CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Jump on my back,” Storm told his younger brother quickly. “Sky and I will fight him in dragon form. Here!” Storm tossed his sword to Seath. “Strike hard, strike deep.”
Seath smirked as he caught the sword. Sucking in a lungful of air, he ran to Storm as Storm shifted to dragon form.
Storm took off with Seath on his back. Sky was attacking Banet with his dragon fire, but he had to retreat when Banet belched out a cloud of poisonous fumes at him.
The wyrm stretched its wide, jagged wings and soared into the air. Banet was indeed a powerful, cunning warlock. Storm knew that not many warlocks and sorcerers could change shape so effortlessly. Banet was a formidable opponent, with many tricks and spells up his sleeve.
They had to take Banet out quickly.
Storm dodged a cloud of the wyrm’s poisonous breath and veered away.
“Over here!” Seath barked. “Come on, you itsy-bitsy worm! Come and get us! And by the way, your breath stinks!”
Seath’s taunts worked. Banet turned around and flew after Storm.
As Banet closed in on him, Storm dived suddenly and looped back so that he came up behind Banet. He swooped down and sliced the wyrm’s tail off with his razor sharp claws.
Banet let out a horrible cry of pain and fury. His thick, serpentine body twisted in the air as clouds of poisonous fumes exploded from his mouth.
Storm flew away quickly so Seath wouldn’t be exposed to those deadly gases. When Storm had soared high enough, he heard Seath take a big gulp of air.
“Ooh! I thought I was going to explode,” Seath wheezed. “Let me take another deep breath and then we’ll go finish the fight!”
Storm circled back to Banet, and saw Sky attacking the wyrm viciously. His big brother was literally turning blue in the face as noxious fumes swirled around him.
Storm dived below the wyrm just as Sky wrapped his powerful talons around the wyrm’s body. Sky fought to hold Banet in place while Storm glided under the wyrm’s body until he was sure he was directly under the heart of the beast.
He could hear Banet’s thundering heartbeats.
The warlock was beginning to panic.
Sky was straining hard to maintain his grip on the wyrm. Seath gripped both swords in his hands and tensed for a moment.
With a forceful upward thrust, he drove both blades deep into Banet’s heart.
Storm spun away to avoid the spray of dark red blood that spurted from Banet’s body.
Sky released the wyrm and let it plunge to the ground. The long serpentine body shrank and contorted as it fell. The shapeshifting spell broke when the evil warlock took his last breath and it was a man’s body that hit the ground.
Storm hurled a blazing ball of fire at Banet’s broken body. In a moment, there was nothing left of the warlock but ashes.
“Hurry,” Seath urged. “We have to save Gramma! Quick!”
Storm turned back to the castle but he knew that only Emilia could save Gramma now. Emilia was their only hope. There was no antidote for the Hydra’s venom.
But the horn of a unicorn could heal as well as destroy.
Could Emilia destroy the venom and heal Gramma?