The dragon roared in frustration and fury and unleashed a column of fire straight at his would-be prey. The incandescent blast curled around the blue haze and Wiz was simply borne away like a feather on a puff of breath. Again and again Ralfnir spewed mighty gouts of flame at his victim. Each time Wiz was borne lightly away by the force and unharmed by the flame.
Hot damn! It’s working. When he had developed the spell it had seemed just too tricky, but it was not only protecting him, it was obviously puzzling the hell out of the dragon. The bubble-of-force component kept the searing heat of the dragon’s fire away from him and the repulsion spell kept the dragon from grabbing him, but the real secret was the inertia-canceling spell. Without inertia the dragon couldn’t hurt him no matter how hard he hit. Even the force of Ralfnir’s fiery breath simply blew him gently away.
Now maybe he’ll get tired and give up.
Ralfnir hung motionless, wings beating and armored chest heaving. He cocked his head and considered the human in the blue bubble floating a few hundred feet away. Then he straightened his neck as if he had reached a decision.
On the other hand, Wiz thought, maybe he won’t.
Slowly, methodically, the dragon began to stalk the human across the sky.
If Ralfnir couldn’t harm Wiz, he quickly discovered he could knock him around a lot. The dragon batted Wiz in his blue bubble from paw to paw and then lashed him with his tail. The force of the blow drove Wiz down to the earth. The spell bounced him back up again like a rubber ball and rattled Wiz’s teeth, spell or no.
Again and again blows from Ralfnir’s tail hammered Wiz to the ground, and again and again he bounced back up. In effect Ralfnir dribbled Wiz the length of the meadow and back.
His spell might have rendered Wiz immune from physical force, but it did nothing at all for his inner ear. Somewhere between the second and third dribble Wiz discovered a hitherto unknown predilection to airsickness.
While he fought to keep his stomach in place Wiz realized he hadn’t been as smart as he had thought. He couldn’t even think straight in the middle of all the bouncing, much less cast spells. Perhaps worse, the protection field severely limited the kinds of spells he could cast at all. The best he had was a standoff and he had a suspicion that wouldn’t last forever.
It didn’t. After bouncing Wiz off the terrain one last time the dragon lay back and regarded him briefly. A garbled bit of dragon speech formed in Wiz’s mind and suddenly his bubble burst, leaving Wiz hanging unsupported and unprotected several hundred feet in the air.
There was a brief, sickening drop as the world rushed toward him.
backslash paracommander exe! Wiz cried and his fall slowed to an easy descent. Ralfnir, however, didn’t. The dragon dived again on the now-helpless wizard, intent on finishing him before he reached the ground.
Wiz sucked in his breath when he saw the dragon coming. Doesn’t shooting a man in a parachute violate the Geneva Convention or something? He realized Ralfnir had probably never heard of the Geneva Convention and wouldn’t abide by it if he had.
Wiz watched the dragon bore in on him, looming ever larger in his vision. backslash uncommander.exe! he whispered and the spell released him, letting him fall free again. The sudden burst of speed confused Ralfnir and instead of nailing Wiz squarely, he passed several feet over Wiz’s head. As the dragon spread his wings to brake and come around again he twisted his head over his shoulder and shot a quick burst of fire at Wiz. The shot was badly aimed and missed, but it came close enough to fill Wiz’s nostrils with the reek of singed hair.
Wiz was so intent on watching Ralfnir he almost forgot to reactivate the spell. He was only a few feet off the ground when he switched it back on and hit hard enough to drive him to his knees. He barely had time to grab his staff before the dragon was on him again.