Caught within a maelstrom of petrification, Gwen and her bosom buddy, Alexander Slylth Morden, waited for the storm to pass. Using the skin of her Void Egg and its vitality consumption as a sixth sense, Gwen counted until the Dragon Breath had reached its final few motes before once more calling upon her Familiar, the antithesis of Dragons.

  With a “Shaa—!” that pierced the bedrock, her obsidian Da-peng materialised outside her shielding, gifting her the blessing of sight and sound through its Empathic Link.

  As always, she saw the world above and below through a vision of echolocation in contoured monochrome.

  Where they were in a cavern, they now inhabited a freshly bored tunnel excavated by the simultaneous stone-rending and petrifying breath of the Earth Dragon Dhànthárian. Above them, a conic funnel stretched between the stratum gates of the Dwarven city. Below, in the darkness, an enormous face lurked, brilliant as daylight, brimming with vitality and life.

  Without warning, a second breath—this time with less rage and more malice—washed over the egg and bird.

  While they endured, Gwen vocally instructed Lulan to oversee the retreat above to take advantage of whatever time they could stall. As expected, the quasi-magic, quasi-elemental Dragon Breath glided over Caliban’s slick wings like water over oil, leaving it no more disturbed than an albatross navigating a rebellious sea gale.

  After that, a grim silence tolled, and then the earth spoke.

  “What foulness is this, whelp?” a low, rumbling voice croaked in the most broken Draconic Gwen had yet experienced, using syllables the same way shattered shale tumbled down seismic shifts. “You would make use of our oldest enemies?”

  While Gwen hesitated to undo her shield, her companion, who had thus far held her hand and was previously imposed against her body, gave her a nod of supreme confidence and then stepped out with a thought.

  “Iosta Dhànthárian,” Slylth spoke in what Gwen now knew as High Draconic—AKA the Celestial pronunciation—something akin to the Queen’s English to the Earth Dragon’s Cockney. “Fret not for the fiend before you, Lord, for it is merely the spectre of a defeated foe—one bested by our Regent of Shalkar.”

  When Slylth did not immediately perish, Gwen whisked away her void egg while secretly preparing for the manifestation of both her Crown of Thorns and her Black Blade.

  “As for myself.” Slylth flew a little below her to put himself between her and the enormous face. “I am Alexander Slylth, scion of Sythinthimryr, the Red Queen of Summer Flame.”

  Considering the impossibility of pronouncing Sythinthimryr’s true draconic name without a prehensile tongue capable of peeling cherries, Gwen was glad that her companion was taking the initiative instead of her making a mockery of the Draconic language.

  “Two whelps, then,” Dhànthárian shifted in the hole below, affording Gwen a good look at the foe she had been digging down to see for two weeks and more. “You disturb my slumber and invade my domain. Explain why I should not consume you both.”

  Unironically, Gwen noted that their foe held no apparent ire for its children nor the hundreds of Thunder Lizards they had buried.

  Compared to other Dragons, Dhànthárian was… rough. She couldn’t see his whole body, but she could discern that this was not a creature with wings and, therefore, grace. Its face was vaguely lizard-like, but more so resembling something of a small mountain-scape with nostrils, punctuated by a pair of yellow, beady eyes, and enormous crags that made up the hewn shape of a Dragon’s head. The colouring was nothing like the beautiful terror exerted by Golos or the Yinglong, but a dull mix of earthy tones from black loam to shiny shale to obsidian glass. As far as she could tell, the lack of giant shoulders would negate the presence of powerful forelimbs, meaning she conversed with a primordial “wyrm” from the earliest bestiaries.

  What was not to be mistaken was the sheer brutal power exerted by the being below her. No doubt, one unmitigated swipe from its powerful tail or head was enough to end her story prematurely, no punctuation needed. At the same time, she possessed no confidence that Caliban could claw through the sheer thickness of Dhànthárian’s armour, for the Martian surface looked as though it was made entirely of cooled magma stone.

  “He’s not very bright…” Slylth’s silent Message came through. “But at least he knows to find out who he might be eating before committing.”

  “That attack earlier wasn’t serious?” Gwen could only imagine the damage done to her Rat-kin and her Dwarves, who might have been caught already—though presently, she wasn’t able to oversee her casualties. “If we weren’t ready with countermeasures…”

  “Lord Dhànthárian.” Gwen cut their conversation short when the Dragon below them shifted. “Let us be frank. You are a usurper of these lands of the Dwarves, while I am a representative of Dwarven will and interest. You trespass, Lord, upon my domain.”

  The earth rumbled.

  All of Deepholm rumbled.

  To maintain their decorum, Slylth willed away the falling debris with a few spontaneous manifestations of Bigby’s Hand.

  “Hofiba—Sihe!” Dhànthárian roared with mockery. “I came into this lair of riches by conquest! I bested the savage beasts who sought to usurp its ley-node's natural power. Your claim is worthless before me or the Council!”

  Gwen watched the enormous body perform what she assumed was a coil. Though walls still separated them, and they spoke to each other through a stadium-sized hole, she could deduce that the total length of the Dragon was somewhere between a neighbourhood and a small suburb. Indeed, there was little in the way of fighting Dhànthárian… fairly.

  “For one so old, your wisdom does not match your powers of observation,” Gwen retorted, her Clarion Call blasting her comeback at the Dragon below. “Even now, Your Highness crashes through the very city of the Dwarves. You wrap your body around the carcass of their artifice, the very home made by their ancestors. At the city’s gates, I saw the evidence of your merciless guile. These are no beasts you have slain, Lord Dhànthárian. As an Elder, you know better than being ignorant of the D?kkálfar’s claims.”

  The old Dragon chuckled, sending more debris their way, which Gwen was beginning to realise was deliberate.

  “The D?kkálfar were worthy foes.” The Dragon said, then continued with something utterly insensible. “But it wasn’t the D?kkálfar who was conquered.”

  Gwen looked at Slylth.

  The latter shrugged.

  “This is the home of the D?kkálfar, Lord Dhànthárian.” Gwen infused Caliban with another jolt, growing her creature a size larger. “There’s no denying this.”

  “The beasts I found here are no more D?kkálfar than a Tr??lvor could be a Hvítálfar.” The Dragon’s patience was nowhere near the thickness of its hide. “They might wear the skin of the D?kkálfar, whelp, but they were not the foes I had contended with since the inception of their first constructs. They lacked the tenacity, the will…”

  More debris fell as the Dragon chuckled. “…and the numbers.”

  Gwen felt a cliff-sized puzzle piece peel from the walls to fall into place. “You… moved into an empty city, Lord?”

  “Far from empty.” Dhànthárian appeared to enjoy her dismay. “Unguarded, perhaps, but still brimming with these… aberrations.”

  “You came from within the Singularity,” Gwen pointed out. “You did not breach the city’s walls.”

  “I was invited.” The Dragon roared with cruel mirth, likely recollecting the carnage. “Yes, daughter of an Elder One. Great Dhànthárian was invited into the city through the Elemental Plane of Earth. Someone had made a gate for this divine one, and I made my pleasure known to my new-found sycophants.”

  “That makes no sense…” Slylth’s Silent Message flashed. “A Sinneslukare let the Dragon in and killed all the other Sinneslukare?”

  Gwen licked her drying lips.

  What a lode of crap! Was all her mind could process after making it so far down the mine shafts.

  Did the Sinneslukare open the portal for the Dragon?

  Did a Dwarf do it to spite the Sinneslukare?

  Or did a Sinneslukare fail to overwhelm the mind of a Dwarf, who then…

  “This changes things,” Slylth spoke to her.

  “No… it changes nothing,” Gwen replied.

  The uninfected citizens were still murdered.

  The Dwarf’s city still had to be recovered.

  The Dragon still had to go, willing or otherwise.

  “I cannot refute your claim, Lord Dhànthárian,” she confessed. “Nonetheless, I must declare that I shall challenge that claim, as is the rite.”

  “Hofiba—YOU PERSIST?” The Dragon roared, threatening to collapse the cavern. “Your mothers cannot protect you here if you offend me!”

  For a brief moment, Gwen pictured Almudj and Dhànthárian wrestling in the earth, creating small mountain ranges as they rolled about. Focusing as much menace as she could muster, she called upon her Clarion Call once more to make official their decision.

  “Lord Dhànthárian, this is the home of the Dwarves, and as their representative, I lay claim to their ancestral land as you have. We have equal cause, Lord—and so—“

  Slylth grabbed her arm before she could finish, and the pair instantly became surrounded by Conjuration magic. Caliban dove down with a terrific crash as they displaced, splattering itself against the incoming mountain that sought to crush the pair against the walls.

  When they reappeared, it was at the Thirty-Ninth Gate, where the Operating Base was being rapidly evacuated.

  “Son of a Dragon!” Gwen swore, her head bloated from the sudden Teleport. “What the fuck?”

  “We’re definitely lodging a complaint,” Slylth groaned as he worked out the mana still leaking from his body. “He’s supposed to answer with an affirmation before violence can be commenced, not sneak attack like some young Drake recently hatched from a hole. Bleeding Earthen Dragons…”

  All around them, the base was already in full retreat. Typical of the Dwarves, the exercise was orderly, efficient, and utterly devoid of the urgency that Gwen preferred in a situation involving imminent catastrophe.

  “Have any of you seen Marshal Li? or Commander Strun?” Gwen asked. “Has any of them come through?”

  “Marshal Li is still helping with the evacuations below,” the Dwarf pilot responsible for the logistics node replied with a salute. “Regent, shall we—“

  “Drop all the supplies and run!” Gwen commanded the base with a Clarion Call, sending out a mass-Message to all still fighting in the tunnels. “Activate the FORCE BARRIERS! All forces—make for Vrithr avor Il-Jrogor—Dhànthárian is coming!”

  The Regent of Shalkar had no time to calculate casualties, though the certainty of her citizens perishing in the wake of Dhànthárian’s passage was certain. The loss irked her, for even in the middle of her escape, she was forced to ponder the question of cost.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  When fighting an unruly Ancient Dragon, what rules could be followed? And if her opponent did not follow the rules, it was simply because she was not strong enough, for certainly, if Sythinthimryr had been speaking in her place, Dhànthárian would think thrice, exhausting the absolute limits of his feeble mind to placate an old and powerful being who would have hunted him in the Primordial Age.

  Of course, they would have still fought, but decorum would have been followed, and diplomacy would have resulted in the battle rather than eradication or victory.

  But she was not strong enough to murder Dhànthárian in his hole. Nor was she overpowering to the degree of dislodging a Dhànthárian currently plugged into the Singularity.

  Ergo, they had to stick to their plans, which meant sacrifices.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t so much the casualties that bothered me, Gwen mulled with some honesty. It was her casual acceptance of casualties that made her uneasy.

  Nonetheless, level after level, she and the Dwarves made their rapid retreat, guided by rails and barriers put into place at every Gate, anticipating a great counterattack by Dhànthárian. The route they had chosen was deliberately separate from the last encroachment Dhànthárian had made to the surface, forcing the Dragon to brute-force his way upward, which served to reduce the impact of its body and breath drastically.

  In addition to the existing lattice walls of transmuted stone and dark steel, panes of pure force tied to generators would groan and shudder as impassable barriers met an unstoppable force, sheering chunks of scale and keratin from the careless head and torso of the rampaging Dragon.

  At the Twenty-Fifth Gate, Gwen was met by Lulan and Strun, who had to abandon their posts and activate their contingency Rings, made especially for the escape from Deepholm’s core.

  “We saved what and who we could.” Lulan was a tattered version of herself, though from what Gwen could guess. “The equipment is gone, but the Engineers are safe. The Hammer Guards are scattered into the city’s depth, though most should survive.”

  “We’ve lost contact with a few squads of Exterminators, but all our Shadow Guards are accounted for,” Strun replied more confidently. “Presently, all are alive.”

  Gwen concurred with her Commander’s final statement, for if her Essence-blessed Rats were snuffed out, she would feel the pinpricks of their extinction like thumbtacks pressed into her skin.

  DING—! A Message spell bloomed. “Regent, the Dragon has slowed near the Twenty-Eighth Gate,” the observation from Hilda reported. “We can assume Dhànthárian loathes leaving the Singularity untapped.”

  “Makes sense,” Gwen replied back. “I have personally experienced what happens when a Dragon is foolish enough to leave its lair unguarded while other Dragons are lurking about. Don’t let your guard down, though. If Dhànthárian gets angry enough, will it take the risk?

  “Let the usurper come,” came the reply from Hilda. “The Velrofjad are ready and deployed.”

  The Velrofjad, Gwen had recently discovered, were the original reason for Dhànthárian keeping away. In effect, these were conic resonator devices that were concentrated forms of the Shielding Station crystals used by Humans to keep their cities safe—a discovery that again made her doubt the validity of her High School history books. Large and cumbersome, the Velrofjad were mounted inside shielded walls—akin to Shielding Stations—of the city’s outer wall, activating whenever the enormous Elementals that inhabited the Plane of Earth decided that Deepholm was a tasty morsel. One or more resonators did little more than irk Dhànthárian, but no one, not even a Dragon, enjoyed the feeling of slowly being microwaved while overpowering Force walls.

  “It’s stopped,” Hilda’s voice continued. “I think—“

  Deepholm roared. The walls began to speak.

  “CONFN-SJEK WUX—BEVI—!” came the broken Draconic, inviting them to dislodge itself if it dared.

  “Big D isn’t one to run out of rage.” Gwen brushed the motes of excess Conjuration from her Da-peng feathers. “Any idea why, Slylth?”

  The Red Dragon Mage snorted. “I bet he’s gone back to the lair to dream. He will be lodging a complaint with the Council at the first opportunity. After all, he doesn’t know if he can consume you, and he certainly knows he can’t consume me.”

  “We loath to think what would have happened if you were not here, Regent,” Hilda spoke from the heart from the First Gate. “You have our gratitude.”

  Gwen answered nothing lest Hilda brought up more promises of debts and repayments. “Hilda, is the Leviathan Canon ready?”

  “The connections require tweaking, but it can be made operational,” The Message crackled. “Your Tree’s roots have made it to the First Gate. We’re waiting for Lady Sanari to come and make the necessary connections.”

  “Lulan, can you chase her up?” Gwen commanded her Marshal. “And clean up while you’re at it. What happened anyway? Your armour looks to be rough shape.”

  “I tested my mettle against the Earthen Dragon,” her Marshal explained.

  “And how was it?” Gwen looked her bodyguard up and down.

  “It’s too thick,” Lulan sighed. “Not even a sonic-enhanced Heart-Seeking Sword could penetrate its hide. I tried to pierce its eye as well—no luck.”

  “Not even the tip?” Slylth raised both brows. “Well, Dhànthárian is certainly known for being dense.”

  Gwen looked from Marshal to Advisor, wondering if they were making innuendos at her expense. As it turns out, her peers were entirely serious, and only she possessed an immature mind.

  “Alright, let’s pick up the pieces,” Gwen commanded her inner circle. “Hilda, fortify everything we have the manpower to occupy. Once that torrent of water starts, God knows what will come out of the depth.”

  She paused momentarily, then asked the dreaded question plaguing her conscience. “And Strun? Get me a casualty report.”

  Deepholm.

  The Outer Ring.

  From tip to base, the primary armament of Gwen’s Tower measured just over two hundred meters, encasing the inscribed Leviathan Core in enough rare magical metal to fund the pension of a mid-sized nation.

  Its journey from the centre of the ocean had been long and precarious, for it had been in the hands of a Lich, and the Undead caster had already half-inscribed it with designs that served far more nefarious purposes than channelling mana.

  To make the Core viable for her use, she had used her World Tree to wrap its roots around the Core to cleanse it of uncertain energies, trusting Almudj’s Essence and its rigorous hatred of “strangers” as white blood cells against Necrophage. Soon after, Sanari worked over the surface, erasing the traces left by the Undead that Gwen could not discern.

  Thereafter, the Dwarven Engineseers filled in the cavities carved by the Undead caster with Mithril and other inlays, repurposing the circuitry for the empowerment of Mana Engines and—in the case of the Tower’s armament, the Leviathan Cannon.

  In its present configuration, the enormous weapon sat on tracked dollies, tethered to the heavy-duty rail systems used by the Dwarves for deep-earth mining. From her vantage point, standing beside her horizontal skyscraper, Gwen felt positively minuscule as she watched the Druid Sanari turn the World Tree’s living circuits into complex Mandala nodes forged by her Dwarves.

  “MANA IS LIVE—!” Hilda’s voice called out, cutting across the grating sounds of grinders, Golems and Mana Engines pouring exhaust into the low-way passages. “AXEHOFF, close circuits!”

  The Druid, svelte and hip and smelling of flowering hedges, backed away until she stood beside her Regent. Standing a head shorter, Gwen gave the Elf an affirming nod, which Sanari returned with a slow bow.

  “Your plan is most unusual, Regent,” the Hvítálfar expressed genuine amazement, her golden eyes the same shade of amber as the glowing Leviathan Core. “I don’t believe anyone has ever done something like this in all the years I have served the Circles. The Accord has always advised against Draconic territorial conflicts—and we had expected a far worse collateral. Elder Eldrin even said that this time, we should not…what’s the Human word? Bankroll? When the Earthen Dragon destroys Shalkar.”

  “Well,” Gwen felt a little abashed. “I am a pacifist first and foremost.”

  “Pufft—“ Slylth dabbed his mouth with his sleeves as he recovered from the Fur Peak tea he was nursing, an English habit he had picked up from Suilven. “Sorry.”

  “Lady Solana was more confident that you will succeed,” Sanari gave her a confident smile. “I am also very interested in seeing how Lord Dhànthárian would react.”

  “Has word reached the Council?” Slylth asked their Elven companion. “I know it’s only been a day…”

  “I believe it has,” Sanari’s smile was more human than Gwen recalled, proving that even High Elves had a sense of humour. “Lord Tyfanevius has intervened, vouching for your claim to Deepholm. Lady Sythinthimryr has said that she is very displeased at Lord Dhànthárian’s lack of confidence and that any Dragon that wishes to join the Earthen Lord in bullying her son should expect a visit from herself and her kindred. The siblings of Frost have also expressed their desire for inaction, which has persuaded the council to do nothing, much to the bewilderment of Lord Dhànthárian. The cousins from the south were present as well, though their reaction was pure amusement.”

  “Hee hee…” Slylth looked at her smugly as if to prove a point. Unfortunately for her prideful companion, his joy was one which a lonely girl with an absent father and a neglectful mother could not reconcile.

  Slowly, the Core began to fill with mana, first transforming into a light teal. As the whining of servos and flaring Glyphs grew, the Core took on growing hues of blue until it began to radiate an intense, retina-searing ultramarine. Where visible, Kintsugi lines of Mithril and metal glowed golden, permeating the interior of the cooling vents.

  Motes of Elemental Water quickly inundated every surface.

  Her Da-peng armour grew sodden and heavy.

  Slylth circulated his mana, shrouding his body with steam.

  Around them, the Dwarves furiously vented their discomfort through their Golem armour while enormous dehumidifiers kicked into the highest gear, feeding water back into the Leviathan Cannon.

  “Concourse ONE, ready!”

  “Concourse TWO, ready!”

  “Concourse THREE, ready!”

  One by one, sector by sector, Walls of Force erected to direct the jet stream of water reported back. In readiness for the Earthen Dragon’s rage, the Dwarves had pulled back to the tenth gate, willingly resigning everything beyond to be submerged or at least bedraggled by the deluge.

  The fabric of space and time made an inward-sucking sound—then, from the rent torn between the planes, a moving wall of laminar water shot forward into the excavated spaces, hungrily seeking out every nook and space offered by Dwarven city’s unplumbed depth.

  Gwen inhaled the sodden air, recollecting a Sunday verse from a lesson she had learned long ago.

  “And on this day, all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. Rain, endless rain, fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights, slaying all that held the breath of life.”

  “Is that one of Almudj’s stories?” Slylth asked as droplets sizzled against his skin. “You did say the Great Serpent lived in the navel of the Prime Material, where all the world's waters began.”

  Almudj? The floods? Gwen made the connections but had no means to ratify such a theory. “Something like that.”

  “This is very pleasant,” Sanari scandalously in-breathed, drawing the water into her body like an elfin sponge soaking up the mist. “It’s so pure.”

  For a few more minutes, they watched the water pour, its force so great that any and all lost panels and debris were swallowed by the swirling vortex, which was drinking away at the building-sized spigot, sucking liquid into a bottomless hole.

  DING! A Message spell bloomed.

  “Regent, the concourses are working well. The water is being absorbed at parity,” Hilda reported. “It might take a bit longer than we thought, though. The spaces between the Gates occupy more volume than we had initially calculated. Maybe three days before the lower levels reach saturation.”

  “Well, Dhànthárian made a huge hole on every level, so good luck to our Dragon calling in a plumber. Any movements from the Core?” Gwen asked. “Or too early.”

  “I dare say the old uncle’s first response should be utter and complete confusion,” Slylth sniggered, “After all, who does what we do? If you were like him, you’d be mustering your troops and launching an assault. You would sacrifice your Dwarves and Rat-kin to tire him out first, then confront him with Caliban and the Black Blade. Give it a week, though; if he’s angry enough to attack, he would have to swim through the water… now THAT would be a sight Mother needs to see!”

  For a creature of Magma and Earth to swim through trillions of litres of water to get at its foes was a sight that piqued even Gwen’s curiosity. Her only hope was that Urmrak and the Dwarves who had gone with him to secure the Ancestor’s Halls had made their ark watertight for the flood to come.

  Shalkar.

  The Bunker.

  With a vigour that came naturally to her trained body, Natalia burst through the door into Richard’s office, her face vivid with incredulity.

  “Vice-Regent, we have a problem,” she relayed her distress at once. “A source I could not identify leaked our Regent’s present preoccupation. The Russians are on the move.”

  Richard passed a data slate to his secretary, the ever-resourceful Lea, to be put away. “Alright, not the best time for that, but is that so surprising?”

  “It's VERY surprising,” Natalia expressed herself with vehemence. “I’ve been receiving daily reports from the Sparrow Hawks, as you know, and until last night, there was absolutely no indication from either of the Russian Towers that they would perform anything other than holding patterns.”

  “And then?” her superior asked. “They decided to act?”

  “Georgie—that’s our Sparrow Hawk in Novosibirsk, said that an emergency Message came through from Moscow, demanding what its Tower Master was doing. He said that the Tower Master was informed our Regent has activated the Leviathan Cannon and that the weapon must be stopped and confiscated immediately.”

  Richard paused in his usual act of nonchalance. “Now, that IS surprising. We don’t have much contact with our forces down there beyond the necessary. Certainly, I trust our inner circle here. Could a Dwarf have betrayed us? A Centaur? One of the Khan’s men? More hidden Sparrows?”

  “According to Tower Master Petyr,” Natalia cited the secret Message delivered by their secret ally in Nizhny. “Nothing was sent out from the Towers themselves. This knowledge originated from Moscow itself.”

  “And there are no Communication Towers here, Master Petyr, or we cannot monitor unless he is lying to our face,” Richard rubbed his chin. “How curious, Natalia. How very, very curious.”

  “Curiosity aside,” Natalia calmed herself somewhat. She liked that her superior was unfazed. If she had made this report to her former Master, there would be… painful reminders for her remiss that her body would not forget for a long time. “Your orders?”

  Richard took a long, deep breath, mimicking a body language often expressed by his superior.

  “Alright, send out notices to Lord Holland and Lady Grey. Lock the city down. Martial Law is implemented as of this moment. Worksite crew are to retreat into bunkers. All city militia are to man their battle stations. Tell the Great Khan we’ll need his support if and when the Russians make landfall. Lastly, inform the Regent that we shall join battle with our unfriendly neighbours within twenty-four hours. That and we will need Garp.”

  “Understood.” Natalia saluted. “I would like a final confirmation, Sir. Will we keep our Tower’s weapon systems hidden, even if the opportunity arises to strike?”

  “Only use them if the Tower Master of Nizhny decides he doesn’t want an apartment in the World Tree’s crown,” the Vice-Regent remarked with a nod. “We should otherwise lose no more men than we can spare—And with that, as our Regent would say… It's show time.”

  Notice: Vol 9 Will hit the shelves soon, meaning those chapters will be removed from the RR backlog.

  New VOL 12 COVER - THE SEA OF FLAMES

  VOL 11 COVER - THE BLOOM IN WHITE! MISTRESS OF TRYFAN, QUEEN of the Elves of Light