Dragon Alliance Dark Storm : Dark Storm (23 page)

Mkel smiled, for he shared the same sentiment, but he was a little worried, for Terrjok and many of his fellow Enlightened senators were arbitrators and were as precise and deadly with words in a debate as he was with his crossbow and sword in battle.

“I will show them no quarter, sir; plus, I do have the truth on my side. Although to them, the truth is always up to interpretation,” Mkel answered with a smile.

Lloydell and the dragons nodded their heads. Just then, Canjon began to announce to all the spectators it was time to take their seats for the race would begin momentarily.

“Dear Ladies and Gentlemen and All Friends of the Alliance, we are here this morning to witness the final event of the Honors Day Games, the much-anticipated Dragon Race!” and with that, the applause rose up to a crescendo. “For this race, our good Capital Weir wizards will be projecting multiple views of the dragons, as they streak across the sky, dodging and weaving their way around our massive city walls and through the ravines of the Maiden Mountains, all through their roving eye spells to give you the best possible vantage points for all the action. The fastest of our metallic dragon protectors are here to hone their speed and maneuvering skills for any future action against the chromatics. Those watching on the seeing crystals or from posts along the many choice vantage points beside the race route will be thrilled to see our dragons streak past you at hurricane-like speeds. Now without further delay, I will turn the race announcing over to my esteemed dragon Amerenth.”

“Thank you, my rider, and now my kin will line up in ascending order with our intellectual and sprinter dragons, the brass dragons, first; followed by our copper cousins; then bronze; silver; and our strong gold dragon leaders,” the brass dragon’s voice boomed up toward the audience.

Valianth moved next to Gallanth as they were lining up, for they and Falcanth were the only gold dragons in the race.

“Fine day to race, young Gallanth. Keep to your nose today, and watch the turns for getting too crowded,” the senior gold dragon said in his normal businesslike tone, after which he walked away to his starting position and to talk to the other dragons.

“What did he mean by that, Gallanth?” Mkel asked.

“He is just telling me to learn from this flight today, likely to help me in our next fight with the chromatics,” he replied.

“Strange way to show it, my friend,” Mkel stated.

“These are small matters, my rider. Auroranth, my lady, excellent day to ride the wind. I wish you luck,” he stated reverently as to denote his respect. Mkel found that puzzling, like Gallanth sensed something, but that was the nature of a gold dragon whose power of foresight was sometimes clear but other times not.

“Thank you, Master Gallanth. Yes, the wind is good today, and may I congratulate you and your rider on a fine performance in the dragon’s fire game. The Alliance is indeed blessed to have a combination of you and your rider defending it,” she stated in the silver dragon’s eloquent tone.

“Yes, Captain Mkel, you and Gallanth performed admirably and thank you for saving my husband’s and Strikenth’s lives out in Battle Point,” Andrace, Padonan’s wife, answered.

“He and Strikenth saved many more lives that day and sent several chromatics to their judgment, my lady,” Mkel replied.

“You display a dragonrider’s modesty; I saw what my husband’s dragon experienced that day. If it wasn’t for you two, that battle would have been disastrous for the Battle Point Legion,” she explained.

“We were all lucky that day and glad the Morgathians were not very coordinated,” Mkel answered.

Just then, Amerenth began to talk again. “My brothers and sisters, are you ready?” He then nodded to Apex Master Wizard Hestal, who raised his mithril-wrapped elm-wood staff, its oversized diamond dragonstone glowing brightly.

“I wish you all a good race, my good dragons and riders,” Hestal said and then let loose a brilliant barrage of exploding lights that were almost blinding, even in broad daylight, and the brass and copper dragons were off. The coppers literally sprang into the air while the brass dragons’ ovoid wings quickly beat to catch them up. Being the natural sprinter flyers that they were, they were quickly airborne and started to catch up and pass their slightly larger cousins. As soon as the first round of dragons had flown off, Hestal sent another round of prismatic fireworks off, and the bronze, silver, and gold dragons were off in a tremendous rush of air. Their immense wings beat the air into submission as they gained altitude.

All the Alliance wizards assembled conjured up seeing-eye spells; the small faint balls of light then darted after the dragons to feed Hestal’s projected images up and in front of the gathered spectators. The other wizards’ roving eyes would feed Hestal’s dragonstone and give several side, front, and back views of the dragons all along the course of the race. They would also then be projected to the immense diamond dragonstone on top of the central government pyramid in the city. These images would then be connected with anyone who had a seeing crystal and wanted to view the race.

Mkel felt Gallanth push harder with his wings, like he was going into battle. He and Valianth were basically right beside each other as they climbed in pursuit of the smaller dragons ahead of them. Mkel heard the cheers of the spectators die down behind them as they ascended and began to curve around the Capital Weir Mountain. As they cleared the weir side and were flying over Sauric Bay and toward the harbor of the city, Mkel could see the brass and copper dragons several hundred yards in front of them through Markthrea and through Gallanth’s eyes. It looked like a younger copper dragon with a female rider was firmly ahead.

Pretty fast for a small dragon, especially a copper, Mkel thought to himself.

“Yes, my rider, that lady copper dragon is Caraeyeth of Eladran Weir; her rider is a spirited woman named Heathiret,” Gallanth answered his rider’s mental question.

“Very fast for a copper, my friend,” Mkel said to Gallanth as they began to pull ahead of many of the silver and bronze dragons that had been in front of them.

The dragons were going past the city now and rounding the harbor. Mkel swung Markthrea to the left and saw the thousands of people lining the docks looking at both the dragons flying by and the images being projected by the sporadically placed wizards on the city walls. He was not surprised to see that the part of the harbor and the area of the Severic River that emptied into Sauric Bay had been cleared of boats after word of the incident with the Enlightened party barge the day before. As they approached the Befran Bridge, only Caraeyeth remained up with the gold and silver dragons, as Gallanth, Valianth, and Auroranth were vying for position. The female copper began to veer to the left and would clearly be the first dragon among her kin and the brass dragons to fly under the left span of the bridge.

Valianth was trying to nudge ahead of Gallanth but couldn’t muster the speed. Gallanth was slowly pulling ahead, with Auroranth just behind them. Mkel looked over to see Colonel Therosvet hunker down on Valianth’s neck, immediately after which the venerable gold dragon dipped low while slightly veering toward Gallanth to overlap wings. Since dragon hide and the small overlapping scales they had could literally pull air over them, they could actually accelerate without flapping their wings. They could do this after takeoff or for short bursts of speed. This, along with the lightweight but immensely strong bones, the magic shields the dragons emanated, and their limited ability to control gravity, allowed them to slip or almost swim through the air.

Valianth then gave a strong heft of his wings, which accomplished two things: First, it gave him a temporary boost of speed and catapulted him up, while at the same time, he pushed Gallanth’s left wing down. This also created a temporary vacuum of air in front of Gallanth, which meant there was not a sufficient supply of air to pull over his wings, and he immediately dropped over fifty feet. Valianth then streaked under the main span of the huge bridge at an accelerated rate of over a hundred and twenty miles per hour.

Gallanth quickly regained control just in time to skim over the water, leaving behind a large wake as he darted under the bridge. Luckily, the water spray didn’t drench all those standing on the bridge watching the race.

“What is Valianth’s issue with you, my friend?” Mkel asked his dragon.

“He views me as too young to be a Weirleader dragon and feels I am too rash at times,” he answered.

“You are over two hundred years old!” Mkel shot back.

“Yes, but he is over two thousand with only Lord Michenth being older. He also has never trusted my judgment since the Great War, for my attack on Aserghul and the drow capital city Shanaris. He still doesn’t understand how I survived the death fingers of Tiamat’s fortress with their powerful energy beams from the boulder-sized dark crystals mounted on them. Strangely, neither do I,” Gallanth replied.

This helped Mkel understand a bit more, but dragons usually didn’t hold grudges against each other; only the elves were thought to be as understanding a race.

By this time, all the dragons had passed under the bridge with the copper and brass dragons back in the lead again. They were all basically hugging the city wall as they darted upriver, slowly angling to the north and east. As the gold and silver dragons were just catching up with the copper and brass dragons, they all made the hard left to the north where the small tributary of the Severic River led to the two open ravines and the small waterfall-pressured spring that sprayed a mist resembling a maiden’s veil, which provided the source for the name Maiden Mountains. An amazing aerial crisscross of dragons occurred as the copper and brass veered left and the larger dragons veered right to go through their respective racecourse canyons.

Heathiret on Caraeyeth was still in the lead among that group, but two brass dragons were just behind her. The deft copper dragon darted and weaved through the twisting narrow ravine occasionally scraping the tips of her forward V-shaped wings on the sides of the cliff. However, in spite of her unusual speed, the two brass dragons were vying to pass her in the narrow gorge. Their aerial maneuverability with their ovoid wings was second to none; it was a feature that had saved them from many a larger, more-powerful chromatic dragon and allowed them to prevail in lopsided battles.

“My beautiful Caraeyeth, we have challengers to our back,” Heathiret said to her dragon as they were violently maneuvering around the twisting canyon path. “I think we need to show these butterfly dragons how to cliff jump.”

“Fear not, my rider; we will demonstrate to our brass kin our own maneuverability. Hold on,” Caraeyeth replied to her rider, as they were just about to be passed by the nimble brass dragons. The copper rolled over in between the two pursuing brass dragons, twisting in midair while folding her wings. She completed her roll by landing on the side of the ravine, simultaneously unfurling her wings, and with the oversized muscles of her back and front legs tensed, she launched off the rocky wall. This action catapulted her past the surprised brass dragons, to the delight of the crowds that were watching both from the top of the canyons and on the projected images from the seeing crystals.

She landed on the opposite side of the ravine and repeated the maneuver, lengthening her lead over the brass dragons, and with one more leap, she streaked out of the north side of the canyon and then veered hard left to turn back toward Draconia and the Capital Weir finish line. In the meantime, Gallanth and Valianth kept going back and forth in the wider canyon, each maneuvering to gain an advantage on the other without crashing into the steep rock walls. Auroranth was right behind them the whole time with all of the other gold, silver, and bronze dragons closely following.

Mkel could not believe the tenacity with which Valianth was flying, almost as if it were not his goal to win, but to ensure that Gallanth would lose. While Mkel was enjoying the action of flying the race, he was almost too busy just holding onto his crossbow’s mount as Gallanth performed sharp maneuvers to navigate the course and to avoid both the canyon walls and Valianth. This rough aerial dance kept the others back, as they did not want to be accidently hit by the two largest dragons in the Alliance—with the exception of Auroranth, who was barely a tail length behind them. As they rounded the final turn before exiting the larger canyon, Valianth tried to cut Gallanth off, but their wings became tangled, forcing them to split apart, which was difficult in the narrow canyon. This did have the effect of slowing them down, and Auroranth took full advantage and darted in between them and out of the canyon. She quickly turned hard to the left to head back toward Draconia and the finish line back at the parade field of the Capital Weir.

The brass and copper dragons were a thousand yards in front of the larger metallics, but in this straight shot to the northern part of the city wall and then to the weir, the gold, silver, and bronze dragons would catch up rapidly. Caraeyeth still had a commanding lead and was at her full speed as she streaked by the waving spectators on top of the gleaming white and opaque defense walls of the capital city. The faster brass dragons were slowly closing in on her but did not have much of a chance to catch her before they got to the weir.

Heathiret looked back at the dozens of dragons behind her. “Nice to be out front, Caraeyeth.”

“Yes, but that silver is closing fast,” she stated, referring to Auroranth, who was now passing several brass and copper dragons. “Her speed is impressive, but we are the wind today, my rider,” Caraeyeth added as she reached forward with her deep copper-colored wings and gave a strong heft to maximize her speed, as if she were trying to pull the very air from the sky. Gallanth and Valianth had emerged from the canyons and were racing at their maximum velocity to catch up to the leading pack. They had already passed the group of larger dragons and were approaching the copper and brass dragons. As they all flew past the last section of the Draconia city wall, Mkel saw a large Alliance banner hanging from its ramparts with the embossment of Michenth in the middle, shining in the midmorning sun. This was a thank-you to the dragons and not an easy thing to make at that size. Mkel kept watching it as he and the other dragons swept past the city, making their way along the northeast shore of the bay and toward the finish line.