The Dragon Isles

Chapter Forty-Two

“Dive for it, Trip!” Mik yelled. He jumped with all his might as Tempest swiped her huge claw across the terrace. The claw smashed and scattered her remaining dragonspawn. Their bodies bounced lifelessly down the cliff face.

Mik and Trip barely avoided the deadly talon. They arced over the volcanic cliff face and sliced cleanly into the surging waters at the mountain’s base.

The dragon’s flipperlike hand smashed into the great diamond-the cornerstone of the Veil. Lightning flashed from the artifact, wracking the sea dragon’s body. Tempest screamed as the scales of her forelimb caught fire. Howling in pain, she turned from the ruins and dove into the pounding surf to extinguish the flames.

One bleeding man met another on the landing below the temple. Lord Kell looked up from where he sat, oozing blood, with his back against a pillar. The breath wheezed raggedly in his lungs; blood coated his lightly armored body. He smiled wanly as Shimmer lurched over the top of the stairs and into the plaza from below.

The orange eyes of the dragon-man met the gray eyes of the human lord. They nodded at each other. The rain washing over their bodies mingled their blood in pools on the marble flagstones.

“We have much to make amends for, you and I,” Shimmer said.

Kell nodded and coughed up blood. He glanced up the stairway to where his coral lance had fallen. “Perhaps for one of us, at least,” he said, “there is still time.”

Trip leaped high into the air as the dragon surged after him. Tempest belched boiling steam at the kender, but he ducked back below the waves just in time. The dragon lunged after him.

Moments later, Mik and Ula surfaced together. “I found the key,” she said, “and a couple of the dragonspawn’s spears too. Do you want one?”

“No,” Mik replied. “If I’m going to die, I’ll die with my own scimitar in my hand.”

Ula nodded. “Let’s try not to die, though.”

“You’re more agile in the water than I am,” Mik said. “Feel up to helping Trip keep the dragon off my back?”

She looked at him skeptically. “What are you planning?”

“I’m going for Kell’s lance. If it can kill Shimmer, maybe it can kill Tempest as well.”

“Shimmer’s not dead,” she replied. “At least, he wasn’t when I pulled the lance from his side.”

“Can he help us?”

She shook her head, sadness flashing across her green eyes. “I’ll be surprised if he lives.”

“It’s up to us, then,” Mik said. “Give me the key. We’ve seen its power. Maybe between it and the lance, we can kill this bitch.”

“It’s worth a try,” Ula said. She undid the chain fastening the key to her waist and gave them both to Mik. “Good luck,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Stay alive,” he replied.

Tempest surfaced a hundred yards away and scanned the waves for her enemies. Mik and Ula ducked under the surface as the dragon’s baleful yellow gaze turned in their direction.

Trip’s small form leaped from the breakers. Tempest lunged at the kender, her massive jaws snapping shut mere inches from the hem of his sea serpent cloak. The two of them dove out of sight again.

Mik swam as fast as he could toward the Isle of Fire. He surfaced only a few yards from the silver stairs. He felt bone-weary, and his muscles ached as he paddled the last strokes to the volcano’s rocky face. Fighting against the pounding surf, he dragged himself out of the water and onto the silver stairway.

Instantly, his chest felt as though someone were sitting on it. Mik gasped for air, but none came. Something cold squeezed tight around his neck, choking him. He brought his hands to his throat and felt the pockmarked metal of his enchanted fish necklace.

He pulled the necklace off, and it crumbled in his hands-its magic finally exhausted. Mik drew a deep breath and forced his legs to carry him up the stairs to the plaza below the temple.

When he arrived, he spotted Shimmer and Lord Kell sitting to one side, their backs against a pillar. A huge pool of blood lay on the flagstones beneath them; both the bronze knight and the brass lord appeared dead.

Mik spotted Kell’s coral lance on the far stairs, where it had fallen after striking Tempest. It lay close to the landing. Mik sprinted across slippery stones and seized the weapon in his aching hands, looking around for the sea dragon. Lightning flashed, casting the pounding sea into sharp relief, but Tempest was nowhere to be seen.

A cold chill gripped Mik’s heart. Had the monster found and killed his friends?

Lightning flashed again and, in the plaza below, the bronze knight’s eyes flickered open. “Vardan… !” Shimmer whispered.

Mik skidded down the steps and ran to the wounded dragon’s side. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not quite,” Shimmer replied. “Not yet. Dragons are hard to kill. Apparently you are as well. Kell, though…” He pointed wanly toward the unmoving brass lord. “His spirit was strong, but his body…" He took a ragged breath. “Where’s Ula?”

“Below the waves somewhere, trying to distract Tempest.”

“Not dead, then.”

“No. Not yet.”

Slowly, the dragon in human form struggled to his feet. “We must help her, then.”

“The best help we can give her is killing Tempest,” Mik said. “Can you fly?”

Shimmer nodded grimly. “One last time, I think.”

A hard smile cracked Mikal Vardan’s bearded face. “Then let’s take that sea dragon down.” He pulled the key from his belt and fastened it around his neck with the chain from Ula’s waist. The key glistened in the storm-clouded darkness.

Out to sea, Tempest surfaced once more, chasing the slender form of Ula Drakenvaal.

Shimmer groaned and stretched his arms out to each side. Fresh blood oozed from his wounds as his body grew and lengthened. Tangled, misshapen muscle piled up on his shoulders as his wings sprouted. His jaws became long and pointed, showing row upon row of sharp fangs.

The bronze dragon gritted his teeth and suppressed a scream. His entire, scaly body shook with pain. He swelled up to his full size-huge, but not nearly as huge as the sea dragon.

Tempest had her hack to them as she focused every evil fiber of her being upon destroying Ula. She didn’t notice the bronze dragon growing on the temple stairs, or the man with the lance standing at the dragon’s side.

Shimanloreth gasped and extended his right forearm to Mik. The sailor scrambled up onto the dragon’s back. He perched himself in front of the shoulders, just above Shimmer’s deformed wing. Shimmer winced as Mik got a good grip on the bronze dragon’s rain-slick back.

The sailor hefted the dead lord’s coral lance. “Let’s save our friends,” he said.

“Yes,” Shimmer hissed through gritted fangs.

Lightning crashed, and thunder shook the ancient island.

Slowly, painfully, Shimmer took to the air.

Trip burst out of the water directly in front of the enraged sea dragon. He fastened his tiny hands on Tempest’s mane of Turbidus leeches and yanked hard. The snakelike creatures squealed in pain. Their enormous mistress shook her head to free herself of the annoying kender.

She turned just enough that Ula avoided her deadly plunge. As the sea dragon passed by, surging into the deep, the Dargonesti drove one of her two spears into the monster’s magic-scorched shoulder.

The spear pierced the dragon’s blackened scales, and Tempest howled in pain. She plunged into the swirling darkness with the kender clinging to her mane and Ula hanging tightly onto the spear. The water around them swirled as Tempest twisted back on herself, snaking her reptilian head toward her shoulder.

The sea elf planted her feet against the dragon’s scales and reeled back with the second spear-the bronze one Mog had once used.

As Tempest lunged toward them, Ula threw the bronze spear into the dragon’s yellow eye.

Tempest roared and shot to the surface once more.

She breached, arcing high into the sky and shaking her head like a wounded dog.

Several of the Turbidus leeches clinging to her neck came loose, and Trip lost his grip along with them. He sailed into the air, only to have Tempest’s flailing skull smash into him.

The kender cartwheeled end over end, hit the water hard, and disappeared below the raging surf.

Ula regained her footing on the dragon’s scaly hide. She pulled on the shaft of her spear, then shoved it back in, putting all her weight behind die blow.

Tempest roared in pain, and dark blood gushed from the wound.

Ula stabbed her again. Tempest writhed through the waves, sending spray high into the rainswept air, trying to shake the elf from her back.

Tempest dove under again, but Ula clung tenaciously to the spear. She wedged her toes under the dragon’s scales and hung on as the monster gyrated through the deep.

When the dragon broke surface, Ula yanked on the spear with one hand while clinging to the dragon with the other. Again she stabbed the spear into the wound. Again and again. Black blood spouted from the dragon’s shoulder, covering the Dargonesti in gore.

Tempest howled with pain. She writhed and bucked, diving repeatedly into the heaving ocean, only to leap into the air once more.

Ula reeled back for one final deadly thrust.

The dragon snapped her neck to one side and, suddenly, Ula lost her grip. The elf soared into the sky then crashed to the storm-tossed ocean below.

Mik and the bronze dragon angled up toward the clouds, gaining height for one desperate attack. Shimmer turned into the heart of the storm.

Mik lowered the ancient coral lance, the key to the Temple of the Sky glowed brightly at his neck. “For lost friends!” he said.

Shimmer nodded and hissed, “For the Dragon Isles!”