As I circled around, the Elder Wyrm’s piercing green eyes locked on me, and I saw the rage in them as the massive dragon spun, jaws opening to snap me from the air. As she did, she turned her body away from the eastern cliff, presenting her side to the sniper waiting in the trees.
The shot boomed through the air, the retort cracking like a whip over the storm, making my eardrums ring. The Elder Wyrm jerked, throwing her up head and staggering back a few steps. Desperately, I looked to her side as I flew past, hoping to see a gaping hole where the Dragonkiller had punched through.
My heart sank. A few of her scales were dented, and a couple of them looked cracked, but other than that, she didn’t have a scratch on her. Shaking her head, the Elder Wyrm snarled angrily and turned, searching for whatever had hit her. Our best shot, our best weapon, had only pissed her off even more.
“No good,” Garret panted behind me. “Not even the prototype can get through her scales. Either she needs to be closer, or Tristan has to find some kind of opening in her armor. And even then, he’ll need to hit something vital if we’re going to have any chance of killing her.”
With a hiss, the Elder Wyrm snatched a dragon from the air and shook it vigorously before slamming it and its hapless rider to the earth at her feet. I cringed. Sooner or later, she was going to tire of swatting insects and go hunting for the one thing that had any hope of hurting her. We were running out of options, and the Elder Wyrm seemed invincible.
A tiny shout came through the storm, and I turned, blinking water from my eyes. At the edge of the trees, a skinny figure stood alone in the rain, waving his hands over his head, like he was trying to flag us down. Garret followed my gaze and straightened in surprise.
“That’s Wes,” he muttered.
“What is he doing out here?” I wondered, banking sharply and winging toward the hacker. Wes never got this close to the battle, being content to stay as far away as possible from guns, bullets and things that could kill him. A giant demigod of an Elder dragon certainly qualified. “Wes, what do you think you’re doing?” I snapped, landing a few feet away. “Don’t tell me you suddenly got the urge to be a hero.”
“Bloody…hell…finally,” Wes gasped. “I’ve been trying to get somebody’s attention for the past five minutes, and not be noticed by the giant lizard of death over there.” He doubled over, panting. “And no, I certainly do not have any suicidal urge to be a hero, thank you very much. I wouldn’t even be here if you wankers weren’t all about to die.”
I was about to ask what he thought he could do about it when I spotted the black case clutched in one skinny hand, and my stomach dropped. “Wes, is that…?”
“Yeah, it is. Here.” He stepped forward and shoved the case at Garret. “I kept an extra one, for an emergency,” he said as Garret pushed back the lid, revealing a familiar device that set my heart to pounding. “Don’t know how you’ll get close enough to use it,” Wes went on, “but if you can, that’s nasty enough to ruin even the Elder Wyrm’s day.”
“We can get there,” Garret muttered, and looked up at me, eyes hard with determination. “Ember?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said breathlessly. “I’ll get us in. How much time do we have?”
“The timer is set for thirty seconds,” Wes answered. “So don’t bloody push the button until you’re sure you can stick it to the right spot.”
Garret gave a brisk nod. “Give us two minutes,” he told the hacker, tossing the empty case to the ground, “and then signal Ward to sound the retreat. We don’t want anyone else caught in the blast when it goes off. Ready, Ember?”
I opened my wings in reply and launched us into the air. Wes’s outline got smaller and smaller as I climbed steadily through the rain and turned toward the huge red blur that was the Elder Wyrm.
“Where are we going, Garret?” I asked, beginning the dive toward our enormous enemy. Garret bent low over my neck, his gaze on the massive red form below us. The Elder Wyrm was still pursuing the smaller dragons that darted around her, swatting or snatching them from the air. A vivid green hatchling and its rider tried swerving out of the way, but those huge jaws whipped around and closed on them both with the snapping of bones.
“Around to her left,” Garret muttered, and I heard the warning beep as he started the countdown, the bomb flaring to life in his hands. “Fly low, get behind her foreleg.”
I realized what he was aiming for and took a quick breath. “All right, here we go!”
We dropped fast, dodging a huge wingtip as the Elder Wyrm spun around. I saw my reflection pass through her blazing green eyes, and she roared, lunging at us with a maw like a black hole.
I twisted desperately, barely clearing those jaws as they snapped shut, making my insides shriek in fear. “Hang on!” I cried to Garret, spiraling away, trying to get behind her again. She followed, and I darted up as fast as I could, avoiding her fangs by a hairbreadth, feeling hot breath blast my scales.
“Fifteen seconds, Ember!” Garret warned.
Dammit, we weren’t going to make it. I spun and angled my body into a final dive, knowing I might be flying straight down the Elder Wyrm’s throat. As the enormous head rose to meet me, there was a streak of blue from the side, and Cobalt flew right into the Elder Wyrm’s face. The dragon flinched, shaking her head, and we soared past her snapping jaws even as she snarled in fury and flung Cobalt away. I banked up, flew past her chest plates, and soared alongside her ribs as Garret reached out and pressed the device to her scales, right behind her foreleg.
“Go!” he yelled, and I swerved away, not daring to see how much time we had left. But as I swooped low to the ground, I had a split-second glimpse of something big and red coming at me before it hit me with the force of a wrecking ball. I smashed into the rocky ground and rolled, the world spinning around me, before coming to a painful stop.
My entire body blazed with pain. Gasping, I raised my head. Garret was lying next to me, tangled in one shredded wing, looking as bruised and dazed as I felt. Blood streamed down his face from a gash on his temple, and one eye was swollen shut as he looked back across the yard.
The ground trembled as the bleary form of the Elder Wyrm lurched toward us through the rain.
“One,” Garret whispered, and turned away.
The Elder Wyrm’s side exploded. There was a split-second flash, and then a shock wave of heat and energy ripped through the air as a burst of fire, blood and smoke sent the Elder Wyrm staggering sideways. She screamed, a horrific, piercing wail that stabbed through my eardrums and made me want to bury my head in the dirt, and then the ground shook as she collapsed, sending tremors and a billow of dust into the air.
In the few heartbeats of silence that followed, as the smoke began to clear and the dust began to settle, I started to breathe again, to believe that it was actually over.
And then, the Elder Wyrm moved, shifted and, unbelievably, got back to her feet.
No way. Numb, I stared at the mass of dark red scales, unable to move, as the Elder Wyrm clawed herself upright, panting. Blood streamed down her side, running in rivulets to the ground as she turned, revealing the mangled, bloody mess where the bomb had exploded. Her scales had been blown away, leaving a gaping hole behind, and glimmers of bone peeked through burned, angry flesh.
But she was still alive. Impossibly, she was on her feet. And as pissed as hell. Her gaze, livid and terrifying, found me across the yard a moment before she gave a furious, screaming roar and lurched forward. She limped across the ground, leaving behind a trail of red, a demon of rage and destruction come to crush me once and for all.
“Tristan,” I heard Garret mutter, even as I braced myself to die. “Do it, now.”