The dragon was fierce and quick, but it seemed to enjoy playing the cat to Shaella’s mouse. It gleefully toyed with the brave little girl, who wielded the insignificantly magical sword, and more than a few times intentionally kept from killing her out of sheer curiosity.
Shaella spun, twirled, dived and twisted out of the way of the dragon’s razor-sharp claws, its whip-like tail, and its fiery maw so many times now that she exhausted herself. She was certain the beast could have destroyed her at any time. She was glad that it let her survive long enough for her reinforcements to arrive. It was their turn to occupy the beast now. She had to catch her breath.
Some of the new Zardmen were already running into the clearing. When she saw them, she wasted no time getting herself into the cover of a clump of trees, so that she could rest. She stumbled, more than ran as she went. The dragon, with new mice to play with now, would hopefully stay around a little while longer. Cole would have the egg soon, she hoped. Then the tables would turn, and she would get to be the cat. For the moment though, she was content to just sit against a tree trunk, and breathe.
She felt a sharp pain across her scalp above her right ear. She went to investigate the sensation with her fingers, and found a big, watery blister, where her hair should have been. After a moment of vain panic where her hands frantically touched every inch of her skull, she cursed the dragon’s very existence. Her once beautiful raven black heir was a ruin.
From her right temple, straight back over her ear, and down to her neck, her hair was gone. Her scalp was a hot, puffy blister, her ear was raw, scorched around its edges, and the shoulder of her custom armored leather vest was ruined beyond repair. The sleeve on that side of her shirt was nearly burned away. All that remained was the cuff, and some tatters. The rest of her head seemed to be alright though. She didn’t care about the wounds, or the terrible pain they caused. Her only concern was how she would look to her Zard soldiers and her lover. She could deal with it, she decided. She had lived with a tear drop scar running down her cheek for years now.
The screeching, skittering sound of a big geka lizard, rose over the general clamor of the tussle briefly. Shaella turned to see it fighting the Zard, who were trying to lead it into the clearing, for the dragon. The dragon heard it, and flung out its massive wings, sending blast of concussive wind blowing through the area.
Shaella felt it in her chest. Without standing, she peeked around the side of the tree trunk to see what was happening. Panic swept over her as the dragon jumped into flight. “NOOO!” she screamed. Not now! Not when we’re so close.
She had to twist her head, and roll away from the tree, to see where it had gone. She forced herself to her feet. She had to go back out into the clearing to get a better view, because the gargantuan, red scaled beast had disappeared from her sight completely. Once in the clearing, she half stumbled, half fell back to the ground. One of the studs on her armored vest gouged the blister on the side of her head when she landed. She felt warm liquid running down her neck and back, but she ignored it. The relief of seeing the wyrm again overcame all other sensations.
Apparently, the potion she had splashed on the snapper meat was starting to take effect after all. The dragon, half flying, half skipping like a drunken sailor, was stumbling, and crashing through the trees, trying to get to the terrified geka. It growled, hissed, and sent jets of flame out of its cavernous nostrils at random. Trees snapped and fell, some of them roots and all, under the beast’s massive hind claws. Had the jungle been any less wet, it would have been consumed in flames by now. As it was, the foliage on and around several trees was smoldering, sending up dark, roiling plumes of smoke into the sky.
The geka had gotten its lead ropes tangled during its thrashing panic, and was pulling frantically, trying to get itself free. The Zards that had been leading it, were quickly abandoning it to its fate.
The dragon was now slithering through the forest, like a fat snake in the grass, inching ever closer to its prey. It was almost comical how the huge predator was still attempting to be stealthy in its approach. Every creature within a hundred miles surely knew exactly where it was at the moment. Yet, it crashed through the trees ever so slowly, as if it were stalking something, and the trees were merely blades of grass. The geka was lurching and twisting, threatening to yank the tree its lines were tangled in up out of the soft earth. The dozen or so Zardmen that had left it there were now hiding in the shrubs a good distance away.
The geka’s writhing and jerking seemed to be about to pay off, as the tree it was tethered to pulled up and fell over. The escape wasn’t meant to be though. Just as it started dragging the tree away, the dragon belched forth a long river of fire that cooked the moisture out of everything, living or dead, in its path. While flames took a hold of that particular strip of jungle, the dragon wallowed forward, and took a huge piece of the still twitching, and sizzling geka, into its mouth and chomped away. After watching the dragon’s drunken craziness, and the sheer magnitude of power it displayed in the destructive attack, Shaella was suddenly very happy that all she had lost was a patch of hair and an armored vest.
While Gerard lay gasping and dying on his side, Pael, with only a dismissive wave of his hand, summoned a gale-force blast of wind. The air shot through the wormhole with a fury, and swept around the dragon’s lair like a tornado. Every bone, animal skin, and piece of debris that wasn’t embedded in the rock, or piled in a corner, was caught up in it. Even the dragon’s nest rattled, and fell apart into the twister. The remaining egg fell to the smooth floor, with a thumping crack. The whirlwind of bones and skins rode the thrust of Pael’s magical force around the lair a few more moments, then shot down the wormhole, and out into the sky. All at once, the cavern was silent, save for Gerard’s ragged breathing.
Pael sat the gnarled old staff down among the larger pieces of stone at the edge of the lair’s opening. He knew it was a slight risk to open the Seal before Shaella had collared the dragon, but it was too late to wait now. He had already mortally wounded the boy. It was only a matter of time before he bled out.
Without further hesitation, he strode over to where Gerard lay and dragged him by the feet into the center of the rune circle that was etched into the floor. A wide swathe of glossy crimson marked the path. Gerard’s blood was flowing freely from around Pael’s dagger blade, but it wasn’t pooling on the floor. Instead, it found its way into the grooves of the carvings, and began to chase the path they created. It took only moments for the center rune, and the circle around it, to be clearly lined in glistening red.
Pael was intensely concentrating on his task. He took a tapered vial out of his black robe and poured its bright green contents into the outermost ring of the symbol, and a little more into the next ring. When the vial was empty, he tossed it away, letting it crash and shatter on the back wall of the lair.
The green liquid took on a luminous quality as it oozed through the grooves and filled the runes between the two outer rings, just as Gerard’s life blood had filled the inner ones. Then, like a blaze catching on oil spilled over water, the green stuff ignited. A shin-high emerald blaze worked its way around the runes until both outer rings, and the symbols marked between them, were alive and dancing with green fire.
“Yes,” Pael hissed wickedly under his breath.
He stepped over the magical emerald fire into the area it surrounded. He had to hurry now. He had to have the Seal open while the last of the sacrifice’s blood was leaving his body. It was the only way the mighty spectral demon would come out of the Nethers bound to Pael’s will. With only the slightest of missteps, Shokin could come out free to do his own bidding. As glorious as the destruction would be in that case, Pael wouldn’t have any control over the demon. He had to have control of that great power. It was what he had come for, what he had been planning and scheming to attain, because with the demon’s might at his beckoning, taking the even greater power of the Wardstone away from Willa the Witch Queen would be easy.
Pael raised his arms up high, and started his low mumbling chant. It was a summoning spell, similar to the one he used to activate the Spectral Orb up in his tower. The only difference was that this chant contained subtle binding phrases. As in the tower, he began pacing slowly around the center of the symbol. Gerard’s dying body laid there, the slight rise and fall of his chest, as his body continued to pull and push air from his lungs, while his blood pumped slowly away, showed that he wasn’t quite dead yet.
With each pass around the body, Pael’s chants grew stronger and clearer, until they became rhythmic and musical. He was almost there. It was perfect.
Gerard felt his life pulsing slowly out of him. With each heartbeat, another jet of hot, liquid life leaked down his chest. He could see the evil wizard, and the green flames dancing around him, and he could hear the dark song that was being sung. He even felt the world around him, alive as it was with crackling static, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to move. The dragon’s egg in his pack kept him from rolling onto his back, and the dagger sticking out of his chest, kept him from rolling forward. His arms felt like they were made of jelly. A powerful thump from underneath him sent his feeble heart sputtering.
Gouts of blood flowed now. It seemed as if something deep within the spire had hammered the rock a few feet under his body. Again, it struck, and the shockwave of the concussion nearly lifted him off of the floor. He tried to swallow. The world around him was starting to fade.
The jolting blow came again, but this time, the sound abruptly stopped mid-bang. He blinked his eyes, not sure he was seeing correctly, but when he looked down again, he found that his eyes were not deceiving him. The floor had vanished and he was suspended in midair over a large circular pit. Dark things, both small and large, were rushing up at him as if they were chasing their last meal. Around the walls of the pit, a staircase spiraled down into the seemingly endless blackness. A few of the dark things, a winged panther as black as night, and a pair of dark scaly beasts swept past him. As life began to fade from him completely, his mind caught on a scratchy old female’s voice speaking to him from far away.
“You’ll find the power to control legions in its depths,” said the old crone.
Maybe she hadn’t been a crackpot after all, Gerard thought hopelessly. So close to that destiny, yet so far away. Nothing could save him, he was beyond help now. He was about to close his eyes and die, when he remembered the ring on his finger.
Pael hadn’t expected the lesser devils and demons to come flying up out of the darkness, but they had. The ones that had cleared the mouth of the pit had actually been fleeing Shokin’s approach. The freedom they had just gained from their hellish prison was a thing of sheer luck. Shokin was at the opening now, and none of the dark things, not even the other demons, dared to get close to him. Had the Abbadon, the King of the Nethers himself, bothered to come up out of the depths of the lower planes, even he might’ve shied away from Shokin’s determined rage.
The evil that Shokin was radiating at the moment was so focused and raw that it made the blackness around him seem like daylight. He was about to come back out into the world that Pavreal had banished him from, and he wanted nothing less than vengeance. Nothing from the Nether World seemed brave enough to test his wrath, but in the world above, there was Pael. With lustful excitement, and nothing less than violent intention, more shadowy shape, than physical form, the ancient spectral demon began climbing up out of his blackened prison into the world of men.
Shaella was about to pull what hairs she had left out of her head by the fist-full. All of the conceding and self-convincing she had done, all the grim realizations that she would sacrifice Gerard for the sake of her own plans, had been premature. The moment that she achieved her goal with the dragon, she was going to try to save Gerard from Pael. She hoped that she could get to him quickly enough.
Thankfully, Pael had said that he wouldn’t even approach the Seal until she had the dragon collared. Without the egg, she couldn’t collar the dragon, so it wasn’t a race yet. She wanted so badly to have Gerard, complete her objectives, and satisfy Pael. She wanted it all.
She screamed out in frustration, and hacked at the corpse of one of her Zardmen with her sword. No sooner had the scream died out, then she turn to see Cole hurrying toward her with the precious dragon’s egg cradled in his arms. She didn’t even allow herself to feel the wave of relief that washed over her. Instead, she recklessly started off towards the dragon.
“Follow me!” she commanded over her shoulder.
After all the time he had wasted trying to find a dry place to stand, and transported himself back to her, Cole didn’t dare argue. It turned out that he hadn’t planned all that carefully after all. He hadn’t considered the ocean’s tides. While he had been busy getting the egg, the tide had risen, and submerged his island. He had to row himself nearly a mile, before he found a suitable place to teleport himself back to Shaella.
As they passed one of the Zard captains, a Sarzard as they were called, Shaella barked an order so harshly, that Cole nearly fumbled the egg.
“Bring the collar! NOW!” She yelled.
Wisely, the Sarzard didn’t waste time with any sort of formalities. His only response was a quick, “Yes Masteress,” as he darted off to do as she had bidden him.
Without any fear or hesitation, she stalked purposefully to a place between the dragon and its newest meal. The dragon’s head was raised, and it was chugging a chunk of geka meat the size of both she and Cole put together, down its gullet. But that didn’t seem to faze her. Cole, on the other hand, was terrified. But he wasn’t sure who he was more afraid of. Shaella, at the moment, seemed far more fierce and determined than the dragon.
“Set the egg down before me,” she commanded.
When Cole had done so, she finished giving him his order.
“Go! Help get the collar ready.”
Then, up to the dragon she screamed with all the urgent fury she could muster. It was no small amount.
“You have a choice! Hey you, Dragon bitch!” She waved her sword in the air, until the dragon stopped chewing, and eyed her. “Look! Look at what I’ve got!” She reached down, and touched the dragon’s egg with the tip of her glowing blade.
Hissing sharply, the dragon brought her head down with a quickness that was unnerving. The potion-wrought haze in her huge, amber eyes seemed to fade as her sense of alarm grew.
Shaella had to master herself. She wanted to do nothing other than turn and run as the great beast’s red-plated head loomed in close to her. The black slits in the dragon’s eyes were as long as Shaella was tall. Its bloody teeth were just as big, and as sharp, as swords. A piece of geka meat, that weighed easily as much as Shaella did, hung loosely from between two of those teeth. Heat coming from cavernous nostrils, big enough to walk into, blew her hair back like a strong wind might. The smell of its breath was sulfurous and rotten, like burnt steel and spoiled meat. Had it not been for the hope that she could still save Gerard, she thought she might crumble in her tracks.
“I have no time to waste with you, dragon,” she forced herself to say. “Either you will put on a collar, or all of your hatchlings will be born into one.”
The dragon’s plated brows narrowed between the trunks of her curving yellowed horns. Angrily, she reared back and began sucking in a vast lungful of air. Her intension was obvious. Shaella had to hold the hair back from the left side of her face, as it was being sucked back towards those massive nostrils. The dragon’s flames wouldn’t harm the egg, Shaella knew. Dragon’s used flame to incubate and hatch them. She had to speak quickly and loudly, and make sure the dragon understood.
“You might burn me to ashes, bitch! You’ll save this egg, but what about the others?” She paused, letting her bluff sink in. Pael had told her that there were three eggs. She hoped that he had been correct. “If you even try to burn me, they will be smashed to bits!”
The dragon paused, flames swirling in her big eyes, her expression overflowing with hatred and anger.
“If you refuse, then I’ll ruin this egg while you roast me!” Shaella threatened. The point of her sword rested on the egg at her feet. All it would take was a firm push to render the egg unhatchable.
“Then the Pact hasss been broken?” the dragon asked.
The thunderous hissing voice was more in Shaella’s head than anywhere else, and the sound of it was full of confused malice. When Shaella nodded that the Pact had indeed been broken, the dragon raised her head, and roared out to the heavens. The earth shook as a tower of flame shot up into the clouds. As angry as the dragon was, it knew it was beaten. Shaella knew it too. The curse of all maternal creatures had trapped the mighty beast. Her natural born instinct to protect her young allowed her only one choice in the matter.
“Bring the collar!” Shaella called out urgently.