Young wizards Eynon and Merry suddenly have to cope with a huge, scaly, ill-tempered fire-breathing problem allied with their worst enemy.
'What. Is. That?' asked Merry.
'Fly higher,' shouted Nûd from the back of his wyvern.
Merry and Eynon were side by side on their flying disks, hovering close by. The wyvern was already following Nûd's recommendation and gaining altitude. Eynon and Merry did likewise until they were 100 feet up and could witness the terrifying scene unfolding below.
The floor of the quarry buckled and split, revealing a huge, green-scaled monstrosity. Rocks from the quarry floor were sliding off the beast's back, crashing down into piles of jagged stone. A cloud of greenish dust rose from the quarry as boulders the size of milk cows sailed skyward, tossed up by snapping layers of stone.
Then, the great beast's long neck came free, releasing a wedge-shaped head with a mouth large enough to swallow them all in one bite and teeth the size of scimitars. The head moved left and right, using long-dormant muscles. Intelligent dark green eyes with vertical black pupils blinked in the sunlight. Their depths seemed to spin in a hypnotic pattern.
'Well,' said the great green dragon. 'Is it time?'