48 – Dragon-Tamer

“If I hurry, I can catch her.”

Ashley spread her wings and jumped, the cracked opening in the ceiling just above her head.

“Wait,” Simon said, his fingers locking around her wrist before her feet could clear the floor. His knuckles whitened, his jaw straining to anchor her down. “I’m coming with you.”

“Don’t be silly,” Ashley countered, pulling against his grip. “You’ll be in my way.”

Her wings down-beat, driving a gust that scattered loose frost across the ground. Simon’s weight hung from her arm, the iron chain clinking against Gomp’s side, arresting her upward momentum.

Cold air poured through the gap while ice crept along the stone fissures. The distance between her and the target widened with every second.

Ashley bared her teeth and strained upward.

Smulknefire’s skull swung into the airspace between Ashley and the exit, blocking the path with a wall of dark scales.

Simon froze. Ashley maintained her stance, the staff leveled forward. Two ancient eyes fixed on her face, the frost-rimmed chamber mirroring in their dark irises above a deep, smoldering heat.

“What do you want?” Ashley asked, her voice flat while she continued to fight the air currents. “Don’t you want your son back?”

“Pirak’sosh matters,” Smulknefire said, his voice vibrating through the stone floor. “The Eternal Flame matters more. Both have been taken. Both must be returned. But without the flame the world is destined to die.”

He’s lying.

His eyes betrayed the words. The moment he spoke Paco’s draconic name, his gaze drifted toward the breach. Despite a millennium of forced guardianship over that Flame, his focus remained low, refusing to track the upward path.

Ashley kept her expression neutral. “Fine,” she said, shifting her footing. “We agree.”

“I will carry you up,” Smulknefire said, his skull lowering at their level. “Jump on my back and save your energy for when you need it.”

Ashley squeezed the severed horn, her knuckles pressing against the dense bone as she lifted her chin. “Then let’s move.”

Simon stepped forward before Ashley could move.

The priest looked as if every sensible part of him had tried to step backward and found nowhere to go. Then his hand closed around the chain at his waist, and he drew in a careful breath.

“I’m coming too,” he said.

Ashley turned to gaze at the priest.

He swallowed, but he did not look away from the dragon. “I did promise I would help set this right, and I intend to see it done.”

Gomp froze beside him. But his eyes moved from Simon to Smulknefire, then up the dragon’s vast form, finally drifting at the opening above.

“Well,” he said, forcing his shoulders back. “I’m also on a kingly mission.”

He lifted one finger, as if that made the next part official.

“You’ll have to carry me as well.”

“This isn’t another stroll through a dungeon,” Ashley said, her gaze shifting from one to the other. “Do you understand that Celestine matches my strength? And we don’t even know what waits above, or where she took Paco. I can’t keep you safe if things go south.”

Simon nodded to Gomp and raised [God’s Bane]. The enchanted edge sheared through the iron links between them, sending the severed chain clattering across the bedrock. Both approached Smulknefire’s scaled snout with resolute rhythmic steps.

Simon gripped the edge of a ridge-scale, hauling his torso upward while his right hand maintained its lock on the sword hilt. “Don’t care. I can handle myself,” he called down, his boots finding purchase in the deep grooves of the dragon’s hide.

Gomp reached for a lower protrusion, his fingers hooking into the seam of the scales as his iron-shod boots scraped against the red skin. “You’ll need me to lead you,” he grunted, hoisting his frame after the paladin. “Remember I’m the leader here.”

Then he muttered “I’ll show that overgrown lizard, he went ahead without my permission.”

Smulknefire’s vertical pupil widened, tracking their ascent as his skull remained stationary. “The one who names the danger,” the dragon rumbled, the resonant frequency vibrating through the plates beneath their hands, “has already decided to walk into it.”

Simon’s silhouette disappeared over the ridge of the dragon’s shoulder, followed by the gnome. The overhead breach loomed dark above the cavern.

Ashley tightened her fingers around the dense bone of the horn, a low exhale escaping her lips.

Simon’s head appeared over the ridge of Smulknefire’s shoulder, his hair wind-tossed and his smile far too steady for a man climbing onto an ancient dragon.

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“Are you coming or not?”

From somewhere behind him, Gomp’s voice rose, strained but impatient.

“Hop-hop. We don’t have all day.”

“Fine.” She kicked off the stone, her wings spreading to follow them onto the spine.

Her heels struck the dragon’s back. Simon stood three scales to her left, his posture anchored, his face pale but resolute. He nodded once. Behind them, Gomp sat wedged between two dorsal ridges, his right hand pressed flat over the royal medallion pinned to his tunic, his lips moving beneath his beard.

“Gomp Glompity,” he murmured, his fingers tightening against the scales. “Dragonrider?”

Ashley turned toward Smulknefire’s skull. The plates beneath her feet felt warm, each scale broad as her forearm. The underlying muscle contracted. She crouched lower and opened her [inventory].

The horn vanished, freeing her hand.

For half a second, the interface flickered at the edge of her vision, waiting to name what she had taken.

[Aury].

No description appeared beneath it.

Ashley stared at the empty space where it had been, then rapped her knuckles twice against the dragon’s hide.

“Let’s go.”