The First Overlord - Part 2
A Blood of the Dragons Prequel
The First Overlord by Kevin Potter
© 2020 Kevin Potter
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
For permissions contact:
Cover art by Dragan Paunovic
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Have you found your way here without reading the first part? Not to worry, just hit the button below to check out part one:
THE FIRST OVERLORD
Part 2
For the better part of three weeks Dauria roamed the lands surrounding the village, following the sparse hints she found of draconic habitation. In every case she found an empty lair with no hints as to the fate of its one-time occupant.
In each she found a few shed garnet scales, but not enough to point conclusively to violence. To say nothing of the lack of other evidence.
Elsewise, she found no trace, physical or otherwise, of the garnet’s presence. And certainly she found nothing to suggest his current whereabouts.
Now, after weeks of disappointment, she flew westward from the village with no clear idea of her destination.
This whole affair was beginning to feel like a wild wyvern chase, yet she refused to passively accept the easy answer.
Yes, she could wait around for the dragon to return to the village and demand tribute. She could confront the beast there or follow it to its lair afterward. But she had no wish to put more of the Celts in danger. They had lost a great deal already, and she would save them further heartache if she could.
As she flew she scanned the ground all about the countryside, through the glens, valleys, and hills. A single garnet scale would be enough to tell her she was on the right track. That was all she needed, just one sign to show her she was in the right place.
For days she continued the pattern, flying in grid patterns up and down from the far north to the deep south of the Celtic lands looking for any sign of either the garnet or any other dragon's dwelling.
On the eighth day of her westward search, the twenty-seventh since the last time the wyrm had been in the village, she finally found one:
A large crimson scale. She found it lodged in a crack in the rock at the entrance to a wide cave leading into the side of a high, rocky hill. At last, she had found it!
She grinned as she began a wide, circling pattern to slow her speed in preparation for a landing several wingspans from the opening.
While she recognized the unlikelihood that she might sneak in undetected, she saw no reason to announce her presence by landing too close to the entrance.
If this dragon is something less than attentive, after all, I might escape his notice and catch him unaware.
She almost laughed at herself for the overly optimistic thought. She couldn't imagine the garnet being so oblivious as to not sense her arrival.
Most other breeds said platinum dragons carried a particular scent, one that tended to be strong almost to the point of overpowering. Especially for a dragon unused to their presence.
After what seemed an age, Dauria came in for a gentle landing a short distance from the cave opening. Sheathing her talons to keep them from clicking on the rocks, she slowly moved into the cave.
The floor immediately turned down in a steep decline that led down into an impenetrable darkness. Reaching within herself, she touched the power pulsing in her Apex and channeled it into enhancing her already-acute draconic eyesight to see through the darkness in the tunnel.
Her vision lengthened perhaps a dozen claw-widths before reaching a solid wall of blackness that she could not see through.
Was this a standard defense meant to keep everything out, or did the garnet already know she was coming?
Pulling in a deep breath, she let it out in a sigh of resignation. She had known going into this, after all, that there was every likelihood the dragon would see her coming long before she saw him. It was the constant danger of accepting this type of request. Most dragons closely monitored their territory, making it exceptionally difficult to enter another's domain unseen.
She was still committed to a peaceful solution to this situation, but the placement of obstacles— and quite possibly traps as well —to thwart her did not bode well. It suggested an awareness of the wrongness of his actions, as well as a strong indication that he knew she was there to stop him. If the traps became deadly that would speak with eloquence to this dragon's intentions.
To say nothing of making clear how unlikely it was that she might get through this without having to destroy the creature.
His destruction was among the last things she wanted. His education and removal to a new home were vastly preferable to violence.
But if the garnet would not listen to reason, she would do whatever it took to ensure the safety and security of Brennos’s village and the other communities within the garnet's territory.
And to Infernalis with the consequences.
Deciphering the Council's position on what was considered acceptable behavior between humans and dragons was never easy. Especially so now, with an almost even mix of metallics, stones, and gems on the Council, with all their disparate views on humanity. But for all that complexity, she felt certain that if it came to it she would be viewed as being in the right in this instance.
Such was not always the case, it had to be said. But this time she was. She felt certain of that fact if nothing else
Pushing her worries from her mind, she moved farther into the garnet's cave.
Within moments, the unnatural blackness consumed her, obliterating her sight and leaving her cut off from the world. It felt almost as though she were floating in an empty void in the great beyond, so little did she feel tethered to anything in the physical world.
With a deep breath to center herself, she reached within to touch her Apex and summoned a thick stream of energy that she channeled into a powerful surge of light.
The area around her burned with golden light, illuminating everything around her. The darkness receded until it seemed to vanish altogether, though she still felt it sulking in the crevices behind rocks and around stalagmites and stalactites.
The tunnel around her was larger than she'd thought it would be. Several wingspans tall and almost a dozen in width, the place dwarfed any dragon's lair she had ever seen save perhaps her sire's. The walls looked natural, the brown of raw earth and the gray of untouched stone.
Although she knew a tunnel of such size this close to the surface could not possibly be natural, the wyrm’s effort to make it appear so was admirable.
The walls were jagged and rocky, the earth loose, and the stalagmites and stalactites twisted and angled into odd shapes and designs that looked far too random to be the product of an intelligent mind.
She moved farther down the wide tunnel as it angled ever-steeper down into the Earth. Beyond the reach of her light the deep blackness reigned, allowing her a view of only a few wingspans in any direction at any time.
Deeper and deeper she went. After a time, the decline began to level out and the going got a bit easier. The stone darkened and the stalagmites and stalactites disappeared.
Yet still, she had seen not a single fork or opening leading in any other directions. The way was so straightforward it seemed almost mad. Why delve so far into the Earth if one had no need of additional chambers?
Patterns began to appear on the floor, engraved there by a steady claw. Nothing symbolic or artistic, so far as she could tell. The lines were straight and precise, but if they had any meaning it was beyond her ken to decipher it.
She took pains to avoid stepping on them. She couldn't say why, but she felt it was right to do so. Stepping on the lines engraved in the floor just seemed wrong somehow.
Until she came to a point where she no longer had the option.
The ceiling came down and the walls closed in, until she was left with only two wingspans on each side and only one above her.
Ahead, the lines engraved on the floor crossed and meshed into a huge pattern that filled every claw-width of the floor for more than a wingspan down the path.
The distance was too far to leap over and she lacked the necessary space to take wing and fly over it.
What was likely to happen if she stepped on the pattern?
The possibilities were endless. Maybe nothing. Maybe the tons of stone above would crumble and smash her to pulp. Or any of ten-thousand other possibilities.
Was it worth the risk?
The reality, she thought, is I have but two options. Either move forward and deal with whatever consequences come, or turn around and go home.
She already knew what she would do. Leaving was not an option she was willing to consider. She had come this far. She had given her word of honor that she would deal with this dragon. She was not about to lose face by reneging on her commitment.
Gritting her teeth, she stepped forward onto the pattern and braced for whatever might happen.
Nothing did, however.
She took another step onto the pattern, but still nothing happened. She reached out with her arcane senses and felt power thrumming in the tunnel, but the texture of it was difficult to identify. Its essence brought to mind a dozen arcane forms, some of them contradictory.
Dauria cursed herself for not paying more attention when Sire had tried to teach her to use arcane sight. The power would have come in handy just now.
She felt certain there was a deep well of arcane power infused in these lines engraved in the floor, but without the sight she had no way to determine what it was meant to do. And more importantly, she didn't have enough information to counter it.
With a deep breath, she readied her Apex for defense against whatever might come and continued to move across the intricate patterns on the floor.
With each step, she expected something to happen. A firestorm, acid rain, the Earth beneath her feet splitting open, or perhaps poison gas filling the chamber. Surely something would happen. She couldn't imagine spending the time to create such a pattern, especially with such a powerful arcane investment, if it wasn't something meant for the defense of the wyrm's lair.
When she reached the halfway point in the wide pattern, her tail dragged over the edge of the pattern behind her and she clenched her teeth in anticipation.
But still, nothing happened.
She released her breath in a huff. What was going on? What was the point of this if not for defense? She couldn't fathom any other reason for it to be here. What in the name of the gods was this dragon playing at?
Breathing in another deep breath that she released in a long sigh, she let the tension melt from her muscles and increased her pace. The sooner she found the dragon the better.
It's time to put an end to this, she thought. Finally she stepped off the engraved pattern on the floor and the very air around her seemed to shatter.
A flashing bolt of purple streaked before her snout, singing the scales and filling her nostrils with the scents of ozone and sulphur. A blue bolt flashed beside her, making the scales of her flank tingle uncomfortably.
She darted forward, trying to get beyond the range of the crackling streaks of electricity.
A yellow bolt flashed down from directly above, with no discernible source, and struck the back of her neck in an explosion of shattered scales and chunks of cooked blood.
She shrieked in an agony unlike anything she had ever experienced.
As a platinum dragon, heat and fire typically had no effect on her. She could walk through an inferno or swim in a river of flowing magma and suffer no untoward effects.
But the strike from this lightning burned her hide and melted the scales surrounding the impact. Her flesh was simultaneously numb and burning. Her neck felt the way she imagined being cooked alive would feel.
Gritting her teeth against the agony, she ran. She infused her every step with all the strength she could muster while she prayed to Ryujin, the Astral Dragon, and her first ancestor that she escaped whatever this was with no further wounds.
Despite her fervent prayers, with each step she took on her bolting trajectory she was struck by another flash of lightning. One struck her flank in a hail of scales and blood.
The next struck her wing and the scent of cooking flesh almost drove her senseless as the edges of her vision began to darken.
Another flash that exploded on her hind leg made her roar in agony as blackened scales rained around her. The black around her vision receded.
One last bolt of electricity flashed to strike her tail near its base and the shriek that escaped her lips was higher than any sound that had passed her lips since she was a hatchling.
Despite the agony wracking her body, she forced her muscles to continue carrying her across the cave floor and away from the engravings on the floor. She pushed herself through sheer force of will, refusing to be caught in that storm of streaking lightning any longer than absolutely necessary.
After what felt like a century of unendurable agony, the tunnel ended abruptly in a huge pool of clear water that went far and wide in all directions.
She skidded to a halt, the bottoms of her claws scraping against the rough stone.
What is this? She found the mental wherewithal to wonder.
Was it possible she was deep enough for this to be part of the area's water table?
The thought of submerging in a pool of cool water to calm the agony in her flesh drove all other questions from her mind, however.
She was dimly aware, in the back of her mind, that in other circumstances she might have been more suspicious.
She might have questioned the convenience of this pool being here.
She might even have tested the water before leaping full in. But the thoughts were too weak to affect her actions.
Without wasting another moment, she leaped bodily into the pool of clear liquid.
Instantly, she regretted her impulsiveness as a new definition of agony consumed her from the tip of her snout to the bladed end of her tail.
An entirely new type of burning overcame her every nerve as she felt her flesh and scales begin to melt!
She instinctively snapped her eyes closed and thrust herself up with all the remaining might in her legs, tail, and wings as she desperately sought to escape the nightmare liquid that held her in its death grip.
She thrust and swung her every limb in her desperate rush to reach and flee the surface of the fluid.
Her flesh seemed to melt from her bones as she moved through it, and when she at last broke the surface of the pool she felt certain huge swaths of her flesh remained behind.
She flapped her disintegrating wings in the open area and shot toward the bank at the far end of the pool. It seemed it must be too far for her failing wings to take her, but she had to try. She'd come too far to turn around. The only way out now was forward, at whatever cost must be exacted.
After several agonizing flaps of her wings that sent a torrent of the burning liquid cascading off of her, she miraculously attained a height that would allow her to glide the distance to the far bank.
As the rush of wind from her flight cleared more of the burning liquid from her wings, a modicum of rational thought returned and she delved into her shining Apex to draw forth a stream of arcane power.
Moulding the power to her needs, she scoured the surface of her form of any remaining vestiges of the liquid and propelled them from her.
Although there was little she could do about the damage already done, it would at least prevent the total dissolution of her wings and talons.
The instant the last of the liquid lost contact with her hide the wind rushing past brought cool relief to the burning in her flesh.
With a frustrated sigh, she came in to land on the opposite bank. Here she found but one path leading deeper into the cave. The walls and floor were smooth, clean, and devoid of any marking or decoration.
She couldn't decide what it meant.
With a deep breath that ended in a sigh, she sat on the cool stone and let the burning in her hide ease.
Her wings were in tatters. Huge swaths of her scales were melted almost down to the hide. Her talons were still largely intact, thank Ryujin, but the blade of her tail was useless.
Clearly, she thought, this trap has served its purpose. What threat can I pose to the dragon now?
With a growl that resonated from deep in her chest, she pushed the thoughts away. She would find a way to do what she must. She could not allow this wyrm to continue as he had.
He will pay for this, she thought as she stood and moved on down the single path.
Though it was now wide and tall enough to allow her to fly, she thought it better to walk. At this point she was beginning to develop a sense for just how paranoid this wyrm had to be and she had no desire to leap into another trap headlong.
She needed to continue on with caution commensurate to this dragon's paranoia.
The path led on, once more angled ever-downward into the depths of the Earth. After a while she found her caution slipping as the temperature within the tunnel began to climb.
She had to assume there was some sort of thermal vent or possibly a magma river nearby to account for the warmth.
Before long, the warmth grew past the point of being comfortable and relaxing. It grew and grew until it reached an intensity that was both stifling and disorienting.
She soon lost track of time.
She could have been walking through that hot tunnel for minutes, days, or years, it all seemed the same to her.
After an eternity in the sweltering tunnel, she saw a dim circle of light ahead. The glow flickered slightly and appeared unnaturally orange.
At last, she thought, pleased to finally be able to put an end to this. The glow had to be the wyrm’s lair, didn’t it?
With each trap, with each agonized step deeper into the cave, her faith that she'd be able to settle this peaceably had diminished.
Until now, finally nearing the end of her trek, she almost didn't think it worth the effort of trying to salvage this wyrm’s existence. Either the beast knew she was coming and had designed this for her benefit— a situation she found exceedingly unlikely —or this was the single most paranoid dragon she had ever heard of.
Either way, it made the likelihood of a peaceful resolution to this exceedingly unlikely.
Careful to keep her talons sheathed so she didn't create any more noise with her movements than she had to, Dauria closed the distance to the disc of light near the end of the tunnel.
She stopped a few dozen claw-widths from the light, which she now saw as exactly what she supposed it would be— a large, circular opening into what appeared at this angle to be a wide, tall chamber. She sucked in a deep, silent breath to calm her nerves and still her thundering heart.
Surely, the wyrm must be able to hear the hammering of my heart, she thought.
She took several more deep breaths before she spun around the corner. Although unsure of exactly what she was expecting, she felt certain it would not be pleasant.
The motion of reality seemed to slow as she took in all the details of the chamber before her. The walls, ceiling and floor were of the same smooth, unblemished gray stone as the tunnel outside and devoid of stalactites and stalagmites. The chamber was wider and deeper than she expected, easily large enough to house three dragons the size of her sire.
In its center stood a large garnet wyrm whose scales appeared to rot with some sort of disease and his violet-within-carnelian eyes shone with an unnatural light that seemed to suggest madness.
The dragon held one wyrmling clutched in his claw, the talons resting on the tender flesh of the wyrmling's throat. A second wyrmling rested in the wyrm’s coiled tail, the spikes of which rested at the young dragon's neck.
The wyrm’s glazed eyes fell on Dauria as she entered. She froze as she took in the danger she had placed not only herself in, but these wyrmlings as well. What was she going to do? Could she save them both before the dragon could harm them?
Hovering in the air between the garnet and Dauria were an array of broken spinal spikes, broken scales, and shed scales that had been honed to razor-sharp points and edges.
The adult garnet narrowed his strangely colored eyes at her. He nodded toward the two wyrmlings in his grip. The smaller, and younger, she assumed, male in the wyrm’s claw moved his steel-gray-within-silver eyes, darting them about the chamber nervously. The larger male, on the other claw, lay barely conscious in a wrapping of the adult's tail on the floor of the chamber. Within mostly closed lids she glimpsed shining gold and bronze eyes that seemed not to process any details of what was happening.
"You've made quite enough of a nuisance of yourself, don't you agree?" the garnet said.
Dauria grimaced. “I can't say I agree with your assessment of the matter." She pointedly left off the wyrm’s honorific title.
He narrowed his eyes further and she raised her brow ridges at him, tempting him to say something about it.
“Let me make this easy for you," he said, side-stepping the matter entirely. "Save not only yourself but also these two wyrmlings by turning around, leaving my lair, and never returning to this land. I will give you my vow that I will not retaliate against those villagers for bringing you here."
Dauria allowed herself a brief, humorless smile. "You know I cannot do that. I am here to stop you from harming these villagers any further. I cannot leave until I have ensured they are safe and secure from your predations."
"Predations, is it?" the wyrm breathed with dangerous calm.
Dauria breathed a deep sigh. “You may call it whatever you like. Dress it up in whatever way makes you feel better. It changes nothing. You are directly harming them in a clear violation of the rulings of the Council of Elders."
The wyrm gave a small shrug of his wings. "The Council means nothing to me. I never swore fealty to them. I will do as I wish. They will do nothing to me. They have no power over me."
Dauria's jaw slipped open. Had the wyrm truly just said that? How could the fool believe such inanity?
She reached deep into her Apex and slipped free a river of power. As she did so, she breathed in and directed the breath past her lungs and into her secondary Golar, the organ which allowed her to create her poisonous-gas elemental breath.
If she resorted to it she would have to be careful, she knew. It would take a tight, precision aim to use it without harming the wyrmlings, and right now her main priority was saving the young dragons.
True, she was here to stop the attacks on the human settlements. But with the garnet's obviously tenuous hold on reality, she had no doubt she could do that. This wyrm was far too mad to be a credible threat to her. But the wyrmlings, however, were far less certain. He was already in physical contact with both of them. It would take speed, skill, brutality, and not a little luck to bring both of the boys through this alive.
And at least two of those things were in short supply for her. Especially in this venture.
Without a moment's hesitation, she sprang toward the wyrm’s tail and the larger of the wyrmlings and spread her wings to soar the distance.
Being wrapped in the coils of the garnet’s tail, she felt her chances of freeing him were far greater if she got to him before the wyrm realized what she was doing. Or at the very least, before he had a chance to react to it. Which would give her a greater likelihood of successfully freeing the other wyrmling after she liberated the first.
As she passed the array of weaponized scales and spikes in the air, she grabbed a scale with a sharpened edge and used her wings to thrust herself down toward the wyrm’s tail with the edge of the scale slicing downward through the air.
In the split second she had before impact, she unleashed the torrent of arcane power she had gathered from her Apex and used it to yank the smaller wyrmling from the sire's claw.
Without seeing the result of the attempt, she slammed down to the cave floor, the piece of scale hammering into the wyrm’s tail and severing it a few claw-widths above the larger wyrmling’s head.
Steaming scarlet blood jetted from the stump as she used a hind leg to fling the wyrmling and severed end of the tail toward the far wall and out of harm's reach, at least for the moment.
The garnet unleashed a deafening, bellowing roar of agony that nearly deafened her. He swiped a claw at her face, only narrowly missing the tip of her snout.
The talons that swiped before her as she jerked backward seemed wrong, somehow. She couldn't put a talon on exactly what was wrong, but something about those talons just didn't seem quite... draconic.
Even that description didn’t seem right to her, but nothing else matched either.
She stood tall, tapping her Apex as she prepared to receive the dragon's next strike.
He leaned forward, his other claw ramming toward her.
The instant she saw the claw her heart sank and her blood went cold. She fell into such shock that she failed utterly to defend herself in any way.
The power slipped from her grasp back into her Apex and her muscles went slack, refusing to obey her sluggish commands to dodge the attack.
All of her attention landed squarely on the small form still held clenched tightly in the grown dragon's claw. The form of a small garnet wyrmling whose eyes were now open as wide as his maw as he shrieked in terror at his impending fate.
The dragon's fist, clenched around what she had to assume was the beast's own wyrmling— her heart bled to think this was how the creature treated its own blood and scales —struck the side of her head, next to her auditory receptor.
The cessation of the wyrmling’s shrieks coupled with the crunch of bones snapped her out of her stupor. She fought back the silvery tears that wanted to cloud her vision and pushed the shattering of her heart to the back of her awareness. She snapped her tail out to strike the dragon's hind legs.
Her powerful, whip-like tail slammed past one leg and the now-blunted tip hammered into the central joint of the next.
The wyrm roared as his hind legs fell out from under him.
Dauria darted her head forward and, finally releasing the breath held in her second Golar, unleashed a cloud of poison gas directly in the garnet's face.
His limbs twitched as the poison did its work, the flesh around his eyes and mouth turned almost green. His eyes widened and the glaze over them dissipated, the shine of madness vanishing.
In an instant, he seemed to process all he'd done. But rather than the horrified acceptance she expected to see, his eyes narrowed and his lips twisted in a vicious snarl.
Dauria's brow ridges flew us in surprise. What was this?
Something powerful slammed into Dauria's flank, throwing her nearly a wingspan toward the far wall. She immediately leaped to her claws and turned back to the garnet as he seemed to fly at her, jaws open wide, teeth shining in the ruddy glow. The saliva dripping from them looked like blood in the strangely colored light.
Summoning all the strength she could muster, she batted at his snout and only just managed to divert him from his path and keep his jaws from clamping around her throat in a death grip.
He tumbled toward the wall, and a burning sensation in her flank drew her attention down toward it. Her scales were covered with carnelian blood.
Clearly, the garnet had struck her with the bloody end of his severed tail.
With an almost irritated flick of energy from her Apex, she flung the hot blood from her hide. As the garnet leaped up to his claws, she dug deep into her Apex to draw forth a river of power that she immediately shaped.
The garnet raced toward her, keeping his wings tucked away this time, his eyes burning and his chest inflating.
She clearly saw what he was about and hurried the crafting of her own attack.
Ordinary flames, even molten magma, would never have concerned her. But a garnet dragon’s fire breath was not a thing of the natural world. No ordinary heat could ever compare to the forces such a dragon could unleash.
This would be close. Crafting an effect powerful enough to oppose a garnet’s fire breath using only arcane power from her Apex was no simple feat. It took considerably longer than unleashing one's elemental breath.
But it was her best chance.
The garnet's maw opened wide, flames roaring forth from deep in his throat as she completed her weave and brought forth a surging storm of absolute cold, sending super-cooled wind, ice, and snow surging toward the wyrm.
Her storm struck him just as the flames erupted from his maw and the elements battled for supremacy. The crimson flames pushed her ice storm back, melting the ice and warming the air to create a billow of steam.
In desperation, Dauria poured ever-greater reserves of power into the storm to push back against the garnet.
His breath couldn't last forever, could it?
Her legs began to tremble as she invested more and more arcane power into the storm, which she thrust at the wyrm with all her arcane might.
The garnet's chest deflated further with each passing moment. His eyes were shot through with veins of crimson blood. His lips began to tremble.
Dauria felt her own strength fading as she continued to fling snow and ice and freezing wind into the crimson flames erupting from the garnet wyrm’s shuddering maw.
With no further warning, her stream of power failed as her Apex winked out and the crimson flames rushed toward her. She leaped to the side to evade the erupting flames, which caught the end of her tail.
She felt the end of her tail crisp and blacken in the onslaught and she cried out in agony.
She struck the stone floor hard, missing her landing and tumbling head over tail until she struck the far wall flank first with the crunch of a wing bone setting her nerves ablaze. She shrieked in a mix of rage and agony, the fury pumping just enough adrenaline into her body to get her up from the stone floor to face the garnet.
He appeared deflated. His breath came in weak gasps. He moved toward her with a slight limp. Crimson blood covered his eyes, as though the veins had burst. His lips moved in a silent mantra. If she was not mistaken, it seemed to be a repeated litany of, "I’ll kill you now, meddlesome worm."
Dauria breathed a shallow sigh and immediately regretted it for the agony it brought to her chest. She gave a gentle shake of her head with a similar result.
She moved toward the garnet with a limping gait of her own, trying not to jar any of her injuries.
The garnet’s limp grew more pronounced and she wondered at it. Why would he be limping at all? She hadn't done anything physical to him as yet. The only thing he should be suffering now was weakness from her poison breath and overusing his own elemental breath.
With just over two wingspans left between them, the garnet stopped and a slow smile spread across his bloody lips. His ivory teeth dripped with crimson blood that pooled on the stone at his claws.
Dauria kept moving toward him, unsure what she could still do but determined to do something to stop this monster from continuing to victimize those around him.
The garnet spread his wings in a movement that seemed far more dramatic than necessary. Movement behind the garnet turned her blood to ice in her veins. Her jaw fell open in mixed shock and horror.
What could she do? He clearly still had reserves of arcane strength that she had no chance of matching.
Behind the garnet rose, once more, the array of scales and spikes and teeth and talons that were aimed at her when she first entered the chamber.
Ryujin, Tiamat, and the Astral Dragon, she prayed fervently, if it be your will, give me the strength to overcome this tyrannical wyrm. Please, grant me the reserves to somehow defeat him.
She made a similar silent plea to her ancestors before she nodded at the wyrm, whose eyes once again gleamed with the shine of madness.
His grin widened still-further and the array of sharpened dragon parts flew toward her.
Foregoing thought, Dauria allowed herself to act on instinct alone. She sprung in a diving leap toward the garnet, attempting to slide in underneath the massive attack against her. She turned her body in a roll and felt numerous hammering impacts strike her back and flank.
She hit the cave floor hard and slid across the smooth stone. She felt numb. Clearly her gambit had failed and she'd been struck, yet oddly she felt no pain. It was almost as though her lower body wasn't even there. She couldn't even feel the warm stone floor beneath her hind legs.
She raised her head from the floor and coughed a spray of silvery blood on the stone floor.
The garnet wyrm chuckled darkly. "Only now, at the end, do you understand."
Rage flared in Dauria's heart and she forced herself to look up at the wretched garnet. Her vision swam in motes of silver, creating dual images. One version of the garnet looked normal, while a second was silvery-purple and had a massive, monstrously misshapen maw. It seemed to belong on some aberrant creature from the far distant past, before civilization developed.
She blinked several times in rapid succession, an effort to clear the demented vision from her eyes. It served only to coalesce the two versions of the wyrm into one silvery-purple dragon. His open, grinning maw still looked far wider than should have been possible. It twisted at strange angles that no living thing was capable of.
He gave another dark chuckle. “This was always how this was going to end. What else did you think was going to happen here?"
Dauria coughed again and another eruption of blood spurted from her maw. There had to be something more she could do here. This couldn't be the end. She could not be defeated by this insane wyrm. There had to be something more she could do.
The garnet took several shuffling steps toward her, all the while seeming to grow larger. When he spoke, his voice was deeper. Darker. Stronger. “And now, little platinum, you die."
Even in her currently addled state, she couldn't help thinking, inanely, that if he meant to sound evil then he needed better material. A bit of originality would go a long way.
Glancing down at herself, she couldn't help cringing. She had more than a dozen crimson objects, mostly spinal spikes and sharpened scales, jutting from her flank. The wounds wept platinum blood.
She glanced back up to the garnet as he shuffled toward her and a mad plan leapt into her mind. It was insane, and she might kill herself in the process, but it just might work.
She continued to breathe in shallow breaths, doing her best not to change the pattern of her breathing. With each breath, however, she directed a small portion into her secondary Golar. At the same time, she tapped into her Apex and ravaged it for every last iota of arcane power she could grasp.
What she managed to claim was precious little, but she hoped it would be enough.
A long time seemed to pass as the garnet shuffled toward her. She added to the breath held in her Golar with each step he took. This too seemed inadequate, but she was determined to make the most of whatever she could muster.
She prayed everything together would be enough to put an end to this wyrm’s tyranny.
It occurred to her then, quite belatedly she had to admit, that she had no idea what this dragon's name was. It seemed wrong somehow that she was plotting the death of a dragon whose name she didn't even know.
He stopped above her and his already-impossibly-wide grin grew even wider, almost as though the opening of his mouth went all the way 'round the back of his head!
"Wait," she gasped.
He lowered his brow ridges in a mix of curiosity and annoyance.
"Would you truly kill a dragon whose name you have never heard?" Her voice came out in a dry rasp.
He considered a moment, his head tilted. All the while, she continued to build the breath stored in her Golar.
Finally, he gave a nod. "Very well. Just because I am going to kill you and consume your soul is no reason not to observe the niceties. What is your name, little platinum?"
The world seemed to waver around her as his words struck her mind, leaving her in such shock she didn't quite remember how to form words.
Consume her soul? What did that even mean? Her mind made a connection, but she discounted it immediately. Surely such a thing could not be possible. Surely, one could not steal the Apex of another dragon. Such a thing would be... barbaric. If it were even possible. And would certainly lead to ever-greater acts of barbarism among all dragon kind.
He raised his brow ridges in a show of impatience.
"Apologies, my lord,” she breathed. “I am called Kwallindauria, scion of Baalhalllu. And you are?"
His expression cleared. “That is better. I am Gruullyyvvaas, scion of Gaagriidyyyvuus, sire to Graavvunuulyynaar and Graayyyavalll."
Several more breaths built up her Golar even farther and she scoured the last of the arcane power from her Apex. “And what happens now, Lord Gruullyyvvaas?" she asked in a carefully modulated gasp.
He gave another dark chuckle. "You will see."
Blast it, she thought. She'd hoped his mind was far enough gone that she could keep him talking a while longer to allow her to build up her Golar yet further.
Almost too fast for her eyes to track, his head snaked forward and down toward her throat.
A slight backward movement was all she had time for, and it proved just enough to slip beyond his reach. His snout slammed into the smooth stone beneath her.
Without wasting another instant, Dauria directed all the arcane power left to her. She used it to yank several implements from her flank and slam them into the back of the garnet's neck, thrusting him closer to her.
Summoning all her remaining strength, she darted her head forward and bit into the wyrm's throat. She tore, rent, and chewed her way through the tender flesh to reveal the long gullet leading deep into his body.
He shrieked in agony, the sound piercing her receptors for the short time it lasted.
Dauria reached up and gripped the sides of the garnet’s neck with her claws, plunging her talons into his flesh to keep him from pulling away from her.
She reared back only slightly and slammed her snout into the open wound. She yanked her maw open as wide as she could inside his neck and breathed with all the strength in her body. She drained the poisonous gas from her Golar to empty straight into the garnet wyrm’s gullet and all the sensitive organs within.
The crimson form under her claws shuddered as she withdrew her snout from his neck. His body twitched uncontrollably as silvery blood leaked from the holes in her body.
The edges of her vision went black, then expanded, reducing her view of the world to a pinprick. Within moments the world in its entirety went utterly black.
Her pain vanished as the physical world disappeared around her and she entered the world of dreams.
Are you enjoying the story? Feel free to share this public post with anyone who might enjoy it!
Kwallindauria stood before the council of thirteen elders who decided all matters of draconic law on Earth. Never before had she been the subject of their ruling. She struggled to keep herself from trembling in their awesome presence.
"You do understand," said Aanyytuuliarssa, the amethyst wyrm who led the council, “our concerns, don't you?''
Dauria gave a solemn nod. “I do, Mistress. I put myself at great personal risk for a matter better handled by the Council."
The amethyst nodded. “Can you tell us why?''
She resisted the urge to sigh. “The human who came to me had an eloquent plea that applied to my family alone. Since my sire was indisposed, I took it upon myself to address the matter."
She held up a wing to forestall the inevitable argument. "Before you say it, at the time I did not fully realize the extent of the wyrm's crimes. His actions seemed an affront, certainly, but I had no evidence of it being unlawful."
“And yet," said Klarruudynal, an azurite wyrm from the north of Prydein, “you knew of the wyrm's demands on the humans of the region."
She shrugged her wings. “I had one human's report. I had no proof. It could have been no more than an overzealous wyrm asking for tribute. I did not have proof of the extent of the problems until I was there and it was too late to come to this august body for assistance."
"Too late?" her sire asked. "In what way?"
“I was already there. I had pledged my help to the humans. If I left them to bring assistance it would have weakened our position with them. It would have made us look weak. I could not allow that."
Aanyytuuliarssa cleared her throat pointedly. “And this somehow prevented you from a telepathic call to your sire?"
This time Dauria did sigh. “No, Mistress. I confess, telepathy is not my strength. In truth, I do not enjoy it."
“You do not–“ the amethyst began incredulously.
“As such," Dauria said, talking over the council leader, “I rarely think of it unless another suggests it. The simple fact is it did not occur to me."
The amethyst scowled.
"Apologies, Mistress."
"Baalhalllu,” Aanyytuuliarssa barked. “Is this true?"
The larger platinum lowered his head. "It is accurate, Mistress. My daughter dislikes the similarity to Delving, which she considers immoral."
"I see," the Council Leader said stiffly. "You will break her of that weakness. As soon as possible.''
"Yes, Mistress.''
The amethyst turned her head to the sides, meeting the eyes of the rest of the council one at a time. "Elders, it is time to vote. Has young Kwallindauria acted with courage and compassion, or with reckless abandon?"
Apart from a single malachite wyrm, who raised her tail in condemnation, the council unanimously raised a wing to signify she had acted with honor.
"Charges dismissed," the amethyst said.
Dauria allowed herself only a small smile of gratitude. She held her breath in preparation for the next phase. She was not at all certain this would go well.
If the Council realized what she had done, this could go very badly for her. The Elders did not appreciate meddling in the affairs of Dragonkind, especially when that meddling flouted their rules.
She pulled in a deep breath. Please, Ryujin, she prayed, don't let them discover what I did. Please let my work have been thorough enough to escape their notice. At least for a while.
"Bring the wyrmling," the amethyst called.
Within moments, a young sapphire dragon broke the ranks of the small circle of dragons around Dauria and the Council. Next to her, moving with the awkwardness of extreme youth, was a young female garnet wyrmling.
The side of her head still bore the mark of Dauria's claw from when she'd flung the wyrmling from danger,
Aanyytuuliarssa narrowed her eyes at the wyrmling, then turned to Dauria. “This is she? The survivor from the garnet's lair?" The slight emphasis on the wyrmling’s gender concerned Dauria. Did the Council Leader know, somehow, what she’d done?
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"And you know her name, how?"
"While stalling for time with the sire, I requested introduction. He was thorough.''
The council leader raised her brow ridges.
“It is Graayyyavalllia, Mistress." She pointedly kept her mind clear of the truth, just in case anyone was listening in on her thoughts.
"And we have tried to find other family to foster her?"
"We have, Mistress," Dauria said almost in unison with Baalhallu and Klarruudynal.
“None have been found?"
Dauria shook her head. “No one, Mistress. It has been suggested that in his madness the sire may have murdered any clan there might once have been to claim the wyrmling."
The amethyst nodded.
Behind a wall of concerned thoughts, Dauria acknowledged that even if the wyrmling had family no one would come forward to claim her. They would be expecting a male wyrmling. As much as she did not want to foster the garnet, in protecting him from his gender she had left herself no choice.
What else could I have done? she thought. If I hadn’t done it, they would have killed him out of hand. The wyrmling clearly did not inherit his sire’s madness, but they wouldn’t have listened to that.
After the damage Gruullyyvvaas had wreaked, both on Dragonkind and in the human world, the Council would have insisted. She was sure of it. At least with them believing the wyrmling to be female, she had a fighting chance at surviving this nightmare.
“Are you certain you wish to do this?"
Dauria thrust all doubts aside and spoke with confidence. “Beyond any doubt, Mistress. Without my foolishness the wyrmling might still have a sire. She certainly would still have a clutch-mate. I will make amends for that in the only way I can. I will raise her as though she were my own. I will teach her honor and compassion and respect. I will raise her to be all the things her sire should have been but, for whatever reason, fell short of when he lost his way."
"So be it," Aanyytuuliarssa nodded. "Your devotion and sense of responsibility are admirable, if misplaced."
Dauria opened her mouth to argue but the amethyst raised a wing to stop her.
“It matters not if this council agrees with your need to take responsibility. That is your choice to make and you have made it. The wyrmling is, henceforth, your ward. You will be responsible for her in all things as though she were your own blood hatchling."
"Thank you, Mistress."
The amethyst nodded again. “Thank you, Kwallindauria. You are a credit to all Dragonkind. Go with our blessing, and do not forget your commitment to this wyrmling. She will be counting on you in all things."
Nodding in gratitude, Dauria wrapped her foreleg around Graayyyavalllia and set off in search of a new home for them to share.
Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this story, I would be honored if you would consider upgrading to a paid membership. You’ll get access to everything I ever publish here.
If you enjoyed this story (or even if you didn’t!), please consider leaving a comment with your thoughts. I love having discussions about my work (or any other fantasy or dragons you’d like to chat about)!