Doomraga's Revenge by T. A. Barron Read Free Book Online

nodded, forming a spark in his hand. He peered at it, rolling it from his fingertip down to his palm, before tossing it into the campfire. The spark glowed bright for a few brief seconds as it sailed through the air, then vanished in the flames. Quietly, more to himself than his friend, he repeated, “Every person.”
    At that instant, Basilgarrad caught sight of something strange. Just at the edge of his vision, a tiny creature moved, edging toward a cracked volcanic rock. A leech! The small black worm—with twisted folds of skin, a circular mouth, and a lone dark eye—crawled lazily across the ground.
    That’s odd , he thought, having never heard of any leeches in this region. What was here for them to feed on? Baby dragons, perhaps, whose protective scales hadn’t formed? Or gobsken’s eyelids—the only part not covered with bony skin? Or maybe the flamelon people—though they lived far east of here, by the mouth of the River of Fire.
    The dragon suddenly caught his breath. For the sight of that leech—an annoying but harmless little beast—reminded him of something not at all harmless. Something he had, in all his adventures as a dragon, allowed to slip to the back of his mind. Something that both he and Merlin, caught up in their lives, hadn’t talked about for years.
    Rhita Gawr . The wicked spirit warlord, always hungry to conquer Avalon, had smuggled a bit of himself here years ago, disguised as a leech. A leech that possessed its master’s dark magic . . . and equally dark purpose.
    When Basilgarrad, then still very small, first discovered it, the leech looked like any other, a black worm identical to the one he’d spotted just now. Except for one important difference: The creature of Rhita Gawr had a blazing, bloodshot eye.
    All this flooded the dragon’s mind as he watched the little beast edge away. As it disappeared behind the cracked rock, he suddenly felt a bit silly. Why should he worry about such things? Nobody in Avalon had seen any further sign of that evil leech, in all this time. Nobody. More than likely, the beast had died—shriveled up for lack of someone’s blood to suck.
    And besides , he said to himself with a satisfied grunt, if I defeated that little pest when we were practically the same size . . . why should I worry now that I’m a dragon ?
    Down in his massive throat, he chortled. And a rather big dragon, at that . To be sure, he was now even bigger than Shim, that ludicrous but well-meaning giant. Bigger than his sister dragon, Gwynnia, who—along with her aggressive offspring—had once made such sport with him. Bigger even than the famous water dragon, Bendegeit, who, according to the bards, was so huge that he could sink a ship with just the flap of one ear.
    With that, he turned to Merlin. The wizard had gone back to staring into the campfire, lost in his thoughts.
    Meanwhile, hidden from view behind the rock, the leech stopped moving. Slowly, it straightened, standing upright like a tiny twig. Then it did something most unusual. From the depths of its dark eye, it released a series of bright red flashes, as if it were sending a signal to someone else.
    When the flashes ceased, some of the red light lingered. Only for a few seconds—but long enough to transform the source of light into a blazing, bloodshot eye.

7: A R ISING T IDE
    Who ever said misery loves company? I like to have my misery all alone, the way I like to have a hunk of meat: no company, no conversation, just me and something raw to chew on.
    The green flames crackled loudly, parting like a curtain as a lone hand reached through, grasping at the moist air. The hand surged forward, followed by a lean, muscular forearm, and a sturdy shoulder. Then came a head that, while belonging to a virile young man, was crowned in pure white hair.
    Krystallus stepped forward, emerging from the portal. He stood on a small, uninhabited island covered with sand dunes and woven braids of latticeweed. Standing straight, his