Bannon frowned. “Wouldn’t you know it’s a green dragon by the color of its scales?”
“Yes, my boy—but once you are that close, then you face troubles far more pressing than scientific classification.”
As they worked their way deeper into the valley, clouds scudded across the sky. They walked among the skeletons, piles of them, as if at one time there had been a great die-off of dragons.
“I wonder when the last one came here.” Bannon bent down at another skull, a small one, perhaps that of a young dragon that had perished beside its mother. Even the young dragon was larger than a draft horse.
Thistle scampered ahead to explore among the rocks. She climbed out of sight as she found more and more cluttered bones, ancient generations of fallen dragons.
“Over here, Sorceress!” Nathan called. “Perhaps this one? It’s a silver dragon, based on the configuration of its skull and the bony back ridges there. Metaphorically, at least, this one might be best for fighting.”
Joining him at the skeleton he had found, Nicci assessed the length and curvature of the rib, extended her arms as if holding an imaginary bow. “A good possibility.”
Bannon stepped up with his sword. “If that’s the one you want, Sorceress, I can cut the bone free. We’ll shape it into a bow when we get back to Cliffwall.”
Thistle screamed.
Nicci moved in a flash, bounding over the pitted volcanic rock and dodging the jumbled skeletons. She reached a pumice outcropping from which she could see the girl racing away in terror. Something stirred among the rocks and bones—something enormous.
A pair of angular wings unfolded, and leathery gray skin stretched taut. With a hiss, a serpentine neck scattered the rocks and heaved itself up in a spray of dust and gravel. The piled bones clattered and tumbled away from the half-buried form. It was a reptilian beast with wattled skin at its throat and tendrils drooping from fang-filled jaws. Many of its pewter-colored scales were missing, leaving exposed sections of wrinkled skin.
With the sound of blacksmith’s bellows, the dragon inhaled air into its lungs, flapped its broad wings, and lifted itself up. Fire lit its golden eyes. The creature seemed incredibly ancient, but not at all weak.
As it rose up, the gray dragon scattered debris, looming over them. Thistle cringed, directly in its line of sight. She had nowhere to run.
The beast spoke with loud thunder that caused more rocks to tumble from the steep slopes of the vale. “I am Brom!” He flapped his wings backward, making a stir of wind. “I am the guardian. I am the last.” The ancient gray dragon snorted, inhaling again to fill his withered, wrinkled hide. “And you are intruders.”
CHAPTER 69
As Brom heaved himself up from a pile of bones and volcanic rock, Thistle backed away, her eyes darting, searching for shelter. Throwing herself forward to face the gray dragon, Nicci dug within herself to find magic she could use against the huge beast, sure the girl would be incinerated any moment.
Bannon and Nathan both drew their swords and stood ready, as if they might terrify or intimidate Brom. The wizard seemed defiant, but Bannon was clearly awestruck and terrified.
The gray dragon kept rising from the rubble of skeletons. Dust, boulders, and bones pattered off of his wrinkled hide. Smoke and sparks curled from his mouth as his jaws yawned wide. “I thought I was at my end,” Brom rumbled, “but I am still the protector of this place.” The great wings flapped back and forth; the thin membranes were blotchy and discolored, and small rips gave the wings a tattered appearance. Nicci doubted the beast could fly anymore.
Brom was unspeakably ancient. Scales fell like loose coins from his hide. Summoning a roar from a bottomless pit of great weariness, the dragon bellowed at them. “Thieves! I must guard the bones of my kind.”
When Nathan raised his ornate blade in challenge, he looked laughably insignificant. “We meant no harm to you, dragon, but we will defend ourselves.” He swept his sword high, cutting through the air. Bannon followed his mentor’s lead, waving Sturdy in an attempt to scare the huge creature.
The gray dragon turned his head and squinted, as if he had trouble seeing. “You are not like other dragon slayers I have encountered. You are much punier. Easy to kill.” His serpentine throat swelled like pumping bellows as he coughed gouts of smoke, cinders, and sparks at them.
Just in time, Nicci released a wave of wind that deflected the dragon’s sputtering exhalations. She reached the terrified girl and pushed Thistle away from Brom. “Run—find shelter!”
The gray dragon lunged toward them on unsteady limbs.
Foolishly, Bannon leaped forward, and with a great yell, swung his sword down on Brom’s foreleg. Sturdy’s keen edge cut through the loose, displaced scales and the parchment-thin hide, sinking in to the bone, as if the reptilian leg were nothing more than a fallen log.
Brom let out a roar, sparking more fire from his throat. The ancient dragon thrashed his barbed tail and knocked bones and volcanic rock aside in an explosion of anger and pain. He thrust his long neck forward, questing and snarling, as he squinted his slitted eyes.
Nicci pushed the girl along as they ran, ducking behind pumice towers and huge bones. Even a feeble, decrepit dragon was a formidable opponent. Rattling dry ivory bones around her as she climbed, Thistle reached the giant skeleton of another black dragon just as Brom came up behind her and Nicci.
The beast heaved back his long head and inhaled, building up smoke and cinders. Knowing she had to protect the girl and herself, Nicci tossed Thistle inside the petrified dome of the black dragon’s skull and dove in beside the girl.
The gray dragon’s blast of smoke and flickering fire pelted the skull, and Nicci felt the shudder of the impact, the wave of forceful wind rocking their shelter, a throb of intense heat. Thistle curled up against her, holding tight as they weathered the attack.
As soon as Brom’s blast was over, Nicci heard Nathan call out, “Fight someone your own size, dragon!” He let out a rude laugh. “But since no such opponent is available, you will have to battle us. Today, Bannon and I will become dragon slayers after all.”
The young man added his shout, deliriously and foolishly brave. “Come on, old thing—or are you too weary? Is it time for your nap?”
Snorting at the insult, Brom wheeled about, sprinting away from the blackened skull that still sheltered Nicci and the girl. With a roar that sounded more like a trembling sigh, the gray dragon staggered after the two swordsmen. Nathan and Bannon darted about, hacking and hammering at Brom’s hind legs and tail, gouging the scales and skin. Thick, dark blood oozed out of the wounds.
Brom snapped his jaws, but Nathan rolled out of the way amid a clatter of long-dried vertebrae. Though the ancient guardian dragon seemed intimidating, many of his teeth had fallen out. Because of his titanic size, Brom toppled rock spires and struck Bannon a glancing blow, knocking him among the debris.
As soon as the dragon had turned away, Nicci pressed Thistle down. “Stay here. You’re sheltered, at least for now. You’ll be safe enough.” Then she emerged to face the ancient dragon herself.
“Be careful, Nicci!” Thistle called after her.
Her normal magic would not be enough against even this weak and decrepit behemoth, and she was forced to draw upon elements of both Additive and Subtractive Magic. In the gray smear of clouds that had closed over the high valley, thunder cracked like an explosion. Nicci pulled down skittering lashes of blue-black lightning. The jagged bolts were wild and rampant. One crashed into the curved rib cage of a sprawling skeleton, but two other branches of lightning struck Brom, ripping through the membrane of his right wing and scoring a deep black wound along his side.
The old dragon let out a smoke-filled roar and thrashed his head from side to side. “No! I am the guardian.” Brom stormed toward Nicci, though he could barely see.
Nicci held both hands out in front of her, curling her fingers. She could unleash a ball of wizard’s fire and throw it at the dragon, but she had a
nother idea. Better to summon fire within the dragon, burn it from the inside out. She could find Brom’s heart, and explode it.
In previous battles, she would summon heat and dramatically raise the internal temperature of an object, as she had done with the giant lizards near the lair of the Lifedrinker. Now, searching with her mind, she found the dragon’s heart. She could burn it to a cinder.
Facing the giant beast, she remained calm, focused. When Brom lunged, Nicci released her magic, filling the dragon’s heart with fire. She would give the ancient beast a swift and merciful death.
Her magical blaze ignited Brom’s heart into a furnace—but still the dragon didn’t stop.
Instead, as the fire continued to rage within him, building inside his chest cavity, Brom actually flourished, grew, swelled. Losing control of the magic she had triggered, Nicci realized her terrible mistake.
Fire would not burn a dragon’s heart to ash. Fire was intrinsic to the very being of such a creature. The intense heat had reignited Brom’s heart—not killing him, but rejuvenating him, infusing the dragon with a renewed power. His thin skin and rows of ribs became flush again. His wing membranes crackled and healed. His enormous reptilian body grew more threatening.
Fully alive again, Brom flapped his wings to create a gale of wind that knocked Nicci backward. Bannon and Nathan scrambled out of the way, diving for shelter among the volcanic boulders.
The gray dragon turned his head to the sky, spread wide his jaws, and let out a river of bright, intense fire. When Brom swung his head around, his eyes, which had been previously dimmed with age, blazed with a golden intensity.
“Now you have made me strong enough to defeat you!”
CHAPTER 70
As the dragon turned its newly bright-eyed gaze toward them and let out a blast of flames, Bannon dove for shelter behind the tall pumice boulder, dragging a startled Nathan along with him. The roar of heat slammed against the pocked volcanic surface, blackening it.
While a rejuvenated Brom attacked her companions, Nicci summoned lightning again, a blast three times as strong as her first barrage, but now the dragon’s pewter scales were like thick armor, and the lightning skittered harmlessly off his back. Full of energy, the guardian dragon coiled his leg muscles, and sprang into the air, creating a great gust with his restored wings.
“This is a sacred place to dragons! You are thieves.”
He vomited a wave of fire toward Nicci, and she cast out her hands, releasing magic in a shield of air and mist that deflected the flames. But she staggered under the incinerating onslaught, reinforcing her barrier, straining as the avalanche of flames pounded and pounded. That one defense nearly drained her, and when the fire subsided, she staggered back.
“Grave robbers!” Brom roared from the sky. “You must die.”
“No!” Thistle’s voice rang out in the odd silence that filled the gap between the dragon’s bellow and the blast of his flames. “Brom, listen! That’s not why we’re here.”
Nicci whirled to see that the scrawny girl had climbed on top of the giant dragon skull and now stood waving her hands to draw Brom’s attention. “We came because we have to!” Thistle looked tiny and vulnerable out in the open.
The gray dragon swooped above the girl and curled his serpentine neck in preparation for another fire blast.
Nicci screamed, “Thistle! Take cover!”
The girl looked so waifish, so brave, so impossible, that even Brom hesitated. Thistle stood on top of the curve of the monstrous blackened skull, defiant and angry. “We’re trying to save the world! My friends and I made a long journey to come here. It’s important!”
The dragon’s eyes were bright, reflecting a sharp mind now, his full faculties reawakened with the supercharged fire that Nicci had pumped into his heart. “You are a strange creature, tiny one,” Brom rumbled. “Very brave and very foolish.”
Thistle put her hands on her narrow hips and her raggedy skirt. “I am determined. And I was told that gray dragons are wise.” She shot a quick glance over to Nathan, then back to Brom. “You should listen to reason. Don’t you want to know why we came here? Aren’t you curious?” She huffed, then answered without waiting to hear a response. “An evil woman has unleashed a terrible magic that could swallow up the whole land. It will destroy Kuloth Vale before long … and there’s only one way to stop it. We need a bone—a dragon’s rib.” She glared at the gray-scaled beast. “That’s why we came here. We’ll kill you if we have to. We don’t want to, but we mean to take what we need. We are trying to save the world.”
Intrigued, Brom backflapped his wings and settled his great bulk among the graveyard rubble, close to Thistle. Bannon and Nathan emerged from where they had taken shelter. Their hair was streaked with sweat, their faces smeared with soot and dust.
Nicci held the magic within her, barely restraining herself from releasing another barrage of lightning, though she was not sure it would do any good. She was still weary from her previous defense and doubted she could kill or even stun the reenergized dragon. She realized that attacking now would only put Thistle in greater danger. If gray dragons were the most intelligent of the species, maybe Brom would listen before he lashed out again.
The dragon settled back, extending his wedge-shaped head forward. Smoke curled out of his nostrils as he regarded the spunky girl. Thistle faced him without flinching, even though Brom’s hot breath blew back her tangled curls of hair. “Explain yourself, tiny one.”
Still standing as tall as she could on top of the scorched dragon skull, Thistle said, “I just want to save my land. First, the Lifedrinker killed my parents, my aunt and uncle, my village, and everything in my valley—and we destroyed him. But now there’s an even worse threat, a sorceress who unleashed an explosion of life, and now that is taking over the valley. It will destroy everything!” Her voice became a desperate shout. “I just want a normal world. I want the beautiful valley back, the one everyone talks about.”
Brom snorted smoke. “A sorceress created too much life?” He lifted a now-healed forelimb and used an enormous claw to scratch between his tusk-sized teeth. “I marvel at the concept. Too much life…”
He turned his blazing gaze to where Nicci, Bannon, and Nathan stood ready to fight. The dragon addressed them. “I came here to die, as all dragons do at Kuloth Vale … but it has been so long. I was the guardian, and I remember their lives. Now you have restored my life.” Smoke and cinders curled from his mouth as the gray dragon let out an odd, growling chuckle. “Although I do not believe you meant to.” He turned back to Thistle, leaning forward. The dragon’s head was so close that she could have reached out and touched his scaled snout. “Now, brave tiny one, what does this have to do with me?”
“Not with you,” Thistle said. “But with the bones … or just one bone. The only way we can kill the evil woman and stop that flood of life is with a bow made from a dragon’s rib. That’s why we came here. We mean to take one!”
Nicci carefully edged her way closer to Thistle. She wanted to be in a position to shield the girl with magic if Brom became enraged. Nicci spoke up, in a firm but reasonable tone. “Just one rib, noble dragon. That is all we ask—and it is also what we require.”
Bannon spoke up. “There are plenty of bones here, dragon. You won’t miss one.”
Brom lifted his huge head and flexed his wide leathery wings. “These are the remains of my kind. These are my ancestors.”
“The spell is very specific and powerful,” Nathan explained. “We would not have come to Kuloth Vale unless we had no choice. Gray dragons are wise, are they not? If we don’t stop Life’s Mistress, eventually her wave of rampant growth will cover the world, even these high mountains.”
Brom simmered for a long moment, pondering deeply. “I understand that it must seem a small thing to you, considering all these bones here, but I must revere the remains of the dragons and do what I have sworn to do. Dragons are honorable creatures.” He paused, regarding them one by one with hi
s reptilian gaze. “I am an honorable creature.”
Now he faced Nicci, his eyes a molten gold. “However, I must acknowledge what you did for me, Sorceress. You gave me life. I was about to perish and become the last set of bones here, and then no dragon would have guarded Kuloth Vale. But with the fire that you placed in my heart, I am alive and powerful again. You have added centuries to my life and purpose.” He huffed and seemed to relax. “Perhaps a single rib bone is not an excessive price to ask.”
* * *
As dusk swallowed Kuloth Vale, the gray creature watched their every move while the companions searched through the graveyard of dragons. Nicci assessed each rib for its suitability. When she found exactly the right one, she ran her fingers along the smooth, ivory surface, bent it slightly, felt it spring back.
Nathan studied the head, the structure of the skull. “That skeleton belonged to a blue dragon. A medium-size one. The bones look undamaged.”
Brom loomed above them. A thick membrane flickered across his golden eyes, then slid back beneath the lids. His voice was somber. “Not just any blue dragon, that was Grimney. I remember him well. We were young together, hatched only a century apart. He was always a reckless adventurer, wanting to fly across the seas or soar off to the frozen wastes. He would play in the updrafts of the mountains, taking foolish risks.” He snorted a curl of smoke. “Once, Grimney crashed down in a thick forest and became so tangled in tree limbs that he bellowed there for days until other dragons arrived to extricate him. I helped burn the forest to ash so Grimney could pull himself free.”
Brom shook his heavy head from side to side. “Another time he flew high, high enough that he hoped to taste the fire of the sun. He came back long afterward, spiraling and flying unevenly. He was never right in the head after that.” The gray dragon flapped his wings, then folded them neatly against his back. “I believe it fitting that you use his rib for your quest. Take what you need. Grimney would approve.”