Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow (31 page)

“A dragonrider! Ha, I have not felled one since the Great War,” the Morgathian knight scowled at Mkel.

“That would be the last one you ever will,
pogasch,
” Mkel angrily cursed at him in Draconic. Mkel swung his sword to the knight’s left side, which he knew would be hard to counter. The death knight did parry it but weakly. His sword must have been made of Morgathian black iron as well, for if it had been base iron or steel, Mkel’s mithril blade would have severed it. Mkel then swung around with a down stroke that severed the knight’s right arm at the elbow, even through his black iron armor. The knight screamed in agony and clutched the bleeding stump.

Mkel swung his sword back around to the left side and low, almost cutting his adversary’s leg off at the knee. He was so enraged that tears were streaking down his cheek. The evil knight fell to his right knee and looked up at Mkel, who then lowered his blade to the knight’s neck.

“What, no mercy from an Alliance dragonrider?” the death knight said arrogantly.

“Was there mercy for that boy’s father?” he shouted. “Now I will send you to the hell your kind so praises,” he said coldly but then hesitated, trying to compose himself. The silvery blade then almost launched by itself into the knight’s neck and emerged from his upper back. Mkel looked at the death knight’s eyes as the pain gave way to shock and finally a blank stare as the life faded from him. He then put his foot on the death knight’s chest and pushed him backwards, as he pulled his sword from the dead man’s throat. Mkel stood there and stared at the bright red blood dripping off Kershan’s mirrored blade until it was quickly all off the mithril sword. He had seen the grayish black blood of orcs and the green to blue blood of chromatic dragons and giants, but he had rarely seen human blood.

He was breathing very heavily, as if he had just run for several miles, but sobered his thoughts as he heard Gallanth’s voice in his mind.
Mkel, we have to go. There are chromatic dragons approaching
. Gallanth’s voice snapped him back to reality and he turned to the boy.

“I know how you feel, son. I lost my father a long time ago. He did not die in vain. I will be back for you,” he told the young boy, who started to tear up but, out of pride, was trying to hide it. Mkel put his hand on his shoulder, looked up to see his mother, and quickly turned and ran to Gallanth as he wiped the tears from his cheek. He jumped onto Gallanth’s waiting forearm and was lifted up to his flying saddle. He quickly fastened the four flying straps onto his belt and locked Markthrea back into place.

“How many chromatics are coming?” Mkel asked his dragon.

“I see a blue, a black, and a green, and two strange dragons that I have never seen before. Plus there is something different about the blue and black. I sense a greater power coming from the blue from some source inside him, and an intense almost supernatural anger or hatred from the black,” Gallanth explained.

“We can handle them, just be cautious in our approach.” Mkel grabbed his seeing crystal. “Jodem, be warned, we have five chromatics inbound, a blue, black, green, and two new strange dragons. Gallanth senses something is different with the blue and black,” he warned his wizard friend.

“Yes, I feel something wrong with them as well. I will warn Colonel Sheer,” the wizard replied.

Gallanth’s muscles tensed and with a powerful heft of his golden wings, they were airborne, rising to meet the new threat. Mkel could still feel the sorrow and emptiness of his and the boy’s loss. The anger was rippling through his body. He wanted to scream for blood and vengeance, to curse all evil and charge into battle pouring out all his rage into the fight, but he knew he had to focus or he would be no good to Gallanth in this contest, and his dragon would need him. He would need to focus and rechannel his anger, for the shots he was going to have to make would need his full mental effort. He would need to be here for Gallanth so they could meet this challenge.

Colonel Sheer and the infantry were finally pushing the orcs back. They had inflicted dozens of casualties against them, with only a couple wounded so far in their numbers. The infantry first line was holding, and the Battle Point archers were taking their toll on the orc ranks. The paladin cavalry had routed the orc mounted dire wolves and were now engaging the spider-mounted drow and the dark elves that were on foot. The land dragons, as always, were spearheading the infantry attack, slamming and incinerating the orcs and especially neutralizing the few ogres and trolls that were present.

The hippogriff wing almost had the dragon spawn, hymenoids, and manticores routed, but as soon as the enemy heard the challenging roars of the incoming chromatic dragons, their morale dramatically improved, and they renewed their attack. Gallanth, now at altitude, turned to intercept the incoming evil dragons. He gave a resounding battle roar, much deeper and reverberating than even the large blue.

Blue dragons were the second largest and powerful of the chromatic dragons. This blue was at least thirty-six yards in length with a sixty-yard wingspan, making it very large for its species. It was still a good deal smaller than a gold dragon, especially Gallanth. Its pale sandy blue hide almost blended in with the sky, and its extra large frilled ears were fanned out as it prepared for battle. Its large central nose horn was crackling with electrical energy, for it was preparing its lightning breath weapon.

The smaller bull horned black dragon was roaring and spitting with rage, seemingly eager to engage Gallanth in close combat, which for the much smaller thirty-yard-long swamp dragon would be basically suicide. It was pumping its fifty-yard-wide ragged wingspan as fast as it could to intercept Gallanth. The long-necked, alligator-like green dragon was staying back slightly, but they were the more cautious among the chromatic types. Both the black and green dragons had a superheated fiery acid breath weapon, which while somewhat effective against a gold dragon, had a very limited range and frequency of use.

The other two dragons were only as large as a white dragon. A little over half the size of Gallanth, they were obviously poor flyers but seemed to be very aggressive. Once Gallanth was within a thousand yards, he again let out a tremendous battle roar and fired a sunbeam burst from his eyes at the blue dragon, which struck its magic shield. The blue was pushed off course by the impact, but its spell shield held. He followed up with a barrage fireball spell to make the other dragons veer to the left and then immediately fired his plasma fire breath weapon, which he directed at the green dragon. It struck the green in the lower left flank, shattering its magic shield and inflicting a good amount of burn damage. It quickly veered off to get out of the way.

Mkel shot a mithril exploding tip at the black dragon once they were within his thousand-yard range. Hitting a flying dragon, especially a poorly flying black, was not an overly difficult task, especially for Mkel. The bolt hit the black’s invisible magic shield with a good-sized explosion, but the horned dragon took the impact and kept coming. Mkel cocked the crossbow and again fired, hitting the black dragon’s shield; he quickly followed up with a third bolt at almost point-blank range that finally decimated the magic barrier. Gallanth and the black dragon traded claw swipes as they passed each other. Gallanth ripped the black’s left shoulder, while it caught him on the left leg. Mkel could feel the wound register on his leg, since as a bonded pair, they shared each other’s pain. Gallanth started to wheel around to give the black a blast of fire when he suddenly folded his wings and dove to dodge the lightning bolt fired by the blue dragon. The white hot bolt of electricity missed him by only a few feet, for Mkel could smell the ozone in the air. The blue then unleashed a dark beam of tremendous power, which Gallanth could not evade while recovering from his sharp turn from the first bolt. It hit the gold dragon’s magic shield hard, causing his large frame to shudder, but his shield still held firm.

Mkel swung his crossbow on the mount swivel and took a quick aim at the blue, which was now veering off; he fired the last exploding-tipped bolt in his bow’s magazine. It hit the blue dragon’s shield square on its flank. It was weakening and would not hold much longer. “I have to reload,” Mkel told Gallanth as he reached for another clip of exploding-tipped bolts from the flying rig quiver.
Watch the flanks. I’m going to take out that blue. I must find his source of extra power, for that last lightning bolt he fired had twice the strength of a normal blue
, Gallanth replied telepathically as he banked to the right and dove after the blue.

Gallanth roared as he quickly flapped his wings to gain air speed to close the distance on the evil dragon. He caught up to within two hundred yards of the fleeing blue and fired a plasma fireball blast, which streaked through the air and struck the chromatic dragon above the tail, smashing through its spell shield and striking its back hindquarter. The blue dragon spun around in midair from the impact and immediately folded its wings in a deliberate high-speed dive to get away from Gallanth.

Just as Gallanth was preparing to dive after the blue dragon, Mkel fired and hit one of the new dragon species coming at them from the left, causing it to veer off, but the other struck Gallanth from his underside, piercing his armored hide with its jagged claws. Gallanth winced from the talon strikes and swung around, hitting it with his front right claw across its back.

“What are you, little horned devil?” Gallanth roared in Draconic at the smaller dragon.

“I am a talon dragon, and I will tear you apart, metallic worm,” the heavily armored dragon shouted back, its red eyes almost glowing. Its enlarged scales and hide were grayish in color, and instead of having the small teardrop-sized scales like most dragons, these scales all ended in a jagged point. It also had enlarged claws for a dragon of its smaller size, which was roughly the size of a white dragon at twenty-two yards long. Its tail ended in a wyvern-like stinger that was almost scimitar like. All of its back ridges were sharp spikes rather than the smooth ridges of other dragons, which aided them in flight.

“I do not think so, puny one. Your first lesson from a gold dragon will be a costly one,” Gallanth roared as he reared his head back and engulfed the much smaller dragon in a cone of searing hot dragon fire. This was Gallanth’s short-range but area effect breath weapon. To his and Mkel’s surprise, while it inflicted a good amount of damage to the talon dragon, it was only half as effective as it should have been. This new dragon, while just half of Gallanth’s size, seemed to have an extraordinary toughness about it.

“Gallanth, watch its tail,” Mkel shouted as the talon dragon reeled back from the searing hot cone of flame and attempted to strike with its tail. Gallanth then spun around in midair, catching its exposed neck with the flat arrow head-shaped plate on the end of his tail, which sliced through even the tough hide of this new dragon, almost severing its head.

The small wings of the talon dragon folded as it gave a departing groan, and its lifeless body plummeted toward the ground. Just then another dark-powered blast from the blue dragon again struck Gallanth’s spell shield from his back and rear. His shield still held but was now reduced to half strength. Again the blue dragon dove but Gallanth did not follow, as he turned to face the black dragon now bearing down on him. It opened its darkened jaws and spit a jet of flaming hot acid. Gallanth folded his wings and dove out of the way, just avoiding the virulent, flaming liquid stream. As he stretched his immense golden wings out to begin flying again, Gallanth raised his head and fired a beam of searing light from his eyes, striking the passing black on the left rear leg joint, leaving a decimating wound.

The black dragon then spun around and dove right into Gallanth, wildly raking him with its front claws and attempting to bite his shoulder. Gallanth slashed his right claw across the side of its head, knocking it back with his superior strength. This exposed its neck, into which Gallanth sunk his immense fangs. This normally would have killed a dragon of this size, but it kept struggling.

Mkel loaded his crossbow, cocked it, and took aim at the black’s head, but he was distracted by the screeching of the hippogriffs that were acting as their wingmen. He looked up to see the riders fighting with two dragon spawn, as two more were diving toward him and Gallanth. He swung his crossbow around and up on the swivel arm and fired at one of the diving spawn only thirty yards away. The bolt hit it square in the chest, with the resulting explosion blowing the man/dragon apart.

As Mkel cocked the lever to his crossbow again, the remaining spawn hit Gallanth’s back, spear first, which partially penetrated Gallanth’s heavily armored hide. The spawn then stood up and tried to spear him again, but it did not make it through the golden hide. Mkel could not fire his crossbow, since the spawn was too close for the exploding tips now loaded in his bow. It was too far away for his sword, so he quickly raised his right hand and pointed his fist toward the dragon creature. His ring pulsed in a red scintillating light, and a glowing projectile emanated from the dragonstone gem in the ring and darted toward the spawn. The mini plasma ball struck the dragon/man in the right shoulder, knocking him back and leaving a smoldering wound through its studded leather armor.

It looked at Mkel, gave a nasty hiss from its lizard-like head and pronounced Draconic jaws, and started to move toward him. Mkel followed up with three more plasma balls, hitting its midsection, with the last one finally delivering the killing blow as it slid off Gallanth’s back and fell end over end toward the ground.

In the meantime, Gallanth and the black dragon exchanged claw blows; he took another slash to the chest but the black was finally weakening, and one last blow to its neck finally felled it. Normally black dragons will attempt to retreat when mortally threatened, but this one fought to the death, like a wild boar attacking a grizzly bear. The bull horned dark dragon spiraled toward the ground. Gallanth roared the Draconic victory prayer for it to find its soul, which all metallic dragons announce when they kill a chromatic dragon in hope that its spirit will acknowledge the error of its ways.