63. Fire vs. Ice
63
FIRE VS. ICE
Anahrod was an enormous red dragon.
Also, she was rampant.
Her initial response to that was identical to how most dragons reacted to going rampant: she attacked the first living creature she saw: Neveranimas.
The violet dragon’s expression shifted with surprise and just as quickly distorted into a mask of resentment and hate. None of which mattered much, because Neveranimas’s resentment and rage couldn’t possibly overtake Anahrod’s own.
The two dragons screamed at each other and attacked.
The inside of a volcano wasn’t an ideal location to fight a fire dragon. Maybe Neveranimas expected Ivarion, and by extension Anahrod, would be weakened by his hundred-year nap, but if so, she hadn’t truly understood what she’d done. Anahrod breathed an inferno at Neveranimas, only to growl in frustration as the other dragon teleported to safety.
Something tickled at the back of Anahrod’s mind as she snarled and snapped. She was forgetting something important.
She didn’t concern herself with it at first—nothing mattered but rage—but that feeling persisted. A quiet, nagging feeling like someone was whispering to her too softly to hear, so she wanted to yell at everyone to be quiet.
It was a whisper, or something like it.
[Anahrod.] The voice was soft and warm, like a hearth fire after spending all day out in the cold. [I need you to purge the corruption. Can you do that for me?]
Anahrod was hardly winning the fight against Neveranimas. She was fighting too wildly, without intelligence or direction, and Neveranimas was someone who had a great deal of both. Anahrod had to—
She needed to—
She breathed at Neveranimas, mostly to buy her room and time. Anahrod thought about giving her anger back to the mountain, but she felt another reminder scratching at her mind.
A glint of something polished and reflective caught her attention. A rainbow flash.
Anahrod dashed to the side, avoiding some magical spell or another. She didn’t bother picking up the stone—she just stepped on it, and with it touching the underside of her claw, let all her anger boil over, steam, and pour into the stone. The taint fell from her like an ugly burning tar that had lingered inside her blood, something that had brought anger with it.
With the loss of that corruption came clarity, and intelligence.
Unfortunately, that came a second after Neveranimas had sunk her teeth into Anahrod-as-Ivarion’s side. She screamed.
[Anahrod! Switch back.]
She felt him push at her, and she didn’t fight it. There was very little chance that she was better at fighting dragons than Ivarion was.
Anahrod gasped and sat up in her normal human form. She was still behind that boulder, although now she was also bleeding from ice shrapnel.
Meanwhile, Ivarion had gotten in a few good hits, but Neveranimas was a tough opponent. She wasn’t physically tough, no, but that magic skill… the teleportation was a problem.
Ivarion had moved away from his previous position; Anahrod noticed the Rampant Stone, miraculously not smashed.
Which gave her an idea.
Neveranimas wasn’t an inherently powerful dragon. She was a magically adept dragon—a smart dragon. If she lost that intelligence, she’d be in serious trouble. Neveranimas couldn’t afford to go rampant—it cost her what was otherwise her greatest advantage.
Anahrod bounced down the caldera slope, running toward the stone. She couldn’t just pick up the stone and start using it, either. The moment she did, Neveranimas would abandon her fight with Ivarion and go after her like squashing a bug…
Unless she had to go through Ivarion to reach her.
[Ivarion!] Anahrod shouted. [Get over here. I need to climb on your back!]
[I suppose it would be easier to keep you safe that way…] The dragon sounded equal parts amused and tired.
Then he vanished with a thunderclap of displaced air.
Anahrod was so startled that she almost missed her opportunity. When Ivarion reappeared, he sagged, as though the spell had taken too much energy out of him. He rolled to his side, so that for a few, short seconds, his ancient, worn metal harness hung suspended a few dozen feet away from Anahrod.
[You can teleport? You never mentioned you could teleport!]
[It is something I figured out while sleeping.] He sounded distinctly bemused by the idea.
She ran and jumped, holding on for dear life as Ivarion leaped into the air again. She rushed to belt herself in, never more necessary than at that moment.
[Just give up, you fool,] Neveranimas hissed. [I’ll make your death quick.]
Instead of responding with words, Ivarion breathed at Neveranimas. Unfortunately, the other dragon summoned a shield around her body that shunted the fire harmlessly to each side. It splashed down and filled the caldera with such heat that Anahrod was glad she wasn’t still down there. Weirdly, Anahrod barely felt the heat now. Maybe because she was on Ivarion’s back, and not down there next to the boiling lava. Or possibly because she was Ivarion’s rider. She wasn’t sure. It was worth investigating… later.
[You said my previous rider died. How did it happen?] Ivarion asked as if he weren’t in the middle of a battle to the death with his former second-in-command.
[Do you really think this is the time?] Anahrod thought back. [We’re busy!] She swung to one side as a wild spell missed Ivarion but came dangerously close to hitting her instead. She felt the dragon growl in response to her spike of fear.
[I’m sorry, I assumed you would know.]
[I do! I just—] She sighed. [She killed him. Neveranimas killed him yesterday morning.]
He had no response to that, but Anahrod felt his fury, and could only look wide-eyed as he reached into the molten lake of stone with his front arms, pulling them back still dripping with lava. Neveranimas screamed as a blow connected with her, claws that were now sharp and covered in burning-hot lava.
Anahrod took a deep breath and concentrated on surviving long enough to use the Rampant Stone.
[Be ready,] Anahrod said. [She’s about to lose her mind over this.]
Ivarion didn’t answer, not in mental speech anyway, but she felt a sense of warmth and vicious satisfaction. Anahrod focused her attention on the stone, on unleashing everything that Anahrod had just dumped into the rock back out again—this time into Neveranimas.
The violet dragon screamed.
This wasn’t a sound of pain, anguish, sorrow, but a pure and awful kind of hate. The violet dragon’s eyes twisted with madness—the same sort of madness Anahrod had seen in the eyes of Modelakast and Tiendremos, the same sort of madness that must have shone in her own stare. It was madness in every meaning and left no room for any thought more coherent than “destroy everything.”
Neveranimas leaped at Ivarion; the two dragons tumbled, all the while snapping, biting, and clawing each other. Anahrod needed both hands; rather than take the time to safely stow the dragonstone, she simply let the damn thing drop. With any luck, it would either shatter on the rocks below or fall into the lava.
Either way was fine with her. The universe was better off without that evil in it.
Anahrod held on with all her might, because while her own harness was new, all of Ivarion’s equipment was a century old, and had been exposed to the elements the entire time. She’d be very surprised if any of it was more dependable than rust.
She curled in on herself when Neveranimas breathed back, too close, but the ice melted away harmlessly before it could hurt her.
Ivarion sank his teeth into Neveranimas’s throat.
This part Anahrod could help with. She mirrored Neveranimas again, letting the golden image rest right on top of Ivarion’s like a dragon-sized second skin. While Neveranimas clawed at Ivarion’s jaws and tried to loosen his hold, Anahrod raked gouges into the other dragon’s chest, so that violet-blue blood flew as the two dragons whirled in the air.
Ivarion jerked his head, and a hard, ugly cracking sound came from Neveranimas’s neck.
The dragon queen of Yagra’hai stopped struggling.
He opened his mouth and Neveranimas fell, hitting the inside of the caldera. She bounced once and was still.
Ivarion landed, gingerly and in the manner of someone injured.
Anahrod resisted the temptation to fall asleep on the dragon’s back, an idea that had never seemed so comfortable as at that moment. This was not the time.
[I’m sorry to say this isn’t over,] she told him.
[No,] Ivarion responded. He still sounded remarkably angry, although Anahrod could tell—sense, really—that none of that anger was rampancy, and none of it was directed at her. [It’s not.]