THEY WERE INCREDIBLY fast. Their shrill hawklike screams—which had been inaudible when they were so far up in the sky—sounded in the distance one moment, and the next moment were filling the air, threatening, it seemed, to pierce Rick’s eardrums.
He looked up toward the suddenly deafening noise and could not believe how close the nearest creature was—and what it was: a beast the size of a dinosaur with the horned leathery face of a desert reptile and webbed wings that nearly blotted out the sky. Its gray eyes were the size of cannonballs. Its mouth opened on a double row of bent and bloody teeth. The noise of its cry was like a weapon: the sound waves billowing from its mouth hit Rick like a hammer, stunning him, blasting every thought from his brain.
There was a horde of them. They were all around, swarming and circling in the yellow air above him. But even as Rick turned to see them, the nearest one plunged out of the tendrils of orange mist and dive-bombed straight toward him at full speed.
In that moment of confusion, dazed with noise and terror, Rick heard Favian cry out, “Run, Rick!”
But Rick was frozen to the spot.
Favian, exhausted as he was, flashed away like lightning—but Rick just stood there. Even with his legs in good shape, he could never run fast enough to escape that diving thing. Unable to think what to do, he stood rooted to the spot, gaping in helpless terror as the screaming sound enveloped him, as the diving dragon’s mouth grew larger, nearer—opened wider and wider as the thing prepared to rip him in half with those shark-like teeth. In the instant before it struck, the only clear thought pounding at Rick’s mind was: I’m about to die!
Then, just then, a wall of silver slashed like a shield across the narrowing gap between Rick and the diving dragon. The creature’s enormous horned and lizardly head was turned aside by the force of the watery metal. It stopped the creature midflight. It threw him off course. The dragon swept past Rick like the great shadow of death—so close he felt its hot breath on him and the wind of its collapsing wings blew his hair back on his head.
The dragon fell. It hit the earth and skidded toward the moat, throwing up a spray of red dirt on either side of its huge body. Its impact shook the ground so violently Rick stumbled a step and went down on one knee.
As the creature of the air slithered around trying to right itself, Rick looked about him in a daze. What just happened? What had saved him?
He saw her. Mariel. She had risen from the moat as she had risen from the lake, her body forming itself out of the mercury-like substance as it rose like a wave, turbulent and shimmering, above the turbulent, shimmering surface.
Amazed by her sudden presence there, Rick remembered Favian’s words: She travels by water!
Her lush, liquid form was turned to one side, and Rick saw that she had flung a curtain of her own substance between him and the onrushing dragon. That was the sheet of metal water that had turned aside the beast’s attack. The liquid shield now dropped from the air and splashed down onto the red banks of the moat, splattering into droplets, which then slid and skittered like living creatures back into the main body of the moat.
At the same time, Mariel straightened, rising up stately—and beautiful, Rick noticed, even in her war-like mode.
“Rick,” she said. She pronounced the single word so calmly that it seemed to snap Rick out of his bewilderment and draw him toward her.
He rose to his feet. At the same time, the fallen dragon thrashed itself upright. It bent its four pillar-like legs beneath its enormous body. Its tail lashed back and forth one time, the end of it coming within a yard of knocking Rick over. Then it flapped its leathery wings and leapt—and launched itself back into the air.
As it rose and banked, the tip of one wing scraped Rick’s shoulder. It wasn’t much of a blow, but it sent him spinning away from Mariel. He had to fight to stay upright, to regain his balance. At the same moment, there was another shriek. Another of the dragons plunged from the circling horde and dove toward him. Its scream instantly became a deafening weapon as its massive shape blotted out the world.
“Go to her, Rick!” Rick heard Favian shout. “Go to Mariel!”
Rick saw him. The sparkling spirit had fallen to his knees at the edge of the moat, to the right of Mariel. He was reaching out with both hands toward the floating purple diamond on the far side of the water, near the fortress walls. He was drawing energy out of the portal point and into himself. Rick could see the radiance pulsing out of the diamond and entering Favian’s palms. He could see the spirit growing brighter as the diamond shrank away to a small point of purple light.
Don’t destroy it, Rick thought. I’m going to need that thing to get home, and soon!
There was no time now to check the clock in his palm, but he could feel the seconds ticking away.
“Go to her!” Favian shouted again. “Now!”
Rick turned to run, glancing over his shoulder at the second dive-bombing dragon. He did not think he could reach Mariel before the creature struck him. And if he did reach her, he couldn’t imagine what the water spirit could do to save him before the beast snapped him in half with a single bite.
But he tried it. He ran. He stretched his legs across the red ground toward where Mariel hovered above the silver water, her beauty and majesty part of the water, her form shimmering and reflecting the chaos around her as the water did. He ran—and the scream of the dragon enveloped him from behind. He felt its presence hurtling toward his back. He felt the wind of its wings. He felt the sound waves of its shriek pounding at him. He knew it was seconds away from catching him in its jaws.
And then Favian flashed to his side, his energy recharged. Rick saw him unleash a purple blast from his hand, just as he had in the woods against the spider-snake. That forest blast had knocked the spider-snake unconscious, but the creatures of the air were too massive, too powerful. All the same, when Favian’s purple burst struck the charging dragon in the chest, it hit him hard. The dragon was stopped midflight, its long neck twisting in pain. Its four feet clawed at the air as it was hurled backward. Its wings folded, and it fell to the earth at a small distance, the impact shaking the ground again so that Rick was nearly toppled over as he ran.
But now Rick reached the moat. He stood beneath Mariel, gazing up at her. In the seconds before the next dragon’s assault, a dozen impressions of the water woman crisscrossed his mind. He saw the quick-witted intelligence in her eyes. And the courage in the set of her mouth. And that look on her face again that reminded him of his father’s look of faith, determined faith. He felt she was practically willing him to be the rescuer she and Favian needed, the hero they were waiting for.
The idea made Rick feel weak inside. He had been a hero once. He had walked around the school grounds with a swagger. He had been Rick Dial, the quarterback, Number 12. But those days were over. They seemed to have happened a million years ago, and he did not know how to bring that swagger back.
All this flashed through his mind in an instant, less a thought than a half-formed confusion of feelings—yearning, doubt, weakness, the fear that he would disappoint her.
Then the screams of the dragons above him filled the yellow air, erasing everything else—everything but the sight of Mariel rising majestically out of the silver moat before him, hovering in front of the black shape of the massive fortress at her back.
“Lift your sword, Rick,” she told him.
Rick heard the strain in her voice. He saw the weariness etched into her majestic features. He knew that each effort that she—and that Favian—made on his behalf was costing them energy, causing them to fade. He remembered the poor dead-and-yet-not-dead creature suffering in the tunnel . . . How long before Favian and Mariel used themselves up for his sake and became things like that?
There was another ear-piercing shriek from the sky.
“Lift up your sword!” Mariel thundered at him again. It was not a request.
Rick forced himself not to look up at the dragons, to keep his eyes on her. He grasped the copper hilt of his sword, drew it from his belt, and lifted it into the air before the silver woman rising from the moat. Fear and discouragement filled him at the sight of that pitted, rusted blade. Mariel had told him that his spirit would make the sword stronger, but he didn’t have enough spirit for this. Killing the already wounded spider-snake was one thing. But if he tried to hit one of these flying monsters with this poor excuse for a blade, it would shatter into pieces.
The attacking dragons cried out again. It took all Rick’s courage to stand there holding up his sword, not to turn and look, not to bolt and run.
Mariel lifted her arms, crossed them before her so that the V of her forearms framed her queenly face. Then, in a quick, slashing motion, she brought both arms down together, flinging them out to her sides. The movement hurled a gout of silver water from her body. The water splashed over Rick as he stood before her with his sword upraised. He expected the impact of the mercury-like stuff to knock him back, but instead it draped itself over him gently. It covered his body, covered his sword—and clung to them, and coated them with silver.
Now, Rick saw with wonder, the sword was no longer rusted iron but shining steel, the last droplets falling from the blade as it hardened in his hand. The weapon flashed in the sourceless light from the yellow sky. And he flashed, too: his body. Like the sword, his chest and legs and arms were now sheathed in metal. He was suddenly clothed in shining armor like one of those knights in the old King Arthur stories his father had read to him when he was a child.
He gaped at his sword, at himself . . . at his new self . . . so like one of those heroic knights of old, he somehow couldn’t help but feel a little bit braver than he’d felt a second ago. A lot braver, actually. It was as if Mariel had clothed him not only in armor but in courage. Suddenly he felt as strong as . . . well, as his old self—stronger!
“It’s all on you now,” said Mariel in a weak, hollow, fading echo of a voice. “I can’t do any more.” Even as she spoke, she was gone, tumbling wearily from the air and splashing back into the flat surface of the moat from whence she’d come.
Rick saw her go, and ached at his core. He understood that it was her strength, her courage, her very substance she had given him.
It’s all on you now.
He looked at his now-gleaming sword, his gleaming armor.
He thought, Well, then, I have to try . . .
But the words were blasted from his mind as the air was shredded by another head-splitting shriek.
Once again, the creatures of the air were upon him.