The djinn, Renji, was a streak of silver on the back of her Steel Dragon, Corvar. It looked like she had become the fixed favorite of the Opal Dragon. The huge wild dragon, as long as a couple of Greyhound buses, and just as bulky, was following the much smaller Corvar with its evil eyes. Behind them, Tamsin was attempting to do some kind of damage to the Opal Dragon, but her spear seemed to be having about as much effect on the creature as a toothpick.
“Elenari,” I called, “let’s you and me take over from Tamsin and Renji! Corvar looks ready to drop out of the sky.”
Elenari gave me a thumbs-up, just as the Opal Dragon let loose with a great gout of flame and missed Renji and Corvar by only a few yards.
“Tell Tamsin and Renji to help the others take down the silver!” I yelled.
The burst of fire ripped into the side of the cavern and tore a great swathe of rock from the wall. Boulders as big as cars rained down and shattered with ear-splitting booms on the floor of the colossal cave. Tree-sized stalactites were shaken loose and fell from the ceiling high above. One landed amongst the kobold army and crushed a bunch of hapless kobolds to paste, sending burst guts and ruptured skulls spraying across the floor, while lumps of rocky shrapnel ripped the lizard-men around to pieces.
Elenari at once swept past the nose of the Opal Dragon and captured its attention afresh. Renji saw the opening that Elenari had made for her and interpreted what the elf wanted her and Tamsin to do. She flew to join Saya and Penelope in their fight against the silver dragon, Tamsin following after her.
With the Opal Dragon now chasing Elenari and Gharmon, I tucked down and Noctis shot forward in pursuit of the giant black monster. The Onyx Dragon had no trouble keeping up with the Opal Dragon, while it followed relentlessly after Elenari.
“This fellow is old,” Noctis told me. “Old even as I would reckon it. Killing him will be hard.”
I didn’t much like the sound of that.
Meanwhile, with four dragonmancers harrying it, the silver dragon looked to be coming off as second fiddle. It was a beautiful display, whenever I was able to take my eyes off my own quarry, that Tamsin, Renji, Penelope, and Saya were putting on. Their movements were as patient and synchronized as any of our preceptors back at the Academy could hope to see.
They darted and looped around each other in a way that bamboozled my eyes, let alone those of the increasingly pissed off silver dragon. They never allowed the silver a chance to draw a definite bead on any one of them, before one of the other three shot passed or distracted it in some other manner.
Tamsin was ruthlessly prodding at the silver with her spear, thrusting it at any part of the beast that looked less well armored than the rest of it. This wasn’t her magical spear as she couldn’t summon it with Fyzos currently in her Leg Slot. Nor could she use her Telekinesis spell that she’d acquired only a few days ago.
At the same time, Renji was peppering the silver with bursts of metallic stars that whipped around it like a blizzard of shrapnel propelled by magic.
Penelope suddenly darted into the oath of the silver dragon, spun on Glizbe’s back, and raised her arms above her head, just as the wild dragon opened its mouth to spew silver-white fire at her.
Penelope’s dragon poured forth a green flame that plunged into the wild dragon’s mouth like multicolored bubbles. Blooms and vines twisted out of the silver dragon’s open jaws, wrapping around its snout and covering its eyes.
The beast roared, or at least tried to, but Penelope’s dragon continued to breathe the strange and beautiful dragonfire until the silver dragon was enveloped in flowering vegetation. It slowed, shaking its head, flapping to keep itself airborne.
Tamsin’s dragon, Fyzos, corkscrewed from underneath the silver dragon’s belly and, as he passed upside-down over the back of the enemy dragon, Tamsin dropped from between his wings and landed like a cat on the back of the floundering foe.
Wasting no time, the red-skinned hobgoblin dispelled Fyzos and conjured her magical spear in Weapon Slot A. Tamsin raised her newly summoned weapon and plunged it into the base of the dragon’s massive skull.
It must have been a small spot, where the dragon’s spinal cord met the hollow of its skull, and Tamsin must have had only had a second or two to find a gap in between the scales. However, that being so, the spear stabbed home all the same.
Saya dropped from the back of her Gargoyle Dragon to stand next to Tamsin and, using her prodigious strength that was formidable even amongst dragonmancers, she hammered the butt of the spear with one fist, driving the weapon deep into the silver dragon’s head.
The effect was instantaneous.
The silver dragon spasmed and simply… fell away.
It dropped like a stone from the sky, its wings fluttering like busted parachutes behind it, blossoms spiraling away as they were ripped free in its terminal velocity.
Saya and Tamsin found themselves falling too.
But only for a couple of seconds.
Renji swept in from where she had been hanging back and collected them on Corvar’s strong steel back.
The silver dragon fell silently through the rain. Down, down, down. Until, with a meteoric impact, it smashed into a squadron of kobolds waiting their turn to ascend a scaling ladder and obliterated them.
It was the neatest bit of teamwork
