The Dragons

Chapter 18

circa 3000 PC

Crematia spread her wings wide, gliding through the cool night air, drawing close to the black pyramidal mountain she had visited a hundred days before. She broke from the overcast and screeched a warning of her presence, enjoying the panicked maneuvers of the dwarves as they scattered from their fields and roads, scrambling chaotically in a hundred different directions. Like ants revealed beneath an overturned log, they darted about in a vast and instantaneous reaction to her presence, a reaction that pleasantly reassured Crematia of her own might:

Yet by the time the red dragon’s echo had returned from the opposite elevation, every one of the dwarves on the ground had disappeared. Crematia blinked, wondering if her aging eyes were suffering from the effects of minimal light. But no-she could see the roads and trails, even spot the picks and shovels dropped by the scattering work crews as they had funneled into an apparently infinite number of holes, niches, hatches, and caves. Her first impression had been right: The dwarves had all vanished.

She settled to the ground on the still-scorched paving stones of the plaza, the same place where she had earlier demonstrated her infernal might. Now she raised her head to the massive stone doors leading into the mountainside, allowing a deep growl to rumble from her belly. She sensed the reverberations of the sound vibrating the great gates, and she trusted that the import of her message was reaching the dwarves, who were no doubt cowering within. Still, it frustrated her that she was unable to attack, even to see, the wretched denizens huddling within their stone shelter.

Patiently Crematia waited, and while she did, she studied this valley of dwarves. The tower on the mountainside was a secure fortification. She saw that steel shutters had been drawn across the windows and doors, a barrier that might possibly prove resistant even against the killing heat of her breath. And the great gates of the dwarven city were set deep into an alcove in the wall of the mountainside, anchored by huge stone hinges and reinforced by straps of heavy steel. She could see slits and gaps above the entryway, and imagined that the resourceful creatures would no doubt find ways to attack her through these openings if she made an attempt to smash the sturdy gates.

Still, the dwarves were vulnerable otherwise. Their terraced hills were lush with crops approaching harvest, a harvest that Crematia could eliminate in a few hours. And she took it for certainty that the bearded creatures would not be content to dwell within their mountain for a long time without glimpse of the sun. After all, they obviously had labored with nearly inexhaustible energy on a variety of major projects throughout the valley of their realm.

So she was not surprised when a tiny aperture opened in the base of the great gate and a figure came out. The tiny fellow was dressed in a blue robe that trailed along the ground far behind him. His chest was as broad as a barrel, his arms strapping, terminating in powerful, callused hands. Though he wore no weapon at his waist, he bore a satchel of leather over his shoulder.

Naturally Crematia could have slain the dwarf with a slap of her forepaw or a minor sneeze of her breath. But she was impressed by the fellow’s courage and curious about his intentions. She held her violent impulses in abeyance, at least long enough to hear what the dwarf had to say.

“Who are you?” she demanded, punctuating her question with a puff of black smoke.

“I am Bayrn Takwing, a chieftain of this delving,” the dwarf replied, with a belligerent glare, as if he would have welcomed the dragon’s precipitous attack-a notion that lingered temptingly in Crematia’s mind.

“Have you obeyed me?” she demanded, once again sparing the insolent dwarf with a supreme effort of will.

“We have here one of your ‘eggs,’ Mighty Killer,” declared the dwarf, glaring upward with an audacious display of ill temper.

“Then you have failed me, for I bade you bring four of them,” growled Crematia, rearing back in unconscious surprise at the dwarf’s manner. “Know that I am not one who is tolerant of failure.”

Fire swelled in her belly, barely restrained from lethal release. Smoke puffed from her nostrils, but something in the dwarf’s manner held her in check.

The fellow’s beard bristled, and he slung the satchel forward, opening its mouth to allow a perfect sphere of white to tumble out. The stone sat still on the stony road, but seemed nevertheless to move with some sense of inner vitality. It pulsed and radiated, brightening the surrounding ground with a wash of icy light.

“And you have lied to us, for this is no more an egg than you are a horse. It is a gemstone, and you should be glad that it’s magic. Because of that, we’re content to be rid of it, and you are welcome to take it away from here. Otherwise, understand that you’d not be seeing its likeness again.”

“Bold words for a dwarf whose city cowers behind him.” Crematia was amused more than angered. Indeed, she was almost grateful, as she felt her hopes flaring at the sight of the dragongem. “Know that my displeasure has wasted greater realms than yours.”

“Bah! We’re safe enough.” The burly dwarf crossed his arms over his chest and made a great production of turning to the side and spitting casually into the dust.

Crematia reared back, seized by a deep rage. It had been many hundreds of years since anyone had dared to speak to her like this. “Do not expect mercy from me, foolish dwarf. Mercy is weakness, and weakness is death!”

“Oh, sure, you could kill me now, maybe even break down a few of our doors. But then you’d never see another one of these stones.”

“So you admit the others are within your delvings? You dare to hold them from me?”

“They’re down there somewhere. Our priests have felt the magic, and they don’t like it much, neither. But there’s no sayin’ when we’ll get down to the stones themselves.”

“I shall return in another one hundred sunrises, and you will produce all of the stones. Otherwise your city will die.”

“No. You’ll take this white stone and be gone for now. You should come back in one hundred years. By then, we might have one of these stones for you.”

“One hundred winters?” demanded Crematia, aghast. Her belly swelled, fire surging anew, pressure rising from the involuntary fuel of her rage.

“And if you damage our crops, or indeed even try to damage our city-not that you’d have any luck-then you can consider those stones gone forever.”

Crematia clenched her jaws and snatched up the whitestone, forcibly resisting the temptation to sear this insolent dwarf into charcoal. He would have the other stones, she knew, and she could force herself to wait for a while before they became hers.

So instead of destroying this place, she took to the air, already resolved to wait the hundred winters-what was that time, really? — before she returned.