Page 39 of Drakhana's Treasure
“Open fire!” Gregor yells. Around me machine guns start to go off. In the light from our guns and that of the incoming ice dragons, I can see the enemy as they charge towards us.
They are laughing and bounding and rolling down the hills. There are hundreds of them and twenty of us. I hear Tarnan screaming into his radio for Rastus to mobilize but even if they leave right now, they won’t get here in time.
The ice dragons keep advancing. They avoid our fire easily as they get closer and closer. What the hell are they going to do to us?
The soldiers move out, just a little. They keep spraying fire around us and for the moment, it’s working. The ice dragons don’t want to take a few bullets so they are moving with caution. It looks like a simple strategy, just get close enough and jump into our midst. Then we’ll all be taken down in seconds.
I back away but there is nowhere to go. We are surrounded and about to be overrun.
My breath is burning my throat and my eyes are watering. I’m trembling so hard I can barely stay standing. As I step further into the center of the circle, my foot turns on a rock and I fall, catching myself with one hand.
The sand is hot.
I am instantly distracted. I know the battle is going on but it seems far away. The only thing I care about is the heat under my hand. With relief, I sink part of myself into the hot sand and drift down into the lava.
The ultimate fire greets my soul and bubbles under my attention. My veins burn hot and I know that the fire in me is reaching out for that molten river.
“Come to me.” My voice is loud and clear, even as a whisper. One of the soldiers shoots me a strange look before returning to the fight. They all have their backs to me.
“Come to me.” I whisper, feeling the lava’s heat rising through the earth. “Come to me!”
The lava stays in its river, but its heat rises through the strata until the ground we stand on is blistering hot. Our boots begin to melt but that’s okay, we are fireproof. The ice dragons start to back up a bit, calling out to each other about the firey floor.
The heat inside me joins to the primal flame inside the earth. My head falls back and a scream tears out of me. Fire roars from my every cell, my eyes, my mouth and my skin. All I can see is blinding, flickering fire and the circle of light as it spreads around me.
I’ve become flame. I am not human nor am I dragon. I am primal force, the ancient element before consciousness began.
I am fire.
Twenty-Six
Rastus
The news comes through on the radio while we are loading the trucks. The ice dragons kept us distracted with some petty crimes at our casino while the others were shipping out. Now our first team is isolated and cut off. They are being attacked by the full force of the ice dragon army and it’s a breach of honor as well as just plain dirty.
I don’t hear Kirralee on the transmission and this terrifies me. What if she got a bullet to the head before she could even call up her flame? The thought strikes me so hard I drop everything and turn towards the doors.
I shift, right there. My combat fatigues fall from me as I spread my wings and take off. Dragons shift behind me and soon a great cloud of red and gold fire dragons are taking over the sky with their softly whispering wings.
The trucks all rumble to life as well and chase our tails. They can’t keep up, but that should work to our favor. If we come in and hit them hard, the trucks moving in will finish them off. It could be a winning strategy.
From the point of view of the war itself, getting all the ice dragons into the basin and firing on them with everything we have looks very tempting. Our guys will most likely be dead before we get there. Charging in and firing relentlessly into the basin should wipe out every ice dragon there.
I still can’t shake the feeling this is exactly what they want us to do.
Whatever their secret plan is, my secret weapon should have been able to take them out. That’s exactly why I put her there in the center of danger.
I know she can save us all. She just has to believe in herself.
I’m straining my wings as hard as I can, the stars flowing by over head and the sand pulling away beneath me. I don’t think I have ever flown so fast. Horrible dread starts to claw its way into me and I could shriek with loss. My talons start to tremble as I think about all the ice dragons I’m going to rip to shreds when I get there. I let my frustration out in a massive cry that echoes from the sand back up into the sky.
The other dragons take it up, howling like banshees. Some breathe fire and others dip and turn, scattering sparks from their wings. The ground force will be some way behind us but they know what to do when they arrive.
As we get closer to the flat plain that has been the center of our movements, I see dark shapes moving along the ground. I spit small tongues of flame downwards, revealing ice dragons in human form scurrying around down there up to no good. I fire a blast of flames at them and they encase themselves in little frost shields.
The barriers melt pretty quickly under our heat, but they do protect them from our flame. I have to pull into a hover and divert dragons left and right to find them and burn them out. They are waiting for our ground force, I think.
I realize that we have fallen right into their trap. They focused their attentions on this flat plain between hills, so we came and started prepping the area. They must have had scouts watching us so they could set up defenses. Now we sent out our first team without back up so they could get slaughtered, drawing us into the death trap so they can take us out in one hellish charge.
