38 – Reasonable Monsters

Ashley twisted in midair, fighting the chaotic draft of the fire and the weight of her own momentum. The fire roared around her, swallowing every sound except the rumbling thunder of Smulknefire’s throat and the high shriek of the corrupted blade plunging from above.

Her hand slashed toward the blue shimmer of her inventory, and the staff materialized in her grip.

The reaction below was instantaneous.

Smulknefire’s pupils contracted into thin black slits within the amber blaze of his eyes. The fire in his throat faltered and died all at once, and the space plunged into sudden darkness. Without the column of flame blinding her, Ashley saw the dragon’s maw with absolute clarity.

The throat beyond his teeth was a smoking abyss ringed by fangs large enough to spear siege towers. The torrent of fire had stopped, but he wasn’t letting her escape.

He meant to swallow her whole.

“So the serpent shows her fang one more time,” Smulknefire rumbled, his voice rising through the dark with a coldness deeper than the dying fire. “You speak of healing with a poisoned tongue, then draw weapons in my face. You and your familiar will pay.”

Ashley gripped the staff with both hands. “I’m not attacking you!”

The shout vanished into the vast cavern, unheeded. Smulknefire’s head shot upward.

The motion was impossibly fast for a creature of his scale; one instant his jaw hung waiting, and the next it surged forward, dragging a wall of displaced air and residual heat.

Ashley kicked her wings wide to dodge, but the air had turned violent in the wake of the extinguished flame. Her feathers caught nothing but turbulence, sending her spinning through a blur of red stone, black smoke, and firelit haze.

Above her, the tainted fire shrieked again.

Aury was closing fast, diving into the void with terrifying speed. His horned, darkened form seemed to swallow the light, his hands locked around the cursed blade. The sword blazed and descended toward both her and the dragon.

She hung between them for one stretched heartbeat, her staff clenched in both hands, and had the very specific thought that Aury was going to owe her an enormous explanation.

“[Stone Spire].”

The staff kicked in Ashley’s hands, the sudden recoil biting into her palms.

The magic didn’t manifest as a neat, uniform wall; there was no time for precision.

Instead, jagged stone erupted from all sides of the shaft in a chaotic, crushing cascade. Spires punched out of the walls as if the mountain itself had suddenly grown teeth, thrusting inward at wild angles and splintering against one another to turn the open space into a jagged, interlocking cage.

Above her, Aury plunged straight into the growing forest of spires.

His blade tore through the first spike as it burst from the wall, spraying shards into the air, but another was already pushing out from the opposite side. Then a third. Then a fourth.

The air filled with stone teeth still grinding their way into existence, lengthening across his path faster than he could cut them all.

One spike caught his wing while it was still growing, driving into the space between membrane and bone and forcing the limb open. Another thrust up beneath him and knocked his fall sideways. Aury’s whole body twisted off course, his sword shrieking uselessly against stone that kept pushing, cracking, and growing around him.

Below, Smulknefire pressed his assault.

He crashed through the lowest spire without slowing. The second exploded squarely across his snout in a burst of sharp fragments. The third drove hard into the side of his jaw and shattered, finally forcing his head to shift.

Ashley beat her wings to pull away from the closing maw.

A fourth spire caught the underside of Smulknefire’s jaw. For one instant, the stone pillar bent under the immense weight. Then it snapped.

But the momentary resistance was enough. The dragon’s strike lurched off-target. His jaws slammed shut on empty air mere meters below Ashley’s heels, the concussive force of the bite blasting a gale of hot wind over her legs and sending her spinning backward through the rising dust.

The space fell into a stunned, fractured quiet.

Ashley hovered in the center of the wreckage, fighting the turbulent air to stay aloft. The staff burned hot against her palms.

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Above her, Aury strained against the stone pinning him in place, but the spell was still growing. More pillars forced their way out of the walls, closing around the widest parts of his body and trapping him at the shoulders, hips, and limbs. Each new growth pressed him tighter into the jagged cage, leaving less room for him to twist, strike, or bring the sword down.

Below, Smulknefire’s eyes locked onto her through the gaps in the broken spires.

For a long moment, the dragon simply stared. Then, his massive jaw parted just enough for his voice to rumble through the gap.

“That,” he said, his tone measured and heavy, “was unwise.”

“You’re one unwise piece of lizard,” Ashley snarled back. “Can’t you see I’m on your side?”

Smulknefire’s answer was a low rumble that made the stone surrounding her newly grown spires tremble. Ashley didn’t wait for him to put words to his anger.

Twisting the staff, she forced another surge of raw power through the spell. The stone spikes groaned, cracked, and then burst apart from the inside out.

Shards flew outward in every direction, opening a jagged path through the mess she had just created, and Ashley shot upward through the gap.

Aury tracked her ascent. One of his arms ripped free from the stone growths, Balrok’s sword still burning in his other hand, and he lunged for her as she passed.

“Not this time!” Ashley snapped.