Heir To The Nova (Book 3) (24 page)

“So I take it this isn’t one of the nice dragons?”
Maya sent sarcastically.
“Any point in trying to reason with it?”

“No, not really.”

“Good,”
she smirked.

I paused, a little taken aback by that remark, but decided to fill her in with more information
. “Whites are evil bastards, probably the least intelligent of all the dragons. But don’t underestimate them; a stupid dragon is still smarter than most mages. They’re basically the twins’ nasty cousins; either one of our girls could easily take this guy if they were full grown, but that’s not going to happen. Anecdotally, white dragons are probably the very critters that made you dark elves so afraid of dragons.”

“Dark elves fear no dragon, Magic Boy,”
she corrected me.

“Oh yeah? You were pretty scared in my foster parents’ stable when you found out what the twins were.”

“Do not confuse surprise and loathing for fear,”
Maya said aristocratically.

“Right… So what’s our plan?”

“Plan? You think I have a plan?”

“You always have a plan for these things,”
I chuckled.

“Really? You honestly think I woke up one morning and made a battle plan tailored for the highly improbable event that one day I would sprout wings and have to fight a dragon in the air?”

“Um, yes.”

She giggled a bit, which I thought was odd considering that we had a dragon trying to eat us at the moment.
“Ah, my love, you know me so well. Follow me!”

Dipping our wings, we dived into the forest below, gliding soundlessly through the trees. This was classic old growth, giant white pines rising 250 feet or more over the mossy, fern-covered underbrush. The bases of some of these grand trees were wider than my wingspan. I couldn’t imagine even a dragon wanted to hazard hitting many of these. As we dropped below the upper canopy, there was almost no breeze; and light only penetrated in occasional shafts of light stabbing down from above. Our eyes adapted to the lower light automatically, and I noticed small animal life, insects, and small birds, moving quickly out of our way. Soon the trees were so thick, we had to constantly shift sideways and tuck in our wings slightly, to continue to fly. Fortunately, this was exactly the type of environment that our owl wings were created for; it was actually fun while it lasted. But our descent had slowed us down considerably, and now our sharper ears could pick up the rockslide sounds of the big white passing overhead with his massive leathery wings. Circling, he headed back to the spot where we had first dipped down into the trees and started blasting the forest below, hoping that we were just hidden in place. The unfortunate trees where his breath weapon hit froze to the core instantly. The abrupt expansion of the liquids inside exploded the bark and small branches outward off the trunks like siege engine shrapnel.

Still well away from the destruction, I watched as Maya slowed, flared her wings, and dropped soundlessly to the forest floor. She sprinted under a huge deadfall and I followed as quietly as possible. As soon as I joined her under cover, she ripped off both our helms, and threw herself into my arms and kissed me passionately.

“Isn’t this exciting?” she gushed, practically dancing up and down like a schoolgirl.

“Why, yes,” I deadpanned. “I have always wanted to tangle with yet another monstrously oversized evil dragon.”

“I know, right? Isn’t this fantastic? Ok, are you ready for this?” she bubbled with a bit more enthusiasm in her voice than I was comfortable with.

“Ready for what? I think we can get away if we’re really quiet…”

She silenced me with a disapproving look from those emerald eyes and shook her head.

“Alex, we can’t leave it running rampant around the countryside. What if it shows up at Sky Raven when we aren’t there? Or worse yet, supporting the Duke’s army? Right now, we have the odds in our favor; we need to put this mad dog down.”

“You’re wayyyy too happy about this, you know,” I muttered accusingly.

“It will be a fantastic story to tell our many, many children.” She stroked the side of my face with her slim gauntleted hand, grinning coquettishly. “Now here’s the plan…you distract him and I will do the rest.”

I groaned. “Well, I really hate that plan, but I guess I don’t have a better one. Just remember, I don’t know to what extent even Winya is going to be able to pierce that armor. If it turns out she can’t, promise me that you will give this up. We need both the Child of Darkness and the Child of Light to defeat the Duke. One or both of us getting eaten will not further the cause.”

“Yeah, yeah…sure, sure,” Maya tittered, reaching up on her toes to give me one last peck on the lips and then put her helm back on. “Shhhh, he’s getting closer.”

I watched her step out from under the deadfall and leap into the air, instantly fading from view as Winya triggered the suit’s enchantments. A few seconds later, she was gone and even my enhanced vision couldn’t track her.

Ok, great. What would distract a ten-ton behemoth with a really bad attitude? Cautiously, I unsheathed my war hammer and took to the air, straining my ears to try and locate the white’s current position. It wasn’t too hard; he actually made a lot of noise in flight. At the moment, he was flying in a loose circle and occasionally sending an icy blast randomly into the forest. Beating my wings softly, I rose up into the peaks of the great trees, cruising just below the tops.

With a slight push, I popped up and spotted him moving away from me, the tip of his long tail swishing back and forth only a few feet from my head. Believe me, the view from this end of an adult male dragon is anything but gorgeous. Re-sheathing my hammer, I extended my loaded gauntlet and fired three steel bolts at the soft, fleshy parts beneath the tail.

Now, normally, the ordinary non-magical steel bolts would ding off a dragon’s hide so easily he might not even notice; but amazingly, this simple act of defiance caught his attention very well. With a super-cooled screech of blind rage, he whipped around and fired a massive boiling cloud of ice over the tops of the trees.

My top half caught a glancing blast as I instantly dropped like a rock back down into the cover of the forest. Even in my armor with its undersuit, I felt a distinct chill as I rolled over and bolted for ground level, turning ninety degrees to the left as I descended frantically. As I got closer to the ground and the warmer, denser air, I noticed frost steaming off my armor in a contrail behind me. A little voice in the back of my head wondered if the icy dragon breath could cause even my armor to become brittle enough to shatter; best not to find out…

Flying hard and dodging trees, I tried to put some distance between us. Unfortunately, he had the high ground advantage and was flying clear of obstructions above the tree tops. Another wave of frost lashed out at me from above. My wider field of raptor vision warned me barely in time to dodge as the trees around me took the bulk of the damage, spewing out bark shards and sending limbs cascading to the ground noisily.

Practically flying sideways, I ducked into a particularly dense area, which I hoped would shield me from his view. Once in, I changed directions again and then again a minute later staying low to the ground. Above me, the beast slowed up perceptibly, his huge grayish-white head with flared nostrils sweeping back and forth trying to pick up either my scent or a visual.

The dragon and I followed this strange dance of fox and hare for several minutes. He didn’t dare follow me into the heavy woods, but I couldn’t face him directly above the trees either. Sighing, I contented myself with doing my job and being bait, trusting in my dark elf mate.

I found a particularly effective method was to fly a short ways out from him staying down low near the forest floor. I would glow up my wings brightly for a few moments, then darken and change course immediately. I imagined it looked pretty impressive to see the forest light up like a paper party lantern. In any case, whether it was the effects of the Nova’s holy light or just frustration about what I was doing, I held the white’s angry full attention admirably.

“Gotcha!”
I heard Maya’s thoughts across Winya’s link.

..................................................

Maya

Alex was doing a superb job of keeping the monster agitated and flying slowly in a search pattern, ideal for my purposes. As I clamped my legs down on either side of its broad neck just behind its scaly head, I’m pretty sure he didn’t even notice at first. I retracted my wings and Winya activated my cling enchantments, which effectively glued me to the beast. For better or worse, I was now committed. I spared a quick glance at the canopy below admiring Alex’s light show, but now it was my turn.

Drawing my sword, I breathed,
“Winya, let’s see if we can end this in one shot; give me your best effort!”

The words ‘Winya Coia’ on the side of my weapon flashed brightly as I brought her down in a slash right where the neck and head met. Sparks flew off in a sparkling wave, and the beast’s neck scales were scored deeply, but nothing penetrated into actual dragon flesh.

“Ow!”
Winya complained.
“That really hurt! Better hold on.”
With a roar that I’m sure could have been clearly heard ten miles away, the white thrashed its serpent head around trying to find its tormentor. It could reach just about anywhere, but not the spot where I sat.

“Ok, Winya, how should we do this then? Any ideas?”
I noticed that Alex was energetically trying to increase the frequency of his light show in the trees below, in an attempt to draw the beast’s attention.

“Maya, if a dragon’s scales are anything like a fish, they are only attached by a flat flap at the top of the scale and then the overlap helps hold them in place. See if you can slide my tip under a scale, and maybe we can sever the flap holding it.”

The white had calmed down somewhat and was again tracking Alex; I suppose because I really hadn’t managed to hurt him yet. I did as my sword and best friend suggested. After getting her into position, I jabbed her forward and was rewarded with a ‘snickt’ sound. One of the small leaf-shaped scales detached and was caught by the wind and vanished behind us. To my dismay, it appeared there was another layer of scales below the outer one; this could take a while.

Meanwhile, the dragon had made the difficult mental calculation that perhaps the object on its neck was more of a threat than the light show in the forest. Changing course, he started to fly through the tops of some of the tallest trees in an effort to scrape me off.

By this time, Winya and I had a system of sorts going, and we were harvesting two or three scales a minute. We had a couple close calls with trees, but the dragon couldn’t dislodge me without first clocking himself in the face with the trunk, and he wasn’t that committed yet.

Roaring, he changed tactics and vaulted higher into the sky and inverted himself. I dangled upside down for a bit, but my cling enchantments held me firmly; and besides, I really wasn’t afraid of heights anymore. Winya and I continued to plug away, and I was starting to see a material that looked more like a mottled, warty hide being revealed where the scales were removed.

Vibrating with rage, the dragon thrashed around some more, and then he dove sharply. Close to the foothills near Xarparion there is a small but deep lake fed constantly by icy run off from the outlying mountains, and he was headed straight for it. Oh-oh…

“We need to work faster, my girl! I don’t like the direction this is taking!
” I gasped, the lake getting bigger and bigger.

“Maya, another ten scales or so and we should be able to make a stab at the weird hide stuff. Get it? Make a stab? Wow, no one appreciates good sword humor around here.”

“Believe me, I will appreciate the hell out of you, after we kill this thing,”
I gritted, the wind rushing past me so fast my eyes were tearing up and the air was whistling loudly through my suit.

“Um…Maya, I’m retreating back into the suit so you don’t lose me.”

“What? Why?”

“Brace yourself; impacting the lake in three, two, one…,”
Winya intoned softly.

I felt a body slam hit me like a giant’s fist. Had it not been for the cling enchantment, I would have tumbled back down the spinal ridge of the dragon’s back and been lost. Shaking my head to clear it, I felt panic set in momentarily; I could see myself drowning in this icy tomb.

Forcing myself to open my eyes, I saw bubbles, waterlogged tree limbs and fish flashing by, as well as the light of the surface retreating to a small golden orb above. Strangely, the choking heaviness of water did not seem to be filling my suit or my throat. In fact, I gratefully found I could still breathe just fine.

“Wow, I never saw that one before,”
Winya said in awe
. “The suit sealed itself up just as you entered the water; there are even lenses over your eye slits.”

Briefly overwhelmed and amazed, I gave myself a few moments to just look around in awe. The lake was a huge bowl, with lofty cathedrals of downed logs and trees, each elegantly covered by strands of iridescent weeds. Schools of brightly colored fish dodged out of our way as the dragon implacably cruised around. High above us, the sun could only penetrate so far into the depths, but individual rays did occasionally lance down like spear points in the gloom. The white dragon made a few half-hearted attempts to scrape me off on sunken timbers, but again with no success.