Chapter 7: Dragons…

Flaming shrapnel ripped from the rock wall, ricocheting off our armor. We quickly jumped out of the way as the side of the mountain exploded, revealing a lindworm fighting with a groncle.

Lindworms were one of the deadliest species of dragons. They were described as giant serpents which walked on two legs in the ADMI training handbook. In reality, a lindworm looked more like a giant crocodile with no hind legs and tight skin without flesh on their face. Their snout pointed at the tip. Horns grew on their neck, forehead, snout, and scalp providing protection when they entered adulthood. The massive tail which they dragged behind their clawed legs was capable of delivering over two hundred pounds of punishment to a poor soul in its path. Occasionally, lindworms would be born with leathery wings enabling them to fly. Fortunately, the one we were facing didn’t have any wings.

What made lindworms so deadly, was their hide. Their hide was thicker than any other breed of animals or monsters and was strong enough to repel blasts of magic. Whacking them repetitively with a big sword was not very effective. Their diet consisted of humans, cyclops, large birds, other dragons and trolls. They usually didn’t eat dragons but they would if they were hungry enough. Their method of catching and snaring prey was to use their black forked tongue to grab smaller and faster prey, like us. Their tongue can stretch for about one hundred and fifty yards at MACH 5 (translation: very, very, very, very, very fast), making running from them useless.

The ADMI training handbook suggested distracting them before retreating. If that failed, one should try to cut off their tongue, but would deliver a ninety-five percent chance of failure followed by death.

Groncles were also quite deadly. They had small stubby wings that buzzed as fast as hummingbird wings, making them agile and they were adept at dodging the lindworm’s tongue. Groncles were small and round, they were categorized as the smallest dragons as their height only ranged from three to five feet tall.

What made groncles so deadly was their fireballs. The sphere of densely packed heat which they spit out of their mouths glowed roughly at one thousand two hundred and seventy degrees Celsius (translation: very, very, very, very, very hot). Their lethal, flaming spitballs could even blast through solid granite! The range of their fireballs was eighty yards. Luckily, they needed three seconds to suck in oxygen before they fired.

Because their hide was thin and blistery, ADMI training suggested firing arrows at groncles. Unfortunately, you needed two archers to pull this off because you needed another archer to shoot an arrow to block the groncles escape route, otherwise it would simply dodge all arrows. If you didn’t have two archers then you would be forced to dodge their fireballs and strike with a melee weapon when they were inhaling.

Urf instinctively nocked an arrow. I put my hand out, signaling him to stop. If we crept past them noiselessly, maybe they would not notice us. Then Imbeseel, being Imbeseel, thought that my hand signal meant ‘let’s rush in and get mauled by two insanely powerful dragons’ and made an advance with his weapon, just when the lindworm managed to swallow the groncle.

The lindworm spun around just to get slammed by a giant double-edged axe between the eyes. The lindworm, unfazed despite being hit with enough force to pulverise stone, head-butted Imbeseel in return. Imbeseel’s chest plate crumpled like tinfoil and he slid over the edge of the path, falling into the chasm below. Fortunately, Imbeseel managed to grab on a lock of hair from Urf’s beard, suspending him midair seconds before he could have became a grease spot in the canyon. The lindworm charged forward, knocking giant boulders aside.

“Gahhh! You big, dumb oaf!” Urf cursed as he pulled Imbeseel out of the chasm.

Grubby somersaulted over its sweeping tail on to its head and repetitively stabbed it in its sunken and beady eyes, destroying its ability to aim before it could grab us with its tongue. He rolled off as the lindworm thrashed around.

We quickly mounted our horses and sped off, before the lindworm got a lucky strike and mangled us in one blow with his fatal tail. The lindworm slammed its tail into the side of the mountain.

“Kra-koom!” The sound of the lindworms strike echoed across the valley.

“Rumble rumble!” Even seconds after the lindworm slammed the cliffside, the noise still echoed across the vicinity. We all looked up to find a huge avalanche of rocks rolling down the mountain loosened by the lindworms strike.

“Hurry!” I yelled.

Grubby let out a high-pitched scream as our horses swiftly galloped down the path, boulders smashing onto the road we left. We galloped at full speed until we were certain that no boulders or colossal, nor murderous dragon were behind us. We stopped to take a break.

“Whew! That was close!” I remarked.

“Yeah,” Urf agreed, “if only Imbeseel understood your complex hand signals.”

“I think most of the credit should go to me!” Grubby boasted. “If it weren’t for my quick thinking by gouging out its eyes, we’d be killed by its tongue. So your welc-ooommph!”

Grubby couldn’t finish what he was saying when an oversized wooden club thwacked him in the chest, sending him flying.