Silver Dragon (43 page)

"The ultimate sacrifice. Virginal lovers
who spill each other's blood. My ascension would have been uncontestable."

It was a trick! They'd tricked Patrina and made her believe they had to kill her, but what they'd hoped for was
that she'd talk him into doing it. Alto felt the familiar rush of red heat sweep through him, pushing away the malaise induced by the dragon's presence. Unlike before, the rage wasn't influenced by an outside source. This time it was Alto's untainted fury that rose within him.

He swung his sword down and cut through the etheric ropes around his legs. He rolled to his feet and saw the wizard
who had bound him scowl and begin to chant. Alto was closer this time. Close enough to make sure his lips didn't get the breath they needed to finish his spell.

"Don't stop!" Sarya told
the mages.

Alto kept running towards the red
-robed wizard between him and Fizzulthorp. The man stuttered in his casting and turned when Alto was too close to ignore. His hands flew to his pocket and he pulled out a powder but it fell from lifeless fingers as Alto's sword severed his hand. He smashed the wizard's face with his shield and left the man unconscious and bleeding on the floor.

Fizzulthorp was next in line but he stood at least thirty feet away. Alto watched Sarya rear her head back with open jaws. Alto broke into a sprint, running as fast as he could in his heavy armor. The plate fit well and allowed him more agility than he'd expected. He altered his course and ran behind Fizzulthorp.
Flames licked at his heels warmed him beyond reason. Alto lifted his shield in hopes it would spare him. Flames swept over it and licked at him until he heard a scream and the flames stopped.

Alto turned and saw Fizzulthorp rolling and writhing on the floor while he burned. Alto grinned and kept running. The final wizard stopped casting, causing Sarya to howl and reach out at him. Before he could finish his spell that Alto had no hope of blocking
, Sarya's claws pierced through him from back to front and lifted the dying man off the ground.

She raised him to her mouth and bit down on him, tearing him slowly in half before tossing his jerking legs away. Alto took note that several of Sarya's teeth were missing. As the dead wizard's lower torso crashed into the ground near him
, he saw another one of her teeth sticking out of what remained of his belly.

Alto ran to the wall while Sarya climbed to her feet. She moved slowly, each step painful. He leapt and grabbed on to a hole in the wall
and then pulled himself in.

"Run and hide, puny man, it doesn't matter! The ritual is all but complete. I will kill her and finish it myself!"

"I thought you needed to kill me too? Virgin lovers," Alto said as he moved between the holes in the wall and tracked her progress towards him. He had no idea how to get to her so he could strike her. She was old and slow to move, but her hands seemed quick enough. Then there were her flames.

"You only need to die
; it doesn't matter how," she snarled before he heard her inhale again.

Alto ran up the path while flames blasted against the rock wall and shot through the holes. Superheated air rushed past him, making him gasp and causing steam to rise from a mystical shield around him. Alto almost laughed as he realized Kar's spell had saved him. Twice now, in fact.

He ran harder, desperate to reach the top before Sarya did. He had to find a way to save Patrina. She'd once promised he could still have a life without his hands; perhaps he had to return the promise to her. It wouldn't make him love her any less.

Alto emerged into the blustery wind but didn't stop. He ran along the now familiar path until he was at Patrina's side again. She stared up at him, tears running down her cheeks. "Run and hide!"
she begged him. "Get away from her! I heard her. I know what she needs. I was a fool. I love you. Do this for me, please!"

"I'll die first," Alto told her.

Patrina struggled to her feet and stared at him. "Kiss me again."

Alto stepped up to her and pressed his lips against her. She wrapped her arms over his head and pulled him to her, crushing him against her. Alto could taste her tears and her blood through the kiss.

"Now run, damn you!" Patrina sobbed.

"I'll never run," Alto said. He smiled at her and turned towards the crater.
He dropped his shield at his side and took a two-handed grip on his sword. "But I will jump."

"Alto!" Patrina shouted as he leapt into the open air.

* * * *

Alto held his sword out as he dove straight down. He could see Sarya climbing the wall, a dark shape with glinting eyes silhouetted by the burning flames below. It was just like his dream: he was flying and there she was.

Alto focused
; he had one chance. One strike as he passed and it would be over. He had to drive the blade in perfectly or nothing else mattered. He would die. Patrina would die. Everyone he knew and cared for plus thousands of others would die.

His sword lit up the way ahead of him, flaring with a greenish light that reminded him of Thork's spear. He used the light to guide him as he twisted and thrust his sword into Sarya's back between the ribs of her spin
e. It slammed home to the hilt and by all rights, she should have fallen. Somehow he held on and slammed into her back. The shock knocked the wind from him but his plate kept him from breaking any bones. What came next was far worse.

Sarya fell back away from the wall. Was she trying to crush him beneath her? Alto clung to his sword but it would not pull free
, even as they both fell through the air together. She kept spinning, her tail slamming into the wall behind her and slowing her rotation.

The world righted itself in time for Sarya to slam into the ground underneath him. Alto had no time for thought
; he was crushed against the hard hide of her back. Great chunks of her brittle hide broke off, some of them piercing his armor. She lay still, quivering beneath him while he somehow still held on to the grip of the spiritblade.

Alto couldn't breathe. Everything hurt and every little breath was agony. He knew his ribs were broken, but he couldn't be sure how many. Probably all of them. His left leg felt odd, like it wasn't really there but he could still move it. It tingled a little as he gasped in shallow breaths. His right leg felt nothing. He couldn't move it or if he could
, he couldn't tell. He wondered if it had been torn off along the way.

Alto was dying. He knew it. He deserved it. Nobody falls that far and lives to tell about it. Nobody rides a dragon either. He smiled and felt blood run between his lips and onto the dragon's back.

Speaking of the dragon, the bitch was still alive. He felt her cough, a shallow movement that caused her to spit out flames from her mouth. She was trying to move too, even though he could see she was done for. Her legs were broken and she had ribs that had shattered and split her hide. He wondered if she felt worse than he did.

"I killed you
." Alto's breath was so shallow that he couldn't hear himself talk. "I killed a dragon! This is a good death."

The dragon rumbled a little and tried to move again. Maybe she wasn't as doomed as he'd thought. Did dragons heal? Was she like Thork, nearly impossible to kill? He still had his sword and had done this to her with one strike
; if he could manage a second, that would surely be enough. Then he could rest at last.

He struggled, pulling himself up on bones that grated and muscles that refused to work the way he expected them to. Blood ran from his mouth and the many holes in his armor. Just a little more, that's all he needed. He'd take a break in a minute. Just as soon as he finished.

Alto pulled himself up and saw that his right leg was still attached; it just didn't want to act like it. That was okay, he'd let it do whatever it wanted in a minute. "Leander, Preth, Jarook." Alto panted out the names of the saints, each one spraying blood on the dragon's back. "I need help. Just a little more."

Alto lifted himself up into a sitting position. He felt the bones in his lower back grate, sending a fresh jolt of agony through him. It was gone an instant later and with it went the feeling in his left leg. He used his right arm, also broken, to hold himself up while he shifted the grip his left hand had on his sword. "I am afraid," he admitted. "Just not of dying."

Alto jerked the sword free of the dragon's back and was sent tumbling by the burst of flames and the rainbow of swirling colors that followed. He crashed to the ground, tingling all over from the touch of the energy. The flames burst through the mouth of the volcano and into the sky above. At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the last of the vaporous colors strike the statue of the silver dragon and disappear.

Alto lay there and breathed, waiting for the world to grow dark around him. When it didn't
, he realized he was breathing, and he was breathing without pain. He rose up slowly and stared at his hands and his legs. His armor was rent in places and missing in others. Yet somehow he was alive and unharmed.

Alto turned to Sarya and saw that she was truly dead. More than dead
—there was a gaping hole where the energy had burst out of her back. He turned and looked at the statue again. She was dead, wasn't she? The statue sat still, the fires reflecting in the facets of the ruby eyes. Alto stared at it for a long moment. He thought he felt something but he couldn’t be sure. He shrugged it away after a few minutes had passed. He'd been through a lot; it was okay to be suspicious.

Alto looked at his sword and grinned when he saw the notch in the blade was gone. It was impossible, but so was killing a dragon. Alto shook his head and sheathed his blade. His work wasn't done entirely
; he still had to get Patrina down and then help his friends.

Alto stiffened when he heard something metallic clatter when it hit the floor. He turned just as a person slammed into him and knocked him back into Sarya's body. Alto groaned and fought back, pushing his attacker up and away until
he could finally figure out what was going on.

"Alto, stop it!" Patrina cried out and pushed his hands away. She threw herself on him and squeezed him until he swore he could hear his battered armor creaking.

"How can you be alive?" Patrina gushed with tears streaming down her face. "You jumped! I saw you. You turned and you jumped. Then flames burst out and the silver chains and pole melted away into the ground."

"I rode her," Alto said with a grin.

"Rode her?"

"To the ground," he said, grinning.

Patrina shook her head and then leaned in and kissed him again. "You're covered in blood. Is it yours or hers?"

"Both, I think."

She rose up and reached a hand down to help him, which he accepted. "It's four days by horse to get back. I'm going to need some different clothes." Patrina stopped and shook her head. "You really did it, you know?"

Alto grinned again.

She laughed. "That's three times you've saved me now. When are you going to accept a proper reward?"

"Your father wants me to be Thane of Rockwood, the city near the old entrance to the dwarven mines. He says the dwarves are coming back and—"

Patrina silenced him with her lips on his. "That's not the reward I'm talking about."

"Oh, um..."

"You know we could have avoided this whole mess if you'd have taken me up on my offer in Holgasford. Sarya needed a maiden."

Alto felt the blood in his cheeks. He cleared his throat and glanced around. "Next to a dead dragon? Is that what you had in mind for your first time?"

Patrina laughed and kissed him again. "No! But when we get back, you've got a lot of making up to do."

"I thought I was to be rewarded?"

Patrina shrugged. "Maybe some of each."

* * * *

Garrick slashed the ogre across the belly with his sword and continued to pivot. He knew about the dying ogre's partner trying to flank him. The thing about a northman was that they didn't let anyone behind them. He'd learned at an early age to keep moving and twisting. Wolves loved to circle their prey and leap on their backs or take meat down from the side. It was one of the first lessons a boy was taught once he could pick up a knife.

His sword was twisted wrong
, though; he couldn't get the cut he needed. The barbarian twisted back the other way, dodging the club and bringing his sword around for a backhanded slash that left the ogre howling as blood poured down its arm.

Garrick took a step back and parried a blow from another of the massive beasts, surprising the ogre with the barbarian's strength. He kicked the ogre in the knee and jumped back to the one he'd wounded in the arm, slicing his hip and making the ogre stagger.

They'd been pressed from both sides at first and then their defenses started to fall. Garrick had switched to his sword and launched himself forward into the ogres that ran up the ramp from the outside. In moments, he was surrounded but that didn't bother him: it was an environment filled with opportunities!

"Garrick!"