The wizardsdefended by using fire balls on their own groups to kill theinsects but this also weakened or removed the elemental protectionson their men. The druids again directed ice chunks to fall from thesky. Next air elementals and water elementals appeared and thenwith glee the druids turned into large bears, some brown and somewhite, all bulging with rippling muscles and hardened skin. Theywanted blood.
On seeing theobviously fake Grand Druid turn into a green dragon bothHeteronymous and Featherdown swiftly shed their gowns. They bothhad the same thing on their minds. Dragons were very resistant toalmost all magic. The best way to fight a dragon was as a dragonand both had done it more than once before.
Featherdownbegan chanting, growing and changing until he was a great reddragon. Not a big as the green one but pretty tough. The idea wasto occupy the enemy dragon while druids fought the ground troops.When the druids won then they could help handle the dragon if notthen he might be forced to withdraw.
Heteronymoushad the same idea. He changed into a huge metallic silver dragonnot quite as big as the green one but certainly as dangerouslooking. The green dragon attacked Featherdown first knocking himback but causing little damage, but then the silver dragon smashedinto the side of the green one knocking it off balance and causingit to break off its attack on the red one. In no time at all, thedruid camp was totally demolished by the three fighting dragonslashing and slashing and butting and biting.
All around themdruids attacked the half buried troops. Most of the druids turnedinto bears while some stayed in their normal form entangling anyfree troops and directing attacks on the wizards and priests. Thebrutes were in a frenzy but useless while buried to the waist insolid ground. The bears by-passed them going after the officers andmagic users first and then they played with the soldiers allowingthem to dig themselves out before attacking them and ripping themapart. The most difficult problem the druids had was trying to keepout of the way of the three rampaging dragons towering abovethem.
The sight toany onlookers would have been horrifying, but totally gripping andawe-inspiring to see such feral and elemental power unleashed. Thefighting between the druids and the ground troops began to wane asmany of the troops still alive began activating bracelets of recallleaving their dead and dying comrades behind.
The battlebetween the three dragons continued with little resolution asneither side seemed to be able to gain the advantage. The red andsilver dragons kept attacking the green dragon keeping it occupied,but couldn’t seem to damage it as its skin was impenetrable andwhile they were slowly weakening, it wasn’t.
Helix beingvery small wasn’t in any real danger as he was too small to see ina fight amongst huge creatures. He flew onto the highest pole ofthe druid camp and called attention to possible problems whilewatching the dragon fight, that is until the camp was demolishedthen he flew onto the remains of the unicorn statue, which was thehighest structure still standing.
‘Newmans are quite remarkable, they always think big isbetter, never small is smart.’ he thought.
‘Featherdown used one of the most powerful shape changingpowers known and changed into a dragon of all things to fight adragon. Why not something small and lethal? Fighting is not aboutshowmanship it’s about winning.’
‘I guess I’d better help.’ he thought then said into the mindof Featherdown the red dragon.
‘Featherdown this is Helix. I recognize the green dragon. Youwon’t beat him as he seems to have some sort of divine protection.I’ll remove him for a while to allow you to clean up the groundtroops and heal up then it won’t be worth his while returning.Bye.’
Helix used ashape change power and turned himself into what looked like a smallcloud of mist about the size of a Newman hand. It was a small airelemental one of the fastest creatures alive, and then flew off atan incredible speed towards the green dragon and flew straight intohis mouth. The green dragon never even got a glimpse of the smallair elemental as it entered his mouth and shot down into his lungs.Helix changed shape to a slug-like creature and slid into a crevicein a bottom of one of the dragon’s lungs and using suction, hung ontightly.
The greendragon felt something strange in his chest momentarily but didn’tquite know what it was. It coughed a couple of times but to noavail. The red and silver dragons both took the opportunity toattack and the green dragon had to ignore his chest and concentrateon defending against the combined attack.
This is exactlywhat Helix had expected. Dragons had excellent magic resistance onthe outside but very little on the inside. He wasn’t known as aTraveller bug for nothing. He created a temporary gateway andimmediately he and the green dragon were gone, transported toanother world, a place that wouldn’t be pleased to have a greendragon visiting them unannounced. It would take the dragon at leasta couple of hours to get away even with divine assistance.
Featherdownstood there dazed. It was unbelievable. When Helix had said hewould remove the green dragon it seemed like joke of some kind. Itwas holding its own against both the red and the silver dragon andyet the Traveller bug made it disappear as easy as that. The silverdragon quickly moved off to attack Panmagican troops andFeatherdown looked around to see where he could do some good andstomped off to squash a few enemy fighters.
The battle wasall over in another five minutes. The Panmagicans were routed andthose still alive that hadn’t had a chance to escape tried tosurrender with little success. The druids in bear form were not ina merciful mood as many had lost a friend or colleague.
The final scoresheet was less satisfying. Over seventy druids had been killed,almost all in the initial attack. This represented about one thirdof all the druids in the world, a very savage blow and verydifficult to replace. The Panmagicans had lost one hundred andforty-two warriors, ten wizards and 6 priests.
