The tower shuddered from its foundation to its
roof. Simon was slammed against the railing of the stairs leading to
the parapet and almost flipped over it. He grabbed on at the last
second and held on grimly until the tower settled down again.

“
Kronk!” he yelled.

“
Yes, master?” the
little earth elemental called from the bottom of the stairs.

“
Get down to the
basement. See if you can reinforce the foundation. If it starts to
crack, the entire tower will collapse!”

“
I will try, master,”
Kronk said dubiously. “But I do not have enough power to do
much more than stabilize it.”

Simon thought furiously for a second.

“
Okay. Call your earthen
friends, the five that joined you when you built the wall around the
tower. They should be able to help.”

Kronk's eyes widened.

“
Ah, of course! Excellent
idea, master. I'm on my way.”

The little elemental turned and raced down the
stairs toward the main floor, while Simon hurried up to the trap
door.

He tore open the bolts and pushed the heavy door
upward a few inches, enough to get his eyes above the level of the
roof top to look around.

“
What can you see?”
an airy voice asked from just behind him.

“
Nothing,” Simon
answered shortly. “Where the hell did they come from? I
can't...”

He pulled back and let the heavy reinforced door
slam shut again, just as a burst of flame blasted through the small
opening and almost burned his face off.

“
Son of a... How could
they see me?” he raged.

He secured the door again, cautiously. The bolts
were warm but not hot enough to burn his fingers.

He looked around at Aeris who was hovering behind
him.

“
Come on. Let's try the
window in the study.”

As he ran back down the stairs, he heard the air
elemental make a sound of derision.

“
Yes, that won't be
obvious at all,” Aeris said sarcastically.

Simon ignored him and hurried into his study.
Several candles were glowing brightly in the darkened room. The
shutters were closed and blocked out most of the daylight.

Another blow shook the tower and the wizard was
slammed into his desk. He hopped toward the window, cursing loudly,
his thigh throbbing from the collision.

Once he had opened the window, he reached out
gingerly and put his palm on the shutters. They were made of thick
wood reinforced with iron strapping, like the trap door to the roof.

Aeris floated up and hovered next to him. Simon
glanced at him and shook his head.

“
It's not warm,” he
said under his breath.

The elemental nodded once but remained silent.

Simon slowly slid back the bolts on the shutters,
wincing a bit when one of them squealed.

“
Gonna have to oil that,”
he muttered. Then he pushed the right-side shutter open a few inches
and peered outside.

The sunlight blazed off of the mounds of snow
covering the field in front of the tower. It was mid-winter and the
day was clear and very cold.

Simon looked down at the ground below the window
and saw puddles of water that were quickly turning to ice. A vast
shadow passed by the window with a whoosh of air and he jerked back
instinctively.

No attack came though and he leaned forward again,
desperately trying to spot the tower's attackers.

“Can you see their number?” Aeris
asked anxiously.

“Not yet. I can't even see them.”

Another flash of darkness raced by the window
followed by a screech of fury and Simon slammed the shutter closed
again.

“Damn it,” he said angrily as he slid
the bolts back into place. “I can't even get a look at what's
attacking us.”

He headed for the stairs, limping a bit.

“Now what?” Aeris called after him.

Simon stopped and looked back at the elemental.

“Now I walk out the front door and take a
real look at them, whatever they are.”

“What!”

Simon stumbled down the stairs, gripping the
railing tightly just in case. Once on the main floor, he moved to the
top of the staircase leading to the basement.

“Any luck, Kronk?” he called down.

“Yes master,” the little guy shouted
up from below. “We've stabilized the foundation and tightened
the bonds in the stone in the rest of the tower. It will take a lot
of punishment now.”

Simon felt a bit of relief. At least his home
wasn't going to collapse around him, for the moment anyway.

“But it would be better to stop the attack
sooner rather than later, master,” Kronk added.

“Yeah, I know that,” Simon called
back.

He turned toward the front door, muttering to
himself. Kronk was a good friend but he did tend to state the obvious
sometimes.

A massive roar echoed through the tower and it
quivered in response. The daylight glowing through the edges of the
sealed windows turned orange for a moment.

More fire, he thought. Earth elementals or not,
this place can't take much more punishment.

He grabbed the staff that was leaning next to the
front door and it trembled and purred in his hand.

“Good to see you too, Bene-Dunn-Gal,”
he murmured to the weapon. “Hope you're up for this. Hope I am
too.”

The staff was as long as Simon was tall and
covered in a spiral of bronze plating, topped with a glowing red gem.
His old friend Daniel had given him the enchanted weapon as a gift
and Simon was convinced that the thing was somehow sentient.

“Is that a good idea?” Aeris asked as
he floated down the stairs.

Simon walked to the front door and stared at it
for a long moment.

“I doubt it,” he answered. “But
if I stay hiding in here like a rabbit in its hole, eventually
they're going to pull the tower down around my ears.”

Simon raised the staff and shuffled through the
spells in his mind until he found the right one. He squeezed
Bene-Dunn-Gal and felt a bite of pain in his palm. The staff needed
blood in payment for enhancing his powers, but it still creeped him
out when it happened.

He chanted the incantation to cast the spell and
invoked it with the word of command.

“
Invectis!
”
he barked and felt a tingle of power crawl over his skin.

He raised his left hand
and saw that it looked like it was carved from crystal.

“
Diamond
Skin? Good choice,” Aeris said approvingly.

“
Let's hope
so,” Simon said and then, taking a deep breath, unbolted the
locks on the door and cautiously opened it.

The sun reflecting off
of the snow blinded him for a moment and he squinted, trying to see
through his watering eyes.

“
Careful,
Simon,” the elemental warned. “If you die out there,
Kronk and I will have to return to our own realms. And I don't want
to do that.”

“
Yeah, I
know,” Simon said shortly. “Thanks for your heartfelt
concern.”

And he stepped out and
stood on the steps in front of the tower.

The lintel over the
steps blocked the view above him but he hoped that it also blocked
his presence from whatever was trying to destroy his home.

He moved to the right,
keeping close to the wall and peered upward.

A huge body flew into
view, circling the tower from left to right. It was moving fast, just
above the height of the roof, but Simon got a good look at it before
it flew out of sight.

He stumbled back just
as a second attacker emerged from the opposite side of the tower and
passed in a counter-clockwise direction.

Yup, there's two of
them, he thought. He ducked back into the tower and slammed the door
shut. He canceled the Diamond Skin spell, then leaned against the
door and closed his eyes, frantically trying to think of a plan of
attack.

“
What's
going on out there?” Aeris asked insistently. “What is
attacking us?”

Simon opened his eyes
and stared at the elemental, who was floating a few feet away at eye
level.

“
Dragons,”
he said in disbelief. “Two of them.”

“
Dragons?
But, but that's impossible! You killed the primal black dragon over
two months ago. All of its brood should have died instantly when that
happened!”

“
Maybe they
did,” the wizard said with a touch of despair. “But these
aren't offspring of the black. These are red dragons.”

Aeris' mouth worked
soundlessly. He was obviously speechless and Simon was bleakly amused
by this unusual event.

“
Fortunately,
they must be young offspring of the primal red, because they're a
hell of a lot smaller than that black dragon was.”

Simon walked unsteadily
over to his kitchen table, pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.

“
Smaller?”
Aeris said as he followed and came to rest on the center of the
table. “Well, that's good news at least. How much smaller?”

“
At a
guess, I'd say they're about fifty feet long, not counting their
tails.”

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