Free Jake's Justice, Book Three of Wizards by John Booth Page B

defiance could partly satisfy the cold anger his words had caused.
    “When you lose this time, I will not be so forgiving.”
    Fluffy sent a burst of flames in Sir Grendon’s direction. I saw the magic stripped from it after the first yard or so, but dragonfire without the magic is still fire and Sir Grendon turned his back and crouched down so it sprayed across his amour. I wondered if his pink underwear was fireproof and kind of hoped not.
    Stepping forward I forged the sword of pure magic I’d used before. As a man, all the knights in the circle took a step towards me and the sword shrank a couple of inches.
    “It does that when it gets cold,” I quipped, but nobody laughed. Not even Fluffy, the traitor. “Still, it’s more than long enough to strip you and your friends to your underwear. Did you know that pink is a girly color?”
    Sir Grendon came out of his crouch to face me. I saw a wisp of smoke rise from inside his mail.
    “Hot in there, is it?”
    Sir Grendon pointed his sword at me in the manner of his fellows and in response each took a further two steps towards us. My sword shrank by another four inches.
    [Jake, we need to attack before they get too close.]
    That was an understatement. At the rate my sword shrank as they closed in I’d be fighting them with a nail file before they got halfway. And a nail file against a steel sword is no contest, even if it’s a magic nail file. I’d be salami before I could turn more than a couple of swords to dust.
    ‘Cover me,’ I thought at Fluffy and ran towards Sir Grendon.
    Fluffy splattered fire around the Knight as I closed the distance between us. He had adopted a stance chosen to allow him to launch a killing blow from his sword before I could reduce his equipment to dust. My sword was down to a long dagger when I reached him. I guessed the knights were continuing to shrink their circle.
    As I brought my dagger down on him and he swung his sword to cut me in two, I changed my left hand to titanium and grabbed his sword. Magic still worked within my flesh and I had coated my metal flesh with pure magic. His sword stopped though the pain was horrendous. His sword and amour crumbled. I changed my right hand to living metal as I delivered a roundhouse punch to his jar. Sir Grendon swayed in his underwear and collapsed in an untidy pink heap.
    ‘Now we die,’ I thought bleakly as I raised my eyes to the advancing knights. Sunlight glinted off their blades and amour. Their eyes fixed on me as though I was the devil incarnate. The nearest were still a good ten feet away from my position, but that wasn’t going to help.
    The air rippled behind the knights. Dragons appeared out of glim less than two feet from their backs. Each blew fire at a knight. The flames went straight through them without doing the slightest damage. The knights paused as they looked down at their chests to see where the fire was coming from.
    Then they looked up and yelled as they saw the dragons behind their colleagues on the other side of the circle. They sprang around to face their new foes, and as they turned their swords and amour turned to dust.
    I felt my magic expand out and worked at repairing my hands, which were literally beginning to kill me. A human is not designed to have metal hands. The pain they caused was almost overwhelming.
    I heard screams and black acrid smoke wafted towards me. Burning pork is what it smelled like. Looking up I saw charred bodies of knights around me, some still screaming as the dragonfire had not yet reached their lungs. Then there was an eerie silence punctuated only by the dull thud of bodies falling on stone and breaking apart.
    I looked at the carnage with sheer disbelief. The dragons had them helpless; there was no need for this. Fluffy came up behind me and bumped my back with his head.
    [You should thank my brethren for rescuing us from this trap.]
    [THERE IS NO NEED. THE TRAP WAS OURS AND YOU MADE EXCELLENT BAIT.]
    “You knew they were