Dragon 4 Chapter 15

The spider women’s legs clacked as they streamed across the tower towards me, leaping off in an attempt to pin me down.

My jaws snapped up two of them as I tried to step back, avoiding the others. But they greatly outnumbered me.

Focusing on the two in my mouth, I crunched down, devouring their rich mana before shifting my attention to the others.

Dozens of the creatures skittered onto me and wrapped their webs over me, their sharp legs tried to work themselves under my scales.

I thrashed, knocking a few to the ground. But there were just too many, their webs stacked up and slowed me down.

They piled on top of me, and I needed to get them off.

I could shift my body enough to throw it to the side, using my momentum to roll as we crashed into the great hall.

A few of them were crushed under my weight, but many of them remained, clinging to my body.

I could feel a few sharp pricks as they successfully worked their sharp legs under my scales to get to my tough but not impenetrable skin. I roared, my dragon ready to tear them apart limb by limb.

Green fire spewed over me, turning my scales copper and melting the monsters on my neck.

I slapped the few wounded spider women off my neck like the pests that they were. “Tim, glad to see you.” The copper dragon was at the bottom of the stairs. I had a feeling he’d just come down from his room.

“My king.” The copper dragon bowed his head, his eyes darting around as he took a defensive stance. “What is this?”

I looked him in the eye. “The person responsible for this attack is the one I believe killed your mate.”

Tim’s growl was immediate. The deep and dark reverberating sound echoed through the room as intensity lit in his eyes. “Where.”

It was less a question than a statement. I nodded my head toward the lower area.

“But we need to be careful.” I shifted back into my dragon knight form. Tim followed my lead, shredding his clothes as he shifted. “Our dragon forms won’t be able to maneuver well down there.”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing will stop me from ripping out their still beating heart and letting them watch me eat it while they die. Nobody touches my mate.” Tim was already moving, heading towards the entrance.

I moved behind him, noting that I was not the only possessive dragon on the island.

Tim was practically frothing at the mouth to go.

Herm and a dragon I didn’t recognize joined us. “What’s wrong?” He asked as soon as he saw his brother.

“There’s someone calling themselves the spider queen here, attacking us. She was wearing a skinsuit of the black dragon. Given that Stephanie died just outside the healing ward she was staying in, I would bet she’s responsible for her death.”

Herm hurried forward and grabbed his brother’s shoulder. “She will die a painful death; that I promise you, brother.”

Tim jerked his shoulder out of his brother’s grasp. “No more wasting time.”

Herm shifted into a smaller dragon form, about the size of a horse, while the woman shifted into a large bear and dropped onto all four with a rumbling growl.

She wore Herm’s mark, so I assumed she was one of his mates. “We go as a group. Keep your eyes open, and prioritize keeping each other alive. Tim, you’re with us? You can keep your temper in check enough to not be a liability?”

“Yes, my king.” He snorted as he scraped his clawed foot along the floor, impatient to get going.

I knew he was a risk, but he’d battled before. He was once a Greek general. I could use him in the fight, and if the tables were turned, I wouldn’t forgive anybody who stopped me from getting my vengeance.

Rather than waste more time, I headed down the stairs, my skin crawling. I couldn’t help but feel more lurked for us in the shadows below.

“Have either of you ever heard of these creatures?” I paused, using a small stream of fire to remove webs.

“Not in the paranormal world. They look like driders from video games.” Herm said.

I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. “I would not have pegged you for a gamer.”

Herm shrugged, his eyes scouting around us. “You get bored with everything after a while. Games connect them to drow, but I’ve never heard of drow and spiders being a thing.” Herm replied.

“Surprise, surprise, the humans got another thing wrong and misrepresented the paranormal.” Tim said in a bored tone. “They mixed up fae and elves all the time.”

I hadn’t thought about it, but they did both have pointy ears. Elves’ ears pointed up and fae ears went backwards at an angle.

“So, they are possibly fae? They called their leader the spider queen. Think there’s any tie to the leader of the wild fae that was killed in our history?” I asked.

Tim grunted. “Not a historian. Vaguely remember that story; dragons helped the summer and winter courts kill her.”

“Could be a lone survivor of the wild fae, calling herself the new queen.” Herm suggested hopefully.

We all hoped that was the answer rather than some unbelievably powerful fae from eons ago, back again for round two. Round one seemed like a big enough of a doozy.

Movement above me caught my attention, and I snapped my hand up, launching a fireball.

It tore through webs and landed high above.

A drider screeched as it went up in flames, but none of us were focused on the dying paranormal. What caught our attention was the ceiling that had just been illuminated and was swarming with many more.

“Left.” Tim said before taking a deep breath and breathing a column of green fire that made the driders sizzle and melt to our left. Herm immediately took action, breathing a column of purple fog up the right side of the wall. Driders caught in the purple fog shriveled up and fell like dead leaves.

The two of them worked in immaculate coordination. It clearly wasn’t the first time they’d battled side by side.

I joined them, taking a deep breath and breathing fire right down the center. The driders fell down around us as they died.

The bear shifter female roared and stood on her hind legs, grabbing a drider off of Herm, dragging it to the ground and ripping its throat out.

“Backs together.” I ordered. As they fell on top of us, it would be easier for us to be split apart and overwhelmed. We needed to stay together.

We huddled together, each of us pouring out our breaths. Every once in a while we’d shoot out a spell, taking out a few of the further away driders.

While we had less room to maneuver, it was hard to outrun our breaths. Hundreds of driders died around us.

“Disgusting creatures. Where are they all coming from?” Herm spat on the ground after taking a large comp out of a nearby one.

“She summoned them up in the healing ward through magic circles. And they call her mother.” I answered between gouts of fire.

He wrinkled his nose, turning away just as I saw three driders appear out of the darkness, landing on him.

I grabbed two and yanked them off him, breathing fire on their faces and killing them.

The last one was killed by Tim.

As I turned back, I saw that long cords of thread had been stuck to Herm’s back. I moved forward to hack at them, but I was too slow.

He was jerked backwards, carried off down the path.

“Shit!” Tim cursed and his head whipped back and forth, ready for them to repeat their strategy. They’d come prepared to fight dragons.

“We are going that direction anyway.” I told him. “Push forward and keep fighting.”

The sounds of their skittering echoed along the walls and made me want to shiver. I cursed, creeped out.. I was going to have nightmares about spiders for the rest of my life.

Taking another deep breath, I washed out the tunnel before me, clearing the webs and catching more than a few of the driders.

“Come on; we are picking up the pace. Herm is one of ours.”

As if responding to me, a loud roar echoed from below. Herm had shifted into his dragon form.

A boom resounded through the halls, confirming it. Only a dragon could have made that loud of a sound.

It didn’t take us long to reach him. They had pinned Herm against the wall at the landing, limiting his body of any movement.

Purple fog wheezed out of his throat as he stretched out his breath, making it last longer to protect himself and buy some time.

I stepped forward, my scales darkening against his death breath. My own breath joined his, filling the room with a thick rolling fog of death.

Dry cracks sounded as driders fell and their brittle bodies crumpled against the ground.

Herm did a few half beats of his wings to drive the fog further down the passage. “Fucking spiders.”

“You okay?” I asked, not afraid of his breath. But I noticed that his mate and Tim were hanging back.

Herm shifted back into his smaller form, but blood liberally coated his copper scales. “Been worse. Bastards surprised me.”

“It isn’t much further to the bottom of the stairs.” Tim said, stepping up closer and lifting a hand filled with green fire.

Herm took a few steps forward and stumbled.

“You don’t look fine.” I commented, seeing Herm better under the green firelight. He wasn’t going to make it to the bottom, and we couldn’t leave him behind.

More driders were flowing along the ceiling, hurrying past us.

“They aren’t focusing on us.” I said, watching them hurry towards the first floor.

“No…” Tim paused and turned his head so his ear was facing up the stairs. “Another group is coming down.”

If more were coming, they could help protect Herm and keep him alive. And I had a way to make it easier for them to get to him.

I drew upon the strength I’d been feeling in battle. It came easier this time, and I slapped out fireballs the size of small cars, sending them up to the ceiling. They came easily enough that I didn’t stop there.

I threw dozens of the fireballs in a display that surprised even me. My limit had once been three in a row, but now it was like the finale of a fireworks show and I wasn’t even struggling.

“My king.” Tim said, his awe clear in his tone. “You are drawing them to us again.”

“Deal with what you can.” I replied. With the increase in strength, I was feeling twitchy. I wanted to hit something.

I wasn’t sure where the strength came from, but it was rapidly blossoming in my chest. It was like a piece of burning parchment, slowly spreading through my body.

And as it moved, I felt some sort of barrier being broken down. Something was giving way.

Morgana had suspected that my dragon had been sealed, hidden from me, and that was why I’d always felt like the beast was separate until more recently. And apparently, there was more to uncover.

So I let it continue, curious what would unlock within me.

I grabbed onto that power with everything I had and pushed it forward, into myself and my beast.

The beast roared in my chest, swallowing that strength and making it our own.

I screamed and kept pumping out fireballs, wrecking the oncoming waves of driders.

The only thing louder than my own fireballs was the sound coming from further up the hall.

Thunderous booms and the static crackle of lightning sounded amid screams of driders.

“Bronze or Blue are coming.” Tim called over the cacophony.

The cold light of lightning lit his face as dragons joined us.

“My King.” Brom and the blue leader, Throgane, bowed at their waist, and with them was Brom’s second mate, Chloe’s mother. “The invasion at the healing ward has been stopped.”

Brom looked like an armored soldier with his helmet off. He hadn’t grown much, but his short stocky frame radiated danger. The blue leader was two heads taller. He was long and lanky, but there was an intensity that radiated from his body. It felt like he could whip his arms out and rip out somebody’s throat in the blink of an eye.

Both of them radiated lightning magic.

I whipped out my largest fireball yet, detonating it and clearing further down the passage. “Good. I believe the woman responsible is down here. She fled from the healing ward and circled back into the tower for her real objective.”

Brom nodded. “A dangerous individual, though despite her power, it was folly to attack the dragon conclave.”

Despite his words, I still felt uncertain. The driders had hurt us far more than I’d expected. They were well organized, and their sheer numbers in the confined spaces proved dangerous.

“Let’s move.” I marched forward and down to the floor of the massive mural-covered cavern. But the area was unrecognizable, covered in webs.

Driders lingered in webs, watching us but not attacking.

But the only moving creature was the skinwalker who called herself the spider queen. She had the same purple crystal from earlier in her hand, and she smashed it against one mural.

“Oh, you worked quickly.” She turned with a smile, completely unperturbed that we had reached her. But she had an army of driders lurking just over her shoulders.

I had a feeling the moment we moved to attack her, the room would become chaos.

“It is Thalia. Why would you attack the conclave?” Brom’s voice picked up in volume as he spoke, and he took a threatening step forward.

“Brom, that’s not a dragon. It is someone claiming to be the spider queen wearing a dragon’s skin.” I slowly watched what she was doing.

It seemed that the crystal was the only thing she had that was hard enough to damage the tower. I couldn’t help but wonder what material it was made of.

The mural had been chipped away enough to show several small holes that led to a space behind it.

“You like? Metallics were always so predictable. It’s part of your orderly nature. I knew Bahamut would hide it here. Chromatics, on the other hand, are so much harder to predict. But I’ll find Tiamat’s hiding spot in time.”

Since she was feeling chatty and superior, I thought I’d indulge her for a little more information. “What are you looking for?”

“Power. Particularly, my power.” She emphasized the word ‘my’ as she turned back to the mural and slammed the crystal into it once more. Another piece of the wall broke away.

“Bahamut and Tiamat stole it, sealed it away like the little pests they were.”

“You talk like you are the spider queen on that mural. I was told you died.” I nodded at the mural.

She snorted. “That would ruin so much of the balance that keeps the world turning.”

“Bahamut, Tiamat, even the fae queens all die.” I pointed out, wanting to hear her answer. I was piecing it all together.

“They didn’t die. Well, their bodies did. But their power doesn’t die, my baby king. They passed their power down, immortalizing it differently.” She then pointed to her own chest. “I am not so generous. This is my power, and I shall retain it until the end of time.”

The driders in the surrounding web inched forward, preparing to attack.

“If everything has a balance, then what stands opposite of you?” I asked. “Because I see nothing. Hell, you’ve been apart from the world for eons and nothing has changed.”

She smiled so wide that her face actually started to split. “Humanity. I’m the wild, the untamed beasts, and the wilderness. I am everything humans have been slowly squashing out of this world. Through me, I will bring the paranormals back to a new splendor.”

The spider queen touched her face, feeling the tears and frowning. “It seems that this isn’t going to be useful much longer.” She placed her finger at the top of her head and she dragged it down.

As it passed, her skin split like it was just a latex costume being undone.

Underneath was a woman with hair as black as the night and alabaster skin that looked like it had never seen the sun. She had the ears of a fae, pointed and swooping backwards. A stiff black ribbed corset and skirt were all she wore as she stepped out of the skin and picked up the crystal again.

“Now, I think I need a little more time. Please welcome an old friend.” She turned away from us as a roar filled the basement of the tower and a thudding stomp echoed along the stone.

A two-headed creature made of moss stepped forward. The thing was huge, maybe twenty feet tall.

“Grendel, kill them.” The spider queen said with a wave of her hand.

It surged forward with thudding steps before a gigantic bolt of lightning rode over my shoulder, catching it in the chest.

Grendel stumbled for just a moment before shaking off the electricity. The beasts’ two heads both smiled wide with laughter and attacked once more.

I rushed forward, packing on mass and shifting larger to match the giant moss creature. My fist cocked back, and I drew on all of my strength to slam it home into the chest of the moss monster.

As I connected, I found myself surprised. It felt like I’d just punched a beanbag. The beast’s body gave way to my fist, softening the blow.

I growled, not appreciating the amount of time the spider queen had put in to prepare for this fight against the dragons. Something that could absorb brute strength like this was a pain.

A flexible arm whipped around me and snagged my torso before it flung me high into the air.

Tim was shifting and rushing the spider queen as Brom and the blues came to my aid. I landed hard on my back, driving the breath from my lungs.

I wheezed a breath; the air knocked out of me.

“My king.” Brom bowed as lightning raced through the air behind him.

Pulling a more successful breath, I spoke. “Hurts, but I’m fine. Someone stop Tim.” I turned to see his breath wash over the spider queen uselessly.

She shielded herself with the same purple magic and continued to chip at the mural.

“Can you handle the moss monster?” Brom asked, concern in his voice.

“I got it. I just wasn’t expecting the flexible arms. Help Tim.” Rolling to my hands and knees, I stared at the monster and drew on the strength inside of me again.

With it came a wild, chaotic rage. I opened my arms wide, accepting the cost of the strength as I let it fill me.

My scales shifted. I was no longer gold, but red.

As the shift in my colors occurred, I felt my power peak, and then fall back down as I became completely red. I felt far more dangerous as red than I had as gold.

Taking a deep breath, I let loose another jet of dragon breath at the moss monster.