The Frostwoven Crown (Book 4) (58 page)

"Oh, crix," Garrett whispered as he lowered his hand from his throat and shoved the canister back inside his shoulder bag. It had been a while since he had seen the dragon from this angle. Running seemed like a pretty good idea now.

Garrett sprinted toward the junction of the wall and the southwestern tower, hoping to reach it before the dragon reached him. He hadn't counted on how fast a dragon could fly.

Garrett's feet went out from under him as Kadreaan slammed into the wall just behind him. He came down hard on his knees and hands, and Uncle's staff clattered out of his grip as he grunted in pain. He rolled quickly to retrieve the staff, his torn robe clinging to the bloody patch on his right knee.

Kadreaan let out a deafening roar as his right foreclaw tore away the parapet wall between Garrett and the garden below. Garrett looked to see Bargas leap clear a moment before the dragon's left claw destroyed a twelve foot wide section of the battlement where he had just been standing. The big ghoul clawed his way up to safety on the far side as the stones crumbled away behind him.

Garrett shoved himself to his feet as the dragon's head swung toward him with a rattling hiss.

Kadreaan's jaws opened to reveal the mouth of hell within.

"No!" Garrett screamed, shutting his eyes as, for the second time in his life, Kadreaan's searing breath washed over him.

There was no pain this time, only a warm sensation like settling into a hot bath.
So this is what it's like to die
, he wondered.

The voice in the back of his mind gave a bitter laugh, and then Garrett opened his eyes to see himself surrounded by roiling blue flames.

"
Not tonight wyrm!
" a voice that sounded a little like Garrett's roared from Garrett's throat, "
I don't feeling like dying again tonight!
"

Garrett stood to his full height, enjoying the look in Graelle's eyes as he stared in wonder at the young necromancer wreathed in icy blue flames. The flames flickered and faded away as Garrett faced him with a look of grim defiance.

"How?" Graelle cried.

Kadreaan only blinked and then turned his head to try to bite Garrett in half.

Garrett leapt backward, raising Uncle Tinjin's staff defensively in front of him. The dragon's hot jaws closed upon the enchanted iron, biting with tremendous force, but still unable to bend the staff. Garrett struggled as the dragon gnawed at the iron staff and then suddenly twisted his head to the side, tearing it from Garrett's grip.

Garrett was thrown, sliding over the edge of the broken parapet as he frantically scratched for a handhold among the charred, brittle tiles of the walkway. He caught himself with one hand as he went over the edge and quickly bettered his grip, gasping in panic as he kicked his heels against the crumbling wall below. He looked down to see the shadowy forest far beneath him and then up at the dragon hanging on the wall beside him.

Kadreaan lifted his head high, Tinjin's staff still pinning his jaws open wide. He suddenly rattled out a fiery breath, and the iron staff burned cherry red. Garrett let out a weary sob as he watched the skull-headed staff fold and snap with a mournful ringing sound. He tried to pull himself up, but a stone gave way beneath his foot, and he slipped back down again, his bodyweight suspended by an uncertain grip on a few broken tiles.

"You cost me dearly, boy," Graelle shouted, "You'll never know how much you cost me!"

Kadreaan shook the fragments of Tinjin's staff from his teeth and gave a rattling growl as he lowered his head to Garrett's level again.

"Well, I don't like you either!" Garrett shouted, yelping as a tile gave way, and he was once again hanging by a one-handed grip.

Kadreaan opened his jaws again, tilting his head to deliver another bite, but a huge chunk of rock suddenly struck him in the teeth.

"Over here you mountain o' meat!" Bargas roared, hefting another chunk of wall and hurling it to strike the dragon in the head again.

"Bargas run!" Garrett shouted. He managed to grab another handful of tile and struggled to pull himself up before it slipped again.

"I'm too old to run!" Bargas growled as he tore another section of wall free and lifted it above his head.

"Kill him!" Graelle cried, pointing toward the shaggy gray ghoul.

A shadowy blur appeared then over the top of the wall. Garrett caught only a glimpse of dark cloth fluttering in the air as something that moved too fast to see leapt onto the dragon's back.

Graelle screamed as Klavicus ripped the horned helmet from his head and then raked out his left eye with a clawlike swipe.

The Chadirian was able to bring his gauntleted fist up just in time to shove between the vampire's teeth and his throat, and the dragon launched out from the wall again, bucking and rolling beneath the two men.

"Kadreaan!" the dragon rider yelled, flattening his body against the dragon's back as the vampire tore bloody gouges in his red armor.

Bargas took advantage of the distraction and made the leap across to haul Garrett up by the scruff and throw the boy across his back. Garrett cried out in dismay as Bargas loped away, leaving the dragon lord and the vampire doorman locked in combat behind.

Garrett watched as Klavicus yanked his head back, tearing off Graelle's gauntlet and breaking the man's arm in the process. He let the glove drop from his yellow fangs and stared down at his prey with grinning bloodlust.

Then Kadreaan's spiked tail whipped around and smashed into the vampire's side, hurling his broken body far out over the dark garden below.

Garrett screamed in despair as Kadreaan swung his great head around toward the falling vampire. There was a sound like pebbles rattling down a clay drainpipe, and then Garrett's friend disappeared in a flash of white-hot flame.

*******

The Girl in Brown looked up from the tree in which she paused to catch her breath. She saw the big ghoul running with Garrett on his back. The dragon was beating its wings, trying to gain altitude again despite its injured wing. If the boy had been carrying the flower, he would have tried to use it. Why was Garrett out in the open? What kind of stupid plan was this?

Where was the flower?

The Girl in Brown scanned the wall in the direction that the ghoul was headed. Were they leading the dragon into a trap? Where?

A flutter of green silk drew her attention to a balcony set high upon the inner side of the westernmost tower overlooking the garden. Someone was moving in the shadows there... someone carrying a bow.

"
Serepheni
," the Girl in Brown hissed. A cold sinking feeling in her stomach told her she was already too late to save the flower.

Too late to save... but not too late to avenge.

The Girl in Brown fought to contain her rage as she jumped down from the tree and raced toward the western tower and the murderous priestess concealed within.

*******

"Mother o' Madness, what was that?" Shortgrass cried as he flew along beside Bargas and Garrett.

"Shut up an run!" Bargas howled.

"Yer ne'er gonna make it!" the fairy shouted, "He's on ya, nose ta nethers!"

"I see that!" Garrett yelled, still slung backwards across Bargas's back.

Kadreaan swerved and crashed into the wall again behind them, still struggling to overcome the injury to his wing. The dragon shoved himself off the wall again and surged forward, jaws agape.

"Just get him to the tower!" Garrett cried, "That's all that matters now!"

"I don't think..." Shortgrass began, and then his glow dimmed to a frightened shadow of its customary copper hue. "Oh no!" He said.

Garrett watched in wonder as a blazing fairy lifted from the forest below and darted to intercept the dragon that was closing in on them from behind.

"Jenna!" Shortgrass shouted.

The little fairy showed no sign that she had heard him but blazed a sparkling trail through the night air like a shooting star, aimed directly at Kadreaan's head.

"Jenna, no!" Shortgrass cried, flying after her.

Bargas's loping gait carried Garrett farther and farther away down the wall, away from the enormous dragon and the tiny fairies that stood against him. Garrett's heart sank, knowing that there was nothing he could do to help them.

Kadreaan's head jerked to the side as a bright flash of light struck him just above the right eye. The light flashed again, and Kadreaan veered into the wall once more, thrashing his head from side to side and roaring in frustration. Again and again, Jenna's light flared like a pulsing star in the night that receded further and further into the distance as Bargas carried Garrett to safety.

Then the light flashed once more, and Kadreaan snapped his jaws shut, snuffing it out forevermore.

Garrett sighed, lowering his head against the ghoul's back.

"Almost there," Bargas growled, "just hold on a little more."

Garrett lifted his eyes to see Kadreaan hurtling toward them with frightening speed.

"We're not gonna make it," he said.

The dragon slammed into the wall between them and the western tower, destroying most of the parapet and causing a large section of wall to crumble to pieces beneath his weight.

Bargas fell to his knees, wrapping his arms protectively around Garrett as he panted for breath.

Garrett twisted around to watch the dragon clawing his way back up the wall. Kadreaan let out a pitiful moan and coughed up a gout of black blood that steamed and ran down the stones of the ancient wall. He looked up at Garrett with one eye swollen shut and his head tilted at a crooked angle. Astride his back, the bloody-faced Graelle looked in no better shape. For a moment, Garrett almost pitied them.

Finish it
, the voice in the back of Garrett's mind whispered.

Garrett shrugged free of the big ghoul's embrace and walked to the edge of the parapet, facing the dragon and his rider as they lifted painfully into the air once again.

Garrett lifted his hands toward the stars above as Graelle and his dragon stared down at him and readied themselves for the final attack.

A strange, mournful sound arose from the forest below, a soft, lilting dirge that came from the shadows between the leaves... the death song of the world that once was. Then, a thousand motes of light arose from the darkness as the wisps of the queen's garden awakened to the voices of the fairies hidden in the trees.

"Kadreaan, no..." Graelle's voice rasped as the dragon looked down in horror at the colored lights rising up beneath him, surrounding him on all sides, and Garrett remembered how the dragon had reacted to the wisp cave in the swamp.

Kadreaan's head thrashed from side to side as he beat his wings erratically, rising and falling again as the wisps swirled around his body, joining together in an eerie dance as the fairies wept their song.

"Kadreaan, no!" Graelle screamed, "No!"

Kadreaan's movements became more and more frantic, he collided with the wall again, nearly crushing his rider, and then pushed off, rising into the air and drifting ever closer to the western tower as he thrashed his head, wailing in grief.

Graelle turned toward Garrett with blood and tears streaming down his scarred cheeks, a look of utter devastation on his face.

"I'm sorry," Garrett said.

*******

The Girl in Brown's breath hissed from her lungs in ragged gasps by the time she stumbled up the stairs to the level of the balcony. She staggered forward, taking in the scene before her in a single glance.

The priestess Serepheni and a lone ghoul stood with their backs to her at the balcony. The dragon and its rider rose slowly into view before them, surrounded by glowing wisps. Serepheni raised her bow, taking aim, her arrow no doubt poisoned with the blood of Annalien's rose.

Then the Girl in Brown's eyes fell to the small bundle of supplies laid out on the floor behind the two assassins. She stared down in astonishment because the rose was not there. There was no trace of it... not even the scent of it on the three arrows lying beside Serepheni's foot or on the one already nocked in her bow... arrows that had clear rock crystals lashed to the shafts where their bladed heads should have been.

The ghoul lifted a flask of glowing essence to his lips and drank deeply of it before tossing it away, never taking his eyes off the tortured dragon fighting to stay airborne outside. The ghoul reached out with his shaggy left paw and closed his fingers around the crystal affixed to the tip of Serepheni's arrow. He muttered a spell and then released his grip on the crystal shard.

A piercing whine filled the tower room as the crystal flared with an intense green light. The Girl in Brown started to lift her hand to cover her eyes, but then, with the soft thrum of Serepheni's bowstring, the enchanted arrow shrieked out into the night, directly into the open jaws of the Chadiri dragon.

The dragon's jaws snapped shut, too late, silencing the ear-splitting whine. He hung there, suspended in the air for a moment, his ravaged wings fully extended, and then a blinding explosion tore him apart from within.

The Girl in Brown watched in amazement as the doom that came to her city died before her eyes, and its smoldering body crashed down into the forest below.