Bastion of Darkness

Chapter 14
Salazar

TRULY IT WAS a trying moment for Belexus, a pivotal moment in the life of this man who had been a warrior since his earliest recollections, who had trained for all of his life for battle. He had faced whip-dragons and talons by the score, had run into battle with odds a hundred to one against him, had slain a young true dragon, and had faced the wraith of Mitchell, and had done so willingly-so many times staring down the prospect of near-certain death. And always, even in his very first battle, the ranger had done so without hesitation, with a song-to Avalon, to King Benador, to Andovar-on his lips.

But none of those battles, none of that training, and none of the precepts of his warrior code, could have prepared Belexus for this awful moment. Time seemed to stand still, frozen, as the ranger’s thoughts whirled, recollections of every battle replaying in an instant. Everything stopped-the breathing, the heartbeat-and in that awful moment, for the first time, Belexus tasted fear, sheer terror, threatening to hold fast his legs and arms, tangibly weighing down his mighty sword.

Indeed it was a pivotal moment, the truest test of courage. And Belexus found then his warrior’s heart. And Belexus stepped through the terror. And Belexus charged.

He heard the wizard’s voice, though the words did not register, saw the dragon’s reddish hue, horned head rushing forward, maw gaping, spearlike teeth gleaming. With a growl, the ranger set his feet firmly, legs widespread, took up his sword in both hands, and drove a mighty upswing that connected on the dragon’s armored jawline with a screech like metal on metal, white sparks flying from the blade.

The dragon was not biting at Belexus, but at Ardaz: a wizard, obviously, and doubly dangerous to the sensibilities of this creature spawned of Thalasi’s magic. The great wyrm would have had Ardaz, too, and that surely would have been the end of the befuddled Silver Mage, but the ranger’s tremendous blow deflected the angle of the attack just enough, and the massive maw snapped with the crackle of a huge tree splitting just over the wizard’s head.

Belexus’ sword rang on and on, vibrating in his hands, and though he knew that its craftsmanship was superb, he feared for the integrity of the blade.

The dragon recoiled its neck past him, head shooting back twenty feet, like a giant snake coiling to strike, and the ranger recognized that he hadn’t even hurt the thing! He had hit the dragon harder than he had ever hit anything before, and he hadn’t even cracked the outermost scales, hadn’t even dug a deep scratch upon them!

A sharp intake of breath, a huge suction that tugged the ranger forward a step, showed that the next attack would neither be slowed nor deflected by any blade.

“My staff! Oh, grab my staff!” the ranger heard Ardaz cry, and he turned and saw the wizard holding the staff out toward him, both it and Ardaz glowing a soft blue.

Belexus dove. He heard the blasting exhale, the fiery gout, as he caught the staff’s end and fell facedown to the stone. He felt sticky, gooey, as if he had jumped in a vat of thick cream, and in the instant before the flames engulfed him, he noted that he, too, was suddenly glowing that same bluish color.

Then he felt the heat, and saw only the bright orange glow of the flames rolling over him, engulfing Ardaz, and rolling out toward the spirit of DelGiudice, who was standing off to the side and who was not glowing with the wizard’s protective shield. On and on came the searing blast; Belexus could feel the gooey shield thinning, and feared that it would not hold. He heard Ardaz screaming, whether in horror or in pain, he could not tell, and heard, too, DelGiudice’s shrieks. Had the ghost, who had not gotten to Ardaz or the staff, been consumed?

Then it was over, as abruptly as it had started, and the ranger pulled himself up from the soft, molten floor. The burn area did not reach to DelGiudice, Belexus noted with relief, seeing the ghost still standing there, terrified and unmoving. Ardaz was making fast through the molten sludge toward the exit, crying for Belexus to hold fast to his staff.

The ranger plodded to keep up, taking care to get his feet up high before the stone could solidify, thus trapping him in place.

They cleared the edge of the burn area, Ardaz tugging Belexus free of the last grasping stone then urging him on, both of them calling for DelGiudice as another line of fire came forth, licking at their backsides, chasing them right out of the room.

“DelGiudice!” Belexus called, his tone frantic, for the ghost was not with them.

“We have to make it into the narrow tunnel!” Ardaz yelled back, pulling fiercely at his staff, offering no room for debate. “Run, oh, run away! I do daresay, that one’s breath will melt us both!”

He heard them running, calling, and initially thought it prudent to chase after them, to get as far away from this horror as possible. But unlike his first visit here-when the wyrm had been asleep, when he had not witnessed the fiery breath-Del found that this time his sensibilities betrayed him. He knew that he should flee, and yet he could not, held firmly in place by a profound, completely illogical, and completely consuming terror. He winced, his will nearly breaking altogether, when the wyrm loosed another searing blast down the corridor after the departing wizard and ranger.

The dragon started after the pair, but skidded to an abrupt halt, its huge claws screeching on the stone, digging deep lines. The reptilian head swiveled down and about, and lizard eyes narrowed, as if the great beast had just noticed the third of the intruder party.

“Greetings,” Del heard himself saying, and he wondered why.

The dragon responded with typical impatience, sending forth its fires over poor Del. And the ghost screamed-how he screamed!-as the bright flames washed over him, filtered through him, bubbled the very stone at his feet. On and on it went, on and on Del screamed, but his yells diminished before the dragon fires lessened, as his physical sensibilities broke through the barrier of terror and informed him that he was not burning, was not hot at all, that the dragon fire had no effect whatsoever!

He looked up at the wyrm, could hardly make out its horned head through the flaming deluge, and waited, and waited, until at last the fire stream ended.

“Impressive!” Del congratulated.

The sheer power of the outraged dragon’s ensuing roar split stone, and down came the snapping maw. Unsettling indeed was that sight to Del, the rows of spearlike teeth chomping over him, seeming to bite him in half. But again the mouth only closed with a resounding, empty snap, the dragon’s maw passing right through the insubstantial ghost, and when the wyrm lifted its head, Del stood impassively in place, looking up at it.

“Again, I must agree that you are quite impressive,” Del, growing ever more confident now, mustered the courage to remark. “Ineffective, but impressive.”

He nearly swooned at the sheer speed and power of the claw slash, the three-taloned weapon swooshing right through him, screeching off the still-warm stone at his feet, tearing deep jagged grooves.

“You are not real!” the wyrm cried, and Del took note of the slightest hint of distress in its godlike voice.

“Yet here I stand,” Del started to respond, but the dragon was paying him no heed at all.

“What trick is this, wizard?” the wyrm roared. “What distraction?

But you shall not escape! You who dared to disturb the slumber of Salazar shall not live to see the light of day!”

“Oh, and it is a bright day,” Del remarked, for no better reason than to distract the wyrm again, to indeed distract it that his friends might hustle out of the caverns.

Salazar ignored him though, and moved out of the chamber with awesome grace, seeming more a stalking cat than a bulky lizard.

The ghost thought to follow, perhaps to pester the dragon all the way, or to dance about it in the coming confrontation in an effort to take some of the creature’s focus from his friends. Del couldn’t help a long glance at the treasure mounds, though, as splendid as anything he could ever imagine-at least in this form, on this world. And when he did glance back that way, a flash of gleaming white light caught and held his eye.

There it was: the sword Belexus had described, stuck into the side of a huge pile of gold and silver coins. There could be no doubt about the identity of this blade, for there could be no other to match it in all the world. Despite his fears for his friends, Del found himself drifting toward the sword. He reached down tentatively and felt its shining hilt: bright, silvery steel woven with threads of the purest gold. Slowly, reverently, Del drew it forth from the pile, marveling at its blade-blue-gray, but edged on both sides with a thin line of roughly triangular diamonds, like little pointy teeth or-the thought suddenly came to Del from some far-off, fleeting memory-like little white-wrapped Hershey’s Kisses. He didn’t have to run his finger along that blade to recognize its sharpness; in fact, so wicked did it seem that Del was actually afraid to touch it, fearing that this sword would somehow transcend the boundaries of the material plane and his present spectral state and cut his digits clean away.

Del had no idea of how strong he was in this condition, but he understood that this sword was incredibly light and perfectly balanced. He gave it a slow swing, marveling at the diamond light that trailed its swishing cut.

Then he remembered, suddenly he remembered, that his friends remained in dire trouble. Off he went at full speed, and he heard the roar of Salazar, heard the “Oh, bother” of Ardaz, and knew that he had tarried too long.

Belexus went forward in a roll, under the dragon’s bobbing chin, between its forelegs. He rose on his feet with a powerful thrust, driving his sword straight up and hoping that the beast would prove less armored underneath.

No such luck, and as the blade jabbed, bent, and skipped harmlessly to the side, the ranger had to leap and dive again, out from under the dragon, for Salazar, no novice in battle, simply buckled its great legs, dropping its tonnage straight down.

Belexus barely missed that crushing blow, and he came up hard and pivoted abruptly, bringing the sword in a mighty over-the-shoulder chop. Again the screech and the sparks, and this time, the ranger believed that he had actually cracked a scale.

That realization brought little hope, though, for he was working hard, far too hard, for each swing, and the damage, even from this one, proved minimal at best.

Even worse, the last hit only got the dragon angrier, if such a rage was possible, and even more animated. The great claws tore at the stone, bringing the creature in a devastating turn to keep up with running Belexus. The long, serpentine tail whipped about, smashing a rocky outcropping into a pile of broken rubble. And that turning head, trying to catch up to the ranger, held a blast of fire ready to incinerate the man.

“Use yer lightning!” Belexus begged Ardaz, but the wizard, knowing that any offensive spell he might invoke would likely only anger the dragon even more-and even worse, might rebound off the solid scales, doing harm to Belexus or to Ardaz-was busy concentrating on his next defensive shell.

Belexus came running back in a loop, the turning dragon’s head right behind, and the ranger dove again for the staff, catching it just as the fiery breath rolled over him. On and on it went, but this time, Ardaz and Belexus, protected by the shell, didn’t stand there screaming, but rather used the plumes of fire and smoke to slip away, into the next chamber. Then, when they had put the continuing fires behind them, they broke into a dead run.

The dragon’s angry and frustrated roar signaled all too clearly that the beast was again in pursuit.

“Ye keep going,” Belexus bade the wizard. “I’ll stop and slow the thing, and might that ye’ll find yer way out!”

Ardaz grabbed him doubly tightly. “Oh no, no, no!” the wizard cried. “The wyrm will incinerate you, and hardly slow. Or maybe he’ll just run you over, flatten you in the corridor, on his way to get to me! You keep running with me, fool hero; I need your speed to help pull me along!”

Indeed, the ranger’s stride was much greater than the old wizard’s, and Belexus was pulling Ardaz along at a great clip. Not great enough, though, the ranger feared, as Salazar’s continuing tirade of wicked threats loomed ever closer.

“We canno’ get away like this!” the ranger complained.

“Why did we come in here at all?” Ardaz screamed back at him. “For a sword? A single, stupid sword?”

In reply, Belexus gave a sharp tug that turned Ardaz about ninety degrees. The wizard gave a stifled cry, thinking he was about to slam the wall, but he went into blackness instead, a small side passage.

“Douse yer wizard light,” Belexus bade him, squeezing by and pulling the wizard along.

Ardaz looked at his staff curiously for a moment, then, with a word, extinguished the fire burning atop it. On they went. They heard the dragon skid up in the main corridor, near to where they had detoured, and a great sniffing sound told them that the wyrm had not been fooled.

“Run on!” the pair cried together, and Ardaz added, “I do daresay!”

The wizard desperately tried to summon another defensive globe, but he wouldn’t be fast enough this time, and only Belexus’ pulling saved him, took him far enough down the side passage that Salazar’s fiery blast only tickled his backside.

“Thieves!” the dragon bellowed, and that roar seemed worse by far than the dragon-fire breath. “What trick is this?”

“Trick?” Belexus echoed curiously. “Going down a smaller tunnel’s no trick. Not a good one, anyway,” he added when he turned a slight bend and came against solid stone, the dead end of the passage.

“Something else?” Ardaz asked with a shrug, and his thought was bolstered a moment later when he heard the dragon rush off, back the way it had come.

“Are ye thinking that we should go back out there?” the ranger asked after a long, quiet while.

Ardaz shook his head so fiercely that his lips made smacking sounds.

“Well, put up yer light,” the ranger said, and when Ardaz complied, they saw that they had indeed come to a dead end.

“Only one way out,” Belexus reasoned.

Again, the wizard’s lips smacked wildly, ending when Ardaz pursed them and blew out the fire at the end of his staff.

“Then we’ll be sitting here a bit and waiting,” the ranger said, and it was obvious from his tone that the notion didn’t wear well upon him.

“Just give the wyrm a chance to get farther away,” Ardaz begged.

“If DelGiudice coaxes the thing on a merry chase, then might be that we can get back in the treasure room and sniff about for the sword.”

The darkness in the tunnel was complete, but the ranger could well imagine the incredulous look Ardaz was offering his way.

“We come for the sword,” the ranger announced with more determination than he had been able to muster since first he sighted the terrible dragon.

“We ran away,” Ardaz said dryly.

“Only to regroup and go back,” Belexus said determinedly.

Ardaz’ snort showed that he was far from like mind.

“We can’t be letting the wraith-”

“Oh, bother the wraith, and Thalasi, too,” the wizard interrupted. “I’d fight them both with my bare hands before I’d go back into the Salazar’s room! Have you gone mad, then?”

In response, a grumbling Belexus crawled over Ardaz, none too gently, and started back down the passage. The wizard couldn’t make out many of the words the ranger was muttering, but he heard “Andovar” and “vengeance” quite clearly.

“I do daresay,” Ardaz mumbled, and with a helpless shrug, he crawled into line behind the ranger, even brought up his staff-torch a moment later-not that his courage had increased, just that he was feeling so ultimately stupid that he figured he might as well take this quest all the way. If they were indeed going back after the wyrm, then they might as well let the wyrm know it. “Might get it over with more quickly,” was all the explanation Ardaz offered to Belexus when the ranger turned back to stare incredulously at the light.

They came to the lip of the tunnel and paused there, listening to hear if the dragon was waiting quietly just around the bend. Then Belexus hesitated once more, taking a long while to try to muster the courage to peek out. It mattered little, the ranger told himself, for if the dragon was nearby, waiting to spring, the beast could just as easily go to the mouth of the hole and let loose its fires, for the ranger and Ardaz could never scramble far enough away in time.

Still, thinking about an action and performing it can be two very different things, and Belexus had to wait a moment longer before he found the strength to ease his head and the lit end of the wizard’s staff out into that wider tunnel.

All was clear, so the ranger crept out, then motioned Ardaz to follow-then reached back and pulled the trembling and unmoving wizard out. The ranger pointed right, back toward the treasure room, but Ardaz stubbornly pointed left, back toward the exit.

Belexus thrust his finger more forcefully to the right and nodded that way.

Ardaz started left.

Belexus caught him by the beard and turned him about, and then both jumped and yelped, surprised by the approach of the ghost of DelGiudice.

“What’re ye about?” the ranger started to complain, but the words were stuck in his throat the moment he noted the precious cargo Del carried.

“There are some advantages to this semiethereal state,” the ghost explained, handing the weapon over.

“Ah, but she’s beautiful,” the ranger said with an awestricken gasp, feeling the balance and the clean cut, and witnessing the trailing diamond light.

“Salazar knows I took it,” Del explained. “I think he knew the moment I picked it up, though he was out here, chasing you.”

“Dragons are like that,” Ardaz offered.

“Never have I seen such a blade,” the ranger went on, the gleam of the diamonds reflecting off his clear eyes, even in the dim light.

“Knows which way I went, too,” Del tried to explain.

The ground shook beneath their feet, then again and again at even intervals, the heavy footsteps of the approaching wyrm.

“Time to go,” Ardaz implored, and when Belexus continued staring at the blade, the wizard popped him on top of the head with the end of his staff. “Time to go!” Ardaz said again, pointing frantically back down the tunnel.

Belexus turned to see the long and empty passage but could hear, quite clearly, the thunderous approach. For an instant, the ranger thought of going back that way, of trying his luck against the wyrm now that he held such a powerful weapon as this.

He decided against that course, only because his duty was to Andovar; and his primary enemy, and the greatest threat to the goodly folk of the world, remained the wraith of Hollis Mitchell.

“Run on and I’ll keep the dragon busy for a bit,” Del offered.

Ardaz and Belexus exchanged skeptical glances, but it was obvious that Del had already accomplished quite a bit more than they ever could have hoped to, and so they started off, after Belexus tried to pat the ghost on the shoulder and inadvertently slid his hand right through Del’s chest.

Del watched them go, managing a supportive smile. In truth, though, the ghost was feeling a bit low, sad that he could not experience that touch, or any touch, from a warm, living creature. He thought of Brielle again, of their lovemaking, and his heart sank.

It was just for a moment, though, as the spirit purposefully recalled his time with the Colonnae-and how distant that memory seemed! It struck Del as more than a bit odd how the trappings of this world and this shape, such as they were, were imposing upon him some very different emotions than any he had experienced in all his time with Calae, as if the form itself were dictating some thought to the intelligence.

That was a question for another day, Del realized, as the dragon came rambling into sight at the end of the corridor. The ghost waited until he was certain the wyrm saw him; then he slipped into the same side tunnel Ardaz and Belexus had recently exited.

Salazar was there quickly, and with predictable, irrational fury, the dragon breathed its fire into the passage, balls of searing flame rolling over calm Del.

“Deeper, deeper!” Del yelled, turning his mouth so that his voice was aimed deeper into the tunnel, as if he were bidding his friends to run for all their lives.

Salazar clawed at the stone and roared repeatedly. “Nowhere to run!” the wyrm bellowed. “I can wait a hundred hundred years! How long can you stay in there?”

“Longer than that,” Del said, too quietly for Salazar to hear.

The dragon’s patience proved the first to go, or perhaps it was just that Salazar was more cunning than Del believed, and would not be so easily fooled. The wyrm began snuffling again, then turning circles in the corridor beyond the side tunnel, finally moving a bit beyond the opening and sniffing again.

Then came such a roar as DelGiudice had never heard, the roar of a dragon robbed, and even worse, the roar of a dragon fooled!

Outside the mountain, both Ardaz and Belexus heard it clearly. So did Calamus, the pegasus shifting nervously as the wizard tried to climb onto its back. So did Desdemona, darting so speedily into the nearest saddlebag that she nearly took the harness from the pegasus’ back.

“We should be hurrying,” Belexus said dryly.

“Time to run,” the ghost concurred, coming fast out of a crack in the mountain wall, not far to the side. “Or to fly,” he corrected, noting the winged horse.

“But the big dragon cannot get down that small passageway,” Ardaz reasoned.

“He’s not to stay in there, however he comes,” Belexus cried, and it seemed true enough, for the mountain itself began violently shaking from the wrath of the great wyrm. The ranger looked back into the tunnel determinedly, his hand clenched tightly about the hilt of the diamond sword, and both Del and Ardaz wondered if Belexus meant to run back in.

Truly it was difficult for the proud ranger to flee at that moment. He had no desire to face the likes of Salazar again, but the sudden notion that his action, his theft, might bring the wyrm out of its hole, and that the dragon, in its unrelenting outrage, might fly off and take vengeance on undeserving souls-perhaps on the elves of Lochsilinilume, perhaps even on Avalon-was heart-wrenching indeed.

“Get on!” Ardaz commanded, grabbing the ranger’s shoulder. “Climb on and guide us far, far away! You’ll not defeat the wyrm, Belexus Backavar, not if you and all your ranger friends together, and each with blades like that you now hold, caught it curled up in a deep sleep!”

With a frustrated growl that showed he could not disagree, the ranger mounted the pegasus in front of Ardaz and urged Calamus into a short run to the edge of the small ledge and then leaped the horse high into the empty air. The white wings beat furiously, wise Calamus understanding the need for speed. Up they went, and around the side of the mountain, and just a few seconds later, they heard the thunderous rumble of an avalanche, a tremendous explosion of rock and snow bursting out from the mountainside, and they knew that Salazar had come forth.

“Do keep us out of sight,” Ardaz cried in Belexus’ ear. The wizard turned to look back, but stopped halfway, gawking, seeing DelGiudice floating along easily beside them, hardly working, yet pacing the swift flight of Calamus with ease. Del offered a wink to the wizard and then was gone, reversing his direction so quickly that Ardaz blinked many times before he figured out where the ghost had flown off to.

Around the mountain, Del met up with the dragon. Salazar in flight-wings extended, hardly beating, yet traveling at a speed that mocked the furious rush of the pegasus-seemed even more fearsome than had the dragon in its mountain hole, where the tight stone of ceiling and walls forced it into a tight posture. The dragon spotted Del, who was making no effort to conceal himself at all. Salazar never slowed, never swerved, just came on at tremendous speed, swooshing right through the startled spirit and flying on in pursuit of the real quarry and the stolen treasure.

It took Del more than a few moments to recover from that tremendous shock. He turned and started after the wyrm, but changed his mind and his direction, flying fast instead the other way around the conical mountain.

“He’s gaining! Oh, he’s gaining!” Ardaz cried, glancing back often and spotting the dragon making its way around the mountain’s stone arms.

Belexus did well to guide the pegasus in tight to the mountainside, weaving about the rocks and keeping every jag right behind them to block the dragon’s line of sight. This might buy them time, but not much, the ranger knew, for the dragon was obviously the swifter, and was amazingly agile in the air, despite its great bulk. Searching the landscape, Belexus came around the next outcropping, then put Calamus into such a steep dive that Ardaz nearly rolled right over the ranger’s shoulder. A shrieking Desdemona did go over, one swiping claw raking the ranger across the cheek, and then the cat was spinning and falling, spreading wings as she went, becoming a raven and quickly swerving out of harm’s way. The wizard, fumbling vainly to right himself, screamed and held on for all his life, but the ranger bent low, and Calamus put his head down, diving straight out. As they dropped behind the rolling wall of a short ravine, the pegasus spread his wings and turned out of the dive, muscles straining to hold straight and steady. Belexus tugged with all his strength in an effort to help lift the steed’s head, to help Calamus turn horizontal to the ground.

Somehow they broke out of the dive, and Ardaz stopped screaming long enough to note the shadow of the great dragon as it sped past high overhead. The wizard tried to say as much to the ranger, but found that his lips and all his face were perfectly frozen from the cold, rushing air. To that effect, Ardaz lifted his palm and summoned a small ball of flame, holding it close.

Belexus needed no guidance. He continued to descend among the lower peaks, turning Calamus away from the mountain as soon as he found enough cover, weaving tight turns about the stones. He cared nothing for specific direction, was only determined to get them all as far as possible-and as quickly-from the mountain and the dragon. Still the guilt nagged at the ranger-where would the wyrm go to loose its vengeance? But even that guilt, that longing to finish this properly, did not prepare Belexus for the shock when he came smoothly around one rounded, snow-covered bluff to find Salazar rising up before him.

Fortunately, the dragon was as surprised as the riders and the pegasus, and so they came together too quickly for Salazar to loose its deadly fires. Belexus snapped off a series of sharp blows as they passed right underneath the serpentine neck, the ranger fighting to keep the beast from turning down its terrible maw and biting them all in half. His aim was perfect, it had to be, stinging the wyrm about the chin, and out they came, lifting just over a beating dragon wing, Belexus pulling hard the reins to spin completely over and down, narrowly avoiding a swipe of the tremendous tail.

The ranger thought that the successful maneuver would buy him a few moments, thought that the sheer bulk of the dragon would force it into a long and slow turn, but the wyrm surprised him as it straightened perpendicularly to the ground, thrusting its tail down and forward, outspread wings catching the air and fast stopping the momentum. Then Salazar merely dropped, turning and angling as it went, wings catching the air and propelling it after the thieves.

Down went the pegasus, through another ravine, over one bluff and around another, then climbing rapidly behind a long rocky arm of the higher mountain, the guiding ranger reasoning that height would afford them speed and a wider view.

Again, though, the wyrm proved much smarter and quicker than Belexus believed, and as they continued their steep ascent, Ardaz poked Belexus on the shoulder and pointed in the opposite direction of the shielding outcropping, up above them.

Belexus pulled Calamus over and about, a rolling, dropping evasion, nearly dislodging the poor wizard yet again. The pegasus willingly responded, though the maneuver put them into a straight drop. Again, the strength of the ranger and of the flying horse somehow pulled them out of it before too much momentum could be gained, and Calamus tightened his wings and whipped them about the mountain arm, putting the stone between them and the dragon.

Salazar swooped past, talons clipping and gouging the rock. The roaring wyrm pivoted its head as it flew past and loosed its breath, and only dumb luck saved the trio, the fires hitting the stone below them and melting it away to slide, glowing, down the mountainside.

The evasion had cost the friends all their momentum, however, and Belexus desperately tried again to flip the horse right over into yet another swoop. He had to abort that maneuver, though, for the dragon had angled down in its pass and was now below them-and not so far below them!-and in complete control. Up came the huge horned head as the ranger pulled on the reins; the great maw opened wide, barely forty feet away.

Again Ardaz screamed, and Belexus did as well, but the ranger kept his wits about him enough to draw out the diamond sword, readying it for a last desperate strike.

They knew that they were dead, knew that they could not possibly turn fast enough to avoid the snapping bite. At the last possible instant, Ardaz loosed a lightning bolt, albeit a weak one, and Belexus swung wildly.

He hit nothing but air, for as the dragon started to snap its head forward, a black speck zipped across its face, clawed feet raking hard at its eye.

Salazar roared in protest, spun over in the air, and swooped after the newest foe.

“Desdemona!” Ardaz cried, and the wizard’s heart caught in his throat when the dragon, so swift and terrible in pursuit, shot a line of flame the raven’s way.

The frantic Belexus had no time to worry about Desdemona, turning Calamus again and dropping into a long dive the other way, plummeting, only half in control, past the stones and snow-covered bluffs, then leveling off and gaining speed. Around a corner loomed not the dragon, but the hovering ghost of DelGiudice, and before either the pegasus or the spirit could react, riders and mount sped right through DelGiudice, a most unsettling event for all involved.

Del caught up with the trio soon after. “Give me the sword,” he offered determinedly, extending his hand. “And I will go battle the dragon.”

Both ranger and wizard stared at him incredulously.

“Salazar cannot hurt me,” the ghost said confidently, thinking that he’d found the solution. Indeed, Belexus almost handed the blade over, but then retracted it, clutching it close.

“Ye canno’ be hurt by the wyrm,” the ranger reasoned. “But suren the wyrm’d tear the sword from yer hands, and then we’d be without the only weapon that might sting the beast.”

When he considered his lack of skill with weapons, Del found that he couldn’t really argue with that logic. “Give it to me anyway,” he said. “Let Salazar chase after me and his stolen treasure. That is what he most wants, after all.” He offered a sly wink to his friends. “The dragon won’t catch me.”

The plan did sound plausible, though Belexus was hesitant about parting with the weapon. Before the ranger could decide whether to agree or argue, though, the diamond sword suddenly appeared in Del’s hands. Belexus blinked many times, then looked to his own hand, and the sword he still held.

“A few tricks left in my old bones,” Ardaz remarked through his chattering teeth. He, too, would have winked, except that one of his eyelids was frozen closed. “I do daresay!”

Belexus caught on; Del already understood, since the sword in his hands was surely illusionary, a trick against sight, but not against touch. The speeding spirit looked all around, his gaze finally settling on one particular spot, the same ledge beneath the rocky overhang that the friends had first set down upon when they had arrived at the mountain.

“Get up and out of sight and put down on a ledge somewhere to give Calamus a needed rest,” Del explained. “If my plan works, we’ll be rid of the foul wyrm, and soon enough.”

Following the spirit’s line of sight and considering the view, Ardaz and Belexus began to figure out what Del might have in mind. In any case, the spirit was right: They, especially weary Calamus, needed a break. And so the ranger lifted his mount up above the outcropping and found a sheltered ledge, tucking them all in tightly behind stone walls. Both of the men belly-crawled out from cover to the lip of the ledge, peeking out and down to see DelGiudice standing on the lower ledge, under the stone, waving the illusionary sword and calling for the wyrm.

“There,” Belexus announced soon after, spotting the flying dragon as it sped straight for Del.

The wyrm came in fast, turned upright at the last second, and hovered in the air just before the spirit.

“Looking for this?” Del shouted, holding forth the sword. “A trick, am I? Well, a trick, then, that steals from under a dragon’s nose! A trick that now carries the one weapon that the pitiful wyrm fears!”

A low, ominous growl spilled from the dragon’s mouth.

“Fire away, then!” Del said with a laugh. “Show me again your pitiful breath, weakling Salazar! No, wait; allow me to find a side of bacon, that I might cook it in the fire, if the fire is hot enough to cook bacon, that is.”

On the higher ledge, the wizard’s heart leaped into his throat, for he, like anyone who knew anything about dragons, understood that to insult the beast’s fiery breath was perhaps the very worst thing that anyone could possibly say.

But Del knew what he was doing, purposely goading forth that breath. Unfortunately, though, the dragon, too, figured out the ruse. The fires would engulf the spirit, true enough, but they would likely also melt out the supporting rock around him, and hovering Salazar was not so far away.

Instead of fire, therefore, the dragon attacked furiously with bite and claw, and with its sheer bulk, rushing to the ledge, barreling right at, and ultimately right through, the surprised spirit.

“Time for leaving,” Belexus reasoned, understanding that Del and the illusionary sword would not keep Salazar busy for long. The ranger blew a long breath as he watched the spectacle of dragon rage, as he watched Salazar tear and bite away huge chunks of solid stone. “Time for leaving fast,” he added.

But Ardaz had another idea. He pointed his staff out from the ledge, gathered all of his energy, so much so that his white hair and beard began tingling and standing on end. And then he let fly the greatest bolt he could muster, aiming not at the wyrm, for that would have done little more than feed Salazar’s anger, but at what he considered to be a critical spot in the overhang. The lightning stroke blasted in, the ensuing crack of thunder rolled and rolled, and so, too, sounded the ominous rumble within the stressed stones.

Salazar thought to leave, wisely so, but the image of that sword, of that prized piece of stolen treasure, held the dragon an instant longer, a clawed foreleg reaching out and grasping for the blade.

And passing right through the blade.

The dragon roared in outrage, and that tremendous sound only intensified the split of the stones. Out from the ledge leaped the wyrm, spinning and diving, but not quick enough, for the falling rock caught the beast by the wing, tangled it and pounded it, taking the dragon on a long and bouncing ride down the side of the mountain.

“Good enough for you, murderous beastie!” Ardaz cried.

Belexus stared at the wizard incredulously, not used to such obvious outrage from the gentle man.

“Oh, Desdemona,” Ardaz said softly, and the ranger understood.

For Del, there were moments when the rock was passing him by, followed by moments when one piece hooked him and took him along, followed by a confusing rush of stone that left him wedged into a crack of a dropping boulder. Then all was spinning chaos, the spirit wondering if this slide could harm him or perhaps even destroy him.

It ended three thousand feet below the ledge, the spirit of DelGiudice weaving about the openings in the crushed stone, finally coming to a place of living matter, the buried dragon, that he passed right through. At the very end of one of Salazar’s forelegs, Del found an escape, and he came out into the daylight, looking about for his friends. He spotted them at last, circling down slowly on Calamus, and he waved to them and hailed them, then went silent with fright as the rock all about him erupted and flew wildly.

Salazar pulled free of the rubble, roaring madly. Belexus turned Calamus about sharply, the pegasus all too willing to angle away from the dragon. Still, the ranger feared that he and his friends were bagged, for the dragon could out-fly the pegasus and there was no apparent cover anywhere in this area.

But the dragon, as luck would have it, could not out-fly Calamus at that time, could not fly at all, for one of its wings had been torn and broken in the tumble. The battered wyrm loosed its breath at the trio, more for show than as a real attack, for they were long out of range. Then, grumbling and growling like a beaten cur, the defeated dragon began climbing through the rubble.

“Farewell, mighty Salazar,” DelGiudice, standing near, offered quietly.

The dragon head turned to face him.

“You cannot harm me,” the spirit calmly and rationally explained. “Nor should you desire to harm me.”

“THIEF!”

“But only of necessity,” Del replied. “Trust me when I say to you that my friends and I had no intention of waking you, had no desire to disturb you in any way. What fools would we be if we had come willingly, eagerly, to the lair of the greatest terror in all the world!” The spirit was trying to play up to the legendary ego of dragons, trying to settle Salazar down so that, when the wing finally healed, the dragon might not be so quick to come out of its hole.

“THIEF!” the hardly satisfied wyrm roared, and its breath fell over Del, who gave a motion like a sigh, though no breath was exhaled, and stood calmly, waiting for the conflagration to end.

“Thief indeed,” he called again after the wyrm, who had resumed its climb. “And know that if Salazar comes out of his lair, I, DelGiudice, will enter that smelly place and take more than a single sword!”

The dragon’s tail snapped down so hard that a wide crack appeared on the ground, but the battered beast did not bother to look back.

It was many hours later, the sun setting over the western horizon, before Belexus and the wizard drifted down to the spot where Del’s spirit patiently waited. Calamus dropped lightly to the stone, and Belexus hopped off, helping Ardaz to follow.

“You could have come up to us,” the weary wizard reasoned.

“I didn’t know where you had gone off to,” Del replied. “First rule when you’re lost: Stay put.”

“Well, stay put no longer,” Ardaz said, and Del noted that all the usual cheeriness was gone from his voice. “We’re far too near the dragon’s hole for my comfort.”

“And for me own,” Belexus agreed, glancing nervously up the mountainside. The two of them had watched Salazar slink back into the mountain hours before, but that fact brought little easiness, for dragons, particularly when hunting, have the patience of elves, as only creatures who live through the centuries might understand. “We’ve been too long near this place, and now’s not the time for merrymaking,” he added, seeing the ghost’s widening smile. “Back to Calamus for yerself and me,” he said to Ardaz, “and back to the air for yerself,” he added, pointing at Del. “And let us be long from this place afore we stop to consider our good fortunes.”

The others readily agreed-the others who had accompanied the ranger to this spot, at least, for all about the friends, from behind every conceivable stone, appeared dozens of short, sturdy men, with dark brown skin, and with the knotted muscles that come from years of working stone.

“Dwarves?” DelGiudice asked skeptically.

“What name do ye be puddin’ on us den?” one of them replied in a choppy but lyrical accent that sounded somehow familiar to the ghost.

“Hey boss, de Architect Tribe we be,” another added, poking Belexus hard as he spoke.

“Well, well,” Ardaz remarked. “This does get more interesting by the moment, now doesn’t it?”