Fire and Ice Read online

  Metal and Stone: Fire and Ice

  First edition

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  © 2018 Kevin Potter

  Cover art by Mirela Barbu

  99designs.com/Mirela-Barbu

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

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  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BLOOD

  OF

  THE

  DRAGONS

  VOLUME

  ONE

  METAL AND STONE

  PART II: Fire

  and

  Ice

  TIMELINE:

  This is an approximate timeline of events for the various books of Blood of the Dragons and The Calamity.

  **Note** I am using the new standard for dates (C.E. or Common Era, formerly known as A.D. and B.C.E. or Before Common Era, formerly known as B.C.)

  ***Note 2*** All dates are approximate and intended for reference as relative to one another only.

  666 B.C.E. — Prologue to Metal and Stone: The Awakening

  2010 C.E. — Metal and Stone: The Awakening (up to chapter 12)

  2035 C.E. — Prologue to The Fall of an Overlord

  2250 C.E. — Remainder of Metal and Stone: The Awakening

  2375 C.E. — Metal and Stone: Fire and Ice

  2700 C.E. — Metal and Stone: Blood and Scales

  2702 C.E. — Metal and Stone: The Age of Extinction, book 1

  3050 C.E. — Metal and Stone: The Age of Extinction, book 2

  3100 C.E. — Untitled book: Blood of the Dragons, volume 2

  14,000 C.E. — The Fall of an Overlord

  14,001 C.E. — Rise of the Overlord (chapters 1-3)

  14,100 C.E. — Prologue to Rise of the Overlord

  14,125 C.E. — Remainder of Rise of the Overlord

  14,280 C.E. — Prologue to Shadow of the Overlord

  14,650 C.E. — Shadow of the Overlord, book 1

  14,660 C.E. — Shadow of the Overlord, book 2

  Contents

  TIMELINE OF EVENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  thanks for reading

  Connect

  other books

  about the author

  Preview

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  PROLOGUE

  Baalhalllu peeked around the curving tunnel wall, muscles bunched as he prepared to spring from the niche he’d pressed his body into.

  The tunnel was clear.

  Then what was that clicking and scraping I heard? he thought.

  With a mental shrug, he moved out of the niche to creep down the tunnel.

  What sort of stone is this? he wondered, looking more closely at the jagged black rock which jutted from the walls of the wide tunnel.

  The stone was not natural, that much was obvious. Raw, unworked stone was dull and lusterless. Not like this at all.

  The glossy sheen was something common in skillfully cut and polished onyx, but this stone looked raw and jagged. The way unworked stone might, but for the high gloss.

  And although few wyrms would willingly live in a cave of unworked stone, those few would have taken great pride in living in an entirely natural cave.

  These tunnels were carefully crafted. Their owner wanted them to look raw, jagged, and sharp. He wanted them to look rough and angular. He wanted them to look as though no care whatsoever had been taken in the formation of this deep, massive lair.

  Baalhalllu knew better.

  This was a wyrm who took great care in crafting his image and his home. A wyrm who went to great lengths to ensure others perceived him in exactly the way he desired. A wyrm who left nothing to the whims of chance.

  Vordillainsura.

  Am I in over my horns? Baalhalllu wondered for the thousandth time.

  Of course you are, you old fool, said a soft voice in the back of his mind, disturbingly similar to Kwallindauria’s.

  Baalhalllu grunted softly in the darkness as he crept down the long, straight tunnel. Since he’d entered through what he hoped was an unknown entrance on the surface, he had seen precious few connecting tunnels or chambers.

  Why would he design it this way? he thought in wonder. It made little sense for a wyrm to construct such a massive lair with so long a straight tunnel. Why waste the space?

  Perhaps to catch intruders? he thought with not a little trepidation. If he were caught here, it would be the end of not only the rebellion, but his life as well. Sura had been looking for an excuse to execute him for years.

  Ryujin’s tail, why did I insist on doing this alone?

  With a shake of his head, Baalhalllu pushed the thought away. The time for worrying about that was long past. The decision had been made, he’d insisted, and now he was alone in the lair of the most powerful wyrm in the world.

  For something that may not even exist.

  Clenching his teeth in frustration, Baalhalllu bent his toes back to keep his claws from clicking against the glossy black cave floor.

  His scales scraped softly with each step, the sound muted and indistinct. He winced at each sound, but it was a vast improvement over the clicking of his claws which still seemed to ring in his auditory receptors.

  The scraping of his scales on the stone slowly faded from notice, blending in with the dripping and wind gusts inherent in any underground dwelling. How much farther could this straight tunnel go on? How many leagues had Vordillainsura excavated to create this lair?

  At last, the tunnel began to curve toward his left.

  Baalhalllu flattened himself against the inner curve of the tunnel and peeked around the corner.

  Damn, he thought.

  Three agate wyrms stood around the entrance to a deep chamber at the end of the tunnel. Two of them stood just outside the chamber facing the tunnel and the third faced the other two.

  Their lips moved, as though speaking, but the sound didn’t carry well enough to reach the bend in the tunnel.

  “What are they talking about?” he whispered under his breath.

  Baalhalllu’s pulse began to pound in his ears as the conversation between the agates continued for long minutes.

  “What am I going to do?”

  He glanced up and down the tunnel, but there weren’t any side chambers or connecting tunnels the agates might turn into— or for him to hide in —once they finished.

  Damn, he thought again.

  As though on command, the third agate spun, lips twisted in a snarl, to stalk down the tunnel toward Baalhalllu.

  Snapping his head back from the bend in the tunnel, he looked around, desperate for some place to escape to. A battle with the agate here, this close to the other two, couldn’t help but draw the attention of the guards and probably half a hundred others besides.

  What do I do?

  Snapping his head up and down the tunne
l again, Baalhalllu searched in vain for an escape. He clenched his jaw in frustration and looked up to the ceiling and down to the floor.

  Nothing.

  He had nowhere to go.

  The sound of claws clicking against the cold floor echoed from around the bend and Baalhalllu’s racing pulse thundered behind his eyes.

  With time running short, he flashed through his memory of every trick he knew, every spell he’d mastered, every ritual he’d ever learned, for anything to get him out of this.

  Although he had no doubt he could defeat this one agate wyrm in combat, the host of others the ruckus would bring was another matter altogether.

  Now the scraping of scales on stone accompanied the clicking of claws. The shifting sands of time were almost gone, and he had no idea what he was going to do.

  Wait, shifting! he thought, stumbling into an idea.

  It was the most basic ability, the simplest one every platinum wyrm learned before leaving their dam’s lair for the first time.

  Under ordinary usage, it wouldn’t have been much help in this sort of situation. It certainly would have been useless in combat.

  With a new spin on that old ability, however, maybe, just maybe, it could get him out of this.

  Immediately, he yanked a stream of power from his apex and initiated the transformation.

  “Clever,” Vordillainsura rumbled as he watched the images shift in the pool of placid, black liquid at his feet. “Very clever, Baalhalllu. But not clever enough.”

  The malachite wyrm at his side shifted. “Is it time?” she asked is a soft rasp. “Can we finally strike at the foolish platinum?”

  “Nearly,” he said.

  Bristling with impatience, the female’s muscles trembled and her scales clicked together softly. She offered a stiff bow of obeisance.

  Is he truly foolish enough to think I am not aware of his presence? Sura wondered. He ruled the council for so long. In spite of his failures to act, I always thought him wise and intelligent.

  Perhaps wisdom was a greater compliment than he deserved.

  Sura thumped his tail against the floor, the glossy black surface shining almost as brightly as his scales, and turned to stride from the chamber in a rush, his malachite consort in tow.

  At last, he could confront the thieving platinum. At last, the damnable dragon had given him an excuse. At last, justice would be done.

  At last, the platinum bastard will die.

  Now in the form of a tiny, black beetle, Baalhalllu skittered along the seemingly endless wall toward the chamber at the far end of the tunnel.

  The journey seemed to take years.

  In the eons-long existence of a dragon, a few years was not such a long while. But he didn’t have years to spare. The time to strike at the farce of a council had come, but he needed the power of the Dragon Scepter to do it.

  Ignoring the passing of time, he raced on as fast as his tiny, chitinous legs would carry him.

  When he considered the tininess of his body in this form, his speed was far greater than he would have expected.

  And blessedly, he didn’t seem to tire. Though he had no sense of how much distance he’d covered. With the new perspective of his tiny, insectoid eyes, he saw neither the bend nor the wyrms at its end. The entire Universe seemed to be this straight stretch of wall he clung to.

  Left with no other option, he put his trust in the belief that he must be progressing at a fair pace, even without evidence to support that belief.

  Eons seemed to come and go while Baalhalllu made the journey along the now-rough, pock-marked wall of the tunnel toward the chamber at its end. Working his way around the bends was kin to trying to note the curve of the Earth while walking across its surface.

  Finally, he looked up to find the roughly triangular shape of an agate dragon’s glossy-black head.

  Blessed Ryujin, he thought. I’m nearly there.

  Baalhalllu ran along the rough wall for what seemed another year or two before he deemed he’d gone far enough. With a whispered prayer to Ryujin, he leaped away from the wall and drifted on wind gusts toward the distant floor.

  The descent seemed to take days. The gusting winds, which he felt certain he wouldn’t have even felt as a dragon, tossed him this way and that, keeping him aloft longer than he otherwise would have.

  As the floor grew nearer, the dragon-turned-beetle grew nervous. After such a long fall, would he splatter onto the floor? He realized he didn’t know. With the light weight of his current form, logic suggested he would sustain little damage. But what if he was wrong?

  What if he had gone to all this trouble only to find ignominious death splattered on a cave floor where no one would even find his body?

  When he finally reached the cave floor, the impact of his landing was non-existent. It was as though he had dropped from a jump of a claw-width.

  With a slight self-deprecating laugh, he glanced at his surroundings. The floor, which had seemed so smooth and pristine as a dragon, he now saw as one of the most pock-marked surfaces he’d ever seen. The intact portions were rough and gritty, like the material the humans had once called sandpaper. But every one to two paces in any given direction was a deep, circular crater with rough, gritty sides.

  Interesting, he thought. I never would have expected that.

  Reaching into his Apex, Baalhalllu brought forth a stream of power to fuel his change back to his natural form.

  He took his time, making the change a little at a time and bringing his lost mass back by incremental bits.

  The process was long and grueling and induced greater agony than he ever would have imagined.

  Baalhalllu glanced back toward the entrance. The two agates there were still unaware of his presence.

  Good, he thought. Let’s keep it that way.

  He turned back to survey the cavern and his breath caught in his throat.

  Everything else in the room faded to static in his mind and his eyes locked on the smaller platinum form locked in what seemed to be a cage at the far corner of the room.

  The cage, if it could be called that, was no more or less than a circular mass of stalagmites and stalactites of the same glossy stone as the walls. The conical shapes were so close together as to resemble the sharp teeth of a predator nearly clamped shut.

  Lying motionless in the center of the cage was Balhamuut.

  His son.

  Dimly, the thought came. There must be a way in. He was put in there somehow, after all.

  Baalhalllu couldn’t fathom how his youngling had come to be here. Couldn’t fathom why Vordillainsura would want him.

  Regardless, I have to get him out of there.

  Moving toward the cage, Baalhalllu spoke in a pitched whisper, “Balhamuut. Can you hear me?”

  There was no response.

  “Balhamuut!” he called a little louder.

  Still nothing.

  Baalhalllu stopped, his snout just a few claw-widths from the bars of the cage. Reaching out, he tentatively touched the younger wyrm’s mind. The chaotic swirl of surface thoughts seemed indicative of natural sleep. He snorted. That state can be created artificially.

  In spite of knowing how intrusive it could be, he sent a telepathic shout into his son’s mind.

  But still, there was no response. There was no change in the younger dragon’s mental state.

  With a frustrated sigh, he looked over the stone bars. He found no obvious flaws, however. No cracks, no thin points, and no chips in the surfaces. Wrapping his tail around a stalagmite to anchor himself, he gripped a stalactite in both claws and heaved.

  The bar didn’t budge. He yanked on the other one with his powerful tail, but that one didn’t move either.

  “That would have been too easy,” he grunted.

  Releasing the bars, Baalhalllu took another minute to study them. I need to know what these are made of. The exact composition of the stone.

  It galled him
to admit that he needed more information— to say nothing of patience and calm —to release his wyrmling.

  With a deep breath to calm himself, he summoned a tendril of power from his Apex and directed it into the stalagmite only inches from his paw.

  The moment his stream of power touched the surface of the stone, he was struck by a backlash of psychic force, a psionic war-maul which slammed into his mind and thrust his body several wingspans backward.

  He landed in a heap on the smooth floor. When he opened his eyes, the world spun around him faster than his mind could process.

  Baalhalllu clenched his eyes closed and shook his head to clear it. After a few moments, he pushed himself back up and opened his eyes. His legs trembled.

  “What in Ryujin’s name was that?” he muttered.

  “That,” said a deep gravelly voice from behind him. “Was a power you will never understand.”

  Baalhalllu spun to face the speaker and his jaw fell while his eyes widened, though only for an instant.

  Vordillainsura grinned, his eyes shining with malice. The malachite female beside him offered a slowly spreading, toothy grin.

  What’s she so excited about?

  Baalhalllu groaned inwardly. Behind the two were the three agates and a quartet of garnets.

  “Have you become such a coward that you need eight wyrms to fight me for you, Sura?”

  The massive agate boomed a mirthless laugh. “The day I need help to dispose of the likes of you is the day I step down and hand the council over to that pathetic wyrmling of yours!”

  “Then prove it,” Baalhalllu taunted, tossing the scales on a desperate gambit. “Hold your minions back and face me one-on-one, but let my son go.”

  The agate cackled.

  “Take him,” the cowardly wyrm croaked, and the other eight wyrms surged forward.

  Baalhalllu dropped into a loose, bent-kneed fighting stance, muscles tensed and waiting for the best moment to strike.

  The others maneuvered around him, obvious in their efforts to surround him.