Ascension: The Dragons of Kendualdern

by Sam Ferguson

  The old dwarf nodded and reached a hand out to Gorliad’s snout. “Then you are my king.” The crowd behind them cheered.

  Gorliad slowly moved his head back and up to look at all of the dwarves. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t find any words.

  Sandjean stepped out from the crowd. His face angry and an accusing finger pointing at the dragon. “If you had asked me before we started this journey, I would have told you he sought to subjugate us to him. I would have told you that it was suicide to align ourselves with a maimed dragon who can barely walk. I would have told you that traversing the wilds would end with us fighting for our very lives.” Fenerir and Hermean stepped in, but Gorliad held his left foreleg up.

  “Let him speak his mind,” Gorliad told them. The two of them stood still, but their hands clenched around their weapons.

  Sandjean shook his head and then his accusing finger turned into a fist. “I never would have thought that I would stand here today, telling all of you that I could not think of a better king. What other dragon has used his own strength to dig tunnels alongside dwarves? Such a thing has never been done.” He dropped his hand and smiled wide. “Never have I misjudged someone as I have this dragon-friend. All I saw was an injured leg, and I was blind to the strength, and the fairness inside this dragon’s heart.” He placed his fist over his heart. “I cannot speak for the others, but you have my allegiance, until my last breath.”

  The crowd of dwarves did not cheer this time. They stood reverently and watched as Sandjean dropped to a knee. A moment later, all the crowd dropped to a knee and bowed their heads.

  “My friends, please, rise.” Gorliad looked beyond them and saw the giant’s corpse. “We have another matter to decide.”

  Hermean cleared his throat. “I have been thinking on our decision. I would like to discuss another option.” The dwarf turned to the others and had them disperse and return to work. After they had all left, except for Fenerir, Hermean continued on. “I thought we could test the snow orcs,” he said.

  Gorliad nodded. “We could leave the body for the night, as I promised to give them an answer tomorrow, and see if they try to steal from us when we sleep.”

  Hermean smiled wide. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “I keep the treasure,” Gorliad said.

  Hermean scrunched his nose. “Why?”

  “If they gave it as tribute, then is should be mine to keep regardless of what I decide regarding the giant’s heart. Give it to the others to decorate some of the tunnel entrances.”

  Hermean nodded.

  Gorliad then went back to the tunnels and continued to dig until an hour after dusk. As the group feasted on buffalo meat and retired to the main chamber for the night, Hermean and his drake sat perched in the tree tops and watched the land around the giant.

  The moon rose in half form, adding its silvery light to the white surface below. A wind pushed through the trees, but there were no clouds and no snowfall. A large owl flew over the area where Hermean sat. Its wings barely made a sound as it scanned the area for food. Hermean watched it, admiring its grace and stealth. He decided to have a game, a contest of sorts, with the owl. Hermean turned his sharp eyes to the ground and searched the surface, challenging himself to find an animal before the owl dove down to strike. He turned his eyes this way and that, but the owl dove before he spotted the white hare.

  “One for you, owl,” Hermean whispered with a slight nod of respect. He hadn’t expected to win, but it helped him stay awake. The night wore on, each hour dragging slower than the last. His drake closed its eyes, but Hermean knew the beast was not fully asleep. It had the ability to sleep light, while remaining attuned to his ears and nose.

  Hermean, on the other hand, had no such ability. He fidgeted with his left foot and pinched his leg. Now he was double thinking the decision not to rotate watches. He had worried that changing guards would provide the orcs an opportunity to see the guards. One guard for the night would eliminate such worries, and would beguile the orcs into thinking that no guards stood watch. Thus they would feel more comfortable attacking.

  Then again, if Hermean fell asleep, it would be a moot point.

  The dwarf yawned and tugged on his beard. The stinging sensation helped sharpen his senses. He scanned the forest below, gazing through the trees and along the bushes. He saw nothing. He turned his attention back to the giant’s corpse and watched it as he rubbed his arms.

  The moon eventually began its descent. Hermean started to doubt himself. Perhaps the orcs would agree to a real peace. He wondered whether anything he knew about the world, and the nature of the creatures in it, were accurate anymore.

  That is why when he finally saw movement near the giant, he smiled wide and nearly laughed aloud. He had been right. It took them a while to arrive, but there were a handful of orcs climbing the giant. Hermean clicked with his tongue and his drake snapped awake.

  “Let’s get on up,” Hermean said.

  The two soared down and the drake blasted a hole clean through the first orc’s chest before it could react. The second orc nearby snarled and pulled a bow out, but Hermean hacked clean through the orc’s body, ripping him open from right clavicle down half of the orc’s chest. The shoulder and arm fell out to the side, dangling grotesquely as blood poured out.

  A third orc pulled a crude spear and moved to attack, but Hermean’s drake veered off to the right, whipping the orc across the face with its tail as it turned away. The orc fell off from the giant’s body to land in a heap upon the frozen ground. The faint sound of crunching bones brought a grin to Hermean’s face.

  A fourth orc turned and fled, running down the giant’s shoulder and arm and finally out across the snow. Hermean clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and the drake responded with a hot, fiery snort. The beast accelerated, closing in on the orc. The terrified child of the void glanced over its shoulder a couple of times.

  Hermean offered two more clicks with his tongue. The drake snarled.

  The beast flew in, more than close enough to use its fire, but that is not what it did. It bore down upon the orc and then nearly overflew the fleeing creature. Just as its midsection was parallel with the orc, it snapped out with its hind legs, turning sharply upwards. Its claws ripped through the orc’s shoulders and the monster howled in pain as the drake pulled it off the ground and into the sky.

  With the added weight, the drake had to use all of its strength to carry the orc up. It grunted and snorted with effort. The orc below shook and tried to wrestle free, but it was no use. There was no escape from a drake’s talons.

  Hermean patted his animal on the back. “Now!” he shouted out.

  The drake released its grip and the orc fell, flailing and screaming to the ground below. Sharp, loud cracks echoed out over the tundra and the orc wailed in agony as its legs buckled in places where there were no joints. The wailing turned to crying as the scarlet blood spilled across the snow. Hermean directed his drake down and hopped off.

  “If any of the others live, kill them,” Hermean said. The drake tore off back to the giant. He was more than certain that the first two had died, but the third orc who had fallen could well still be alive, and he only wanted one prisoner to interrogate.

  “Whasak ho biddak!” the orc snarled and spat with gnashing teeth.

  “Come now,” Hermean said. “Your king spoke with us just fine. Do you not know our tongue?”

  “Hofing do mer suporak!” the orc snarled.

  Hermean kicked one of the broken legs. The orc howled out and started to tremble and shake. “How many of you are there?” Hermean asked.

  “Wosak bo hudingh!” the orc shouted.

  Hermean looked up and saw a massive form flying toward him. He nodded and smiled. “It would have been better to tell me,” he told the orc.

  Gorliad dropped heavily from the sky, shaking the ground and causing the orc’s head to bounce ever so slightly. “Has he spoken?” Gorliad asked.

&n
bsp; “Nothing that I could understand,” Hermean said. “Perhaps you could form the connection with him. Scour his mind for the answers.”

  Gorliad moved in and put his face over the orc’s. He sent out his energy and locked gazes with the being. The orc went rigid, and then began shaking violently. Only the head remained still while the rest of the body jerked and twitched. The orc’s eyes went wide and then the being coughed up a copious amount of bubbly blood. It shook once more and then the life left it.

  “Well?” Hermean asked.

  “I was unable to connect with his mind before he died.” Gorliad snorted and a puff of smoke billowed over the corpse. “Now that we have seen their true purpose, I will turn the giant to ash, and remove whatever it is they seek.”

  Hermean nodded. “I will return to the mountain and instruct the warriors to make regular shifts for the night watch.”

  Gorliad heard the words, but he didn’t respond. His mind was overcome with thoughts of what was to come. Why had the orcs come for the giant’s heart? What was it they truly hoped to accomplish? Beyond those questions, how many orcs were hidden in the eastern range? A dragon could easily take on scores, possibly hundreds at a time with its flame, but what if there were thousands? The dwarves with him were not yet strong enough to protect themselves against such a force.

  He heard a loud crack under foot, followed by an angry hiss. He looked down and realized he had inadvertently stepped onto the frozen lake. A crack now stretched from his left foreleg to the large crack that had been made previously. A strange, eerie draft seeped up from the crack, almost as if to wrap itself around Gorliad’s leg and pull at him.

  He turned from the lake and moved toward the corpse. He sucked in a great breath and heated the fires within his chest. When he opened his mouth, a great wave of orange flame rushed out to consume the giant’s corpse. Snow and ice around melted, and a dark yellow and black smoke rose into the sky. The hissing sound from the ice in the lake became louder and constant.

  The last of the giant turned to ash and then there was a great clamor in the frozen lake. Crik-crrrrack!

  Gorliad turned to see a strange, crystal spear sticking through the ice. It was followed by a second, maybe ten meters to the left. They shook and then pulled down against the ice, shattering the rest of the lake’s frozen cover. From the cool waters below the thick hunks of ice rose a head of blue crystal. Eyes white as Gorliad’s were, sat upon the head above a long snout filled with fangs not unlike those of a dragon. A long, powerful neck continued to ascend from the water, creating a sound not unlike jewels clinking together as the water streamed off the creature’s neck. The neck rose ten, then fifteen, then twenty meters into the air. It was then that Gorliad realized what he was seeing. He had heard of such creatures before.

  The long, serpentine body sprouted a pair of arms about twenty meters below the head. Each arm was flexible, with many joints running the length of it to give it maximum maneuverability. At the end of each arm sat a spear-like spike of crystal, the same spears Gorliad had seen punch through the ice. The dangerous, yet magnificent creature slithered out onto the snow to the west side of the lake. Gorliad guessed it was roughly two hundred meters in total length. Other than the pair of arms, it had no appendages. Rather, it was like a great crystal serpent. A series of spikes capped the tail and the beast roared so ferociously that the very tundra shook under its power. It turned with its icy white eyes and saw Gorliad.

  The tail coiled in around the body and the great leviathan rose up to stand taller than Gorliad, forcing the burgundy dragon to look up at the sparkling creature. “You slew the Burork,” the leviathan said in a tinkling, high pitched tone that almost sounded more like music than speech.

  Gorliad knew that the leviathan spoke of the giant, for that is the name the orc had given the giant. “The Burork attacked,” Gorliad said.

  “The Burork banished me to a prison below the depths of the water,” the leviathan said. “I was condemned to remain under that magical ice until the day the Burork’s heart was destroyed.”

  Gorliad now realized why the orcs had wanted the giant’s heart.

  The leviathan struck out suddenly, without warning. Gorliad barely managed to leap out of harm’s way and then took to the sky high above the creature.

  The leviathan hissed. It was the same, eerie hiss that had been heard when the ice cracked. The tail twitched and Gorliad caught sight of a shimmering spike, sparkling in the moonlight, flying directly toward him. Gorliad dodged it and responded with a fireball. The green flame crashed onto the leviathan’s body, but the flames did nothing to it. The fire fizzled out and the leviathan slithered around to the forest, shooting another three spikes as it moved.

  Gorliad flew higher into the sky and moved away from the flying spikes. To his amazement, the leviathan grew a new spike to replace each of the others it had shot at him. Next it opened its mouth and spat something shiny and blue. The dragon ascended even higher to stay out of reach. The liquid spread out as gravity took hold of it and pulled it down to the ground. As it connected with the tundra the earth hissed and smoked as the liquid burned its pattern though the ice and into the dirt.

  The leviathan hissed again. “No dragon can defeat a leviathan,” it sneered.

  Gorliad didn’t listen. “The Burork conquered you,” he replied confidently. “I defeated the Burork.”

  “The Burork is also a child of the void. He knows my weakness, and had power over me. You do not.” The leviathan coiled around itself and sat waiting with its tail twitching side to side, ready to launch its deadly spikes. It opened its mouth to reveal hissing and bubbling blue liquid inside, forming just behind its lower row of fangs. “Come child of the light. Let us dance under the aurora!”

  A shout came from the mountain. Gorliad turned and saw a sea of torches marching in from the east. He couldn’t see the forms clearly in the darkness, but he didn’t have to. The orcs had tricked him, forced him to burn the Burork and release the leviathan. They had turned his fear and insecurity against him perfectly.

  “They come for you,” the leviathan hissed below.

  The orcs would arrive soon, he knew. Gorliad looked down at the coiled beast. The scrawny, pointed arms were folded against its sides. Its fangs dripped with the blue acid. The tail still twitched side to side. Gorliad dove down, blasting fire before him. The hot, thick column of flame sizzled and crackled through the air. He swerved left and right, avoiding flying spikes that tore through the flame and stabbed the air near him. The leviathan spat another batch of acid, but Gorliad’s fire destroyed the liquid.

  The two collided with an almost metallic sound as the great beasts crashed to the ground and bounced and rolled over each other. The leviathan stabbed and swiped with its tail, but Gorliad masterfully blocked each strike with his own tail, striking under the barbed spikes and knocking the crystal monster’s tail back. Finally, he managed to pin the tail down with his own. Gorliad seized the lower tail with his left hind leg and squeezed the tail until it could no longer move.

  That didn’t stop the leviathan, however. It sent stab after stab at Gorliad’s body.

  Gorliad twisted and writhed, dodging each of the spear-like appendages and maneuvering his snout in to catch the leviathan just below its jaw. He clamped down, but the crystalline flesh did not break or tear. The left arm sliced over Gorliad’s side, but didn’t cut deep. Gorliad reflexively twisted and grabbed out with his left foreleg pinning one of the leviathan’s arms. Then he stretched his right hind leg up to grab and pull the leviathan’s other arm down. Now the two beasts jerked and twitched, neither clearly having the upper hand.

  “Let us ssssee how you sssswim,” the leviathan hissed. It rolled its massive body, turning the pair over and over until they splashed into the frigid waters. Gorliad pulled in a breath and closed off the back of his throat as the icy lake closed in around him and swallowed the two great beasts into the dark depths. Chunks of thick ice scratched them both as they plummeted below,
twirling and spinning around each other, still locked in their death-grip.

  Gorliad noticed a faint movement in the diminishing light. A series of gills opened up on the leviathan’s neck that had not been there before.

  “I can breathe water,” the leviathan said in a muffled, eerie voice.

  The gills opened and a rush of small bubbles filtered through. Gorliad thought of an idea. He wasn’t sure it would work, but he knew he couldn’t wait long, else the leviathan would gain the advantage. Gorliad waited for the gills. They opened, then closed. They opened again to take in a deep breath. The burgundy dragon released his hold with his jaws and lightning-fast struck the gills, driving his fangs deep into the gills. The leviathan snarled and twisted around trying to bite at Gorliad with the little bit of movement it gained when the dragon moved lower down on the neck.

  Gorliad then stoked the fires in his breast until his entire body glowed bright in the murky depths of the lake. Only when his fire threatened to explode out of his chest did he allow the flames to erupt from his throat. He closed his eyes as the searing, white flames tore through the water. Bubbles formed all around them as the water went from frigid to boiling in less than a second. The flames ripped through the open gills and roasted the leviathan from the inside out. The beast writhed and squirmed, but it grew weak. Gorliad heard the distinct sound of cracking and popping flesh. Now it was time.

  Gorliad kept his teeth wedged deep into the gills, driving his entire breath of fire deep into the leviathan. He extended his wings in the pool and used them to drive both beasts above the surface. They crashed through the water with a deafening roar. Gorliad pulled in another breath as he lifted them both high into the sky. The gills tried to close upon leaving the water, but Gorliad’s teeth held firm, propping the gills open.

  The burgundy dragon again let his fire loose into the leviathan’s gills. The entire crystalline serpent glowed and sparkled as if made of a falling star. The hot fire built up inside the beast, creating more fractures and cracks through the crystal flesh. Then, when Gorliad had finished with his second breath, he released the leviathan.