Page 17 of The Dragon Queen

I wanted to scream out a warning to the other dragons. They were the size of Cloudy or Obsidian, somehow I knew, and yet they seemed like small children by comparison to the blue dragon. He let out a small rumble of warning, something that shook the very stones of the earth, and yet they paid it no attention. The smaller dragons had to be young ones, as they skimmed through the clouds, doing barrel rolls and loop-the-loops just for the pleasure of it.

Not for long.

The massive blue dragon’s jaws opened, revealing a bristling forest of fangs. His long, pale-pink tongue flicked out, tasting the air. The rumble was the only warning the dragon would give. Those cold eyes narrowed down, right before he launched himself into the air.

How could something so immense fly? He seemed to be a creature of earth, more akin to a mountain range or a glacier than of the air. Lumber he did though, his whole body uncoiling like a rope as his wings worked. The young dragons finally realised what kind of danger they were in, stopping their play and back winging just in time to see the blue dragon attack.

I didn’t even get a chance to scream with the throat I no longer possessed. One minute those huge jaws yawned open, the next the smaller dragons were gone. I’m not sure if he even chewed them. Cold vapour poured out of his nose, turning the clouds dark as he turned ponderously around, then descended neatly back to his original position. That pink tongue flicked across his jaws, then disappeared again as his eyes fell shut. One long, satisfied rumble and then my view shifted dramatically.

Aisenbran…

His name, I now realised. I don’t know what it meant. Monster perhaps?

It references the cracking of a glacier, a rich feminine voice said in my ear, the warmth threatening to banish the numb haze I floated within.The crevasse that form as a result of those cracks, going down, down, down into the earth’s depths.

It was a familiar voice. My mind struggled to place it, but trying to think about anything was impossible. My consciousness was a mote, floating on the breeze, swept on by forces bigger than me.

He was a monster.Dimly, I was aware my theory was being confirmed.But only the monsters were strong enough to cross the channel between Nevermere and the continent.Even then he was an old dragon, powerful beyond measure, that strength fed by the bodies of our own young. Many learned not to cross into his territory, hoping to avoid his voracious jaws, but with no meat coming easily to him…

Aisenbran would hardly just lie on the plateau of rock he’d claimed as his own, slowly starving to death. My view shifted then, and I saw an older dragon, his blue scales the dull blue of a stormy sky, all the topaz glitter gone. Perhaps it was that which had him rising again, not to swallow down young dragons, but to hunt others. What I saw changed again, the dragon replaced by a city that was now familiar.

The amphitheatre at the centre of the town, the carvings in the walls, but it was missing something crucial. No humans lived here, only dragons of all sizes. Young, old, and a myriad of colours, though there was only one golden queen. She wore a familiar necklace, a great dragonstone gleaming on her breast. Was it that which alerted her to what was coming? Aisenbran emerged from the clouds like a nightmare. His wings were pulled in tightly against his body as he plunged towards the earth. Jaws wide, his cries echoed throughout the valley, announcing his intent, his claws were outstretched, ready to catch the unwary dragons as they scattered in fear.

But that wasn’t what happened.

The old ones, the most powerful of us,the feminine voice said.It was their strength that brought dragons to Nevermere, but… that strength became a liability at some point. We didn’t grow to the same size, the same stature of Aisenbran and his like because while Nevermere had rich pastures and great herds of aurochs for us to feast upon, dragons of that size need prohibitive amounts of meat to survive. What made him strong was his undoing.

The queen barked an order and the way all the dragons in her territory moved made me think this was well practised. Male dragons leapt into the air, a dizzying array of jewel-like colours as they swarmed upon Aisenbran.

No dragon that tackled him head on would walk away in one piece, so they didn’t. When I was a child, I was stupid enough to poke at a bee’s nest with some of the other children on our estate. The bees were tiny by comparison to each one of us, and yet their stings… Somewhere, somehow, I felt my fingers rubbing together, just a little, remembering that pain. The bees might have died each time they stabbed their stingers into our soft flesh, but they did so gladly.

To ensure their queen lived.

The golden dragon was no queen bee, locked up in her hive. She was a great and glorious beast, declaring to the world her refusal to give ground to the massive blue dragon. The males bugled their warnings, their pleas, but she rose the moment one male fell to earth, sheared in two by Aisenbran’s jaws. A golden arrow, she sped through the air, her wings working double time to meet their interloper.

He was more powerful than any of the dragons, more powerful than most of them in any sort of number, but they were exactly like a swarm of bees. Stinging, stinging, the blue scales began to bleed red from hundreds of tiny little bites. Aisenbran didn’t know which dragon to attack first, his jaws whipping around wildly, his roars of pain shaking the earth.

But that was nothing compared to when the queen attacked.

Zeroing in under his mighty jaws, my heart was in my throat as her fangs sank into his, finding the aorta with perfect precision. If his roars threatened to flatten Nevermere before, it was nothing compared to this.

Blood fountained from his throat, all the power of his massive heart forcing it to jet out of his body rather than circulate it through his veins. Pale green blood the colour of sap splashed the ground and wherever it hit, trees burned down to nothing, grass was evaporated, revealing just raw earth. Some of the attacking dragons screamed along with him as the blood scored their flesh from their bones. They hit the ground with a thud, becoming just sizzling heaps of meat.

And Aisenbran followed them down.

Not to land dead on the earth’s surface. He hit it too hard, too fast, and with too much force, and the thing he was named for, the icy crevasse, was formed now in the soil itself.

I saw dirt, rocks, boulders go flying, but at the sound of ice cracking, the dust began to settle. Through the haze was a familiar sight, ice crawling over ground where it had no place being. Aisenbran’s power was uncontrolled, lashing out as his body writhed and thrashed, remaking the landscape. All the trees, fields, animals disappeared, eaten up by the waves of ice, but within it something lived. A pool of bright green blood, and…

A steadily thudding heart.

I knew its beat, because I had heard it before, heard it now. Rhythmic, slow, and slowing as the massive dragon finally fell still. He was encased by his own power inside an icy tomb, those pale blue eyes wide open and staring through the ice.

Power is a terrible, wonderful thing.

I blinked and saw her there, the queen dragon. Was she the one who brought down Aisenbran or was she…?

Tanis?

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