“But they’re still coming,” said Jynn.
“What about somethin’ sticky? Can we glue ’em down?” said Gorm.
“Shouldn’t have passed on Boomer’s goo arrows,” said Kaitha.
“And we can’t melt the stones?” Gorm asked. “Felt like we got really close with that one.” Dagnar’s flesh, as it were, was blackened and charred around a faint orange glow in the center of his chest.
Laruna shook her head, her hands balled into fists beside her. “I can try again, but powerful magic is binding the stones together.”
An idea struck Gorm. “What about the—”
“She was using the Wyrmwood Staff,” said Jynn.
“Burn it!” And then, in an unwitting example of Nove’s sixth principle of universal irony, he added, “Any other way we can get the stones hot enough?”
Nove’s principles of universal irony actually document their own greatest flaw. Nove penned his sixth principle after a series of high-profile demonstrations of the first four principles in the academies of Essenpi catastrophically failed. When the watched pot incident resulted in fatalities, the high chancellors of academia forbade Nove from further experiments.
Disheartened, Nove worked out a mathematical proof that showed that even if his principles were accurate, they could not be measured or relied upon. Nove’s Bidirectional Paradox proved that if his principles were ever validated enough to become laws, they would make the universe too predictable and thus immediately disprove themselves. Or, put another way, a person cannot avoid saying things that might be ironic, because it’s actually more ironic when an unexpected statement or behavior leads to unexpected consequences. The theory, proofs, and full ramifications of the sixth principle took Nove a full year to pen. These volumes are seldom cited or read, however, because he eclipsed the work when he famously summed it up over a beer with colleagues afterward as, “the gods are bastards.”
Gorm was certain that some deity must have a cruel sense of humor, because the moment he uttered his question, a bright blue light flared near the uppermost reaches of the cavern. In a few heartbeats the prophetic vault dissolved into a cascade of sparkling particles, draining away the cool blue light that had filled the cavern. Behind the falling barrier, high above their heads, a crescent of flame carved itself from the blackness, dripping white-hot gobbets of molten doom. The fire cast a crimson light that illuminated a serpentine neck as thick as an ancient oak, ending in a reptilian head that was the same size as a Gnomish harvest machine, though with significantly more sharp bits. Titanic wings unfurled like a galleon’s sails as two luminous green orbs looked down. The Dragon of Wynspar rumbled like a long-dormant volcano as it regarded the living and undead heroes assembled on the walkway beneath it.
Gorm felt his spine melt and his legs turn to jelly under that molten glare. “It can’t be…” he breathed.
“The dragon!” Heraldin punctuated his cry with a trio of glass orbs that burst into cobalt clouds. The sudden explosion startled Gorm enough that his survival instincts bypassed the malfunctioning circuits of his brain, hardwired his legs, and sent him sprinting up the nearest walkway.
The smoke startled the dragon as well. It reared back as its scales flared with crimson light, painting the cavern the color of blood. The beast pulled in a lungful of air with a sound like a hurricane wind, and then held its breath as its head aligned on its target.
Gorm was holding his breath too, even as he ran, and that instant stretched out over a tiny, agonizing eternity as the whole world seemed to hesitate for a moment.
Then a stream of fire, white-hot and blistering, poured from the dragon’s maw. The undead members of the Golden Dawn shambled along the walkway as fast as their decaying legs could carry them, which meant that they made it two steps before the spray of molten death engulfed them. The enchanted stones within them audibly popped, and three wailing souls rose like ghoulish, glowing smoke from the center of the inferno. When they dissipated, there was nothing left of the undead heroes but a glowing hole in the stone walkway.
“Run! Get to cover!” Gorm hollered, but even as he ran for the nearest pillar he doubted it could provide much shelter from the dragon’s flame. The other heroes scattered.
“You said there wasn’t a dragon!” screamed Jynn as Gorm overtook the mages on the narrow walkway around the stone tree.
“I didn’t think there was!” Gorm shouted.
“Well, there are some things you need to be absolutely certain—”
“Shut up!” Gorm shoved Jynn and Laruna toward the pillar and away from a lance of dragonfire. Heat like the center of a forge rolled over him as the flame passed, blistering skin and singeing hair. He might have succumbed to the heat anyway had Laruna not managed to deflect the stream with a weave of fire magic.
“Are you all right?” the solamancer gasped as the dragon’s flame faded.
“Aye, thanks.” Gorm scrambled to his feet, already scanning the cavern for the others. “Where is everyone?”
“There are Heraldin and Gaist.” Jynn pointed across the black chasm to the next pillar. The bard waved while Gaist peered around the stone trunk to watch the dragon.
“Good,” said the Dwarf. “And the dragon’s focused on us.”
“No.” Laruna peered around the pillar. “It’s turning away.”
“What?” Gorm’s heart plunged into the pit of his stomach as he scrambled for a better view.
The dragon picked its way through the stone branches of the petrified trees like an eagle climbing through a bramble. Its almost-feline body could move with fluid grace, but its giant wings made maneuvering through the tangle of stone an ungainly task. It unfurled them for balance, then tucked them back in to squeeze under a path, then flapped them to avoid tipping over the side. Yet as awkward as its progress was, it was still gaining on the figure sprinting along the paths ahead of it.
“Kaitha!” Gorm screamed.
The ranger slowed as she reached what was, appropriately enough, an effective dead end. The path ahead ended at a broken pillar housing the ruined remains of a stone staircase, with no path around it and no branching turns. The pathways crisscrossing through the air above her were far out of reach, and the blackness below held no hope of a safe landing.
Her own walkway shook with a sudden violence as something heavy landed behind her. By the time she regained her footing and turned, the dragon was already rearing up, scales flaring bloodred as it pulled in a breath. Hot doom bubbled behind its dagger teeth.
Kaitha knew, even as she drew her bow, that it wasn’t enough. Her life would be cut short and cauterized as well. The best she could say was that she went down fighting. She breathed out her regrets, nocked an arrow in one fluid motion, and set her sights on the dragon’s baleful eye. The entire world seemed to hesitate for a moment.
With the exception of one Troll.
Thane plummeted from the heights of the cavern with a roar like an avalanche and landed squarely on the end of the dragon’s muzzle. The sheer force of a rapidly descending Troll to the face cannot be ignored, not even by an elder dragon, and the creature’s head was snapped down and to the side just as the spout of dragonfire came rushing from its maw.
Thane screamed as white-hot flames caught him directly in the midsection. The dragon screeched as the struggling Troll punched through scales and bones, tearing flesh and breaking horns and teeth. The air was rent with the cries of two of Arth’s most fearsome titans experiencing new and unfamiliar pain.
The dragon’s flames sputtered and died, but the Troll kept up the assault, sending loose scales and hot blood raining down on the stone. In desperation, the beast slammed its own head against the stone pillars, and Thane cried out as his bones snapped under the crushing force. With a final shake of its head, the dragon flung its assailant away and careened over the edge of the walkway in a motion caught between a dive and fall. It unfurled its wings and glided beneath Kaitha’s path like a great red whale passing beneath a fishing skiff as it fled back toward the entrance of the cavern. Other stone trees in the path of the beast shuddered as the dragon collided with them in its reckless, panicked flight.
She turned back to her own walkway, where Thane writhed on the stone. He lay at the center of a splatter of black, viscous blood, his arms and legs tracing erratic pathways as they flailed. His torso was a mess of thin, charred tendrils of flesh that waved around in a futile dance as they tried to weave themselves back into a Troll. His mouth was open wide in a scream that she couldn’t hear, though Kaitha couldn’t tell if he was silent or the blood pounding in her ears had drowned him out.
Then he looked at her with eyes like a sunset, crimson flecked with gold and fiery orange, and the pain and shock seemed to drain from him. The most beautiful smile Kaitha had ever seen bloomed on his face, and he opened his mouth to greet her.
But rather than words, thick, black blood welled up from his throat. The light behind his irises faded, and he slumped lifeless to the floor.
