Slowly, Terrance reached with his sword toward one of the toes, to test exactly how strong the scales were. He poked one, but it felt like tapping a rock.
A warm breeze suddenly hit Terrance from above. His head shot up to see eight huge eyes staring down at him. Malcus’s face split open, and the snake-like tongue hissed.
Terrance bolted. He could hear the thunder of Malcus’s steps behind him, but it was only a short way to the fortress, and though Terrance had seen Malcus’s fire burn through stone, he hoped the dragon wouldn’t burn down his own fortress.
There was an open door ahead and Terrance dove through it, rolling as he hit the ground, the sword clattering to his side.
“Well if it isn’t the mighty Ance.”
Terrance looked up to see Shannon standing over him. He was in a large entryway, in which a stone chandelier hung from a high ceiling, glowing as though it contained lava. He scrambled to his feet and picked up his sword, but was careful not to hold it in too threatening a manner. “Hey.”
Shannon’s sword was still in its sheath. “Were you trying to fight Malcus?”
“Yeah, sorta.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Are you insane?”
Terrance answered honestly. “Maybe.”
Shannon scowled. “Do you people have any idea what you’re even trying to accomplish here?”
“We’re going to get through that gate you’re guarding.”
“And do what?”
“Um…I dunno. What’s past the gate?”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “Things beyond the concern of your little minds. Well, it’s no matter; reinforcements will soon be here and this will all be over, and you all will have accomplished nothing other than your own deaths.” Shannon drew her sword. “And I will kill you personally.”
“Really?”
Shannon nodded. “Yep.”
Terrance readied his sword. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Shannon sighed. “You can’t, you idiot. Even if by some miracle you defeat me, I’ll just come back. That’s one of the many reasons this is pointless and you’re all destined to lose.”
“Your side seems very intent on making us give up,” Terrance said. “But don’t you see? We never will. We’re not scared of you no matter what you throw at us. And that is why the Darkness is destined to lose. You didn’t pick the more powerful side, Shannon. You picked the losers.”
Shannon frowned, then raised her empty left hand. An invisible force smashed into Terrance, sending him backward and slamming him into a wall. Shannon’s hand began to glow with a dark flame. Terrance ran for cover behind a pillar as fireballs flew toward him, singeing his clothes with near misses and exploding against the wall behind him.
“Come on, Ance!” Shannon yelled, walking toward the pillar he was hiding behind. “Show me a fight! You’re supposed to be so much more powerful than us, and I’m waiting to be impressed.”
Terrance looked toward the exit of the fortress, and could see something large moving out there. As he listened to Shannon’s footsteps coming closer, he remembered what Talia had told him: You just need to be what you are. So he decided on the most ‘Terrance’ response to this situation. He ran.
There was a nearby stairway, and he headed for it as fast as he could as more fireballs flew his way, barely missing him. It was a curved stairway, so he was soon out of Shannon’s view, but he could hear her cursing and running after him. Once again, Terrance wondered how he was helping anyone accomplish anything. This wasn’t even high-quality running-away, because he knew that going up meant that eventually he was going to hit a dead end. And sure enough, the stairs soon ended, so he ran into a hallway and into the first room he saw. He dashed through the room, then finally hit the end of the line: a balcony overlooking the battlefield. He could hear Shannon close behind as he frantically searched for somewhere else to go. That’s when he saw that just below him, Malcus was spewing dark flames at a nearby fight, indiscriminately incinerating forces from both sides. In the distance, Terrance could see the army still marching up the hill, ready to bring a quick end to the Infinite.
Shannon strode toward him, sword in one hand as the other glowed with a blackish-blue flame. She was frowning. “You want to give me a fight, at least?”
“Actually, I really don’t have time for this. We’ll talk later.” Terrance raised his sword, and before he could think it through any further, he jumped off the balcony, down toward Malcus.
Chapter 42
Terrance’s intention was to use the momentum of his fall to drive his blade into Malcus. However, it turned out to be quite difficult to aim a sword while falling through the air. He slammed into the dragon’s back, his sword point glancing off the jagged scales.
Malcus lurched upward, and Terrance wrapped his left arm around one of the many spikes on Malcus’s back while barely clinging to his sword with his right hand. Up, up into the night sky Malcus flew, toward the brightly shining full moon. Terrance didn’t even want to look behind him to see how far down the battlefield now was. It was just him alone in the sky clinging to a stone-scaled dragon larger than a whale.
This was a really, really bad idea.
Malcus leveled out, and Terrance was no longer dangling from the dragon’s back but could now get to his feet—though he wasn’t sure how smart that would be, since the dragon could change course at any moment. And he couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was supposed to harm Malcus from his current position anyway. Down below, he caught a glimpse of the massive movement of troops up the mountain toward the battlefield. Whatever Terrance was going to do, he had to figure it out soon.
Looking around, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned just in time to block a sword blow.
“Nice dragon-slaying, genius!” Shannon shouted at him over the wind rippling past. “What’s your plan now?”
Very uneasily, Terrance took a few steps back, away from Shannon. “I was going to find its weak point and hit it for massive damage.”
Shannon moved toward him. “This isn’t a video game, you twit.”
Terrance knelt down a little so he could hold on to one of the dragon’s spikes for support while pointing his sword at Shannon. “No, this is you fighting on behalf of a super-evil demon dragon. Is nothing really clicking here, saying to you, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this’?”
“Says the guy who chose to leap with a tiny sword onto an invincible dragon!” Shannon was seething. “You didn’t have to do any of this! You didn’t have to make this your fight! We could have been happy together!”
Terrance shook his head. “No! There is no happiness down the path you chose! There is no happy ending where you just stand by and watch evil happen and do nothing to fight it!”
“We’ll see how this ends!” Shannon leapt at him, swinging her sword. Terrance blocked it, but the blow was so strong, it knocked him off balance. He grabbed another of Malcus’s spikes to keep from tumbling off. Shannon swung at him again, but this time he dodged and her sword clanged against one of Malcus’s spikes like it had hit a metal pole. Terrance tried to counter, but Shannon kicked him, sending him onto his back. She swung down at him, but he got his sword up in time and their blades clashed together.
Shannon pressed her blade against his, teeth clenched and blonde hair flowing in the wind. Even when about to kill him, she was gorgeous. “Got any tricks up your sleeve, champ?” she growled. “Any green shells you’ve been holding on to?”
Terrance caught a glimpse of something moving near them. He turned a little to see a griffin fly past Malcus, and then something white tumbled into Shannon, knocking her over. Talia reached a hand down to Terrance and helped pull him to his feet. “I saw you jump on the dragon and thought maybe you would need some help.”
“Good assumption.”
Shannon was clinging to a spike, barely having kept herself from going over the edge. “You!” She screamed at Talia, then turned her glare to Terrance. “This i
s really who you left me for?”
“I told you, it’s not like that,” Terrance pleaded.
“We kissed only once,” Talia said. “I thought it was a very good kiss, though.”
Terrance turned to Talia. “That’s not…that’s not helpful right now.”
“You’re no longer leading him around by his lust,” Talia told Shannon. “He’s broken free of your wiles, you evil slut.”
“That is really not helpful,” Terrance growled at Talia.
With eyes full of fury, Shannon screamed and charged at Talia, who adeptly dodged and knocked Shannon away. She turned to Terrance and quickly shouted, “I’ll handle her; you slay the dragon!” She returned to her fight with Shannon.
Yeah, just go ahead and slay the giant, invincible dragon we’re standing on, Terrance thought as he looked around at Malcus. He could hear blades clanging together behind him, but he tried to concentrate on finding a vulnerable spot on the dragon. He tried stabbing between two scales, but the blade was deflected without even leaving a mark. So he moved forward, toward Malcus’s head—a place he’d rather not go near, but he figured it was more likely to have a soft spot, since the creature’s eyes couldn’t be stone.
Malcus dove down, and Terrance held on tightly as his feet lifted up and dangled in the air. He glanced behind and saw Talia and Shannon in a similar situation near Malcus’s back, each hanging on for dear life with one arm and swinging her sword at her opponent with the other. Malcus let out a roar, and Terrance turned to see the dragon’s dark flames being spewed down on the battlefield before it lurched back upward.
Terrance had to hold on just as tightly again, his feet now dangling below him. He heard a scream, and looked over his shoulder to see Talia clutch a wound on her arm as her sword tumbled away. Shannon stabbed at her, but Talia let go of one spike to drop down and grab another one nearby; she missed and fell to Malcus’s tail, grabbing a hold there. Shannon was ready to pursue the unarmed Talia for the kill, so Terrance let go and tried to slide down Malcus’s back toward Shannon. It was not a clear path, and he ended up smacking into several spikes before becoming wedged between two of them. Shannon slid down toward Talia, and Terrance, now stuck, took the only option that appeared to remain and tossed the sword. It spun through the air and looked like it was about to strike Shannon, but she dodged to the side. Instead, it flew right to Talia, who reached up and grabbed it by the hilt, the sword now back to its true owner.
Malcus leveled out its flight and, after getting a foothold, Talia lunged, her sword piercing Shannon through the abdomen. Stuck together, they tumbled off the side of the dragon.
Terrance was now alone and swordless on the beast, but, wedged tightly between two spikes and thus with little risk of falling, he considered laying down his head and taking a nap to try to forget all of this. But the people below were counting on him, and though Terrance couldn’t fathom what he was supposed to do, giving up was not an option. He pushed and freed himself from the spikes. Somehow, he would take this dragon down.
He ran up Malcus’s back, then carefully made his way along the dragon’s long neck until he was on its massive head, which was the size of an SUV. He climbed over the top until he saw Malcus’s dark, spider-like eyes, which looked like maroon dinner plates. Now he just needed something to hit it with, and that’s when he remembered. Terrance reached into his waistband and pulled out his Glock. Somehow, he had completely forgotten it during this whole battle, but for some reason it felt as useless bringing a gun to a battle of good and evil as bringing a knife to a gunfight. Plus, he was certain he really needed a permit to be carrying it this far from his home. Still, it was all he had, so he pointed it at the nearest eye and fired at point-blank range.
There was an ear-splitting scream, and then the sky darkened above Terrance. He looked up to see one of Malcus’s giant paws coming down at him. He tried to dodge out of the way but had little room to move, and one of the claws snagged his shirt. Terrance was lifted up and flung into the air like a bug, his gun flying out of his hand.
The world was spinning. Judging by the quick glimpses Terrance caught of the dots moving around on the land below, he was thousands of feet in the air. Despite that, as he heard Malcus roaring below him, preparing for another attack, all he could concentrate on was somehow stopping that beast. It seemed impossible to think of how to accomplish such a feat, but as he hurtled out of control into the night sky, he realized how ridiculous the situation was. He was Terrance Denby, a programmer who specialized in web applications. And he was thousands of feet in the air fighting a giant monster while a battle between good and evil raged on the ground. He laughed a little, because it was so ridiculous. Logically, Terrance knew he was about to die, but he didn’t let his mind dwell there because as Joyce had told him, that would be taking things way too seriously. Instead, he focused on something he was much more certain about: he was going to kill this stupid little dragon.
The upward momentum from Malcus’s fling finally came to an end, and for the briefest moment, Terrance hung completely still in the air. Above him flickered the stars of the night sky, tiny lights of distant, unimaginable worlds. Suddenly, he saw something hurtling toward him. And almost as if he expected it, he reached out to receive his sword. He quickly unsheathed it as he began to fall back to earth head-first. Directly below him was Malcus, hovering over the battlefield, breathing fire. Terrance pointed the sword straight out ahead of himself and straightened his body so that he could plummet down onto the dragon like a missile. The wind tearing at his eyes made it hard to see, but Malcus was a very large target. He was moving with incredible speed, and his last thought before impact was that this was going to really, really hurt.
The sword point jammed into Malcus’s head, cutting straight through scale and skull, as Terrance’s body slammed into Malcus’s neck. It was like getting hit by a truck. Terrance was dizzy and could barely tell what was happening, but he could feel Malcus lurch away. He held as tightly as he could to the sword, but it pulled free of the dragon’s head. The last sight he saw as he fell to the ground was the giant beast flapping its wings wildly as it smashed through the fortress before crashing into and shattering the giant stone gate.
Chapter 43
Claws snapped around Terrance’s torso before he could hit the ground. “Hold on!” yelled a voice that sounded like Talia’s. Terrance was then roughly set down, tumbling a bit and finally losing his grip on his sword before coming to a stop. He looked up to see a griffin flying away. Terrance was now sore all over and a part of him wanted to stay lying down, but there was still much clamor surrounding him, and he knew couldn’t just lie there while a battle raged and a massive army approached. Plus, it was finally time to see what lay beyond the gate. He got to his feet and saw the enormous, dark form of Malcus, lying motionless where the gate had been.
“Ain’t so big, are ya!” Terrance shouted at Malcus. But Malcus still was quite big, though he was also quite dead. Terrance turned to the fortress and watched as the last bit of it tumbled over, no longer able to support its own structure after the damage it had received.
“Amidala!” came a cry from behind him.
Terrance turned to see Shannon standing there, staring worriedly at the crumbled fortress. He looked again at the giant pile of rubble and then back at Shannon. “I’m sure she’s okay,” he told her, but didn’t really sell it.
Now her eyes locked on him, her face tense with rage. “What did you do?”
“Well…um…you said Malcus was invincible, but I guess not so much.”
She roared and leapt onto Terrance, pinning him to the ground, then slapping his face over and over while shouting, “You stupid idiot! You mindless little—”
She was knocked off of Terrance by Talia, who wrestled her to the ground. Shannon grabbed Talia’s hair and pulled, screaming incoherently the whole time.
Talia tried to turn away, slapping back at Shannon’s face. Terrance ran over and pulled the two apart, realizing t
hat stopping two people from fighting on a battlefield may have really been missing the point. He could see tears in Shannon’s eyes as she staggered to her feet, then quickly turned and ran away.
“Man, this has been a really messy breakup.” Terrance looked around the battlefield. The fighting was continuing, but now the Infinite were pressing toward the gate. And then he turned to see that the approaching army was almost upon them.
“She brought it on herself by aligning with the forces trying to destroy us,” Talia said. “Have you seen my swords?”
Terrance shrugged. “No, but I found mine.” He pointed to his sword lying nearby on the ground.
“Finally,” Talia uttered before running off.
“We’d better get to the gate!” Terrance called out to her as he bent down to retrieve his sword. He briefly wondered what had happened to his gun, but he figured it was probably lost forever. Anyway, he didn’t feel he had any use for it now that he had his sword back. Well, unless he were attacked by a mugger. Terrance smiled a little as he grasped his sword again, but as he got back to his feet, Chet was standing before him.
“You will have no victory, little man,” Chet uttered. “Slaying Malcus accomplishes nothing, and there isn’t anything beyond that gate that will save you fools.”
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