Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) (52 page)

“Dragon shield,” Cheleya ordered creating ten large scales in an overlapping formation before her left hand. Her preferred color of red was echoed in her construction as the girl watched Mor’treya closing
fast. The gargoyles were bred to fly and were faster than the dragoness with her magical wings in a straight line.

“You can’t beat me here, Cheleya,” the mar’goyn’lya challenged her as the small girl continued to rise into the air. “I am faster than you and there are no stone spires to use to create space. Turning faster does little when there are no obstacles to avoid.”

   A fireball was avoided with another twist and the winged girl retorted, “There are plenty of things I can avoid if you continue throwing fireballs at me. Now if you desist, I won’t have to hurt you, Mor’treya. Leave this fight between Malaketh and me.”

With her night vision, Cheleya could see an eagerness for the fight in the gargoyle’s eyes that she had never seen before, though she remembered Mor’treya was always the one that appeared more angry in their training missions when the che’ther got the better of her mar’goyn’lya pursuers. Perhaps the woman wanted this fight to prove that she was better than the younger girl. One woman was born with wings and the other had been born to walk the land. It had always irked Mor’treya that the dragoness in her little human body had nearly bested the two gargoyles in their training fights every time. No che’ther should be able to fly more gracefully than her kind. It wasn’t natural and in fact was in complete disregard to the order of the world.

“So you won’t let this go because I can fly?” the girl asked as air whipped her blond ponytail under her chin. Another fireball came for her, but Cheleya’s eyes knew the action from her fellow student. She never seemed to learn anything knew and seldom held any surprises for the che’ther. Her eyes also watched Malaketh following the two students, albeit at a cautious distance. He could see the girls were going to use a lot of energy fighting one another. Whether Mor’treya succeeded or lost, the master would be ready to finish the dragoness.

“I don’t care that you can fly, but you act like you can fly better than I. You’re a che’ther and I am a mar’goyn’lya. Learn your place, dragon girl,” the gray skinned gargoyle with her long black hair
fluttering down her back finally surprised Cheleya with her intensity of anger. An air spell unseen by the eye, but felt by anyone with sensitivity to magic caught the dragoness in a twisting swirl of wind. A small tornado, the girl was caught and her magical wings would have been torn to shreds had she continued to hold her constructs.

Releasing her crimson wings, Cheleya tucked her arms and let her weight pull her from the snarling wind spell. Face pointed towards the ground, the girl hurled like an arrow towards the solid earth, but it was nothing for the little blond to recreate her wings once more. With the added speed of her plummeting body, the dragoness arced back into the air twisting onto her back to see Mor’treya holding in confusion above her.

“Chase her, you idiot,” Malaketh complained as he ordered the gargoyle student. “She humiliated you in class because you couldn’t adapt to her speed and cleverness. Will you let her do it to you again?”

“No!” the mar’goyn’lya snarled pulling her wings in before diving for the dragoness. The man’s words had struck home and Mor’treya’s eyes held a smoldering anger for the che’ther girl that Cheleya had never realized must have been lying there below the surface. Mor’treya had always been the one who complained, while Kel’lor had always been amused by her talent for flying.

Cheleya executed a spell combining the earth and wind sending a large chunk of stone hurling into the air between her and the angry gargoyle. Concentrating on her alteration magic, the hard stone lost its edge and softened. Creating mud, the mar’goyn’lya had been too slow to avoid the stone. As her eyes grew wide fearing the pain of the stone, the mud surprised her clinging to her body weighing her wings down pulling her closer to the earth below the gargoyle.

Despite the distance between them, Cheleya could see the surprise in Malaketh’s eyes as well. The master had never known of her alteration magic. The exchange of looks between them ended quickly, however, as she was forced to watch as Mor’treya landed in the pool with a splash. It had been a controlled landing and the splash was meant to clean the mud from her body.

“Ice dragon,” Cheleya commanded another dragon mage spell into being. The air changed in front of her right hand pointed at the pool. Both the pool and the gargoyle in it became cold and stiff. The shape of a sinewy dragon hurled into the pool before Mor’treya could escape and the water froze binding her legs. Ice formed on the gargoyle’s rough clothing hampering her upper body as well.

A scream of anger raged from the mar’goyn’lya, but Cheleya’s attention was no longer on her bound friend. The dragoness knew that would only hold the woman for a short time and it was time to see if her master would win over his student.

Cor’Dargan’s speed on land was the only thing keeping him from defeat. His stone runner title had been earned long ago and it was one of the spells that he still often used. It was also magic that he had created and few had come to master.

Hovering in the air and dodging the stone projectiles thrown at him easily, Alk’leyal fought him with an advantage. The fact that he had failed to defeat the che’ther bound to land was beginning to frustrate the wizard, but it was just the latest conflict between the two races. Before their world burned and they fled to Alus, che’ther and mar’goyn’lya had been in a struggle for dominance of their world. The creatures of the air looked down on their enemies, but the strength of the giant land monsters could never be overcome.

Only when their world was dying from a sun that sought to burn the life from them all, had the two races come together for mutual survival.

Then they found their races reduced to a few thousand total surrounded by humans numbering in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps more, so they continued to work together forming stronger bonds. Though neither che’ther nor mar’goyn’lya held any hatred for their brothers any longer, they still often considered who was better. The gargoyles ruled the air and lived in their eyries, while the massive dragons built their city and farms on the lower ground.

Dragon magic brought those two worlds together in a unique way. Che’ther became human in form and learned to fly invading the world of the mar’goyn’lya letting them learn more of their brothers. The gargoyles reaped the benefits of having che’ther farms and goods, but there was a certain amount of resistance to the dragon mages. They worked together, but their iron hold on the air was lessened by those who could fly as humans with their amulets.

Such differences often sought to abolish their cooperative world, but they continued to live together in harmony even so. Cor’Dargan could feel the mar’goyn’lya’s enjoyment at fighting a che’ther even if he was in human form. It was a return to the days of old when a gargoyle could challenge a dragon to prove their dominance over those on the ground.

“You’re not bad, Stone Runner, for a farmer,” Alk’leyal chided the che’ther raising stone barriers to weave between separating him from the winged wizard. “If you were stronger in fire or wind, perhaps you could even beat me, but you are trapped with that limited earth magic. You can’t reach me, but I can reach you. I admit that you are quick or this would be over already, but you are on borrowed time.”

“Your advantage of flight saves you the same disaster,” Dargan countered as he determined his options. The wizard was correct that using his current tactics left him on borrowed time. It was only a matter of Alk’leyal catching him in the open before the farmer was done. “I would use wings to join you, but I fear that I am like a newborn calf on its legs for the first time. My daughter is the one to fear in the air.”

Pointing towards the pool and Mor’treya fighting to get free from Cheleya’s ice spell, Cor’Dargan added, “Your friend has discovered that for herself apparently.”

A quick glance towards the pool gave the farmer a chance to strike back in the gargoyle’s confident dismissal of him. Stone lifted beneath Dargan as he sent his magic into the ground around him as well. Hundreds of pounds of earth rose in roughly three foot sections all around the gargoyle. Leaping from the stone column beneath his feet, the che’ther raced forward using his stone runner spell from one step to another closing the distance so fast that Alk’leyal was nearly within his grasp within seconds.

“How?” the wizard exclaimed in shock trying to lift free of the surrounding stone.

Hands coming together in a clap, Dargan brought the stone up and around the gargoyle trapping wings and arms before he could rise. Letting the weight of the stones carry Alk’leyal towards the ground, the farmer released the remaining steps that were taxing his strength quickly. A thundering of booms as the heavy earth returned to its origin brought other eyes to their match in surprise.

Dargan searched the arena and the air above looking to help if he could.

“Too bad you destroyed the power of my amulet,” Cheleya stated to Malaketh as the two stared at one another in a stalemate of inaction. The girl had risen to confront her master leaving little space between them to react. For his part, Malaketh seemed wary of his student and her ability to use magic with greater skill than he expected. “If you had that, I bet that you could have made me willingly follow you back to Mar’kal. I might even say that I willingly stole from the academy and serve the Dark Emperor, but you chose to seal the pieces inside of me to prevent my ever changing back to a che’ther!”

Her words were becoming heated, but she maintained a cool, calm demeanor awaiting his attack. If the fight went too long, she had no doubt that Mor’treya would be rejoining Malaketh in the sky to try and destroy her. Unfortunately, the dragoness had no idea if she could defeat the man who had taught her much of what she knew. She could only hope that the adage that those who couldn’t do taught, applied here. Sadly that rarely happened in the wizard world however.

“I don’t know what you mean, my former student. Perhaps your meddling with artifacts that you couldn’t understand or control put you in this state. Your strange fixation on trying to make everyone believe that I am the criminal here is appalling, young lady. Surely the wizards in Mar’kal will have to look into what is coloring your mind. Is this what made you turn against Mar’kal and steal from the Academy of Magic?”

“Shut up, Malaketh! The others can’t hear you here. They are too busy fighting each other to pay attention to us right now.

“You can stop lying to the air, because I know what you did to me.”

“Lying to the air,” the man said in amusement. “Fine, if you are done talking then it is time that I show you why I am a master and you are still a student. I will hate harming that pretty little human face though. Truly it is amazing what these amulets will create. If I didn’t know better, I would think that you are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Alas should you fall from the sky and crush your beautiful skull, it would truly be a shame.”

Twin flaming dragon claws reached for the girl projected from his outstretched hands reaching to snare the dragoness.

“Wing strike,” Cheleya snapped as her right wing twisted with her body. Striking almost faster than the eye could see, the wing sliced like an iron blade through the pair of claws.

His eyes went wide with surprise, but Malaketh was a master as he had said and quickly countered with fire and wind. Tornadoes of fire spun from his hands to strike at the dragoness like dragon fire.

Ducking and diving towards the ground, Cheleya sought to avoid the flame as the wizard guided his spells to chase her at an angle. His reach was surprising, but the girl managed to escape the fires much to his annoyance.

Turning to face him from a greater distance, Cheleya noted that the man touched his amulet before a surge of power sent a bolt of darkness to try and strike across the distance. Countering with the dragon claw spell, the dragoness watched as Malaketh’s eyes narrowed seeing his spell easily thwarted by the dragon magic.

The two faced off while Cheleya wished that the others had seen her master’s use of dark magic. It was a spell that wasn’t used in Mar’kal, but she had heard mention of the spell being used in the tournament. The girl had also seen the shrike wizard fight with such a spell and watched dragon magic defeat his. The night magic had many strengths, but it was a counter to elemental magic. Apparently Malaketh had yet to learn that dragon magic wasn’t elemental based and thus was the perfect defense against the dark magic of the emperor’s wizards.

“Ice dragon,” Cheleya ordered a second ice spell directing it at her master. Malaketh tried to dodge it, but the girl was too fast. The icy construct clipped his left wing freezing it instantly causing the wing to break, but the master didn’t panic despite the setback. It was a momentary win as the man had barely dropped a dozen feet before a new wing was called forth with another spell.

“Dragon gale,” the man fired off a second spell an instant later.

A torrent of wind whipped the air tossing the girl like a leaf before a storm. Seeing Cheleya at his mercy, Malaketh chained another spell greedily hoping to crush the dragoness with his next blow. “Dragon breath,” he ordered blowing his student a fiery kiss as a stream of bright orange fire launched at the faltering dragon mage. With confidence that he was the master and she merely a student, Malaketh didn’t fear as he lost sight of her behind the cloud of flame.