The Rage (35 page)

That didn’t end the threat of the hell hound, which, still following its summoner’s orders, lunged after the halfling. But before it could quite close the distance, Alamarayne called out to Selune. The mace she brandished in the air, its head studded with four crescent-shaped flanges, blazed with silvery radiance, pinpointing her location. The demonic canine simply faded away, dismissed, evidently, back to the layer of the Abyss from which the magician had called it.

Across the harbor, Kara, her outstretched wings a slash of deeper black against the night sky, dived at the galley in the center position. No flares of magic rose to meet her. Evidently Raryn, Pavel, and the others had succeeded in eliminating the spellcasters onboard. She scoured the deck with a burst of her dazzling breath.

When she finished killing the Zhents on that ship, she’d move on to the last one. Dorn and his companions had to hold out until she did. Will and Alamarayne had the advantage of being in proximity to one another. They could protect each other’s flanks. It was Dorn’s bad luck that he’d wound up too far away to make it practical for him to rejoin them. Sick or not, he would have to fight alone.

He put his back to the water, so the Zhents couldn’t come at him from behind, and his iron half forward to weather their blows. Judging he had ample room to swing it he drew his bastard sword. He just had time to cock it into a proper guard before more reavers assaulted him.

He clawed one Zhent’s face to shreds and hacked another’s leg out from under him. By sheer luck, his iron arm

deflected a sword thrust from an opponent he hadn’t even noticed slinking up on his side. He caught the blade in his metal fingers, squeezed, twisted, and broke it.

The Zhents screamed. Dorn didn’t have to look up to know what had terrified them. Kara was swooping at the galley, and her approach was as much a threat to her allies as the enemy, because the kinds of attack she was using blasted an area and everybody caught inside it. It was the only way to slaughter the Zhents as fast as the raiders needed to kill them.

Dorn and his companions were supposed to protect themselves by diving for cover. A glance around his immediate vicinity convinced the half-golem that for him, the best option was to swing himself over the side. He dropped his sword and did precisely that, digging his talons into the gunwale to anchor himself. But the wood was rotten and crumbled. He plummeted.

He couldn’t swim. The weight of his iron limbs would drag him to the bottom. When he splashed down in the cold water, he raked frantically at the side of the galley. His claws snagged in the hull, and gasping, he heaved his head above the surface. Over the deck, the air flickered yellow, and an explosion roared. Zhents shrieked, and their bodies burning, tumbled overboard.

Then some force or weight shoved the galley downward, dunking Dorn’s head in the process. For a second, he was terrified that the vessel would continue to float that low and that he wouldn’t be able to clamber back into the air before he drowned, but then it bobbed upward once more. As he coughed and spat, a great sheet of something flopped down over the side to hang beside him. At first, with his eyes full of water, he mistook it for a fallen sail, then realized what it really was.

He hesitated briefly, then, making sure his talons didn’t cut, caught hold of one of the bony vanes running through the leathery membrane. Kara pulled up her wing and heaved him out of the water.

From the looks of the deck, the Zhents were all unconscious, crippled, or dead. Will and Alamarayne, however, were alive. The latter had nasty gashes on her forearm and calf, but presumably her prayers or failing that, Pavel’s, would stanch the bleeding, prevent infection, and accelerate the healing process.

That was all Dorn had time to observe before Kara flipped her wing in some cunning way that broke his grip and sent him rolling and bouncing down the inclined surface to fetch up on her back.

“Hang on!” she cried, and Dorn barely had time to obey before she leaped off the deck and took flight once more.

Her wings slashed up and down as she rapidly gained altitude. Her voice soared, too, in another fierce yet lovely song of battle.

Dorn felt stupid with surprise. It hadn’t specifically been part of the plan that he’d help with this particular part of the raid, and the gods knew, he’d never in his life wanted to ride a foul, cursed dragon.

Yet once he collected himself, he had to admit, however grudgingly, that it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Maybe it was even exhilarating, to streak along high above the water, his wet garments flapping in the wind. Or maybe it was Kara’s singing that lifted his spirits. Bardic music could do that, he knew, tamper with a man’s emotions and make him feel things foreign to his nature.

When she reached the end of a stanza, he shouted, “Raryn, Pavel, and the others!”

“Everyone’s all right,” she replied. “Look, we’ve found a patrol boat.”

It was true. The vessel floated below them. Witnessing the fate of the war galleys, the crew of the relatively small, single-masted sailboat had decided to make a run for it, but to no avail. They couldn’t outdistance a dragon_ on the wing, nor could the night hide them from Kara’s senses.

They were watching for her, and when she swooped out of the southern sky, some cowered blubbering or sprang

overboard, but others prepared to fight. If they possessed any genuinely powerful spellcasters, they might have a chance, but Dorn was gambling they didn’t. He’d based his strategy on the notion that all such folk would be based aboard the larger, more formidable and imposing galleys.

Arrows streaked upward from the boat, and so did a couple of shafts of crimson light. Kara jerked, and Dorn was sure that the sorcerous missiles, at least, had struck her. Still, it had been a relatively weak spell effect, potent enough to kill many a human being but not enough to balk her. She proved it by blasting a sizzling flare of breath across the deck, slaughtering the crew and setting sails, lines, and even timber ablaze. Kara climbed and rushed onward, leaving the fiery hulk in her wake.

“If we want a serviceable craft,” she cried, we have to take the last one without burning it or smashing it to pieces.”

“I understand” Dorn answered.

It only took another couple of minutes to find the second boat. Singing, Kara plummeted through a hail of arrows. A dart pierced her dorsal surface just in front of the place where Dorn was riding then instantly liquefied, becoming a steaming, bubbling acid that ate away flesh around the initial puncture. The pain must have been intense, and Dorn felt a pang of pity for her, as well as the angry desire to make her attacker pay. For the moment, sympathy was all he could give. He was no healer or priest and thus had no means of neutralizing the corrosive agent.

Fortunately, like the bolts of magical force, the acid wasn’t strong enough to stop Kara. Nearly on top of the boat, she spread and hammered her wings to slow her precipitous descent just a little. She still slammed down on the bow so hard it nearly shoved the whole front of the boat underwater.

The slanted deck would make for treacherous footing, but Dom figured he’d just have to cope. Lacking his bow or even his long hand-and-a-half sword, lost when he’d lowered himself over the side of the galley, he had no way of reaching

the enemy if he stayed perched on Kara’s back. He scrambled down and aft.

Zhents advanced to meet him. He parried a spear thrust with his iron arm, then snapped his opponent’s neck with a backhand blow to the jaw. By that time, a second soldier was cutting at his kidney. He pivoted, blocked that stroke, shifted in close, and drove his knife between the Zhent’s ribs. The warrior collapsed, and Dorn stooped and appropriated his broadsword.

At which point, the deck jerked, nearly tossing the half-golem off his feet. The boat had leveled off. He didn’t have to glance around to guess why. Kara had returned to human form, probably because she feared that otherwise, her immensity would damage or even sink the craft.

She could still fight with her sorcery, assuming she had any spells left. Yet even so, she was far more vulnerable, and it gave new hope to those Zhents who hadn’t perished or jumped into the sea in dread. Howling battle cries, they charged the bow, and Dorn scurried into their path.

He beheaded one with a rake of his talons and spitted another on the point of his sword. Kara’s vibrant song became a melody that reminded him somehow of a lullaby, and two more Zhents fell unconscious.

Then Dorn found himself face to face with a shaven-headed man in voluminous, sigil-bedizened robes who was surely the magician who’d conjured the arrow of acid. He’d cast at least one more enchantment to prepare for fighting at close quarters. A yard-long length of crimson fire wavered from each of his hands. Though he’d never encountered that particular magic before, Dorn was certain the flames would do at least as much damage as ordinary blades should they strike their target.

He advanced as usual, leading with his metal side. The wizard took a retreat, then instantly sprang forward again with a suddenness that would have done any warrior credit. Perhaps he’d used magic to heighten his agility. The firesword in his left hand slashed at Dorn’s eyes.

The hunter jerked up his iron arm just in time to block. Fortunately, the solid metal stopped the seemingly insubstantial flare, even though he didn’t feel the usual shock of impact. He riposted with a sword thrust at the Zhent’s guts.

It should have been a mortal blow, but Dorn’s point glanced aside as if it had struck plate armor. Some protective spell, one that didn’t generate any telltale glimmer of light or swirl of shadow, was evidently to blame. The wizard hacked with the fire-blade in his left hand.

Pain seared Dorn’s ribs, and he leaped backward. His own speed, together with the protection of his brigandine, were all that. kept the flame from burning into his vitals. He let his guard drop, trying to look as if the wound had crippled him, and the Zhent took the bait. He rushed in, and the half-golem pounced to meet him. He knocked both fireswords aside with a sweep of his iron arm, then struck hard with the broadsword.

Dorn penetrated the magician’s invisible armor. The blade bit deep into the Zhent’s neck, and he dropped. The half-golem pivoted in time to see Kara kill another reaver with her own azure darts of light. That appeared to be the last of the Zhents.

Are you all right?” the song dragon panted.

Dorn was relieved to see that she showed no signs of frenzy.

Teeth gritted against the smoldering pain of his burn, he said, “Near enough. You?”

“The same.”

She bore the ugly mark of the acid at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and tiny cuts dotted the rest of her body. A number of arrows and quarrels littered the deck around her dainty feet. He realized they must be shafts that had stuck in her while she was in dragon shape. Fortunately, they hadn’t driven all the way through her scaly hide, and had fallen out when she’d shifted to human form.

“Some of the Zhents aren’t dead,” she continued. “A couple aren’t even hurt, just sleeping.”

“They can’t go free to tell what happened.”

“I know. It’s just… I’m used to slaying creatures that pose a threat to men, not men themselves. I realize what the Zhents are, what god they worship, what atrocities they commit, but…”

She shrugged.

“I’ve had to kill a lot of people in my time, some when they were already helpless,” said Dorn, seeing no point in mentioning that he didn’t particularly relish it, either. “I’ll do it, and we’ll get the boat turned around.”

He started chucking bodies overboard. One of the sleepers woke in his grip, and he had to stick his claws into the wretch’s heart.

I 3 Tarsakh, the Year of Rogue Dragons

The black sky blazed white, and thunder boomed, loud enough to rattle Taegan’s teeth in his jaw, or so it seemed. The rain hammered down. It had been storming since early afternoon, and he couldn’t decide if that was bad or good. The downpour blinded and generally hindered him, but presumably it was doing the same thing to the creatures who were hunting him and the other survivors of Rangrim’s company, trying to make certain that no one would escape to confirm that, yes, the Cult of the Dragon had indeed established an enclave in the heart of the Gray Forest.

Perhaps the rain didn’t matter one way or the other, any more than Taegan’s efforts to remain alert, stay low, and keep moving. Except for the hot, pulsing pain in his charred wing, his entire body was numb with cold and fatigue. He’d long since

expended all his spells. He was hungry, alone, and unable to see the moon or stars behind their veil of clouds, blundering in circles as like as not. It was virtually impossible to doubt that the enemy was going to catch him, and he wondered why he didn’t just sit down and wait for the inevitable. At least it would be less work.

Damn you, Gorstag, he thought, did you know Quelsandas had turned traitor? Why didn’t you warn me?

Why didn’t you do a better job of saving me? If I hadn’t bled out, I could have told you all kinds of things.

Taegan knew he was only imagining his student’s retort, but it was as if he was actually hearing it, which meant that in his exhaustion, and perhaps, fever-induced delirium, he was hallucinating. It was another bad sign, another indication that his inglorious end was close at hand. He hated the thought of dying like that, stalked and slain by brutes in the wilderness. It was a demise fit for the primitive elf he’d once been, not the cultured quasi-human he’d worked so diligently to become.

A wolf, or something akin to one, howled on his right. It sounded close, but though he turned and peered, he failed to spot it. Elsewhere in the wood, the creature’s packmates answered its call. So did hobgoblins, yelling or blatting away on bugles.

Taegan couldn’t even tell which way to run. It sounded as if his foes were all around him. He picked a direction at random, took a stride, then glimpsed motion from the corner of his eye. He pivoted and raised his sword just as the beast sprang.

His stop thrust took the attacker in the center of its furry chest, whereupon it fell to the ground, dragging the deeply embedded blade down with it. In the dark and the rain, its looks were indistinguishable from those of a natural wolf, but when it scrambled backward, dragging itself off the sword, Taegan realized it must be a lycanthrope going on four legs. No ordinary lupine could sustain such a hurt and continue fighting.