Draggard could be seen. He thought of Ro’Quon’s heroic flight and how the kings of old were cheering him now, Ro’Quon among them.
The small battle raged on for almost an hour, but the ship did not stop nor change course. Relentlessly the riders came, swooping down out of the night, trying to capture their prize. Then suddenly and to Whill’s surprise they stopped, and every eagle he could see with his mind-sight turned and headed east and eventually out of view. The dragon circled still, sending rings of smoke from its nose every once in a while as if scoffing.
“What do you make of their retreat?” Whill asked.
“The dragon does not follow,” Rhunis said.
“And it is focused on the west. The opposite direction of the Eagle Riders,” Avriel said through closed eyes.
“Whatever it is, I doubt it is an ally,” added Abram from the wheel.
The
“I see it also. What do you make of it, brother?”
Zerafin moved closer to the side of the ship and put his hand to the hilt of his sword. After a moment he spoke, unsheathing his sword. “Whatever it is, it is big, and moving with great speed.”
Like the elves, Whill could see through the surrounding ships, and unlike Abram or Rhunis, he saw as entire ships far off were bombarded with great waves as the disturbance in the ocean’s aura came close to them. Arrows were strung and feet planted as the disturbance came closer and closer still. The object was within two hundred yards when it disappeared. The silence that followed was disturbed only by the faint shouting of the crew on nearby ships. Suddenly off the starboard side of the ship came a huge wave as something of great size came out of the ocean. There was an ear-piercing shriek, and Whill could make out the water-covered silhouette of a huge red dragon and, to his surprise, an eagle dragon with a rider. As soon as the beast had come out of the water, he, Avriel, and Zerafin had shot an arrow each almost in unison. The circling red dragon also had attacked at that very moment, sending a huge sheet of flame at its fellow. The arrows flew true, as did the flame, but instead of hitting their target, each turned in flight and rocketed towards their sources. Before Whill could take in what had happened, his arrow came at him with blinding speed, only to be stopped by Avriel and Zerafin. The arrows were diverted to the ocean, but the flame found its mark, curving back even as the red dragon spat it, hitting the creature in the face and enveloping it in flames.
The red dragon immediately dove into the ocean, the fires going out with a weak hiss. The attacking eagle dragon was invisible to the naked eye, but with mind-sight Whill could still see its steadily fading outline as the seawater receded and fell from it.
“There has never been a dragon in the known history of this world that can become camouflaged as this one does,” Zerafin said.
“What!” Rhunis cried. “Another dragon-is that what that thing was? How in the name of the gods did it send back your arrows, and the fire?”
“It was not the dragon who did it,” said Abram, turning the wheel into a wave. “Its rider is a Dark elf.”
Roakore looked to his timepiece: less than five minutes until the explosives would go off. The explosives carriers had set the bombs in place and given the signal that they were ready. Roakore motioned for the remaining force to enter the cavern. The troops filed into the cavern with a silent stealth one wouldn’t expect from thousands of dwarves.
Two minutes until the many bombs would go off, and still his army was filing into the room. Mostly young dwarves they were, most under one hundred years old, hardly parents. Though it might seem that dwarves who could live to see a thousand years would have a hundred children by their middle age, in dwarf society one did not reproduce until he has proven that he has contributed his share to the kingdom, lest overpopulation plague the mountains. The dwarves could not have a child without the blessing of a dwarven monk. This was where the epic dwarven folk song “Leranna’s Curse” came from. It told the story of a young dwarf wife who went to the monk with her husband and asked to be blessed with a birth. As the monk gazed on her radiantly beautiful face, he was stricken on the spot. If he lived to be two thousand years old, he knew, he would not see such beauty again. He was a good dwarf, but he could not bring himself to allow the birth, and turned them away. A year passed and they returned with the same request. Again his heart stopped as he looked upon her; again he could not allow it. As long as he refused the birth, she would have to come back, and then he could gaze on her again. For one hundred years this went on, until finally, when Leranna’s husband’s grandfather and father, along with four brothers, had died, Leranna’s husband faced the end of his father’s line. So in love with Leranna was he, that he refused the advice to take another wife in order to produce an offspring. That year, on the day when the couple always visited the monk, only Leranna arrived. Without a word she stabbed him through the heart. The last thing he saw was her golden face, not weeping but smiling the most beautiful smile. It was then put into law that if a birth was repeatedly denied by the monks, the couple would go to the king, and if the king also denied it, they would ask the dwarves, a gathering of at least a hundred. The one day a year when most voted on this affair was called Leranna’s Day.
Though most dwarves Roakore’s age would not have had any children yet, he had two hundred. His clan having been diminished so, the monks, the king, and the people had ordained that any couple could have as many children as they wished, until the clans were strong again. This included allowing every male dwarf of the clan to take as many wives as he wished from the other two clans. All marriages were blessed by the monks, of course, and even the other wives, for every dwarf, male and female, lived by the same code: live for love, family, kingdom, and self, and die for them as well.
Roakore and each of his soldiers were ready for victory, and if that meant that death would be required, so be it.
At the appointed minute there came a great rumble as the hundreds of explosives went off within the mountain. Behind him the team had just imploded the door of the mountain. They had succeeded in the first mission. Each now rose and faced the second task: the thousands of hissing Draggard, just beyond the great door.
From the port side of the ship, the red dragon exploded from the sea. Fire belched from its maw as it collided with the eagle dragon and rider, both of whom now became visible.
“By the gods!” shouted Rhunis as he saw for the first time the dragon and rider. “They change like the eagles of the northern kingdom! My eyes behold black elf witchcraft.”
The red dragon’s fire circled the eagle dragon and its Dark elf rider. Protected by some invisible force, they both were untouched by the flames. The red dragon tried in vain to bite and claw the other, a four-legged, thick- winged species, covered in scales and feathers of the most radiant silver. The elf rider drew his sword and in one fell swoop sliced the red dragon across the chest. Blood fell like rain on the deck below. The red dragon recoiled in howling pain and once again belched flames that did not hit the other dragon nor rider. The rider, to everyone’s surprise, leaped from his dragon and fell more than one hundred feet to land on the deck of
Whill, Abram, Rhunis, and the elves all shot arrows in unison as the Dark elf landed. Falling to one knee on impact, the Dark elf lifted an arm and with out-stretched fingers stopped the arrows in midair.
Even as he let loose his first arrow, Whill knew they were all doomed. For as the Dark elf landed, Avriel gasped, and Zerafin uttered one word before firing.
“Eadon!”
All of the arrows flew true, but they burst into flames and only ashes blew into the wind. Eadon was an imposing figure. He stood over six feet-not a giant, not much taller than Rhunis or Zerafin, but possessed of an air that made him seem to Whill like a god. His armor was as black as the starless sky but reflected like ice. Upon his shoulders he wore a long cloak of eagle-dragon feathers, long and thick and like polished silver. His long hair was at the moment a brilliant silver grey, turning black at the temples. Two elven blades hung at his sides, but he did not draw them. He leered at Whill.
“When the day comes that I have to draw my blades, then, Whill, you will be strong indeed.”
Everyone knew they could not defeat Eadon, no one seemed to care. Even as Eadon finished speaking, Zerafin flung an arm in Whill’s direction. Whill was instantly thrown through the air, high and fast, then suddenly stopped as Eadon lifted his own hand. He floated, frozen, two hundred feet above the ship, helpless as he watched
