by Eric Vall
The thought of gold and other jewels under the shifting sands of the desert tempted me, and I wanted to see if I could sense the treasures with my power. I visualized what I was looking for in my mind and concentrated on the image of gold and emeralds.
A small hum, almost like the chiming of a bell really, went through my mind, and the image of an immense gold vein flickered behind my eyes. A myriad of jewels and other metals joined in with the gold, and a triumphant smile slid onto my face.
We would definitely launch an expedition into the desert to recover those treasures.
But first, Hatra needed water.
I was about to start putting together the pieces of the aqueducts when I sensed there was something wrong. There was the sound of shifting sand in the distance and the vague smell of acrid blood in the air. I frowned as I strained my neck to look around me. There was nothing I could see, but there was still a niggling doubt that rang like alarm bells in the back of my mind.
Around me, everyone was on high alert as well, with their eyes trained on the desert and weapons already in hand.
I shifted into my dragon form in preparation for whatever was going to be coming out of the desert. I also preemptively gathered my healing power and allowed a wash of kaleidoscope glitter to settle on everyone around me. We all knew something was coming, we could sense it, and none of us were going to get hurt.
“Desert vipers!” Laika hissed out as her broadsword appeared in her hand.
Suddenly, enormous serpents with glowing crimson eyes burst out of the ground. They were the size of buses and had thick black scales covering their bodies. There were nearly twenty of them, and taking them out would have been a pain if I was by myself.
Thankfully, I wasn’t, and the Blue Tree Guild let out fierce battle cries as they charged the deadly snakes.
I launched myself into the air and pulled stone spikes from the ground, but the serpents evaded them. It was almost as if they’d been expecting that move from me, but I didn’t have time to think about that.
From the air, I could see the synchronized movements of the Blue Tree Guild warriors and the way Leon seamlessly fought alongside them. But there was something off about the battle. Even though only seconds had passed, and the desert vipers were smaller than the behemoths summoned by Asher, the serpents seemed to move with one mind.
If they were one mind, then there was a fatal weakness to that, and my anger would be enough to exploit it.
They were going to be expecting strategy from me, so I wasn’t going to use strategy. I was going to let my rage take over, not enough for it to blind me, but enough for me to be unpredictable.
A wash of red covered my vision, and my heartbeat sped up. Then my blood thudded in my ears and mimicked the sound of war drums just as my mind emptied itself of all thoughts.
I dove down, angry that these beasts interrupted my work and attacked what was mine. It didn’t matter if they were being controlled or not, I would rip them to pieces.
My claws closed around the body of one of the serpents, and I pulled with every ounce of strength in my muscles until I heard a satisfying crack and the snake went limp. Then I let the desert viper fall as I dove toward another one of the serpents.
Immediately, the other vipers abandoned the defending adventurers and rocketed toward me.
Good, that was going to be their undoing.
I faced them and snarled as my claws dug deep within the earth. My stone spikes failed once, but they wouldn’t fail this time. I had a much better image in mind, and there was a wealth of resources buried beneath the sands.
Suddenly, the sharpest of spikes, tipped by hardened diamonds, exploded from the ground all around me and latched onto the serpents.
I grinned with savage delight and slammed my power downward, effectively pinning the vipers to the ground. Immediately, those from the Blue Tree Guild attacked the heads of the desert snakes and slashed them apart.
It was easier now to rip their heads off, and it was almost no contest with our superiority. The only two advantages the serpents had going for them was their coordinated attacks and their surprise ambush on us. Other than that, my timing and improvised plan was perfect. The vipers were all impaled by my spikes so we could finish them off, and minutes later, their hacked apart bodies covered the ground all around us.
When the sands were drenched in black blood and nothing moved but the wind, I shifted back into my human form and cracked my neck.
“Are they usually that big?” I asked as I nudged the body of one of the vipers with my clawed hand. “They’re almost as big as I am in my dragon form.”
“Not that I’ve heard of,” Leon replied and stepped around one of the fallen snakes with a frown. “The Elders might know more about these snakes.”
“Is there anything we can use their bodies for?” I glanced over at Leon as I sat down in the sand. “Can we use their scales or something? Their fangs were pretty strong, Natalya might be able to make some weapons from them. I doubt they’d stand up to orichalum, but they’d still be nasty enough in a fight. Also, if we use the scales for armor, they would be good for striking fear into our enemies.”
“The scales are quite tough.” Leon tapped his hand against one of the scales and tilted his head in thought. “Not as tough as those behemoths we fought, but tough enough that they could be used as armor. A pity the bodies of those behemoths disappeared.”
“They kind of look like your scales.” Anton sniffed the body of one of the serpents and recoiled in disgust. “It smells like it’s been dead for a while.”
I frowned at Anton’s comment and wondered if the desert vipers had been killed beforehand only to be reanimated by someone. It wasn’t like we’d be able to find out now, though, so I shook the thought from my head.
“Break them down and take them to Natalya,” I sighed as I slid back to my feet. “I gotta get back to fixing the aqueducts.”
I rubbed the back of my neck as I turned back to the shattered waterways while the guild members and Leon turned their attention to the fallen desert vipers.
This was definitely going to be a long night.
Fixing the collection area for the aqueduct was going to have to be the first thing on the list. To do this, I needed to make a filtering screen out of stone to make sure no debris from the river got into the aqueduct.
I rubbed the back of my head as I thought of how many different sized filters I should make for the basin. Maybe, instead of basing this part of the aqueduct system on the Roman structures, the Incan aqueducts would be a better solution. Instead of collecting the water into a stone structure, there would be something like a stone pathway with raised walls. The water would flow down the pathway at a slight angle by using gravity to divert it from the waterfall and back toward the city.
Well, now that I had an image of how I was going to rebuild the waterway, there was only one thing left to do: start drawing on my power and go at it slowly so I wouldn’t exhaust myself.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and began to funnel my power up from my spiritual sea. The architecture of the aqueducts wasn’t the issue, I could see their original structure was pretty ingenious enough. If it hadn’t been for the demons, they would have easily stood for thousands of more years even without maintenance.
But I was going to make them that much better.
The demons managed to destroy the aqueducts in the past, and I wanted to ensure that couldn’t happen again. So, the aqueducts needed to be strong enough to withstand any attack, and even though I was going to have Alyona enchant the waterways later on, the foundation needed to be impregnable. The bluestone surrounding me was reliable and strong, but I needed the waterways to be even stronger since stone could melt under high enough temperatures and become fragile.
I needed to think of every eventuality, of something that wouldn’t melt under high temperatures or shatter under low temperatures. The aqueducts also had to be able to withstand any and every attack, to be as stro
ng if not stronger than my own scales.
Just as I was thinking about that, I remembered Aunt Emma’s love of superstitions and her hobby of researching obscure pagan beliefs. People had thought crystals and gems could hold energy, and then later on they were used in computer chips.
All of that gave me an idea. There was an abundance of gems, even diamonds, beneath my feet, and if they were capable of storing power, then they would be the best foundation for Alyona’s enchantments.
There was just one problem with my idea: I had no way of changing the diamonds into a liquid form so they’d merge with the bluestone. I could sense the hard gemstones in the sand deep beneath my feet all around me, but they were entirely solid, and I could only break them into smaller pieces like I had done to tip the stone spikes when fighting the vipers. I couldn’t even breathe fire yet, and I knew I needed a fire almost as hot as the surface of the sun, if not hotter, to be able to melt diamond.
I let out a breath as I considered what to do. The diamond walls would have been ideal, but that was out of the ballpark for me right now. Reinforcing the waterways was important, and metal rebars would have been perfect for that, except there were no rebars in this world. I’d have to remember to sketch out a design for Natalya and Ruslan to make them.
Then an idea struck me.
I did have a surplus of bluestone around me, and even better than that, I had exactly the right ingredients to make concrete. All I needed for making the mix was crushed stone, sand, and water.
“Concrete it is.” I grinned to myself as I pictured the mixture in my mind.
After some thought, I decided I’d use a mixture of limestone and bluestone for the crushed rock part of the mix. A one to two ratio of crushed limestone to sand would work perfectly. If I had any ash, I would make Roman concrete instead. But since that was out of reach for the moment, I would settle for my crushed stone mix.
With my powers, it would work just fine.
Although, I was going to have to remember to write down the recipe for Roman concrete and have a mixture ready. It could become a Hatra speciality and be sold to neighboring cities and countries if we weren’t able to get at the gold and jewels underneath the desert.
I tapped into my power and started to form the filter system, but soon there was a whoosh of air, and an overbearingly familiar presence grew behind us.
“What now?” I groaned.
“Dragon!” Anton yelled out from behind me as all the warriors stopped breaking down the serpents and switched into battle stances.
I ripped my gaze from the aqueduct and pinpointed the familiar presence above us.
Right on the top of the waterfall was the Crimson Dragon in all her glory.
“Wait for my signal,” I growled out as I shifted into my dragon form. “She shouldn’t attack us since we’re not in her territory, but if she does, all of you aim for her eyes.”
The Blue Tree Guild warriors shifted into defensive positions alongside me, and I could sense their power rising to the front. Even though we just had the skirmish with the sand vipers, my men were ready to fight again.
“What are you going to do, Lord Evan?” Leon asked as he kept his eyes on the other dragon and his fists clenched at his sides.
“I’m going to go see what she wants,” I replied, and with that, I launched myself into the air and flew to the top of the waterfall.
The proverbial hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end as I landed on the rocky outcropping, and the other dragon stared at me with unblinking amber eyes. She was stretched out on the crimson stone as if she hadn’t a single care in the world.
“Oh, do calm down,” she yawned out as her massive tail flicked behind her. “It’s not as if I’ve attacked you.”
“You did,” I growled and watched her every move for any hint of an attack. “Unless you’ve forgotten chasing me through the canyons last week.”
“That was then,” the other dragon replied as she stretched out even further, “and this is now. Unless, you want me to chase you and tear you to pieces? I would be happy to oblige, especially since you did slip away from me.”
“Yeah, that’s gonna be a hard pass from me.” I blinked at her strange reply and tested the waters with her. “So, if you’re not here to attack anyone, then why are you here?”
“You must be mistaking me for some sort of war-mongering human.” A breathy laugh came out of her crimson maw as her ivory fangs glinted. “You haven’t entered my territory, therefore I have no reason to hunt any of you down. I ignored the presence of your group since none of you entered my canyons, but then the scent of the desert vipers reached me, and I must admit I am rather curious. What occurred here, and what are you going to do with those ruins?”
“The desert vipers attacked us.” I sat down across from her but kept my muscles tensed and ready. “We killed them.”
“Obviously.” She rolled her amber eyes and let out a displeased snort. “It would be shameful if the dragon who managed to escape from the glorious me was killed by some measly serpents.”
“The odds weren’t on their side,” I replied dryly as I glanced back down at my comrades.
“So, those two legged things down there are capable of fighting?” the Crimson Dragon asked as she leaned her head over the edge of the waterfall to look at my comrades. “I might want to have a bout with them. Other than you, there hasn’t been anyone who has been able to entertain me in ages.”
“Yeah, just leave them alone.” There was more than a little bite to my words as I bared my fangs at her. “They’re mine, the same way those canyons are yours.”
“A bit territorial, are we?” she laughed again. “Such a greedy dragon.”
“Takes one to know one,” I muttered back as I watched her carefully.
If she was going to attack my people, I would make sure she would regret it. The fight would be a tough one, but she was outnumbered and would eventually be tired out while my healing power would make sure everyone on my side was still fresh and unwounded.
Call it an unfair cheat, but I was going to do whatever it took to protect what was mine.
“You haven’t told me what you’re doing with that rubble.” Her attention shifted from the warriors to the part of the waterway I’d rebuilt. “Are you going to spend your time playing with those pebbles?”
“If you’d like to know,” I explained as I motioned to the waterway, “I’m rebuilding the aqueduct.”
“How boring.” There was another giant sigh from her, and she stretched out her wings. “Don’t get killed and come to the waterfall when the moons are full again. You aren’t quite terrible to talk to.”
“Thanks, I think?” I wasn’t quite sure how to take her words, but at least it meant she wasn’t going to attack us any time soon, and there was a potential alliance there. “By that time, the aqueducts aren’t going to be rubble anymore, and you’ll see I wasn’t just playing with pebbles.”
The dragon didn’t reply to me, she only lifted her wings and flew away into the canyons.
I was still wrapping my mind over what had happened, because she went from attacking me on sight to talking somewhat peacefully to me over the span of a week. I guess the possessiveness of a dragon wasn’t something to joke about.
I flew back down to the bottom of the aqueduct and settled on the sandy riverbank as I shifted back into my human form. All around me, my comrades regarded me with gaping mouths and wide eyes.
“So, what just happened?” Anton asked, and one of his eyebrows kept twitching. “I was pretty sure we were going to have to fight that thing.”
“The Crimson Dragon,” Leon interjected in a dazed sort of manner as he looked at me with awe. “You talked to the Crimson Dragon.”
“Yes, Leon, a dragon.” Anton covered his face with his hands, and his ears fell flat on his head. “Right after we fought decaying and decrepit serpents from the desert.”
“Have you forgotten I’m a dragon?” I chuckled. I was wondering if the
stress of everything had gotten to Anton, or if he was really that terrified of foreign dragons.
“Listen, you being our new lord doesn’t make you any less terrifying,” Anton said as he removed his hands from his face and stared at me with equal parts respect and disbelief. “I know you’re our friend and you aren’t going to hurt us, but we don’t have any guarantees from that dragon in the canyons. And you just went up there, and she flew away, easy as you please, without attacking us.”
“Well, as long as we stay out of the canyons,” I explained to Anton and the others, “she won’t go after any of us. But she wants me to come and talk to her though. Kind of weird if you ask me.”
“I’m done with this conversation,” Anton groaned comically as his tail drooped. “I just, I don’t understand how something like that dragon wants you to come and talk to her. And it’s a her?”
“Just be thankful she’s civilized,” I snorted as I thought back to how she had tried to kill me the first time we met, “well, somewhat at least.”
“I think I’d rather go back to skinning those snakes,” Anton muttered as he moved back toward the dead serpents, and the other warriors followed him.
“Yeah, you go do that,” I called after him as I shook my head and grinned. “Leave the worrying and dealing with giant monsters to me.”
Thinking that was the end of that, I turned my attention back to the aqueduct. When the Crimson Dragon had arrived, I was part way through making the system of filters.
“What are you doing now?” Leon piped up from behind me as he stepped forward.
“These rocks used to be what collected water.” I pointed over to the shattered and worn down stones poking out of the waterfall’s pool. “You see those crumbled stones over there by the banks, how they have curved bits?”
“Like a giant stone bowl?” Leon’s eyes lit up as he figured out what the stones used to be. “Kind of like the wells we have in the city?”
“Similar to them, that’s right.” I nodded at his understanding of the basic structure and decided to explain more. “Instead of a bowl, it’s going to be kind of like a curved plate that will take the water through a system of filters and a large stone container. It’ll collect the water from the waterfall and, through the use of gravity, the aqueducts will carry it all the way to the city.”