“You can’t win this fight, Dark,” Miri said. “The odds are against you, and you know it.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve made it this far, my dear.”
Alvia pointed at Old Dark. “You are the dragon lord.”
“Oh ho!” Dark laughed. “It is refreshing to see an elf who knows her history.”
Alvia’s hands glowed.
“Ah! A warrior woman, too!”
Miri pulled out a grimoire.
Dark and his dragons prowled forward. “If there are any odds against anyone, Miri Charmwell, it is you.”
Alvia and Pepper jumped into the air. Dark’s dragons leaped at her but she threw magical blasts that hit them in the eyes. She struck Old Dark on the chest with a blast, knocking him backward.
Dark’s dragons surrounded Miri.
In the distance, she watched as Alvia and Dark traded blows. She and Pepper attacked the black dragon from different angles, and it confused him.
Come on, Alvia, come on!
Miri pulled a grimoire and looked at the dragons.
“You’re not an elven warrior,” Brownigan said. “This will be easy.”
“Think again,” Miri said, her grimoire flashing.
***
“What was that all about?” Demetrius asked. They crawled out of a grate as they watched Norwyn fly high into the well above.
Below, the aquifer rushed more forcefully, as if a valve had been released somewhere.
“We’re alive,” Amal said. “That’s all that matters.”
She glanced up the well. She couldn’t see very far and that disturbed her. “We’re in the safest place we can possibly be right now.”
***
Brownigan and Lister laughed as they approached Miri.
Miri activated a rune wheel, and she pushed a spell at the two dragons. Their bodies flashed green momentarily.
“My body is tingling,” Brownigan said. “That’s the best you can do, elf?”
Miri smirked as she recited the spell’s properties in her head.
Medicinal Paralysis: Causes a numbness in the whole body. Best for surgery preps. But in dragons, it causes improper balance. They are heaviest at their bottom, and their weight serves as a kind of ballast. Without feeling their center of gravity, the effectiveness of their physical attacks is greatly diminished.
Brownigan ran at Miri. She ran under him—a maneuver that would have normally gotten her killed, but the dragon stumbled upon seeing her pass beneath him and he fell to the ground.
Miri activated another rune and punched it. Both dragons levitated in the air.
They roared as she sent a gust of wind their direction, blowing them through the tunnel and out into the chaos.
A repercussive gust hit Miri and threw her back. She landed against a television monitor, cracking one of the screens.
Dark and Alvia were still fighting, blow for blow. Miri started to run for them when something caught her eye.
On the television screen, she saw Amal and Demetrius Shalewood on a metal platform in the middle of the aquifer, inspecting a computer panel.
Looking over to her left, she noticed an almost identical computer panel in the chamber a few feet away. She lingered at the panel when a shrill bark distracted her.
Pepper rolled across the ground with a giant gash in her back. The firedog breathed rapidly, then stopped moving.
“No,” Miri mouthed.
Dark stood in front of Alvia, his claws dripping with blood.
***
“This has been exhilarating,” Dark said. “You are a true warrior, elf. But I am done with games.”
Alvia lie on the ground, her face bleeding. A tear entered her eye as she saw Pepper’s dead body. She turned back to Dark, her hands glowing.
But Dark lashed her with his tail, knocking her into the wall. Alvia crawled backward into the tunnel.
Dark raised his claws to strike the girl, but then he noticed her golden necklace. It was glowing.
He snatched it off her neck and scrutinized it.
He recognized it.
It was the same design that he’d seen a thousand years ago…on that dark night in the forest when he killed the elven man who tried to poison him. A golden, winged necklace with a rune on the back.
This was ancient.
Dark’s blood boiled, and he reared up his legs to stomp on Alvia.
But the necklace exploded, covering him with a purple cloud that hung around his face.
With a gust of wind, he blew it away.
But then he saw it, embedded in his chest…
A small barb.
He ripped the barb out and roared.
A drip of green poison landed on his foot.
Alvia laughed. “I have…served my purpose.”
Her eyes glowed silver.
Dark took the girl in his jaws, crushed her, and flung her out the tunnel. Her body plummeted several stories.
Then he stumbled backward, clutching his chest.
“No!” he cried. “No!”
Then he heard a voice at the end of the tunnel. “Why don’t you come out so I can finish you?”
Dark shook.
The moment he had been waiting for.
He ran through the tunnel and on to the roof.
Fenroot stood there in the pouring rain, grinning.
LV
One hundred elven soldiers climbed onto the roof and surrounded Fenroot. The spires of the Hall of Governance glinted like needles in the rain.
“Traitor,” Dark growled.
“Do you like the poison?” Fenroot asked. “Sending in a scout was the most effective way to warm you up.”
The silver dragon spread his wings and his elves prepared for battle, their hands glowing.
“You can’t muster up the strength to fight me without your minions, can you?” Dark asked.
He grimaced. The poison flowed through him, burned through his veins. How could he have been so stupid to fall for such a trick again?
“Poison won’t stop me,” Dark said.
“No, I will,” Fenroot said.
“All of this is a pity,” Dark said. “To think you would have to amass an army to defeat a decrepit old dragon like me….”
Fenroot growled.
“But really, how cowardly are you? First, your cronies, then a little girl, then some poison? Is this how you really want to go down in the history books, hmm?”
Fenroot stamped the shingles like a bull ready to charge.
“But then again, if you were a real dragon, you would have killed me by now. Fenroot the Brute! More like Fenroot the Fool…”
The poison burned but he tried not to show it.
Fenroot charged but Dark reached within and summoned all the energy he could. His body exploded forward and he clashed with Fenroot. They screamed as their heads smashed together.
Dark slashed Fenroot across the face and the silver dragon jumped back and sent flames in Dark’s direction, but Dark slid down the roof to avoid them.
“After him!” Fenroot cried.
Dark staggered down the roof, but the elves were too quick. He spun around, lashed his tail, speared several elves with his claws. He blew fire, found himself chomping—the sweet intoxicating blood of elves ran down his throat.
It didn’t take long before there were only a few elves left.
Dark fell to his knees. The poison…
Fenroot slammed onto the roof in front of him and kicked him, knocking him into a somersault. Dark grappled for shingles, but he slid ever downward, to the edge of the roof.
“All I have to do is keep pursuing you,” Fenroot said. “Fight all the elves you want. The poison will soon take hold of you and I will deliver the final blow.”
Dark flew forward but Fenroot slashed him in mid-air and he landed sideways on the roof.
He felt wetness on his leg. Blood.
“It was an honor to kill your parents,” Fenroot said, not turning around. His evil grin was the only thing in
the rain that Dark could focus on. “Your mother and father begged me not to kill them. They begged me not to burn them alive…”
Dark flew forward again but Fenroot sidestepped and he crashed into an eave.
“Arrgh!”
“They said, ‘my lord,’ please don’t hurt us…”
“They would have never called you ‘my lord,’” Dark said. “Never.”
He didn’t want to think about his parents. All he could think about was that he wasn’t well. The inside his body was aflame and there was nothing he could do about it.
“Your father’s blindness was well-deserved. It was a joy ripping out what was left of his eyeballs.”
Dark barreled into Fenroot and they fell, punching and slashing each other.
“And your mother,” Fenroot said, avoiding a punch and throwing one himself, “Her stitched up mouth.”
“Stop!” Dark said, punching him hard on the jaw.
“I pulled a stitch, and I unraveled her.”
Dark put his foot on Fenroot’s neck and pushed.
Behind them was a spire. Dark spotted it out of the corner of his eye.
“She came unspooled like a doll!” Fenroot cried.
Dark picked Fenroot up and launched him. The silver dragon’s body landed on a spire, and it impaled his arm. Fenroot yelled, and his elves surrounded him.
Dark heaved. Lightning struck the roof near him and sparks flew.
He used the distraction to slip away. As he flew off the roof, he saw Fenroot’s elves gathering around him, healing spells on their fingertips.
***
Miri heard the clamor outside but did not want to go.
Alvia was dead. The blue-haired girl’s luck had run out, and so would Miri’s.
She looked around the Abstraction Chamber for a way out.
The ground rumbled and she stopped.
A huge metal grate in the center of the room slid open.
Miri dove behind a computer panel as Norwyn climbed out. He looked around the room and cursed.
Then he ran to the Abstraction Machine and hooked himself up to it. On his television screens he focused on Dark, who was stumbling through the courtyard. Fenroot was in the sky above him.
Norwyn gritted his teeth. He pressed several buttons on his computer panel, and the room hummed to life. The huge cylinder in the middle of the room vibrated. The vibration was almost otherworldly, and the cylinder shook so fiercely that the entire room shook, and Miri felt it in her bones.
An Abstraction Chamber? But why?
A compartment on the wall opened up, full of white orbs. They activated, blinked blue, and Norwyn roared, sending them through the tunnel and into the rain.
***
Dark splashed into a puddle.
He landed next to a dead dragon, sputtered and pulled himself into a run.
His hind legs were failing him. They had been the first to succumb to the burning.
Oh, the burning!
It was more than he could bear.
He pushed through it, trying to find somewhere on the grounds where he could hide and take a momentary respite.
“There’s no point running,” a voice said above.
It was Fenroot.
He floated in the air, almost blending in with the storm clouds. His arm was almost completely repaired.
Fenroot dove toward him.
Dark tripped and fell forward into the grass, and he groaned. He raised his claws to try to defend himself.
Suddenly, the sky filled with white orbs.
“Norwyn!” Dark cried.
The orbs flew into Fenroot’s scales, knives extended. The silver dragon screamed with pain, trying to pull them out.
A single orb hovered in front of Dark.
“Are you alright, my lord?”
“I’m poisoned,” Dark said. “I’m poisoned, Norwyn!”
“It’s okay,” the white dragon said. “Come back to the chamber. There is one last alternative.”
Dark took one last look at Fenroot, who was fighting the orbs, swatting at them like flies.
Then he took to the sky and aimed for the Abstraction Chamber.
***
“How bad is it, my lord?” Norwyn asked as Dark showed him the point where the poisonous barb had entered.
“I don’t have have long,” Dark said. “What is the final alternative? And what is that noise?”
The humming irritated Dark, and it seemed to make his wounds worse.
“That’s the final alternative,” Norwyn said. “Abstraction.”
“What?”
Norwyn looked at the wound sadly. “You’re not going to make it, my lord. The only way for you to survive is to become an Abstraction. The process uses a copious amount of magic, and it will heal your wounds.”
“But what about Fenroot?”
“I can handle Fenroot.”
“Will I be able to use magic?”
“No, but magic won’t defeat him. Intelligence will.”
There was some truth to what Norwyn said. Fenroot’s magic was beyond compare, and more powerful than anything Dark had ever used. But still, he didn’t want to give up.
“This isn’t cowardice,” Norwyn said. “If you want to outlive Fenroot, I need you to trust me, my lord.”
Norwyn bowed. “I could have died for you a thousand years ago, and I’m willing to do it again.”
Dark held up a claw. “Your loyalty has never been in question, old friend.”
Norwyn pressed a button on the machine. A giant, dragon-sized door on the side of the cylinder slid open. Inside, pink smoke glowed. Dark couldn’t see what was beyond.
“What the heavens—”
A dragon roar sounded in the distance.
“Quick, there isn’t much time!” Norwyn said.
The shape of a dragon emerged from the tunnel.
Dark placed his hand on Norwyn’s shoulder and gave him an appreciative look.
Then he jumped into the chamber.
***
Norwyn pressed a button and the sliding door on the cylinder began to close slowly.
The cylinder vibrated and began to shake.
WHOOSH!
It emitted a giant pink ray of light through the stained-glass window in the ceiling, shattering it. The entire room filled with smoke.
Norwyn’s blue eyes glowed in the smoke. They looked satisfied.
POW!
Fenroot slammed into Norwyn.
“You stupid dragon!” Fenroot screamed. “I won’t let you get away with this!”
Norwyn laughed. “Some things never change, even after a thousand years. Including your lack of intelligence.” He extended his claws and stood in front of the cylinder. “If you want him, you go through me.”
“No, you go through me!” a voice cried.
Moss sprung out of the shadows and coiled around Norwyn, baring his teeth. Norwyn slashed at the Crafter dragon, but Moss squeezed, and they rolled toward the open grate on the floor.
Fenroot dashed past Norwyn and jammed his fist into a small gap just before the door on the cylinder closed. He strained with all his might to open the door.
Then, a black claw reached out of the door, seized him by the throat and pulled him in.
The door shut tight behind them.
***
Dark opened his eyes and found himself awash in a world of pink.
The sound of water rushed around him.
He was on top of a large pink wave that moved gently through a huge open space. The air was smoky. It smelled like burning. He couldn’t tell where he was.
Was there enough room in the cylinder for this place? It didn’t seem real.
It didn’t seem possible.
He reached out his claws and the river deposited him on a metal walkway. The walkway rose slightly out of the water, and his eyes widened as he saw the pink river rapids rush into a waterfall in the distance.
He sat on the walkway to catch his breath.
“Wh
ere am I?” he asked.
A moment ago he had been punching and clawing at Fenroot. Now he was here.
His legs were still burning. He stood up, and they pained him tremendously.
The walkway slanted upward. But he noticed there were no railways.
There were circular holes, here and there, but measured. Like the walkway was welded together from a pattern.
He made his way around the holes and walked upward until he stepped onto another walkway.
But this walkway was strangely shaped. It was almost circular. He could have fallen off if he didn’t watch his step. The walkways were not connected; they floated like asteroids.
In the distance, he saw what looked like a wall. Smooth, rounded, arching ever upward.
It reminded him of an egg.
The water rushed below him, and the water level rose slightly. The walkways undulated softly, pushing him toward higher ground.
Then he saw Fenroot.
Far, far away.
The silver dragon looked as stunned and dazed as Dark, making his way up a metal walkway that bowed up and down. His walkway was shaped like a feather—no—a wing.
Dark looked down.
Their walkways mirrored each other, but it looked like they met at the same place—a tall metal platform, higher up.
Growling, he started to run so he could catch up. Fenroot must have seen Dark because he started running as well.
“You will die here, traitor!” Dark screamed.
“After you!” Fenroot screamed back.
They ran and ran, around the circular holes, around slight elevations in the walkway that reminded Dark of plates laid over the top of one another.
Fenroot was only one platform away. The large metal platform was directly between them.
Dark jumped.
Fenroot jumped.
They landed on the platform together at the same time.
They circled each other, shadows swirling above them. The pink water flowed impossibly far beneath them, and Dark knew this was going to be the end for one of them.
“That poison could have worked faster,” Fenroot said, frowning. “You should be dead by now.”
“I seem to recall you saying something similar one night a thousand years ago,” Dark said. “Mixing poison never suited you. When you rely on elves to do it for you, what do you think will happen?”
Old Wicked (The Last Dragon Lord Book 3) Page 20