Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 44: Confrontation

By the fading light of the sun, I could tell it was late evening. I ignored Leera's growling and transformed into a hawk before taking off.

Following Leera's memories, I arrived at the mine in about ten minutes. It was basically a large hole in the side of an even larger mountain of whitish-gray rocks. I flew over to get a look at the entire thing, from the makeshift miner town and dragon stables to the dragons themselves pulling carts full of salt rocks up out of the mine.

For Kuertis's stings, it didn't matter if the salt was impure, as all I needed was a decently sized piece to cure him. Only, my alabri as good as empty, so I couldn't do it as a hawk. My wings were already starting to blur into arms.

I dove for a ridge overhanging the mine and shot my quickly-shrinking wings out at the last second, plunging into the dirt as half talme, half hawk. My transformation dissolved completely as I picked myself up, now dirtier than ever. Groaning, I crawled to the edge of the ridge and looked down at the mine activity. Most of the miners were talmes, though I saw several elents standing on platforms to oversee them.

As I searched for a way to get down there unseen, something caught my eye. A class 5 dragon had been hooked up to an empty cart and looked like he was about to head down into the mine. He was obviously old—pale yellow scales, stubby claws, and torn wings. He favored his right foreleg and seemed to be having trouble moving, even with just an empty cart.

The talme miner walking alongside him tugged at a chain hanging down from the dragon's collar to get him to stop. "A sector four tunnel caved in. Yellow Twenty-Three broke his foreleg earlier. He's not moving too well," he called to the elent on the nearest platform.

The elent peered down at the yellow dragon, who'd turned around and was trying to go back towards the stables. "Get him back to work or put him on the stew wagon."

I jerked back, sure I must've misheard him. Lykelans didn't eat dragons, no matter how weak or old they were.

The miner pulled on the dragon's chains to get him to turn around, but the dragon only pulled toward the stables. The miner tried again, but when that didn't work, he pulled a whip out of a loop at his belt and snapped it in front of the dragon's face. The dragon growled and took a step towards the stables. His keeper snapped the whip again, even closer.

When the dragon refused to go back into the mines for a third time, the whip found its mark across his snout. Hot blood dropped to the earth, but he refused to move.

"Barbaric, isn't it? What your kind do to mine?"

I spun around so fast that I nearly fell backwards off the ridge. The bronze katalni was standing twenty feet away and holding a semi-invisible wooden spear. I scrambled to my feet.

He tutted. "I see Leera was unable to kill you. Let us remedy that." He lunged forward, stabbing with the spear.

In one fluid movement, I dove to the side and whipped out my wand.

He paused, spear raised. "You're a paltor, then. That must have been what she meant when she said you had unexpected power."

"Don't try anything, or I'll use it on you." My hands were shaking too much to form a decent fire rune. Even if they'd been perfectly still, I'd never been a particularly amazing fire elent. Dragons were fire resistant. I couldn't take him down on my own, but a little fire magic might be enough to get me out of here alive.

"What is your element?" He asked.

"Fire." I shouldn't have told him. Information was power.

He laughed like two stones pounding together. "Don't you know? Katalnis are immune to fire, yet another gift your kind has stolen from the dragons." He lunged again, and I dodged to the left, hoping to get close enough to the forest to lose him in the trees. He merely laughed again and set the spear down.