“Shield,” he said quickly and ran around the corner of the tower to escape from the dragon's sight.
A rush of green-tinged wind followed by a earth-shaking shudder rippling through the ground announced the dragon's arrival. Simon fell against the wall of the tower as the convulsion under his feet sent him reeling. The Shield spell bounced him, unhurt, off of the wall and he finally found his balance and then stood quietly, waiting.
“So, this is how the great wizard greets his nemesis? By cowering in the shadows?”
The dragon had lowered the volume of his voice, but the air still rang and throbbed in Simon's ears from the sound.
“Come now, your magic has failed you, little wizard. You cannot run and you cannot hide. If I must, I shall tear down this puny hovel of yours to find you. But let us face each other with some dignity, as least. Come out, and your end will have a touch of nobility to it.”
Oh, the monster is loving this, Simon thought angrily. He bit his lip so that he wouldn't begin flinging insults at it. Not yet, he told himself. Not yet.
With a deep breath, and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, the wizard threw back his shoulders and stepped around the corner of the tower to face the dragon one last time.
Chapter 26
The green dragon's bulk was stuffed into the space between the front of the tower and the outer wall. It had writhed itself into a heap like the snakes it resembled and its head reared up higher than the top of the tower.
As Simon stepped into view, a high-pitched hiss, not unlike the sound of a steam whistle, came from the creature's throat and its blazing yellow eyes widened in anticipation.
“And here you are,” it said in a voice that could have been wrapped in honey, it was so sweetly satisfied. “Found your courage at last, have you? Good, good. I have wasted too much time with you already. I grow tired of our game of, what do you humans call it, cat and mouse? Yes.”
The massive head dipped toward the wizard and he stumbled backwards as it overwhelmed his senses. Six feet over his head, it stopped and he saw his skinny little body reflected in eyes that were as large as he was.
They blinked once, slowly, and contemplated him with obvious contempt.
“All of this trouble for one tiny ape. Do you know, your ancestors were giants compared to you. Their power almost rivaled our own. Can you imagine it? It was wise of the dark ones to retreat into the Void and take the magic with them. It destroyed the elder wizards and now the way is almost clear for the gods to return. What a triumph it will be.”
A small cloud of greenish gas had begun to gather around Simon's shield and he knew that it was the only reason that he wasn't choking on his last breath. Strangely, the thick gas dribbled like heavy fog from the dragon's jagged maw and the beast kept its head high above the poisonous cloud.
“Retreat from the world?” Simon found his voice at last. “They didn't retreat from the world. They ran away! They flew in terror from the gods of Light before they were destroyed. It wasn't a retreat, it was a rout!”
The head pulled back and the green hissed even louder than before. Its eyes narrowed and burned brightly, like the sun at midday. Chlorine dripped like saliva from its lips.
“Have a care, insect! Have a care. Your insults mean nothing, but your death is in my claws. I can make it as quick or as agonizing as I choose. Do not incur my wrath.”
Two minutes, Simon thought. My shield will fail in two minutes. Time to take a leap of faith.
He hesitated and thought: I sure hope this works.
“Incur your wrath? What wrath?,” he shouted. “I killed the primal black dragon, watched it disintegrate into small pieces in the deep waters of the river. Where was your wrath then? I slaughtered your own drakes like I was stepping on insects while you watched and did nothing. You have no wrath, no fire! Like your black sibling, you are nothing but a tool in the hands of twisted, perverse gods. Where is this vaunted power of the dragons? You drool like a mindless beast and expect me to be afraid?”
The dragon reared back, its sinewy body uncoiling as its head lifted higher and higher above the wizard.
“You dare! You dare bait me? Very well. Taste my power. Your puny shield will not stand against the full force of my breath. Die, human!”
The dragon sucked in an enormous lungful of air. Simon was almost lifted from his feet by the vacuum created as it inhaled and inhaled.
And then the enormous jaws opened and the head shot down toward him exactly like a striking cobra about to sink its fangs into its prey. The jaws gaped even wider and a blast of dense chlorine, so thick that it was almost black, billowed toward him.
“Invectis!” Simon yelled frantically, finally invoking his prepared spell. As the world dissolved, he raised Bene-Dunn-Gal and activated the tower's wards.
And then he was falling head over heels, thick grass grabbing at his body as he spun and flopped.
Bad landing, he thought as he came to rest with one arm curled around his staff and the other in the warm waters of the lake.
“Master! Master!” Kronk yelled.
Simon could hear the little guy's feet skittering across the grass but his vision was blurred with flashes of red and yellow and he had to close them for a minute to stop himself from throwing up.
“By the Four Winds, what's going on?” Aeris exclaimed, somewhere to Simon's right.
“Hi guys,” he said, eyes still closed. “If I'm here then I guess I'm still alive. Huh, that's a surprise.”
He forced himself to open his eyes and sit up. He was sitting on the sandy shore of the small lake behind the tower. Both Aeris and Kronk waited a few feet away, identical expressions of surprise on their faces.
Simon almost grinned but an ear-splitting scream of rage and pain cut through the air and suddenly nothing was very funny at all.
He used Bene-Dunn-Gal to push himself to his feet and turned to look at the tower.
The strengthened shield created by the wards glowed dully against the night sky with its bright, clean stars, but within the shield, the air had turned thick and green.
Clouds of pure chlorine gas roiled and bubbled, as thick as heavy smoke, but much more deadly.
As Simon watched, he saw the green dragon's head rear up to smash against the shield. It answered by bursting into light and another agonized scream shivered the night air.
The wizard slowly began to walk toward the tower, watching and listening as the green dragon's attempts to escape became weaker, its cries more feeble.
“Simon? What did you do?” Aeris asked plaintively. “What is happening?”
The wizard stopped and leaned on his staff. He felt almost detached from the entire event that was happening inside the shield and replied to the air elemental in a dreamy kind of voice.
“A long time ago, when I was the old Simon O'Toole, and I had started training for iron-man competitions, I read this book. It was called The Way of the Warrior, I think. Written by a Chinese warrior, or something. A line in the book always stuck in my mind. Something about using an enemy's own strength against them. Well, that's what I did here.”
He waved at the tower. The dragon couldn't be seen anymore, but its roars still rang out, only now they were tinged with fear.
“One of my fantasy books claimed that while a green dragon's main weapon was poisonous gas, it couldn't actually breathe the gas itself. Personally I always thought that was a load of horse-sh...well, I thought that it was absurd. But a little while ago, I saw the primal green lift its head high enough to stay out of its own cloud of chlorine gas. It was avoiding breathing the poison.”
He looked at Aeris, hovering next to his shoulder and then down at Kronk, who was watching him in open admiration.
“So I tricked it. I cast a Gate spell before I opened the shield to let it attack, but I didn't invoke it. When I goaded the monster enough for it to use its full power against me, I Gated out and activated the tower's runes at the same time. I just got lucky there. I might have been trapped in there wit
h the dragon if my timing had been off by even a second. But at least it would have died with me.”
He sighed and leaned more heavily on Bene-Dunn-Gal as he watched the tower.
“The shield won't let fresh air in or the chlorine gas out. If it wasn't weakened by its own poison, the dragon could easily break through the barrier. But instead, with every breath, it's killing itself.”
“Master, that's brilliant!” Kronk said excitedly.
“I agree,” Aeris added. “Although you took an enormous risk. Well done.”
Simon turned on the elementals so quickly, he almost fell over.
“Well done? It was a vile trick! It was low and mean and despicable. It was...”
He stopped and was surprised to find himself blinking back tears.
“It was dishonorable. The dragon and I should have fought face to face, with dignity. This?” He waved toward the glowing shield, tinged green from the gas inside. “This was necessary. That gas wasn't a weapon I could confront for long. I can block flames, ice, rocks, claws. At least for a time. But that horrible stuff? One deep breath and I would have been finished. One mistimed Shield spell and I would have died choking on my own vomit. So I tricked it. It was evil, yes. But it was an ancient creature, a being out of legend. It deserved a more noble end, that's all.”
He was tired of talking and tired of company. Simon turned away and walked back to the lake. He stood there for a long time, looking out across its still, dark waters, his mind blank and his heart heavy.
How much time passed, he didn't know, but eventually Aeris appeared to his right, his glowing form bobbing in the gentle evening breeze.
“It's finished,” he said simply. “The gas does not affect me, so I went through the shield and scouted.”
When Simon looked at him, Aeris shrugged.
“It's what I do, isn't it? At any rate, the primal green dragon is dead. Its own gas not only killed it but turned it into, well, a mess. When you feel up to it, you'll have to burn the remains. It's simply too big to be buried.”
The wizard nodded and Aeris began to float away.
“Aeris,” Simon said hesitantly. “Wait, please.”
He turned to look at the elemental.
“I'm sorry for snapping at you and Kronk. It's, it's just that...”
“I know, Simon,” Aeris said with an understanding smile. “You are a decent man forced to do indecent things, at least in your own mind. But, for whatever good it will do, I must tell you that you are too hard on yourself. Countless lives have been spared by your actions today. What humans remain on the continent you used to call South America are now safe from the green dragon and its minions. The dark gods will have to use other, less powerful servants to clear them out now. It gives them a chance, and that's all you could hope to do.”
Simon shook his hair back from his face and stretched, hearing his joints snapping. He slipped Bene-Dunn-Gal over his shoulder and finally smiled slightly.
“Thanks, Aeris. You're right, of course. I didn't start this fight, and I probably won't live to see the end of it, but I will do what I have to do, to see it through as far as I can.”
He began to walk slowly back toward the tower.
“Come on,” he said to Aeris. “Let's go burn a dragon.”
Aeris followed him and Kronk appeared suddenly, scurrying through the grass like a swimmer in deep water.
“Are you all right, master?” he asked cautiously.
“I'm fine, my friend. As I told Aeris, I'm sorry for my bad mood earlier. It's been a hell of a day.”
“I know, master. At least now we can get back to normal, for a while anyway.”
“You do realize, my dear wizard, that if the gods of Chaos hated you before for your destruction of the primal black, their rage will be incalculable now that you've killed another prime dragon?”
Simon stopped well back of the tower's shield and made a gesture. The glowing outline disappeared and a huge puff of green gas exploded skyward. Fortunately the winds were blowing from behind him and the wizard watched as the currents tore apart the mass of chlorine gas and it faded away into the night sky.
“You're right, Aeris. Let them stew on that rage for a while. I have some ideas on how to deal with the next primal, but it's going to take a few months, at least, to bring them together.”
“Oh wonderful,” the air elemental said sarcastically. “And which primal will it be next time? Red? White? Brown?”
“Well, let's keep that a surprise for now, shall we?” Simon said with a broad smile. “But I'll give you a hint. Have you ever seen me ski?”
The End
Links
Here are Links to the first three books in my series: The Titan's Legacy
The Return of the Titans
The Battle for Sanctuary
The Hunt for Hyperion
Here are Links to the first two books in my series: The Angelic Wars
Confronting the Fallen
The Rise of the Fallen
Here's the Link to the first book in my series: Tales from the New Earth
The Dragons Return
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The Dragons Revenge (Tales from the New Earth #2) Page 36