The Flames of Dragons (30 page)

Shadeen spiraled overhead, no doubt seeking his next target. “What do we do?” Iren asked.

To his shock, Rondel grinned. “We annihilate evil,” she said. “Okthora, I trust you have no complaints?”

What Okthora responded was inside Rondel’s mind, so Iren couldn’t hear it. But he knew what the Storm Dragon must have said.

Rondel’s skin glowed blue and purple. Scales grew over her body and formed a sparking suit of armor. A pair of electric wings sprouted from her back.

“I meant what I said earlier,” she told Iren and Minawë when her Dragoon transformation finished. “This is my fight. Stay out of my way.”

She crouched, then jumped into the air. She vanished in a flash.

Iren clenched his fists. He had worked so hard to match her. Now she’d left him far behind.

He wouldn’t allow it. Even with Rondel’s regained youth and a Dragoon form, that was no ordinary dragon up there. Shadeen had the energies of four dragons to draw on. If he could level Kataile in an instant, he could wipe out all of Raa if he wasn’t stopped.

Magic coursed through Iren. He let it flow from his body, flaring around him in a storm of white light.

“Let’s go, Divinion!” he shouted. “I won’t let Rondel do this alone!”

“She told you to keep out of it,” Divinion said.

“Of course she did. What did you expect? That she would admit she needed our help?”

Inside Iren’s mind, he felt the dragon sigh. “Have it your way, then. Get up there.”

“You won’t fight me for control?”

“No. We’re partners, now and forever.”

Iren smiled. The white tempest condensed on his body and changed into a gleaming scale armor. Wings of light erupted from his back. For the second time in his life, Iren Saitosan had become the Dragoon.

“Minawë, find a place to hide,” Iren said.

The Kodama shook her head. “Where would I go? That thing can blast apart a city. I’m staying to help you.”

“Your plants can’t scratch that thing.”

“Not like this,” Minawë said, “but there is a way I can help.” Her eyes brightened. “You and Rondel can do it. I know I can too.”

Minawë folded her arms across her chest, and a cocoon of vines encircled her. A moment later they fell away, and Minawë had changed. A hard, brown coating covered her body. Feathered wings grew from her back, and flowers bloomed at her feet.

“The Forest Dragoon,” she said. “Dendryl and I command the powers of life and death. Tell us what you need, and we’ll get it done.”

Iren looked up. Rondel flashed around Shadeen, striking him with lightning bolts from her hands, but her shots had no effect. Iren wasn’t surprised. Divinion had scales immune to magic. It made sense that Shadeen would too. Dragoon or not, Rondel couldn’t penetrate that armor.

Not that Iren would have better luck. Even the final attack he’d used against Feng hadn’t dented the dragonscale Muryozaki. That spell had taken five minutes of gathering magic, and it had exhausted the Dragoon’s reserves. A blast like that would be useless against Shadeen.

There was one spell, though, that might work. The Muryozaki had been forged from one of Divinion’s scales, and Divinion himself had provided the heat for the forge. His flame could overcome Shadeen’s armor.

Iren turned back to Minawë. “You asked what I need,” he said. “I need time. You and Rondel have to distract Shadeen. I don’t want him to get too far away, and I definitely don’t want him to destroy any more cities.”

“How much time do you need?” Minawë asked.

“Five minutes.”

“You got it.” She leapt into the air and was gone.

*   *   *

Minawë had flown numerous times as a bird, and she never tired of it. The feeling of total freedom, of weightlessness, gripped her with a euphoria that refused to let go.

As she flew toward Rondel, Minawë tamped down that excitement. She couldn’t get carried away this time, not when so much depended on her.

Above her, Rondel clashed with Shadeen. The Maantec flashed across the sky, so fast Minawë could only see her when Rondel changed direction. At each stop, Rondel shot a lightning bolt from her hands. Shadeen’s armor resisted each one, and he countered by hurling dozens of Shadow Knives. The other dragons joined him, launching waves of fire, ice, and water.

Rondel vanished again, and an instant later she appeared in front of her daughter. “I should have told you this a long time ago,” she said. “I’m proud of you.”

Minawë beamed, but she couldn’t waste words. “Iren needs five minutes.”

Lightning Sight flicked down. “I see,” Rondel said, “and Shadeen will too. He needs cover.”

“I can handle that.” Minawë gestured at the ground, and a small pine forest sprouted from the plains around Iren. Their dense needles shielded him from view.

“Impressive,” Rondel said, but then she shoved Minawë. Fifty Shadow Knives cut through the space the pair had been floating in a second earlier.

Minawë channeled some magic and created a wooden shield three feet thick that she put between her and Shadeen. Rondel flashed over to it.

“This should give us a few seconds, anyway,” Minawë said.

Beneath her sparking helm, Rondel’s face was grim. “I trust you have a plan for keeping Shadeen occupied?”

Minawë nodded. “We should aim for whichever claw of his is holding the Darkness Dragon Sword. If we can knock it out of his grasp, he won’t be able to sustain his dragon form.”

“Unfortunately that option’s out,” Rondel replied. “Feng must have told Shadeen that we used that strategy against him. The first thing Shadeen did when he saw me coming was swallow the Yaryozaki.”

“Wonderful,” Minawë said, frowning. She thought a moment. “In that case our best option is to go after the other three dragon heads. Their armor doesn’t look as strong as Shadeen’s.”

“Good idea. I can take Yukionna and Mizuchi. Can you handle Feng?”

Minawë clutched Dendryl’s bow to her chest. Could she handle Feng? Her adopted mother had died fighting that beast. Aletas hadn’t even managed to wound him.

No, Minawë wouldn’t let herself doubt. She could do it. What’s more, she knew how. It was time to see what this Dragoon form could do.

“I can,” she said, “but I’ll need time just like Iren. He needs five minutes; I need two. Keep those dragons off me.”

Rondel agreed, and the pair separated. Minawë’s wooden shield splintered as Mizuchi soaked it, Yukionna froze it, and Shadeen’s Shadow Knives shattered it.

The attacks were wasted though, because neither mother nor daughter was behind the shield anymore. Minawë had dropped to the ground, while Rondel had resumed her lightning barrage.

Minawë put a hand to the grass. She felt its power. She had done something like this in her fights against Azar and Hana, but the scale she planned now was beyond reckoning. More than a hundred miles separated her from Ziorsecth Forest, but that didn’t matter. That was the power she needed.

Her magic shot into the ground, and the plants near Minawë knitted their roots together. They joined to their brethren west of them, who connected with those west of them, and so on across Lodia.

Minawë felt their combined energy build. The line of joined plants reached Orcsthia, but that still wasn’t enough.

Then a jolt of energy ripped through her, at least an equal to the Dragoon’s magic. Her plant network had reached Ziorsecth, and its shared root system now gave her access to tens of thousands of square miles of ancient trees.

Above her, a gut-wrenching scream filled the air. Rondel had sent a ball of lightning into Mizuchi’s neck. The water carried the lightning throughout it, and the beast stopped moving.

Rondel plunged into Mizuchi. A moment later she emerged, and as she did, the Water Dragon vanished into rain.

Minawë smiled. Rondel had removed the Aqua Sapphire from Shadeen’s scales. Without that connection, Mizuchi couldn’t hold physical form.

There was no time to celebrate. Minawë focused all the energy she had gathered on a single tree seedling at her feet. In seconds it transformed into a gigantic maple, the equal of any in Ziorsecth. Minawë rode up its boughs as it grew.

The magic of innumerable plants coursed through the tree, and it shot skyward. Higher and higher it rose, until at last it stood a mile in the air. Wind whipped around Minawë like when she flew as an eagle, but she wasn’t flying. She sat atop a new, fully formed Heart of Ziorsecth.

Rondel must have been watching her, because the Maantec paused in her flight to gape at Minawë. Shadeen halted as well, no doubt surprised by the enormous tree that had just sprouted from thin air.

Impressive as it was though, the tree was only the first step. Its sole purpose was to collect energy from all the other plants. Now Minawë would put that power to use.

She retracted the Dragoon armor around her feet so they made direct contact with the Heart. Its strength coursed through her, and in concert with the Dragoon’s magic, it threatened to overwhelm her. Her body grew hot, like she was standing inches from Feng himself, but she ignored the pain.

“Minawë,” Dendryl warned, “you will self-combust if you continue.”

Minawë didn’t respond to the Forest Dragon. She didn’t care what happened to her. If they didn’t stop Shadeen here, she and everyone else on Raa would die anyway.

A second scream rent the air, and Minawë saw Yukionna break apart into snow. Rondel had used the same weakness against lightning to paralyze the Ice Dragon and create an opening to remove the Frozen Pearl.

That left only Shadeen and Feng, and Minawë was going to finish them both with one shot. Let Iren create his spell. Minawë loved the idea of him emerging from hiding only to find the Darkness Dragon already beaten.

The magic was ready. Minawë raised her hands toward Feng, aiming for the spot where his neck joined Shadeen’s body. “I am the Forest Dragon Knight,” she said through gritted teeth. “I command the powers of life and death. And here, in this place, I command you to die!”

A fifty-foot-wide beam of yellow light lanced from her hands. All the solar energy that every plant from here to Serona had gathered in the past day shot up the Heart of Ziorsecth, through Minawë’s body, and out at Feng and Shadeen.

Neither dragon had time to dodge. The blast struck home.

At first Shadeen’s armor resisted, but then Minawë heard the third scream of the battle. Feng dissolved into smoke as the scales holding the Burning Ruby cracked.

Minawë kept up her effort. With Shadeen’s scales breached, she needed only a few more seconds to finish him.

But the beam thinned, and then it died. The plants had more energy, but not even the Dragoon could handle any more of it.

Minawë dropped to her knees. Her Dragoon armor vanished, and her wings retracted into her back. Gray tunnels formed around her vision.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Shadeen. He was alive, and he was aiming his Darkness Dragon Flame right at her.

*   *   *

Rondel shielded her eyes from the glare of Minawë’s attack. It was like the sun itself. In both size and power, it far surpassed the beam Iren had created in Ziorsecth two years ago. In her wildest imaginings Rondel had never suspected her daughter could do something like that.

As the beam ended though, Rondel’s astonishment turned to dismay. Feng had vanished, but Shadeen remained. The beam had amazing strength, but it was spread over too wide an area. That weakened its penetrating ability, and that had made the difference.

Still, Shadeen hadn’t escaped unscathed. With Lightning Sight, Rondel spotted the wound just in front of the dragon’s right foreleg, the spot where the Burning Ruby had sat. In addition to the ruby, Shadeen had lost three scales there.

Rondel might have used that information, but there wasn’t time. Shadeen had gathered enough magic to release his flame again, and Rondel knew where he would launch it. There was nothing she could do to stop the blast.

But she wasn’t helpless. Even as Shadeen fired, Rondel flashed toward the Heart of Ziorsecth.

Shadeen’s massive attack seemed to slow. Everything seemed to slow. Rondel had never moved this fast before. It was like riding a lightning bolt.

She landed on the branch where Minawë lay. The girl had lost her Dragoon form and passed out. Rondel scooped her up, and with a crack of thunder, she dashed away. Time slowed again, and she landed on the ground five miles west of the Heart.

Rondel looked back just in time to see Yaryoka strike the tree. A mushroom cloud erupted, and a second later the shockwave struck her. Rondel was thrown to the ground, which was good considering how much wooden shrapnel flew over her. Even with her speed, she doubted she could have avoided it all.

When the debris passed, Rondel stood. Panic took her. That blast could level a city; had it taken out Iren’s hiding spot as well?

Lightning Sight pierced the distance, and Rondel breathed a sigh of relief. Shadeen had aimed Yaryoka too high, shooting to take out Minawë directly. The blast had incinerated the Heart, but the smaller pines had escaped with only cracked limbs. Iren, concealed by their boughs, should be safe.