Murtagh

From the murky depths of the lake rose Muckmaw, silt streaming from the corners of his enormous, shovel-shaped mouth: an ancient monster made of stone scales, sharpened ridges, and hateful malice.

Murtagh raised his right hand, the one with his gedwëy ignasia, and prepared to cast a spell by thinking the word. Even if he couldn’t directly affect the fish with magic, he could still shield himself or else attack the beast with water or flame or other means.

Before he could, the monster wriggled forward with shocking speed, moving faster than any creature Murtagh had seen before, even Thorn.

The fish’s mouth closed about his right arm, and he felt the bony plates within its maw grinding against his skin. Then the creature began to thrash and roll, dragging him through the water.

Murtagh’s head snapped from side to side. Yellow stars flashed before his eyes, and he had to fight not to let out all his air.

His wards kept the fish from ripping off his arm. But they didn’t do much more. They couldn’t. He’d never thought to restrict his own movement.

He glimpsed Thorn’s head and neck sticking under the water, like an enormous serpent. And he saw one of Thorn’s forelegs reaching toward him, claws extended.

Then Muckmaw dove deeper, spiraling as he went. Murtagh felt himself slam into the bottom, and a cloud of impenetrable mud billowed up around them. He tried to focus well enough to cast a spell, but the fish wasn’t giving him the chance.

Muckmaw dragged him across the freezing lakebed. His back, left arm, and legs banged into rocks, and the impacts left his skin numb.

Murtagh’s lungs burned, and he felt his wards sapping his energy at an alarming rate.

He groped for the dagger he’d taken off bird-chest. His fingers brushed the hilt of the weapon, and then it tumbled away, knocked loose by Muckmaw’s violent thrashing.

Desperate, Murtagh flailed, trying to catch hold of something—anything—he could use as a weapon.

A few seemingly endless moments of fumbling and then…

…his hand closed around a long, hard object that felt more like a rod of iron than a piece of wood.

He grabbed it and yanked it free from the sucking mud and stabbed it toward Muckmaw’s broad head. Kverst! he cried in his mind.

A bolt of static seemed to run up his arm along with the shock of impact, and he felt himself grow faint as the spell consumed what little remained of his energy. Then new strength filled him as Thorn joined his effort, sustaining him as the spell’s demands increased beyond reason.

A brief flash of light emanated from the point where the rod pressed against Muckmaw’s brow, and then Murtagh felt the object sink through flesh and bone, deep into the fish’s armored braincase.

The fish convulsed and released Murtagh’s arm. Before Murtagh could swim out of range, Muckmaw’s enormous tail slapped him broadside and all went black.

***

Murtagh regained awareness with a panicked start. How long had he been unconscious? It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Muckmaw was still twisting and thrashing perhaps twenty feet away.

Fire filled Murtagh’s lungs and veins. He was going to burst or pass out if he didn’t get air, but he refused to open his mouth. If he inhaled water, he’d have no chance of reaching the surface.

He kicked and clawed upward.

Another wash of red dragonfire illuminated the interior of the lake, and for a moment, Murtagh lost all sense of time or place. Thick ropes of water weed rose like great floating vines around him, swaying softly through the teal water. Billows of mud drifted from the track Muckmaw had gouged across the lakebed, and a mesh of shadows flickered and wavered throughout. And rising from the morass of mud and slime, like sun-bleached branches stripped of bark, was a forest of bones: arms and legs and hands hooked in claws of anguish. Bracers and cuffs and tattered garments hung from some, and scraps of tendons and withered muscle. Hundreds of dead, consigned to the deep, consumed by the fishes and insects and lesions of green mosslike growths. A battalion’s worth of shields, swords, and spears lay scattered among them, the wood soft and decayed, the steel plated black with rust.

Murtagh stared with horror. Then instinct jolted him back to reality, and he tore at the water with his hands and scissored his legs until—

His face breached the surface. Air struck his skin, and he gasped, unable to empty and fill his lungs fast enough. His vision went red and dark around the edges, and he again sank under the water.

Then a rough, pointed object slid under his back and arms, lifting him. He rolled over and clung to Thorn’s head with all his strength.

I have you, Thorn said.

Murtagh hacked and coughed, unable to answer, but he held Thorn even tighter.

They were over a hundred feet from the shore; the dragon lay in the water, most of his bulk hidden beneath the surface, only the spikes along his spine and the tips of his folded wings showing.