Gerard Skyler was scared, but not of the climb he was about to make. He was comfortable with that. He was also comfortable with the plan they had come up with – at least he was comfortable with it after he had removed all of the Geka lizards, rope ladders and pulley wheels from the proposal, and then simplified it.
The Zard weren’t the smartest of creatures, Gerard decided, after hearing what they had originally been planning to do. And as reptiles they were instinctually afraid of the dragon’s lair. At the moment though, all Gerard could do was tremble, and pray to the goddess that Flick was capable of keeping the huge creatures swimming in the water around their canoe from eating them.
He felt like he was sitting right in the water with the huge, toothy snappers that looked to be all around them. Most of the long, thick gator-like beasts were as big, if not bigger, than the canoe. It would take only one swift chop to splinter the craft to pieces, and it was all Gerard could do to keep from covering his eyes and whimpering.
He didn’t want to know what had made that powerful thumping splash behind them. The waves caused by the ruckus threatened to come up over the sides of the little boat. He would have to stand up in the canoe soon, and he was trying not to think about it. He had no idea how he was going to keep his balance while stood. The only thing he was sure of was that he didn’t want any part of his body in that murky, tooth-filled water. Not even a boot tip.
He did his best to focus his attention on the towering formation he was about to climb. He decided that it was correctly named for it rose up out of the marsh and tapered to a sharp point, while curving slightly to the east – exactly like a fang. It was completely black, and formed out of a rough and porous type of stone. The way it rose up out of the swamp and loomed over the tiny canoe, did little to ease his discomfort.
Gerard motioned for Flick to take them to the western side of the Dragon’s Tooth. The way the east side of it curved slowly outward, it would be impossible to climb. If he tried that side, he would be dangling from his hand holds after the midway point.
To the common eye, the western side looked no easier. It was dauntingly steep, but to Gerard it appeared to be a simple climb. To him, it was like a ladder leading up to where the curve started laying over towards the east. After that, it was more like a steep stairway. It would be one of the easiest climbs he had ever made.
His destination was a cavern that went all the way through the formation, up near the sharp tip of the fang. It was like a giant worm had bored a hole from east to west, all the way through the black rock, a thousand feet above the surface of the swamp. The dragon lived in that hole, but Shaella had a plan to keep it occupied, while Gerard snatched away one of its eggs.
He looked at the surface of the stone as they drew closer, then craned his head back, and looked up towards the dragon’s lair. There were plenty of hand and toeholds, no slick hawkling dung to contend with, no angry mother birds pecking and clawing at him, no sheer freefall down to the Lip, or to the rocky canyon floor below it. If Shaella could keep the dragon away, then this would be easy. If Shaella couldn’t keep the dragon away – Gerard didn’t want to think about that.
Shaella and half a hundred of the creepy Zardmen were to handle her part of the plan. She had sworn to Gerard, over and over since the night of the feast that she would keep the dragon from its lair until he was down, and safely back in the canoe with Flick. Last night, as they lay in each other’s arms, she had sworn it again.
“You’ll never even see the dragon after it comes out to feed,” she had said, and he believed her.
Even though she had wanted him, he hadn’t made love to her last night, or the night before. This had confused her. He explained that having sex before a rigorous climb weakened a man’s legs and softened his heart. He told her that was the reason the Skyler women weren’t allowed near the harvest lodge when he and his clansmen took the hawkling eggs each year. They laughed together when he told her that his grandfather called the complication “love legs” and that his older brother, Hyden, had had to explain to him what it meant, because his mother had been too embarrassed to broach the subject with him. Gerard told Shaella that only a fool would climb after a night in bed with her. She took that as a compliment, and spent the night nestled against him, with her head on his shoulder.
From the western side, the Dragon’s Tooth Spire looked more like a fish fin than a fang. It made sense to Gerard, when he remembered Shaella’s explanation of how the water had been flowing past the formation from north to south, eroding at it for ages upon ages. He looked up and could see rays of the morning sun shining through the Dragon’s Wormhole. He studied the spot, letting the location firmly imprint in his mind.
The idea of standing up, and maneuvering from the canoe to the rock face, sent a ripple of nerves through him. He found himself scanning the water, along the base of the spire, for any sign of the ferocious looking snappers that might be lurking there. He didn’t see any, but felt little relief for it.
“Get us directly under the dragon’s hole,” he said quietly to Flick.
He went about checking the backpack that was sitting in the floor of the canoe between his feet. It was fairly heavy, and going through it again helped him forget about the water, and the things swimming in it.
The pack contained over a thousand feet of thin, but strong cord, a makeshift sling cradle to put the dragon’s egg in, a few pieces of dried and salted snake-meat, and two skins of water.
The plan was simple enough: get up there, locate the eggs, and lower one down. Cole would be waiting for it on the eastern side of the spire, where the curve of the formation caused the Wormhole to open up over nothing but air and water. It was simple. The climb down would be easy, because the pack would be empty, and he would be using the western face again. It seemed that the whole thing was going to be too easy. Something Berda had once said, a saying, was floating at the back of Gerard’s mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.
“We’re below the lair now,” said Flick.
From the moment Gerard had fought alongside the group on the riverboat, they had begun to treat him as one of their own. They respected him, and seemed to trust his abilities. The look on Flick’s face was a mixture of reverence and worry, as he eased the little boat up close to the base of the formation.
“Are you sure you can do this?” he asked Gerard. “It’s a long way up to the lair.” His voice was hushed, as if speaking too loudly might bring the dragon’s wrath down upon them.
“Just make sure that Cole is there to take the egg, and that you’re here to get me when I come back down,” Gerard chuckled nervously. “I can make this climb in my sleep, but I don’t know how to swim.”
“I swear I’ll be here,” Flick said, with an honest grin on his face. “You’re a brave young man. Shaella chose well.”
Gerard wasn’t sure what Flick meant, so he didn’t reply to the man’s words. Instead, he stated the obvious, in a hesitant tone that betrayed just how tense and high-strung he was feeling at the moment.
“I guess…w…we just wait for th…the dragon to leave now.”
Shaella, and her troop of lizard men, were using two of the big four-legged gekas to drag their bait into the dragon’s feeding ground. The gekas’ riders were having a hard time keeping the big creatures calm. The harsh smell of rot coming from the uncooked remains of the dragon’s previous meals was thick in the air, and the fresh meat they were dragging was far too close to them. Every creature in the deep marsh understood who the highest predator of the area was, and the dragon almost always carried its kills to this clearing, to roast and consume them. Had the gekas not been as afraid of the zards’ whips as they were of the dragon, they would have been nowhere near the area.
Greyber, and his detachment of Zard, stood alertly by, ready and waiting to do their part. Once Shaella’s troop had the giant snapper they were dragging in place, he and his Zardmen would be responsible for skinning the carcass. Shaella had been adamant: blood, plenty of blood, and exposed meat. The Zardmen all knew the drill. They had been feeding the dragon here for months in preparation for this very day.
Shaella had been on edge all morning. Those around her assumed that it was because of the danger her lover was putting himself in, that or the pressure she would be under to keep the dragon distracted long enough for him to do his deed. It was more than that though. She had tried to get Gerard to let Greyber climb with him, but he had refused her, saying he could manage far better on his own.
“The man might be strong and handy in a sword fight,” Gerard had said, “but, on the side of a rock face, he would be nothing more than dead weight.”
Shaella had stormed away after that, with what might have been tears in her eyes. She couldn’t change his mind. Gerard was climbing alone, or he wasn’t climbing at all.
She was worried for Gerard, but for a different reason than anyone suspected. Another hawkling had arrived bearing a message from Pael. It was Pael who she was afraid of. He wanted her to make sure that her climber stayed in the dragon’s lair until he arrived. She had tried and tried to send Greyber, or one of the Zard, up into the cavern with him, but Gerard was as hard-headed and proud as any man she had ever known. She just wanted someone up there to watch his back. She knew she should’ve explained the situation to him, but she hadn’t been able to. Tears had begun to flow when she tried, and she would have rather died, than to have her Zard army see her as a worried, lovesick girl. Her mission, and Pael’s, had to come first. No matter how much heartache it caused her, she had to keep everything in perspective.
Maybe Pael wasn’t going to do anything drastic to Gerard when he came. If Gerard didn’t dally after he did what he was supposed to do, then he would be down before Pael arrived anyway. If that happened, she knew she would have to deal with Pael’s wrath, but she could handle that. She held out hope that she could get Gerard out of there safely, even if Pael did catch him unawares. It was a slim hope that would require a great deal of good fortune, and more than a little bit of skill on her part, but none of it would matter at all if they couldn’t get the dragon to come out of the lair to feed.
Once the snapper was in place, the gekas were ridden away. The stubborn hesitance they had shown only moments before evaporated when they realized that they were being directed to move out of the feeding grounds.
Now it was Greyber’s turn. He and his group charged out, and began hacking through the thick plated skin of the creature. When they were through it, they peeled back the hide to expose the fresh pink meat. Blood flowed freely. There was no shortage of fresh gore-scent to draw the dragon.
Just to be sure, Cole cast a spell that carried the aroma wafting right up into the dragon’s lair. It wouldn’t take long to arouse the great red wyrm. The Zard had been placing snapper here regularly for half a year, and those meals had been left plain and un-skinned. This offering was being prepared specifically to entice the dragon, and at an interval at least a week longer than usual. All that was left to do now was take cover and wait.
As if tempting fate, Shaella boldly walked out to the would-be-feast and began slinging some specially prepared liquid contents from a fat wineskin, over the most readily available meat. Only after the bladder was completely empty, did she join the others in the cover that surrounded the retched smelling bone-strewn clearing.
Gerard and Flick didn’t have to wait very long. A deep, rumbling roar sounded from above. It was so loud, that it could have come from an arm’s reach away. Gerard thought that he saw tiny ripples radiating away from the rocky formations he was about to climb.
When the dragon finally leapt from its lair, there was a moment of pause, as its wings unfurled, then a heavy whooshing “Thump!” as they caught air. It was huge. Far larger than Gerard had imagined it could be. It was easily a hundred feet long, maybe more. Gerard found himself trembling in place, and otherwise unable to move.
“I hope she can keep that away from here,” Gerard whispered in a quavering voice.
His mind raced for an excuse, any reason at all to back out of this madness, but his thoughts kept going back to all the macho bravado he had spouted during the planning of it. He decided that he would rather die than to face Shaella and the others as a coward.
The whole canoe was trembling now, and he was certain that it wasn’t just him. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of the sight of such a perfect predator, and Flick was far from a fool. Gerard found some relief in knowing that the mage was scared too. He took a few deep breaths, and decided that he was as ready as he ever would be. He shouldered the backpack into place then, and ever so gently, stood up in the canoe. For a heart stopping moment, the craft jerked and wobbled under his feet. Only after his hands found the rock face, and he gripped it tightly, could he still himself and let the flock of birds that were flying around in his rib cage settle down.
The hardest part was getting that first foot to leave the floor of the canoe. Once he managed that, it was all instinct. He was so intent on getting this over with, that he didn’t hear what Flick was saying. Apparently, it wasn’t that important.
Flick’s voice died away, as he watched Gerard racing like a madman up and away from him. He shook his head in amazement. He’d seen lizards that couldn’t climb as swiftly. He decided that Shaella couldn’t have chosen a better person for this task. The young man was amazing.
As Gerard had expected, the climb was easy. The weight of all that coiled line in his pack was the only inconvenience. He could bear the burden though, and the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to carry it all back down gave him comfort.
Each time he gained a new foothold, he found himself thanking his brother Hyden. The new horse-hide boots were gripping the strange black rock extremely well. The stuff was crumbly though. More than once, he had to resituate before pushing or pulling his body upward.
Thoughts of being roasted to the wall by spewing gouts of dragon fire came and went, as did thoughts of how pleased Shaella would be when this was all done. The physical and emotional rewards that she had already given him outweighed any amount of gold she could offer. He could only imagine how she would reward him later this night, when his body was too tired to move, and the dragon’s egg was safe in her custody.
He smiled as he climbed on. He’d learned long ago from his Elders and cousins that the only thing you couldn’t think about while climbing, was falling. He wasn’t afraid of falling. Falling didn’t hurt a bit. It was the sudden stop at the end of the fall that got you.
There was too much going on in his head for those sorts of thoughts to linger though. He began to contemplate Shaella’s army of skeeks. What was she planning to do? It was obvious that she was their leader. They were definitely planning something more than just stealing this dragon’s egg. The idea that Shaella might really be a lizard woman in disguise came to him. After he shivered the revulsion away, he stopped climbing, and laughed at himself.
When he started up again, he wondered what Hyden was doing these days. He was probably lolling around the clan village, or out roaming the hills with his bow. He definitely wasn’t doing anything this exciting. Maybe he was chasing the little hawkling around. It was probably big enough to fly now.
He wondered if Hyden had won the archery competition at Summer’s Day. If there was one thing that Gerard regretted about leaving the way he did, it was that he didn’t get to see the competition. He would’ve loved to stay and watch Hyden beat those snotty elves.
It was at that moment, in his thoughts, that he remembered the stupid, old fortune teller he and his brother had seen. He was just over half way up to the dragon’s lair. The climbing was so easy now that he barely needed his hands for more than balance.
What had that old crone said? His blood grew cold. Shaella was supposed to betray him up here. The old hag had almost choked on her own words and died, but he had seen the vision play out in his mind’s eye as the old woman was speaking to him. He had been watching Shaella, and some older, stronger looking version of Cole argue vehemently in a cavern. The dragon was there too. What else had she shown him? He searched his memory. He couldn’t give the crone credit for her prophecies. It was absurd. All those people couldn’t possibly be about to converge on the dragon’s lair. How would they get there? Suddenly, it came to him. He remembered the rest of the old hag’s words. He would find the power he sought in the depths of the dragon’s cave. Depths? He laughed. There were no depths at this height. The rest was just as silly. What was it? He would die, live again, then die and live again. Why had she said it twice, he wondered?
The question was still fresh in his mind when he pulled himself up into the mouth of the bone strewn dragon’s lair.
Shaella’s plan wasn’t going as well as expected. The dragon had already killed, scorched, or eaten half of the Zardmen in the troop. The beast was a thousand times more fierce and agile than any of the dragons written about in the accounts and stories she had studied. A beast such as this could destroy an army of men at its leisure. How the Giants of Afdeon had once killed such a creature without the aid of magic was beyond her.
Red scaled fury filled the clearing. Huge yellowed teeth and bright, backlit amber eyes glared and scowled as the dragon spewed forth gouts of flame. Crushing claws and a whipping tail came out of nowhere to dispatch any who were within reach; such was the wrath of the dragon.
Greyber was writhing on the ground, his screams slowly fading away with his life. He had lost his sword arm and most of his shoulder to a snap of angry jaws. As if to silence a pesky insect, the dragon stomped on the Seawardsman’s body with her huge hind claw, and ground him into the bloody mud.
The dragon seemed content to stand and battle with them all. It wasn’t the least bit injured, and was in complete control of the situation. In fact, like a cat toying with a mouse, the great wyrm seemed to be enjoying the sport.
That was the problem. The sleeping potion that Shaella had doused the meat with should have been enough to at least tire the ferocious beast, but it wasn’t so. The dragon was quite a bit larger than she had expected it to be, and it had charred the snapper meat to a sizzling crisp before tearing into it. The heat of the flames must’ve evaporated most of her concoction. It was a costly mistake, one that she was doing her best to compensate for.
“Run, and get a hundred more Zard here, as swiftly as possible,” she ordered a bug-eyed, green scaled archer. “Have some others bring a geka – two, if they can manage to get them here.”
“Yes, Masteress,” the lizard man responded, before scampering away gratefully on his long webbed feet.
She hated to sacrifice so many here, but the egg, and the bargain with Pael, was paramount to the larger scheme of things. He had the Staff of Malice, and she had to have it to free the breed beasts that King Balton had imprisoned at Coldfrost. She needed those huge savages to help her hold what she was about to take. Pael needed the dragon out of its lair, so that he could access the ancient Seal that the beast had been guarding. Now that the pact that had bound the dragon to guard the Seal had been broken, she could trick it into service by threatening one of the eggs. It was a complex plan, and she was dancing on a delicate, and razor-sharp edge here. She might have scrapped the plan because the loss of Zards was going to be so great, but now Gerard’s safety had factored itself into the equation. She had no choice but to feed the great wyrm bits of her army a few at a time until Gerard got an egg down to Cole. Only then, would she attempt to get the situation back under her control.
Thinking about the greater plan, and all that had gone into preparing for what was to come, she conceded that she might have to give Gerard to Pael, but only if it became necessary. The cold and relentless fury of the dragon was rubbing off on her. She loved Gerard, but she was a sorceress of the dark arts, and she knew that if she wanted to have all that she desired, she had better start acting like one.
A roaring blast of heat sent her scrambling to the side. Luckily, it was aimed at the dragon’s main course and not at her. The Zard weren’t faring too well. Their swords were useless, as were mere arrows. There was only one way to end the dragon’s tirade, and the only way she could get it done was to keep it here, distracted from its lair. The icy resolve she had found gave her strength. A human man’s fleeting life could never really come between her and all that she had worked so hard for. At least she hoped it couldn’t.
The dragon, after tearing another huge slab of scorched meat from the snapper carcass, raised her head and wolfed the morsel down. As Shaella gained her feet again, Cole scrambled across part of the clearing towards her. All the while, the great wyrm swiped and lashed its treacherous tail at the Zard, as if they were only flies disturbing its meal.
“Flick says that he’s in the cavern,” Cole said, in a way that showed his surprise and respect of the speed of Gerard’s climb.
“You should go then! He could already be lowering the egg!”
She had to yell over the dragon’s rumbling growl. Her voice was full of equal parts of apprehension, worry and excitement. Cole pretended not to notice.
“What a waste it would be if a snapper were to snatch the egg up as soon as it was floating in the swamp,” she added, in an attempt to hurry him.
“I’m off then,” Cole responded, and began casting the spell that would take him where he needed to go. Just before he began to shimmer away, she stopped him.
“Return just as soon as you have it!”
Her voice had become hard and commanding. “No matter the cost!” she added.
Cole’s response was a slight smile and a knowing nod, as his form wavered and faded from the clearing.
The dragon roared again, and reared up as if it were about to leap into flight. A cold chill of horror ripped through Shaella. She couldn’t let it leave yet. Not now, not when they were so close. She spun around, searching for the replacements she had sent for. They were nowhere to be seen. Only a handful of the lizard men that had started this with her were left, and they were hiding at the edges of the clearing. Unable to think of another option, she drew her sword and charged out into the feeding ground, waving her pale yellow magical blade around crazily. She screamed out challenges and curses in an old tongue, a language that the great wyrms were supposed to understand.
It was a gamble born of desperation. She hoped that she could draw the beast’s attention and keep it there. When the dragon cocked its head and eyed her with curious fury, she felt her knees turn to water. Suddenly, she found that she wished it had flown away, that it would fly away now. As it pulled its wings back and lowered its head towards her, the great beast drew in a long, slow breath.
Shaella couldn’t help but ask herself the obvious question. “What was I thinking?”