“Fine.” He cleared his throat and spoke in Dragonese. “Golden flare, trip Selene.”
The dragon’s tail whipped out, making the sound of a cracking whip.
Wupash!
Selene was upended and crashed onto the ground.
Nath nodded in satisfaction. “I think I have it. What other lessons will you teach me now?”
Selene walked him through the steps of changing form. As a man, he grew a tail and wings. He added horns even.
“Fascinating.”
She taught him to blow different kinds of smoke, acid, fire, and even ice. He froze trees and shattered them with ease.
“Summon enough power, and your roar alone can split rock and splinter trees,” she said. “But your power is limited. You control great magic and can do many things; just don’t overdo it.” Her face darkened. “Our enemy is ancient, Nath. He’ll tempt you to burn up your powers until you weaken, and then, like a monstrous asp, he’ll strike you in the neck, burrow inside your body, and poison the heart within.” Her expression became distant. “That’s what he did to me.”
Nath nodded.
“You surprised him once before,” she said. “He won’t be caught off guard a second time.”
“Could I have killed him then? When I had him?”
“His body maybe, but not his spirit. It takes a special weapon to sever the spirit from the body. That’s what Barnabus did.”
Nath remembered the legends of the man Barnabus that Bayzog had shown him long ago. Barnabus had wielded a great sword that lanced and banished Gorn after the last Dragon War. Barnabus’s heroics had been twisted ever since and turned against the good.
“Do you know what happened to Barnabus and that sword?” Nath asked of Selene.
She chuckled. “Do you not yet know who Barnabus is?”
“No, should I?”
“Yes, you should. Barnabus is your father.”
Nath’s limbs went numb. “What?” Inside, it all felt true, and then he realized there had been a time when his father was a man, too.
Selene puckered her brows.
So did Nath. “But the sword, Fang, he made for me. Fang can’t be the same sword that he used before. Is he?”
“I don’t think the last sword did the trick, and I believe your father forged another. I’ve heard it told that the other blade snapped the last time he used it. It vanquished the dragon warlord, but not entirely.”
“So that’s why he wants Fang?”
“That blade in the right hands can destroy both body and spirit,” she said. “He fears it.”
“All this time, I had the key in my claws,” he said, eyeing Selene. “And you knew it.”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you try to take Fang, way back when?”
Selene gazed up at the Floating City. “He wanted me to turn your will. With you on his side, the blade’s power would have been useless. He took a calculated risk, I failed at my task, and now he just needs the blade.” She turned her gaze back to him. “Sorry, Nath.”
“I guess I’ll have to forgive you,” he said, holding her gaze, “but I have one other question. Where is Fang?”
CHAPTER 34
“I’m not so certain this is the best course of action,” Bayzog advised. The part-elven wizard held his chin and rubbed his finger under his eye. “The entire world is at stake.”
“Where is the sword, Bayzog? I haven’t seen Fang since I woke up!” Nath pushed his back off the support post in the barn and unfolded his arms. “This is my choice, not yours. And if I want to save your family at my risk, I will.”
Bayzog’s violet eyes flashed. “Do not insist that I don’t want to save my family, Nath Dragon. I’m considering other options.”
“I know you want to save them more than anybody. But we don’t have the time. They don’t have the time!”
Brenwar stepped between the pair. “All right now. We’re on the same side. But Nath, I’m with Bayzog on this. We can try another way.”
Nath stiffened. “I say we give them the sword. Period. Now where in Nalzambor is it?”
Bayzog looked him in the eye and said, “I don’t know.”
Nath looked down at Brenwar.
“I don’t know either.”
“Who does know, then?” Nath turned and looked at Ben, who sat on the cart sharpening his sword. “Ben, certainly you know.”
Ben scratched his head. “I haven’t seen it since … I don’t know, when?”
Nath spun around, looking at everyone. “Well, who was the last one to have it?” He caught Brenwar and Bayzog’s eyes meeting and looking away. He raised his voice. “I’ll storm the Floating City alone if I must! I’ll not fight beside those I cannot trust. And you, Brenwar, always on me about my tales, and now you’re telling one yourself. By the Sultans! Sasha, Rerry, and Samaz’s lives are on the line!”
“I don’t know where it his!” a bristling Brenwar said.
“Nath,” Bayzog intervened, “we took precautions so that the sword would never be found unless absolutely needed. I don’t know where it is. No one here does.”
Nath started to pace. “What precautions?”
“When we learned the Dragon Warlord desired it, we had it hidden.” Bayzog fetched his staff from the table and started to walk away. “For exactly this reason.”
“So, if I weren’t threatening to ransom it to him, would you get it for me?”
“We would, but we can’t with your current intent.”
Nath’s claws dug into his palms. Bayzog was hiding something, but he wasn’t lying.
Think like a dragon, Nath. Outwit this wizard.
“I’m sorry, friends,” Nath said as Bayzog headed toward the barn doors, “I believe you. You clearly would never lie in such dire times. Whatever you have done, I know you have done it for my protection as well as others. I’m grateful. But …” Bayzog stopped. “Perhaps I have not been asking the right question. I think I’ll ask another. You say you don’t know where the sword is, but I now ask, do you know how to find it?”
Bayzog gently nodded and turned. “I do.” He glanced at Brenwar. “We need the chest.”
Brenwar looked over at Pilpin. Pilpin dug his fingers into one of his pouches and produced a tiny replica of Brenwar’s chest. He spoke in Dwarven. “Iidluumkraaduum.” He rapped his knuckles on the chest. Its banding crackled and popped, and the chest expanded until it stopped at normal size.
“It’s in there?”
“No,” Bayzog said, stepping to the chest and kneeling. He opened the lid and fingered the rows of small vials. He plucked out one filled with liquid the color of plums. “Ben, come and drink this.”
“Me?” Ben said, setting down his sword and walking over. “Why me?”
“Because I’m tired of you being daffy,” Brenwar said. “Now drink it!”
Ben snatched the vial, popped the cork, and drank it down. He blinked, thumped his chest, burped, and swooned.
Nath reached over and steadied his friend. “What did you give him?”
“I think I need to lie down,” Ben said, holding his head. He sagged back in Nath’s arms and burped again. He steadied himself. “Maybe not.”
“Care to explain, Bayzog?” Nath said.
“We had Ben hide Fang. When he finished, we gave him a potion that makes him forget things. It kept us all innocent in case our enemies captured us. The sword is as safe as it ever was.”
“And what if it’s in a place so far off we can’t get it?” Nath said. “Great Guzan, Bayzog! You overthink these things. Time is pressing. We only have one day.”
“Ben,” Bayzog said, “where is the sword?”
Ben ambled over to the cart and picked up his sword. “Here it is.”
“No, you daffy idiot!” Brenwar said. “Bayzog, I told you this was a bad idea. He’s permanently forgotten.”
Bayzog rose up. With a serious tone in his voice, he said, “Ben …. Where is Fang?”
Ben gazed up int
o the rafters with a glassy look in his eyes.
Brenwar and Pilpin slapped their foreheads. “Oy!”
Nath glared at Bayzog. “Well done, old friend. Well done.”
Ben started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Brenwar said.
Ben slapped his knee and said with a smile on his face, “I know where Fang is.” He got down on his hands and knees and crawled underneath the cart.
“He’s gone loony,” commented Pilpin.
There was a rustle of metal on wood and wood on metal. Something snapped. Ben crawled out from under the wagon and popped up on the other side. He raised his arms high. In one hand he held Fang, and in the other was Akron.
“All this time I thought I lost them, and all this time they’ve been right under my nose.”
“That’s the dumbest hiding place ever,” Brenwar remarked, tugging at his beard.
Bayzog added with a smile, “Yet brilliant at the same time.”
CHAPTER 35
The feline fury had made his way to the small farm and gone, only to return hours later. The dragon cat lay on the grass at the feet of Nath, who sat on a stone bench in the garden. It purred, and fragrant petals of smoke wafted from its nose.
“It seems you are making new friends in the dragon world all the time,” Selene said, taking her place by his side. “It’s comforting to see.”
“It certainly is, seeing how you used the fury against me.”
Selene bent forward and stroked the great cat’s mane. “I raised him. Did you know that?”
Nath shook his head.
“He was my prized hunter. Tracker. One of the most gorgeous dragons I’d ever seen. And even in captivity, these dragons are hard to tame. But I bent him to my will.” She glanced up at Nath. “But in the end, it was your will that won him over. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“I learned of the fury’s deception, Nath. I felt it. It preferred you over me, and for the first time in my life, I doubted myself. I doubted Gorn as well.” She locked her fingers inside the fury’s mane. “I lost my pet—not out of fear, but out of adoration. I saw for the first time that good things don’t take a shine to evil. Your light turned the fury’s light on as well. Balzurth is proud.”
Nath looked at her. “Have you ever—”
“Met him? No. Never. But I think I have a fine idea what to expect of him.”
Down the road, Bayzog and Brenwar approached. The part-elven mage leaned on the Elderwood Staff, and his eyes were still weary. Brenwar frowned over his folded arms.
“They approach,” Bayzog said. “Nath, you don’t have to go through with this. Not on my account and not theirs. They are willing to die for what is right: saving Nalzambor.”
Nath’s golden fingertips toyed with Fang’s dragon-headed pommel. The mystic metal, no longer hotter than fire, was cool in his hands. The tiny gemstone eyes of the dragons twinkled in the daylight. Fang was one of the most precious things his father had given him, which technically, he should not have. He’d let Brenwar borrow it, and Brenwar had lent it to him. He stood up, handed the sword to Brenwar, looked at Bayzog, and said, “I have faith.”
Brenwar grunted.
Bayzog gave a nod.
Nath came forward.
Brenwar stayed him with his hand. “You wait. We’ll deliver this. We meet now in the valley. From up there,” he pointed to a crag on a hillside, “you can watch.”
Nath started to object but held his tongue. After all, this was his idea. “As you wish, Brenwar.” He turned and looked at Selene. “Coming?”
Nath, Selene, and the feline fury made their way to the crag. He couldn’t fight off the uneasiness that twisted his belly. Giving up Fang, the only weapon that might kill Gorn Grattack, was a gut-wrenching task, but he had to believe it was the right thing.
“That was a brave thing you did,” Selene said. She patted him on the back. “I don’t think anyone else in this world would have done that.”
Nath’s chest tightened. He could see his friends entering the valley, where a score of draykis awaited them, accompanied by half a dozen horse-sized dragons. Behind Brenwar, Pilpin, a hooded Bayzog, and Ben, were Shum, Hoven, and the hulking Sansla Libor. A more than formidable party, but they were vastly outnumbered by a superior force.
“I should be down there,” he whispered. “I feel a trap in the works.” He started forward.
Selene grabbed his arm. “They’ll be fine. Wait it out.”
Nath swallowed and eyed her. Selene’s dark eyes had a twinkle of excitement in them. Sansla’s appearance with Selene had been suspicious. She’d been able to deceive him before. She could certainly do it again. His blood ignited, and he jerked away.
“Nath? What are you doing?”
He peered down in the valley, keen eyes alert to everything. His friends were now surrounded by the draykis and dragons. Brenwar did the talking.
“Don’t you move a muscle!”
“All right,” she said.
“Not a word, Selene.”
The feline fury’s purr became a hearty rumble.
Nath’s senses tingled.
What is going on? Something is going on!
He squatted down on the rock, ready to spring. So much deceit. So much betrayal. He’d somehow talked himself into giving Gorn Grattack everything he wanted. The draykis commander gave a nod. The other draykis led four hooded figures over. They had the builds of Sasha, Samaz, Rerry, and Bayzog.
Shum came forward and removed the hoods.
All their faces were clear: Sasha, Rerry, Samaz, and a part elf that looked like Bayzog.
Brenwar handed over the sword to a winged draykis commander, who eyed the blade.
“Everything is fine.” Selene sat down on the rock and added, “You’re the one who said you had faith. Now practice it.”
Nath clenched his jaw as the dragons crowded the circle. Suddenly, the draykis commander, Fang in hand, took to the sky. Covering the area in a puff of smoke, the dark dragons took flight and escorted the draykis commander back to the Floating City. When the smoke cleared, all the draykis were gone, leaving Nath’s friends coughing but reunited with Bayzog’s family.
Brenwar was grumbling at Ben and Ben back at him.
Nath sprang like a cat and dashed down. In seconds, he was down inside the valley. “What is it? What is wrong?”
Ben had one arm and Brenwar had the other of a lone man who stood between them. A hood was crushed in Brenwar’s free hand. The man had tattoos on his bald head and face. His teeth were grey and crooked.
“Ah,” the acolyte said, licking his teeth, “you must be Nath Dragon. I’ve a message for you from the great Gorn Grattack himself. These friends are delivered as agreed. But your other friend, Gorlee the Deceiver? Well, if you want him, then you’ll have to get him yourself. All by yourself, that is. Heh heh heh!”
Fallen Foes: Faylan and Finlin
CHAPTER 36
“You think it’s funny, do you?” Brenwar leveled the acolyte with a fist to the gut.
Whop!
The man doubled over and fell to his knees.
“What happened, Brenwar?”
“Magic,” Bayzog intervened, “a well-crafted illusion. It seems we’ve been deceived.”
Nath looked at Sasha.
She was meek and disheveled, as were her sons. “It’s me, Nath,” she said, hugging Bayzog. “All me and my sons. Thank you, Nath. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m glad you did.”
Nath stepped over and stretched his long arms around them both. “So am I.”
The happy reunion was short. They all headed up the hillside, back into the barn. Inside, Nath had no doubt he’d done the right thing, giving up Fang as ransom for his friends. But there was another surprise when they returned. Selene was gone.
Brenwar and Pilpin dragged the acolyte into the barn and shackled him up in the moorite chains.
“Hah, I’m honored,” the greasy cleric said. “All this trouble ove
r little me. I always knew I was a large threat. Gorn will be pleased.”
“Shaddup!” Brenwar said. He started to stuff a handkerchief in the man’s mouth.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I have something to say. Something you must hear today, before it’s too late.”
Pilpin shoved the man’s head back into the post.
Conk!
“Spit it out, then.”
Blinking and rolling his eyes, the cleric finally looked up at Nath. “Your changeling friend will die at the last light. That’s not long from now, Nath Dragon. Go soon, and go by yourself. Gorn will free your friend, and then the two of you can be alone.”
Nath kneeled down. “Is that all of your message?”
The acolyte’s eyes brightened. “It certainly is.”
Fuming, Nath flicked the man’s chin with his index finger, rocking his head back and knocking him out cold. He rose, headed outside the barn, and spied the Floating City. The setting sun was reflecting off the windows.
Bayzog glided to Nath’s side. “It seems your hand is being forced. Doing what he wants you to will be a bad move.” Bayzog laid his hand on Nath’s shoulder. “You’ve been patient thus far; don’t be hasty now. We’ll think of something.”
“I’ve done enough thinking. The time has come to act.” Nath surveyed his surroundings. His dearest friends were there. Dozens of dragons huddled nearby, perhaps more inside the hillsides. “Everyone gather.”
His friends crowded around him, and many dragons slunk inward.
“I want to thank you all for being here for me. No dragon could ask for a better group of friends, but I have to do what must be done. I have to face our mortal enemy one on one, and I am ready.” He glanced down at Brenwar. “Do not interfere.” He took Brenwar’s hand inside his. “There is no one I’d rather have by my side in this battle, Brenwar, but you know it cannot be.”
Brenwar grumbled, but nodded his head.
“I’m going into that city to end this war, but I need you around to finish it in case I can’t.” He made his way around the circle and hugged each and every one of them. He stopped at Sasha and wiped away the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
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