Distracted momentarily, she turned sharply as a rush of air brushed her back, just a little too late. Razor-sharp talons raked down her spine, as she painfully spun out of the way, only just managing to avoid a vicious jet of flame by dropping into a steep dive.
Head spinning as she hastily headed towards the ground, thoughts of escape had long since passed. On top of everything, she couldn't work out why she felt so strange and underpowered. Maybe the arrow she'd been shot with had been poisoned, but her leg, although painful, showed no sign of any venom and was, in fact, starting to heal up just fine. Noting Aviva's approach, the dragon who'd decimated the building had now taken to the air to join the fight. Aware that her lifespan would now be measured in minutes, if not seconds, without the dagger, she knew that perhaps with it, just maybe she could turn things around.
With one councillor charging up towards her from the ground, and one hot on her tail, quite literally, Aviva knew she had to take a chance to get the dagger back. Using all the magic she could spare to elicit a burst of speed, she accelerated towards the dragon heading up from the ground, his glinting red scales standing out in the darkness, back lit by the reflective surface of the river behind him. As the gap between them narrowed, she could see his prehistoric jaws twist into a smirk, thinking that there was no way out for his prey. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that 'Yellow' (as she thought of him, because of the huge twisted stripe of that colour down one side of his dull, white belly) was only a matter of metres behind her, bearing the same knowing grin.
Turning to face forward again, knowing that she needed a whole lot of luck in the next few seconds, 'Red' speeded towards her, his wings spread, the moonlight glinting off his sharpened talons, opening his jaws wider than it appeared possible.
'This is it,' she thought. 'It's now or never.' Just as Red, hurtling up towards her, was about to snap his jaws shut, she curled up into a massive ball, her toughened frame smacking the councillor right in the mouth with a bone shattering CRUNCH. After that, her trajectory changed dramatically, falling almost like a rock towards the ground. Yellow, had been chasing her so closely, there was little he could do but crash firmly into his comrade. For the second time in quick succession, a resounding bone rattling crunch echoed over the village, as the two dastardly dragons collided in mid-air.
Aviva's route, as planned, had her heading straight for her clothes and of course the laminium dagger. Unfurling just before she hit the ground, her breath bounced from her due to the abrupt landing she was forced to pull off. Stomping over to her clothes, she retrieved the dagger, slipping it safely into one of the hidden pouches that circled her belly. Contact with the dagger instantly heighted her senses. It was then that it struck her. Something was seriously wrong inside her, not near her calf, although that was starting to throb somewhat. No, something unusual was travelling through her system, causing her severe harm.
Having retreated to lick their wounds, the two councillors continued circling high above Aviva's head. Whilst their collision hadn't been anywhere near fatal, bones had been broken and scales had been lost. Of course, with their multitude of dragon powers, a full recovery wouldn't take very long. As Aviva started to wonder why the two dragons hadn't resumed their attack, Ptolemy returned with a number of his guards, slightly further down the river. Archers appeared in their ranks, causing Aviva to think of her calf. Anger surged through her, so much so that she let out a ferocious roar in their direction. It had the desired effect; with nearly all the soldiers cowering in fear, Ptolemy puffed out his muscled chest in her direction as he took a breath.
"Feeling a little... unwell?" he mocked, knowingly.
Trying to respond, all Aviva could manage was a loud racking cough. Ptolemy smiled at his prey's discomfort.
"What have you done to me?" Aviva croaked.
Laughter reverberated through the night air, sending a chill up her tail.
"Not me this time, I'm afraid," sniggered the wannabe King. "In fact, you can thank your friends up there, for that," he said, pointing high up into the sky. "Their little concoction seems to be doing a good job. While I didn't really approve of poisoning the whole village just to contaminate the well, it does seemed to have paid dividends."
Craning her neck, she gazed up into the sky, before looking back at Ptolemy, shaking her head all the while. Ptolemy had previous in this department, but for any dragon to do something so dreadful was just outrageous.
'This ends now,' she thought, suppressing another racking cough. 'But how to do it is the big question? Ptolemy and his soldiers aren't cause for concern now that I'm in dragon form, but taking the two councillors whilst the poison continues to debilitate me presents much more of a problem.'
With them all having backed off, waiting for the poison to do its job, she decided to play along and began coughing wildly. Overhead, the two councillors, staying well out of the way, shared a smile. Ptolemy and his guards stood nervously waiting for the prehistoric beast in front of them to keel over and die. All the while coughing, she combed her memory for anything that would be of help. Aware that she was playing into their hands, given that with every second that ticked by, the closer to death she became, she knew that any attempt she was going to make, had to be sooner rather than later. With the cold night air helping her cough along nicely, as she dropped to one scaled knee for effect, suddenly it came to her.
As well as being a deadly assassin, a member of the elite King's Guard and a trusted ally of the king himself, Aviva was also a keen scholar. With regular access to the council's main library and even the occasional supervised visit to the king's private library, she considered herself one of the best educated dragons on the planet, and had read just about everything ever published, dragon and human alike. Now it was time for that information to pay off. Buried in one of the tomes in the king's private library, there was a tale of a dragon who'd gone up against a horde of evil dark beasts, armed only with a trident. It wasn't just any trident though. It was, if she remembered correctly, a Trident fashioned from steel and plated with laminium. Once read, the tale had seemed more than a little far-fetched, but the interesting part was that the dragon in question was able to take on these enemies because every time he killed one of the creatures with the laminium augmented trident, the mighty weapon infused itself with the magical power from each deceased dragon, making its owner more powerful than ever.
'If I could kill just one of the councillors with the laminium dagger,' Aviva thought, 'then maybe I'll be infused with enough power to carry on and finish off the other, and Ptolemy as well.'
Fully bent over now, coughing for all she was worth, from the corner of her eye, she could just see the two councillors getting closer and closer overhead, whilst Ptolemy and his soldiers edged ever nearer, weapons raised, ready for action. Pulling in a deep breath, which she knew might well be one of her last, she twisted her head in Ptolemy's direction and launched a searing stream of fire. Nothing more than a distraction really from her point of view, as they were over fifty feet away, it did however send them scampering to take cover behind one of the buildings.
The councillors hadn't backed off, pretty sure that between them they could take down one lone dragon suffering from acute poisoning; in fact, if anything they were coming in lower, playing right into Aviva's hands.
Banging her tail in supposed frustration, she let one of her legs give way, causing her to topple onto the dusty sand. Lying on one side, she could see the two councillors getting ever nearer. Clutching the dagger in her right hand, hidden beneath her wing, Aviva prepared to strike.