I turn—and see my rescuer.
A shadow with wings.
Scales like obsidian.
Golden eyes burning through the dark.
The dragon.
It dives, plummeting toward the deeper side of the lake with a vengeance. Its massive, winged body slams into the kraken, unleashing a torrent of flames so hot that the water begins to boil.
The dragon bellows, wings thrashing and claws tearing, ripping through a mass of tentacles. Blood still dripping from its claws, it whips around and soars toward me, its scales glistening in the moonlight like freshly smelted armor, every movement graceful and terrible.
I turn and try to swim away, not yet ready to trade one monster for another, but the dragon snatches me from the water and surges into the sky. The water churns below, and my stomach follows its lead.
Tentacles whip out toward us. One coils around the dragon’s barbed tail; another lashes around its hind leg.
The dragon bellows in defiance, wings straining against the monster’s strength.
Then it opens its massive black maw, and fire erupts out, spilling across the lake like the light of dawn. The water hisses, steam exploding in all directions. The kraken recoils with a deafening shriek.
The dragon lifts me higher. My body dangles from his claw, trembling, bleeding, soaked.
But a sudden strike from below sends the dragon reeling midair. One wing folds, sending us into a spiral. I slip from the dragon’s grasp and plummet toward the lake. I tuck my arms across my chest and straighten my body.
The lake slams into me like stone. The world spins. My vision blurs. I can’t breathe, can’t see. Darkness closes in.
Just when I think I’m about to succumb, I’m surrounded by heat and a familiar hum, something ancient and alive.
Enormous claws wrap gently around me, lifting me from the water and closing around me. I fear being crushed, but I blink through the haze, and the creature’s molten gaze finds mine as it tucks me to its chest, cradling me like something precious.
Moments later, I feel sand beneath me as it lowers me gently to the ground. I blink up to meet its fiery gaze, and for a heartbeat, I swear he sees me, sees into my very soul.
Then, with one powerful sweep of his wings, he’s gone.
The sky ignites in fire and fury as the two monsters clash once again—ancient power warring with ancient hunger.
I watch, dazed, as the dragon coils midair, baiting the kraken higher. The monster lashes out with thorny limbs, but the dragon spins and weaves, drawing it into a fatal dance. Tentacles snare the dragon’s legs, and his body shudders. His wings beat once, twice, and on the third beat, he hoists the kraken up.
The water bulges, then splits apart as the monster surfaces. Limbs unfurl—long, barbed, slick with black water—each one as thick as a tree trunk and lined with thorned suckers that writhe and grasp. The creature rises higher and higher, its bulk impossible, obscene. A crown of pale flesh and jagged ridges breaks the surface, followed by a cavernous maw ringed with hooked barbs, its body coiling beneath it like a living abyss.
Not a beast.
Ahorror.
It hangs suspended above the lake, a writhing mass of pale flesh and shadow, its limbs thrashing, its body slick and vast, water cascading from it like rain. The dragon arches midair, muscles burning, wings screaming against the strain.
Then he strikes.
With an earthshattering roar, his jaws clamp down on what appears to be the creature’s throat. The sound reverberates across the mountains as the lake below turns red.
They plunge together.
Dragon and monster vanish beneath the surface in a violent explosion of water and blood.
The lake seals over them.
Stillness. Silence.
