Golden Anvil

Areo welcomed the rain of pebbles that showered over him as he crouched behind the crumbling and ruined wall. Tiny pebbles, tinkering against armor that had, until a very short time ago, seemed quite adequate defense against the slings and arrows of the world around him. Considering however, the somewhat un-pebble like dimensions of the projectiles now erupting from within the ruined church on the bluff, the pebbles that sprang forth from the landfall of the former were a welcome alternative.
A screeching sound that set every hair on Areo's neck to standing arose from within that rapidly deteriorating sanctuary. It was a sharp sound, like the point of a dagger being drawn across a writing slate. He felt it is his teeth, wincing as he pressed himself closer into what shelter the low wall still provided.
Thinking back, he was forced to admit wiser decisions might have been made. That thrice cursed fetish, a simple enough device, if a bit macabre with its little glass phial of bones and fur. And that worthless monk! It was a mistake bringing the monk. But, no, it wasn't the monk that had dropped the fetish, was it? Fair is fair, Areo was quite willing to take his share of the blame. Yet how could he possibly have suspected such a grizzly little charm could contain magic so potent? Yes, yes more caution would have been prudent. Even still, the monk should have warned them more forcefully, but he had barely said a word. Nazzei, Nasser, Nauzzey... whatever was his name, more a mouse than a monk. Pitiful. And now? Trapped within the reliquary beneath the church, most probably. Trapped, but quite probably safe. That was a deep chamber, and a long and narrow stair. Safe, at least from the barrage Areo currently found himself facing.
In the reliquary. Areo sighed, secure at least from the beast, but how safe? He suspected it had been very safe. Likely chosen for precisely that reason. After all, where else would you store not one but two such valuable items? And one of them as fragile as the glass jar was, sealed with a cork and tucked safely within its box. A safe place. And then we opened it didn't we? BUT THE MONK! Areo had been curious before, but recognized the qualities of the item at least somewhat had encouraged his companions to abandon the box and its eerie little bottle. It was the prefect of the church that had sent them... nay that had driven them... to come back and explore the fetish with THE MONK to divine its secrets! The discussion that followed ended with my own attempt to examine the artifact, its only true to admit. The strap must of caught on that clumsy monk's fingers, surely it was HIS fault as much as my own? No... that's pride I fear, it was my rash behavior that caused it to break. And what emerged was, well, unexpected to say the least. The fur and bones visible inside the glass scattered on the floor of that sanctum, but from the debris of the fetish's demise rose a misty form that hung over the broken vessel only briefly before it stretched and flowed up the stairs. Argyle, in accord with his roguish nature gave chase, as did I. The others fell away behind us, I can only guess what they witnessed, no doubt that simpering monk held them up long enough to have been trapped below. For my part it was all too apparent, the power that escaped that phial was enormous and forming to fill the sanctuary before us.
It had grown strangely quiet. An unseen rock tumbled and clattered in the distance. Areo swallowed and slowly raised his head, inching upward to bring his eyes above the level of the wall before him. Looking toward the church there was no sign of any of his companions. Only a facade, a now roofless configuration of walls broken occasionally by high and pane less windows. There! Behind 2 of these windows Areo could see the object of his frustration. Two patches of greyish green hide, something like 16 feet apart, framed by the windows in the dying light.
That hide! Tough as it comes, that hide. The madman Argyle had drawn an arrow on it from point blank range, and futile as it had seemed to him at the time, Areo was forced to admit it had taken a fair amount of courage to stand within those walls level such an assault. The shaft was deflected quite harmlessly by those greenish grey scales, harmlessly enough so that even to the thickheaded archer it must have been immediately apparent there could be only one victor in a battle within those walls. Areo allowed himself a smile as he recalled the haste in which the archer had thrown aside his heroic poise and bluster to scramble for the open ground outside coughing and waving his arms blindly. The humorous moment had been cut short, however, when befuddled by some bilious fumes the beast had unleashed, his own dash to the entrance led Areo straight on into the beast itself.
Areo cringed as he remembered his own words then, expecting the worst and feeling quite small standing now as he was beneath the towering bulk of the thing, he had croaked out wretchedly, "You aren't going to eat me, are you?".
Areo was then, at that moment, the sole object of the dragon's attention. That voice will be hard to forget, as it answered his plea,
"No", it rumbled and with a flick of one taloned claw had sent Areo cart wheeling through the exit nearly knocking over the gagging, sputtering, archer Argyle, still reeling from the effects of the gaseous vapor the beast had spewed.
Areo slouched back behind the wall, mopping his brow lightly and marking his last view of the sun as it sunk below the wooded hillside to the west. Perhaps when night falls it will be safer to move, he thought. The thing within the church seemed to catch even the smallest amount of movement. He and Argyle had been fortunate to find respite from the creature's attention long enough to find an alcove in which they could recover a measure of their breath and perform some small appraisal of the situation. A scraping, screech, horrible to hear, rose from within the church as Areo prepared a spell. Areo had then laid a hand upon Argyle's chest and whispered a few healing words to clear the ailing archer's lungs. Apparently Argyle's common sense dissipated as his lung capacity increased. The spell of healing had hardly faded when, to Areo's immense displeasure, the archer had leapt from their position, drawn back his long bow, and taken aim. He seemed to stand there for ages, so long that Areo pulled himself up risking exposure but compelled to see what would happen next. The scene that met his eyes was surreal. One forelimb resting easily on the top of the high cathedral wall, the other raising someshape both dark and irregular clasped in a clawed fist and drawn back into air behind it, the dragon's head and neck rose high above the side of the church. A soft thwip marked the loosing of Argyle's arrow as the bowstring hastened it on its deadly way.
The dying light caught the arrow's gleaming tip and traced its high arc towards the dragon's head. Areo stared in disbelief as the arrow sped closer and closer and finally ricocheted off the dragon's brow inches above it's right eye. It was then that the creatures arm sprang forward, and in the twilight the dark shape once grasped within its claw grew larger, and larger as it sped towards the exposed archer. Areo dove back within the paltry shelter of his alcove, catching only a glimpse of Argyle's retreating cloak before a large chunk of the church wall planted itself into the ground where the archer had once stood. Through the crash and scatter of flying stones it sent out, Areo was sure he had heard the archer cursing his luck, though when the dust settled he was nowhere to be seen.