David Wells - Cursed Bones

Ixabrax eyed him suspiciously.

“Do not consider reneging on your word, Human,” he said.

“Not a chance, Dragon,” Alexander said. “Freeing your family will hurt Zuhl’s military capability more than anything else … and it also happens to be the right thing to do. Your enslavement is a profound violation of the Old Law and I intend to set it right.”

“We shall see,” Ixabrax said.

“Given your experience with Zuhl, your suspicions are understandable but unnecessary,” Alexander said. “It’s nearly dark … you should begin your attack soon. Once you have Abigail, I’ll lead you to an empty cave farther north where you can rest and prepare for the next strike.”

He faded from view as Anatoly and Magda climbed onto the dragon’s back.

Abigail was pacing. The sun had just slipped past the horizon on the last day before the winter solstice. Tomorrow was the day Zuhl would perform his yearly sacrifice, giving over her life to the darkness in exchange for another year of life without aging.

She knew Alexander was working on her rescue. She trusted her brother to do everything within his power. What she wasn’t sure about was whether he would be able to help her. He was so far away with only his newly discovered and untested magic at his disposal.

“Hi, Abby.”

She spun around at hearing the familiar voice.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” she said.

Alexander shrugged. “I had to make some preparations.”

“Not to sound ungrateful, but Zuhl’s going to sacrifice me tomorrow,” Abigail said. “Any chance you have a plan to get me out of here before then?”

“They’re coming right now,” Alexander said. “Push your bed over to the south side of the room, then tip it over and hide behind it. Hurry, you don’t have much time.”

“Now you tell me,” Abigail said, going to work on moving the bed. As she shoved it into place, she heard the muffled roar of a drakini from outside her tower. Moments later the temperature of the room fell precipitously, ice forming on the northern wall. She glanced back before turning her bed over and scurrying around behind it.

Seconds later the frozen wall shattered, sending stones flying across the room in every direction and opening the tower to the sky. A horn sounded in the distance and was immediately answered by another. The alarm had been raised.

Ixabrax landed on the breach, extending his head into the room as the door was thrown open and guards started to enter. The first man to cross the threshold stopped in his tracks and stared at Ixabrax eyeing him from a distance of only a few feet. He backed away slowly.

“Abigail!” Anatoly shouted from his perch on the dragon’s neck. “Hurry!”

She was up and running in a blink. Anatoly caught her outstretched hand and hoisted her onto the dragon. Two drakini flew behind them, both breathing frost that fell harmlessly on Magda’s shield.

“Go!” Anatoly shouted as soon as Abigail was seated between two of Ixabrax’s back spikes.

When the dragon launched into the sky, two drakini attacked, attempting to tear his wing membranes. Ixabrax tucked his wings in and fell into a steep dive toward the battlements, freeing himself of the drakini and forcing them to break off or risk plummeting to the ground. At the last moment, Ixabrax pulled up hard and turned north.

Abigail felt the crushing pull of gravity as Ixabrax thrust against the air to gain altitude. Behind them, a number of drakini were taking flight in pursuit. Farther behind, the roar of a dragon echoed from the battlements.

“My sire,” Ixabrax said.

Abigail would never have believed that she might hear a hint of fear in a dragon’s voice.

“Fly north,” Anatoly said. “Head for the cave where we found you.”

Ixabrax adjusted course without a word.

While Magda was focused on casting a spell, Anatoly handed Abigail the Thinblade. She looked at him with a fierce smile, then slipped her hand through the thong on the hilt and strapped the belt around her waist.

A dozen or more drakini were in pursuit, but they couldn’t keep up with Ixabrax. The other dragon could, however. Abigail looked back and saw a blue dragon almost half again as big as Ixabrax flying higher and faster, gaining on them with every stroke of its enormous wings. Riding atop the terrifying beast was Zuhl, although Abigail was certain it wasn’t the real Zuhl but another simulacrum. She suspected that the reclusive mage hadn’t actually set foot outside of Whitehall in centuries.

Zuhl released a spell, sending a shard of ice six feet long and a foot thick toward them with frightening speed. It struck Magda’s shield with such force that it exploded, sending splinters of ice in every direction and collapsing her shield in the process but harming no one.

She finished her spell a moment later. Dozens of blue orbs appeared nearby, floating around Ixabrax in a dizzying array of erratic orbits.

Zuhl sent another shard of ice at them but one of Magda’s orbs broke off from its orbit, streaking toward Zuhl’s spell and meeting it in the open sky, shattering it into powder.

Ixabrax narrowly dodged a jagged mountain ridge before diving sharply to evade the onslaught from above. Zuhl unleashed another spell, or possibly expended some enchanted item, tossing a stone into the air and pointing toward Ixabrax. When the stone reached its apex, it burst into dozens of crystalline splinters, exploding in all directions before arcing toward Ixabrax, each trailing a streamer of unnatural black smoke.

Magda’s protective orbs rose to the defense, streaking toward the incoming barrage of missiles, each orb targeting a stone splinter with unerring precision and shattering it into powder … but there weren’t enough orbs.

The rain of missiles crashed into Ixabrax, several punching through his wings, leaving tattered holes in the flesh membrane stretching between the bone struts, several more glancing off his scales. Two struck Anatoly in the back, shattering against his dragon-plate armor as he hunched over Abigail to protect her from the sudden attack. One pierced Magda’s shoulder, driving cleanly through her body and ricocheting off Ixabrax’s scales, trailing a streamer of blood in its wake. She gasped in startled agony, losing the focus necessary to finish the spell she’d begun casting.

Ixabrax dove for the chasm, narrowly escaping the unnaturally cold breath of his own sire as he crashed into the opposite wall of the rift in the glacier and fell, slowing his descent with a combination of his unfurled wings and claws against the frozen wall, creating a spray of powdered ice that served to both obscure their position and lower the temperature even further.

Abigail held on for dear life, the cold penetrating into her bones, her lips and knuckles turning blue while her mind raced, formulating a strategy to defend against the coming assault.

They hit hard, jarring them all and eliciting a gasp of pain from Magda. Ixabrax wasted no time carrying them into the cave, away from the threat of falling ice or an attack from above.

Abigail quickly dismounted while Anatoly helped Magda to the ground. She muttered a few words and a pair of glowing orbs appeared above them, softly illuminating the cave. She was bleeding seriously and looked to be nearly at the end of her strength.

“What now, Human?” Ixabrax growled.

“Now we’re in a confined space where we might have a chance against whatever Zuhl sends against us,” Anatoly said, wrapping a bandage around Magda’s shoulder.

“I cannot best my sire in single combat,” Ixabrax said.

“You don’t have to,” Abigail said, drawing the Thinblade. “All you have to do is give me a chance to cut that collar off.”