The Dragons of Ash and Smoke (Tales from the New Earth Book 5) (58 page)

The little earthen was standing as
still as the statue he resembled and, as Simon and Aeris joined him,
pointed upward.

“He is there, master,” he
said in a barely audible whisper.

Simon opened his shield to let the
little guy in and sealed it again. Then he looked up, and up again.
An errant gust of wind cleared away the smoke for a moment and there
was Pyrathius, staring down at them balefully.

My God, the wizard thought numbly. His
head looks like it's the size of my tower. We can't beat that!

The scaled, red maw of the primal
dragon opened and his thin black lips pulled back in a feral grin,
exposing blackened, twelve-inch fangs.

“Well now, if it isn't the
dragon-killing wizard, come to visit.”

The ground literally shook as Pyrathius
spoke and Simon staggered back several steps, trying to keep his
balance.

The dragon's enormous, cat-like yellow
eyes blazed evilly at the wizard with reptilian amusement.

“I wouldn't exactly call it a
visit,” Simon shouted up at him, trying to be heard over the
roaring of the gas vents and the rumbling of the earth.

“You asked us to be your allies,
remember?”

“Of course I remember, human. But
you've taken so long to give me an answer, I was beginning to think
that you would turn me down.”

“Turn you down?”

Simon tried to look surprised. He hoped
it worked; he wasn't really much of an actor.

“How could we turn you down?”
he continued. “Without you, the queen will kill us all, won't
she?”

“Exactly right. How clever you
are, for a human. Yes, she will destroy both myself and my servants,
and then you and your people. None of us is safe from her madness.”

The dragon reared back and flapped his
enormous wings once. The smoke and dust were blasted away in all
directions and the floor of the crater was exposed for a brief few
seconds.

It looked like the surface of the moon,
if the moon was on the doorstep of Hades. Glowing red cracks and
bubbling pools of lava reflected evilly off of the dragon's scorched,
scarred scales. Twisted lumps of rock and enormous boulders were
scattered drunkenly in all directions. Pyrathius was nestled into the
exact center of the crater and the heat from the volcano rose up
around him in shimmering waves. The primal looked comfortable in his
hellish surroundings and watched Simon like a cat watching a
particularly plump bird. It was unnerving.

“So what exactly did you want us
to do in this war of yours against your mother?” Simon yelled.
“What's your plan?”

“Plan? Ah yes, a plan. I suppose
I do need one of those, don't I?”

The dragon closed his evil eyes and
lowered his head to rest it on his forearms, looking for all the
world like he had fallen asleep.

“What is he doing?” Aeris
whispered as he flew close to the wizard's ear.

“He's playing with us,”
Simon muttered. “The way a cat will play with a mouse before
finally killing it. We are amusing him.”

“But master, doesn't he want our
help against the queen?”

The wizard looked down at the little
guy and smiled bitterly.

“I thought he might have been
honest about that, but now that we're here, I think it was all a
ruse. Maybe at first he might have wanted that, but now that we are
in his grasp, as he sees it, I think that his hatred for us, and for
me in particular, will convince him to attack.”

He gave Pyrathius a quick glance.

“As I've said, arrogance
personified. Even his brothers had the wit to be somewhat cautious.
This guy? He's just the biggest bully in the playground. No wonder
the queen wants to kill him.”

The primal opened his eyes and lifted
his head high above the ground, so high that Simon was forced to
crane back his neck to see it.

“Something you may not know about
dragons, little human, is that our sense of hearing is quite good.
And I just heard every word you said.”

Simon leaned on his staff and twisted
it so that the end dug into the ground a bit.

“I know you did, Pyrathius.”
The dragon's eyes widened as he heard his name used. “You were
meant to. I just wanted you to know that I know what you are really
doing. You seem to be underestimating humanity.”

“Underestimating? Bah!”

The dragon spat a globule of fire that
slammed into the ground with a burst of flames. Simon's shield
spluttered and flashed as bits of molten rock bounced off of it.

“I do not underestimate you. I
know exactly how powerless you all really are. Yes, you killed my
brothers. So what? I have personally examined several of those kills.
And my minions have spied on you each time you took down a primal.
That is why my drakes are not with me. They are afield, watching,
learning, reporting back to me. Did you know that? I thought not.
Every kill, every victory, was the result of trickery and base
deceit. Every. Single. One.”

The massive head shot down at alarming
speed and a blast of wind screamed by the wizard's shield until
Pyrathius face was no more than a dozen yards from Simon and the
elementals.

“You are not powerful, human. You
are a coward, a spineless worm. You deceived your betters and
overcame them but don't think that makes you heroic; it does not. It
makes you exactly what you just accused me of being: a bully. My
brothers were honorable creatures. They fought the way that dragons
have always fought. Maw to maw, power to power, face to face. But
you? You befuddled them, used their own nobility against them.”

The dragon pulled back again.

“Oh but you have much to answer
for. I only wish that I could kill you as slowly as you deserve. But
I cannot. I can, however, tell you something that will fill your soul
with despair as you fall into eternal night. Know that I have found a
way to sever myself from my queen, and my lesser dragons from myself.
No longer will harm to them mean harm to me. No longer will the death
of our beloved mother mean our deaths. When I defeat her, and I will
defeat her, I will live on. The supreme being on this world. And I
shall hunt down each member of your wretched race one by one and slay
them as slowly and as deliciously as I can. That is my revenge on
you, wizard, for your crimes against my kind. Keep that thought in
mind as you die, won't you?”

“My God, you do love the sound of
your own voice, don't you?” Simon yelled up at him.

“Mock me if you will,” the
primal chortled. “I will allow it. And think on this as well.
If you did somehow find a way to destroy me, you would still lose. My
lesser dragons will not fall at my death. They will go on. And thanks
to my intelligence and power, they will thrive, because now they have
the gift that those cursed Chaos lords refused to grant us. A gift
given by me, Pyrathius!”

Simon began to gather power from the
air around him, drawing in the magical energy that infused the very
rock he was standing on.

“Kronk, go and get Kassus,”
he whispered. “Tell him to strike as soon as he can. Aeris, get
to Ethmira. She can attack at any time. The primal is so big that I'm
sure her archers can hit him from up on the rim.”

“Take care, master,” the
little guy said and ducked underground.

“Okay. Open a hole for me in your
shield,” Aeris muttered. “Thanks. And watch your ass, my
dear wizard. I do believe that this dragon is insane.”

The air elemental faded from sight and
Simon counted to three before sealing his shield again.

“What gift are you talking
about?” he shouted at the primal, keeping the monster's
attention on himself.

“What gift? Why, the greatest of
all gifts, of course.”

Simon hadn't realized that a dragon
could actually look smug, but this one did. In fact, he looked
extremely pleased with himself.

“I have given them the ability to
procreate.”

“You mean...?”

“Yes, human. My minions can now
lay eggs and have offspring of their own. Soon the skies of this
world with be darkened by the wings of countless red dragons. Ah, it
makes my old heart soar just thinking about it. And imagine, if it
hadn't been for you killing my brothers, why, this never would have
happened! So in a way, this is all your fault.
Congratulations...wizard.”

Pyrathius leered down at him as Simon
stumbled back in shock at the accusation.

No, this can't be my fault, he thought.
His mind was reeling. The dragons were going to exterminate the human
race. I had to kill the primals! I had no choice. This monster is
playing me, lying through his rotten teeth.

Is he? It was that small voice that
sometimes whispered to him in the dark. Is he really? All it takes is
a single snowflake to start an avalanche. A single pebble to set off
a landslide. And that was you, Simon. You were the catalyst for all
of it. Good job.

“Ah, I see by your face that you
understand now,” the primal said, gloating. “All this
time you've seen yourself as the hero, haven't you? And yet you've
been the villain all along. This is so satisfying to me, it really
is. I can happily kill you now knowing that you have seen the truth.
Delightful.”

“You talk too much!” Simon
shouted in fury.

He meshed the power that he had
gathered around him into a single bolt and pointed Mortis de Draconis
at the huge maw above him.

“Ice Spear!” he bellowed
and unleashed the spell.

A razor-sharp missile of bitter ice
coalesced and screamed upward. Pyrathius, caught completely
off-guard, pulled back and brought up his wings to block the spear.
The missile slammed into the thick red skin of his wings and ripped
through it, leaving ragged holes in both that spewed green blood. It
showered down to the ground, smoking and burning as it landed.

The primal dragon screamed in pain and
flung back his wings. He glared at Simon and sucked in an enormous
breath, preparing to unleash a tremendous blast of fire at the
wizard.

From out of the concealing smoke and
fumes of the right side of the crater, a howling line of bolts,
burning white, appeared and smashed into the side of Pyrathius' head,
knocking him off balance. He choked and lost his focus, whipping his
head around to search for his attacker.

Tamara, Simon thought with relief.
Great timing!

The dragon was still glaring at the
ground, trying to find his assailant, when lightning blasted into the
back of his head, sizzling up from the opposite side of the volcano.

Pyrathius howled again and spun around,
his enormous tail whipping through the air so close to Simon that he
had to duck and roll to avoid being smashed to mush. His shield took
the brunt of the blow and was shattered in the process.

“Gnats!” the dragon roared
furiously. “Insects! I shall crush you beneath my feet.”

He glared this way and that but the
concealing smoke hid the mages even from him.

“You think to hide from me?
Fools!”

Pyrathius began to beat his enormous
wings and violent gusts of wind shot across the crater. Simon was
lifted off of his feet and flew back a dozen yards.

“Diamond Skin,” he managed
to wheeze breathlessly just before he slammed into the sharp rocks
and jagged ground.

His skin tightened and he abruptly
looked like a man carved out of crystal. He skidded across the rocks
harmlessly and ended up on his back staring up at the distant red
sky.

“Aha! Now I have you!” the
dragon cried as the smoke that had hidden Simon's friends blew away.

He began sucking in another great
breath, getting ready for a fiery blast, and then the sky that the
wizard was staring up at suddenly turned black. Hundreds of arrows
arched out over the rim of the volcano and rained down on Pyrathius,
slicing into his head and neck and making him howl in agony.

The dragon spun again and Simon cowered
against the wall of the crater, trying to avoid the massive tail.

How can anything that big move so fast,
he wondered. He could only hope that Tamara and the others weren't
being squashed flat as the dragon stomped around in pain.

The wizard pushed himself to his feet
and watched, waiting for an opportunity to strike. The primal's head
was tinged a sickly green with a sheen of blood, but the wounds from
the arrows were obviously just a minor irritant. Another flight of
missiles followed the first and this time the dragon protected his
head with his enormous wings. The arrows dug in and caused him some
pain, but there was little damage.

We need some help, Simon thought. Where
the hell is Kassus and his elementals?

As if in answer to his thought, the
ground beneath Pyrathius suddenly changed color and hardened, the red
glow disappearing.

“What is this?” the dragon
roared in confusion as he stared at the crater floor.

And then the hardened lava grew up and
over his huge paws like a living thing. It locked the dragon in place
and stopped him from avoiding the steady rain of arrows from the
elves.

When the rock had encased the dragon's
body up to his belly, it stopped. Simon watched, waiting for
Pyrathius to begin roaring in anger again. What happened instead
surprised him.

The primal began to laugh, an evil
chuckle that made the wizard shudder.

“Is that the best you can do?”
the dragon said as he twisted his long neck to look down at Simon.
“The same trick you used on my brother? Pathetic!”

The dragon narrowed his eyes and his
red scales began to glow. Waves of heat blasted outward and the stone
that held him turned white hot and burst, spewing molten rock in all
directions.

“Arrows? Elementals? Mages? None
of these things can truly harm me.” Pyrathius laughed again.
“Are you done? If not, make your last attempt a good one or
prepare to face your end. You are beginning to bore me.”

Smoke had risen again to obscure the
floor of the crater and more magic missiles slammed into the dragon,
distracting him.