clawing each other into ribbons. Ymir didn’t know how to use his damn tail, but Unger did, and he wrapped it around Ymir’s right arm. His left arm had the hurt shoulder.
Worse than any physical energies, Ymir was running out of dusza. He knew he had little chance of winning the fight. He had to be smart.
Before the dragon could cast another spell, Ymir again used the Winter Flame Ring to seal Unger’s mouth shut in a muzzle of ice. This time, he froze both the inside and the outside so the thing really couldn’t talk. Using the Yellow Scorch Ring, Ymir reached into Unger and found that fire burning inside him. He put out the flames. He swept all the heat he could from Unger’s body, and the results were immediate.
Unger’s scales had gone from black to gray. The orange accents faded until they were almost colorless. The dragon wasn’t dead, not yet, but it would take a moment for his Animus core to reignite his flames.
Gatha came charging out of the moat, dripping wet. She didn’t have the energy left to create a Sunfire sword, but she bent and picked up Della’s fallen blade. The she-orc ran forward and once again drove her blade home into the chest of the enemy dragon.
“Gatha, no!” Ymir roared. “We need him alive!”
“Jelu jelarum!” Lillee called out. Jennybelle echoed her.
Both of them used Flow magic to freeze Unger’s feet to the ground, to keep them frozen, and to ice over his entire head. Both elf and human were keeping the dragon man trapped in ice.
Ymir raised a gia
nt yellow claw and felt his eyes narrow. His scales were gold and black, a nice color. He really was a dragon, not just in body, but he also had the spells. Magica Cura, Enchantrix, FleshForge.
Ymir clambered across the stone and reached into the water. “Ribby, it’s me, Ymir. Now, don’t struggle.” He caught the mermaid in his claws. She was in her bestial form, black eyes, black lips, and sharp fangs, mostly scales.
Ymir held her still in the water. He felt her body like he felt the amwabs in the air when he used the Winter Flame and Yellow Scorch Rings. He felt how her breath flowed as she breathed in the water. He couldn’t understand how there could be air in the water, but it was there, and he saw the damage the Gather Breath Ring had done to her.
FleshForge. Enchantrix. Powerful dragon magic.
Ymir adjusted her body, but he was using the last of their dusza. This would be the end of him, all of their power, all of his wives would be drained dry.
He made the changes to Ribby and pulled her from the water.
She let out a gasp.
He set her down. She grew legs, fell to her knees, and then wept, wept like her heart was empty. She took in a shuddering breath. Then sobbed some more.
Della’s vision. Ribby weeping. It was coming true. And Ymir knew, she was crying for their lost Ziziva.
“No!” Unger exploded free from the ice. He shoved Gatha aside—her sword was still in his chest.
His right claw was glowing with an orange light. He was using the HeartStrike. Ymir could feel him building up the power, and if it struck home, it would kill Ymir and nearly kill Unger himself. The dragon would be weak, but he didn’t care. He wanted to kill the simple barbarian who had bested him.
Della flew over on her Moons magic. With a slash of her magical blade, she severed Unger’s glowing right front leg off at the knee. That would end his HeartStrike.
The dragon fell back to the stones, his stump gushing black blood.
Gatha pulled the sword from the dragon’s chest. “Do you want to be the one to slay the dragon, Princept?”