37 – Cutting Through the Flame

Smulknefire’s gaze tracked the sword as it shot into the darkness above. A deep growl rolled out of his chest, making the walls tremble.

“So be it,” he said, looking upward.

High above, a spark answered. It rushed down through the dark, starting no larger than a falling star but swelling at impossible speed.

Ashley caught sight of six wings cutting through the heat haze, outlining the shape of a lion wrapped in white fire.

“Aury, wait!”

Aury’s answer was transformation.

His body stretched and darkened as he plummeted, swelling into a heavy shape that made Ashley’s skin prickle.

The white lion vanished beneath plates of shadow and jagged, raw light. Curved black horns split from his head, and his feathered wings warped into broad, leathery membranes that caught the red glow of the shaft.

His pale mask hardened into a rough, jagged stone, brutal and unfinished. Two violet eyes burned within the dark features, and a mouth lined with copper teeth cracked open.

Ashley felt it in her core: a sudden wrongness, like something familiar turning in a direction it was never meant to go.

Another seal had broken.

By the time he reached the ascending sword, his size nearly matched that of the Balrok.

One hand closed around the blazing hilt in midair. The corrupted fire crawled up his arm, leaving him unburned. Still falling, Aury lifted the weapon over his demonic head, and the entire cavern seemed to hold its breath as he swept down toward Smulknefire.

Smulknefire surged upward. One folded wing dragged along the wall as he climbed, the hooked spur at its joint biting deep into the basalt. The movement ripped chunks of stone loose from the wall.

A slab broke free above them, dropping straight toward Paco.

Ashley threw herself sideways, caught the small dragon against her chest, and slammed them both back against the passage wall. The slab plunged past the ledge exactly where he had been standing, so close that the rush of air slapped hot dust across her face.

For a heartbeat, they saw it through the tunnel mouth, tumbling end over end into the shaft, whistling as it vanished into the orange glow below.

Paco twisted in her arms, his wings beating frantically against her shoulder.

“Stay here,” Ashley snapped, already looking up.

Her eyes locked on the shaft.

Above them, Smulknefire kept climbing. His scales ground against the stone walls, and each movement spread more cracks through the rock. Fire flared behind his teeth, lighting the dark from within as he forced his way toward Aury, who was still rushing down.

“Hold him, Simon,” Ashley ordered. “I have to stop this nonsense.”

Ashley released Paco and jumped into the shaft after them.

The pup tried to follow her, but Simon and Gomp grabbed him.

The rising heat caught beneath her wings and shot her upward. For a few seconds, she had a clear line of sight between the dragon below and the dark shape diving from above.

Aury, answer me. What are you doing? Stop this.

The red dragon shifted his head to the side, revealing a mouth full of fire. His eye locked onto hers.

Then Smulknefire’s scaly tail swept across the open space.

The tail struck Ashley across the body, sending her spinning into the wall.

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Her shoulder hit first, then her back. The impact knocked the air out of her lungs, and a sharp pain flared through her chest.

She clung to the broken stone, her ears ringing and her vision blurred by the orange light.

Above her, Smulknefire opened his mouth, ready to unleash a stream of flame at the approaching winged colossus.

The [Balrok’s Sword] descended.

For a second, it was only a streak of red and black cutting through the dark, plummeting with Aury right behind it Then the corrupted flame around the blade flared, illuminating the entire weapon held high over his horned head as he plummeted toward Smulknefire’s open jaw.

The dragon unleashed his breath. A column of fire erupted upward, wide enough to fill the shaft from wall to wall.

Aury drove the sword down into the inferno. The blade did not cut through cleanly; it bit into the dense torrent of breath and slowed, dragging a black tear through the orange fire as if the flame itself were solid enough to cut. The column split around the edges for a heartbeat before pressing back, forcing the weapon to tremble in Aury’s grip.

Ashley saw her opening. Smulknefire had stopped climbing to maintain the blast, his enormous body filling the passage as it coiled against the walls.

She beat her wings hard, shooting upward past the massive sweep of his tail.

At this range, his body felt less like a living creature and more like literal terrain. Overlapping plates of scale rose beneath her like shields, each catching the firelight in varying shades of deep red.