Wrecking balls, yeah, yeah. I touched the powerful cloaking charm, another hard-won prize, and faded from the sight and smell of others. My aura, my signature to those who could sense magic, also disappeared.
Sufficient, Sindari said.
Knowing I would prefer to attack from a distance and the higher ground, he led me toward a natural ramp creeping up the side of the chamber to a ledge. Just as the blue scales and folded wings of the dozing wyvern came into view, Sindari halted. His tail went rigid, and he whirled back toward the entrance.
Certain he’d sensed a second wyvern, I also turned, pointing Fezzik at the tunnel. I didn’t see or hear anything.
We need to get out of here. Sindari took a step but halted. No, we can’t go that way. He’s coming that way.
My ferocious battle tiger, the same tiger who’d been worried the wyvern would be too easy an opponent, looked around, nostrils flaring in fear as he sought some back exit from the cave.
I started to ask why, but then I sensed it. Something with an aura so great that even I could feel it from far away. And tell that it was getting closer.
He’s coming, Sindari groaned into my mind.
What is it? I’d never sensed anything like this.
A dragon.
2
A dragon?
I wanted to be skeptical and dismissive. Dragons didn’t come to Earth, not anymore. A thousand years ago, they might have, but they’d left long before the elves and dwarves had disappeared.
It was hard, however, to be skeptical when I could sense the incredibly powerful aura coming closer and closer. It—he?—was in the tunnel. And shape-shifted into something small? How else could a dragon fit in here?
We must hide. There’s no way out unless we run past him. Sindari backed farther up the ramp. Which I do not advise. Your weapons will do nothing against him, and my fangs will be like toothpicks if he shifts into his natural form. Even if he is in human form, he’ll be impossible to kill.
I followed Sindari, trusting his assessment. My only experience with dragons came through stories from other magical beings who had encountered them in their native worlds.
We scooted back to the deepest corner of the ledge. Below, just visible between two stalactites, the wyvern stirred for the first time.
Her head came up, snout opening to reveal long pointed teeth dripping with poisonous saliva. Her wings spread as she rose on her two legs to sniff the air. The wyvern was a distant relative of a dragon but much smaller, much less dangerous.
She shifted to peer around a tall stalagmite. I found a spot where I could watch her and also see the tunnel. Her talons flexed nervously on the rock floor, and she glanced around the chamber. Looking for an escape?
Her yellow-eyed gaze raked over us, and I held my breath, worried my charm wouldn’t be enough to keep me hidden. Sindari, his kind masters of stealth, had innate magic to camouflage himself. He wouldn’t be the problem.
But the wyvern’s gaze didn’t linger. It ratcheted back on the mouth of the tunnel as a human figure in a black robe with silver trim strode into view.
He had a tall, broad build and olive skin, a tidily trimmed beard and mustache, and short, curly black hair. My senses told me he was the dragon, even if he’d shape-shifted into this form to blend in. Not that he would blend in. That robe looked like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie, the silver slippers like something from Oz, and the dragon-shaped gold amulet on his chest was bling that Mr. T would have loved. Lastly, the violet eyes that glowed with inner power were nothing contacts could have achieved.
That violet gaze roamed around the cavern, skimming over us, and I held my breath again. Even if my charm worked on a wyvern, a dragon might not be fooled. I’d scrounged and fought far and wide for my collection of protective magic, and most of the centuries-old trinkets hadn’t come with instruction manuals.
“Dysnax crayell, loreth.” The dragon’s deep baritone rang through the chamber with resonance that Darth Vader would have envied. “Crayell Zavryd’nokquetal.”
The wyvern darted fully behind her stalagmite and hid, her pointed blue tail wrapping around the base as if she feared being torn away.
I touched another charm and mouthed the command word, hoping I could activate it without actually speaking. There was no way I was going to make a noise. Dragons could probably hear pins dropping on the moon.
“…and furthermore,” the dragon said, the charm translating the words in my mind, “you fled like a coward from your home realm, leaving the slain behind you to be discovered by their families.”
The wyvern was a criminal on more than one world? Not surprising. I was relieved to hear the dragon hadn’t come for me.
“You will return with me through the portal to be incarcerated until such time that you can be judged by the Dragon Justice Court. They will determine your punishment and your subsequent rehabilitation.”
Wait a minute. This guy wanted to take my target through a portal to another world? For rehabilitation?
Oh, hell no. The wyvern was going to die for the children she’d killed and the bones of the dead littered across the floor of this very cave. I’d been hired to kill her, not watch someone else cart her away.
I shifted Fezzik and leaned to the side enough to line my sights up with the wyvern’s head.
You can’t shoot her in front of that dragon, Sindari warned. Don’t be fooled by his human form. He can kill you with a look.
I know. I’m going to need your help.
“I didn’t do it,” the wyvern called from behind her stalagmite.
“I see the lie staining your soul. Come with me now, or I will forcibly remove you from your miserable squalid hole.”
Please say the help you need isn’t for me to fight and slay the dragon, because that isn’t in my repertoire of abilities.
No, just lead him away. I’ll finish the job and sprint out of here. Sprint was an ambitious word considering the climb back up to the top of the cliff, but I would find a way. If he catches up with you, go back to your realm. I’ll call you back to Earth later when it’s safe.
You know he can follow me home, right?
I hesitated. Are you sure?
Dragons can do anything. There’s a reason they rule all seventeen of the Cosmic Realms.
They don’t rule on Earth.
Only because they don’t care about Earth. Sindari watched as the dragon strode toward the wyvern. Correction: They haven’t cared about Earth in the past. For a dragon to come here, something must have changed. Or the wyvern committed an incredibly heinous crime.
She did. I rested a hand on Sindari’s back. Please, lead the dragon away. I’m positive he’ll be too angry with me to chase you back to your realm.
That is not reassuring. He will kill you.
Not if I get away. Lead him far and lead him fast.
I don’t think you understand the power of dragons.
Then this next ten minutes should be educational. I waved him toward the tunnel entrance.
Just don’t die in the ocean. I don’t want my next handler to be a whale.
Blazing yellow light flared below, stealing all the shadows in the cave. Rocks shattered as the dragon hurled a magical attack at his foe. The wave of power pulverized the stalagmite, and dozens of others in the area, as it hurled the wyvern forty feet to the back wall.
An ominous snap erupted from the ceiling of the cave. Two stalactites plunged down, leaving my hiding spot on the ledge open and vulnerable. I could get killed simply by the raw power being hurled around.
The dragon lifted a hand, and the wyvern floated into the air and toward him. The winged creature spun, trying to flap her wings, her two legs flailing in the air, her lizard-like face panicked.
Now, Sindari, I silently urged.
Sindari didn’t argue with me further. He sprang from our ledge and ran toward the dragon, mouth opening as if he would take a bite.
Despite his magical stealth, the dragon sensed him coming. The wyvern thudded to the ground as he shifted his focus toward Sindari.
The great silver tiger sprang for his head. The dragon’s eyebrows twitched in faint surprise, but all he did was duck. Sindari sailed over him, snapping at the dragon’s ear on the way by, but I could tell it was a feint. Even so, his snout bumped against an invisible shield and glanced off.
The dragon appeared more puzzled than afraid as Sindari, a deadly creature that would make any predator on Earth quake with fear, sailed past him.
Sindari landed and raced into the tunnel. It looked like the dragon would ignore him. My stomach sank.
Then Sindari shouted telepathically, You hatched backward from your egg, you one-winged gimp.
The dragon’s violet eyes flared with furious light, and he whirled and started to sprint after Sindari. But he paused in the mouth of the tunnel and looked back at the wyvern. His eyes flared even brighter, and yellow bands appeared around the wyvern, entrapping her and hoisting her in the air.
The dragon sprinted down the tunnel after Sindari.
Be safe, my friend, I thought, hoping I hadn’t lied and doomed him to his death.
The wyvern spit and hissed, struggling against the magical bonds, but she couldn’t unfurl her wings, and her talons dangled a foot off the floor. With half of the stalactites turned to rubble on the ground, I had no trouble lining up my shot.
I hesitated, wanting Sindari to get the dragon as far away as he could—the full mile that he could be parted from his figurine—before I killed the wyvern. I had no doubt the dragon would know when his would-be captive was dead, and I needed time to escape.
The honorable part of me regretted sniping the wyvern when she was defenseless, but I’d learned long ago that facing magical creatures in fair battles got humans killed. And this wasn’t an arena. This was justice, and it was my assignment. The wyvern had committed a crime, and I was the executioner.
I fired, Fezzik’s boom thundering in the enclosed space. The magical bullet left a trail of blue in the dim air as it thudded into the side of the wyvern’s head.
She shrieked but didn’t die instantly. Startlingly, the magical bonds holding her aloft evaporated, and she dropped to her feet. Without hesitation, she whirled, unctuous gray-red blood dribbling down the side of her head, and flew up to my ledge. I shot again, but the bullet barely sank in, her feathered torso protected by some magical armor.