Sci Fi & Fantasy / The Dragon and the Sparrow - Chapter 3 (Analysis)
The Dragon & The Sparrow – Chapter 3
He started towards the mercenary to stop him from carrying away the Lady, but Sindara, he saw, arrived there first. Now, a flash of movement heralded the arrival of a new group of combatants ready to enter the fray. A sigh of relief escaped his lips as he realized that the new group was The Queen’s City Guards. They had decided to move forward and to take the mercenaries from behind when they realized that the mercenaries were getting the upper hand. They immediately began to turn the tide of battle.
Sindara, meanwhile, immediately engaged the mercenary trying to carry off the Lady. She wasted no time dispatching him, and directed her men to assist in what would soon become a rout of the mercenaries. But first, in order to secure this victory, Balthazar would have to locate the Mage responsible for the deaths of so many of the Lady’s guards. If not, he would pick off all of the soldiers, even the Sindara, one by one.
Balthazar glanced back to Sindara and was relieved to see her, her flanks guarded by five of her men, carry the Lady to a group of soldiers who had arrived from other sections of the city to quell the trouble in the plaza. They carried the Lady Galina towards the safety of the palace where the Royal Chirurgeon would see to her health. Looking to the struggle between the mercenaries and the Queen’s guards with the Hunter-Killer squadron laying into the mercenaries themselves, Balthazar was satisfied that everything was going well on that front. The mercenaries were being pushed further back into the side street into the human buzz saw that was the Queen’s City Guards, who were laying into the remaining mercenaries from behind.
This was a good thing, he did not want any of his men in the plaza when he and the Mage commenced the battle between them that was about to happen. He scanned around the plaza seeking out the Mage. He was sure that the mage could not have come from the East or the West, as the mercenaries had tried entering the plaza from the East, while Balthazar and his men had entered from the West. To the North lay the palace grounds, so that left the South entrance to the plaza.
Balthazar looked in that direction and immediately spied the Mage. He was standing in the shadows of one of the buildings on that side of the plaza. He was perhaps three inches taller than Balthazar, but his thin frame gave the impression that he was much taller. His hair was silver, matching the color of the snow and ice he wielded. He sported a short beard called a goatee that was the same color as his hair. The color of his eyes was a blue like that of ice. As he watched, the Mage was hurling freezing blasts of arcane energy towards the soldiers engaging the mercenaries, picking them off one by one. He was working hard, as the introduction of the men of the City’s Guards and those that arrived with Balthazar and Sindara had swelled their numbers. The contingent fighting the mercenaries was now alot larger than that of the mercenaries.
Balthazar began moving towards the Mage in order to remove him from the battle. Then the Mage noticed Balthazar and turned to face him. He sneered at the Prince and spoke to him.
“Ah! I see that the young Prince comes to the rescue. How noble! But, I should warn you, as you can see from the shattered remnants of the Lady’s guards lying about, that you do not stand a chance against one such as me. I have the element of ice at my command. Your cause is hopeless. Surrender the Lady to me and I shall spare you and your men. If you refuse, you and your men will die a cold death!”, the Mage said.
Balthazar studied the Mage closely. He noticed that the Mage was not very muscular. He did not sport any calluses on his hands that Balthazar could see. His overall muscle tone, from head to foot, was not very well defined. This man had lived a soft life up to this point, and he appeared to have no weapons training as, aside from his generally fit physical condition, he carried no weapon that Balthazar could see. This man was no fighter. He relied only on his magic to fight. He wondered what would happen if his magic failed him. Well, he was about to find out.
The Mage, having made the mistake of assuming that Balthazar’s hesitation was due to fear, decided to goad the Prince further, hoping to cause him to flee in fear.
“I see you hesitate, oh Prince. Do not worry, that is not fear, it is wisdom to fear that which is stronger than you. Take your men and go! Cede the Lady to me, and I will spare the lives of all those here. Refuse, and I will destroy you all!”, he said menacingly.
Now Balthazar smiled, because it was clear that this Mage was completely uninformed as to the powers and skills of the members of the royal family of the Dragon Clan. This Mage was in for quite a shock. Now he addressed the Mage directly.
“Arrogant fool! You obviously have come unprepared for this little mission of yours. You think me afraid, when in fact I have spent the last few minutes studying you and observing your strengths and weaknesses. You think your self safe from my sword arm because you are protected by your magic. And the nail on the head is, you assume that you are the only one present who has powerful magics at his disposal. Fool! While it is true that you could deflect my sword from doing you harm, this does not guarantee your safety. Now see what magic is available to the royal family of the Dragon Clan!”
Now it was the Mage’s turn to stand transfixed by what he saw. As he watched, Balthazar’s shape started to change. His clothes disappeared into the grey matter, a plane outside this reality that was where his clothing, weapons and accessories shifted to when he changed. He started to grow, and as he grew, his back started to sprout leathery bat-like wings. His legs extended, grew longer and changed shape to form hind legs shaped like a cat’s. His arms grew longer and sprouted claws. He head changed shape too. His face elongated, grew a snout with a mouth that held teeth like daggers. His nostrils flared smoke and little sparks of flame emerged from them. He let out a piercing howl that transformed into a dragon’s roar as he changed. And he grew taller. As tall, if not taller, than many of the buildings standing in the city, perhaps 30 feet in height. The Prince had changed form into that of a Dragon!
Ramon de la Nieve, this was the Mage’s name, was stunned! He had no idea that this Prince could do that! He was a shape-changer, and his main form was a Dragon! Ramon’s information was all wrong! Not one agent had informed him of this ability of the Prince. This was an important omission for someone to make! A Dragon could blast him to ashes in short order. His ice powers would have no affect on him! He had to think of something fast!
He looked to his mercenaries and saw that they had been killed to the last man, and the Prince’s men were retreating from the plaza, but remained stationed at the entrances to the plaza. They were far enough away that he judged they wouldn’t try to attack him from behind. Besides, if the stories of Dragons were true, being close to a Dragon when he unleashed his flame was not anywhere that anybody wanted to be. Only another Dragon could survive the terrible heat generated by Dragon flame. Ramon scanned the rest of the plaza and saw that it had been evacuated, thus eliminating the possibility that he could use a hostage to escape this situation. All avenues of escape were blocked but one. He could not turn his back to run, the Dragon Prince would run him down before he took more than a handful of steps!
He would have to fight this Prince himself and take the opportunity to escape when it presented itself. He began hurling bolts of ice at the Dragon, hoping to encase him in a block of ice thick enough to hold him so that he might escape.
Balthazar felt the blasts of freezing cold hit his dragon form. Ice formed on his body, but the heat he was generating inside helped to weaken the ice enough for him to crack it and shake it off of his body. Inside his body, he was building up his dragon flame. He wanted to build it up to a level where he could destroy the Mage with one blast of his flames. While this tactic would serve to bring a quick end to this battle, it was also dangerous for Balthazar. Balthazar could continue building his heat up inside of himself, but there was a limit to how much heat he could contain within himself. If he went beyond that limit, he would burn himself from the inside out and destroy himself. The organs inside his body could not handle as much heat as his outer scales could. The scales, on the outside of his body, were made to withstand the heat of another dragon, should he have cause to fight one.
A Dragon has two stomachs, one upper and one lower. The lower stomach was where a Dragon’s flame was generated and sent, via an esophagus like tube, the inside of which was covered in scales that could withstand any heat, out through the mouth. The tube that the dragon’s flame passed through ran alongside the feeding tube, up through the throat, and led along the top palate of the dragon’s mouth to the front of the mouth. This biological arrangement allowed the dragon to handle a greater level of heat within him or her than any other animal living. Still there were limits he had to be aware of.
Now, for the first time since he first laid eyes on the Mage, Balthazar saw fear spread across the face of his opponent. Balthazar could see that the Mage now knew that his cause was lost. His men were all dead, killed to the last man by the Queen’s guards. He could only try to survive his battle against this Dragon Prince, and try to make good his escape. He turned to face the dragon, he had no choice now but to fight.
Balthazar had turned away from the Mage while changing into dragon form. Due to the pain of transformation, his body writhed during the change so that he was turned away from the Mage when he had completed the change. He turned now in the direction he had last seen the Mage standing. The Mage was causing blinding snow to fall in addition to the bolts of ice he was hurling at the Prince. Ice formed all over Balthazar’s dragon form with every bolt of ice hurled at him. The heat building up inside of him weakened the ice enough for him to crack and shake off the sheets of ice forming all over his body.
The snow was creating vision problems for everyone but the Mage. He could see clearly through the blizzard of snow as if it wasn’t there. As if he was looking through the light of a bright sunny day.
“Mage sight is a wonderful thing!”, the Mage thought to himself.
Ramon de la Nieve knew that his attacks could not hurt the Prince in his present form. He had to think of a way to escape the immediate area with no one being aware of it. Right now, the Prince and everyone else were looking towards the area they thought the Mage should be. If he could be in two places at once, he could escape with nobody being the wiser. Right! Small chance of that! While he was steeped in Mage knowledge, he had yet to discover how to split himself in two without killing himself! He’d have to find another way. Then he got an idea. Ramon increased his barrage of ice and snow in order to carry his new found plan out to a successful conclusion.
Balthazar’s movements were starting to slow due to the barrage of ice that kept encasing him each time he shook off a sheet of ice forming on his body. The constant barrage was making him sluggish. The only thing keeping him from being frozen solid was the dragon flame he was building inside of himself. As the heat within him increased, the ice encasing him over and over, became easier and easier to shake off. But the blizzard of snow, still falling in large amounts, was still making it difficult to see.
Sindara and her men, standing just outside of the plaza, and far enough away to keep from becoming an accidental victim of the Prince’s wrath, was worried about Balthazar.
“Balthazar is building up his Dragon Flame inside himself in order to end this quickly. The problem is, if he doesn’t remain aware of his limitations, he will end up killing himself! I have to assume that my Prince knows what he is doing and act accordingly.”, she thought to herself.
“Esteban!”, she called to her sargent. “Take ten men and circle around to the South entrance to the plaza. I want you to cut off the Mage’s last avenue of escape.”
“Yes Captain, at once! It will take some time to make it around to that entrance. We will have to take the long way. All of the alleyways that lead to that section have been barricaded in order to slow down the mercenaries in their escape should they have been fortunate enough to survive this battle and sought to retreat.”, Esteban informed her.
“Ancestors! Sometimes we can be too smart for our own good! That was a good plan as long as there was a chance for the enemy to escape. Now those preparations are just going to get in the way! Oh well. There is nothing we can do about it now. Just take the men and make as good time as you can. Hopefully you will arrive in time to stop the Mage if he tries to make good his escape.”
“Yes Capitan.”, he replied, and off he went with ten men to secure the South end of the plaza.
Balthazar, meanwhile, had finally turned in the general direction he thought the Mage had been located. Bolt after icy bolt struck him, encasing him in ice over and over again. He was still cracking the ice and shaking it off, but he was growing tired of doing so. He would have to end this soon, before he grew too weary to keep it up much longer.
The snow cleared a little and he caught a glimpse of the Mage hurling icy bolts at him. Just as quickly as the sight appeared, it disappeared. He would have to wait for the next opportunity to strike, and then strike quickly. He didn’t know how long the window of opportunity would stay open. Certainly the first opportunity that presented itself happened very quickly. He would have to strike quicker.
Baltazar watched, patiently waiting for the opportunity to strike. A couple of times he thought the opportunity presented itself, but it was too fleeting a time to be able to strike precisely. He must be accurate with his attack. If he missed, it would take too long to build up enough flame internally to be able to win this battle. The time it would take to build his flame back up would leave him exposed, and he had no desire to be turned into an oversized block of ice. So he watched and waited, trying to discern a pattern that would let him time the intervals when the snowfall would diminish. Finally, he saw his chance.
“Now!”, Balthazar told himself.
Through the snow falling all around, he caught a glimpse of the Mage long enough to pinpoint his location. Balthazar now let loose a blast of Dragon Flame. Across the intervening distance between himself and the Mage, the Dragon Flame blasted. Melting or reducing to ash anything standing in it’s way. The heat from the flame was radiating in all directions, spreading out through the plaza.
“Thank my ancestors that Sindara evacuated all of the people in the plaza. Including her men, and herself. No one would be able to survive the heat now present in this plaza!”, he thought to himself.
Indeed, as he was blasting the area ahead of him, trying to destroy the Mage, he could see and hear all of the windows of the buildings surrounding the plaza shatter from the heat. The ones he could see ahead of him were melting like ice melting to water. The ground ahead was turning to molten slag. He knew that not even a Mage with ice elemental magic could withstand that terrible heat. On and on the flames poured forth from the Dragon Prince. Until, finally, his flame spent, Balthazar sat back on his haunches trying to see what damage he did to the Mage.
Sindara, still watching from outside the plaza, saw that Balthazar had used up all of his flame. She squinted to where the Mage was last seen, trying to see what damage the Prince had inflicted on the Ice Mage. Heat shimmers were still rising in the air, as the awesome heat of Balthazar’s attack started to dissipate. Sindara saw the damage done to the plaza and exclaimed.
“Oh my ancestors! Look at all of the damage to the plaza! The Royal Bursar will have a fit when he is apprised of the cost to the Royal Treasury for reparations! Oh, and when the Queen finds out, there will be Hell to pay!”
From Balthazar’s view, he could also see the damage wrought to the plaza and knew that Sindara was right. The Queen would be smoking mad! Literally! If she was mad enough, Balthazar would be lucky to walk away with a public scolding. Otherwise the Queen was quite able to administer a hard enough kick to his posterior that he would find it difficult to sit for a week! Hopefully she will see that Balthazar did not have a choice in the matter.
“Well, there’s nothing for it but to make sure that the Ice Mage had truly been destroyed. Hopefully mother won’t singe my tail for all of the damage I did.”, Balthazar thought.
The heat shimmers had subsided and Balthazar could now see the spot where the Mage had been standing. In the spot where the Mage had been, there now was only a small puddle of water lying in a small depression in the ground. Balthazar was amazed that there was anything left at all to mark that the Mage had even existed, much less mark where he stood.
Balthazar could now change back to human form. Had he changed back before the heat had subsided, he would have been killed instantly. His human form could not withstand the heat generated by his Dragon Flame. He transformed back into his princely form. He approached the puddle to examine it. He expected the puddle of water to be hot to the touch. He was amazed when it was cool instead.
“Incredible! There should be no trace left of the Ice Mage! The power of my Dragon Flame should have vaporized any trace of his existence!”
Sindara, now seeing that Balthazar returned to his human form, judged it safe to enter the plaza. She ran across the plaza to her Prince’s side.
“Well done my Prince! You handled the situation perfectly. You kept aware of your limitations and stayed patient until the proper moment. I can see that you took your hunting lessons seriously. I can now honestly say that you are one of my best pupils. I am proud of you. However, whether the Queen sees it as I do, is another thing altogether. I hope she gives you forbearance in this matter. After all, you really did not have much of a choice.”
A look of concern crossed Balthazar’s face when she said that. “I hope you are right. Mother can sometimes act precipitously when angered. Hopefully she will see that I had no other choice. Now as for this puddle of water…”, Balthazar said as he bent to examine what seemed to be all that remained of the Ice Mage.
“Careful!”, Sindara exclaimed as the Prince reached to touch the puddle. “After all of the Dragon Flame you directed upon the mage, that puddle has to be almost boiling even now. If you must touch it, do so very carefully.”
Balthazar reached out towards the puddle. Very gingerly, he touched the surface, expecting to be burned by it. He was amazed by what he felt.
“Ancestors! The puddle is cool to the touch! How could that be?! Not only should the puddle be hot to the touch, by all rights it should not even exist!”
Sindara was also amazed. She had never seen anything or anyone survive a blast of Dragon Flame before. It was almost unbelievable! She reached out and touched the puddle and sure as she was kneeling there, it was cool to the touch! Incredible!
“My Prince! I have no words to explain this phenomenon. I have never seen it before. This situation gets more and more curious. First, we are attacked in order to create a diversion so that whoever planned it, could attacj the palace while security was at it’s lowest. Second, we rush to the palace, only to find out that the attack was not going to be on the palace itself, but on one of the guests of the crown visiting for the Harvest Festival. Third, what we thought was an attempt to assassinate a member of a Ducal family, turned out instead to be a kidnapping attempt. And last, but not least is the fact that a Mage was brought in to run this operation, not too mention that nay part of him remained intact after being blasted with Dragon Flame. What is going on?!”
Balthazar stood up from the kneeling position and looked at Sindara with determination in his eyes.
“I’m not sure what is going on here, but I am surely going to get to the bottom of it. One thing I am sure of is that the Lady was the target of a kidnapping, and whatever is happening, revolves around her in someway. We need to interview her as soon as she is able to speak. Maybe we can find some clue to all of this from the answers she gives. Sindara, have Esteban return the troops to their guard positions for the festival. You and I are off to the palace.”
Sindara called Esteban over as he entered the plaza from the South entrance with his ten men. He looked at the puddle on the ground and said:
“Well, it seems our Prince took care of the situation. Nothing left of the Ice Mage but a small puddle of water. I’d say that is Justice to the extreme!” he said with a smile.
“Yes. Our Prince conducted himself admirably. But this situation raises more questions than it answers. The Prince and myself are returning to the palace to question the Lady who was attacked and see what answers we might glean from responses. You take all of the men and return them to their posts around the city. Hopefully no one noticed the absence of the guards and tried to take advantage of this incident to enrich themselves at a merchant’s expense.”
Sindara rejoined Balthazar and, accompanied by a ten man squad, began the trek back to the palace.
“So my Prince. What froze to the spot when the Lady was being attacked? I have never seen you hesitate in a battle situation before.”, she said, a hint of mischief in her tone. “Could it be that the Lady in question was so beautiful that you were struck dumb? Was she so beautiful that even your legs had to stop and have a look? Why, whatever could have created such a fog in your mind that you couldn’t make a move to save her? Hmmmm?” she said teasingly.
Balthazar, for his part didn’t make a reply. The only sign of what he felt was the sheepish look on his face.
“Ha, ha, ha. So, I am right! You were taken by her beauty! Oh, no! Here we go again. I hope that this time you are able to discern the difference between lust and love. The last time, the maid in question only wanted one thing from you, and you were pitifully disappointed when you found out she was not in love with you. You were so disappointed, you moped around for two weeks! You were so pitiful that I felt sorry for you and had to take you out for an evening of drinking and wenching. That finally got you out of your doldrums.”, she laughed.
“Ugh! Please don’t remind me! I think the hangover alone would have been cure enough. But after being taken to every bordello in town, why even the most lovesick puppy would have forgotten his misery. It was a wonderful night, but the next day was terrible! I never knew that my head could hurt so much! And how cruel could you be? Keeping the hangover remedy the Chirurgeon made from me until fully two thirds of the day had passed. That was mean.”, Balthazar replied.
Sindara giggled as she replied, “Well, you deserved it! You drove me crazy for two weeks with your whining and complaining about losing the “greatest love you had ever known!” You were all of sixteen summers old! What did you know about love? But, I really shouldn’t have been cross with you. After all, you were just a child. It was your first experience of any type with a woman. Small wonder you were smitten by your first taste of a woman’s charms. Just don’t let that happen this time around, or it will be more of the same cure that I gave you before.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let that happen again. One hangover like that in a century is plenty enough for me.”
“Good. But judging from the way you looked at that Lady today, I’d say that you were well on your way to being smitten yet again. Though this time I can’t fault your taste in women. She is absolutely breathtaking. If I were a man, you’d have competition. Prince or not. Huh. I have a feeling that this is the one who you will marry. Don’t mess it up!” Sindara replied with a big grin on her face.
Balthazar didn’t answer. He just blushed. Then, thinking about facing his mother with the news of the destruction of one of her plazas, his look turned to one of dread.
(c) copyright 1998-2008
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This 145 word review has not been unlocked.
Not a bad story line here. However, may I suggest using a more variety of adjectives? There are a few lines here and there that maybe you should look at again. One that really stands out is the …mother won’t singe my tail…I am not sure about that one. I also am not sure about the lines defining where the flames come from in the dragon. A one or two liner on this would be better for me as a reader. Overall, it’s pretty good.
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grammar/spelling some left out yous /words the dialog bettween prince and Mage was corny. Needs more menance like oh….now I’m gonna smash your ##$%$ b ut you dont have to cuss just give it attituded ya feel me! overall all its good
Wow. I really like the characters and I’m so glad I had the priviledge to read it as well as review. Your characters are well defined and very convincing. I would get someone to read it behind me for spelling and grammatical errors and silly stuff like that. I really think you have a talent worth shaping and you need to go with it. Keep it up, ‘cause you never know when your writting can save you, get you somewhere, or even just score you cool points. Great work! Keep it up so the whole world can someday see it!
Flamebringer15
i wasnt to sure of the story line but it was a good read, i felt asthough i could visualise the character Balthazar
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