Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Seite 84

mean he still wasn’t in a whole hell of a lot of pain.
He looked up to see a lovely woman step onto the
platform. Lisa smiled down at Daniel and began to
strip out of her clothes. For a moment Daniel took in
her naked glory but had to remind himself what lay
behind that false mask.

like a kid at a water park. He missed the dragon’s tail
by only a couple inches as she desperately tried to stop
him. Daniel came to a stop, rolled onto his feet and
sunk his blade into the egg. A loud roar echoed off the
thick walls of the safe. Mommy wasn’t happy.

“It’s time to end this,” Lisa said then jumped and as
she fell, beauty became the beast once again.
Daniel rolled out of the way as the dragon landed
close by. Gold coins flew into the air by the impact,
leaving them to rain down in a golden shower. Daniel crawled on his hands and knees till he reached his
sword. He quickly turned around to face the dragon
as it stood up. The beast looked more like a long
white snake then a dragon. Its long, slender, white
scaly body would blend right into a snow-covered
background. No wonder these things were so deadly,
Daniel thought. The frost dragon reminded Daniel of
one of the Chinese devils, serpent-like with a big head
and small legs. He had slain many of that kind, so this
one shouldn’t be too hard. Only the whole ice-breathing thing worried him; frost bite didn’t sound fun.
“We could do this the easy way!” Daniel called out.
In answer, the Ice Queen shot out another blast of
winter; Daniel moved out of the way and brought his
sword up. Fine then, he thought as he ran towards the
dragon. The snow devil fired a couple more icy blasts,
but missed every time. Fed up with this, the beast
used her tail as a weapon. Unlike her lover; who had
a wrecking ball on the end of his, Lisa’s tail was more
like a giant whip. Daniel leaped over the dragon’s tail,
but froze when he landed. During the fight the gold
coins shifted, and Daniel’s eyes focused on something,
and his heart jumped up into his throat at the sight of
this now uncovered object. It was an egg! The egg was
a light greenish-gray color on the outside, but from
within came a faint orange glow. Daniel knew that
meant only one thing, it was almost ready to hatch.
I can’t let that happen, Daniel thought. The dragon
followed Daniel’s eyes and wasn’t happy to see that
her secret was out. She turned back to the slayer and
let loose another storm. Daniel dodged this arctic
blast, and slid on his stomach over the gold, head-first

The frost dragon unleashed all of her fury on the
would-be knight. Daniel didn’t have time to get out of
the way, so he faced the blast head on. The air turned
to winter all around him, and for a moment, his breath
froze in his lungs. Daniel’s blade was the only thing
saving him from a c old death. The magic in his sword
was being used as a shield, but shields can’t block the
temperature. Daniel clenched his teeth together and
held tight to his sword, its cold hilt was biting into
his flesh, and the pain was almost unbearable. Daniel closed his eyes and began to take deep, relaxing
breaths. He blocked out the freezing temperatures
around him and focused on his inner warmth. Daniel continued to use the breathing method, while he
worked on that warm spot inside his chest. He molded
it, pushed it, and brought it to life. This was the same
trick Daniel had used when he was trapped in the ice
cube, but this time it was a little different; he had other
plans in mind. When it was ready, Daniel opened his
eyes and blew out a cloud of smoke on his last exhale.
His eyes burned bright with his inner fire, and then
he blinked them back to normal. Fire began to flicker
to life along the length of the frozen blade. At once
Daniel could feel its warmth, and the flames grew hotter. Hot steam began to form, like fog from the battle
between ice and fire.
The female dragon hissed in rage and in pain as the
steam reached her. Daniel waited till her winter blast
stopped, then he leaped into action. He ran head-long
into the cloud of hot mist, and the dragon within, and
he didn’t mind the fact that he couldn’t see a thing in
this sauna. Daniel judged by the hissing noise where
his target was, and when he came in range, he swung
his flaming sword like a pro-baseball player. The lukewarm liquid that covered Daniel’s face told him that
his sword had struck home. Daniel held his weapon
up, ready to strike again, but nothing was moving in
the stream. It felt like time stood still. After a couple of
minutes, the room cleared out, and Daniel saw that the
gold around him was stained red. To his right laid the

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