Chapter Fifty Seven: The Book of the Sword

  Batuuk stood next to the ballista towers. The dragon was flying above the city, looking for somewhere to land.

  He snarled and raised his axe. The ballista towers around him were incredible. The ballista bolts were the size of trees and capped with steel barbs. Time-altering wizards stood on the ground, adjusting the velocity and acceleration of the Ballista bolts. Unfortunately, the dragon was quite agile in the sky.

  The dragon landed on a part of the wall and cried out in pain. The sharp spikes stabbed through his claws. The dragon returned to the sky, the sharp defensive poles had become lodged in its paws.

  The dragon attacked with a fiery blast over the city. The houses were set on fire.

  The king was standing on the deck of The Admiral, which was fully repaired and perched atop a set of stone scaffolding. The king ordered a mage to open a portal to the shore of the horseshoe lake. The king stepped through the portal and shouted to some ice mages who were waiting in a row boat.

  “Fire! He shouted. “Send the water through now!” Then he stepped back through the portal.

  The king watched as portals opened above the city. The portals were connected to the bottom of Horseshoe Lake. Ice mages in the city diverted the direction of the water deluges to strike the flaming rooftops.

  The dragon landed outside the walls in front of the orc.

  Batuuk had never been so afraid in his life. He raised his axe and charged straight for the beast. The dragon heard him cry and focused its attention on the large green man. Batuuk charged and the dragon opened its mouth to breathe fire.

  Some ballista bolts sailed past the dragon. Unfortunate misses. Batuuk eyed the beast and kept charging.

  The dragon’s eye was then struck by a tree trunk with a vicious steel spike. The dragon eye exploded and covered Batuuk with white and red slime. The furious dragon ripped out the spike with his damaged claw and he filled the air with fire. The dragon spewed fire and smoke everywhere in the air. The sky became blackened with ash. The castle of flowers entered a strange, unearthly, hellish twilight. The sky had completely changed colours.

  The dragon was pelted by an onslaught of ballista bolts while it writhed on the ground. They cut and scarred the beast. Some of them penetrated and stuck into the side of the dragon.

  The king ordered The Admiral to levitate into the sky.

  Some of the mages lifted the beautiful ship into the sky and the sails unfurled. The levitating ship floated over the walls of the castle headed towards the dragon.

  The dragon stopped spewing fire and lifted itself into the air. Its massive wings sent clouds of dirt and dust over the city.

  The dragon tried to escape. He floated high into the blackened sky and started plotting revenge.

  He.

  Was.

  ANGRY.

  The dragon dive bombed into the city from a massive height. He aimed his shoulder at the castle’s main keep.

  The impact of the dragon killed hundreds of soldiers. He was impaled by some of the spikes, but he could not feel the pain in his blind rage. A shockwave could be seen from miles away. The dragon’s limp body started to tumble downhill. A massive crater could be seen where the Keep once stood proudly.

  The king looked at the carnage from the levitating ship’s helm. He pointed toward the unmoving beast’s body and the ship picked up speed. The ship floated near the head of the dragon. The ice mages started to cast.

  The dragon’s brain started to freeze. The spell was able to turn most humans into a clear ice sculpture. It was a deadly and horrific spell. It was their only chance.

  The dragon’s eye socket started to leak water as forty ice mages cast the freeze spell. The dragon woke up slowly and felt ill. It vomited molten rock and blinked a lot. It lifted its head and started to walk. The King ordered the flying ship to go higher.

  The dragon began walking towards the city. It stretched its wings but it was quite dizzy. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the dragon.

  The dragon walked slowly. It stopped caring about the ballista bolts sailing close. The dragon used its remaining eye to dodge the oncoming missiles with its rapid moving head. A lucky strike tore a large hole in the dragon’s wing. The dragon screeched in pain and blasted fire at the turret. The tower and five others around it were incinerated. The screams of the soldiers made the dragon even angrier.

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  Jason dove from the sky and landed on the dragon’s head. He clawed at the fierce dragon’s other eye, and blasted fire on it. The dragon closed its eye and grabbed Jason in a single claw. The dragon threw Jason at the castle and he flew over the walls and crashed into a roof. He fell through the house. Jason was badly wounded and groaned in pain. He lifted himself up and took to the skies again.

  Jason flew back towards the dragon, this time he aimed for the wing. Jason landed on the torn wing and ripped at it with his sharp teeth. He peeled the wing flesh back to bone almost completely, and the dragon cried in excruciating pain and snapped at him with vicious snake-like speed. It grabbed Jason in its jaw and bit down. Jason’s ribs were cracked. The dragon shook his head like a dog with a rat and tossed him into the forest miles from the battle. Jason was unconscious.

  The king and his sailing barge came closer and the mages started to cast the spell from a longer distance. A ballista bolt struck the dragon in the neck and it went straight through. A tree-sized hole started to gush blood. The ground beneath the dragon started to turn red.

  The dragon felt his brain turn cold and he was irritated by it. He could feel icy cold water running down his face and he smelled mould.

  The dragon spied the ship filled with sorcerers attacking it and roared. The dragon began to fly away, poorly. It launched into the sky and flew away, it then crashed into Horseshoe Lake by accident. The king sailed the ship closer. The dragon was not moving. The sorcerers lifted the Admiral to the lake.

  The king ordered the ship to land in the water. He could tell his mages were about to break under the intense strain of the levitation spell. The ship crashed into the water and sent ripples to every shore. The wizards at once began to cast the same ice spell. The dragon was still sleeping. The dragon’s brain started to melt out of its eye sockets again, the water around the dragon froze solid and started to freeze the entire lake. The king noticed the ice started to freeze the bottom of The Admiral. The dragon was having a very peaceful dream.

  The dragon was looking around his cavern of gold. The walls were gold too now. The entire cave was gold. The dragon looked at his arms and they were gold. He looked at his wings and his tail and they were gold too. Everything was gold, just the way he liked it.

  The dragon woke up feeling very drunk from his nap and saw the king standing on the helm of The Admiral. ‘Such silly creatures,’ the dragon thought to himself. The dragon lifted his head and realised it was stuck under the ice. He pulled harder and the dragon’s head rose from the frozen lake with a large chunk of ice still attached to its face and neck. It’s brain was now melting in a steady cascade out of its nostrils and eye socket.

  The dragon used its tail to smack the ship into the air. It landed on the shoreline with a massive crack and splintered into pieces. Everyone on board was mortally wounded. Their bodies were filled with splinters and the force of the crash buckled ribs and folded people in half.

  The king stood up. He had broken ribs and a broken foot. It had bent to a very painful angle. His golden armour gleamed in the sun. The dragon burnt off the snow covering its body, and boiled the lake for half a minute. The dragon felt good to be warm again. It narrowed its eyes at the lone survivor. The king pulled out his magnificent golden sword and held it by his side.

  “Fuck you.” The king said, and he spat blood at the dragon.

  The dragon smiled. This meal was shiny.

  Jason flew above horseshoe lake, and watched the king pull out his sword. Jason dive bombed into the dragon’s ruined eye and started ripping at its brain with his jaws. The dragon grabbed Jason with a claw and pushed him under the water. Jason struggled for air and had an idea. He transformed back into a human and swam through the cracks between the dragon’s claws. Horseshoe lake was deep. Jason swam to the surface and gasped for air. Jason was treading water next to the dragon in the water. The dragon’s terrifying head ate the king in one bite. The king’s beautiful golden sword was dropped on the shore. The dragon stomped out of the lake and started walking towards Buttermilk. Jason swam for the shore.

  The dragon took slow steps toward Jason’s home town. It growled in anger.

  Jason saw the king’s golden sword. He knelt beside it and remembered what Ogden had taught him. Jason reached to his chest with both hands. He thought of love.

  Stella and Freya, Nathaniel and Dominic the Cat. His Father and Lord Redran. Tenzen and Bentley. His friends from buttermilk and his strong horse Bronson.

  Jason thought long about the people he loved. He conjured an eternal flame.

  All of his eternal flame.

  Jason didn’t know enough about magic to understand what he was doing. He put his entire soul into a fire.

  He fused this fire with the blade and picked it up in his hand.

  With tears in his eyes, scars and burns covering his body, cracked ribs and blood gushing from his wounds. Jason screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

  The dragon heard and turned its body around. He saw Jason standing there. Jason punched a fireball at the beast and it exploded against its face. The beast growled and snapped its jaws.

  Jason sliced in a diagonal motion with his blade and a beam of light travelled from the blade. The beam of light grew to a massive size and travelled towards the massive giant.

  The beam sliced the beast in half cleanly.

  Its organs spilled over the paddocks. The dragon stopped moving and toppled to the ground like a puddle. The kingdom was silent for a few seconds then Jason heard cheers coming from the town of Buttermilk. His eyes went pale and he fell to the ground lifeless. The sword was clutched in his hand. Jason suddenly disappeared in a flash of light.

  His soul and life force were bonded with the blade. Jason was immortal. Jason was trapped. Jason had become a sword. The most beautiful golden sword, owned by kings. Jason became an enchanted blade.

  He lay in the dirt. The dragon did not move. The ice mages around him were dead.

  Jason slayed the dragon.