Jeff Crook - The Rose and the Skull

The dragon passed directly overhead no more than a few feet above treetop level. They felt the heat radiating from his body. A rank odor of sulfur and burning meat gagged them, and a sickly metallic tang of hot gold and steel filled the air.

The dragon banked and circled back toward to the north, the direction from which it had come. Nalvarre released Jessica, but she continued to lie on the cold hilltop, her tear-streaked face turned blankly to the heavens. Valian clambered up beside them.

"Do you think the dwarf…" he began.

Nalvarre raised a finger to his lips, glancing knowingly at Jessica. He nodded. The elf bowed his head, his white hair spilling down to hide his face. Below them, still cringing behind their tree, the gully dwarves whimpered pitifully.

"Dragons," Jessica whispered.

No one had the heart to look at her, to see the grief on her face.

"Dragons," she repeated in a husky whisper. Slowly, she rose to her feet.

"Look!" she cried. "Silver dragons!"

Like quicksilver arrows just loosed from a bow, three silver dragons shot up from the valley. Two from the left, one from the right, they rose unerringly toward the receding form of Pyrothraxus. At the last moment, Pyrothraxus saw them and swerved. They crossed just beneath him, screaming, long plumes of white frost arcing from their mouths to strike and freeze his wings. A gout of flame from his nostrils responded to the attack, but too late and much too slowly. The smaller, quickersilver dragons rose above him and met, hanging in the air for a moment, as though conferring, while Pyrothraxus laboriously increased the beat of his wings.

Jessica screamed with joy, a veritable battle cry that surprised the others. She drew her sword and swung it vigorously around and around as she performed some kind of mad dance. Nalvarre and even Valian drew away from her.

"Kill him!" she yelled fiercely to the silver dragons.

In response, the silvers dove as one at the red dragon's head. He pulled it back, and flying hunch-shouldered like an eagle pestered by magpies, made his ponderous way to the north. The silvers continued to dive and bomb his head until all four were out of sight. Jessica kept up her war dance until, with the dragons no longer visible in the darkening sky, she collapsed.

"Do you know where you are!" a voice asked suddenly from the darkness.

Uhoh nodded, rattling his chains, then remembered that they probably couldn't see him. "Yes," he said meekly.

"Do you know who I am?" the voice asked, echoing in the vast emptiness of the chamber where Uhoh lay.

He was chained to a low stone slab by his ankles, wrists, neck, and waist. Occasionally he felt things scurry across his legs, but the darkness prevented his seeing them. He'd been there for days and days, it seemed.

"Me know nothing," Uhoh replied.

A light flared into life, revealing a small balcony with a dark alcove behind it. A creature stood there, glaring down at Uhoh with one hideous red eye. It was a draconian, but one twisted and malformed by the magic that created it. One side of its face had eerie, semi-reptilian, semi-humanoid features, but the other side of the face was melted like candle wax. In some places, bare bone showed through the distorted flesh, while in others hideous growths of bone and horn protruded in fantastic shapes beneath the skin. The draconian looked like a nightmare brought to waking life.

"Me know nothing!" Uhoh screamed in terror. He averted his face and closed tight his eyes, as if that simple act could make the nightmare go away.

"They call me the Old Man," the draconian said. "They call me the Old Man because I am indeed the oldest. I am the firstborn, the first of my kind to crawl forth from the egg, in the days before the magic of our draconic transformation was perfected. The magic was flawed, and so I am flawed, but I survived where my brothers died hideously, their bodies twisted, their minds shattered by their deformity. I am also more perfect than any that have come after me. I am more powerful. I know all things. In fact, I know something about you, Uhoh Ragnap."

"Me not Uhoh Ragnap. You got wrong gully dwarf," Uhoh shouted.

"That's not true," the draconian laughed. "We both know it. Would you deny your own identity to save your miserable skin? But of course you would. You are a gully dwarf."

Uhoh tried to lower his voice and sound dour. "Me not gully dwarf. Me hill dwarf. You doorknob. You got wrong dwarf."

"Come, come. Enough of these foolish games," the draconian said with magnanimous patience. "You are a gully dwarf, and you are the gully dwarf whom my servants have chased halfway across Sancrist Isle. You have led them a merry chase and done me great service. I see they are in need of training."

A door banged open. Uhoh turned his head to see two draconians enter, one bearing a lit torch, the other rolling a cart.

"Not all my servants are hunters-assassins, as humans call them. Some have other skills. These baaz you see before you are quite talented in the arts of torture," he said.

Uhoh looked up. "Why you torture me?" he asked. "Me only a gully dwarf."

"Because, dear Uhoh, I want to know what Gunthar said to you before he died. We know he told you something, by the words from your own mouth," the draconian said. The balcony light dimmed. As the draconian continued to speak, the sound of his voice seemed to slowly float down the wall. While the baaz torturers busied themselves setting up their implements, Uhoh eyed these fearfully even though he didn't know their uses. "You were with Lord Gunthar when he died. I am quite certain, shameless thespian that he was, he saved some dire secret to import to you with his last, gargling breath."

"What?" Uhoh said, utterly baffled.

The draconian's twisted face appeared from the shadows as he stepped into the light of the torturers' torch. "What did Gunthar whisper in your ear, you miserable wretch? Don't try to deny it. What did he tell you?"

The door banged open again, and a man dressed in a crisp blue captain's uniform entered the room. He strode to the table, his bootheels clicking on the stone floor. He doffed his tall, plumed hat and bowed.

"Well, General Zen?" the draconian leader asked.

"The ship and its cargo are intact. As we speak, it is being unloaded, and the prisoners removed to dungeon cells," the man said.

"Unfortunate for them that they sailed too close to this shore. You have done well," the draconian said.

"Thank you, Grand Master Iulus," the man said as he bowed again.

"This is an interesting form you wear," Iulus commented, indicating Zen's appearance.

"Ah, yes. The captain was a bit of a dandy," Zen said. "I flew out to the ship as it passed, and in the usual manner, killed a member of the watch, thus taking his form and disposing of his body overboard. I then proceeded to the captain's cabin, where I killed him and took his shape. Once this was done, it was a simple enough matter to order the helm to steer to the castle's harbor, where our soldiers were waiting. We took them without a fight."

"General Zen, your efficiency is a model to us all. Reward the wyvern watches with a few of the prisoners from the ship. Make sure the master of the dungeons chooses lively ones. The wyverns do so love to play with their supper," Iulus commanded.

"Yes, my master," Zen said, bowing as though to leave.

"Not yet, my friend," Iulus purred. "It can wait. First shed that hideous human form. It's making the baaz nervous."

General Zen stepped back and closed his eyes, folding his arms before his chest. His body began to change shape, his nose lengthening into a snout, his fingers narrowing into claws. His smooth human skin erupted with silver reptilian scales, while from his shoulders and back spread large, powerful wings. In mere moments, he had resumed his natural shape, that of a sivak draconian. Uhoh's mouth fell open.