R. Salvatore - Bastion of Darkness

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.