? ? ?

  Hexabulous came to ground, loose wet stones slipped under his clawed feet—the landing was less than graceful—he toppled, debris scattered amidst a downpour of the Weeping Wyrm’s tears.

  His skull was still ringing from the impact with the barrier, his vision blurred.

  He tasted blood in his mouth, spat it out, and realized he had bitten his own tongue.

  Internally, he was seething: "That bloated slug dares—!"

  Hexabulous heard detonations overhead, he felt the heat wave from it wash over him, clearing his head.

  He looked, blurred vision gone, and spotted RX414 circling the Wyrm.

  The machine was unloading sequential attacks against the barrier—missiles, beams, cannons—testing it, probing for weaknesses.

  There wouldn’t be any. The Weeping Wyrm was nothing if not potent in its ability to shield from harm. It always had been.

  Hexabulous moved to rejoin his ancient companion, wings spreading wide as he readied to take to the sky again.

  He stopped. Something was wrong. The leathery membranes felt hard, stiff, and were getting worse by the second.

  With a sniff he determined the problem, his wings had become coated by the moist excretions that flowed through the streets.

  They were acting as a binding agent. He had to clean them off. Fire would suffice—a resource that was in no short supply for a dragon.

  Before he could open his jaws, a deafening roar filled his ears, the streets shook beneath him; he let out a low growl, understanding the Wyrm was moving.

  Its mind was pressing down on him, it didn’t matter, he pressed back. Body tensed, muscles coiling, sword drawn to strike. He would carve a Hexabulous-sized hole through it, if it thought it could get so close!

  Pain flashed through his legs, it was sudden, excruciating. A poison pulsed into him, drawn by his own raging blood and the rhythm of his heart. Two-pointed lances had pierced through dragon scale and thick hide, black and dripping.

  The arms of Ossuran had struck when he had been least prepared. It had been lurking around the periphery of the city for this moment.

  Hexabulous turned his grip, ready to sheer them away with his weapon, but they withdrew with a snap. He grunted stubbornly, refusing to lose his legs again, despite the agonizing venom attacking his flesh.

  Then the roar of the Weeping Wyrm reached him, buildings collapsing as it shifted, a wave of debris rolling ahead of it.

  The Red Dragon was swallowed under the shadow of the Wyrm.

  ? ? ?

  Mereque threw his shoulder against the massive boulder and strained, rolling it uphill through heaps of debris until it lodged at the perfect angle. He reached down, got a hand beneath, and tested the leverage.

  Grace watched from a safe distance, thirty yards away. Wide eyed. She knew he was strong, but she never imagined to this extent.

  His HUD pulsed (amber → red burst):

  OBJECT MASS: 146.2 TONS

  ESTIMATED VOLUME: ~56 M3 (GRANITE DENSITY)

  LIFT CAPACITY: 178 TONS (CURRENT LOAD: 85%)

  PROJECTED THROW RANGE: 180–220M (OPTIMAL ARC)

  REQUIRED VELOCITY: ~52 M/S

  BURST MODE: AVAILABLE (OVERCLOCK RISK: 72%)

  RECOMMENDATION: PROCEED — IMPACT POTENTIAL: CATASTROPHIC

  You don’t say.

  He had to not roll his eyes at his internal systems. Decades of training—following countless surgeries—made him intimately familiar with the full scope of his strengths and limitations.

  With a low grunt he shifted his grip, let the rock settle back slightly, then ducked fully beneath it. He straightened—slow, controlled—and the boulder rose above his head.

  It was larger than he was: roughly twelve feet cubed, rough and jagged, weighing almost one hundred and fifty tons—according to the telemetry streaming from his implants.

  No native of this world, past or present, could have managed it. Mereque was built differently: a product of lost science, engineered for deep-space voids and worlds that crushed ordinary men. The weight was within his limits; only the sheer bulk made it awkward.

  Grace’s whisper still echoed in his ears: “Listen, when we see we have a chance, I’ll bring his guard down, you beam him in his fat melon.”

  She had given him a knowing smile, and he couldn’t help but grin when he saw it. He had trusted her without question and gone hunting for the heaviest thing he could throw.

  Now the moment neared.

  Grace stood whispering a tune only she could hear. He watched carefully, trying not to think how absurd it all was. A swirling vortex of golden mist tunneled through the ash-choked air, spiraling intently toward the Weeping Wyrm’s bloated mass.

  His HUD flashed (a soft blue):

  ANOMALY: UNCLASSIFIED ENERGY SURGE

  SOURCE: GRACE (FAY ALLY)

  INTENDED EFFECT: SHIELD DISRUPTION

  SUCCESS PROBABILITY: DATA LACKING

  Stolen novel; please report.

  RECOMMENDATION: PREPARE TO LAUNCH!

  Wait.

  Beneath the Wyrm’s folds, Hexabulous fought like a trapped inferno—claws raking, sword stabbing, flames peeling skin in blackened sheets. Yet for all his primal fury, the dragon was pinned. The Wyrm’s sheer weight smothered him more surely than any claw or fang.

  Worse, it drowned him. Torrents of caustic tears poured from ruptured ducts, flooding the ground in corrosive lakes that blistered stone and boiled flesh.

  Hexabulous had miscalculated—met the monster head-on instead of striking from surprise—and now paid the price. Pound for pound he was the stronger, but the disparity in mass made the Wyrm his equal in this brutal grapple.

  Overhead, RX414 rained fire: cannons thundering, beam arrays flashing, missiles blooming in prismatic fury. Every strike shattered against the invisible barrier the Wyrm projected, the same shield that had rebuffed the dragon moments earlier.

  His HUD pulsed (urgent red):

  ALLIED STATUS: HEXABULOUS – CRITICAL

  VITALS: STRAIN 92% / OXYGEN DEPLETION

  BARRIER INTEGRITY: 100%

  INCOMING ORDINANCE: INEFFECTIVE

  RECOMMENDATION: IDENFITY ALTERNATE ATTACK VECTOR

  Wait.

  He took a long breath and steadied himself.

  As the Red Dragon thrashed beneath the Wyrm's crushing weight, choking on the foul brine that flooded his jaws, his flames sputtered and smoked—emerging in long, weakened streamers as though the fire within him was being slowly doused. At that moment, the magic of the Leprechaun’s Daughter corkscrewed forward, piercing straight into the monster’s arcane defenses.

  Mereque waited behind the vortex, the massive boulder balanced in his hands—a slab of rock heavier than RX414’s metallic frame.

  Sweat beaded on his brow as he held it steady, muscles of reinforced carbon weave straining under the load. He watched Grace intently for her signal, every fiber primed for the instant she gave it.

  She smiled tersely and nodded, her wavy red hair bouncing with the motion.

  His HUD pulsed (soft blue):

  ARCANE BREACH CONFIRMED

  SOURCE: GRACE (FAY ALLY)

  BARRIER INTEGRITY: COMPROMISED

  WINDOW: 4.7 SECONDS ESTIMATED

  RECOMMENDATION: LAUNCH

  Now.

  His implants had already run the calculations: exact force, velocity, trajectory for a devastating strike against the vile creature.

  When he released, the boulder launched with the power of a battleship broadside.

  The air cracked sharply in its wake.

  His HUD flashed (steady green):

  TRAJECTORY LOCKED

  LANDING SITE: HEAD REGION

  VELOCITY: 412 M/S

  IMPACT ENERGY: 1.8 GJ

  PROJECTED DAMAGE: CRITICAL

  OBSERVATION: GOOD THROW

  The throw struck true—precisely through Grace had opened a breach in the protective warding. Wholly distracted by its clash with the guardians, the Wyrm never saw the boulder coming.

  The impact produced a deep, muffled boom—like a rolling boil or an ice shelf calving into the sea.

  The rock buried itself at meteoric speed, displacing flesh in an explosive spray. One side of the creature’s head burst outward in a grisly rain of blistered tissue and viscous chunks. The roar of agony that followed matched the devastation in scale.

  Whatever rudimentary face the Wyrm possessed was reduced to ruin. The force of the blow made the monstrosity recoil, shifting its grotesque, overweight mass just enough to release Hexabulous from beneath it.

  The dragon stumbled free—still choking on bile, hobbling on at least two shattered limbs and countless unseen internal injuries.

  The wound gaped wide, visceral and horrific, exposing what lay beneath. To Mereque’s later reflection, it was the most startling revelation: glaring out from the ruined mass, filled with hatred and loathing beyond imagining, was a single clear white eye with a red-rimmed iris, set deep in a socket of bone.

  His HUD flared (urgent amber):

  ANOMALY DETECTED: BONE STRUCTURE

  BIOMETRIC SCAN: NON-STANDARD

  IDENTFICATION: ANALYZING…

  OUTPUT: … INCOMPLETE

  What the hell is it?

  Amid the carnage of torn tissue, long pointed teeth glinted—revealing that the creature had a skull after all. It was no simple invertebrate, despite its name and worm-like appearance.

  His HUD pulsed (soft amber):

  ANOMALY SCAN COMPLETE

  STRUCTURE: VERTEBRATE CONFIRMED

  TEETH COUNT: 147 VISIBLE

  OCULAR FEATURE: SINGLE – RED IRIS

  OBSERVATION: CLASSIFICATION WORM INCONGRUENT WITH REGISTERED BIOLOGY—NEW CLASSIFICATION PENDING

  The Weeper’s tears had begun to dry, exposing what the overlapping folds of pale skin had concealed. The damage had sloughed away one side, laying bare the skeletal truth beneath.

  Hexabulous staggered free, gasping and coughing up thick wads of phlegm that splattered the ground. Through blurred vision he spotted them and limped in their direction. His legs injured, yellow puss oozed from holes on either side.

  Grace had already climbed back onto Mereque’s broad shoulder, eyes wide with marvel at the damage they were responsible for. She could not look away from the ruined monster above; what they had achieved surpassed her wildest hopes. She had only meant to distract the beast long enough to aid their new allies. Not peel half its face off.

  Then the Wyrm did something startling.

  A geyser of molten flames erupted from the remnants of its mouth—an immense orange-red cloud that rolled over everything in its path. Only Hexabulous’s last-second intervention saved them; the dragon flung one massive wing over the pair, shielding them from the inferno.

  Mereque’s HUD flared (urgent red):

  THERMAL BLOOM DETECTED

  TEMPERATURE: 1,800°C+

  RADIANT HEAT SPIKE: LETHAL

  SHIELD INTEGRITY: DRAGON WING – 97%

  RECOMMENDATION: MAINTAIN COVER

  Since when could it spit fire?

  As suddenly as the blast had come, the Wyrm vanished, along with the answer to his question. It turned downward, melting a tunnel into the earth and dragged its grossly oversized, pus-slicked bulk into the depths with frantic haste.

  The unexpected expulsion of fire left Mereque scratching his head. He would never have guessed the creature capable of such a torrent—especially after it had shown only the ability to disgorge volumes of its own vile fluids.

  With the Wyrm’s retreat, the Blanched descended into hysteria. A tidal wave of them surged from the outskirts where they had hidden, suicidally hurling themselves toward the former site of the First Temple—plunging into gaping trenches and raging fires as though compelled to follow their fleeing god wherever it had gone.

  His HUD pulsed (amber):

  BEHAVIORAL SCAN: SELF-DESTRUCTIVE GROUP ACTIVITY REGISTERED

  SUBJECTS: BLANCHED– 400+

  COMPULSION SUSPECT: PSYCHIC LINK

  HAZARDS: COLLAPSED INFRASTRUCTURE / FIRES / HIDDEN ENEMEIES

  RECOMMENDATION: EVACUATE AREA

  Yet for all those who threw themselves into suicidal devotion, just as many Blanched turned their fury on the perpetrators who had dared assail their sacred Shimmering City—summoning hordes more in an imminent, relentless tide.

  Mereque and Grace looked up. The Red Dragon loomed protectively over them, gravely wounded yet unhesitating in placing himself between them and harm.

  His HUD pulsed (amber):

  ALLY STATUS: HEXABULOUS

  INJURY ASSESSMENT: MULTIPLE FRACTURES / INTERNAL TRAUMA / POSSIBLE POISONING

  VITALS: STABLE BUT DECLINING

  TREMOR DETECTED: 18% MUSCLE FATIGUE

  RECOMMENDATION: EVACUATION PRIORITY – HIGH

  “Our thanks, Master Hexabulous!” Grace shouted up at him.

  The dragon turned his head away as if he hadn’t heard, pride forbidding any acknowledgment of her gratitude.

  To their surprise, he spoke—humbly, for all his gruffness. “Bah! Quiet, Fay girl. The only thanks owed here are mine—to you and the spaceman—for pulling me out of that mess.”

  “We need to leave,” Mereque said, concern sharpening his voice. The dragon’s injuries were grave; even without enhanced vision, the tremor rippling beneath those scales was unmistakable. “Can you fly in that condition?”

  “Har! Don’t fret, little human. RX will get us clear.” Hexabulous waved a clawed hand in dismissive bravado—even as he coughed up a clot of dark blood.

  Then silence fell.

  The dragon’s nostrils flared. Ears swiveled. He froze, sensing something the others could not.

  His head snapped up, eyes narrowing in sudden, deadly focus.

  Mereque’s HUD flared (emergency red):

  THREAT DETECTED: BALLISTIC INCOMING

  SOURCE: UNKNOWN

  TARGET: OPERATIVE NO.002

  — MEREQUE VENTRULLIS —

  DISTANCE: 180 METERS AND CLOSING

  ALERT: IMPACT IMMINENT

  RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE EVASION

  — GET OUT OF THE WAY!