The elf turned and read the concern on his face. “I doubt this is the work of the Dark elves. They would not expend so much energy on weather. No, they would save it for the battlefield.”
Whill was about to visit Abram at the wheel when Zerafin spoke again. “But we do have visitors.”
Whill looked to the sky. Nothing. He listened. Nothing. Zerafin’s voice came to him. Use your mind-sight, Whill, and ready your blade.
Whill’s hand found the hilt as he relaxed to achieve the meditative state to enter mind-sight. At first he could not, due to his inexperience and the suddenness of the command. But within a minute he was there, and he gasped at the sight of the ocean. The ship, which was to his mind’s eye faint due to its lifelessness, seemed to float on a cloud of greenish blue light. It pulsed and throbbed, colors and life-energy patterns teeming and swirling in a strange and hypnotic dance. When he finally looked away and to the deck, he saw for the first time the life-energy pattern of Abram and Rhunis. He could not see the elves’, however. They were, he assumed, hiding it somehow.
With that thought, he snapped out of his amazement and remembered Zerafin’s warning. He looked at the sky. Though it was overcast, he could now clearly see the stars, and in his mind-sight they were more brilliant than ever they had been. Again came Zerafin’s voice. Just below the Star of the Kings.
Whill looked, and there he could make out faintly the life energy of something. At first it appeared to be a bird, but then he saw it for what is was. Glowing like hot lava, hardly noticeable among the stars but moving like none of them, was a dragon.
With the power bestowed upon his bloodline by the gods, Roakore moved the two-ton slab of rock from its place in the mountain. Those dwarves with him could have helped by pulling on the ropes disguised as tree roots along the seam, but they were in awe of their king’s great power. It taxed Roakore more than he showed, but he hardly cared. He had twenty years of strength built up, and vengeance fueling his muscles. Once the door was opened fully, he again threw his fist in the air, and with his comrades he entered his home mountain for the first time in too many years.
They carefully stalked the tunnel, alert to any noise. They lit no torches; they did not have to this close to the entrance. The tunnel had been used in his father’s day mostly for trade, and therefore the floor was flat, and wide enough to accommodate two wagons abreast. Its ceiling was twenty feet, its stone walls embedded with millions of shining minerals.
On they walked until Roakore signaled to one of the dwarves, who nodded at the commands and turned back down the tunnel to get the others. On they walked for five minutes, and again Roakore sent a soldier back to tell the rest to follow this far. They now neared what Roakore knew was the first big chamber. It had been used as a loading place for dwarf traders. More than twenty tunnels led to this chamber, so this was where they would have to be careful of an ambush. Roakore signaled a third dwarf to go back and return with forty men. He intended on having them search the many tunnels quickly, two dwarves to a tunnel.
Just as the dwarf was heading on his way, the draft in the tunnel shifted. It had been traveling down the tunnel, due to the inhalation of the mountain, when Roakore had opened the door. But now it changed course and blew faintly on his beard. On the faint draft, he realized, traveled the scent of a dragon.
An hour had passed and Whill had long ago become weary using mind-sight. He looked again every few minutes but nothing had changed. The dragon still flew directly above them, thousands of feet in the air. Abram and the others, learning of the dragon’s presence, had discussed the implications and relayed the information to the other ships. At least this would not be a surprise attack if the dragon flew ahead. But it seemed there was no way of stopping it. The Elves were powerful but even an arrow shot with perfection and elven power behind it would not be able to take down the beast.
Roakore’s blood began to boil. The thought of a dragon slumbering within the mountain of his people, the mountain of his father, was too much to bear. His breathing became heavy, and his axe was in his hand without his remembering that he’d gone for it. He was no longer aware of the three dwarves remaining with him. He knew only that he was running, running into the chamber of the dragon.
A sound that at first had been faint now grew into a primal scream. Roakore’s guttural war cry, he knew, would carry to the many thousands of dwarves still outside the tunnel. It was a sound, he also knew, that would be recalled by all the surviving dwarves when they sat and told the story of this great day. If there were any survivors.
Whill now watched the night, as the elves did, with his mind’s eye. He was no longer tired from it, for he had begun calling upon the stored energy of his father’s blade. He was so intent on the dragon above that he was startled when Avriel suddenly pushed him to the ground with a mental energy blast. As he hit the ground, Zerafin was already firing his bow at a phantom that swooped through the night where Whill had stood. Whill looked desperately in the direction of Zerafin’s arrows but saw nothing. The sudden drop to the floor had broken his mind-sight. He now regained it slowly, but in his panic it was not easy to maintain. Then he saw it more clearly as Avriel came to his side and whispered, “Stay down.”
It was an Eagle Rider.
Roakore barreled down the tunnel and into the trading chamber. He was met by a wall of heat and flame as the dragon belched fire from its maw. Roakore dove to the left behind a pile of treasures, at the same time releasing his stone bird. It whirled through the air, Roakore directing it with all his mental might to where he thought the dragon to be. The weapon hit with a loud thud, followed by an angry groan. Again the beast groaned in pain as three hatchets, thrown by Roakore’s three comrades, found their marks. Only the dwarves’ strength and excellent craftsmanship could have gotten the blades through the thick scales. Roakore fired his own hatchet at the beast as it reared its head to strike yet again with its deadly breath.
As the weapon flew, Roakore got a good look at the monster. It was the biggest he had ever seen, and he had seen a few in his day. It had no front legs, like some did, but rather two huge outstretched wings and huge, powerful hind legs. Its scales shone green in the firelight, its eyes dead black. Upon its head like a crown were a series of small horns, starting above its eyes and growing bigger as they ascended its wagon-size head until they came to one main horn. Like a knight’s lance it was, but not as long as the many pointed horns upon its back. Roakore knew this species: it was the spear-horn.
Roakore ducked again behind his makeshift shelter as another wall of searing flame was spewed across the chamber. Two of his men dove for cover among similar piles of gold and jewels, but one was not so lucky, a young soldier named Ro’Quon. Ro’Quon was consumed by the dragon’s fell breath even as Roakore screamed his name. The dwarf did not fall, he did not stumble. Engulfed in flames, his armor glowing red with heat, yet he charged forth, a crazed burning dwarf screaming the true name of the dwarf mountain. Blinded but for the tears of rage that quenched the fire in his eyes, Ro’Quon charged on. He took ten running steps up a pile of gold and leapt at the dragon, his scream deafening, his axe pulled back high over his head. Again the dragon let loose his hellfire, but it was not enough to stop the mad-man. Ro’Quon came down upon the beast with all his might, his entire body arched in the great strike. His huge axe found its mark, breaking through scales and muscle and bone until both blade and dwarf disappeared into the beast’s fiery mouth. To Roakore’s amazement, the dragon reared its head and let out an earthshaking scream. Fire sprayed forth onto the ceiling and descended upon the chamber. Roakore’s cloak was consumed and half his beard burned off. It was not until the dragon suddenly lurched forward that Roakore saw the wound. The dragon’s snout had been split from mouth to forehead by Ro’Quon’s great axe, and now fire poured forth through the wound. The spear-horn lurched again and finally fell dead, black smoke issuing from its split head. Roakore and his men stood from their cover and looked on in awe until finally Roakore spoke.