Dragonfight

“Come on! We have to run fast to Orrendale!”
Elias could barely stand. “I… I can’t!” he gasped. “You go…” he caught his breath, closed his eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them again. “I need to rest a while.”

Fawks hesitated, unwilling to leave him. Cecile had already stopped a few paces ahead, waiting.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Elias assured him. “Up here I’m safe.”

Fawks rushed back, hugged him tight, then turned and ran after Cecile, waving as he went.
“Take care of him!” he called. Cecile gave a quick nod before following. Elias sat down, watching them retreat along the path they had come from until they vanished from sight.

The noise from the two dragons above – their deafening belches of fire – mingled with the cries of the perplexed shades still trapped in his maze down in the valley. It was as if those sounds were the only things left in the world. He shut his eyes. The edges of reality seemed to blur, like the world was slipping away.

Beep… beep… beep…
That sound again!

And others too: muffled voices, hurried footsteps. Strange, unfamiliar, far away. They pressed at his ears, refusing to let him drift off.
Then he fainted.

♦♦♦

Cecile and Fawks ran easily down the slope. But once the ground leveled, their pace slowed, first to a jog, then to a fast walk.

From the right, the enemy's voices spread across the valley, swelling until the sound seemed to flood the land. That noise was their whip, driving them onward.

“I didn’t want to exhaust myself already, but without help we won’t make it in time,” Cecile said, pulling out her palette. With swift strokes, she painted. The colors, ignoring gravity, seemed to hang on the air as she shaped them. In moments, a tall, majestic doe appeared before them. It was far too large for a natural deer – towering, noble, its colors unusually close to life for one of her creations.

It sniffed the air, watching them, then abruptly turned and bolted into the forest. Fawks stared in wonder, Cecile in dismay.
“Damn it! Come back!” she shouted.

The deer vanished between the trees. Cecile made a sharp motion, as if to erase it – but it was gone, lost deep in the forest.

She gasped.
“Now it’ll remain part of the Common Ground… Probably that’s how the Groundshakers came to be in the first place,” she murmured.

“Can’t you make another?” Fawks asked. “Something smaller, maybe?”

Before she could answer, a loud horn echoed from the far distance – from the direction of the Turning Tower.

It snapped Fawks back to reality. He thought of the army marching steadily toward Orrendale. Would the defenses hold? Even with the powerful white-eyed Watcher? And if they didn’t… if the city fell, so would the princess!

Her face flashed before him – her eyes, helpless and pleading, yet beautiful. No words, no sound, only that gaze.

Fawks shook himself from the vision – only to find he had already risen three meters into the air. Cecile looked up at him, puzzled.

“We have to free her, Cecile!” he said, his voice raw.

“Fine,” she answered. “That’s where we’re going. But first, we need to warn them!”

He looked at her with a distant expression.

“Go, fly to the city! Meet me at the gates – the ones we left yesterday.”

Without another word, he turned and shot off toward Orrendale, wings cutting the sky.

“Fawks!” Cecile cried after him. “At the gates!”

Frustrated, she grabbed her palette again and painted a small green stag, just big enough to carry her. This one didn’t flee. She mounted quickly, riding at whatever pace it could manage.

♦♦♦

High above the sky, Bard had lost track of Vorath and the black dragon. He soared between thick white clouds. His plan had worked however – to lure them away from the others – but now he had to face them head on.

It would not be easy. Vorath, the First Shade, was cunning and powerful. Bard had never seen eyes so utterly black.

His thought was cut short. Out of a cloud to his right, the black dragon burst upon them, slamming hard. Bard’s mount veered, barely avoiding its claws, but the impact was enough to hurl Bard from the saddle. He plunged downward, lute still in hand.

And then he played.

A single, resonant note – like the one he had used before – appeared beneath his feet, holding him aloft as he fell. He struck the strings harder, and the note launched him upward, toward another that shimmered into being before him. Then another, and another – luminous steps forming with each chord. Each note blazed like a foothold of light, and the rush of wind howled in his ears.

Now two melodies poured from his lute at once – the chords, calling to his dragon, and the notes, crafting his staircase through the air. His painted beast swooped after the black dragon and looped back in a downward arc, Bard then leaped, landing astride its back again.

By accident, he ended up facing the wrong way – backward – but that mistake proved useful. He could now see Vorath closing in behind, the black dragon spitting fire in hot pursuit. Cecile’s painted dragon twisted and rolled, evading, then shot upward again, climbing higher and higher into the burning sky.

Bard shifted his rhythm again. Holding his lute in a strange grip, he began to play a sharp, relentless pattern – something fierce and fast, like a storm given strings. Each note drove forward with precision, and from the vibrations themselves seemed to launch invisible arrows, as though he bent the sound into a point and hurled it at his pursuers.

The black dragon’s scales rang with impacts – the muffled clang of sound made solid. With his chords Bard urged his painted dragon onward, and with each strike on his lute he slammed their pursuers back, controlling the gap between them.

Then a horn blast rolled up from the valley. So powerful it echoed through every mountain ridge. For a heartbeat, Vorath and his beast faltered, distracted by the sound.

Their chance!
Bard turned forward and struck a thunderous chord. His dragon tucked its wings and flipped in the air facing their pursuers – then, after two long, breathless moments of silence, Bard shifted into a march.

Before Vorath could react, they collided. Painted dragon and black dragon slammed together, grappling mid-sky, spiraling downward in a violent tangle.

They burst out from beneath the clouds, falling fast. Vorath twisted skillfully upward, blade flashing, but Bard struck his lute again – a blast of sound throwing the Shade back. Not far enough.

The black dragon thrashed savagely, straining to break free. Bard’s painted beast was coming apart, colors flaking like torn canvas – but still it clung, refusing to release its enemy.

Vorath hurled a knife. It struck Bard’s lute dead center, snapping most of the strings with a jagged twang. An instant later he was there, sword raised. The blade cut from Bard’s brow down across his cheek –long enough to promise a scar– as Bard slipped into the void below.

Then painted dragon, black dragon, and shade crashed with shattering force into the new Turning Tower, crushing it in a storm of stone.