As Taliesin’s dragon’s strength coursed through him, his hands grew steady on her spinal ridge, and he sat high upon her back, looking down upon the mass of snarling tharuks.
§
“You’re pathetic,” the mage said, his eyes sweeping scathingly over Leah, Taliesin, and Esina. He scoffed, “The last poor desperate red dragon with two riders barely older than littlings.” He laughed. “Let’s see how far you get with a one-winged dragon.” A fireball flew from his fingers straight for Esina.
The red dragon ducked, but the edge of her wing caught, dancing with flame. Her shrieks bounced off the mountainsides. The scent of charred wing itched Leah’s nostrils. Esina bashed her wing against the snow to quench the flames, but the damage was done—her wing was tattered.
Her eyes narrowed, and she growled. Tharuks jumped back from her thrashing tail.
Leah’s hand drifted toward the dagger at her belt.
“Archers, aim,” the arrogant mage called. His head swung to Leah, snarling, “Hand off your knife or I’ll put a hole in her other wing and then another straight through her head.”
Leah held her hands in the air.
“You useless lot won’t get far on foot.” The mage clapped his hands.
All the shadow dragons took to the sky en masse. They snatched up the tharuks in their talons and flew off toward Dragons’ Hold.
Taliesin flung his arms around his whimpering dragon’s neck. “Esina!”
Leah strode to the green-stained snow. “Esina, come over. We’ll see if this works.”
The red dragon dragged herself over and sank to her haunches near Leah.
“Taliesin, help me. Smear the green snow over her burnt wing. Hopefully the cold will help numb the pain and the residue of the juice may help heal her.”
“I’m glad they didn’t ransack our saddlebags.” Taliesin dismounted. “What about the piaua vials you hid under your clothes?”
Leah nodded. “It would take every last drop to heal her, and we’d have nothing left for our people. But a whole waterskin full of piaua was poured onto this snow.”
Esina gingerly lowered her injured wing to the stained snow. They shoveled armfuls over the burned tip. The dragon shuddered, whimpers escaping her jaws.
“Careful, we don’t want her to get snow burn too.” Leah strode over to retrieve the discarded waterskin. She sniffed it. The skin still smelled of piaua. “Esina, shake the snow off your wing.”
As Taliesin and the dragon shook the snow free, Leah slit the skin along the seams with her dagger. The inside gleamed with green juice. She rubbed it over the tattered raw edges of Esina’s wing, not knowing whether it would be enough to heal her.
Strangletons
Dawn peeked over the edge of the forest above Mage Gate, and still the battle raged. Maazini twisted to duck flame and a methimium-tipped arrow. Tomaaz fired an arrow into a flurry of dark dragons. He nocked and fired again. A roar broke out and a beast plummeted toward the forest. Maazini wheeled back, avoiding the gust of flame that shot up from the black dragon’s fanged maw. The mage upon its back thrust green flames at Maazini’s tail. He swerved, blasting fire at a shadow dragon’s belly above him.
Glad for his opaline headband, Tomaaz reached into his quiver. He only had a handful of arrows left.
Breaking out of the horde, a shadow dragon flew at Maazini and Tomaaz. By the flaming dragon’s tail, the mage on its back was the spitting image of Jael’s sweetheart, Sovita.
No, Sovita was dead on the forest floor. This was a fake mage, made from the fingers, skin and hair that old Bill had stolen from her. Gods, there was no end to Zens’ depravity—he was bringing the dead back to life.
Tomaaz recoiled, clutching his bow tighter, and fired a shot at the mage’s head, making sure he didn’t miss.
§
A dark dragon streaked through the sky, green mage flame rippling along its broken wings. Its bellows rang in Fenni’s head. Gods, his headband had slipped. Riona banked. Fenni clutched Kierion’s waist. With his other arm, he sent a volley of flame at another dark dragon. As Riona straightened, he tightened his headband.
A blue guard flew alongside them, and a whistle rang out. Fenni started. Jael was riding behind the blue guard. His teeth flashing in his tanned face, Jael grinned and pointed earthward.
Fenni leaned out, craning his neck to see what Jael was gesturing at.
Dark shapes were marching through the forest, approaching Mage Gate. Tharuks—hundreds of them. There was another whistle. Fenni snapped his head up. Jael was pointing behind them at a ribbon of murky green winding through the forest. A river. With a jolt, Fenni recognized it. He’d trained here with Jael and nearly been killed by a strangleton.
Yet another whistle. This time Jael, still grinning, motioned frantically with his hands.
Fenni gave an answering nod and tapped Kierion on the shoulder.
“Kierion, can Riona drop me down by that river?” He pointed.
Kierion leaned out and glanced down. “No, that’s crazy. Hundreds of tharuks will be upon you within moments. What can one mage do against so many?”
“Believe me, I know what I’m doing.” A thrill ran through Fenni’s veins as he gauged how far the tharuks were from the river. “Just give me a moment. The timing has to be right.”
The blue guard shot away, veering around the tharuks to land behind them. Fenni waited until Jael had dismounted. Soon, a raging wall of mage fire sprang up behind the monsters, driving them through the dense forest along a narrow trail leading straight to the river. “Tell Riona I’m ready,” Fenni called.
Kierion released an arrow, hitting a shadow dragon’s temple, then leaned forward to yell the message to Riona.
Riona descended into the forest.
Hopefully, Fenni could time this right… They sank through the tree line, spiraling down to a clearing on the far side of the river from the terrified snarling tharuks, who were now racing with a wall of green flame at their backs.
“What’s the best thing Riona and I could do?”
“Remain hidden until the tharuks are nearly upon me, and then flame them from the air.”
“But how are you going to stop them single-handedly?” Kierion asked.
Fenni leaned in and told him his plan.
§
Tharuk 1967 had been traversing the forest for days, sending its troop through the trees in small groups so no one could detect them. Last night, they’d reassembled. Now they were marching to Mage Gate. Commander Zens would be happy with such obedience. Perhaps the kind commander would give him a reward—if 1967 was lucky, perhaps even some dream time.
“Fire coming,” a tracker snarled, twitching its nostrils in the air. Snarls broke out behind it, then roars of fear.
1967 turned to see a wall of crackling green flame. Behind him, tharuks pushed and shoved. Some fell. The green fire rushed for them. 1967 spurted forward. “Run,” it bellowed, goading its troops on.
The stench of burning fur and cooked meat filled the air. 1967 coughed on the smoke from the bodies of its burning grunts. The flame raced on. Tharuks screamed, pushing and shoving to get past one another. Whips cracked amid the horde, the overseers’ attempts to move the troop faster.
1967 had seen fire like this before. It had sprouted from the fingers of cloaked beings on dragonback, scorching the mountainsides in Death Valley and massacring many tharuks. Zens had not been happy—he’d ordered all the mages in Spanglewood Forest to be killed. And many more throughout Dragons’ Realm.
That’s what those cloaked beings were called: mages. There must be one behind this firewall.
1967 gestured 835 over. As they ran, 1967 said, “Take five grunts. Go around flames to behind fire. Mage sprouts flames from fingers. Chop off its hands. Bring me its head.”
835 grunted and, taking five other tharuks, sprinted off into the trees.
1967 glanced back. It panted, hot air surging into its lungs. The fire crackled and licked, now a towering inferno. Ove
r the screams of its dying grunts, 1967 heard a welcome sound: a river was thundering nearby. 1967 bared its fangs in a grin. That mage had no idea that they could find refuge in the river.
“Come,” 1967 bellowed, urging its troop onward. “To the water.”
§
Marlies knelt next to yet another rider lying on a blanket on the forest floor and threaded her needle with squirrel gut twine. At least the light was better now that morning had come, even if the conditions weren’t. Injured men and women were crammed two or three to a blanket, tucked under the trees. She’d tried to spread cloaks beneath them too, to keep out the damp, but many injured would end up dying from chills.
Piaua. She swallowed. There was little hope that Leah and Taliesin had survived, but she nurtured her hope—feeding the spark and refusing to let it die out. The future was too grim without it.
It was no coincidence that Commander Zens had captured Master Giddi, then driven them all to Mage Gate—where Giddi had sealed the world gate. By why? Was Zens bringing new monsters through the gate to conquer Dragons’ Realm? Or did he have some other sinister plan in mind?
Marlies focused on the rider’s gashed arm. “We’ll have you sewn up in no time,” she said cheerfully.
Archers ringed them, keeping tharuks at bay. Hopefully they’d hold them back for a while. But Marlies didn’t fool herself. They couldn’t go on like this for long.
Above the moans of the wounded, a bellow rang out. A short distance away, something smashed through the canopy and crashed to the forest floor. The stench of burning scales and dragon flesh wafted through the trees. Marlies’ heart clenched. Shards, not another dying dragon. It gutted her not being able to get to those who’d been injured in midair and were now dying in the forest.
Marlies tied off the stitches. “Make sure you get adequate rest before using your arm again.”
The rider blustered, already getting to his feet. He swayed.
Marlies placed her hand on his shoulder. “You’re no use to us or yourself, dead. Rest for a few hours before going back into battle.”
He nodded and sank onto his knees.
Marlies quickly moved to her next patient. Dark blood rained down, splattering the leaves above. She glanced up. A dark dragon ensconced in mage flame screeched through the air and crashed into the forest.
She cleansed a wound on the rider’s shoulder and stitched and bandaged it as fast as she could.
Adelina swooped down on Linaia and landed in the clearing behind Marlies. She slid off her dragon and came over. “With Leah gone, I thought you could use a little help.” Adelina’s usually cheerful demeanor was gone. Her face was haggard and her eyes were shadowed with weariness.
Marlies gestured to the young boy she’d rescued from the infirmary. “Kion is new to this. I’ve asked him to establish which riders have the worst wounds. Perhaps you could give him a hand for a while, but first, grab an apple from that sack.” She gestured toward their meager supplies. There would never be enough to feed everyone. They were all running on empty stomachs and no sleep.
While crunching on her apple, Adelina scanned the patients and showed the boy how to sponge a wound and dress it.
There was the thud of dragons landing. Archers dragged two more injured riders over.
Marlies waved them to the nearest cloak spread on the ground, scanning the horrendous burns on one man’s leg and the gash across the other’s back.
She gave the burnt rider a bright smile—one she didn’t feel. “Please, have one of our wonderful beds.”
The rider, a young man with dark tousled hair and stormy blue eyes, gave a grim bark, “What’s the going rate? Two golden dragon heads?” His eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in the archer’s arms.
“Quick. Lie him down.” She snatched up a waterskin and sloshed water over the man’s leg, then handed the skin to the archer. “Is there any way you could refill this and the other one over there? We’re out–and we’ll have more burned riders here soon.”
“There’s a fire raging by the river. I’ll sneak upstream.” The man nodded grimly and, taking the skins, departed.
She examined the rider with the gash on his back—another clean slice from a shadow dragon’s eyes.
Hands bathed in blood, heart and bones wearier than a dragon who’d just lost her mate, Marlies staggered from patient to patient, trying to lift their spirits and heal their broken bodies. By the cursed dragon gods, her patients were laid out like dead fish to dry. Only there was no drying here, just the constant drip of blood and the moaning of the wounded.
§
Fenni made it to the river before the tharuks. The heat wave from the oncoming fire rushed at him from across the water, making his skin prickle with heat. He used his mage flame to clear a section of the river from strangletons—the plants that choked waterways, devouring any who entered the river—searing through the plants to kill them. After selecting a long hollow reed, he positioned himself underwater among some harmless plants and waited, breathing deeply and slowly through the reed.
It wasn’t long before thundering feet neared the riverbank.
Even underwater, the tharuks’ snarls reached him. The reflected light from Jael’s green mage fire glimmered on the surface of the water. When shadowy figures appeared at the edge of the forest, Fenni sucked in sathir from the river plants and surrounding trees. Concentrating his magic, he pushed flames through his fingertips.
He teased the flames into fireballs and waited until the shadows loomed. If only he could see better. Power singing through his veins, he shot his fireballs through the water, aiming for the middle of the dark horde chased by flickering green mage flame.
Screams rang out. Figures faltered, engulfed in flames. His fireballs tore holes in the tharuks. One splashed into the water, thrashing.
Fenni scrabbled away, bubbles escaping his lips. Thank the Egg, he’d hung onto the reed. He jammed it between his lips again. The tharuk floated face-down past him, its long tusks nearly grazing his reed. There was a gaping burned hole in its middle, leaving black bloody trails in the water.
Fenni sucked air through the reed, trying to ease the tightness in his chest. Roars rang out above him. He lobbed more fireballs into the mass of tharuks. These beasts were destroying his home, killing loved ones. They deserved to die.
Thank the First Egg Master Giddi had insisted Jael teach him to master underwater fireballs. As he shot more flaming balls of molten fire from the river into the swarm of Zens’ monsters, two questions chewed at his mind.
How long could he keep this up?
And where in the Egg’s name did Zens have Master Giddi?
§
The fire crackled behind 1967. The tharuk ran on. The narrow trail widened as the troop came to the riverbank. Tharuks thundered toward the river, snapping saplings and trampling bushes in their eagerness to get to the water.
When they were a few body lengths from the water, a ball of molten green flame shot out of the river. 1967 ducked. There was a scream behind him. 1967 spun. The fireball ripped a gaping hole in 795’s chest and went straight through the grunt, hitting another tharuk in the thigh and ripping off its leg in a spray of blood.
1967 crouched by the riverside, sheltering behind a dead underling. Grunts leaped over him straight for the water—only to be blasted by flame and flop dead into the river.
Behind them, the green blaze grew ever closer, tongues licking out and eating into his troop. The stench of burned flesh and fur cloyed in 1967’s nostrils, ramming itself up his snout, making it hard to breathe. Muffled screams and groans of dying tharuks rang amid the crackling fire.
1967 had to get across the river. It could swim well enough—if only there weren’t molten balls of flame in its way. It narrowed its eyes, scanning the riverbank. The fireballs were only coming from one section of the river.
1967 waved its arm, gesturing to its grunts. “Follow me.”
The troop leader stomped over the bushes in its h
aste to get to the deep water and, taking a deep breath, dived into the river. 1967 would’ve laughed if it wasn’t underwater. Those mages thought they’d had the troop trapped with fire behind them and fireballs shooting from the river. 1967 poked its head above the water to grab a breath. Halfway across the river now, not long to go.
Something thick wrapped around 1967’s thigh and yanked, nearly pulling its hip from the socket. Another tendril wrapped itself around 1967’s chest. The troop leader tried to slash the plant with its claws. To 1967’s horror, the spongy plant tightened its grasp, squeezing 1967’s lungs. Breath escaped 1967’s snout, bubbles trailing to the surface as more tendrils wrapped around 1967’s arms.
The tharuk troop leader opened its snout in a silent waterlogged scream as the strangleton reeled the tharuk down to the bottom of the river to ingest its next meal.
§
The hours dragged by as Marlies tried to heal wounded rider after wounded rider. Her arms and legs grew heavy, and her heart too. Without piaua, their plight was hopeless. Her breezy smile faded as the battle wore on, turning into grim determination. Riders who had died had their bodies laid to one side in the forest. Before nightfall, more would succumb to their wounds, their spirits leaving the battlefield to fly with departed dragons.
Adelina had long since taken to the sky to fight shadow dragons. Now only the boy, herself, and a couple of patched-up riders were helping with the flood of wounded. Marlies felt a woman’s forehead. “More feverweed tea,” she barked at Kion, who looked so exhausted he’d soon drop. It’d only been yesterday that he’d been a patient himself. They didn’t even know if his family had made it out of the hold alive. She softened her voice. “You’re doing well. Keep it up.”
Marlies crouched next to an unconscious man and took his pulse. Still weak and thready. She tugged his cloak tighter around him. They’d run out of blankets hours ago. Thankfully some riders had had the foresight to stuff a few in their saddlebags before fleeing.
“Incoming, bleeding badly.” An archer staggered between the trees, carrying an unconscious young woman. Her arm was ripped at the elbow, blood and bone gleaming wetly.
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