The wounded Vollkon lunged forward. Invictrix flew at angles till the sword of Ansond was beneath the Vollkon’s scaly abdomen. He drove his giant blade between the armored plates. The dragon’s blood rained down upon the field below, and then the dying reptile plunged into the fire storm it had created.

Ansond felt a crushing jolt. The huge talons of a second beast lifted him to stare upon its ugly head. A shaft of pain shot through him where the dragon grasped his shoulder. The gaping jaws were open to devour him. As he passed the giant eye, he plunged his sword into the mirrored surface. The eye split open. The Vollkon screamed and dropped the Golden Knight. Invictrix broke his fall by flying underneath him in midair.

The Vollkon writhed as once again Ansond drove his sword between the armored underplates. The second shrieking beast fell to the fiery earth.

Two Vollkons yet remained. One, sensing danger, flew away but Invictrix overtook it, preventing its escape. The Vollkon, still carrying one canister of ore, hurled it against the harness of the flying horse. A fiery sphere engulfed both steed and rider. The light paralyzed the knight for a moment, and again the Vollkon tried escape. Then the globe of flame shattered as Invictrix bounded into clear sky.

In a spectacular maneuver Ansond leapt from Invictrix and dropped astride the back plates of the dragon. The beating of the scaly leather wings was deafening. Yet no matter how the Vollkon tried, it could not wrench the knight from its back.

Ansond poised his sword at what appeared to be a set of shoulder blades. He plunged the blade between them and the dragon screamed and died aloft. Ansond leaped into the air and once more alighted in the saddle of his steed.

The final beast, bewildered by the rapid death of the others, prepared to throw its last remaining charge of ore. Ansond flew directly at its face and swung his sword down through the canister the Vollkon held. It exploded and the searing flash enveloped both knight and dragon. Invictrix passed unhurt through the bright circumference of fire. But the reptile fell, its burning hulk colliding hard with earth.

The Army of the Liberation still in battle columns cheered and sang:

“Then came Ansond in skies filled with fire

And faced the great dragons of hate.

In the fiery world where the battle unfurled

Their flight came too little and late.

“Ansond the Golden has brandished his light

And the beasts of war have not fled.

Fire burns on his sword and the Black Knight

Shall die where his dragons have bled.”

And then they sang the magnificent hymn of the hosts:

“Warfare comes to the Plains of Man.

Terra soon shall pass away.

Grandeur to the Troubadour!

“Raise the praise in gilded flame

Till fiery letters etch the name

Of love across the waking universe.

Singer, Prince of Planets,

Troubadour of Life!”

XX

“The sky is falling!” said Henny Penny.