The next few moments unfolded before the general in slow motion, although it was too surreal for any sensible reaction. The dragon glided her slowly through the air, still deep in her trance, stopping only when she floated directly in front of his face.
If dragons could smile, this one was. As if it wouldn’t be satisfied with a surprise kill on the human who hunted him for weeks on end with painful stabs of lightning, it let out a snort that blew her hair back. The dragon wanted the little sorceress to be fully aware of the fate that waited. Ambrosia looked up at the dragon passively, and she didn’t break from her enchantment. The dragon’s black and yellow orbs met her wide eyes. Then there was nothing but flame as the onyx box fell to the ground.
Williamdale watched the box fall to the ground but shook off the shock and continued to climb, mindful not to get poked by any of the spikes from the dragon's horn-tangled mane. There would be a toast for Ambrosia later, if he survived.
Balance, swing, grab the next horn, slash, and repeat. He stuck to his method without any hesitation and slowly edged higher up the lizard. It was not the ideal way to slay a dragon, but the general lacked the resources to kill the monster the conventional way. His numbers were dwindling by the moment, and the time called for desperate moves. He had to reach the head. He knew it was the only way to take the dragon down now that he lacked a wizard.
Sir Williamdale's confidence was building with each handhold, but just as he was in mid-swing toward the right side of the dragon, it smartly timed the man on his back and contorted its body. Sir Williamdale's feet swung out and up in a wide crescent, and it was all he could do to hold on and watch the world go slow as it tilted away until it seemed as though he was walking on a carpet of stars.
But just as he reached the high point of the swing the dragon jerked hard, then changed its momentum in order to swing its head around and back from the direction Sir Williamdale was swinging, so that it might snatch the man from the air in one bite.
The general was well aware of the move and had already played out his next maneuver in his mind. Sir Williamdale quickly shifted his hips and pulled his knees to his chest, contorting into a position that would allow him to kick off of the dragon's nose and bounce back towards the other side of its back.
It worked, and he was rewarded by not becoming a snack for the beast, but while fast thinking kept him from flying into the dragon's gaping mouth, he unknowingly played right into the beast's own plan. After all, dragons had been the alpha beasts for millennia, and they were quite used to smaller enemies clutching to its body during a fray. As the general swung back to safety on the left side of the dragon, it simply tucked its legs and rolled onto its left, slamming itself flat and hard into the ground directly on top the general.
The enchanted armor he wore was impenetrable, but the impact was monumental. The dragon hit the ground with the weight of a small castle, which was enough to bend the armor and add major stress to the joints. Sir Williamdale lost sight of the world as all went silent, except for a loud boom, and the sound of bones cracking as the air was squeezed out of his lungs.
Then there were no sounds at all, but a muffled drumming in the wind. It went on like an approaching parade in the distance, only the parade never got closer, leaving only the bass drum teasing in the wind with its thump-thumping.
After a while Sir Williamdale realized that the drumming was actually the beating of his heart, and the wind was his breath. The world around him was all dark grey, but he didn't panic. He just smiled as visions of his mother and father appeared from the dark.
They smiled, and then suddenly they were standing beside the bed of his childhood, and though he couldn’t hear what they were saying he felt an overwhelming feeling of love. Again the scene shifted and a great darkness hovered over them that only he seemed to notice.
"Run!" he wanted to scream, but just as it was in his childhood, his mouth would not obey.
There was a bright flash and a crash, and then he was once again flooded with images from the day that he saw them perish. He wanted to rise up, to help them escape, but just as it was in the past he couldn’t move. Only now, in this vision, the sound of death and destruction was flooded over by an alarm bell ringing, ringing, ringing...
“No!”
Sir Williamdale's own scream broke him from his trance, and as he regained his wits he realized that the ringing bell he was hearing was actually a percussion of teeth crunching against armor. It was the dragon's teeth, crunching his armor.
I'm in the beast’s mouth! He thought, and immediately wanted to fall back into the dream that he woke from.
The dragon was chewing on him with short, frustrating gnaws, confused as to why he wouldn’t break. Searing pain coursed through his body as points of the teeth repeatedly slipped through the openings along the hip and knee joints, slicing his skin and injecting burning saliva each time. He lamented in his misfortune. Not only was he going to die this night but his pride and joy, his fabulous, enchanted golden armor was going to prolong the process.
The terrible pain that he was in overtook his ability to even wail, and it virtually paralyzed him. Time had obviously passed since the fall. As far as Williamdale could tell there was no longer any fighting going on. In between bites, he glimpsed the ground to be close, meaning the dragon was low to the ground. Like a dog gnawing on his bone, he imagined.
At first he began to pray for his life to end, but when he opened his eyes and looked around as if searching for a sign from God, there was a miracle. A miracle in the form of his broadsword. He had sheathed it sometime during his climb, and low and behold it was still at his hip. He recalled that the sheath, as well as the strap that held it to his body had also been reenforced with the same dwarven gold as the rest of his attire. Now it was his turn to smile.
“You’re coming with me you devil,” he said.
Then, summoning every bit of strength within his broken body, he reached for his side and gripped its hilt. Once he felt that he had a nice, firm grip he waited, concentrating on the gusts of air that brushed across his face every time the mouth opened wide before a bite. Feeling out the rhythmic, chewing bouts of pain, he waited.
“One. Two. Three!” he said, and then Sir Williamdale drew his sword and aimed for the ceiling of the dragon’s mouth just above the tonsils. As he did he planted the hilt of the sword firmly at the center of his abdomen, while giving extra support with his other hand. The closing of the mouth gave plenty enough pressure to start the initial incision, and then he braced his lower back and thrust the rest of the golden sword into the dragon's palate until it was buried to the hilt.
A spitting cough followed, whipping him from his sword and tossing him out and onto the forest floor in a heap. There was a second sound, but that was the dragon’s head as it collapsed to the ground next to him. Sir Williamdale’s sword had pierced directly through the top of it's mouth and into the unsuspecting dragon’s brain.
The general did not move at first, shocked from amazement as much as from injury. He just laid still, his body flat against the dirt as he slowly turned his head in order to face his enemy. Though the creature was littered with minor wounds over its legs and its body, its closed mouth hid the true mortal blow. In fact the way that its head fell onto its front legs made the beast seem oddly peaceful, as though it were only taking a slight respite. But its eyes weren't closed, but staring right back at him. Slowly, the luster of the dragon's eyes dulled in the firelight.
Williamdale apologized to his God for praying for death, and turned in the other direction to find the second miracle of the night. Ambrosia’s black box was lying to the right of him within arms reach!
He grabbed the box, and then painfully dragged himself to a tree to prop up against. There were still hundreds of young fires dancing throughout the area, cracking and snapping at the night, but he heard no soldiers beyond the embers. He recalled Ambrosia’s last moment as she attempted to place some kind of spell onto the box and shook his head
in disbelief.
"Was she actually trying to summon one?" he wondered out loud.
When he opened the box he laughed.
She wasn't attempting to summon her pets as he assumed, but instead she used her last breath to teleport the stones away. She used her last moment of life to hide her precious diamonds. It was her last contribution to the good of humanity.
“Foolish witch,” he whispered with a smile. “Where in the world did you send them?”
Realizing the tale must live on, the general excruciatingly yanked free the scroll he’d tucked under his chest plate earlier. Grinning, he read Ambrosia’s lie once more. Then, he turned the scroll over and began to give an accurate account of Ambrosia’s diamonds, as well as how their last night, as well as their last battle together truly ended.
He scratched as well of a story as any man could, cringing through the pain of his wounds. He wrote a warning, of the power of the Blue Diamonds should they ever be found. The warning was would be his last contribution to humanity, to the goodly folk, using a twig for a pen and his own blood for ink. It was a story he wished he could recount to his grandchildren in front of the fireplace with a mug of mead, not dying in the middle of a burning forest, but he knew that it was a good death. He was content with that, as all warriors were.
Once he finished scribing his tale he rolled the scroll, careful to tie the ribbon securely and tuck it back into the protection of his cuirass. He didn’t know how long the message would remain there in the forest, waiting to be found by some wandering passerby.
Sleep seeped in and with it a smile returned to his face. Once again the world went grey, and once again he was greeted by a vision of his parents. Only this time he was a man and they were embracing him in a hug.
Williamdale died there, armor twinkling in the light of a smoke tinged dawn, beside the lifeless body of the last dragon.
1) The Prince and the Cleric
“Dragons? Are you mad?”
Baymar instantly realized he spoke with a little too much gusto, for as if in agreement with his thoughts the drunken camaraderie throughout the foggy mead hall momentarily wavered in volume. He felt hot tension caress the back of his neck, and the hairs down his forearms pricked up as squinty eyes zeroed in from multiple directions.
All magic wielders feel this sensation when they are stared upon. Curious eyes may as well be daggers to a wizard. When a mageling casts his first spell – a real spell, not the street corner stuff – he learns how to pull power directly from the cosmos in order to fulfill his task. What isn't known by most, is that each time a spell is cast a tiny amount of the magical energy flutters off, and then gravitates around the caster's body. Eventually this residual magic settles into an aura, and it thickens over time. Much about this energy is still a mystery, like why it doesn't like to be looked at.
It’s a bittersweet situation that most newcomers to the dark arts learn well after they've taken the life-changing plunge into the Mystic Academy. By that age they'd probably dreamed about conjuring snowstorms and lightning bolts for as long as they could remember. Nobody informs these dreamers why wizards live out most of their lives in isolation, or that they will inevitably live the same hermit life.
Baymar was no mageling, in fact he had an aura that could fill the room twice over, and he was fully tuned into the eyes on him now. In one shady corner of the room Baymar saw, as well as felt a group of card dealing dwarves sneaking peeks. In the opposite corner a sitar-strumming bard was distracted enough to stutter in rhythm. Baymar balled his fists, and it was all he could do not to shrink down into his chair.
Speaking out was a careless mistake on Baymar’s part. He knew perfectly well that the gloomy watering hole was a haven for outlaw and thief alike. He was one of the older patrons in the private tavern, so by default his robbery and murder had probably been plotted several times over long before his outburst.
“Lower your voice, or would you rather I save these thugs the time and rob you myself?”
The sarcastic grin behind the remark did little to diffuse the threat. Baymar didn’t take threats lightly, even the ones made in jest. If it were twenty years ago he might have put a fist to the young man’s mouth just to make a point of it, but Baymar knew him and knew better. Even through the failure of a disguise he recognized his face, and a fist to the young man's mouth wouldn't work.
The young man sitting across Baymar was Shomnath, prince and heir to the throne of Somerlund, the city they were currently sitting in the middle of. The prince had mysteriously gone through pains to conceal his identity. He was unshaven, wore clothes littered with patches, and even stank a little. Even the weathered stain on his cloak seemed genuinely old, but after all the effort it was wasted on Baymar. He recognized the prince the moment they met the prior evening. The prince appeared at Baymar's home late in the evening promising a job that he would not be able to pass up. The prince didn’t know, but the failure to hide his identity worked out in his favor. If Baymar hadn’t recognized him he would never have left the comfort of his home for this hall of cretins.
The Black Cauldron, a pub hidden within Somerlund’s poorest district, was not the type of tavern Baymar frequented. In fact, it wasn’t the type of pub any respected man could find. From outside, a ragtag structure revealed no clue of the steady business within. Literally a pile of log, scrap iron, and brick, the walls and roof seem about as architecturally sound as a pile of firewood, but the effect was the desired one, perfectly blending it in flush with the shanty homes surrounding it. A door that was thoroughly warped by time hung from a single hinge at the center of the mess, where several squatters could regularly be found contributing to the ambiance.
It was all an illusion, quickly realized once you passed through the entrance, when you found yourself walking down an intricately shaped stone stairway that twisted deep below ground. The passage spiraled twice, stopping abruptly at an open, massive iron door that judging by the way dirt piled up to it's base hasn't been shut in many years. Just within the doorway a sentry waited on an ancient wooden stool, with one hand extended for a door fee and the other hand perpetually closed around a mug of mead.
Once you've dropped some coin, you get to pass by the real door to the Black Cauldron, as well as a more fit guard, sporting a smile full of holes and an axe covered in notches. Then, all that is left is a short stroll down an arched, tiled hallway fit for a rich cathedral. At the end of the out-of-place hall, a new world lit up in the form of a wide, windowless cavern, fashioned with thick mahogany pillars and red brick walls traced with dark, smoke stained grout. The high ceiling is almost completely black, covered in soot from many years of smoky nights.
Centering the room, surrounded by tables like the one Baymar and Shomnath presently occupied, is a giant, black, iron cauldron, standing over nine feet tall and nearly twelve feet wide. One side of the cauldron is flanked by a wooden, rickety flight of steps leading to the top of it. A slightly less rickety looking bar had been built around the other half. The monstrous pot, for which the tavern was named, was rumored stolen ages ago from a traveling horde of trolls. The trolls used it for cooking unfortunate travelers who crossed their path.
Now, the cauldron was where the first person of the night that fell asleep from over-drinking was ceremoniously stripped naked and tossed into. Needless to say the establishment wasn’t exactly the pride and joy of Somerlund.
“Young man,” said Baymar. “There hasn’t been any dragons for nearly two hundred years. Also, you told me that you had a job for a healer. I’m not accustomed to being lied to.” The old cleric’s bushy grey eyebrows rose high as he leaned back in his chair. He wanted to know why the prince hid his name, but wisdom told Baymar to keep the rest of his cards in pocket until his opponent revealed his.
There was no deep reasoning behind the prince's secrecy. Concealing his namesake was just the norm for Shomnath. He wasn't hiding who he was from Baymar specifically, it was just second nature to deny who he was. His father s
poiled him with the best of everything, assuming the prince would just slide into his royal shoes and relieve him of his duties, only to have Shomnath repulse at the notion. He grew up loathing his royal disposition, wanting nothing to do with his born station in society.
The kingdom of Somerlund was blessed with peace for more than a decade and the idea of sitting upon a throne, even as its supreme leader didn’t hold a warm place in Shomnath’s heart. From the day he learned to mount a horse, he secretly wandered the countryside under different guises and name, seeking what he really wanted for himself. Above all he wanted to go off on fantastic adventures like the ones he read about in books.
“I didn’t lie," said a grinning Shomnath. "I just didn’t mention that it’s a traveling job.”
“A traveling job?”
“Exactly. I have an excellent crew, but your healing magic would be extremely valuable to us.” The ends of Shomnath’s curly brown locks jiggled loose from under his hood when he became animated. The dark cloak did nothing to hide his boyish energy.
Baymar cringed at how simple the prince made his “healing magic” sound. A true cleric was educated in all facets of alchemy, nature and magic. They were far more than just healers. They were trained to manipulate the physical attributes in nature through the use of magic. Lord Baymar had reached a level beyond the likes of which many mage and sorceress alike die before reaching, yet the prince had just made his life’s work sound so minimal.
“I hate to disappoint you,” Baymar quipped, “but I must refuse your generous offer. Traveling, as well as job, are two words I tend to avoid nowadays.”
“But you haven’t heard everything yet,” declared Shomnath. His ship was quickly sinking and he felt it.
“Exactly," countered the older man. "I’m absolutely sure that I haven’t.”
“I know," Shomnath stroked his trimmed beard and leaned back into his chair. "You doubt my ability to pay for your services. That it will be worth your while. I assure you, I can meet any price.”
Blue Diamonds (Book One of The Blue Diamonds Saga) Page 3