when the arrows suddenly exploded, the dragon was blown to the side and lost in the fiery show.
It gave a great growl as it emerged from the green fire and changed course. With a splash big enough to douse the companions with a wave of seawater, it hit the ocean and disappeared. Suddenly Zerafin turned and shot an arrow directly over Whill’s head. Whill watched its flight and saw it disappear into the night twenty feet behind him. Before he could ponder where the arrow had gone, there was another explosion. From the fire fell an eagle and rider, dead, into the cold sea below.
The ship was rocked once again as the dragon emerged with great power from the ocean off the starboard side of the ship. Avriel was ready to let her arrow fly when they saw yet another eagle and rider. These, however, were in the clutches of the dragon’s mouth.
Roakore and his men stood with bowed heads, praying over the body of Ro’Quon as backup came pouring into the chamber. He turned to the men with tears in his eyes, tears of joy.
“Our friend be gone from this world. Let it be known that on this day, the great Ro’Quon, engulfed in flames and nearing death, charged a green spear-horned dragon and killed it with one blow from the great axe o’ his father. He now dines in the Mountain o’ the Kings.” He slammed his fist to his chest. “Ro’Quon!”
“Ro’Quon!” answered the others.
Ro’Quon’s body was lifted from the chamber floor and carried on the hands of every dwarf in the tunnel, and with his body went the telling of his great feat. His name could be heard traveling down the tunnel.
Roakore then sent scouts into the twenty tunnels to give warning. The battle with the dragon had surely been heard, and they would be coming, in numbers.
“The dragon fights for us!” said Abram in amazement as the group watched it violently shake its head, tearing the flesh of its prey before dropping it to the ocean.
Rhunis looked doubtful. “Or it wants us for itself.”
A great commotion had erupted from the nearby ship of the Eldalon navy. They too had seen the dragon, but they knew not that it might be friendly. Volleys of flaming arrows poured out from more than five ships. Most of them missed, and those that found their mark bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s scaly armor. The creature ignored the arrows and set fire to the ocean off the starboard side. There was a screech as an eagle and rider suddenly appeared, consumed in flames. Zerafin hit the rider in the neck, sending him falling from his winged steed. It was Whill’s arrow that put down the flaming eagle.
“Everyone to Abram at the wheel, bows ready, circular formation!” Rhunis shouted. Everyone did as he had commanded, and the four took kneeling stances all around Abram.
The dragon had not attacked the ship, and Whill felt sure it wouldn’t. To the other ships he yelled as loud as he could. “Do not fight the dragon! Fire upon the Eagle Riders!”
If there was any question about whether they understood, it was answered as the dragon again lit fire to the ocean and a rider appeared, only to be riddled with twenty arrows from the surrounding ships.
The tunnel was like a tomb. The faint breeze had shifted, to Roakore’s dislike. The scouts had returned with nothing; at least twenty minutes had passed. They must have been heard, but no one came. Roakore puzzled for a moment then called back the scouts. He motioned the generals of the many armies to attention.
“They’ve laid a trap fer us, no doubt, but we don’t have time to play their game. We are gonna walk into the tunnel like we own the place, ’cause by the damned gods, we do!”
He unfolded a map of the mountain kingdom. Their location was easily discernable on the map, though the many tunnels spread out like an intricate spider’s web. There were tunnels and subtunnels, chambers and halls, vaults and living quarters mapped out here. The map was of Roakore’s own design, one with which many dwarves had helped to create an almost perfect representation. There were more than fifty X’s marked in red. Each of them represented the exact place where explosives would be placed. The explosives were made from dragon’s breath, taken from the glands of dragons and therefore very rare. An ample supply had been provided for the mission at great cost. One of the most profitable professions in Agora was a dragon’s-breath farmer; it was also the most dangerous. Roakore thought it ironic that dragon’s breath would be fundamental in the elimination of the Draggard, them having been created within the egg of a dragon.
The X’s were strategically placed within tunnels or chambers that would cut off the enemy troops most effectively from each other. The result would be thousands of trapped Draggard that could be dealt with later, and a main group, that, with the grace of the dwarf gods, would be dealt with tonight.
The moon gave its light to the battle below, but it was overwhelmed by the dragon’s fire. The dragon, which Whill knew now to be the one he had seen during the fight with Cirrosa, circled his ship, setting aflame any Eagle Rider that dared come into view. How the dragon could see them, Whill could only guess. But the fact that the beast stayed near to the ship instead of attacking them told Whill that many, many more were about. The ship was under full-out attack.
Whill used his mind-sight once again. His deduction of the situation was confirmed when he saw above and all around the surrounding ships dozens of Eagle Riders.
“There are at least fifty,” Zerafin said.
Abram and Rhunis did not wonder how he knew this. They knew. “What can I do?” Rhuis asked. “I cannot see them as you can.”
Avriel shot an arrow into the night and turned to him. “We cannot see them against the great aura of the ocean, Rhunis; those we can see are far off, out of the reach of an arrow.”
“Surely not the arrows of the elves.”
“Surely not, no, but we will not expend that kind of energy. We will wait them out. If they wish to try and overpower the dragon, it is their funeral.”
“Heh, the dragon, indeed. Why is he helping, anyway? Never in our history has a man ever befriended a dragon. Whill, do you know him?”
“I have seen him before, I think. Yes, I have.”
“Why did you never tell us of this before?” asked Zerafin.
Whill was surprised. “I don’t know. It was when I had first used my powers. It didn’t seem important.”
“Not important! And when we told you that the sword had been given to a dragon, to be kept safe until Whill of Agora came for it-did it seem important then?”
Whill was dumbstruck. “Do you think he could be the one?”
Avriel put her hand to Whill’s cheek. “Either this dragon is the first in history to meddle with the affairs of men, or this is the dragon of elven bedtime tales.”
It had been an hour since the battle in the chamber of trading, and Roakore and his unit were making good time. Over fifty such units, most of them a hundredth of this size, now waited for the appointed minute to blow the many tunnels. That minute would soon be at hand, Roakore thought, as he stopped at the subtunnel entrance to the exit chamber, the one that needed to be destroyed if they were to ensure that Whill’s dream did not come to be. He motioned for the five explosives carriers, and together with them he started down the tunnel. Scouts had been here already and had reported it deserted, and Roakore believed them. There was not a dwarf in the unit who could not hear the snarls, pounding feet, and shouts of the Draggard. Murmured and inaudible the sounds might be to men, but a dwarf with his ear to a rock could hear the heartbeat of a nearby rat. The Draggard were in the main chamber, the cavern that had first been settled by Ro’Sar. It acted as the kingdom’s largest city, housing over twenty thousand dwarves in Roakore’s youth. It was the biggest natural cavern of all the mountain kingdoms. Menacing stalactites hung from the ceiling, so mammoth that it would take fifty dwarves to reach around it. The massive stalagmites had been incorporated into the city, hollowed and polished, adding to the unique dwarven architecture.
Within that cavern, Roakore knew, Draggard awaited the order to charge out from the mountain and destroy every form of life that opposed them. The Draggards’ mouths drooled in anticipation of flesh, their claws ached with the want to tear, to gouge, to crush. They lived for one purpose: destruction. And for that reason, Roakore knew, they would never win, never be victorious. Life and love and light would always hold death and hate and darkness at a stalemate. The battle would rage on forever, but neither side could ever win lest they, as two parts of one, be destroyed also. None could ever dominate, for they were one. That was what Roakore’s father had told him at an early age, and that is what Roakore had told all of his children since before they could understand. The idea of good and evil was a stone in the religious foundation. They believed that, like love and hate, the world, the moon, the animals, even they themselves possessed two battling spirits.
Roakore came to the entrance of the exit chamber from the subchamber. As he had been told, not a
