Blue Diamonds (Book One of The Blue Diamonds Saga) (25 page)

Meanwhile, just to the south of all the commotion Shomnath was struggling to keep Kala in his sight. As he watched her creep through the woods he expected her to turn and give them a signal at any given moment. The forest seemed void of any life, too void, and absent of all sound but that of their own steps. The silence was getting to Pall and Rolo, each of whom had given up on their painstaking efforts to be stealthy. Their footsteps had gotten heavier with each passing minute.

Then, Kala stopped, and a lone, indistinct voice resonated somewhere far away, muffled by both distance and wind. The murmur picked up in volume and intensity, rhythmically erupting into a unified roar that only could have come from adrenaline charged soldiers. Kala looked back at Shomnath.

“It's the soldiers,” said Shomnath, and he signaled for Kala to hold.

Rolo and Pall stopped beside him, listening to the war cry and pounding steel.

"Do they battle?" said Rolo.

"Not yet," said Shomnath. "It is a pre fight rally. But soon."

Then, all the excitement ended as abruptly as it started, when suddenly a thunderous explosion erupted ahead of them.

"What was that?" said Kala.

"Signal flare, I think," said Shomnath. "But it's supposed to shoot up into the sky."

“Well, so much for stealth then,” chuckled Rolo. "Sounds like the battle's begun."

“Good, the quiet was making me crazy,” added Pall.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that," said Shomnath. "The noise stopped.”

The prince had spoken too soon, as the quiet was ripped apart by a primal roar. It was a roar that could tame a nation, a roar that aside from its recent victims hasn’t been heard for hundreds of years. There was no doubt about it now. The friends looked in each other’s eyes, and understood that they were definitely headed in the right direction.

“A squeal like that’ll kill a small animal,” said Pall.

“I’m gonna give it a good reason to squeal,” Rolo said. He then gripped his staff with both hands and began walking towards the source of the sound. Pall followed the lead, his short legs pumping after the giant.

“Oh well,” sighed Shomnath. “Destroy the stone!” he called, before picking up his own pace.

“Try to keep an eye on those two,” he said to Kala.

“You didn’t even have to ask,” said Kala, who already had a deck of her silver blades in each hand as she darted after them.

What happened to the explosion? Wondered General Stark.

Not a peep of the rocket’s detonation was heard after it fluttered into the fog wall. Although, what was more worrisome than the rocket, to the general at least, was that the confidence he built up in his soldiers had shattered amidst the chaos of the flares. Their attention was completely diverted, and they silently gazed into the fog. The hypnotic fog wall swirled and swayed, this way and that, teasing them with its secrets.

Then, just as the general opened his mouth to begin a new speech, his long awaited explosion arrived, only not the one, or type he’d expected. The wall suddenly let loose a loud, powerful belch of steam, which punched out at his men like a long, ghostlike arm that rolled through the center of their formation.

The wave of hot vapor seared the exposed skin of the unlucky soldiers in its path, leaving them screaming and clutching at their faces. Two fell from horses that bolted away in feverish buckling, a spectacle that widened the eyes of the entire battalion. The general suddenly noticed a foul odor surrounding them, an odor from deep within his memory. Then it hit him. The smell was sulfur.

“Stand ready men!” he instinctively called, a terror welling deep in his belly.

Then came the fire, several paces from where the steam had come through. It was a stream of bright, unrelenting flame, cutting the general’s formation down the center. The screams of his men were nearly drowned out by the loud, crackling inferno.

“Archers! Fire!” Stark screamed, but only the handful of archers nearest to him were able to hear his command over the tumult of panicked soldiers. Horrorstricken, many tried to flee, although in their panic they ran into one another and became jammed together.

The archers who heard the general steadied their hands and then loosed dozens of arrows into the fog, all aimed in the vicinity of the flame’s unseen source. Their aim rang true to legend, and the fire quickly stopped. The panic subdued at the pause, yet the men were cautiously slow in regaining their footing.

The nervous soldiers waited and watched for a sign of victory, but instead, what they got was the dragon’s monstrous face, as it slowly emerged from the fog. Many men whelped out loud in fear by the time its entire nose and mouth emerged from the fog, for the simple enormity of it was enough to drive a man to cower.

Once the dragon's whole head, along with its magnificent mane of horns fully breached the gray wall, it stopped and stared at the soldiers. The demon showed no immediate signs of aggression. Then, like a statue it remained perfectly still, washing the terrified soldiers in confusion.

The dragon’s snout was as long as one of their horses and thrice as wide, with shiny, black orbs for eyes that were deeply set beneath a jagged brow. The dragon's skin was black as coal, and its scales were outlined in orange ember. Atop its head, thick, twisting horns glowed bright red like hot steel, while smaller ones protruded from the sides of its face like muttonchops. It was a demon pulled right out of a blacksmith’s nightmare.

At the moment, all eyes were focused on the three arrows that scored hits to the demon's face, two on the bridge of its nose, and a third that lodged deep in one eye. There was no sign of blood, but even more unsettling, no sign of pain. The dragon just hung its head out of the fog, suspended like a worm finding its way out of an apple. The hopes for any celebration ended then, when the three arrows simultaneously burst into flames and fell to the ground like burning twigs.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” General Stark screamed.

Then, with unnatural speed the dragon raised its face fifty feet high into the air and stepped forward through the mist, showing off a massive, black-scaled chest. Arrow after arrow pounded into the dragon, which appeared to be absorbing the hits in a display of its immunity.

The general hoped the dragon was being hurt, but the superficial damage proved temporary at best as the arrows all crackled in flame and then fell to the forest floor, the same way that the ones in its face had. Small, red glowing holes remained where the arrows hit, but they quickly closed and faded away.

The soldiers making up the front line froze, all but forgetting their strategy, each staring hopelessly at the fiend towering over their shield wall. A second volley of arrows whizzed over their heads, but once again the dragon wasn't moved.

“Attack!” yelled Stark, but the men hesitated, and now it was the dragon’s turn to flaunt its power.

Like a cobra, the dragon thrust its face forward, mouth gaping wide, but instead of trying to bite at the men it let loose another blast of fire. This time the tube of flame twisted and writhed as the dragon moved its neck side-to-side, swiftly engulfing twenty soldiers in hellish flame. The archers behind the barrage scrambled, cradling their bows and whatever arrows they could as they took to their feet, racing to get some distance between themselves and the beast.

“Riders! Spread out and attack!” the general beckoned his horsemen as he yanked his own rein, bidding his steed left, barely escaping the spiraling flames. Although he dodged the inferno by a few steps, the heat scalded his back and singed his horse’s tail.

When the dragon finally ran out of breath, it stepped forward. Once it fully passed through the smoke wall it spread its wings, straining to push aside trees in order to make some more room for itself. It flexed its wings with the strength of twenty dragons, yet this forest was the oldest in Somerlund. Here, the trees were many times the grandfather and they had the massive root systems to prove it.

Creaking moans rose from the pressure on the great trees, and while the dragon was able to push a few of them down, the majority held strong and only gave up their smaller branches. The age of a tree is only partly seen above the earth, while beneath ground the whole story is told, and the roots webbed throughout the ground here belonged to the largest system this side of the world.

The demon quickly gave up the effort to create a clearing, all the more enraged that it would now have to maneuver around Mother Nature's great pillars.

General Stark saw the advantage clearly.

“Keep close to the trees! It needs space!” called the general, who saw the slight hesitation in the dragon and figured that it might be their only advantage. As long as he kept the battle low to the ground, and utilized the massive trunks for cover, then they might be able to at least slow the dragon down.

Baylor watched helplessly as Stark’s plan of action unfolded before him. He was still hiding behind the cover of his fog wall, and didn't dare to join the fight yet. For now, he decided, he would just have to watch. The release of his beloved pet was orgasmic, leaving his body numb and weak, so much so, that he had to prop himself against the root of a great oak to keep upright. With each pulse he felt his strength returning, but as he squeezed the diamond hanging from his neck it was apparent that he'd lost his command over the dragon.

“Take to the air, damn you!” Baylor growled through clenched teeth.

He wanted the dragon to take to the air and bombard the humans with hellfire. Or better yet, he would have liked it to build up speed and transform into a powerful, explosive fireball, the same way it did when it attacked Berwyn.

He learned more of his pet's capabilities with each summoning, but now it was meaningless. The dragon was free in the moment, swimming in a sea of its rage, and fighting with the instincts of the glorious animal it once was. The wizard dwarf winced then, as the dragon was again rained on by a flurry of arrows, and this time the dragon felt the barrage, and it gave a thunderous roar. For a flashing moment, Baylor thought that he felt the dragon’s pain.

The front line soldiers got the lead out of their boots, stowed their fears, and began their own attacks, quickly finding a rhythm of darting in and out from under the cover of the trees. The dragon didn't slow, but the soldiers had to keep faith that the combinations of arrow, spear, and the occasional chop to its legs from a sword or axe was taking a toll on the beast. And while the dragon wasn't visibly weakening, each exchange resulted in the dragon ripping a couple men apart with its hooked talons, or bathing them in fire.

Baylor could barely stand to watch the scrambling dragon lunge and scrape at every little movement it caught, like a cat at a mouse hole, or more appropriately because of the trees, a cat trapped in front of a mouse hole. Baylor was sickly disappointed, as suddenly his dragon didn't seem so powerful anymore.

Without his control it was just another beast to be slain, albeit a supernatural beast. Although the ferociousness of the dragon had already killed many of Stark’s warriors, there were still many more behind them who were gaining courage. Worse than that, Baylor could see that the arrows pounding into the body of the dragon were taking longer and longer to burn away, telling him that they were starting to do real damage. He looked down and stared at Frostbern, his second most precious of magical weapons, contemplating coming to the dragon’s aid in battle. The ring did not yield the glowing effect it normally had, telling him that he wasn't rested enough to utilize its power.

“No, not yet,” Baylor muttered, realizing that it would be in his best interest to recover before putting his own life at risk. Even if the soldiers were able to wound his dragon to the point that its forced from the material world, which he readily doubted, it would simply return back into its diamond prison cell. At worst, this would render him unable to summon the demon until it was healed, and by that time his focus would surely be on escaping.

Then, as if it heard Baylor's thoughts, it tucked its wings and dropped down to its belly. From this stance it let loose the longest lasting surge of flames yet. While in this tense, crouched position it swayed its gaping mouth side to side, and the roaring inferno seemed to last several minutes. The soldiers retracted, and the demon took advantage of the break in the defense and lurched forward, wedging itself between two large trees. It gripped the trees like they were the bars of a prison cell, and braced itself with them as it let loose another stream of fire.

Soldiers who were quick enough to see the bright wave coming darted for cover. Even the general dove from his saddle for the trunk of a fat, ancient fir, just in time to see the rest of the world go orange. The general cried out when his steed turned into a dark red blur as the blazing surge swept it off of its feet.

The mare had been the general's companion for many years, but he could only grit his teeth and press his back tight to the tree, hoping that the cover would outlast the firestorm. It did, and just in time, for aside from the searing that his arms suffered, there were precious few breaths of oxygen left.

General Stark meekly rose from behind the tree that he’d been planted against, and looked about wide-eyed, fully convinced that hell had risen to claim the world he once knew. The general was no longer shouting orders too stunned for words, and on the other side of the fog wall Baylor took notice and licked his lips.

Horses without riders galloped to and fro. Some with little skin left, or bloody lumps where eyes once were. Some appeared inside out, with exposed bloody muscles twitching as they deliriously bucked in their suffering. Everything appeared to be burning. The general's senses came on then, when smoke burned his nostrils and punched his lungs. He looked around in shock. Each time a gust of wind blew, the range of visibility doubled from the current twenty paces, but the clarity didn’t reveal any good news. A few survivors crawled about, but the majority of them were too injured to be any good for battle. Baylor saw the general stand and he spat in anger.

"Curse you and your armor," Baylor said, recognizing that Sir Williamdale’s enchanted golden armor had saved General Stark. It still shined as bright as ever, in contrast to the charred surroundings.

Then voices began to sprout from the devastation.

“General?" called out some soldiers who’d survived the onslaught of flame. They'd been out of the blast's reach, and were now cautiously making their way through the carnage in search of their leader.

Baylor smiled as the voices began to get louder, and even started to become intertwined with happy banter.

"They think they've won," laughed Baylor. He guessed correctly, as the soldiers had assumed that the dragon’s sudden halt of fury meant victory, and their calls for the general gradually became intertwined with shouts of celebration.

But the dragon only stopped so that it could slip between the heavy foliage and move to the side of the battleground, where it waited under the cover of the thick smoke that now filled the area. It kept flat on its belly, as still as stone, observing its prey’s movement. Now it was going to take its time with them, falling into its natural behavior, which is that of a pouncing hunter.

"Finally yer thinking," exhaled Baylor, as he continued to watch from his side of the fog wall.