All The Skills

“Digger! It’s time.” Arthur couldn’t hear himself over the scream of wind as they fell almost straight down, but Brixaby could, and must have relayed the message to the brown dragon.

Their dive was so fast—wings tucked and noses pointed down with the riders pressed against their dragon’s necks—that none of the attacking dragons could reach them. And if they could, they would have surely been bowled out of the way.

No one bothered. To all outsiders, the dive looked entirely suicidal. Some hopefuls watched with partial attention, for when they hit the ground there would be cards to harvest.

However, before they’d even left the hive, Arthur had made sure to get an outline of Digger’s general card powers aside from Stone Skin.

He had been named aptly.

Under them, the onrushing ground seemed to swell up and then part and reshape itself. It was an open maw that led to a tunnel—a pitch-black tunnel, until Sams’s scales shone like a miniature sun and lit the way.

No doubt, all the true entrances to the hive would be guarded by mind-controlled dragons, and perhaps even scourgelings—though there hadn’t been any sign of them so far.

So Arthur had elected to make his own entrance straight into what he hoped was the heart of the underground hive.

As a brown dragon with natural earthen magic, and a local, he knew his hive inside and out.

The tunnel must have opened close to their target because despite the mind-block card and Arthur’s Mental Shield, a slithering lyrical voice rang through his head. Kill the pink, the brown, the silver, the yellow, the red. Leave the Legendaries to me!

Don’t worry, Arthur thought. We’re coming.

A moment later, they entered the mouth of the tunnel.

The air stank in a way that immediately threw Arthur back to his childhood in his borderland village. This was the stink that the scourge brought. Only this was magnified because, unlike the deadened lands at the edge of the kingdom, the presence of the scourgelings was actively rotting away all life down to the unseen nutrients that lived in the soil.

It was worse than the humidity, plugging up his nose and driving out every other scent.

Joy whined but held steady as they flew through the tunnel, though slowing from their dive.

“Opening ahead,” Digger called.

Sure enough, the rocky soil parted into a large open space that must have been part of the hive proper.

Open, but not empty.

Below them, from wall to wall, sat clusters of dragon eggs. Some were patterned. Most were a flat matte color that ranged through the rainbow, though a few special eggs glimmered as if they held a particularly good secret within.

There were hundreds and hundreds of clusters, all containing two to five eggs with occasional singles placed here and there. The majority sat on the stone ground, completely bereft of a nest. Others had twigs or bits of sand swept up and piled around to cushion them. These were the ones that were guarded.

Mother dragons with blank gazes hissed and spread their wings in threat at the newcomers.

Arthur braced himself for an attack, knowing how fierce the females could be. But nothing came.

The answer came from Joy’s agonized cry. “Scourge-touched. Oh . . . look, they’re all scourge-touched, even with cards. We have to help them! Cressida? We can’t leave them like this!”

For a moment, he didn’t understand what she was saying. Dragon eyes were better than human eyes in many ways.

Brixaby shuddered under him.

“What—” Arthur started, but at that moment they flew over a blue who stood on her hind legs to hiss up at them, snaking her neck back and forth. Her color wasn’t uniform: She had a pale white stomach, which was an indication she’d linked with two riders in her life. And one was a mind-mage.

To his horror, Arthur saw red and brown lesions on her pale belly and even more spots that looked like the start of mold . . . or rot.

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Arthur muttered. His hand landed on Brixaby’s neck as he grew sharply concerned for his dragon.

Everyone knew that having a card protected against scourge-sickness and scourge-rot.

Except that Joy had been born scourge-touched. She’d had an unformed card in her core, and the Mind Singer’s presence in a nearby guild had been enough to infect her, even through the egg. So it was possible in certain circumstances.

Had he just put Brixaby in additional danger? What about himself? Everyone who followed him? Sometimes the scourge-sickness took root in the lungs, and every breath reeked of the rot.

No, Arthur thought sharply. They all had whole cards, multiple cards. That had to provide even more protection than a hatchling with a half-formed, defective card.

And perhaps the nesting mothers had multiple cards, too, but they had been living in this enclosed tunnel with the scourge-rot in the air for some time. Furthermore, their minds had been taken over by a scourgeling. The Mind Singer might have done something to suppress the strength of their cards.

Behind them, Laird muttered, “This whole blighted hive will have to be razed to the ground.”

“What about the dragons trapped down here?” Joy snapped. “Their eggs?”

Arthur’s hand clenched on Brix’s neck ridge. “Brix, go down to the blue. Don’t let her bite you.” Who knew what would happen if he got an open wound here?

Brixaby immediately switched positions, buzzing diagonally in a way no other dragon but a purple could. He shot close to the blue-white dragon, who bit at them but missed by a wide shot.

Interestingly, she wasn’t using her card’s powers. Perhaps his guess about the Mind Singer weakening them had been right, or she was striking out with the anger of an animal with no higher thought at all.

It didn’t matter. Arthur readied a riveted mind-block card and fired it. It shot out and struck her under her jaw.

Instantly, the dragon’s eyes cleared. She blinked and looked around and in a hazy voice said, “What? Where . . . My eggs?”contemporary romance

“Collect your eggs and fly out of here!” Joy yelled, circling above her. “Others, too, if you can carry them. Go!”

“Use this.” Digger gestured, and a dragon-sized bowl made of hard-packed earth rose from the ground.

The blue-and-white dragon wasted no time piling eggs into it. Arthur hoped she wasn’t only going to save her own, but he didn’t have time to stick around and see. He prepared another mind-block card anchor and fired it, this time at a green female.

Brixaby helped by getting them as close as possible with his pinpoint flying, neatly avoiding claw strikes and wild bites. Jinking right and left hard enough to make Arthur’s teeth rattle in his skull, he nevertheless got Arthur close enough to practically be at point-blank range.

This was essential because Arthur didn’t have many cards or rivets left, and he couldn’t afford to miss.

Joy trailed as close behind as her flying abilities would allow, screaming instructions at the newly mind-freed female dragons. “Gather all the eggs around—no, not just yours, there’s one right there. Now get out of here before that mind block wears off!”

Some of the female dragons had so many lesions and spots of rot that Arthur wasn’t sure if they were capable of flight.

All were capable of escape, though, and took off in an awkward gallop on foot if they had to.

Digger surged forward to take the lead. “Here. The heart of the hive is this direction.”

If it was, Arthur couldn’t tell. All the twisting, turning, and weaving to get to the nesting mothers had made him completely lose his sense of direction. But this was Digger’s home hive, and he had to trust that he knew the way.

Glancing down at his own mind-block card, Arthur saw that another slice had been carved from the top of the red bar. Perhaps a third remained.

They flew on, and the tunnel around them grew narrower. Soon they were forced to squeeze in and then fly single file.

“I feel earth manipulation all around us,” Digger called back. He’d maintained his position at the front of the line, but his stubby brown wings were in danger of scraping the sides. “Don’t touch the walls!”

As if the walls were listening in, they seemed to flex inward without moving at all. Digger grunted, and the walls shifted back.

Behind them, Laird groaned.

“What is going on?” Brixaby demanded.

The brown shook his head heavily from side to side. But he continued flying on, and everyone took the cue to keep flying after him. None dared stop. “Trying . . . to keep all the earth from caving in.”

“You’re what?!” Laird roared, and Arthur got the impression he would have turned tail at that moment—if not for the fact there was nowhere else to go. Flying away meant being out of Digger’s sphere of influence over the earth. That would be deadly.

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Laird wasn’t the only one who was frightened. The light pouring out of Sams to guide their way briefly flickered as he lost his concentration.

“Let me give you a boost.” That was the mana silver, Tannai, sounding entirely too chipper. With a show of agility Arthur didn’t expect, the silver dragon blew on ahead under Brixaby and Digger.

He twisted so he was flying upside down in a feat that no two-winged dragon should have been able to accomplish except by card power. Tannai placed his claws on Digger’s stomach, directly injecting mana into him.

Digger exhaled, and the tunnels seemed to breathe along with him, expanding into a wider, more comfortable size.

They had more room in the tunnel. But to Arthur’s horror, this exposed very dusty eggs that had been previously covered.

Someone had been trying very hard to entrap them and didn’t care much about the cost.

“Digger—” Arthur started to say, then stopped. He was about to ask if there were dragon mothers entombed in the soil as well. Though, unlike eggs, they would need to breathe, and . . . they were very likely behind help.

“Oh, hey,” Joy piped up, “I just got a quest.”

Laird growled. “Is that important right now?” He still sounded stressed.

Arthur glanced back at him. Though dragon faces were not the most expressive, their body language spoke volumes.

Laird flew with hunched shoulders and wide eyes. He’d gathered all his purple candle-top flames close to him, as if needing them for personal warmth. He was not having a good time in these small tunnels.

“Yes, it is important,” Joy called back. “And I think it’s a neat one.”

“I got it too.” Brixaby sounded beyond delighted, almost to giddiness. “Defeat the heart of the rot and receive . . . a Legendary card!”

“Hey, that’s no fair. I only got a Rare, but the good news is, if we live, the rest of you will also receive complementary cards. Don’t you think that’s neat?” Turning her head, she stuck out her tongue at Laird.

Digger suddenly maneuvered to stop hard in the air. He wasn’t one of those dragons who could hover in place, like Brixaby, and there wasn’t room to turn. Instead, he had to quickly dive to spill forward momentum.

As he did, Arthur caught a glimpse of the reason why: a solid earthen wall had risen before them all.

Unfortunately, he only got that glimpse. Brixaby could stop. The others could not, and a pile-up ensued.

The light flickered dizzily as Sams shifted this way and that to lose his forward speed. Joy tried to dive like Digger. Unfortunately, so did Laird, but he’d been a touch too slow. He clipped Joy, sending her spiraling backward into the tunnel Digger had warned them not to touch.

“Cressida!” Arthur yelled and reached out. But he was much too far away and could only watch for a horrified second that seemed to stretch out, certain she was about to be crushed between the stone and her dragon.

Joy hit and half sank into the wall. It was as liquid as mud, but with a sucking power that immediately started to pull her in.

Though she was about to be smothered, and mud already coated her sides and up to her chest, the pink dragon yelled “Cressida!” with horrified, wide eyes, wiggling as if to see her rider.

Brixaby roared in protest but had the good sense not to dart to Joy and risk being sucked in as well. Instead, he flickered his wings and swooped to join Digger.

The brown had turned and was staring hard at the wall—clearly using his power to try to win Joy back.

As Brixaby entered the brown’s aura, he too, picked up the spell. So did Arthur.

New Counterfeit spell obtained: General Earth Manipulation

Remaining Time: 11 Hours 59 Minutes 59 Seconds

This was Digger’s power and what made him such a valuable dragon, even for an Uncommon. His power was broad enough to be useful in all areas of the earth.

If he’d had any specific power over rocks, over soil, or any single facet, he would have surely had been hatched with a rare shimmer quality to his scales. But he was a dull, matte brown. It fit him.

Arthur and Brixaby both added their strength to the spell. Though they didn’t have the finesse Digger did, they at least had brute strength and determination.

And, of course, they were backed up by Tanai, who didn’t lift a claw to help fight but ensured they were always topped up.

The mud wall seemed to flex, as if fighting them.

“Don’t try to carve her out. You’ll crush her that way,” Digger advised through gritted teeth. His narrowed eyes never left the still-struggling Joy. The mud hadn’t advanced, but Cressida was completely buried. “Just solidify the wall and harden the earth. I’ll break her out.”

That sounded counterintuitive to Arthur, but he had to trust Digger knew what he was talking about when it came to soil.

Though the spell they’d copied didn’t have power over the water in the mud, he was able to feel the particles around the sloshing water. With Brixaby’s help, he used those particles to push the foreign liquid out and away.

The soil around Joy suddenly dried out. Instead of entrapping her, it finally gave her leverage to put her front and back feet down and pull free.

Sams rose up on his hind legs and extended claws out to her, which Joy grabbed with her non-venomous arm.

With a yank and the sound of cracking mud, Joy was pulled free. Cressida, still strapped into her saddle, came with her.

She was covered from head to foot in chalk-white dust and coughing so hard her face shone red underneath.

Joy dropped to the ground, and so did Brixaby. Arthur slid from his neck and ran to her.

It was hard to reach her. Joy twisted this way and that, trying to flex her neck backward to see her rider. “Cressida! Are you okay? If you’re coughing, that means you’re breathing, which means you’re going to be okay, right?”

“She’ll be fine. Joy, stand still!” Arthur commanded. The moment the pink dragon paused, he leaped up, grabbed the dust-coated straps of the saddle, and hauled himself up the rest of the way.

Cressida was bent over, still coughing. It seemed the only clean parts of her were the inside of her mouth and her eyes, which stood out starkly against her chalky-white dusty skin.

He felt over her briskly, trying to be impersonal but aware every second of how close he was to losing her.

“I’ll be fine,” she croaked and gave him a half smile. Louder, she said, “Joy, I’m fine!”

“Do you need my healing card?” Arthur asked.

“No, but you . . . you got me out just in time.”

Arthur’s heart felt like it had frozen to stone. He stared at her, and if Brixaby were a larger dragon, if he was certain he could manage both their weights, he might have done something stupid like scoop her up and carry her to him. Brixaby could protect them both. He could protect anyone.

Behind them, Digger huffed. “I told you not to touch the walls.” He swung his head back to the forward wall, which had halted their momentum. “This is not natural.”

“I could blast through it,” Laird declared then paused. “But the explosion may not be a good thing for us in such a small, confined area.”

Digger shook his head. “No, this isn’t something that can easily be blasted through. It’s as thick as I am long from nose to tail, twice over. Someone wanted us to go no further. Maybe entrap us here.”

Arthur made himself pull away from Cressida. She had straightened up and seemed to be breathing a little easier, though with a rasp. He looked at the wall and frowned. “No doubt another wall will be put up in front of us if we go back. The Mind Singer has every reason to keep us here breathing this rotten air.”

“And it gives the thing more time to gather its forces, or just crush us between the walls,” Horatio said, always ready to lend a gloomy prediction.

A horrified shudder went through Laird’s body. “So we stay here and wait to die?”

“No, no, calm down.” Digger eyed the stone wall again and then let out a heavy sigh. “I have a specialized drill card I share with my rider. It ought to do the trick, but once I use it, I’ll be done.”

“I can give you the mana you need—” the silver began.

Digger shook his head in a slow, ponderous way he had about him. “No, it takes stamina. I should have enough left to crawl out of here afterward, but I’ll be exhausted. But there’s more: if my sense of direction’s right, there should be a large room beyond. We call it the Amphitheater. Can’t say what the scourgeling’s hidden in there for you to find.”

“We’ll have to risk it,” Arthur said.

“Wait, we can’t just leave Digger behind,” Joy exclaimed. “His mind-block card will wear out soon, then the Singer will have him again, and he’ll just be back where he started. That’s not fair!”

The brown didn’t look surprised, just resigned. “Then you’d better do a dragon’s duty and kill the scourgeling before that happens. Besides, I haven’t smelled a hint of my rider yet. Something tells me he’s not ahead, but behind, and down. I want . . . I want to go back and look for him.”

Laird looked like he was at war with himself. For a moment, Arthur was certain the red dragon was going to ask to accompany Digger, too. He was uncomfortable in the tunnels and would want to be paired with someone who could keep them from being buried alive.

At that moment, Arthur admitted to himself he wasn’t sure he entirely trusted Laird. He was completely independent, had his own motivations, and had been the one to pass the message to the portal dragons not to open the way to this hive before Arthur gave the word. They had done so anyway. Was that because Whitaker overruled him, or had Laird backstabbed him?

So he was relieved when Laird pulled a rune net out of his Personal Space type storage and handed it to Digger.

“Stuff as many eggs that still look alive in here. I don’t think every one of the nesting mothers will be able to get them out.”

“I’ll do that.” Taking the net, Digger turned to the wall and narrowed his eyes. “Stand back.”

Arthur quickly remounted Brixaby, and the dragon flew about halfway up in the tunnel and farther back.

Digger continued to stare at the wall, as if trying to burn a hole through it with his eyes. A moment later, that was almost exactly what happened.

A circular section of the wall simply evaporated and left a straight tunnel all the way through. It looked just big enough for Sams and Laird to crawl through if they tucked their wings in tight.

Laird groaned at the sight of it.

Digger sagged in exhaustion, but no one made a move to step forward.

“It’s safe to touch this wall,” Digger breathed through pants, guessing at their hesitation. “The drill charm effectively . . . destroyed the enchantment, but I’ll have to watch it from . . . this side to be sure.” He shook his head again. “Hurry.”

“Forward!” Brixaby yelled and shot through the tunnel. Due to his size, there was plenty of room for him. Arthur didn’t need to dismount. Neither did Cressida, which was good because she was still recovering.

Horatio unbuckled himself from his dragon’s saddle and jogged alongside Sams, who had to practically crawl along on his belly to get through. Tannai was next, followed by Laird, who looked like every step cost him.

They made their way as quickly as possible, though Arthur gained some sympathy for Laird’s fear. He got the impression the walls could snap shut at any moment—indeed, that they wanted to, but only Digger held them back.

As Digger had promised, the thick wall ended and opened into a massive open underground area. He suspected this had once been a meeting area, or perhaps a craft market. There was artwork on the walls and carvings in the stone. All of it had become faded and dusty, and like everything near the scourgelings, spotted with a fine layer of growing mold.

And it was now a place of horror.

The first sign was the stink, which was worse than even scourge-rot. This was of active organic decay.

As Sams fully emerged, bringing the light with him, Arthur’s eyes caught a glimpse of rainbow color. He turned to see . . . dragon bodies. Tiny bodies from the size of medium dogs to small horses, all piled up in a mound that rose to the height of a building. They’d been tossed away like unwanted scraps of clothing. Broken shells littered the area with blood spotting the white insides in a garish display.

The scourgelings had indeed been farming the newly hatched dragons. And this was the harvesting area. It seemed as soon as the new dragons were hatched, they were . . . disposed of, and the cards from their cores taken.

It was horrific. Arthur turned away with a grimace.

Then his gaze landed on the middle of the room.

Sitting on a small clutch of eggs, like a queen on her throne, was a snow-white dragon.

Or at least, she would have been pure white if not for the weeping lesions on her head, neck, and body.

This white dragon—a mind-mage—was under the control of the scourgeling.

She raised her head and stared at them.

Then, despite the mind-block card, Arthur felt a psychic attack go straight through his skull.

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