The Red Dragon

This is the next installment of The ShambElla Saga.

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The Red Dragon

Colt and the goons ran ahead against the horde of imps, tearing them limb from limb, dispersing as many as they could to pave a way to the tower and protect the other companions.

“Siris!” Sam yelled. “We need to clean up the little demons that get past the goons! Cover Ella and David! Ella, you handle the dragon, draw it away and put it down so David can exorcise it!”

Sam and Siris advanced slowly, putting down imps that broke through the goon’s advance.

Ella pointed her guns up, side by side, and waited as the dragon drew closer.

The dragon was pure rage. Its eyes were fiery holes, its scaly skin a dark crimson. Black smoke poured from the corners of its mouth, presaging the bellowing flame which would reign down on anything in its way.

Ella put a double shot right between its eyes and it reeled back into the sky, screaming and shooting a ball of fire into the air.

A hole smoldered where Ella placed her shot but the dragon doubled down, descending upon her.

“Now I’ve got your attention,” she whispered to herself.

She and David ran to the right, feeling the heat of the dragon’s flame but avoiding its bite.

In attempting to swerve its course, it lost control and landed on the ground, hard enough to shake the earth, skidding through the dirt many feet before it stopped.

Then it turned, bellowed, and stomped their way.

Ella also turned, but this time, placed two shots right into its nostrils. The dragon made a sound as if choking and swallowing its own flame, then belched out a puff of smoke.

It shook its head and roared.

Backing away, Ella rapidly fired in any soft spot.

She shot it in the eyes, and it blinked and stumbled.

If it opened its mouth she blasted it right down the throat and it choked.

If it tried to jump forward, she popped it in its nostrils again.

Always keeping her distance as it advanced.

Meanwhile, David ran around and circled the dragon.

He climbed its tail, sinking his claws into any soft spot between the scales which he could, both for purchase and to make the dragon turn its head and bite back, to distract it from its advance.

David’s claws were no trifle. Like the rest of him, they were, though born of the void, also manifestations of the light, and made for eviscerating demon flesh.

As Ella tormented the dragon from the front, David climbed between the giant wings and tore holes in the membranes closest to the shoulder to keep it from taking flight again.

All the while, he chanted the ancient names—the deep, mysterious magic that would call the dragon back to the ether.

The more David used the magic, the more he understood how it worked.

It worked through him, something intuitive and older than time itself, not to destroy the soul of the creature, who was, after all, of the same eternal essence as he; no, not to destroy it, but to call it back from the disgusting depths to which it had fallen.

This dragon was Wrath.

Wrath was all it knew, and wrath was all it could do. Paralyzed by its own inability to choose between the two targets, it raged until it wore itself down.

As David’s voice became a quiet muttering, Wrath settled to the earth, breathing shallowly, barely moving.

Ella walked up to it. The fire had gone from its eyes. They were not mere hollow sockets, but the eyes of a frightened child.

David would have understood.

Ella laid a hand on its snout, now eaten with holes from her volleys of light.

“Be at peace now, friend. This is not your end, but the beginning of your redemption. You can be reborn.”

As David hopped down, Wrath turned to stone beneath Ella’s hand and would stand forevermore as a testament to the strength of the will when informed by a pure heart.

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