AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Fionna gathered her skirts and raced up the steps of his tower, the highest spot she knew. There were no soldiers outside his door, nor was it locked. She rushed in and dropped her bag on his bed before she headed to the window for a peek.
She saw nothing at first. Not in the sky at least. On the ground, soldiers formed squares in the courtyard, preparing to march into battle. Only this wasn’t an enemy that could be fought hand to hand. While spears had the thrust to penetrate the softer joints, elekium blades were the best against dragons as they could slice through just about anything. Of course, elekium being rare, many people didn’t have those kinds of weapons. The warlord did, but he didn’t have it out. She saw him standing amidst the forming battalions, a spear in one hand, the sword still in its sheath.
All those people standing in the open made perfect targets for the dragon flying in low. She spotted it in the distance, its scales shimmering silver and blinding in the waning sunlight. It didn’t resemble the marsh versions, nor the ones she’d heard of plaguing the desert.
As it opened its mouth to exhale, it hit her suddenly what the bestiary meant when it said,Beware the frost.
Too late.
Ice crystals spewed from its mouth and coated the parapet as well as the men lining it. The soldiers froze in place.
The dragon swung around coming in for another pass.
Kormac didn’t panic, but bellowed, “Take cover.”
While situated as high as she could get, Fionna had a terrible angle for attack. “Should have worn my combat leathers,” she grumbled as she grabbed hold of her skirt and clambered onto the windowsill. She didn’t even have her wooden bird. Hopefully her magic wouldn’t let her fall.
Twining strands of air, she levitated to the roof of the tower, using magic to brace her feet to avoid sliding on the inclined surface of smooth clay tiles. As the dragon swept towards the citadel, readying another frosty breath, she knew she had to find a way to distract it as well as bring it closer. Her magic had limits and distance was one of them. The farther away the target, the more her magical missiles would degrade when fired. Still, a weak shot was better than none.
She twisted her hands and flung them, sending a jolt of lightning to zing the dragon in the nose. The unexpected sting had the dragon screeching and pulling up, its planned attack forgotten, but only because it chose a new target.
The person who hurt it.
A slight breeze ruffled Fionna’s hair as she stood braced on the roof. Her hands already wove the next spell. She pulled the heat from the tiles that had baked all day in the sun, twined itwith the warmth still lingering in the air. A ball formed in front of her, a sizzling globe of fire.
The dragon flapped for her, and as she kept growing her missile, she looked it in the eyes, the orbs cold as ice. As it opened its maw, she unleashed her fireball, sending it straight into its gullet.
The dragon bellowed and thrashed in the air. Rolling. Twisting. Screaming in pain and rage.
As it plummeted to the ground, she smirked.
Who needed a spear?
Not her.
As the dragon crashed to the ground and the soldiers emerged from hiding to hack at it, she prepared to climb back into Kormac’s room when the bell began clanging again. She whirled to see three more dragons approaching.
Now there was a challenge. Her hands wove again, pulling the little bit of heat remaining in the air and roof, coiling those threads into a tight ball. As the dragon leading the vee formation opened its mouth, she shot her missile.
And missed as her target suddenly banked!
No matter. She immediately formed another fireball, but the dragons angled away from her, heading for the town spread out before the citadel. Too far for her to aim properly. She needed them to turn back.
She let the fireball extinguish and began a different weave, a more complicated one as wind could be finicky to manipulate. Luckily, with grim determination as her guide, she got it to obey the shape of her spell, a small tornado that spun and grew as it headed for the dragon dipping down to a slate-covered roof. The torrent of air caught the dragon’s wing and sent it off balance, crashing it against the building. The limp dragon slid down to the street, dazed but not dead. It rose on its clawed feet butcouldn’t fly, not with its mangled wing. She ignored it for the ones still in the air.
She saw one aiming its frost at a fountain that bisected the road at an intersection. When she’d passed it earlier in the day, it had been crowded with people. At least they’d all fled.
Seeing the water gave her an idea. Quickly she reached for it, stretching her magic to the limits as she strained for the moisture in the basin. Just seconds before the beast could do its thing, she had the water spew upwards.
The dragon’s breath hit the stream and it froze, a tower of ice that the creature slammed into. Not enough to bring it down, but as she’d hoped, it got mad. It flapped into the air, moving higher and higher, shrieking in annoyance.
“That’s it, come to me you overgrown lizard,” she muttered as her hands once more churned, tugging at any thread of heat she could find.
The beast flew at her hard and she held on to the ball of explosive energy until the last moment, not wanting to spook the dragon. It must have caught on to her strategy because it kept its mouth closed and rose up at the last moment, extending its claws.
Fionna threw her magic and flattened herself to the roof, covering her head. The dragon screeched but a peek showed it still aloft, flapping in place above her.
She quickly tugged at more elements, shaping them quickly into a lance of light. As the dragon hissed in her direction, she flung it.
