Rune Seeker - Book 3: Chapter 30: Enter The Dracolich

Hiral stepped into the small clearing in the woods, then held out his left hand in front of him. Tattoos and Meridian lines stood out white on the black Coat of Ur’Thul—Left and Right part of him now—and he focused on the small, shard-like piece of glass within his Interspatial Ring.

Reflection of the Dracolich – Unknown Rank

A reflection of a great beast which can be used as a mount to traverse difficult terrain—or even the sky itself.

Note: The Reflection cannot be summoned while the user is in combat.

Note (2): Any damage to the Reflection will cancel its summons.

Note (3): Due to the size of the Reflection, it can carry up to three passengers.

Note (4): The Reflection can be summoned directly from an Interspatial device.

Note (5): If the Reflection’s mirror is destroyed, the Reflection is lost forever.

With just a touch of solar energy, the shard responded to his will, and bone-white smoke billowed out of the ring in a tight funnel to pool directly in front of him. Bigger and bigger, the cloud grew until it towered above him. Something moved within, stalking back and forth, the chill of the grave wafting out. A large, lizard-like, head-shaped shadow turned in Hiral’s direction, and two pools of blue flame sprang to life.

A roar shook the forest and blasted the smoke away like it’d never been there to reveal a massive, skeletal dragon. Skinless wings flared out to its sides as it stretched, blue flames filling the spaces between the digits, and it took a ground-shaking step towards Hiral. Down dipped a head as big as he was, teeth like curved swords lining the maw, and a low growl rumbled from its chest. Eyes narrowed in challenge…

Hiral rapped it on the nose with his knuckles.

“Don’t be like that,” he said as the head jerked back slightly. “It’s not that I didn’t want to call you out more, but look around. This forest isn’t made to have you sneaking around in it.”

The Dracolich craned its head around on the segmented bone neck that didn’t actually connect bone to bone, then finally dropped down again to nuzzle its nose up against Hiral.

“Fine, fine, I know…” he said, walking to the side of the head and reaching up behind one of the bone plates to scratch at it. “Just for a minute before we go,” he added as the Dracolich’s back leg started rhythmically thumping against the ground in time with the ministrations.

“You’re not going to say wuji, wuji, wuji this time?” Seena practically shouted over the deep purring coming from the undead dragon’s chest.

“That’s only when I rub his belly,” Hiral told her, though he couldn’t meet her eyes as he said it, heat running up his cheek. Who knew ancient, undead monsters of legend were so attention-hungry? Or cuddly?

“This behavior is an embarrassment to the image of the army I strove to create,” Li’l Ur said. “Who would ever fear a… a… a…” The tiny lich trailed off as the Dracolich lifted its much larger head up to peer down directly at him. “Per… perhaps the image is intact. I with… withdraw my comment.”

“You’re probably lucky that eating you would count as combat and unsummon it,” Seena said, poking her little companion in the side.

“We could always test it,” Hiral said, and Li’l Ur glared at him for only a second before he noticed the Dracolich’s gaze.

“Maybe later; we should probably get going,” Seena said. “Your ride told the entire forest where we are with its entrance.”

“He just wanted the attention,” Hiral said, gently patting the Dracolich as it lowered its head in embarrassment. “It’s okay. Nobody is mad at you. Come on, give me your leg so I can get up.”

With the word—or maybe the intent behind it—the Dracolich extended its foreleg to allow Hiral to climb up to the saddle on its back. Unlike the beast they’d battled back in The Lost Palace of Creeping Death, this undead dragon wasn’t missing any pieces. It had all its legs and wings, and its ribcage hadn’t been half-removed by whatever had killed it.

It also couldn’t breathe wide swaths of city-killing, death-attuned fire. But… trade-offs.

A few nimble steps put Hiral comfortably in the saddle, and even without a belt or strap of any kind, he knew he wouldn’t fall no matter how the Dracolich flew. Something like my Rune of Attraction going on here.

“Ready,” Hiral said as fire bloomed out of Seena’s ring.

The gout of flame built into a large sphere, just a bit taller than she was, then split as the phoenix spread its wings. Much like Hiral’s mount, this one immediately went over to rub its face against Seena’s, but only after a small bow of respect.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It must feel the connection to its mother through Seena.

With that done, the phoenix quickly turned around, spread its flaming wings wide, and then lowered itself level with the ground. While its wings stretched fifteen feet from tip to tip, its legs were comparatively short, and positioned like that, Seena easily stepped up onto its back. Unlike the Dracolich, there was no saddle on the flaming bird’s back, and Seena could ride it standing up without fear of falling.

“You two are such attention hogs,” Yanily said, already on the back of his gryphon as it pranced around the foot of the Dracolich. Its feathers and golden fur practically shone under the sunlight, and was that Hiral’s imagination, or was the monster purposely showing off that it had its natural wings?

Apparently, Hiral wasn’t the only one who thought that. The Dracolich rolled its blue-flame eyes at the smaller creature.

“What are you all waiting for?” Seeyela asked from above them, sitting on the back of her Nightmare. With its flaming hooves pawing at the air and fiery tail snapping in indignation at waiting, the mount looked down on everybody with pure disdain.

“Ready to go?” Hiral asked the Dracolich, giving the bone in front of the saddle a pat. “Let’s show that snotty horse what real flying looks like.”

Out snapped the dragon’s wide wings, each longer than Seena’s phoenix was from tip to tip, and power seemed to gather in the blue flames there. There was no way something like the Dracolich could naturally fly, but the magic it commanded was nothing to scoff at.

“Move, move!” Yanily urged his gryphon. “You remember what happened last time,” he added as the mount sprinted off and leapt into the air, wings flapping furiously to get it above the treetops.

Seena and her phoenix were only a heartbeat behind, her arms crossed as she stood proudly on the back of the racing bird, while Li’l Ur had one hand wrapped in her hair as he held on for dear life.

“It’s all you,” Hiral said, and the Dracolich’s wings whipped straight down while the undead dragon itself shot straight up.

WHOOOMP! The air shuddered from the force of its liftoff, the trees around the clearing bending outward while leaves and branches went flying away. Hundreds of feet in the air in seconds, Hiral waved at the others while they just shook their heads, then turned his attention to the distant islands.

They’d moved much closer in the hours since the party had been in the zone, but they were still miles away. And so were the Rocs.

Hovering there, the dragon’s powerful wingbeats kept it stationary while its back half hung lower in the sky, and Hiral watched the large birds circling in the distance. Six of them, including the monstrously large one, spread out across the horizon. Occasionally, one of them would shoot down from the sky and come back up a short time later with a titanic fish of some kind in its claws. Dinner caught, it would fly towards the rocky area on the far side of the EnSath River, only to be replaced by another Roc waiting nearby.

It’s like there’s a… pecking order… as to who gets to hunt and when. Except for the big one. What’s it waiting for?

“Everybody ready?” Seena asked, floating up on one side of Hiral like some sort of monarch, arms crossed and her flaming mantle streaming behind her.

“Been ready and waiting for a while now,” Seeyela said, her Nightmare trotting along the air like it was solid ground. The horse gave Hiral’s Dracolich a look out of the corner of its eye, then seemed to turn its head away with an audible tsk.

“I’ll go first,” Yanily said, his gryphon flapping up in front of Hiral and the others. “Thunderclaws is the fastest. If the Rocs come after us, I’ll distract them.”

“Thunderclaws?” Seena said. “Wait, your gryphon?”

“You named your mount?” Hiral asked.

“You didn’t?” Yanily asked right back at the same time the Dracolich’s head turned around to look at Hiral on its back.

“You want a name?” Hiral asked the dragon.

One clear, sharp nod in answer.

“Now?” Hiral asked.

A second nod.

“Before we go? To save the islands?”

A third nod.

“Uh… okay. You do realize I’m terrible at naming things, don’t you? My doubles are Left and Right, after all. You sure you want this?”

A fourth nod.

“Got it, no talking you out of this. Let’s see. Something better than Thunderpaws…”

“Hey! It’s Thunderclaws, and it’s a great name,” Yanily said. “Don’t listen to him. You’re beautiful.”

“You already have the name your mother gave you,” Seena said over the party chat, though she was obviously talking to her phoenix. “Yes, Vilistriz is your… Fine. Fine. I get it, you don’t want the same name as your great-great-great… What do you think of Vili, then? Yeah? Great. Vili it is!”

“I’ve got it,” Hiral said. “How about… Drake!”

“Drake the Dracolich?” Seeyela asked. “You really are terrible at names.”

“Coming up with something on the spot is too much pressure…” Hiral said, but the horned, dragon-skull in front of him was nodding again. “Wait, you like it?”

Another nod.

“Okay… Drake… uh… That’s your name, then,” Hiral said, gut still twisting in shame at how bad the name was. Then again, if the Dracolich—Drake—liked it, who was Hiral to complain?

“How about you, Sis?” Seena asked. “You got a name for your new friend?”

“Easy,” Seeyela said. “Her name is Bliss, because of how happy and friendly she is.”

“She?” Seena asked.

“Happy?” Yanily asked.

“Friendly?” Hiral chimed in. “Are we all talking about the same mount?”

Another tsk from the Nightmare, and even Seeyela was glaring at Hiral. “Can we please just go?”

“Everybody happy with their names?” Seena asked, though she glared at Yanily for even starting the whole naming thing. “Good. Let’s go home.”