he saw them flex and strain. The broad belly and chest of the beast was being lowered, and the hyperdragon was stooped so as to allow its smaller forelimbs to scrabble through the rocks and dirt exposed by its scorching breath. It was searching for him, Gord realized, using foot-long fore-talons to toss aside boulders as if they were pebbles.
The murk created by the monster’s Initial gout of shadow-fire was subsiding around both man and duskdrake, while all round the region before the monster the air was roiling with fresh clouds from the second, more prolonged bath of awful fire it had received from the duskdrake’s maw. The huge hyper-dragon was even now turning its tremendous body clockwise, searching with eyes and talons too, its hot belly thundering as its internal organs worked to produce the material for yet another wash of the searing flames that were its most effective weapon.
When Gord had suffered the flaming attack of the beast’s fiery breath, the gem set into the pommel of his sword had grown brighter as the licking tongues of gray played over him. The change had not gone unnoticed by the young adventurer, and now, as he stood near the underbelly of the duskdrake, Gord saw that the green within the heart of the fire opal was deeper, brighter, more active than it had been before. If his rapid evasion had been partially responsible for his avoiding the worst of the destruction breathed by the beast, and the ointment had cured the injury done by the fire, perhaps this dweomered gem, the talisman of Shadowking, had done its part as well. Surely the stone was more vivid now, and the faint silvery sheen of his blade showed long arcs of green playing from pommel to crossguard as he raised the sword to strike.
“Oooohh hhooo!” the duskdrake boomed as its snaking head swiveled and one lambent eye, a flat disc the size of a round shield, caught sight of the glowing stone and flashing electricity it generated. Even as the monster voiced its happy surprise, and one mighty limb jerked up in order that it could stamp downward upon him, Gord struck.
“Ah ha!” he countered, unable to think of anything else to say as the blade sunk between the massive, angular plates of the hyperdragon’s belly armor. These thick scales of sooty black were as spiky and hard as those of glistening jet that covered the huge beast’s sides and uppermost parts. Here along its underside, however, the scales were longer, more platelike, and the joints between were broader to allow its underside to flex and curl.
Hot pink played amidst the verdant arcs as Gord used both arms to drive the sword between two of the duskdrake’s banded scales. Even the skin beneath these steel-like plates was tough, as thick and hard as the skin of the largest rhinoceros. It required every ounce of strength he possessed, the coordination of legs, back, shoulders, arms, and wrists too, for Gord to force the keen point home. Legs straightened, back rippled, arms pistoned, wrists locked as human muscle and bone pushed the green-lighted blade of the sword home, until its full length was buried to the hilt within the furnace-heat of the beast’s gut.
“Ahhrrrooo!” The scream that the duskdrake vented when the bar of metal sunk into its vitals was deafening. “Haaarrrg!!” it bellowed louder still, as the green of the fire opal’s heart flared and burned, consuming the gem, shooting up the metal of the sword’s hilt and quillons in a fiery, iridescent display that ate upward along the length of the weapon, a burning so fierce that the hide and scales of the hyperdragon turned translucent beneath the internal glare of it.
Fortunately for him, Gord had been kicked away a dozen yards by the convulsive movement of the dusk- drake’s taloned foot as the beast reacted to the awful pain within its body. The horny spikes covering the thing slashed and tore the young adventurer’s flesh, the force of the blow bruised and stunned him. Nevertheless, the terrible punishment he suffered also saved Cord’s life, for it drove him away from the monster and its final throes.
The agony of the thrust caused the first great twitching, but then the worse torture of the burning within itself drove the hyperdragon mad with pain. It snapped its jaws and spat tongues of its gray fire skyward as its talons tore solid stone and its body beat the ground so as to turn it into pulverized dust and flying shards of rock. Then, green incandescence met gray flame. The two raged and combined, and the whole of the duskdrake’s innards became molten, glowing with an ugly ocher hue as the fires intermixed and consumed the beast.
Gord was up and running, heedless of wounds, enduring the pain of activity. He knew that it was a matter of life and death that he get away as quickly as he could manage. Without the talisman he had no extraordinary visual powers during the total gloom of Snuffdark, but the furnace within the convulsed body of the duskdrake provided ample illumination for the young adventurer.
By the hellish ocher light of the incandescent hyperdragon, Gord sped away, twisting and turning to avoid obstacles as he went. Then he stopped dead. Before him was his own sword stuck point down in the shadow- ground. In its throes, perhaps the dusk-drake had plucked the blade out and hurled it, hoping to thus free itself of the fiery green agony. The opal was gone but the short sword unharmed. He picked it up and turned as he heard a roaring sound from behind.
A rubine star shot forth bloody beams, spears of light that thickened and grew more intense instant by instant. Heat washed over his back, and as the wave of radiation struck, Gord dived headfirst to the hard stuff of shadow-ground. There came a deep, sustained booming, a sound like thunder, as the inferno of opaline fire and dragon flame devoured the dusk-drake and all that was around the beast. A massive shock wave ran through the land, and then everything was again black.
With great effort Gord climbed to his feet and stood, dazed and shaky but alive. Where the titanic duskdrake had been there was nothing to be seen. Close inspection enabled Gord to discover a great crater. Talisman and hyperdragon both were gone. He now faced the pitch blackness of Snuffdark with no magical aids save his sword and long dirk. Did he still have the means to discover the greater blackness of Imprimus’ hiding place? It seemed that the sacrifice of the duskdrake, unintended though it had been, had served the allies of the evil monster well. Gord, their sworn foe, might now be unable to find the lair in which they secluded themselves. Gord slumped in dejection.
Time now to apply more of the salve to heal his new hurts. He needed time too to consider what his next step would be. The grim wind of the Twilight death howled around him, reminding Gord that Snuffdark had by no means run its full course. Yet, even as long as the inky obscurement would persist before the Shadowrealm was again restored to its weird half-light, the interval seemed insufficient to serve. When shadows again slid and swayed across the plane, the power of the gloams would return, and the fate of Shadowking and his realm would be sealed.
Perhaps there was a slender hope left. His sword’s enchantment might serve. That, and his ring whose stone had seemingly picked up some of the green fire from the talisman, together might possibly do it. Having nothing to lose from the attempt, Gord shifted his short sword to his left hand and in a minute he stood peering into the blackness. Gord’s eyes stared blindly into the pitchy world, unable to penetrate the mantling of Snuffdark.
Then, slowly, little by little, his vision began to see variations in the blackness. Here was a darkness the color of coal, there a line of duller shade. Then Gord’s vision grew better still, and deep gray and shining ebony were distinguishable with visual ability that saw not but mere feet but outward by yards. Carefully, Gord resumed his hunt, searching for the enemy, Imprimus, in that place where Shadowking had told him was the most probable locale of the malign gloam’s lair. There were both time and opportunity after all.
The sudden onslaught of the duskdrake had been more than coincidence, that was certain. The terrible beast’s finding Gord in the total gloom of Snuffdark was likewise more than mere chance. The massive hyperdragon had been in the area for some reason, and the most likely one Gord could imagine was to serve as guardian for its ally, Imprimus, during the latter’s time of virtual powerlessness. If this theory was correct, then soon his enchanted vision should alert him to that fact. There would be darkness palpable, blackness more intense than any around, for such stuff gathered around the gloam as he lay in torpid repose during the interval of lightlessness.
“Hail, prince!” The coughing roar that conveyed this salutation was familiar. Was there a bit of sarcastic mirth in the greeting? It was hard to tell. Certainly Hotbreath’s eyes and bearing showed nothing but respect.
“May your pride always be well-fed,” Gord called back in formal response, “How came you here in this vile time?”
“With difficulty, but we too learned from Shadow-king where the nest of enemies is likely to be buried. I have come with some of my own pride, and Smoke-mane too is nearby, accompanied by his females. We are here to serve you once more.”
“Because…?”
“Because it is the will of our Allking. What other reason could there be?”
