"Nice to know you're all paying attention," smirked Steel, having folded down the dark green hood that had concealed his face.
"You surprised the living daylights out of us. How on earth did you get in here without the guards spotting you?" queried the master mantra maker, the others all looking on, eager to know the answer.
"I think it's something in these cloaks and hoods. There are a few human shapes wearing these in and around where we want to be. I'm not sure if they're dragon or naga... it's difficult to tell. But inside one of the storage buildings, they had a supply of them. So naturally I appropriated as many as I could."
"What about the node exchange? Is there an army there waiting to ambush us?"
"Not an army, no. But enough of them to make it quite an even fight, if you take into account the hooded and cloaked shapes patrolling the outskirts."
"I see," remarked the old shopkeeper, thinking. "Do you have anything in mind that might help us gain the advantage over all of them?"
Nodding in the direction of Jar Man and DomCon, whilst continuing to smirk, Steel replied,
"I believe I do."
36
Tooled Up
With Yoyo's youngsters having looted weapons from the corpses of those who had tried to slay them, whilst a group of the gifted individuals had cobbled together two of the heat insulating camouflage suits from the tatters that remained after the fight, they were almost ready to act and be gone from this place. Hillier and a young dragon by the name of Zebediah had the honour and responsibility of donning the two working suits that would render each of them all but invisible. It had been stressed just how important they would be, should their force find themselves in the middle of a pitched battle. They weren't to focus on one target, but were to move as fast as they could, saving dragon lives where possible in order to keep as many of them and their allies alive, sustaining the size and momentum on their side of the battle. Not all believed that they would blunder into the enemy; most of the youngsters thought the worst they would find would be a bad tempered king who very much disliked having his privacy disrupted. But not Flash, Yoyo, or Fredric. Realists each and every one of them, they'd seen fate in action before, albeit not on this kind of scale, and had a vague idea of how she worked. Each of them figured they'd be walking into a full-scale war.
Surrounded by a wall so white and bright that thirty full sized polar bears could currently be hiding against its backdrop, the icy vault they found themselves in had started to feel claustrophobic for most of them. But in only a few moments, that wouldn't matter. Gathered together as a group, the naga king at the front, Fredric and Flash behind him, followed closely by Yoyo and his band, the atmosphere was quite literally electric, zigzagging lines of radiant magic zipping amongst the stalactites and stalagmites, burning through the ice and snow, crackling into the rock, steam rising into the chilly air.
The upper part of his body weaving from side to side, the naga king resembled a snake that had been charmed, guttural moans and noises that could have been words, at least for another race, slipped from his lips, barely audible over the hissing of electricity.
Chests bare and puffed out, the laminium chains criss-crossed the two former Crimson Guards creating a large X over each of their torsos, not weighing them down at all, quite the opposite in fact. Both dragons were determined to be the first through the wormhole when it opened. Flash because it was his mind the naga king was taking the coordinates from to determine the exit point, which was thought best as he had stayed at the king's private residence. And Fredric because he was desperate to see his friend... the king, and put a stop to whatever heinous crimes were in the middle of being committed. Once a leader, always a leader as far as he was concerned, and so with the wide-eyed young dragons lined up behind a very worried looking Yoyo, magic and mayhem erupted in the cavern, as a blinding bright green circle of light, constantly rotating, appeared, about the size of a tennis ball to start with, getting every bigger with every second that passed.
His face bathed in the eerie green light from the portal, Fredric turned to face Flash, and with the tiniest of grins at the thought of finally leaving what had been his prison for so long, said,
"Let's do this, shall we?""
37
Bluffing, Huffing and Puffing
'It's a bluff. It has to be,' thought Peter, taking in everything that was playing out before him. 'An outlandish one, it has to be said, but nevertheless a bluff.'
Tank felt the same way, momentarily anyway. But the young rugby playing dragon was a good judge of character and an excellent reader of beings of any sort, something that here and now gave him cause for concern.
'I think Manson might actually mean it,' crossed his mind, on studying the evil dark dragon's face from a distance.
You'd have thought George would have had some insight, given how long he'd been on the planet and some of the roles he'd played during that time, but he was as confused as everyone else, including the gobsmacked Richie, whose mind was racing with everything going on.
Just like her best friend, the only real conclusion it was possible for her to reach was that it was a bluff, designed to throw her off guard and buy Manson's opposing force more time to get into position. Well, they could be bloody sure she wasn't about to let that happen.
"I'LL DO IT!" she exclaimed, sliding the laminium dagger's blade another millimetre or two deeper into Troydenn's underbelly, much to the elderly dragon's horror, the battle for her sanity playing out across her delicate freckled face.
"GO ON THEN," urged Manson, his mouth coiling up into a very sick smirk.
"SON!" boomed Troydenn's voice, almost knocking down those closest to the ground with the full force of it. "THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR GAMES!"
Still smiling, the hateful beast, egged on by his queen, locked eyes with his father. It was then that Troydenn knew. This had been the plan all along. Well, maybe not this... but his death at some point. Having served his purpose he'd been betrayed by his ungrateful, spiteful son. In finally coming to realise he'd been well and truly stitched up, a small part of him couldn't help but admire what his son had achieved. Something he probably would have done had their positions been reversed... a deed so very Troydennesque. Never in a million years had he thought the young half-breed had it in him to be so ruthless. Clearly he'd taught him well, and he would die appreciating that he'd learned from the very best there was. Knowing now that there was no way out, at least not with the help of his so-called allies, Troydenn, master of the dark, leader of coups and survivor of that sickly ice palace he'd been imprisoned in for so long, decided to take matters into his own hands. And so summoning every molecule of magic that existed inside his own body, he fed it directly into himself in an effort to increase his speed for what he was about to do, convinced he could fly up and off the blade before whoever it was that held him captive had a chance to react.
More than anything... it was a feeling. Prickly, if she had to put words to it. That's how it felt. But it was a magical prickly, rather than a normal prickly or an imaginary prickly. Magic was most certainly involved, and that could only mean one thing... he was about to try and escape. Not on her watch. Without hesitation, and while keeping the blade at the exact same depth within the mighty dragon's weak spot, Richie pushed her hand gripping the hilt of the dagger deeper into the matt black belly of the beast, reminding her of Flash's torture back in Salisbridge marketplace. As her hand pushed through the gloop, and up against an organ or two, she fought valiantly to contain the nausea inside her. There... the tip of the blade remained in exactly the same spot, but now, having pushed her hand deep inside, the whole of the dagger was almost horizontal, making flying up and off the cutting edge all but impossible, even with magical assistance.