The gold dragon reared back and roared, the sound reverberating in the chamber like thunder. ENOUGH, the king bellowed. Gorewrathian, I want his corpse hung on my wall.
The red lunged forward, fire bursting from its throat. Draeken reached for his own magic and gathered the fire, shaping it to his will. Arms and a torso formed, followed by legs and enormous fists. The golem took shape and swelled to fifty feet, large enough to cause the red to cut off its breath and stumble back in shock. The golem leaned forward and punched the red dragon.
The enormous beast rocked to the side, several teeth coming loose and scattering across the ground. The blue dragon opened its jaws but the towering golem reached out and wrapped a hand about her throat, lifting the dragon off the ground and slamming her against the wall.
“I will have what I came for,” Draeken said from behind the dragon.
He gathered the light from the room and leapt forward. Thistikor dropped to the ground and snapped its jaws, its maw large enough to crush a house. But Draeken possessed the speed of the fragment of Light, and he leapt aside. The jaws snapped shut and Draeken conjured a six foot spear of pure light, a sliver of power that pulsed.
He plunged the spear into the dragon’s throat. It pierced the nearly impenetrable scales and sank deep—and then began to grow. Thistikor stumbled back, flames pouring from its jaws as its fought for breath, but the spear continued to grow, stretching and extending, a shard that became twenty feet, and then thirty, until it pierced the dragon’s skull.
Thistikor’s strangled roar again reverberated in the confines of the throne room, the sound of a dying beast. Still the spear grew. Thistikor thrashed on the ground and dug its claws into its own neck, desperate to dislodge the weapon. Then it charged Draeken, a desperate attempt to crush his killer.
Draeken didn’t move, but the giant fire golem raised a knee, bashing the king of dragons in the chin, a brutal blow that sent the beast into the wall. The spear stuck through both the jaw and the skull now, and it jammed into the ground, lifting the dragon upward. It clawed at the hundred-foot spear of light magic, but its claws cracked and broke against the rod, its body sliding up the wall. Its hind legs came off the floor, and then its tail, until the rod struck a protrusion and sank into the stone, pinning the dragon against the wall. Only the tip of its tail still touched the ground, where it flopped from side to side.
“You did want a corpse on your wall,” Draeken said.
The red dragon and the blue hung back, their heads swinging between the dying king and the mage that had killed him so easily. As Thistikor twitched his last, Draeken turned to the red dragon.
“Gorewrathian was it?”
The red snarled, but made no move to attack. Prince of the reds, second in command to the king.
“You have my congratulations on ascending to the throne,” Draeken said.
A red has not sat on the throne in ages, the dragon said, greed filling his voice.
“Sadly you will not be able to enjoy your new position,” he said. “You may be king, but you are also my mount.”
I am not a horse, the dragon growled.
“Would you prefer I find another?” Draeken asked. He cast a second spear of light.
Gorewrathian looked to the dead king Thistikor, and then bowed its head. You have your mount.
Draeken smiled and turned to the blue. The female had shifted towards one of the entrances, her posture one of escape. Draeken asked her name and she spoke in a surprisingly light voice, the tone indicating a female.
Lagailien, the blue dragon replied.
“I have a special task for you,” Draeken said. “A Hauntress that needs killing.”
She glanced to the dead king, still pinned to the wall. If my companions die, and I succeed, I want the throne.
Draeken laughed as Gorewrathian growled. He loved dragon greed. It was so predictable. “You shall have it.”
Then consider her dead, the blue said.
Draeken strode to his new mount and rose into the air, flying himself up to straddle Gorewrathian’s neck. The ability caused new shock in the dragons as he settled into his seat. Never before had a mage existed that could fly on his own, and the sight inspired a sense of fear in the dragons that Draeken savored. Serak possessed a red dragon. But Draeken rode on the back of a king.
“North,” he directed the beast. “It’s time the people remembered why they fear your kind.”
Chapter 8: Dedliss
Mind walked with Tardoq and Jeric, the trio making their way north and west, deeper into the mountains. Spring had yet to arrive in the higher altitudes, and the snow was deep. Rather than dry and crisp, the warm air led to melting snow, and winter had lost its bite.
They ascended through a pass so narrow that Tardoq had to turn sideways in order to ease his way through the gap. Higher and higher they climbed, aiming for a towering peak. Allies of necessity, the three spoke little, and Mind mulled over the events at Blackwell Keep.
His thoughts frequently shifted to Tardoq, his oversized and armored companion. The last time Mind had seen him, Tardoq had been a foe, and wielded a powerful otherworldly hammer. Now he carried a rock troll greatsword, and not a common one either, but a warrior’s soulblade. Rock trolls never relinquished their soulblades unless dead, and the family could gift the weapon to another. But who had given the blade to Tardoq? And why?
As they approached a towering peak, Jeric pulled his cloak tighter about his body to ward off the icy wind. “We’re almost there.”
“Where are we going in the Empire?” Mind asked.
“We should start at Dedliss,” Jeric said.
“The Bone Crucible?” Tardoq asked.
“She’s been spotted there a handful of times,” Jeric said, “always under disguise, of course, but she enters when she is in need of resources. I suspect she has a contact there that we can utilize.”
