Free The Dragon Wicked by B. V. Larson Page B

asked an unknowable time later.
    “No,” Therian said. “If we break the spell now, she will sense us. We are mice in the woodwork. We must not scrabble about until the master of the house sleeps.”
    “How long?” Gruum asked. Already, his feet ached from standing still and quietly watching the pool. His eyes burned slightly from staring.
    “Until sleep takes her,” Therian said matter-of-factly.
    “How long might that be?”
    “Could be an hour, a day, or a week,” Nadja told him without concern.
    Alarmed, Gruum stopped asking questions. He fervently hoped he would not find himself still standing here even a single day hence.

-14-

    The Dragon’s eyes closed many hours later. When they finally did, Gruum was all but asleep upon his feet himself. Nadja nudged him to wakefulness. Gruum startled, and made a snorting sound.
    “Hush!” she hissed at him. “Be quiet, do not wake her!”
    Gruum gazed about himself, blinking. He looked into the ruddy pool at his feet. There was the great eye. He saw it was closed, a pattern of heavy black scales having slid down over it. He could scarcely believe the wait was over.
    “What now?” he whispered.
    “Prepare yourself,” Therian said. “Flex your body and your mind. We must be ready to step within her lair all together.”
    Gruum swallowed and his heart pounded. They were planning to combat a Dragon. Now, at the moment of truth, the task seemed absurd. How were the three of them supposed to injure such a massive beast? She had the weight of a hundred men—if not a thousand. It would be easier to slay a Hyborean war ark with their puny swords.
    “I will attempt to cut her throat,” Therian said.
    “I will open her mid-section,” Nadja said.
    Both of them looked toward Gruum, who flicked his eyes from one serious face to the next. He shrugged. “I suppose I’ll find a soft spot behind her.”
    Therian twisted his lips in disgust, but he said nothing to Gruum. “We can go there now. This pool will serve to move us to that place, should we but step into it.”
    Nadja hesitated. “If we do slay mother…what will happen to her?”
    “In the unlikely event we succeed,” Therian told her, “her power upon earth shall be broken, at least for now. Every spell she has cast will be broken, every mind she has clouded will be freed.”
    “Will she live on…someplace else?”
    “Ah,” Therian said, as if coming to a sudden realization. “You feel some connection to this creature who spawned you, am I correct?”
    Nadja blushed, as if having qualms while plotting her mother’s death was somehow embarrassing. “Yes.”
    “Have no fear. She will not cease to be. She is a creature who resides in many worlds at once. We will have simply forestalled her influence upon our world for a time. That is the most we can do.”
    “Will she not return and be wrathful?”
    “Oh yes, but that process might well require a century to perform.”
    Finally, Nadja stopped with her questions. She reached out a cold hand to Therian and another to Gruum. Both men took the proffered fingers. They stepped into the ruddy pool together and left Earth.
    The first sound Gruum became aware of was the fantastically slow breath of Anduin. Each breath took a full minute to draw in, and a second minute to seep out again in a sighing gust.
    He let go of Nadja’s hand and turned slowly to see the Dragon looming like a dark mountain of flesh behind him. His eyes flicked down to his saber. Surely, he could do nothing to this monster.
    The three stepped forward, holding the pommels of their blades tightly, lest they rattle in their sheaths. As they had arranged, Therian walked toward the head, Gruum walked to the aft, and Nadja stood in the middle.
    When they had reached their positions, Gruum thought he heard a tiny, rasping sound. Was that the sound of Therian’s twin blades leaving their sheaths? He decided it probably was, and he quietly drew his own saber. He eyed the Dragon’s hindquarters.