Authors: Blaine Hart
But the lofty elegance was a shell of its old glory. The city seemed to have been ruined from above and below. Many of the pedestals I saw had gaping holes or huge chunks torn from them as if they had been beset by explosions. The grand structures fared no better, huge swaths of brick or concrete were gone, leaving the iron support work baking in the sun like dark skeletons. Barely a spire above was untouched by whatever had ruined the place, and I saw one peaked minaret had fallen to the ground, its point dug deep into the sand.
“That one looks promising,” Kell said pointing up to one tower.
It stood on the edge of the city and I thought it to be a look-out point. There was a rough battlement atop but most of it was damaged. We made our way to the closest entrance that looked fairly sound.
Inside I praised the dark. There was no sunlight here and that was a small blessing. Kell chanted a little and a small glowing light sprang into being above our heads. We marveled at the intricate and ornate stone-work, for even here at a humble entrance the bricks and stone were laid in elaborate patterns that dazzled with both design and faded colors. If what we saw was the norm in this airy city, it must have taken a million slaves a thousand years to lovingly complete.
We found a winding staircase. Kell’s light revealed more and more detailed patterns in the building, and even the long dead torch sconces sprouted out of the round walls as if they had grown from living rock. We reached a large room that looked to be purposefully open to the sun. It must once have been a place of leisure, for in the middle was a deep, tiered basin made from colorful polished marble. Weird animal and fish heads leaned down into the basin and I thought that it may of been a pool of sorts. Now it was nothing. Desert dust coated everywhere. Above, an array of long dead, near fossilized plants hung dry, brown and limp. The only sign of any humanity was a jeweled, silver goblet lying on its side on the floor beside the pool.
“Your first spoil,” Kell said smiling and tossed the precious thing to me. “Don’t get greedy.”
From the open room we saw the watch-tower to our right. To get there we had to cross an archway connecting two structures. I had to steel myself from looking down. I hadn’t realized how high we had climbed. The arch seemed solid enough, but much of the balusters on either side were broken or simply gone. My head spun.
At the tower we climbed yet more stairs. The Angel’s blessing must have indeed been strong, for despite the long trek through the desert and the many stairs in this tower, I felt little fatigue. Then we saw light above and were soon standing at the top. To one side we saw nothing but the shadowless, shifting sands. But on the other side we gazed upon a field of destruction.
As far as my eyes could see, the magnificent city was like one enormous palace, and that palace was in ruins. No building had been spared. Metal frameworks twisted like a myriad of gnarled fingers. Gaping holes were everywhere and huge chunks of rock and stone littered the earth. The desert air shimmered all about and it sometimes looked as if the bones were swaying and waving. The city was lain out in a circle, its flying arches and walkways leading to the center where everything seemed to focus on a grand towering statue, one arm raised to the heavens, a broken sword in hand, and the other arm clutching it’s heart. The scene of magnificent destruction and desolation was hypnotic.
“Don’t move,” Kell said, his hand like an iron grip on my neck.
I peered through the haze, the shimmering, shifting wreckage that was rippling. I then saw that two points of iron colored bones near the statue were indeed moving. They were lifting and unfolding like the huge wings of a skeletal bat. The head rose up and there, in the heart of the splendid destruction, was Visalth.
The beast launched. With a powerful spring from its hind legs and two beats of its wings it had crossed half the distance to them. I felt the blood drain from my face as that skeletal grin loomed. It’s jaws opened wide but no roar came out. In a few seconds it was on us, but a second too late as Kell leapt, and clutching me by the scruff of my neck, we were airborne. The watch-post exploded under the giant jaws and we sailed through the air between the bony wings. I screamed as we arced and fell, but to my amazement Kell and I landed on the ground simply as if we had jumped off a bed.
“Master?” I cried astonished.
Even Kell looked amazed.
“I just . . .” he began. “It was impulse. I just jumped and . . . scrit!”
Bones rushed overhead and that long, sinewy tail swiped a hunk off a nearby building. Rock and dead foliage tumbled about us. Visalth wheeled in the air and turned towards us. Kell grabbed my hand and we again flew up in an arc away from destruction. I heard stones shatter and tumble behind us as the bone dragon tried to catch us. We landed on a tall building spire and Kell leapt again and again throughout the city, always aiming for the largest buildings to jump off of. But the dragon always had us in his sight and though we managed to dodge his wrath time and again, it was clear that the cat-and-mouse game might easily go the way of the cat if this kept up much longer.
“This won’t do,” Kell said.
We had landed in the open wreckage of an empty room. Visalth circled and took a bead on us. It turned to gain speed and darted toward us, its scorpion tail whistling through the air behind it. Again we jumped, but this time through a gaping hole in the side of the room and down to the sands below.
“Run!” he cried as rocks began to rain.
I saw my master’s thinking. We dashed away, under arches and out of sight. We ran through the twisting alleys of debris, and then we ran some more. Visalth roamed above and whenever he came close to view we would go under a rock or wall and freeze. We soon found a tumbled dome that provided great security and we hid. Visalth searched, we knew. Even though we couldn’t see him, I could distinctly sense his foul presence every time he got close. Every now and again we could hear stone shattering and falling, but it was clear that he had lost us after an hour of hiding or so.
“I guess,” I said as we scanned the empty sky. “I guess he knows that we’re here.”
“Ya think?” Kell asked dryly.
Just then we heard the sound of a distant tower falling.
“I wonder,” I said. “If it might not just try and destroy the city block by block to get us.”
“The thing wouldn’t have such logic,” Kell said. “Its destruction is wanton frustration.”
“Do you suppose it will tire?”
“It might,” Kell said with a shrug. “But I think it’s more likely that it will soon return to whatever it wants here. Remember that it doesn’t have much of a brain, but it does have a purpose. If we can find what that is we might find a way to destroy it.”
“It was huddled by that statue,” I said. “Whatever it wants must be there. I say that we wait until dark and then – oh, right there is no dark here.”
“I say that we wait until it loses interest. Then we do some experimenting.” Said Kell
“Experimenting?” I asked.
“Gavial’s blessing. It’s the key to our success I have no doubt.” Kell said with a hint of awe in his voice.
“I don’t—“
“Hush!” Kell warned.
Through the single window they could see the Bone Dragon soaring above. Its neck was craning this way and that, those death-like eyes searching. Just the sight of it was enough to chill my heart. I had not dreamed a thing could be so massive. And yet, as I gazed up at the magnificent collection of undead bones, I could not see how it could be slain. It had no flesh to tear. It had no heart to bleed. One might crush its skull. But my master’s war-hammer was a poor shadow of itself, and even if one might get near enough to land a blow that scorpion tail or those massive jaws would make short work of anyone foolish enough to try.
The bone tail slid from our view and my heart began to beat again. We waited a while but heard no more destruction in the creature’s wake. We both sighed in relief. Kell lopped off another hunk of the magic root and we ate and rested for a bit.
Kell then stood up and leapt to a ledge high on the inside of the dome structure. He called to me from high above. He wanted me to try and do the same. At first I thought that he was crazy, but he urged me on and so with a running start I jumped – and I amazed us both. I easily soared almost halfway to the place where he stood laughing. I was flabbergasted, for not only had I bounded as graceful as a gazelle but I also landed as sure footed as any mountain goat.
“You are blessed,” he called down.
It took me two tries in earnest to land beside my master and I was astonished. After more experimenting we found that while my strength and agility did not come near Kell’s, it was certain that I was achieving some spectacular feats.
“Gavial’s grace is according to your ability,” Kell said. “But such ability may do much in the end.”
“What’s your plan?” I asked. “Are we to leap and jump until the dragon falls from exhaustion?”
“Wish it were that simple,” he said with a chuckle. “But it’s certain that we cannot conquer by strength alone, so we will have to use the things that the Angel of Glory sought in us; we must use our brains. For the moment then we will be like mice. We will furrow through the broken city and discover the monster’s lair. There we may find a way to best him.”
And so we began. Our way was clear to find, we had seen the dragon in the city’s heart and all roads led that way. We did our best to stay out of sight. We snuck through crumbled buildings, sometimes crawling. There were places where we might have climbed up and crossed the arches and causeways that remained intact, but that would have exposed us, so we stayed close to the ground like mice. As we paused in a building to rest my teacher asked,
“Have you noticed something odd about this place?”
“Other than rampant destruction,” I began, “a sun that will not set and that casts no shadows, and a pretty nasty dragon, no. Have you?”
“Yes. This was the heart of the Dragon Wars. So . . .?”
“So,” I mulled, and then it hit me. “Where are the dragon bones?”
“Indeed. Where are they?”
We zig zagged the ruined city until we found a small, nearly unblemished building whose wooden door had long crumbled off its hinges. Inside we climbed a winding staircase to the top of the tower. From that circular battlement we peered through arrow-slits and the sight I saw was unreal.
I looked down at what was once a proud city square. It was nearly two acres across and almost as wide. There were broken off statue pedestals and what looked like roads paths that I imagined filled with the city people who once lived in this place. But all that was gone, and strewn about the entire grounds were thousands upon thousands of bones, some huge and some small, some bleached and some near rotten brown.
In the center of it all stood the immense stone statue of the ancient warrior, his broken sword raised to the sky and his hand clutched to his heart. At the foot of the figure the ground was clear and there we looked down at an amazing sight; the bones of a nearly whole dragon lay prostrate before the statue. From head to tail and from wingtip to wingtip the skeleton sprawled as if in homage.
Then I heard a clatter off to one side, and there was Visalth. The monster was rooting like a rat through a giant pile of bones.
“What the hell?” I breathed.
“I think,” Kell said. That our friend is trying to build himself a playmate.”
“B-but he can’t,” I said. “He is undead. He has no magic. He can’t animate that pile of bones.”
“And yet he is very intent on doing just that.”
“What do we do?”
“We stop him.”
“How?”
“You see the ribcage on his playmate?” Kell asked.
I did and nodded. Visalth had found a near entire spine with the protruding bones.
“That,” Kell said “Will be the safest place for you. And if all else fails, go for the wishbone.”
“What?” I stammered.
But he didn’t answer. With a blood-curdling cry he leapt from the top of the tower and sailed through the air. Instantly Visalth rose and launched at him. The bone-dragon roared a silent roar as my master plunged and landed on the lifeless skeleton’s skull at the base of the statue. Visalth reared in midflight. Kell raised Ashrune and the creature flapped and flailed as if it were in pain. Kell sank the broken peen of the war hammer onto the ancient bone. Visalth flapped and thrashed in the air. It sent its whip-like tail at my master, but Kell quickly disappeared into the skull’s eye socket. Visalth went mad in the air, flapping and flying as his tail whistled through the wind and did nothing.
Then I understood. The skull of its brother was precious, and though he could have laid waste to Kell then and there, my master’s death would have been too costly. I silently cheered as Visalth hovered then circled.
It was a standoff. My master’s wounded weapon could not harm the ancient skull. But the ancient dragon would not harm the head of its creation. But watching its slow and studied flight around and around I realized that the dragon could out last my master. The Angel’s blessing was waning and so I didn’t think. I leapt.
I landed in the sand beyond the dragon’s reach but within his sight. Immediately the boney tail plowed the earth before me. My mission was accomplished. Visalth had me in his deadly stare. I ran and dove under a stone overhang and the tail slashed. Ancient stone exploded above me and I hit the dirt with a thud, rock shards shattering about me.
I braced for another blow, but none came.
I looked. I lay under the toes of the grand statue. Visalth had taken a chunk out of the ankle and it was flying away. It reared and flew as one pained, and I marveled.
But just then Kell burst from the jaws of the inert skull. He leapt and caught Visalth by a rib. The dragon twisted and writhed in the sky as Kell beat on him from within. Visalth rolled and its scorpion tail tried to stick Kell from inside itself.
I watched the weird battle. Kell climbed the ribs to the creature’s spine, but the dragon wormed and flexed and wiggled to expel the invader, swooping and climbing and diving until Kell crouched just under the thing’s neck vertebrae. I thought that surely from there my master might be able to deal a crushing blow, but that was not Kell’s goal. He climbed up as if to straddle the spine and I cringed, for surely that would simply be asking for that snaking tail to slice him in two. I watched from below as the dragon flew by. Then, as it turned its ghastly head, Kell leapt off his quarry and onto the statue looming above. Visalth raced by, its gaping jaws open in a silent roar.
From where I crouched I could not see my master, so as the bone-dragon sailed on I quickly scurried from cover and made a mad dash through the sand to dive between the inert skeleton’s ribs. Visalth saw, turned, and hovered above me. The pointed spear of his tail darted here and there about above me, but it seemed that the monster had no clear shot at me and so held back.
Looking up I saw my master nestled in the hand of the statue. Kell was kneeling, his back to the beast, and it looked to me as if he were chanting. A moment later I saw a thin whisp of smoke rise.
Visalth flew up and over, rolling and somersaulting madly in the sky. It was confused. It would swipe at the statue, but it was clear that he was as loathe to injure the marble warrior as he was to harm his fellow bones. Then it dove toward me, but I stood stock still and it saw only the futility of its assault. It would then rise in the air to strike at Kell, only to roll his head, his maw gaping in silent frustration.
Kell and I were safe for the moment. But how long could those moments go on? The dragon tried to land on the statue, but its hind claws found no purchase, and the massive creature fell away. Once it landed beside me, its hideous face not yards away. It craned its neck and opened its jaws, and whether that was to frighten me or to try to roast me with fire it did not have I would never know. It succeeded in terrifying me, but it had not even a warm breath. It launched away again in blind aggravation.
And then the wind stirred.
Warm air rose up behind me. It ran through the massive bone cage of the almost assembled dragon and swirled the dust at the base of the statue, picking up flakes that sparkled. The glittering wind climbed up the statue and for a moment enveloped my master and then it crept up and up the statue until it encircled the top of the stone warrior’s head. The sparkling mass whirled there for a moment like a halo, and then I watched in astonishment as the marble eyes of the statue opened.
Those terrible eyes gazed down at the layout of bones beneath it, a golden streaming light that enveloped the whole skeleton. And then the bones began to stir. I was frozen in horror as bit by bit, chink by chink, the joints of the skeletal dragon began to magically come together. They were fusing with some unholy magic and I heard the rippling of the spine above me stir with a new animation. The wings flexed. The neck rolled and the head began to lift.