Blue Diamonds (Book One of The Blue Diamonds Saga) (3 page)

One soldier scored a hit deep into the dragon’s abdomen with his spear, causing the dragon to let an agonizing scream rip into the night. The dragon pivoted away from the blow only slightly, but it wasn't slight to the soldier who was still holding onto his spear. The force of the move sent him airborne, screaming into the darkness of the forest until a loud crunch signaled his stop as he was caught by the bark of a tree.

Now’s the time,
Williamdale thought, and he leaped at the beast with his sword in one hand, a dagger in the other. He slammed onto the great lizard’s side, stabbing the dagger deep into the soft tissuey crag between scales where the tail met the lower back. All he could do then was hold on for dear life as the dragon twitched in painful surprise.

The dragon roared, and Sir Williamdale roared back in laughter! Then, while hanging from the dagger that he had planted deep into the hard meat of the dragon, Sir Williamdale used his free hand to score hit after slicing hit into his foe with his broadsword. They were futile strikes, but his intention was more to distract, than to damage. It was the only sliver of a chance that he could offer his men. It worked, and on cue the dragon thrashed terribly, trying to bend around for an angle to bite at him like an angry dog trying to get at its tail.

As the dragon turned side to side to get at the general, Sir Williamdale used the momentum to his favor. Each time the dragon twisted to him, he would swing over the center of the serpents back to its other side and plunge his dagger into a higher position, always minding to keep to the opposite side of the dragon's searching maw.

This went back and forth a several times, enabling Sir Williamdale to spider his way higher and higher up the beast’s back. He knew the climb would be easier once he reached the tangle of horns on its head, which twisted in waves that while appearing more gruesome would give him a better grip to hold.

The dragon quickly tired of this game, and with another ear splitting howl of rage it turned its focus away from the pesky general to three soldiers on the ground, who upon seeing their general making his climb began a fresh attack to its body. With one quick, seemingly effortless swipe of its razor edged wing three more soldiers lost their lives. Now there were only forty-five soldiers able to fight, including Sir Williamdale. The rest lay dead or dying.

“Attack the legs!” screamed Sir Williamdale.

On cue two of his men scrambled out from behind some trees, one wielding a heavy steel claymore, the other an axe. The soldier with the claymore swung his sword over his head with all of his might, but the dragon kicked with godly speed and struck the soldier with a popping of vertebrae. The man went soaring into the trunk of a tree, but was dead before he got there.

Forty-four.

This gave the soldier with the axe the opportunity he needed to land a fierce blow into one of the dragon's thick, scaly calves in front of him. The soldier’s aim was true, and as the axe sliced deep into the pillar of meat the dragon shrieked loud enough to shake the leaves in the trees.

The soldier hurt the monster, but he made the grave mistake of taking time to try and pull his weapon free. While struggling to yank the jammed axe free, down came open jaws that clamped hooked fangs around the foolish man’s torso. It lifted him several feet in the air, his legs flailing like a snake's tongue, and then the dragon jerked its thick neck so violently that the legs went flying without the rest of him into the night. The dragon simply spat the rest of him out in a limp heap.

Forty-three.

Sir Williamdale watched the gruesome scene from where he was, lodged on the dragon's back, until he was distracted from the horrific scene by a glow that was intensifying, coming from somewhere above. When he searched the sky he found that the light was emanating from Ambrosia, who seemed to be frantically trying to cast a spell.

What had been amazing was that she could muster focus with a huge spike through her body. What was absurd, was that she was focusing her spell onto the box, instead of what Williamdale really needed, a lightning bolt into the dragon’s skull.

“Help us witch!” he roared, but received no response.

“Damned fool,” he growled.

Any warrior, from any culture, will tell you about the first rule of mortal combat. Do not, for any reason, take your attention from your enemy. The timeless rule rang true, and Ambrosia failed to notice that along with Williamdale, the dragon had also noticed the light.

The next few moments unfolded before the general in slow motion, although it was too surreal for any sensible reaction. The dragon glided her slowly through the air, still deep in her trance, stopping only when she floated directly in front of his face.

If dragons could smile, this one was. As if it wouldn’t be satisfied with a surprise kill on the human who hunted him for weeks on end with painful stabs of lightning, it let out a snort that blew her hair back. The dragon wanted the little sorceress to be fully aware of the fate that waited. Ambrosia looked up at the dragon passively, and she didn’t break from her enchantment. The dragon’s black and yellow orbs met her wide eyes. Then there was nothing but flame as the onyx box fell to the ground.

Williamdale watched the box fall to the ground but shook off the shock and continued to climb, mindful not to get poked by any of the spikes from the dragon's horn-tangled mane. There would be a toast for Ambrosia later, if he survived.

Balance, swing, grab the next horn, slash, and repeat. He stuck to his method without any hesitation and slowly edged higher up the lizard. It was not the ideal way to slay a dragon, but the general lacked the resources to kill the monster the conventional way. His numbers were dwindling by the moment, and the time called for desperate moves. He had to reach the head. He knew it was the only way to take the dragon down now that he lacked a wizard.

Sir Williamdale's confidence was building with each handhold, but just as he was in mid-swing toward the right side of the dragon, it smartly timed the man on his back and contorted its body. Sir Williamdale's feet swung out and up in a wide crescent, and it was all he could do to hold on and watch the world go slow as it tilted away until it seemed as though he was walking on a carpet of stars.

But just as he reached the high point of the swing the dragon jerked hard, then changed its momentum in order to swing its head around and back from the direction Sir Williamdale was swinging, so that it might snatch the man from the air in one bite.

The general was well aware of the move and had already played out his next maneuver in his mind. Sir Williamdale quickly shifted his hips and pulled his knees to his chest, contorting into a position that would allow him to kick off of the dragon's nose and bounce back towards the other side of its back.

It worked, and he was rewarded by not becoming a snack for the beast, but while fast thinking kept him from flying into the dragon's gaping mouth, he unknowingly played right into the beast's own plan. After all, dragons had been the alpha beasts for millennia, and they were quite used to smaller enemies clutching to its body during a fray. As the general swung back to safety on the left side of the dragon, it simply tucked its legs and rolled onto its left, slamming itself flat and hard into the ground directly on top the general.

The enchanted armor he wore was impenetrable, but the impact was monumental. The dragon hit the ground with the weight of a small castle, which was enough to bend the armor and add major stress to the joints. Sir Williamdale lost sight of the world as all went silent, except for a loud boom, and the sound of bones cracking as the air was squeezed out of his lungs.

Then there were no sounds at all, but a muffled drumming in the wind. It went on like an approaching parade in the distance, only the parade never got closer, leaving only the bass drum teasing in the wind with its thump-thumping.

After a while Sir Williamdale realized that the drumming was actually the beating of his heart, and the wind was his breath. The world around him was all dark grey, but he didn't panic. He just smiled as visions of his mother and father appeared from the dark.

They smiled, and then suddenly they were standing beside the bed of his childhood, and though he couldn’t hear what they were saying he felt an overwhelming feeling of love. Again the scene shifted and a great darkness hovered over them that only he seemed to notice.

"Run!" he wanted to scream, but just as it was in his childhood, his mouth would not obey.

There was a bright flash and a crash, and then he was once again flooded with images from the day that he saw them perish. He wanted to rise up, to help them escape, but just as it was in the past he couldn’t move. Only now, in this vision, the sound of death and destruction was flooded over by an alarm bell ringing, ringing, ringing...

“No!”

Sir Williamdale's own scream broke him from his trance, and as he regained his wits he realized that the ringing bell he was hearing was actually a percussion of teeth crunching against armor. It was the dragon's teeth, crunching his armor.

I'm in the beast’s mouth! He thought, and immediately wanted to fall back into the dream that he woke from.

The dragon was chewing on him with short, frustrating gnaws, confused as to why he wouldn’t break. Searing pain coursed through his body as points of the teeth repeatedly slipped through the openings along the hip and knee joints, slicing his skin and injecting burning saliva each time. He lamented in his misfortune. Not only was he going to die this night but his pride and joy, his fabulous, enchanted golden armor was going to prolong the process.

The terrible pain that he was in overtook his ability to even wail, and it virtually paralyzed him. Time had obviously passed since the fall. As far as Williamdale could tell there was no longer any fighting going on. In between bites, he glimpsed the ground to be close, meaning the dragon was low to the ground. Like a dog gnawing on his bone, he imagined.

At first he began to pray for his life to end, but when he opened his eyes and looked around as if searching for a sign from God, there was a miracle. A miracle in the form of his broadsword. He had sheathed it sometime during his climb, and low and behold it was still at his hip. He recalled that the sheath, as well as the strap that held it to his body had also been reenforced with the same dwarven gold as the rest of his attire. Now it was his turn to smile.

“You’re coming with me you devil,” he said.

Then, summoning every bit of strength within his broken body, he reached for his side and gripped its hilt. Once he felt that he had a nice, firm grip he waited, concentrating on the gusts of air that brushed across his face every time the mouth opened wide before a bite. Feeling out the rhythmic, chewing bouts of pain, he waited.

“One. Two. Three!” he said, and then Sir Williamdale drew his sword and aimed for the ceiling of the dragon’s mouth just above the tonsils. As he did he planted the hilt of the sword firmly at the center of his abdomen, while giving extra support with his other hand. The closing of the mouth gave plenty enough pressure to start the initial incision, and then he braced his lower back and thrust the rest of the golden sword into the dragon's palate until it was buried to the hilt.

A spitting cough followed, whipping him from his sword and tossing him out and onto the forest floor in a heap. There was a second sound, but that was the dragon’s head as it collapsed to the ground next to him. Sir Williamdale’s sword had pierced directly through the top of it's mouth and into the unsuspecting dragon’s brain.

The general did not move at first, shocked from amazement as much as from injury. He just laid still, his body flat against the dirt as he slowly turned his head in order to face his enemy. Though the creature was littered with minor wounds over its legs and its body, its closed mouth hid the true mortal blow. In fact the way that its head fell onto its front legs made the beast seem oddly peaceful, as though it were only taking a slight respite. But its eyes weren't closed, but staring right back at him. Slowly, the luster of the dragon's eyes dulled in the firelight.

Williamdale apologized to his God for praying for death, and turned in the other direction to find the second miracle of the night. Ambrosia’s black box was lying to the right of him within arms reach!

He grabbed the box, and then painfully dragged himself to a tree to prop up against. There were still hundreds of young fires dancing throughout the area, cracking and snapping at the night, but he heard no soldiers beyond the embers. He recalled Ambrosia’s last moment as she attempted to place some kind of spell onto the box and shook his head in disbelief.

"Was she actually trying to summon one?" he wondered out loud.

When he opened the box he laughed.

She wasn't attempting to summon her pets as he assumed, but instead she used her last breath to teleport the stones away. She used her last moment of life to hide her precious diamonds. It was her last contribution to the good of humanity.

“Foolish witch,” he whispered with a smile. “Where in the world did you send them?”

Realizing the tale must live on, the general excruciatingly yanked free the scroll he’d tucked under his chest plate earlier. Grinning, he read Ambrosia’s lie once more. Then, he turned the scroll over and began to give an accurate account of Ambrosia’s diamonds, as well as how their last night, as well as their last battle together truly ended.

He scratched as well of a story as any man could, cringing through the pain of his wounds. He wrote a warning, of the power of the Blue Diamonds should they ever be found. The warning was would be his last contribution to humanity, to the goodly folk, using a twig for a pen and his own blood for ink. It was a story he wished he could recount to his grandchildren in front of the fireplace with a mug of mead, not dying in the middle of a burning forest, but he knew that it was a good death. He was content with that, as all warriors were.