“I’ll place a call to GIPPD on the way over to Glessie,” she said.
“Can … can we trust the Wyrmrig … I mean, David? Could he hurt us, Portia?”
My head was spinning, my hands shaking, my knees knocking. Too much dramatic action in the space of a few pressurized minutes will do that.
“Well, we didn’t have time to work with him, did we?” She snapped. “It’s going to be a little tricky to convince him to side with us now. In case you didn’t notice we’re in the heart of the action at this moment.”
“But … do you think he even knows us?”
Portia sighed. “Look, I don’t know how he’s going to react to us. We can only hope that there’s a small part of him that still knows his former life, and, if we’re lucky .. the people who mattered to him in that life.”
“But …” But I snapped my mouth shut. I decided to stay quiet and just allow myself to be led by the woman in charge. And, sensing my impotence, my kitties did the same; they looked to Portia for their next instruction.
All I could do is keep looking down at Fraidy, pushing my hand inside my jacket every few minutes to gently to stroke his head and to check for respiration.
Verdantia rushed back in from the tunnel. She threw Portia her stick and handed over the distressed Faery Queen’s ride at the same time. The Witch Fearwyn charged over to the newly appointed exit to the cavern. “I’m going to steer them toward Dilwyn’s. You guys follow but drop back a little. Stay in sight, but back far enough so that if you need to high-tail it out of there, you can. Got it?”
“How are you going to steer them, though?” Verdantia asked.
“By antagonizing them.”
I found my voice then. “Portia, take one of my cats,” I said, looking down at the row of seven dragonsteel-clad heads. “They can sit on the broom backward and guide your moves.” Portia squinted at me. “Trust me, you’ll be happy you took one.”
Jet hopped onto the end of Portia’s broom, uninvited.
“You’re not the deranged fast one, are you?” The old witch quizzed, looking over her shoulder with pursed lips.
“Nope,” Jet lied. You could see he was bursting to say more, but he somehow managed to keep the pandemonium in. His jittery paws were probably about the only sign that could give him away, but as Portia faced forward, she didn’t see these trembling signals.
I have to admit, even in my current state, I vaguely wondered if it was a good idea to have Jet as the Witch Fearwyn’s wing-cat, but before I could even think of mentioning something, the old witch and my cat kicked off and took to the skies to annoy the dragons.
Goddess, please, keep them safe.
I jumped on the back of Vee’s broom, and the rest of my cats hopped onto Hinrika’s ride.
Verdantia looked back at me, and then to the Faery Queen. “Ready?”
“Go,” I whispered, leaning my cheek against Vee’s back.
“Remember to hang back, Hinrika,” Verdantia cautioned the other fairy as she pushed off. Hinrika nodded and followed us out into the deepening sky.
I popped my head up over Vee’s shoulder to get a better view of the chase playing out before us. The two dragons, similar in size, but so different in color and appearance, dived and swooped across the sky, firing balls of flame the size of wrecking balls. “Where’s Portia and Jet?” I managed. “I can’t see them.”
“They’re there,” Vee said. “I just saw Jet’s tail. They’re at the front of the …. Look! There!” The elven beauty extended a pale finger to a spot just beyond the governor and his golden dragon.
Portia and Jet whizzed into view. But something wasn’t quite right with the picture.
“They’re upside down,” Vee pointed out, rather helpfully. “I don’t think Jet’s going to get off lightly for this.”
“If we’re not all burnt to a crisp by day’s end, I’m sure my boy will face a certain Fearwyn administered death,” I said.
Verdantia and I looked at the flying duo as they bounced along a series of air pockets in their inverted position. We were still quite some distance away, but I swear I could see a green hew to Portia’s skin.
“It’s working,” Vee said. “The dragons are following them.”
I peered at the two beasts in pursuit of Portia and Jet. Sweet Boy took the lead; Shields riding bareback along the dragon’s neck, as the governor’s pet snapped at the taunting cat and witch pair. The Wyrmrig snaked after the golden lizard, looking incredibly graceful as he curled and weaved through the sky.
The Witch Fearwyn’s broom shot up suddenly and began a crazy spiral upward. I distinctly heard Jet’s ‘Yeeehaaw!’ over the blasting sound of dragon flame and rushing wind.
The two dragons hurtled upward to catch their antagonizing quarry, but Jet’s wingmanship was too quick for even these athletic monstrosities. My zippy kitty’s orchestrated spiraling came to an abrupt end, and Portia’s broom plunged downward at an ever-accelerating speed. The two pulled up just feet above the surface of the Mages; its leaden waves leaping upward to try and pull the pair into its secret depths. The broom kept its one-hundred-and-eighty degree trajectory, and like this, Portia and Jet sped across the Sea of Mages toward our home island.
Me, Vee, Hinrika and the cats followed the strange entourage to the shores of Glessie. Until the edge of Dilwyn’s land came into view just off the side of the coast. We were to take the dragons down to Werelamb’s farmstead. Apparently, the farmer and Millie had some kind of plan.
Chapter Seventeen
The scene from the air over Dilwyn’s blew my mind and my heart in one fell swoop. Dusk had blossomed into soft pastels of grays, oranges and moody purples, but it was the flurry of activity below that caught my breath. At first, all the busy migrations just looked like an army of deranged ants; toing and froing all over the place. I could sense the urgency in their movements, even from my current height. Werelamb’s mythical creatures, freed from their tethers, ran amok, squawking, growling, braying, hooting and flapping at the air as if the animals knew something loomed in that atmosphere.
As I neared, the ant's features came into view. Faces. Lots of faces. Of people I knew, respected and loved. I noticed Maude and Horace first. Working together, the pair carried buckets, and zigzagged their way from Dilwyn’s saltwater stream, across the yard to the barely finished merman pool. A yoke straddled the big barman’s shoulders, each end laden with a pail as big as a wine barrel. Maude, with her own small bucket, loped beside her man, veering violently right every ten steps or so. Not spilling a drop from the large wooden buckets he carried, Horace’s beefy arm shot out at intervals, pulling his beloved Maude into him each time she veered off with her two left feet. In this supremely awkward manner, the pair lurched across Werelamb’’s smallholding to where three others were standing. Millie Midge, her face flushed, stood with one foot on the side of the pool. The tank looked to be about half full. If my friends had filled this by hand, then they must have been fetching water all day. No wonder they looked so exhausted. Millie had her nose buried in what was clearly an artifact from the Avalon Vault. My assistant shouted instructions to both Thaddeus Peacefield and Artemus Caves as they fussed with something around the merman pool. I was too far away to see exactly what Artemus and the Reverend were up to, but whatever it was, it looked like the pair needed Millie Midge’s guidance.
Carpathia Alecto and Dilwyn Werelamb came running from behind Maude and Horace, each of the latter two carrying their own vessel of water from Werelamb’s sea-fed brook. Behind them came Gabrielle. My baker friend wheeled a cart filled with an oversized vat of seawater, her strong former-clay arms tensing at the shoulders. The ex-golem looked over her shoulder and shouted something back to the person following her. The wind picked up Gabrielle’s words, and I heard her say: “Are you okay, Violet?” I craned my neck backward and just managed to snag a glimpse of hair artiste, Violet Mulberry, as she emerged daintily from the bushes that divided the stream from the farmhouse. Violet carried her ow
n container of water and held the vessel with a grim determination. Nevermind that it was a small sherry glass, at least our resident coiffeuse was trying.
Styx Werelamb shot into view. The teen sprinted past the hairdresser, slopping a slew of cold seawater on the unsuspecting woman. Violet stopped, her expression horrified at having her hair-do compromised in such a barbaric fashion. Gabrielle turned and gently pushed the woman’s shoulder in a silent plea for speed. I guessed they really needed that sherry-shot of H20.
Portia and Jet came crashing down toward the ground just before the merman pool, making Millie, Thaddeus, and Artemis jump back. My friends looked up just as Vee, me and Hinrika came in for landing. But they didn’t lower their heads to greet us. They stared, mouths open, at the two incoming dragons, and the mad Warlock instead.
I reached into my jacket to touch Fraidy. His body still felt warm, but I couldn’t tell if it was just because he was picking up my body heat. Goddess, I wanted this all to be over. I needed to attend to my boy!
Speaking of ‘boy’s,’ Sweet Boy’s shadow poured over us as his hulk came closer to the earth.
The pool, now almost two thirds full, reflected the winged creature as it spiraled above the water. Shields pulled his dragon up. I could see the governor squinting down at us as he tried to work out what was going on. Tracking his head left, I guess the Warlock Chief didn’t feel threatened by a little water and a few haggard humanoids. He brought his beast down on the other side of the pool from where we were standing.
The earth shuddered below our feet almost immediately, and with the water excited and sloshing in the tank, I turned to see David the dragon come to an ungainly skidding halt on our side of the reservoir. Both beasts, facing one another, pushed themselves up on their back legs until they stood at their full and terrifying respective heights.
Shields leaned forward on Sweet Boy’s neck and whispered something in the dragon’s ear. The beast stuck his neck out over the pool and fired a rush of white-hot flame, the pool hissing and bubbling in the flame’s wake. The Warlock Chief beamed a proud grin in appreciation of his boy’s handiwork.
The Wyrmrig stared; the intelligent light in his eyes dancing only around the edges of his irises.
I dared to hope that it was a good sign that David had landed on our side and that the Wyrmrig recognized the difference between good and evil.
“So what’s the plan, exactly?” I said to Millie out of the corner of my mouth. I kept my eyes fixed on Shields and his beast.
“We need to get them into the pool.”
“What?”
Reverend Peacefield stepped forward. “She’s right, Hattie. We need to get them in the water.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it … but how do we get them in there?”
Millie’s face drained of blood. “We need to get them engaged in battle. We need to catch Shields and his pet off guard.”
I backed off. “Woah,” I said. “Battle? That’s David there, in case you didn’t know.”
“Portia called on her way over and filled us in,” Artemus chimed in. “We know it’s risky, Hattie, but we need to get Sweet Boy in that pool. Trust us on this.”
“Why?” What did you find in those texts, Millie?”
“A spell to turn the governor’s dragon to stone.”
“But what about David? Won’t he turn to stone too if he touches the water?” I was going off this plan more and more by the second.
Millie shook her head of fire highlights. “No, the chief will be fine. It’s only Shields’ dragon who will be petrified. This spell will only work if there’s black diamond in the picture. And the governor’s pet was created using BD tech. So we need them to --”
A whoosh of air over our heads cut Millie off. The Wyrmrig, apparently not content to play childish games of heating a merman pool, swooped across the reservoir toward Shields’ dragon.
Sweet Boy reared up to meet David, and so began an aerial battle of draconian proportions. Two gargantuan bodies of muscle and scale writhed and clawed at one another in the air the tank. Each of the dragons expelling their cataclysm of fire as they battled.
The Wyrmrig howled in pain as Sweet Boy got a clear shot at David’s exposed neck. The golden scaled beast raked his giant claws deep into the chief’s throat. Fat droplets of blood spattered down around us, some landing with a delicate plinking sound in the pond. I could see the scarlet droplets fan outward, tingeing the water a deep red. I reflexively squeezed Fraidy. Looking up again I saw David reverse from his disadvantaged position; his magnificent wings beating away enormous tracts of air as he pulled back. He stared, his eyes black and empty, at his golden-scaled foe. And that’s when the lights in David’s eyes ignited into full-blown fires. The Wyrmrig bellowed an arc of pressurized flame from his mouth and lunged at the governor’s pet. Shields, entirely unprepared for the attack, slid from his ride’s neck and tumbled to the ground next to the pool. He sat up, dazed for a second, but quickly lost consciousness and collapsed in a heap to the floor.
The Wyrmrig flew, full speed, and crashed into the governor’s dragon, grasping Sweet Boy by the throat as soon as he made contact. They wrestled and tumbled like this, falling end over end in the air above us. Sweet Boy dashed to a tree standing just next to the pond. David raced after the dragon immediately and went for the beast’s throat again. The Wyrmrig swung his mighty neck side to side and threw his enemy like a rag doll to the pool below.
Had the chief heard our conversation? Was he on our side?
The governor’s golden pet tried to scrabble for purchase in the old sycamore, but only managed to dislodge a storm of branches. Twigs, sticks, and branches rained down on us; a larger falling branch knocking me to the ground winded. Sweet Boy, hurtling toward the pool, and realizing his impending fate too late, tried to correct himself mid-air by pulling himself into a seated position. The golden dragon roared a surge of flame from his wailing mouth as he fell the last few feet. And then it hit the water.
“Come on!” Millie Midge shouted to Thaddeus and Artemis as she raced to the edge of the pond. She tore through the pages of the Avalon book and had the Reverend and Artemis Caves point their wands at the rippling waves of the reservoir. UNmagical Millie began incanting a spell that sounded as if it were pulled from the annals of old Nanker. “Fire and flame dance no more. Here be stillness from the shore. Rock and stone ye heart and eye, with these waters I petrify!” What happened in those few crucial seconds after the charm had been cast wasn’t something we could see, on account of all the hissing steam that arose around the beast. It took a full two minutes before the pond stopped bubbling so we could see what had happened.
The last wisps of cloud broke away, and that’s when we saw the black diamond statue of Sweet Boy. Sitting almost perfectly central in Dilwyn Werelamb’s merman pool, straight-backed, eyes enraged, with a plume of fire blasting from its curled lips.
“Woah! Man, did you see that?” Shade sprang up onto the side of the pool, staring in wild-eyed disbelief at the petrified dragon.
“Word, dude. That was rad,” Midnight said, jumping up to join his brother.
“Is … is that it?” Carbon ventured. “Are we like, safe now?”
I was about to respond that I felt pretty good about our situation when a deep and resonant growl swept over us.
“Uh, boss-lady?” Midnight said. “The chief doesn’t really look in a good mood, does he?”
Portia stepped to my side. “Seraphim, do something.”
“Do what?” I said. “He doesn’t look like he recognizes me, even.”
“Well, for the love of Goddess, try something, at least. He will listen to you over anyone else here.”
I swallowed and stepped forward to face the injured, and angry monster.
“D-David?” I said, looking up into the giant face. “It’s Hattie. Your … your best friend, Hattie.”
“Lame.” I heard Gloom whisper.
The dragon looked at me with those flat, black
eyes. I wondered ... if I could just keep those murderous lights at bay, perhaps I might be okay?
The Wyrmrig sniffed the air before him, trying to get a better read on me. I saw a wide rivulet of blood tumble down the dragon’s throat.
“David?” I tried again. “You’re .. you’re hurt. I can help you. Please. Let me help you.” I took another hesitant step forward and reached up with one hand.
The chief reared up, and sucked in a truckload of air; his eyes erupting into circles of ruinous flame. He roared out his rage in a torrent of scorching hot air. There was no flame, but it was clear the Wyrmrig wanted me to back off. My friend wasn’t happy, and he wanted me to heed his hot air warning. Which of course, I didn’t.
“David. Please. We need to get you to a hospital. Let me--”
The Wyrmig bellowed again; this time the heat and volume were enough to knock me, and everyone else, to the ground. I scrambled to get myself upright, not taking my eyes off my friend. And I pressed on. “David, you have to --” But the lights in my friend’s eyes stopped me. They lit up like raging funeral pyres. The Wyrmig backed up again, and let out a ferocious, guttural snarl.
“Hattie, do something!” Millie’s desperate words hit me like razor blades. I felt so powerless at that moment.
“Seraphim, the wand,” Onyx said, nudging me with his head. “You need to unlock the love ward.”
“Right,” I said, fumbling in my pocket for my tool. But I couldn’t feel the applewood stick there. It must have dropped out of my pocket when I fell.
The Wyrmrig craned his neck toward us and reared onto his hind legs. He pulled himself to full height and snarled his low growl again. He was ready to unleash. He was prepared to finish us off.
My hands scrambled to the ground behind me to, my fingers dancing across the packed earth to find my magical stick, and thank the heavens, my fingers curled over it just as David made a move toward us.
I held up the wand, and with all my heart and soul I summoned the power of the love ward and unleashed it through Grandma Chimera’s bequeathed magical artifact.
The Angel and the Dragon Page 21