Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

With a snapping whip crack, the tip of the Dark Lord’s tail pierced through Ironspike’s shielding. It shattered the protective field as if it were the thinnest layer of glass. Then a quick, cartwheeling spin had the Warlord’s hind claws raking across Mikahl’s face.

The High King twisted away in time to save his eyes, but his forehead was gashed wide, and blood poured over his vision in a crimson sheet. It was all he could do to stay on the bright horse while the magical pegasus fought to right itself.

The sound he’d heard came again. It was a roar, a gut-shaking roar, full of contempt. The sound caused an involuntary shudder of fear to pass through Mikahl. The Warlord paused, too. Then he answered with a flame-spewing roar of his own. The Master of Hell’s call was a full-out challenge. Mikahl started to attack in that instant, but a shadow completely engulfed the overhead light and made him pause. In that same heartbeat, the Warlord unleashed a hissing blast of freezing cold magical power. Mikahl, with Ironspike held in his hand at the ready, and the bright horse pulsing between his legs, froze instantly solid and began tumbling toward the ground.

After using his dragon’s fire and his kinetic blast over and over again against the human king, the Warlord decided to do something different. When he heard the depth of the roar that drowned everything out, he decided to end this skirmish right here. Sending out a pulse of freezing energy, the Warlord’s magic froze Mikahl and left him dropping like a stone. The roar meant that there were dragons about, and the Dark Lord didn’t hesitate. It would be foolish to restrain the greater demons any longer.

As the High King tumbled toward the ground, the helborn that were gathered around took to the sky and engaged the approaching dragons. The Warlord tucked his wings into a streaking dive at the palace. Now that Shaella’s death was avenged, only the Wardstone mattered to him. He could smell the power it radiated. It was beckoning him, and he was coming as fast as he could.

Falling, an unexpected warming sensation hit Mikahl like a blast from a furnace. It held steady on him as he tumbled, until he could feel his skin starting to blister. Suddenly he could move, but as he went to call the bright horse back into place he saw the frozen earth racing up into his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and threw out his hands to protect himself from the impact. Ironspike went spinning away. He slammed to a stop, expecting to either feel his body shattering on the icy ground or feel the blackness of death take him. He felt neither. In fact, he felt nothing at all.

He opened his eyes to see his sword lying on the ground only a reach away. He was hovering about a foot over the frozen earth. He tried to move but couldn’t. Then suddenly, as if he were being released from some invisible grasp, he fell the last foot. He impacted no harder than if he had fallen from a tree stump. Sensation raced back through his nerves and his body felt as if he had swum through the frozen sea then walked across a desert. His bones were still frozen, but his skin was burned.

It took him a moment to catch his breath and regain his wits. When he did, he grabbed his sword and felt its magical symphony blare into his mind. The amount of tingly healing magic it exuded through him was distracting. He turned quickly to defend against an attack, but he saw that he was well away from the wild new battle taking place above.

Dragons — red, blue, green, and even a white one — some with riders and some without, were in the sky fighting the demon spawn. He saw Hyden Hawk on the back of a massive red-scaled beast that could only have been Claret. He couldn’t remember his name, but he recognized the determined elf that was riding the shoulders of a smaller blue wyrm, too. Half a dozen others were engaged in the sky. Some of the dragons were viciously attacking the greater demons. They were doing some damage.

A large piece of something that was writhing and flapping came spiraling down and crashed into the snow. A great bellowing cloud of steam rose from it as hot brimstone blood met the frozen earth. Above, Claret spat the rest of it out of her mouth and roared. Mikahl took in what had landed before him and saw that it was nothing more than a single wing with a scallop of meat the size of a wagon cart attached to it.

Mikahl called forth the bright horse and took back to the air. He went after Hyden and Claret. Trying to catch up to the huge red dragon was akin to trying to catch a stallion while riding a mule. Mikahl was too torn over Rosa’s death to actually feel real hope, but he felt like they might be able to save some lives. Hyden looked like a child’s doll on a destrier’s back. His long black hair was flapping wildly out behind him, and his face was set in a determined grimace. The boney, triangular plates that ran down Claret’s spine were as tall as he was. Mikahl couldn’t see how Hyden stayed on as they banked and then dove, racing toward the castle, in direct pursuit of the Warlord.

Corva could do little more than hold on to the ridges in the fin-plate on the blue dragon’s back. The massive, yet quick, wyrm swept down across the demon horde and blasted huge swaths away with its liquid lightning spew. It dragged its razor-sharp, sword-long claws through the ranks of hellspawn as they went. Another blast of breath at a Choska sent the demon flailing into the face of the wall with a sickening smack.

Durge, on the back of the mighty green dragon, was big enough to use his leg muscles to hold on to the sinuous neck of his mount. He and the wyrm had landed in the wall breach and were deftly fighting back those dark, wingless things trying to enter the city. Lashing teeth and claws, and misty, poisonous dragon breath made most of them stall their invasion. Those that survived to get through met their end at the tip of Durge’s bladed staff.

Cheers resounded from the walls and in the streets as dragons came from everywhere, swooping, blasting and lashing the dark horde away from the refugees. Even though the streets were littered with the dead and dying, the dragons brought hope to those willing to take hold of it.

Claret veered off to snatch one of the greater demons out of the air. She did so effortlessly, like a mother dog picking up her puppy, only followed by a savage crunch of teeth and a blast of flame as she spat the ruined thing away. Edging back on course, the whole assault took maybe five heartbeats to complete, but it allowed Mikahl to catch up so that Hyden could hear him yelling.

“What’s your plan?” he called over the bitter wind.

Hyden had expected a friendlier greeting. He took in the stricken look on the High King’s face. He hadn’t seen his friend look that sad since they found Vaegon, or what was left of him, lying in the rubble of this very wall. He immediately figured that something had happened to either Lord Gregory or Queen Rosa. No others could affect Mikahl so strongly. He didn’t have time to dwell on what his senses picked up about Mik, though. Gerard was almost to Whitten Loch, and there was no time for emotion.

“Remember when you unleashed all of Ironspike’s power at once.” Hyden paused to adjust himself on the dragon’s back. Then he cast a spell so that his voice found Mikahl’s ears as if they were just standing and speaking to one another. “You made that thunder storm appear to drive the black dragon away from King Jarrek's men. Do you remember?”

“Aye!” Mikahl screamed back unnecessarily. “I remember.”

“I’m going to face off with Gerard, or whatever that blasted thing is now.” Hyden had to fight back a tear as he thought about the horrors his little brother must have been put through. “When I raise both of my hands over my head like so, do that again, but unleash all that power at me.”