“The eggs are down here,” another voice called from the stairs leading down to the treasure chamber. Varia’s pointed ear feathers popped up with excitement. She couldn’t see into the lower chamber from where she stood, so she slowly sidled across a beam and floated down to a lower perch. From there she could dip her head down and peer down the scorched stairway into the depths of the treasure chamber. Her eyes widened. What arrogance! Did they believe Thunder was dead?
The Brutes were hard at work shoveling Iyesta’s accumulated treasure into crates. Apparently they decided to help themselves rather than wait for the mercenaries to share. Other Brutes carried pickaxes and sledge hammers down the stairs. Varia wondered what they were going to do with those until she leaned a little further down and saw the edge of the dragon skull totem. The first Brute to the neatly stacked pile raised his sledge hammer and brought it down hard on the dragon skull at his feet. The bone shattered and flew in all directions.
“The eggs!” Varia cried softly. “Don’t smash the eggs!”
More skulls cracked and smashed under the impact of those relentless axes. The totem began to sway; skulls toppled down with hard, cracking sounds and exploded as sledge hammers came down on the brittle bone.
Varia could only stare in astonishment. Weren’t these Brutes supposed to be Thunder’s allies?
“General! There’s that owl!”
Varia started at the words. She hadn’t realized that in her agitation, she’d crept out of her hiding place and was visible to the men in the throne room.
The Brute general stared up at her through his golden mask then said, “Kill it.”
Varia did not wait to see if these soldiers would obey this order. She dove off her ledge in a hunting dive and arrowed out the wide doors before the Brutes could get an aim on her. She did not hesitate or pause to see what they would do next, but flew out of their sight as quickly as her wings could carry her.
Linsha tried to wait for the right moment to let go of the lance. She wanted to be able to control her descent, but the heat in the shaft and Thunder’s frenzied movements were more than she could handle. Her hands slipped and for just a heartbeat she hung upside down by her ankles. One more strong shake of the dragon’s back loosened her hold, and she broke free and fell head down along the dragon’s side to the ground.
“Linsha!” Crucible sprang to meet Thunder head to head.
The huge blue felt the weight slip from the lance, but he was already moving too fast to change his intentions. He met Crucible with a thunderous clash of teeth, claws, scales and wings that smashed them both into the nesting mound and bore the smaller dragon deep into the crumbling sand. The bronze snarled with pain as his injured foreleg and wing were pressed under Thunder’s greater mass. The blue snapped and tore at Crucible’s head, trying to get a grip on the bronze’s throat, ignoring the ferocious agony in his back.
It was the sand that saved Linsha’s life. Instead of crashing headfirst into the ground, she tumbled off Thunder into a pile of sand beside his thrashing body.
She lay winded for a moment while the dragons struggled and heaved above her. She took a deep breath and scrambled up before they crushed her. Linsha fumbled for her boot with a silent plea of hope. The Brutes had disarmed her earlier but she could not remember if they had checked her boot. Her fingers sought the handle of the slim stiletto down the inside of her right boot, found it, and pulled. May the gods of the afterlife bless that dead mercenary!
She looked up at Thunder’s bulk rising above her and leaped for the wing folded against his side. A grappling hook and a rope would have been better for what she intended, but the stiletto was all she had. As she reached the apex of her jump, she jammed the blade into his wing with one hand and used it to hold her weight while she scrabbled for the nearest pinion that would help her climb the struggling dragon. She had to get back on him. The lance was working-it would kill Thunder-but it was not working fast enough to save the bronze. Linsha could only hope that she could get back onto Thunder before he noticed her.
She scrambled higher, jamming her small blade into the blue’s leathery wing membrane and climbing up the folds. She was so intent on her desperate climb that she did not see Crucible’s eye lock on her or the dulled glow of desperation that filled his eyes. Nor did she notice that he struggled harder to keep the monstrous blue’s attention away from her precarious position.
She was scrambling over Thunder’s wing bone and onto the ridge of his back when she felt the dragon abruptly still. Her slight weight must have finally registered in his fevered brain, for he whipped his head around in time to see her clamber along the ridges of his back toward the black lance that bored into his shoulders. He hissed in sudden fear and hate.
Linsha focused on the black lance. She leaped and shoved it down deeper into his body. Thunder’s screech almost shattered Linsha’s eardrums. Sweat and tears of pain ran down her face, and she felt her hands burning around the haft of the lance. She shifted her stance and pushed on the shaft again, forcing the barbs to move faster through Thunder’s lung toward his heart. Thunder’s last mortal cry shook his dying body. Disbelief and terror drowned the furious glow of his eyes. His legs swayed under his weight.
Linsha stared up into the gaping holes of his nostrils and his slack mouth so close to her. She smelled the stink of his breath and thought her time had come to die.
Frantic, Crucible snapped at the blue’s neck. His weakened bite caused little damage to the blue’s tough scales, but he succeeded in drawing Thunder’s fading attention back to himself. The blue dragon’s head slammed around and pushed aside Crucible’s weakening defenses. His heavy jaws closed around the bronze’s neck just under the jaw, and he began to crush Crucible’s throat.
Linsha pushed on the lance once more, and this time dark blood bubbled up around the wound. The barbs had torn Thunder’s heart. She felt him shudder. As the life drained from the dragon’s body, his wings sagged, his muscles lost their strength, and his great body slowly collapsed to the earth.
Linsha stood for a moment, hauling air into her lungs and reveling with intense relief. Then, in the sudden silence of the cavern, she heard a strange gasping, rattling noise, and her fear returned tenfold. Crucible was still underneath the massive corpse. She scrambled down Thunder’s back, dropped to the ground, and hurried around the mound to the dragons’
heads. Sick with fear, she found Crucible nearly buried in the sand of the nest and trapped under the dead blue. Worst of all Thunder’s jaws were still locked around his throat. The bronze struggled, unable to breathe beneath the sinking dead weight of the enormous blue crushing into his chest and throat. Blood oozed from wounds on his neck and trickled down into the sand. His amber eyes darkened and bulged in his efforts to breath.
Linsha took one look and knew she could not help him alone. She had no sword to pry open Thunder’s jaws, nor did she have enough strength to lift the weight of the dragon’s head from Crucible’s throat. He would have to do something to help himself.
“Crucible!” she cried. She grabbed Thunder’s jaw and tried to wrench the head loose from the bronze’s throat. It barely budged. “Listen to me! Look at me! I am here. But I need your help. I can’t lift this. Crucible!”
The bronze’s pain-filled eye rolled toward her. She yanked again at the blue’s jaw. If she couldn’t move it, maybe she could just loosen it enough for Crucible to breathe.