by James Hunter
The volcano—a domineering mountain of black stone and jagged peaks—vomited a constant stream of lava like a never-ceasing geyser; the glowing magma trailed down the slope and turned into a sludgy, slow moving river of fire and molten rock. That river, in turn, meandered through this canyon, implacably carving its way through the rock thirty feet to my left. I turned in a quick circle, scanning the jagged, irregular rocks for any sign of the dragon or the Twilight Acropolis—the Jade Lord’s prison for the last five hundred years.
It didn’t take long to spot an ancient complex, perched precariously on an outcropping, overlooking the canyon, since it was the only man-made structure in sight. A squat, flat-topped building with a host of columns, which marched around the perimeter like stern-faced sentries. Even at a distance, I could see seven figures, blurry and indistinct, standing in the shade of the immense columns, staring out over the fiery landscape. That had to be the Jade Lord and his brothers. Had to be. Hiking up to the Acropolis would be an absolute nightmare, but with Devil I could make the trip in minutes.
Without a thought, I drew on the frigid power of Umbra coursing through me, calling Devil from the Shadowverse in a burst of cold energy and inky smoke. The Drake appeared a few feet away, looking significantly better than the last time I’d seen him—his wounds healed, his wings mended, his scales gleaming and slick in the firelight from the river. The Drake glanced at me, dipping his head in acknowledgment, before turning his reptilian gaze on the bleak landscape. What is this place? he sent, sounding … not scared, not exactly, but a touch apprehensive.
Twilight Lands, I replied, clambering over to him and slipping onto his back. We’ve come to find the Sky Maiden, Arzokh.
Devil sniffed and snorted, his purple eyes narrowing. The mother of dragons, he sent, more respectful than I’d ever heard from him. Among my kind, it is said she is the true mother of all Dragons, Drakes, and Wyverns.
You okay to fight her? I asked, panic creeping into my thoughts, my heart leaping into overdrive … I was already unsure how we were going to win this thing, but without Devil to assist me, it would go from nearly impossible to absolutely impossible.
The Drake hesitated for a second, debating with himself, before eventually bobbing his head. She is a worthy foe—there is no greater challenge for one of our kind. It will be a honor to battle her.
A string of muted cursing interrupted our silent conversation as Cutter stumbled through the portal, followed in short order by Forge, Abby, Vlad, and Amara. Most covered their mouths against the choking dust or shielded their eyes from the harsh glare of the nearby volcanic river.
“Shite,” Cutter said, eyes squinted as he fanned himself with one hand. “And I thought the Storme Marshes were hot. This place is a right nightmare. I wouldn’t want to spend an hour here, much less five bloody centuries. No wonder Arzokh is disgruntled—I’d be too if someone damned me to this god-awful place.”
“Yeah, it’s awfully desolate,” Abby said thoughtfully, turning in a slow circle, searching the landscape much like I’d done a second before. “So, I assume that’s the prison”—she hooked a thumb toward the building—“but where’s the Sky Maiden? I sort of expected her to be just waiting for us. Do you think there’s a dungeon we need to fight our way—”
A roar, part earthquake, part thunderstorm, cut Abby off mid-sentence. The sheer volume shook the ground and reverberated in my chest as loose pieces of scree bounced down the canyon walls in a series of mini rockslides.
“Guess that answers that,” Forge said, pointing toward the volcano with his heavy axe.
I stared, thunderstruck, as an enormous creature of scale, spike, and bone emerged from the top of the volcano like a fire god brought to life then given wings and terrible purpose. Simply incredible. I’d seen visions of her more than once, but it was nothing like seeing her in real life. Not even close. The size of her alone left me breathless and terrified. When I’d first battled Devil back in the Darkshard mines, Cutter had told me Drakes were simply small dragons, but it wasn’t until this second that I understood the difference.
The scope of it.
Arzokh was easily ten times the Drake’s size. If Devil was a sleek sports car, then Arzokh was the love child of a coal train and an aircraft carrier.
She was longer than a jumbo jet from snout to tail and just as big around in the chest. Her hide was a red so deep it bordered on black, and covered with cracking slabs of volcanic rock. Her wings, instead of jutting from her shoulder blades, connected along the outside of her elongated front arms like a bat’s wings. Her head—bigger than a Slugbug and sporting jaws packed with teeth longer than my forearm—swayed on a neck as thick as a towering pine. Smoke and fire trailed from her yawning maw as she hurtled toward us, making me think of the cataclysmic asteroid that had ended the world not so long ago.
I couldn’t help but feel she was going to succeed where the asteroid failed: she was going to end me. End us all.
“Pizdets, nam pizdets,” Vlad said with a groan, his face drooping as he groped at the alchemic grenades crisscrossing his chest. “We are—how do you Westerners say—screwed royalty.”
“That’s not how it goes,” I mumbled absently in reply.
“I’ve got to agree with the Alchemist,” Cutter said, glancing longingly at the portal hanging open midair, leading back to the sacred clearing. “I think we ought to chalk this up as a loss and call it quits. There’s no way we can beat that thing. It’s bloody impossible. Especially if she’s indestructible until we get the amulet. Might as well go jump in that magma river—it’ll be quicker and less painful.”
“She is bigger than I expected,” Amara said, nocking her bow with practiced efficiency. “But no creature is indestructible. She is formidable in body, true, but not more formidable than the mind.” She reached up and tapped at her temple. “She will rely on her size and strength, so we simply need to outthink her.”
As much as I subconsciously agreed with Cutter, Amara was right. I couldn’t go into this battle already convinced I’d lost. Beating Carrera had seemed impossible and so had defeating the Moss Hag, but I’d done both even when everyone thought I was doomed to failure from the start. I narrowed my eyes, squinting until I caught a glint of gold draped around her neck: the Jade Lord’s Amulet. If I could somehow get that away from her, then force her to land, we might have a chance. I wheeled Devil around in a tight circle, searching the desolate landscape.
Fifty feet behind us, and not far from the river of churning magma, was a jagged rock outcropping forming a small bottleneck with the canyon wall.
Not a great place to make a stand, but it would give everyone a little cover and it would restrict Arzokh’s ability to move. “There,” I commanded, gesturing toward the outcropping. “Forge, Vlad, Cutter—go set up in the fissures. Stay out of sight if you can. Abby and I are going to try and get that amulet, then drive her to the ground. Once she’s down and in range, unleash everything you’ve got.”
“And me?” Amara asked, glancing between the outcropping and the incoming dragon.
“Can you scale the opposite wall?” I asked, nodding toward the jagged rock-face. “That should give you a better vantage so you can put down suppressive fire.”
She frowned, canting her head to one side in thought, before dipping her chin in acknowledgment. “I will do it.”
“Good,” I said, wheeling Devil around again and offering Abby my hand. She accepted gladly, allowing me to pull her up into the saddle as everyone else scrambled to get into position.
“You honestly think we can do this?” she asked, the words uncertain as she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I replied, spurring Devil on with a nudge of my heels.
The Drake broke into a lurching gallop over the uneven terrain, his wings pumping as we built up speed. And then we were airborne, soaring upward, hot wind beating against my face as the river of lava burbled beneath us. A flutter of panic rose in my gut as the dr
agon barreled closer. Some part of me—the part interested in survival—insisted we should be fleeing from the monster, but I crushed my inner dread and spurred Devil on faster and faster.
TWENTY-NINE: Round One
“How dare you,” the dragon bellowed, great strands of flaming drool trailing down from her scaly jowls like burning napalm. Her voice was only a shadow of the regal, matronly dragon from the tapestry back at the Citadel. Now, when the Sky Maiden spoke, it was the sound of a natural disaster given voice—all grinding rocks, smoky infernos, and raging windstorms. “After all that’s been done to me, after all that’s been stolen, you would come and take more?” The question hung in the air like an ominous thundercloud.
A spike of guilt wormed its way up from my belly, but I ignored it. I had to do what I had to do. I leaned in low against Devil’s back, slapped the reins, and dug my heels in further, urging him on.
“I’ll melt your skin, pry those cursed artifacts from your smoking corpse, feed what’s rest of you to the Phlegethon, and finally have my freedom,” she bellowed, then threw her mouth open and belched a gout of flame. I’d seen Devil do the same trick a hundred times, but once again, size made a big difference. Instead of a column of fire as thick as a telephone pole, Arzokh unleashed a white-hot column of flame as big as an industrial sewer pipe and hotter than the surface of the sun. It was the ultimate KO technique—there was no blocking an attack like that, no absorbing it or shrugging it off.
It was instadeath.
Without prompting, Devil veered right, the world below flashing by as the beam of all-consuming sunfire whooshed past us, the air sizzling in its wake. I leaned left and tugged sharply on the reins, pulling us into a steep climb.
We rose, wheeling left, preparing to launch an attack on Arzokh’s flanks. We weren’t quick enough, though. For being such a colossally oversized creature, the Sky Maiden could move. Her head shot out, mouth wide. On instinct, I threw my body right, pulling us into a nimble barrel roll; the world inverted for a moment as Arzokh’s jaws snapped shut with a thunderous crack, missing us by inches. Devil completed the daredevil maneuver—the world suddenly normal again—and immediately banked right, swinging around in a tight arc, then darting toward the dragon’s face.
Devil struck like lightning, his inky talons slashing across her dinner-plate-sized eyes, leaving bloody gashes behind, before zipping just out of range. So, the Sky Maiden was fast, but obviously she wasn’t a match for Devil’s flight speed or his sheer aerial agility. He was a fighter jet to her cargo plane. We circled again, dancing and weaving just outside of the Sky Maiden’s deadly reach. Abby loosened her grip around my middle, stuck one hand out, and unleashed an insane barrage of fireballs that slapped at Arzokh’s muzzle and splashed into her eyes.
The dragon winced from the steady bombardment, but her HP bar remained constant and unmoving. Arzokh seemed mildly annoyed, sure, but as long as she had that amulet in place, she was some kind of spectral being, immune to the damage of our attacks.
I could see the amulet, though, dangling from a golden chain, as thick as my wrist, around her brawny neck. That was the prize, the ultimate goal, but getting ahold of it was going to be one heck of a challenge. For that, I needed to be closer. Much closer. An annoying enough distraction might do the trick. Devil darted in again, unleashing a fly-by wave of Umbra Flame while I drew on my innate Shadow Spark and promptly summoned Nikko from the Shadowverse. The winged chimp materialized in a poof of sooty smoke, her eyes locking on the dragon.
Keep her distracted, I sent urgently, drawing my warhammer from my belt.
Nikko responded with a squawk, leaping onto the end of the dragon’s snout, scampering along Arzokh’s bony muzzle, then launching herself at the dragon’s face. The fiesty chimp literally drop-kicked the Sky Maiden in one of her eyeballs, then whipped around like a Muay Thai fighter, lashing out with her claws while her feathered wings fluttered frantically, obstructing the dragon’s view. The attacks did no damage whatsoever, but they had to be painful, and it was going to be awfully difficult for Arzokh to pay attention to anything else.
“Hold on tight,” I yelled at Abby over one shoulder, hunching down and urging Devil into a reckless dive. Wind beat at my face, tugging my cloak back in a flutter of fabric as Abby tightened her arms around me in a death grip. I squinted, staring up at Arzokh’s sinuous neck—gaze fixed steadfastly on the glittering jade amulet at the base of her throat. I only had one chance to get this right, and seconds to do it. Quickly, I thrust my warhammer skyward, the rear spike forward, the weapon wobbling uncertainly in the air.
Closer and closer we flew.
Then, with a shout, I lunged upward and whipped my hammer forward, angling the hook so it would catch the golden chain, and maybe—hopefully—rip the amulet free.
The spike clanged against the metal, and for a single heartbeat, I thought I’d managed it, but then my weapon slipped free leaving the amulet in place and the chain unbroken. Not even a stratch.
Damn. A swing and a miss.
I dropped back into the saddle, stowing my hammer as Arzokh’s dark shadow washed over us and we zipped beneath her, skimming along close enough to reach out and run a hand along her dirt-caked belly. In seconds, we shot out from beneath her like a bullet and began our ascent, breaking for the sky—
The dragon’s tail—as long as a bus and topped by a nubby wrecking ball of bone spurs and spikes—broadsided us like a battering ram at the castle gates, batting us hard right. Devil howled in pain, teeth gnashing, one of his wings severely damaged, the flesh torn. Simultaneously, Abby shrieked, her arms disappearing from around my middle as the blow threw her from the saddle entirely. I spun around in utter horror, heart pounding—ready to explode from my chest—fully expecting to see her plunging toward the ground below.
The breath caught in my throat … There she was, hanging from the saddle by one hand, her eyes wide and frightened, her legs dangling two hundred feet above the ashy ground below.
Oh thank God … If she’d fallen from this height, there’d be no going back. She would’ve ended up as a bloody smear on the canyon floor.
Carefully, I leaned back and grabbed a fistful of her robes, dragging her up while she kicked and scrambled, fingers clawing at Devil’s sides. By the time she got resituated behind me, Arzokh was sixty feet away, completely consumed with trying to take a bite out of Nikko, who kept popping in and out of the Shadowverse, deftly avoiding her powerful, but comparatively slow, attacks. We were in the clear for the moment, but we still didn’t have the amulet, and even worse, Devil was flying in a herky-jerk fashion, fighting to stay aloft on his damaged wing.
Are you going to be okay? I sent.
I’ll live, but I won’t be able to fly much longer, Devil replied, sounding disgruntled all the way to his reptilian soul. Her aim was true—she damaged the wing joint. It will heal in time, but the limb will only deteriorate from here.
Crap. I thought for a second as Devil trembled, his wings pumping feebly as we headed for the Sky Maiden.
Okay, I need to get on Arzokh’s back, I finally sent. That’s the only chance we have left. Can you do a roll-and-drop, then get Abby safely to the ground?
He didn’t reply for a second, the only sound the desperate beating of his wings, my heavy breathing, and the constant drone of the wind. Yes, he replied after a time. I can do this thing, but it will be ... He faltered, as though searching for the right word. Difficult, he finished. Then, before I could say anything else, Devil threw his head back and rocketed up, his body going near vertical. I hung on for dear life, fists clenched around the reins, knees dug in, while Abby’s fierce bear hug squeezed the air from my lungs.
In a handful of seconds, we plateaued, breaking into a jittery glide fifty feet or more above the Sky Maiden, who was still battling Nikko below. Prepare yourself, the window will be small, Devil sent, groaning and grunting as he fought against the constant pull of gravity.
“Abby,” I said, switching on the Offi
cer’s Chat so she could hear me over the howl of the wind, “things are about to get crazy.”
“Crazier than this?” she said, her voice clear as a bell inside my head. “We’re fighting a dragon from the back of another dragon, over a river of magma. I almost fell to my death five seconds ago. This is officially the craziest thing on the planet.”
I grinned, unable to help myself. “Even crazier,” I said. “I’m going to get onto Arzokh’s back and get that amulet. After I bail, Devil will get you to the ground, but he won’t be good to fly for a while. So get set, and get everyone else ready.”
“What do you mean bail?” she asked, voice firm and unamused.
“You’ll see in a second. Now take the reins and hang on tight.” Slowly, hesitantly, she loosened her grip on my waist and grabbed the reins. I tapped Devil on the neck, directing us into another breakneck dive.
The Drake crested, arched, and fell, folding his wings and limbs tight against his streamlined body until he looked like a reptilian cruise missile plummeting toward the earth. I crouched, eyes squinted, hanging onto the spikes running along his neck as the wind hammered at me, burning my skin and stealing the air from my lungs. Behind me, Abby was quivering, uttering either a prayer or a string of angry curses—I couldn’t tell which, since she’d switched the chat feature off.
When we were twenty feet above Arzokh I nudged Devil in the sides with my heels, let’s do this; in a blink his right wing exploded outward, catching the air and throwing us into a blazing-fast corkscrew. The second we were inverted—my head hanging directly over the colossal Sky Maiden’s spur-studded back—I triggered Shadow Stride. Time lurched to a halt as I let go of his neck, unhooked my feet from the stirrups, and dropped like a rock. My stomach clawed its way up into my throat as I fell, and I thought I might vomit and pass out cold—not necessarily in that order.