Tears of a Dragon by Bryan Davis
Billy patted the spot behind him. “You up for another adventure?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She settled onto Clefspeare’s back and strapped the scabbard around Billy.
Clefspeare’s neck curled, and his head swung around to face his riders, a widening smile exposing a row of sharp teeth. “Hang on for the ride of your lives!”
The dragon widened his wings, slowing his body to a smooth glide. The sensation was like cresting the top of the first dip in a mile-high roller coaster. A snort of flames shot out of Clefspeare’s nostrils, then another, like a steam engine stoking its furnace. Finally, from both his mouth and nostrils, a river of flames burst forth, and the great dragon angled his body downward.
Billy held his breath and grasped the spine with both hands. Bonnie’s strong arms wrapped around his waist. Clefspeare pulled in his wings and dove, plummeting toward the enemy lines. The rush of wind stole Billy’s breath away, but he didn’t care. With the ground zooming toward his eyes, his drumming heart rising into his throat, and Clefspeare’s fire singeing his eyebrows, it was a mind-numbing, hair-raising, gut-wrenching blast!
Like a video game played at triple speed, a hundred different images flashed by every second. First, the ground leveled off. Then, Samyaza came into view, as if Clefspeare had locked onto him, like a radar-equipped jet honing in on its target. Finally, Morgan’s grotesque face appeared, shocked and horrified as she backed away from Samyaza.
Zooming ten feet off the surface, they careened toward the Watcher, Clefspeare’s inferno-like breath even thicker and brighter than before. Samyaza leaped to one side. Clefspeare’s blast missed, but another stream caught the demon, snaking around his body and riveting him in place.
Clefspeare shut off his jets and swerved, beating his wings furiously. Billy glanced back. Another dragon was diving from above, her fiery salvo locked on Samyaza. Her rider waved his fist in the air and let out a Texas-style war whoop. “Yeehaw!”
“Sir Newman!” Billy called out. “And Hartanna!” He slapped Clefspeare’s neck. “Dad, she’s got the Watcher pinned. Let’s circle back and blow him to smithereens!”
Bonnie trembled and pulled closer to Billy. “Mama’s alive! Thank God!”
As Clefspeare and his riders made a wide turn, they zipped by their allies at the forest edge. With the help of several pendant dragons and their electricity balls, Walter and Carl fought off a new wave of snake demons encroaching on Professor Hamilton and the women.
“Walter!” Billy shouted. “Cut Morgan off! Careful, though. She might just be a ghost.” That was all he could manage before Clefspeare zoomed out of range.
As Clefspeare realigned, Hartanna glided in a circle around her victim, bending her neck to keep her stream of flames on target. Her fire had already engorged Samyaza to twice his usual size. Lightning shot from his clawed fingertips, and darkness streaked from his eyes.
Morgan raised her arms as if preparing some new bit of sorcery, but she suddenly toppled to the ground. Walter stood over her like a conquering prizefighter, the broken broomstick in his hands and a foot planted on her wrist. A pendant dragon stood on the opposite side and pinned her other arm. “She’s plenty physical right now,” Walter yelled, “but I don’t know if it’ll last!”
Clefspeare shot out another volley of flames, slamming it into Samyaza’s massive chest. The Watcher roared, spreading out his arms and aiming his lightning-charged fingers directly at Billy. He ducked under the first shot, but the second one caught Clefspeare just below Billy’s foot. His dad groaned, but kept up his assault. Billy hunkered low. That blow wasn’t Clefspeare’s only wound. The deep gash in his belly must have been bleeding terribly. How could he keep flying with an injury like that?
Sir Newman rose on his mount, almost standing as he blew a shrill whistle into the sky. “Now!” he shouted.
Another dragon zoomed into the mix, nailing Samyaza’s head with a volley of fire. Billy raised a fist. “Yes! Thigocia and Edmund!” In the distance, more dragons approached, diving toward the action with their wings folded in.
The Watcher’s fingertip blasts suddenly stopped. Now at four times his original size, and with three dragons pumping energy into his body, he couldn’t possibly hold out much longer. Less and less like an angel, he continued to bloat into a grotesque parade balloon.
The wind whipped against Billy’s face, stinging his eyes. He shielded them as best he could and stared ahead. More Watchers zoomed up from the horizon. Pointing, he leaned back and shouted to Bonnie. “Things could really get dicey now!”
Suddenly, Samyaza exploded, sending flaming gobs of blackness hurtling through the air. One gob splattered across Sir Newman’s face, knocking him off Hartanna. Another slapped the pendant dragon guarding Morgan and spread a coat of darkness across his sparkling body. Walter dodged a third gob, rolling away on the ground across three snake demons. With several lightning-fast swings of his broomstick, he smashed their slimy heads.
Hartanna shut off her flames and swerved back toward Newman, catching him with her claws as she passed. The pendant dragon teetered and fell across Morgan. She threw him off and leaped to a ghostly stance in a single motion. Walter jumped up and charged her with his broomstick, but she raised her hand and threw a swirling ball of blackness at him. It hit him square in the chest and sent him flying backwards.
Clefspeare fired cannonballs of flames at Morgan. She raised her hands and enveloped herself in a black shroud. Each fireball splashed against the shroud, coating it with a thin layer of glowing embers.
Six more dragons arrived and shot rivers of fire at her cloak, circling around her like scaly merry-go-round horses. With most of the snake-demons now destroyed, the pendant dragons joined the assault, but their energy blasts arced around her cocoon, making it look like an electrified dome of burnished coal.
As the dragons concentrated on their blitz, eight Watchers lined up several hundred feet in the air and attacked, hurling darkness in a barrage of sizzling black bombs. One smacked Legossi in the face and spread across her entire head. She hurtled into the ground near the forest edge, throwing Sir Barlow into the trees. The darkness swarmed across her body as she lay writhing on a patch of bare earth.
Firedda fell from the sky, covered in a blanket of black goo, then a third dragon and a fourth, their riders tumbling and sliding as their mounts crashed. A bolt nailed Hartanna’s back, sending her spinning downward. Newman fell from her claws seconds before impact, slid to a stop in the tall grass, and lay deathly still.
Billy fumed. The scales under his backside radiated broiling heat. His biceps tightened into steel bands, and he slapped Clefspeare’s neck and shouted, “Dad, we can’t let them do that to Bonnie’s mom! Let’s end this fight here and now! You’ve been filled with energy from Excalibur’s beam. I know you can do it!”
With a great flurry of his wings, Clefspeare vaulted higher into the air and charged directly at the eight flying Watchers, trumpeting an ear-splitting battle cry. Billy held on for dear life. Bonnie’s grip squeezed his lungs. The torrent of fire that spewed from Clefspeare’s mouth was like a volcanic eruption, so wide and powerful it engulfed the four closest Watchers in a flood of raging flames. Each demon clutched his chest, a brilliant light flashing from his eyes, as if he had swallowed Excalibur’s beam and become engorged with energy. Like over-filled water balloons, they exploded in a dazzling eruption of black lava.
Clefspeare turned his body, and his momentum hurtled him sideways. He crashed through the other four Watchers, scattering them like humongous bowling pins. As they staggered in the sky, he blasted them one by one with his newly energized, volcano-like stream, bursting them into millions of black droplets.
Clefspeare glided slowly on a rising stream of air. Billy shook his head, trying to recover from the wildest ride in history. As he gazed at the empty sky all around, a chill of excitement ran up and down his spine. He pumped both fists and shouted, “Yes! You did it! Dad, you were awesome!”
But something else was weird. As Clefspeare floated over the forest, a sparkling stream fell from his body to the trees. Billy gulped. Dad’s blood! Had the wound opened wider?
Clefspeare sank lower. His wings faltered. The powerful canopies flailed aimlessly as he pitched downward. Seconds later, he dove straight for the ground.
“Hang on!” Billy shouted. The wind snatched his breath away. Every organ squeezed toward his throat. As they plunged, Clefspeare tried desperately to stop their descent, but he only managed to put them into a slow spin.
Suddenly, something tugged at Billy’s waist. He glanced over his shoulder. Bonnie, holding onto him with a death grip, flapped her own wings, straining to keep the huge dragon in the air. Although the spiral smoothed out slightly, the forest still hurtled toward them.
Billy hung onto Clefspeare’s spine with all his might. If he didn’t come up with a new plan immediately, all three would be smashed to bits. Only one choice came to mind. His only choice. Clenching his teeth, he let go of the spine.
Bonnie’s wings launched Billy upward. His body skimmed the needled tops of a stand of evergreen trees as she struggled to fly clear. Clefspeare crashed to the ground, twisting his frame into a huddled mass at the base of one of the largest evergreens.
Bonnie dove to where the dragon lay and set Billy down between the dragon and the tree trunk. Clefspeare sprawled in a pool of sparkling blood, another stream of red pouring from his mouth, his long neck angled fiercely back toward his body.
Billy and Bonnie knelt at his side. Billy put his arm around Bonnie and laid a hand on Clefspeare’s back. His scales had cooled. Their sheen had vanished. The sun’s setting rays cast beams of light through the trees, painting a golden mantle on the dragon’s motionless body.
Billy’s stomach tightened. A sob heaved from his chest, but he sucked it back. As he clung to Bonnie’s shoulder, she shook under his hand, and a single tear trickled down her cheek.
Billy bit his lip. He didn’t want to cry. No. It wouldn’t be right. He had to have faith. There had to be a way to heal his dad. So many others had been healed. Why not Clefspeare?
Bonnie’s tears turned into sobs, and she covered her face with her hands, her body rocking back and forth.
Billy finally let his own tears flow. Could this really be the end? After all the trials and tortures to save his dad, could this victory over the Watchers be his final mission? Could that be why God put him in Dragons’ Rest, to prepare him to defend his family and the entire world?
Billy tightened his fingers into a fist. It wasn’t enough. He knew there had to be more. Sure, the prophecies said the dragon must bow and die, and he had, but Billy’s heart and mind screamed for justice. God couldn’t let it all end here! His father had come too far to simply crash and die in the forest, to leave a widow suffering and grieving for years to come, to bring a tragic end to this story of renewed dragon faith.
Billy laid his head on his father’s back. While he prayed for a miracle, the pendant hanging from his neck bumped against his arm. He grabbed hold of it to keep it still. A strange vibration shook the octagonal frame, increasing in strength by the second. Billy raised his head and released the pendant, letting it dangle against his chest. The rubellite suddenly flashed from white to red. A sunbeam struck its surface and cast a crimson reflection across Clefspeare’s body. The red glow darkened and stretched away from Billy and Bonnie, like a shadow lengthening at the end of the day. The shadow took on a human form, a tall, masculine shape.
The shape congealed, amassing solid particles that seemed to flow from Clefspeare’s body like a river of liquid flesh. As the human shape grew more solid, the dragon’s body seemed to fade away. Tanned skin appeared on a man’s face, then pinpoint eyes and a blob for a nose. Hair sprouted, a thick reddish brush that swayed in the breeze, and a pair of ears formed on the sides of his head.
The skin on his blurry torso thickened, transforming into a button-down white shirt with a huge red splotch in the middle of the chest. Shredded material formed on one of the shirt’s long sleeves, and a dime-sized hole appeared on the breast pocket, the same hole the dragon slayer had drilled into his chest with a deadly bullet many months ago. While pants and shoes took shape on his lower body, the man patted his sides with his newly created hands.
At last, his face came into focus, the face Billy had seen in Dragons’ Rest, a lost and lonely librarian who neither loved him nor even recognized him. But now, that face smiled. The man with the bloody shirt, the torn sleeve, and the bullet hole in his chest spread out his arms. “Billy,” he said, “I’m home.”
Billy leaped into his embrace, leaning his head against his father’s powerful chest and wrapping his arms around him. All the bitterness, all the anger, all the fear that had built up in his soul through the months of fruitless searches, all the emotions he had pushed down in his gut while journeying through a literal hell and beyond, finally melted away, pouring out in hot tears on his father’s shoulder. The dragon’s body had completely vanished, and Jared Bannister really was finally home.
Time stood still. Every problem in the world dissolved. No Watcher or wraith or snake demon or dragon slayer or anything else could possibly separate him from his father’s love. Not now or ever again.
A hand touched his shoulder. “Billy?”
He pulled back. Bonnie stood beside him with her hands folded in front of her. “Billy, I need to see about my mother.”
Billy slapped his forehead. “Right! The black stuff nailed her!” He swiveled his head back and forth, then pointed toward a gap in the trees. “That way, Dad?”
Jared stooped and peered through the trees. “I think so, but I was in a mental fog on the way down, so I’m not sure.”
Bonnie beat her wings and lifted into the air. “I’ll find out,” she said, already zooming upward. “You head that way on foot, and I’ll let you know if it’s right.” She waved as she reached the treetops. “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Bannister!”
As Billy and Jared ran across a bed of fallen needles, the worries of the battlefield stormed back into Billy’s mind. The Watchers were gone, but Mom was still badly hurt, the professor seemed half dead, Sir Patrick was fighting snake venom, Walter had been knocked for a loop, most of the dragons had been swallowed by the weird black goo, and last but not least, Morgan had to be finished off. Who could tell what she might be preparing in that weird cocoon of hers?
As they neared the forest edge, they could see Morgan’s shroud still standing, its surface glowing with radiant heat.
Billy drew his sword and nodded toward his dad. With his face set like a granite cliff, his father returned the nod. Together they sprinted from the forest. It was time to go to war again, this time with his father at his side.
Chapter 19
THE RETURN OF THE PROPHET
Sprinting from the forest, Billy and Jared burst onto a scene that looked more like a movie disaster than a lakefront park. Bodies of humans and dragons littered the area, plumes of fire and smoke dotted the landscape, black goo smeared the grassy field, and the visitor center smoldered far in the background.
Thigocia, the only dragon still standing, shot a stream of fire at another dragon, burning away the oily darkness that had gripped her. The stricken dragon wriggled beneath Thigocia’s superheated shower, her eyes bright and her scales glowing.
Walter pushed a shoulder under Sir Barlow’s arm and helped the knight shuffle toward Ashley’s makeshift infirmary, the huge oak tree where she tended Billy’s mom and three knights. Ashley, pale and moving slowly, helped Marilyn shift her body to a more comfortable sitting position against the trunk of the oak. Marilyn grimaced with every move, but her eyes remained closed.
Billy dashed toward his mother, Jared at his heels. He slid to his knees beside her and gaz
Jared knelt at her other side, his whisper barely audible. “Marilyn?”
Her eyes fluttered open. Seeing Billy first, she smiled weakly. “Ashley said the bleeding stopped. Looks like you’re stuck with me a while longer.”
Billy couldn’t say a word. Too excited even to breathe, he glanced from his mother to his father. It would be perfect if she’d catch sight of him without being told he was there. If only she would look his way!
Finally, Jared took her hand in his, and her head swiveled toward him. She glanced back at Billy, her eyes wide, then, turning again to Jared, she let out a gasp. “Oh!” She boosted herself higher and whispered, “My husband!” She reached out for him with a trembling hand.
Jared swept her up in his powerful arms and cradled her, kissing her tenderly. He rubbed his cheek against hers, whispering, “I’m back, my love, and I’ll never leave you again.” He pulled her closer, his whole body quaking as he pushed his fingers through her hair. “Never!”
Billy pressed his lips together and wiped a tear. This scene was perfect—absolutely perfect.
Walter nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, Your Majesty. You and Ashley had better get with Prof and light him up with the sword. He’s in pretty bad shape.”
Billy rose to his feet, searching the field for the professor. Morgan’s dark cocoon still smoldered in the grass, Thigocia standing nearby, keeping an eye on it as she swept black goo from another dragon. Bonnie knelt next to the victim’s forelegs, cleaning her scales with a rag. “We’ll be finished soon, Mama. How are you feeling?” Hartanna gave Bonnie a hot kiss on the cheek, making her laugh.
Ashley hobbled to Billy’s side, and they made their way to the circle of people surrounding the professor. In the center of the huddle, Sir Patrick sat cross-legged, propping Professor Hamilton up in his arms. His rolled-up pants cuff exposed his wound, pink and less swollen. Ashley’s work.