Stephen Sullivan - The Dragon Isles

Mik spotted Kell’s coral lance on the far stairs, where it had fallen after striking Tempest. It lay close to the landing. Mik sprinted across slippery stones and seized the weapon in his aching hands, looking around for the sea dragon. Lightning flashed, casting the pounding sea into sharp relief, but Tempest was nowhere to be seen.

A cold chill gripped Mik’s heart. Had the monster found and killed his friends?

Lightning flashed again and, in the plaza below, the bronze knight’s eyes flickered open. “Vardan… !” Shimmer whispered.

Mik skidded down the steps and ran to the wounded dragon’s side. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not quite,” Shimmer replied. “Not yet. Dragons are hard to kill. Apparently you are as well. Kell, though…” He pointed wanly toward the unmoving brass lord. “His spirit was strong, but his body…" He took a ragged breath. “Where’s Ula?”

“Below the waves somewhere, trying to distract Tempest.”

“Not dead, then.”

“No. Not yet.”

Slowly, the dragon in human form struggled to his feet. “We must help her, then.”

“The best help we can give her is killing Tempest,” Mik said. “Can you fly?”

Shimmer nodded grimly. “One last time, I think.”

A hard smile cracked Mikal Vardan’s bearded face. “Then let’s take that sea dragon down.” He pulled the key from his belt and fastened it around his neck with the chain from Ula’s waist. The key glistened in the storm-clouded darkness.

Out to sea, Tempest surfaced once more, chasing the slender form of Ula Drakenvaal.

Shimmer groaned and stretched his arms out to each side. Fresh blood oozed from his wounds as his body grew and lengthened. Tangled, misshapen muscle piled up on his shoulders as his wings sprouted. His jaws became long and pointed, showing row upon row of sharp fangs.

The bronze dragon gritted his teeth and suppressed a scream. His entire, scaly body shook with pain. He swelled up to his full size-huge, but not nearly as huge as the sea dragon.

Tempest had her hack to them as she focused every evil fiber of her being upon destroying Ula. She didn’t notice the bronze dragon growing on the temple stairs, or the man with the lance standing at the dragon’s side.

Shimanloreth gasped and extended his right forearm to Mik. The sailor scrambled up onto the dragon’s back. He perched himself in front of the shoulders, just above Shimmer’s deformed wing. Shimmer winced as Mik got a good grip on the bronze dragon’s rain-slick back.

The sailor hefted the dead lord’s coral lance. “Let’s save our friends,” he said.

“Yes,” Shimmer hissed through gritted fangs.

Lightning crashed, and thunder shook the ancient island.

Slowly, painfully, Shimmer took to the air.

Trip burst out of the water directly in front of the enraged sea dragon. He fastened his tiny hands on Tempest’s mane of Turbidus leeches and yanked hard. The snakelike creatures squealed in pain. Their enormous mistress shook her head to free herself of the annoying kender.

She turned just enough that Ula avoided her deadly plunge. As the sea dragon passed by, surging into the deep, the Dargonesti drove one of her two spears into the monster’s magic-scorched shoulder.

The spear pierced the dragon’s blackened scales, and Tempest howled in pain. She plunged into the swirling darkness with the kender clinging to her mane and Ula hanging tightly onto the spear. The water around them swirled as Tempest twisted back on herself, snaking her reptilian head toward her shoulder.

The sea elf planted her feet against the dragon’s scales and reeled back with the second spear-the bronze one Mog had once used.

As Tempest lunged toward them, Ula threw the bronze spear into the dragon’s yellow eye.

Tempest roared and shot to the surface once more.

She breached, arcing high into the sky and shaking her head like a wounded dog.

Several of the Turbidus leeches clinging to her neck came loose, and Trip lost his grip along with them. He sailed into the air, only to have Tempest’s flailing skull smash into him.

The kender cartwheeled end over end, hit the water hard, and disappeared below the raging surf.

Ula regained her footing on the dragon’s scaly hide. She pulled on the shaft of her spear, then shoved it back in, putting all her weight behind die blow.

Tempest roared in pain, and dark blood gushed from the wound.

Ula stabbed her again. Tempest writhed through the waves, sending spray high into the rainswept air, trying to shake the elf from her back.

Tempest dove under again, but Ula clung tenaciously to the spear. She wedged her toes under the dragon’s scales and hung on as the monster gyrated through the deep.

When the dragon broke surface, Ula yanked on the spear with one hand while clinging to the dragon with the other. Again she stabbed the spear into the wound. Again and again. Black blood spouted from the dragon’s shoulder, covering the Dargonesti in gore.

Tempest howled with pain. She writhed and bucked, diving repeatedly into the heaving ocean, only to leap into the air once more.

Ula reeled back for one final deadly thrust.

The dragon snapped her neck to one side and, suddenly, Ula lost her grip. The elf soared into the sky then crashed to the storm-tossed ocean below.

Mik and the bronze dragon angled up toward the clouds, gaining height for one desperate attack. Shimmer turned into the heart of the storm.

Mik lowered the ancient coral lance, the key to the Temple of the Sky glowed brightly at his neck. “For lost friends!” he said.

Shimmer nodded and hissed, “For the Dragon Isles!”

Lightning flashed as Mik and Shimmer dived out of the rain toward Tempest’s exposed back. The sea dragon cast her gaze across the surface of the sea, seeking the bodies of her foes, or perhaps Mik himself.

In the pulsating light of the storm, she spotted Shimmer’s shadow streaking across the surging waves toward her. Tempest turned just as the sailor and the bronze dragon closed in-but she couldn’t avoid the allies’ desperate charge.

Sparks shot into the rainswept air as Mik drove the coral lance deep into the sea dragon’s throat, just below her long neck.

Tempest squealed in surprise and pain, then bellowed with rage.

Mik and the bronze dragon lunged forward again, driving the coral lance deeper into the wound. Mik twisted the lance, trying to hit some vital area; the key dangling at his neck glowed, adding its power to the magic of the lance.

The enraged sea dragon wheeled and smashed her fin-like foretalon into Shimmer’s side. Her claws ripped through the scarred and battered membrane of his wing. Shimmer roared in pain. Scintillating magical energy blazed from his mouth and shook the air with the sound of thunder.

The electricity blasted through Tempest’s mane of Turbidus leeches and scarred and burned her titanic scales. She toppled back into the water, nearly pulling the lance from Mik’s hands.

Tempest’s body smashed into the sea at the base of the silver stairs. Her stupendous weight sent a huge wave surging across the ocean’s surface. Floundering off shore, Red Wake tipped and almost rolled over. Brine splashed high into the rain-clotted air, nearly reaching the Temple of the Sky. The sea dragon rolled across the base of the volcano, thrashing like a titanic beached fish.

Tempest’s black blood dripped from Kell’s lance, spattering Mik’s face and arms. Hanging over his heart, the bejeweled key glowed brightly. He grabbed onto a bronze spike in front of him as Shimanloreth wobbled in the air.

Shimmer struggled to stay aloft. The wind whistled through the tears in his wing, and his wounds filled the air with a fine spray of blood. Mik clung precariously to the bronze dragon’s scaly back. Bracing themselves for a final attack, they spiraled down toward their enemy on the mountainside below.