The Dragon Engine (34 page)

Fire screamed down the tunnel, a roaring jet of superheated energy. The dwarves turned to run. They ignited. Some were picked off their feet by the blast of fire, and accelerated down the tunnel, their armour glowing as they screamed within their molten cages, metal running into scorched flesh, helmets turning fluid and flowing into eyes and through flesh and skulls, burrowing down into confused brains...

Volak paused, breathing deeply, her great ribcage rising and falling.

Then slowly, she walked towards the end of the tunnel. A myriad of constellation starlight glowed from thousands of fire-bowls to meet her curious gaze, as she looked out over the darkly beautiful panorama of Zvolga.

Volak's black eyes swept left, then right, taking in the entirety of the city from this lofty, ancient, forgotten eyrie.

She waited, patiently, her breathing slowing as she regained her composure, channelled her rage; controlled her hate.

Behind her, claws raked the ancient granite, and she turned.

Both Moraxx and Kranesh appeared to be made of metal, their scales overlapping, their huge horned heads reflecting the firelight from a hundred burning fires, burning dwarf corpses, and glowing rock. Moraxx glowed the most, being the colour of brass, a deep golden red, her scales beautiful and shining under firelight. Kranesh was silver, like hardened steel, her scales less romantic than those of Moraxx; more like a warrior, a siege engine of living, breathing flesh.

Only Volak reflected no firelight, her scales matte black.

Her eyes stared at the city below them.

“Welcome, my sisters.”

“They have made a mockery of our kind,” said Moraxx.

“They have pissed on our nobility,” said Kranesh, her anger barely in check. She was always the most violent of the three. The most psychopathic.

Volak grinned, as she stared down at a city housing perhaps twenty or thirty thousand dwarves.

“I believe,” she said, tongue curling over her curved black fangs, “that it is time the slave became the master. Time we retook our kingdom, our slaves, our world. What say you, sisters?”

Kranesh gave a nod of her great, silver-scaled head. Distant fire reflected in the crescent of her curved horns. She grinned, and it was the grin of a killer, not a victim. “I believe now is the time to burn,” she said.

All three wyrms leapt from the highest eyrie of Zvolga, unfurled their massive wings, and with
booms
of slapped air, soared up, banked, and dropped towards the dwarves who had imprisoned them so many centuries earlier…

“
G
uards
? Take aim, and fire when ready.” He smiled. “I want at least ten bolts in each fucking body. Just to make sure.” Irlax was grinning, and the guards, standing in a circle, tensed, their eyes focussed, fingers applying pressure to the triggers of their collective crossbows…

There came a distant, deep crash; a roll of thunder.

Irlax glanced up. Several guards looked at one another.

“Kill them!” screamed Irlax… as a second crash came, a heavy heaving grinding sound, like two houses slammed together. The throne room of the Palace of Iron shook violently, and three guards lost their footing, dropping to their knees in a sick parody of the prisoners arraigned before them.

More grinding, bashing sounds followed.

“Is it an earthquake?” screamed one guard over the noise, as plaster started to fall from high above, along with several dislodged stones. Now, the entire chamber was vibrating, shaking, rocking even. More guards lost their footing. Two crossbows discharged, quarrels whining and clattering across the throne room.

“You five, go and see what's happening!” screamed Irlax. He had stood from his throne, but was staggering as the floor rocked, and his throne clattered over onto its side, tumbling and rolling from the dais.

Beetrax met the gaze of the other Vagandrak heroes. He gave a small smile, and they nodded and as one, as a perfect unit, they launched themselves at the guards. More crossbows whined, and two guards were shot by their dwarf brothers, bolts thudding into a chest and a leg. Beetrax grabbed a guard by the throat, drawing his sword and stabbing another in the face. Dake kicked one in the balls, taking the war hammer blow on his left arm, crying out in pain but still moving forward, grabbing the hammer as the dwarf fell back. The hammer rose and fell, crushing the guard's skull. Sakora danced, hands flicking out like bone blades gouging throats and eyes and leaving a wake of choking blindness as she landed lightly on the rubble-strewn floor. Lillith managed to wrest a dagger from a guard, and stabbed him in the belly, watching him vomit blood to the tiles.

“What are you doing?” screeched Irlax, dancing and staggering around in rage. “What the fuck are you all doing?”

Talon elbowed a dwarf in the face, taking his crossbow. He aimed it across the space and pulled the trigger. A bolt whined, flashing through the fire-lit gloom, and punched a hole in Irlax's belly. The king made a whooshing sound, both hands dropping to the wound, and he fell to his knees, staring at his bloodied fingers in disbelief. He looked up, vision blurring a little. Still, the Vagandrak heroes were fighting, steel rising and falling, cutting throats, stabbing eyes, decapitating guards with a blur of surgical battle experience.

Then a shrill voice cried out, “The dragons! They've escaped!”

There came a pause in the fighting, as everybody looked at one another. The Palace of Iron boomed to the sounds of destruction, and the shaking intensified. Five of the guards dropped their weapons and ran for the huge golden doors, disappearing into the chaos beyond where more plaster rained down from high above.

Beetrax punched a guard in the face, and turned – to stare into the point of a crossbow. The dwarf grinned, but his dark eyes contained not a sliver of humour. He was a killer, this one. A veteran.

“About time you fucking died,” he growled, and squeezed the crossbow trigger.

T
he dragons circled
down over the streets and buildings of Zvolga. A young female dwarf looked up, and saw them. She pointed, and screamed. Soon, dwarves were running like ants through the streets as the three massive wyrms circled, and a mob of violent protesters, who had just set fire to a Church of Hate, stood there with oil-filled lanterns and burning brands, looking up, mouths open.

Volak dropped suddenly, wings folding back, a stream of white fire erupting, blasting down the cobbled thoroughfare and incinerating the mob in a single long howling fiery blast. Moraxx and Kranesh followed, their flames roaring through streets, blasting the walls from houses, sending dwarves running, screaming, burning into their homes…

Volak landed on a Church of Hate, which had just started to burn, and stood on the high sloped roof with its spires and turrets, and she grinned down at the sudden chaos below, at the collapsing buildings, the carts burning in the streets, the flaming corpses on the glowing cobbles. She took hold of the massive tower and heaved, and it crumbled, thousands of tons falling down to fill an entire street below. Then she glanced down, into the interior of the church, to see a hundred priests cowering, their black and purple robes flapping as they started to run in sandaled feet. Volak breathed, and fire roared into the Church of Hate's interior, sending the hundred priests blasting into the walls, their flesh burned from their bones, their screams cut off in one hot white fiery instant.

“
R
ight
, lads, there's fifty of us, each bearing two spears,” said Sergeant Scalanda. “That's a hundred fucking spears! Let's be brave now, let's take down these bitches before they destroy our city!” They crouched behind a section of overturned carts which blocked the street. Behind curtains dwarf civilians were twitching, watching.

“Sarge, what happens if their armour is too strong?”

“Come
on
, Gentahosk, a
hundred
spears! There's not a creature on the planet could withstand that.” Scalanda peeped from between wheel and axle, and watched as Moraxx banked, and came in low, head rearing back ready to launch fire. “NOW!” he screamed, and the dwarves leapt to their feet, arms coming back, each bearing a six-foot spear, long narrow metallic shafts with tips sharpened to a razor point. The spears flashed through the air at the incoming dragon, a hail of gleaming shafts, the majority striking Moraxx, and clattering from her scales. She pulled up, huge wings giving a mighty great
slap
as she kicked upwards, almost vertically.

“See!” ranted Sergeant Scalanda, grinning from ear to ear. “See I TOLD YOU! BITCH!” He waved his fist, and turned to the lads, who were readying themselves with their second spears for the next attack.

“Sarge, I don't think any managed to pierce her armour,” said Gentahosk, face miserable, eyes gloomy.

“What is it with you and moaning about fucking armour?” snarled Scalanda. “You always have to piss on the bonfire, don't you, lad?”

“Er, Sarge?” interrupted another dwarf.

“
What
?” Scalanda turned, but the dwarves were looking up. The sergeant looked up.

Moraxx had risen swiftly, vertically, into the heart of the cavern above Zvolga. Now she dropped back in a vertical dive.

“RUN!” screamed the sergeant, as she flitted through the darkness in absolute, terrifying silence, firelight glittering from her brass scales, tale whipping behind her in fury as she launched herself at her attackers…

They ran, managing perhaps five paces, maybe ten. Fire roared, a massive billow, incinerating the overturned carts, most of the dwarf guards, and melting the cobbles into molten stone for a hundred yard circle. There was a
whump
as her wings cracked the air, claws touching down and sinking into the molten stone which flowed around and over her scaled toes. She turned, tail whipping out and demolishing a row of stone terraced cottages like a huge, powerful tentacle. She eased her wings back, head lowering, tilting, searching, and finally came to rest at the opening of a narrow alleyway at the edge of her destructive circle.

A singed Sergeant Scalanda was there, quivering, having just climbed back to his feet, his spear clasped in two heavy hands, his uniform smoking, his beard on fire. His eyes were wide and he stared at Moraxx up close now. Her head moved forward, snout poking into the alleyway, and her black eyes narrowed to slits.

“There you are,
dwarf
,” and the word dripped from her lips like silky poison.

Sergeant Scalanda patted his flaming beard, suddenly realised he carried a spear, and jabbed it out in a quick movement, stabbing Moraxx in the eye. Scalanda wasn't sure what effect this would have, but what happened next was as far from his thoughts as was possible. The black eyeball folded in and down around the razor point of the spear, and
popped
, allowing black slop to run down Moraxx's scaled cheek…

Moraxx screamed, and she leapt back, wings beating, smashing two houses into rubble at foundation level. She whirled about in a tight circle, tail thrashing, wings beating, and fire roared, a massive circular projection as she spun, igniting everything flammable in a two-hundred-yard radius, smashing windows, burning timbers, and she leapt into the air, great wings thumping, and reared upwards to where a huge, arched bridge spanned over the city like a beautifully carved spiral necklace. In her fury and pain, Moraxx crashed into the bridge, and Sergeant Scalanda watched with open mouth as the dragon's huge body connected, crushing a section, and the whole bridge quivered, and seemed to twist around itself, and stones began to fall, tumbling down on the city below, and as he watched, mouth open, still amazed to be alive, the whole bridge shuddered and began to fall, a million tons of well-balanced stone, now nothing more than airborne rubble.

Scalanda watched the bridge fall, amazed at the beauty and horror of this destructive spectacle. And then perspective came rushing back in, and he suddenly realised
how fucking big
the bridge was, and he turned, panting fast, and began to run, sprinting through the deserted cobbled street, away from the falling bridge and, more importantly, away from the huge dragon he had just successfully wounded…

T
here was a huge
, squealing, rending, tearing sound and the world rained plaster and stone as Volak peeled back the roof of the Palace of Iron's throne room and peered down, head lowering on the long neck full of spear-like spines, horns glistening, dark eyes analysing… the room shook worse than any earthquake and the crossbow went
twang
, the bolt skimming Beetrax's cheek and removing his left earlobe. He squawked in pain, then planted his axe-blade in the centre of the dwarf's face, bludgeoning the nose into a concave crevice, splitting the skull halfway down the centre, and allowing blood and brains to spill out around the edges of the razor-sharpened steel.

The dwarf hit the ground, gurgling. Beetrax put his boot on the dwarf's chest and tugged free his axe, before looking up, and gulping, and searching for the others.

“Time to get out of here!” he screamed, amidst the shaking of the room. Lumps of stone thudded all around him, and he glanced over to Irlax, still on his knees but looking up now, staring up at the huge dragon which clambered down into the throne room, into
his fucking throne room
, and his face still registered rage, pure white-hot fury, and the dragon chuckled, a deep-throated rumble echoing through the space.

Beetrax skidded next to Talon.

“But what about the king?” panted the blond-haired archer.

“I reckon he's as good as dead!” snapped Beetrax, eyes sweeping the entire massive body of the ancient wyrm. “How did it get so fucking
BIG
?”

“Time to leave?” said Dake.

“Time to leave,” agreed Sakora, and they sprinted for the double doors with the remaining dwarves, all fight forgotten, all orders gone and pissed away on the wind. There were thuds as Volak's claws hit the ground, and curled, chewing through tiles which popped and cracked and spat up shards of stone and cement.