Doomraga's Revenge (20 page)

Rhia, carrying Nuic on her shoulder, dashed to the enormous Buckle Bell. Heaving on the rope, she made the great bell chime seven times, then stop, then chime seven more times—the Society’s distress signal. Before the final echoes began to fade, she ran off to help others, dodging blasts of flame from the circling dragons. She tore one of the vines off the sleeve of her suit to bandage a young goat’s singed leg. Then she joined Lleu in tying ropes to keep a burning tree from toppling onto the pillars of the Great Temple. Moments later, she started hurling buckets of water onto the flames that raged on the roof of the library.

Yet all this wasn’t enough. As Nuic’s darkening gray color indicated, the compound and its neighboring farms would soon be destroyed, swallowed by flames and panic.

Leagues away, a family of mountain giants was crossing the plains. Led by the fearsome Jubolda—known across the realm for lifting off the tops of hills to expose the caves of marauding trolls—each of their strides was the size of a farmer’s field. Suddenly they heard the Buckle Bell’s call of distress. Immediately, Jubolda and her three gargantuan daughters turned and strode in the direction of the compound. On the way, they were joined by another giant who had also heard the bell: none other than Shim.

“I surely hopes we arrives in time to save those nicely people,” he muttered, his huge feet slamming against the ground.

“Not me,” answered Jubolda. Her earrings, made of waterwheels from an abandoned granary, jostled with each of her steps. “I want to arrive in time to demolish whoever dared attack the Society! Fire dragons, from that smell of smoke in the air.”

Shim glanced over at her. With a rub of his bulbous nose, he said, “Just be careful, Lady Jubolda. You is a giantess, but you is still mortally mortal. We don’t want you getting hurted by them dragons.”

Jubolda merely waved away his concern. But one of her daughters—whose enormous, drooling lips had inspired the name Bonlog Mountain-Mouth—looked at Shim with grateful adoration.

The giants arrived not a moment too soon. Fire dragons were attacking the largest building in the compound, a structure made entirely of countless branches broken by winter storms. No building could be more flammable. Or more cherished. Its high, peaked archways rose like pinnacles; its stained glass windows shone with the radiance of bright-winged butterflies. And in that building, called the Crafts Community, generations of priestesses and priests had learned the skills of pottery, weaving, basketry, glass blowing, and woodworking. Even Pwyll Estonna, the most famous sculptor of the artisan elves, discovered her gifts within its walls. To see that old house go up in flames would have broken the hearts of everyone who knew it.

Three dragons swooped down from the sky, their scarlet wings as bright as flames. Simultaneously, they roared, sending fiery blasts straight at the building’s roof. At that very instant, three gigantic hands reached out and blocked the fire from reaching its target. Those hands, belonging to Jubolda, Shim, and Bonlog, immediately closed into immense fists that slammed full-force into the attackers.

Explosions shook the air as the giants’ knuckles smashed into the dragons’ scaly chests, sending them into a tailspin. They crashed, ribs and tails broken, in a nearby pasture. For them, the battle was abruptly over; crawling away from the giants was now their only goal.

The remaining fire dragons, eight or nine in number, quickly changed tactics. Like angry hornets, they ferociously attacked the giants, ripping at them with terrible claws and shooting blasts of flame. Even so, they proved to be no match for their foes, whose thickly calloused skin shielded better than armor. Jubolda lost one of her earrings (which only made her more angry), but none of her companions suffered worse than minor scratches. The fire dragons fared much worse. Several of them fell to the giants’ flying fists, while one unlucky dragon perished in the teeth of Bonlog Mountain-Mouth.

Rhia, helping douse the flames on the crafts building roof, cheered this turn of fortune. Hope swelled in her heart that the terrors of this day, which had started as such a fragrant spring morning, would soon end. Then, looking to the east, she saw something so startling that she dropped her water bucket.

Flamelon warriors! Marching in rigid formation, the soldiers from Fireroot started to encircle the compound. Wheeling into place heavy iron catapults, made in their volcanic forges, they fired deadly volleys at the giants. Immense boulders slammed into the huge beings’ chests and arms. Vats of boiling oil burst upon their backs. Nets made of sturdy rope tangled their powerful legs, making them stumble.

Sensing their improved chances, the fire dragons pressed their attack. All around the compound, towers of smoke rose into the air, staining the sky. Dragons’ tails slashed violently at buildings, walls, and monuments. Wounded men, women, and children ran, shrieking and wailing, in all directions.

Shim, hearing a bellowing howl, turned to see a giant who had fallen to the ground. Bonlog! She flailed helplessly, her legs tangled in a net. Meanwhile, a troop of flamelons marched swiftly toward her, brandishing a terrible array of broadswords and spears.

“Stop!” Though he wasn’t sure how to help, Shim started to run toward her—but caught an enormous toe on the compound’s outer wall. He pitched forward, falling like a massive tree.

Shouting and waving his arms wildly, he tried to regain his balance. To no avail. He shut his eyes and slammed down to the ground. His huge body struck with such force that a nearby catapult teetered from the vibrations and then collapsed. Shim, knowing that he’d failed to help Bonlog, didn’t want to open his eyes lest he see her lifeless body, mutilated by the flamelons.

I is such a failure!
he thought.
Such a clumsily failure!
Someone shoved him—roughly, with the strength of a giant. He opened his eyes. To his astonishment, he was looking up at Bonlog!

“You is . . . alive?” he asked.

She opened her gargantuan mouth in a smile. “Thanks to you, Shim! You saved me—by throwing your body on top of those flamelons.”

Blinking with surprise, he rolled over. Sure enough, the crushed remains of the entire troop lay beneath him. “But . . . but I—” he stammered.

“That was so brave of you, Shim. So bold. So . . .” She paused, her eyes glittering, as she wiped a foamy river of spit off her chin. “So
masculine
.”

Shim’s mood swiftly changed from surprise to panic. That feeling spread as he saw, to his horror, Bonlog Mountain-Mouth bending down to give him a kiss. Her gigantic, salivadrenched lips drew closer. Rivers of spit gushed from the cavernous depths of her mouth. Her puckering lips swelled, obscuring half her face.

“Eeeek!”
cried Shim. With amazing speed, he rolled aside, bounced to his feet, and sped away, running as fast as he could toward the safety of the high peaks.

The giantess stood again, scowling as she watched him escape. From the depths of her throat came an angry curse, then a giant-size sigh of disappointment. Reluctantly, she rejoined the fight against the fire dragons and flamelons, battling alongside her mother. Yet every few seconds, she paused to look longingly at the departing figure she could still see on the horizon. As Shim finally vanished from view, she breathed another great sigh, spraying a lake’s worth of spit. Glumly, she wiped her cavernous mouth and stepped back into the fray.

Even with Bonlog back in action, the battle went badly for the defenders. Building by building, the dragons set fire to the compound, leaving the survivors few places to hide. The flamelons pressed closer, tightening their deadly noose. Although Rhia continued to shout encouragement to her followers, she didn’t believe her own words.

All they had done to build this place, to honor the highest ideals of Avalon and their dreams of what it could become—all this was lost forever. She knew it. Nuic, clinging to her shoulder, was now pitch-black.

“Look!” cried Lleu. He pointed his bloodstained arm toward the sky.

Rhia looked up to see another dragon, swiftly approaching. But this was no fire dragon. This was a dragon whose bright green scales, massive wings, and powerful tail could not be mistaken.

“Basil!” she cried. “It’s Basilgarrad!”

At the mere sound of his name, several fire dragons shrieked and fled. Those who hesitated soon regretted their mistake. The moment he reached the compound, his clubbed tail slammed into one dragon, hurling its body all the way to the southern marshes. An instant later, he spun around and struck another hard enough to break every rib in its chest. Before that attacker even hit the ground, he looped his great tail around another’s neck and threw it somewhere beyond the edge of the realm. Meanwhile, he butted his head against the back of another’s skull—so forcefully that one of its eyes flew out, landing in a lake several leagues away.

Seeing this mighty display of force, the flamelons blew their horns and hastily retreated. Skilled warriors that they were, they knew they couldn’t prevail against such an overwhelmingly superior foe. Yet some of their commanders hung back, studying Basilgarrad for any signs of weakness. For they knew, beyond doubt, that they would fight this dragon again. And when that happened, they did not intend to be defeated.

In time, the smoky skies cleared. It took many months of labor, but Rhia and her surviving followers cremated their lost loved ones, rebuilt the damaged buildings, and restored the gardens of the compound. The Great Temple’s pillars were repaired, and most of the scorches cleaned. Priestesses and priests and their maryths rejoiced when, once again, the Buckle Bell rang—this time not in distress, but in welcome. To all those in Avalon who still valued peace. Even the scattered faeries returned, their wings glowing with the colors of blue sky, rosy blossoms, and silver mist.

Yet no one could ever forget the dreadful day that came to be called the Battle of the Withered Spring. Nor the great green dragon who had finally prevailed.

31:
T
HE
D
ARK
G
ASH

Whoever said “It’s always darkest before the dawn” clearly wasn’t with me on that long night.

One night, Basilgarrad lay alone on the rim of Prism Gorge in the upper reaches of Waterroot. He couldn’t sleep. His tail, stretched along the multicolored ledge, gleamed with red, yellow, and purple dust that shone in the starlight as he turned and tossed.

That very day, he’d heard from a passing sylph that the fire dragons were massing for yet another attack on Woodroot. So far, he’d prevented them from burning many of its trees, but how much longer could he prevail? The sylph warned, too, that they had tried to form an alliance with Bendegeit’s water dragons—and that, when the highlord refused, they incited a rebellion against him. Led by the royal guard called Scarface, whom Basilgarrad had so enjoyed outwitting, the rebellion had failed. Bendegeit triumphed, preserving his rule. But there was no guarantee that there wouldn’t be another uprising in the future—with a different result.

And what about Marnya? Had she survived the rebellion? Basilgarrad’s whole body shuddered, sending up a cloud of multicolored dust from the ledge. This night’s perch by the gorge was the closest he’d come, since his visit to Bendegeit’s lair, to her home in the Rainbow Seas. In the time since then, he’d thought about her often—more often than he wanted to admit. He’d heard that she continued to practice her newfound skill at flying, and was often seen soaring through those misty skies. For some time he’d wanted to visit her, but his unending work made that impossible.

Why am I thinking about her?
he asked himself with an annoyed rumble.
I should be sleeping while I can.

Yet even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. Something in that dragon’s luminous blue eyes and adventurous spirit, something in the way she roared with delight when he’d carried her into the air, had touched him more deeply than he’d expected.

Forget about it
, he told himself grumpily.
You have too much work to do!

Work. That was all he ever did! The more Avalon’s troubles multiplied, the more he rushed from realm to realm, trying to stop the latest outrage. With what success? Not much, really. While he’d managed to stem a great deal of violence and destruction, the bitter truth could not be denied. Avalon was dying! No matter how much he did, the scale of its problems only worsened.

I must
, he realized,
try something different. Drastically different. But what?

Raising his massive tail, he slammed it down on the rocky rim. Dust of every hue rose into the air, obscuring the stars, as boulders broke off and clattered down into the gorge.
It is time
, he vowed with sudden inspiration,
to find Merlin! To convince him to come home.

How, though? Basilgarrad himself couldn’t do it. If he left Avalon for just a few days—or even a few minutes, the way things were going—the realms would surely descend into chaos. Whatever that shadow beast really was, whatever powers it served, would then triumph. And the journey to find Merlin would certainly take more than a few days.

He lifted his enormous face toward the starry sky. One of those lights, perhaps, was the world called Earth. And the pathway there required climbing all the way up the Great Tree, out to the farthest tip of the highest branch—and beyond. Who could possibly do that?

Rhia, he knew, was the perfect choice. She possessed all the right qualities—bravery, boldness, wisdom, and that persuasive skill that came from being Merlin’s sister. Basilgarrad blew a heavy sigh, causing a dust storm on the gorge’s rim. For he knew, after his last visit with Rhia, that she wouldn’t be available. For anything. He frowned, recalling their conversation outside the rebuilt walls of her compound.

“I’ve made a decision, Basil,” she had declared. She peered up at him and shook her head, making her silvery curls bounce against her shoulders. “A decision to”—she paused, tightening her jaw—“to leave.”