Some flashes of lightning offered hints to the terrain below or granted flickering glimpses of the surrounding horizon, but otherwise Seth followed Merek with blind faith. The Dragon Slayer flew to one side of Seth and a little ahead of him, never seeming to doubt his course. Seth decided to stop hoping he would see the Dragon Temple up ahead, because the continued absence of their destination became too disheartening. Pummeled by blustery gales and stinging sleet, they resolutely pressed forward, wings flapping and adjusting endlessly, as the nightmare tempest raged on.
Kendra paused where the corridor ahead sloped ever steeper, almost becoming vertical before curving back to level at the bottom. She had cautiously edged to where she could see all the way down, but inching much farther would lead to a fall.
Warren crouched beside her. “The ground is smooth. It’ll be like riding a steep slide.”
“Getting back up will be tricky,” Kendra said.
“Not with me around,” Raxtus assured her.
“I can help too,” Cyllia said.
“Time is a factor,” Tanu reminded the group.
“Let me take the lead,” Cyllia offered, drawing her swords. “Who knows what lurks down there?”
“All right,” Kendra said.
With an adroit mix of bounding and sliding on her feet, the hamadryad raced down the slope. “It’s quiet down here,” she called up to the others.
“I can take you, Kendra,” Raxtus said.
“Thanks,” Kendra said. “It looks like jumping off a building.”
“I would accept some help as well,” Tanu said, craning forward to peer down the steep drop. “Big guys aren’t made for falling.”
“I’ll be right back,” Raxtus said, gripping Kendra’s shoulders with his forelegs. The dragon sprang forward, and Kendra felt the alarming rush of falling before he extended his wings fully, turning himself into her personal hang glider and dropping her gently at the bottom.
As Raxtus flew back to help Tanu, Kendra approached where Cyllia stood. A steepled archway at the end of the corridor granted access to a sizable chamber, partially masked by curtains of web.
“Spiders?” Kendra asked.
“Those don’t seem like spiderwebs to me,” Cyllia said.
Raxtus shuttled Tanu down, and then Warren as well. They all gathered by Kendra and the hamadryad.
“I’ve always hated the feeling of walking through a spiderweb,” Raxtus whispered, peering ahead.
“I will lead,” Cyllia said. “The edges of my blades are keen.”
The hamadryad preceded them to the steepled archway. She stepped around the curtains of web, and the others followed. Milky crystals recessed in the grimy walls dimly lit a huge cylindrical chamber that widened near the top, like a funnel. Gray draperies of web veiled much of the room from floor to ceiling. High above, thick strands crisscrossed in bizarre patterns. Holding her bow ready, Kendra scanned the gauzy, overlapping layers for a threat.
“It reeks of death in here,” Cyllia murmured.
“What could have died?” Kendra asked.
“Rats, cave beetles, earthworms—the giant kind,” Tanu said.
“I’m worried this could be Velrog,” Raxtus whispered, looking up.
“Who is that?” Warren asked.
Raxtus closed his eyes momentarily and gave a shudder. “A mutant dragon with the skills of a spider. Humans have the boogeyman. Dragons have Velrog. Our mothers tell us stories about Velrog to motivate good behavior.”
“What can he do?” Tanu asked.
With a glance toward the webby chamber, Raxtus shrank down low. “I don’t know where myth ends and fact begins. The stories claim his webs are strong enough to ensnare dragons. They say breath weapons cannot harm him. He was the first of the demonic dragons—supposedly he came into being when a dark wizard worked unnatural magic on a dragon egg. He was incubated and hatched in the bowels of a crumbling castle and never learned to love the sky.”
“Great story, Raxtus,” Warren said. “So we’re down here with your childhood nightmare?”
Raxtus looked to Tanu. “Do you have any potions that make you slippery? So that nothing could stick to you?”
“It would be an interesting challenge,” Tanu said. “I haven’t tried to produce that effect, and I don’t have the ingredients to attempt it now.”
“Avoid the webs,” Raxtus said. “If this is Velrog, we have to kill him before he entraps us.”
A dry laugh drifted down from above. “What peculiar visitors,” a clinical voice observed from the upper reaches of the room. “Surface dwellers chaperoned by a dragon.”
Kendra searched the shadowed heights of the room, but web formations blocked her view. Some strands and sheets of web quivered, as if an unseen predator were in motion somewhere on the interconnected network.
“We have no quarrel with you, Velrog,” Raxtus said, his voice cracking at the end.
“If you know my name, then you understand what awaits,” Velrog replied. “Forgive me if I consume you slowly. I savor morsels from the sunlit realm.”
“Ten,” Kendra said, aiming her bow toward the sound of the voice and releasing the string. A burst of arrows streaked upward, but all got caught at various distances in the filmy layers of webbing before getting halfway to the highest pockets of shadow.
“The webs are stronger than they look,” Warren lamented quietly.
“The intruders brought toys,” Velrog said. “Clumsy tools that poke and prod. Poor substitutes for teeth and claws. Bring your toys, surface walkers, and teach me how to play.”
Webs throughout the room vibrated, and a dragon roughly the size of an elephant dropped to the floor in front of Cyllia. Instead of the snug scales encasing most dragons, heavy plates armored Velrog, many bristling with thorny spines. The bulky creature looked like a relative of a horned lizard or an ankylosaurus, but with six legs and an additional pair of tiny forelegs at the front. The rounded bulge at the end of his tail gave it the shape of a flail.
“Fifty,” Kendra said, releasing the bowstring. Arrows swarmed at Velrog and stuck to all the surfaces of the dragon, showing that the plates shielding his body were leathery.
Velrog shook like a wet dog, shedding arrows in all directions. Cyllia sprinted forward, a sword in each hand, and Velrog sprang into the air, batlike wings flapping to lift him out of reach. The
