Blue Diamonds (Book One of The Blue Diamonds Saga) Read Free Page B

some universal scale, only that I want less people to suffer. Maybe it would have been better if you hadn’t interfered, and we let the beasts die. I think your precious diamonds, as well as your blasted quest to influence the scales, only make the scales more complicated. Before them no damn ultimate weapon existed.”
    Sir Williamdale gestured at the box with disgust, spun around on his heels, and then stomped back to his men.
    He looked down at the scroll in his hand, only then realizing that he had crumpled it into a ball during their chat. He quickly flattened the scroll and shoved it under his cuirass, weary of curious looks from his men, all while attempting to mask his fluster. Unfortunately, it was not the soldier’s eyes he should have worried about.
    Halfway back to his tent, what little shards of moonlight that could be seen above momentarily vanished, cloaked by a black form that whisked overhead from behind him. It wasn't hard for him to register that it came from the direction of the patch of forest Ambrosia had pointed to only minutes prior.
    Only the dragon didn't come at them burrowing through the jungle as he expected, but must have climbed a tree and jumped over, aiming for the direct center of his garrison. He didn't like being on the wrong end of an attack, but the general couldn't help feeling a moment of relief that the battle would commence. The fighting came naturally, it was the chasing and the waiting that bothered him. He was a warrior, not a hunter.
    Instinctively, he drew his golden broadsword, forged of the same magical elements of his impenetrable armor, and pointed it toward the flying shadow. Those who were close to him stood and drew weapons, knowing the signal all too well.
    The shadow landed forty feet from him, to the rear of the gathered soldiers with a crashing of cracking wood, entwined with screams that were squeezed from the lungs of crushed men.
    “Kill the beast!” screamed the general. The remainder of the men heard the call and rose in uniform to face the commotion.
    “Archers fall back to my right!” he ordered, knowing they would be useless in close combat.
    Ambrosia was already beside him, he realized from the chanting that reverberated throughout the forest, and the following crack of a lightning bolt that streamed by. So near was the bolt that one side of his body tingled with electricity. The shot was devastating, scoring a direct hit to an oak tree whose center exploded into splinters, causing the men to stop their charge momentarily.
    In that brief instant the area was illuminated, causing great confusion. The confusion did not spawn from the lightning bolt, for the men were already accustomed to going into battle alongside the sorceress. What halted the attack was that there was nothing to charge. When the bolt illuminated the forest it was plain to see that nothing was there but a giant, uprooted tree. There was something clearly disturbing about the tree to Sir Williamdale. Something very out of the ordinary.
    “My God…” Sir Williamdale’s eyes widened as the logic hit his brain. There was a massive uprooted tree, but there was no hole in the ground from whence it came.
    Like it was a weed, the dragon had uprooted and thrown the tree in hopes to shift the direction of their attention. It was a strategic distraction, which immediately pumped liquid fear into the general’s heart, because he knew that the distraction had worked to perfection, and that they were now on the wrong side of a surprise attack. Without even being touched, he knew he might have just witnessed their deaths.
    Williamdale spun around and saw Ambrosia frozen in an expression of terror that matched his own. He screamed for her to run, but it was too late. A thick spike, the tip of the dragon’s tail to be accurate, burst from her midsection. The dragon speared it perfectly into the center of her back. The only sound that escaped her lips was from the air being knocked from her lungs.