Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

The seamen were no better off. The water buckets they carried were overflowing with sparkling gems and heavy gold coins, and Phen was struggling with the weight of the wicked looking jade-eyed skull he held cradled in his arms.

Hyden and Brady had their weapons out, but Brady’s sword wasn’t being held at the ready. He was just using the light from Hyden’s magical orb to study its jeweled hilt. Had he been ready to defend himself with the priceless blade, he might have been alert enough to avoid the young black dragon’s streaking blast of sizzling breath. As it was, the Wildermont fighter was caught off guard and lashed out awkwardly in terror and pain. The clothes and skin of his left arm quickly foamed into a soupy pink froth, exposing meat and gore. Only the quick instinctual swipe of his sword, that barely nicked the creature’s nostril, saved the others from a similar fate.

The dragon withdrew its head back into the darkness, but it hadn’t fled. Its angry growl filled the tunnel like a rumbling quake.

“Back!” Hyden screamed, as he loosed arrow after arrow at the shape looming in the darkness. “Go back. Run!”

He kept loosing arrows until the sound of feet behind him had retreated. Then he turned toward Brady and winced at what he saw.

“Go,” the Wildermont King’s Guard managed to say through gritted teeth. His left arm and shoulder were nothing more than dangling sloughs of sinew and bone now, but he still stood with the fancy sword held out before him. “Help my king, Hyden Hawk,” he said as he stumbled off toward the beast.

Hyden felt a deep pang of sympathy and respect as he charged back toward the others. Brady was a good man. He couldn’t let the loss overwhelm him, though. He had to think.

An idea began forming itself even as he ran, and when he burst into the treasure cavern, a glance at Phen’s tear-streaked face strengthened his resolve. He snatched something from the nearest pile of loot and began calling out orders like a battlefield general. Out in the tunnel, a primal battle cry arose from Brady, but it was cut short with a sickening crunch and a growl that shook the rock around them.

It was all the others could do to keep up with Hyden’s sharp commands, but they somehow managed it. Hyden only hoped that everything Claret said was true. If the magic of her teardrop dangling from his neck didn’t protect him, then his plan was a waste, and his life would be over.

As the growling hiss of the angry dragon came near to the entrance of the treasure cave, Hyden realized that it was far too late to wonder about it now. Already, the dragon was peeking in to get a good look at its next victim.

Off to Hyden’s right, the terrified deckhand shifted, causing a golden goblet to tumble down a pile of coins and clank into an ornate candelabra. Hyden’s anger flared at the fool as the dragon lunged its head into the room and blasted the area with its corrosive breath. As if the man had been made of sand, and the dragon’s spew merely jet of water, the gurgling seaman melted away into a grisly pool of gore.

Hyden’s eyes darted around the mess. He was terrified for his young friend. Phen had just been over there. Hyden couldn’t see him, or anything that might have been him, but it was no relief. He knew that if the boy had been near that blast he would have at least been spattered. Even the jewels and precious metals that had been doused by the black dragon’s breath were now hissing and bubbling away. Tears welled up in Hyden’s eyes at the thought of losing the boy.

“Over here you little black wyrm!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Oarly and Master Biggs were in position by the door, but the dragon’s head was still too far into the chamber for the plan to work. Seeing this, Hyden threw his arms up as if to cast some powerful spell and started striding at the dragon fearlessly. As he had hoped, the beast pulled back and started sucking in the breath that it would use to melt him into the floor.

Before the dragon finished inhaling, Hyden yelled, “Now!”

Oarly was standing against the wall beside the entryway. The dwarf threw a rope over the top of the dragon’s neck to Master Biggs, who was waiting on the other side. With the precision of a veteran seaman, the Deck Master pulled the end of the rope through the buckle of the great collar that was laid out across the floor and took off running with the rope in tow. Hyden saw the collar leap from the floor as the rope pulled it up. It looked like the noose was going to close, but he never had a chance to see the rest of what happened.

A huge spray of hot liquid washed over Hyden as the dragon unleashed its acidy spew. His vision was wiped away and the breath pulled from his lungs, but, to his surprise, a pulse of radiant energy erupted from the medallion at his chest and engulfed him. He heard Phen scream out in anguish and was thankful to know that the boy had survived.

“For Doon and Brady!” he heard Oarly yell.

Then the dragon’s gigantic roar filled the chamber. A moment later Hyden’s head slammed full of chaotic thoughts of hate and destruction. The dragon was more than a little angry. Hyden commanded the thoughts to cease and sent out a shocking reprimand to their source to establish control.

A muffled roar erupted then, a long howl from Oarly that seemed to pass over Hyden’s head. The dwarf’s yell ended in a tinkling crash of coins and a sharp, “Ooof!”

As the bright dancing sparkles of energy that had engulfed Hyden twinkled out of existence, he found himself on his knees before the seething maw of the young black dragon. All around him metal and rock hissed and smoldered.

He looked around the room and saw Phen huddled in a sobbing crouch over Oarly’s splayed body. The Deck Master was standing as still as a statue, as if he were frozen in place. His mouth was a perfect ’O.’ The rope he had pulled the dragon collar closed with dangled limply from his hand.

“You didn’t have to kill my friends,” Hyden said to the dragon harshly.

The sound of his voice caused Phen and the Deck Master to gasp in surprise. They thought Hyden had been melted by the dragon.

“You tricked me,” the dragon growled more into Hyden’s mind than aloud.

“You tricked yourself with your eagerness to destroy us,” Hyden spat. “Now go skulk around in the bigger cavern and think about your new situation.”

The dragon hissed and hesitated. Through the smaller collar on Hyden’s neck he sent a sharp shock of persuasive punishment through to the beast. The dragon trembled visibly with the sensation, but resisted the urge to roar out. The idea of the dragon’s collar sickened Hyden, but after what this dragon had done to Brady and the deckhand, he found he could stomach using it. Reluctantly, the wyrm withdrew its big head from the chamber and eased back out of the tunnel.

“How did you survive that?” asked Phen. He started to say more, but the memory of Brady’s fate, and the sight of the puddle of remains of the deckhand overwhelmed him. “Get up, Oarly,” he sobbed and shook at the dwarf’s shoulders.

Oarly groaned, and Phen hugged him fiercely. A pudgy fingered hand came up and patted Phen’s head reassuringly. “I’m all right, lad,” he said. “Was that Sir Hyden Hawk I heard ordering the dragon about?”

“Yeah,” Phen said. “But Brady didn’t make it.”

“Aye,” Oarly sighed. “Sometimes this be the way of things, lad.”

“Aye,” Phen sniffled and helped Oarly to his feet. Tears flowed freely down his face.

Hyden learned from Phen that Oarly had leapt onto the dragon’s back to fasten the collar and had been slung across the chamber during the skirmish. Battered and bruised, the dwarf was content to haul out the dead seaman’s bucket of jewels instead of the encumbering statue.