The Ruin (35 page)

Taegan caught his balance, turned, and raced after her. Half deaf from the thunderclap, he faintly heard her start another song. Empty air gave birth to pale fog, concealing her willowy form. Even worse, when he plunged into the mist, grasping blindly, he found it possessed a degree of solidity, impeding him as if he were trying to push through a wall of snow.

He floundered in the stuff for another moment, until Brimstone snarled, in his soft, sibilant voice, “Are you all mad, making so much noise?” Taegan turned. Crimson eyes glowing, the dark-scaled vampiric wyrm was otherwise all but indistinguishable in the gloom.

“Kara’s having a fit,” said Raryn, on his feet once more and hastily taking up his axe, quiver, and bow. “She thinks she

needs to fight the Tarterians all by herself, and we couldn’t stop her from leaving.”

Brimstone’s eyes flared brighter, and the scent of burning that clung to him intensified. “That won’t do,” he whispered, then murmured a word of power that dissolved the mass of fog. “Climb onto my back, Raryn Snowstealer.”

Taegan didn’t wait for the dwarf and smoke drake to prepare themselves. He dashed out of the cave and scanned the benighted sky. Still singing, wings beating, Kara was headed out into the valley, but didn’t have quite as much of a lead as he’d expected. He realized she’d required a moment to shapeshift before taking to the air.

,He lashed his pinions and gave chase, rattling off his charm of quickness. Power burned and jolted through his limbs, and afterward, her wings appeared to flap more slowly. But she was still flying faster than he was.

“Kara!” he shouted. “Stop!”

It was madness to yell out in the open, where no wards existed to muffle the sound, but he didn’t know what else to do.

She didn’t respond.

Raryn, too, called Kara’s name. Taegan glanced back. The hunter and Brimstone were flying up behind him, overtaking him, though it appeared unlikely they’d catch up with the song dragon. Brimstone whispered an incantation, power whined, and Taegan felt queasy.

A cloud of gray mist swirled into existence around Kara. Even at a distance, Taegan could smell the putrid stink of it. Kara jerked as if in pain, and her anthem caught in her throat. She dived below the vapor and wheeled back around.

For a moment, Taegan hoped that Brimstone’s attack— which, though apparently aversive, had inflicted no visible wounds—had shocked Kara back to sanity. But no. She answered with a musical spell of her own. Brimstone lifted one wing high and dropped the other low, veering off, dodging, but when the song dragon’s darts of azure

light streaked at him, they turned in flight and pierced him anyway.

Brimstone grunted and snarled another charm. A spark hurtled at Kara, and she, too, tried unsuccessfully to dodge. The point of light flared and banged into a spherical burst of flame, searing the left side of her body. She floundered, her wings ataxic, and the smoke drake drove at her.

“What are you doing?” Raryn cried. “That could have killed her!”

“As her magic could destroy me,” Brimstone said, without slowing or veering off. He had the advantage of height, and was swooping down at her. “She’s lost to us now. I need to kill her before she brings the Tarterians down on us, and take her blood to keep from craving yours.”

Taegan realized with a stab of horror that both dragons had succumbed to their particular compulsions. The excitement of the chase and of combat, coupled with the pain of injury, had so amplified Brimstone’s thirst that it clouded his reason.

White mane streaming and tossing around his head, Raryn set the edge of his axe against Brimstone’s neck. “Stop this,” the ranger said, “or—”

Apparently not so stunned as she’d appeared, Kara abruptly resumed her song, beat her wings, and veered. She lifted her head, opened her jaws, and spat a sparkling, crackling flare of her breath.

The lightning infusing the vapor had little effect on Brimstone. Raryn, however, convulsed. Afterward, swaying, the dwarf continued to cling to his perch on the smoke drake’s back, but that was all he could manage. He was no longer capable of threatening anyone.

Brimstone turned, compensating for Kara’s attempt to dodge out from underneath him. His claws stabbed into her back, and impelled by his momentum, they plummeted together, to slam down on the floor of the valley. Old, broken bones flew up at the impact.

Raryn jumped off Brimstone and staggered away just

before the two wyrms started rolling, biting, and tearing at one another. Had he been even an instant slower, they surely would have crushed him. When clear, he collapsed to his knees, and his sides heaved. Plainly, for the moment, he had nothing more to give.

Though unscathed, Taegan felt almost as helpless. He didn’t want to help Kara battle Brimstone. However demonic his fundamental nature, the vampire was an ally, and even had it been otherwise, destroying him would do nothing to restore Kara’s reason.

Yet he saw no other recourse, and so, sword poised, rattling off an incantation to surround himself with phantom duplicates, he dived at the tangled, writhing drakes. Then something hissed and screeched. He leveled off and wheeled to see that the Tarterians were coming.

Someone in Lyrabar had spotted the dragons winging their way through the twilight. But either the folk in the city hadn’t discerned the wyrms were metallics, or else had deemed it prudent to sound the alarm even so, for all the countless temple bells were tolling, and had been for a considerable time.

But no one had rushed forth to confront the travelers. When the drakes and their riders spiraled downward toward the hill crowned with its circle of weathered menhirs, nine standing, one fallen on its side, the landscape was otherwise deserted.

Swinging himself down off Tamarand’s back—arguably a position of honor, though, grieving and guilty over Lareth’s death, the gold had turned out to be just as taciturn and uncongenial a companion as Dorn—Pavel noticed that Darvin and a number of the other Thentians appeared relieved to be back on the ground. Hissing and screwing up their faces, they rubbed their thighs and hobbled stiffly around.

Firefingers, though, despite looking twice as old as any of the others, strolled briskly around inspecting the symbols carved on the standing stones. “This place was sacred to Bane,” he said.

“Yes,” said Pavel, “but according to Brimstone, the decent folk of Impiltur eradicated the coven long ago. These days, the circle is simply the entrance to his lair. Or at least, I hope it still is.”

“If it isn’t,” said Havarlan, argent, much-scarred scales shining even in the evening gloom, “we’ll simply have to break it open.” Like most of the drakes, she crouched on the hillside, outside the ring. The space inside wasn’t big enough to hold more than a couple wyrms at a time.

“Are you sure you can?” asked Will, still astride Wardancer.

Havarlan snorted, chilling the air and suffusing it with the smell of rain. “I certainly hope so. For if we can’t contend with Brimstone’s enchantments, we surely have no chance of countering Sammaster’s magic, or that of the primordial elves.”

“Well,” Pavel said, “let’s try it the easy way first.” His bad leg aching a little—days on dragon-back had taken a toll on him as well—he strode to the center of the circle. Tamarand, Firefingers, Dorn, Scattercloak, Jivex, and Jannatha came to join him.

“Brimstone!” he shouted. y

As before, for a split second, he seemed to fall, or to hurtle like an arrow through emptiness dappled with light, then the vampire’s limestone cavern sprang into being around him. The cool, greenish light of the perpetual torches gleamed on coffer after overflowing coffer of coins and gems. Despite Brimstone’s extended absence, the lair still smelled of smoke and sulfur.

Hovering, wings glimmering, Jivex peered about. “I’m a dragon,” he said. “Why don’t I have heaps of sparkly stuff’?”

“I suggest,” said Scattercloak, “we move. We don’t want the others dropping in right on top of us.”

They all hurried into a side gallery, less stuffed with

treasure than the first chamber, but still aglitter with a certain amount of overflow. The rest of their companions blinked into view, a few at a time. Once they perceived that they hadn’t teleported themselves into danger, the gold and silver dragons shrank into human form, relieving what would otherwise have been claustrophobic congestion.

“Now, then,” said Firefingers. “Those of us who understand portal magic will need to work in the center of the hoard. Everyone else, please, give us room.”

As Pavel watched the wizards, human and dragon alike, set about their labors, Sureene, clad in silvery mail that glowed like moonlight, and made her look like a handsome warrior queen, came to stand beside him.

“Well done,” she murmured.

He shrugged. “Anybody could have called out Brimstone’s name.”

“I mean all of it. I have a gift for you.” She opened the satchel hanging over her shoulder and brought out a leather scroll case. “The divine magic version of the spell to end the Rage, scribed half a dozen times over.”

“I accept it gratefully, of course, but I trust it will be truly accomplished spellcasters like Firefingers, Nexus, and you who actually make the attempt to end the curse.”

“So one would expect,” she said, “but then we expected the warlocks would be the ones to solve the problem of reaching the citadel, too. It’s best if every spellcaster in our company possesses the means to try, and from what I understand, you’ve been too busy roaming around gathering vital information, rescuing kings and kingdoms, and slaughtering evil wyrms to master the actual incantation.”

Was she flirting with him? It felt like it, and the gods knew, even though she was ten years older than he, he’d always fancied her. He’d just never tried to do anything about it because she’d always seemed too dignified, busy, important, and generally unavailable. He started to frame a suitably glib but modest response, then glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision.

Will glanced surreptitiously around. Then he eased in front of an open chest, shielding it behind his body and cloak. His hand slipped toward a gold ring set with an emerald solitaire.

“Please, pardon me just a moment,” Pavel said. He advanced on Will. “Leave that, insect!”

The halfling snatched his hand back. “What?”

“You know what. Leave the treasure alone. If you steal anything, you could change the hoard’s essential identity, and keep the wizards from opening the gate.”

“You don’t know that. You just like frustrating your betters. My whole life, I’ve wanted to loot a dragon’s lair. Now here we are, with the tenant nowhere around—”

“No one cares about your sordid predilections. Restrain yourself.” Pavel turned back around, only to discover that Sureene had drifted away and stood murmuring with Baerimel and Jannatha. The moment had passed.

As he drew breath to shower Will with invective, brightness bloomed in the air above the bulk of the hoard, the soft radiance glinting on jewels and pieces of precious metal. The portal resembled a whirlpool standing on end, and likewise light refracting through a prism.

“If Brimstone happens to be flying,” said Tamarand, currently wearing the shape of a slim youth with curly chestnut hair, “we could step through into empty air.”

“Or something a thousand times worse,” Darvin said. ,

The gold ignored the interruption. “Accordingly, we dragons will pass through in our true shapes, carrying our allies on our back. That way, no one will come to harm by falling. I’ll go first.”

Pavel supposed that meant he would, too. He headed for Tamarand, who swelled and dropped to all fours, clothing dissolving, wings erupting from his shoulder blades.

When the transformation was complete, Pavel climbed onto the dragon’s back. Tamarand sprang at the luminous disk, and evidently recognizing that the gate was just large enough for him to pass through at the same time, Jivex opted to streak along beside him.

Taegan didn’t know what to do. Probably, he thought, because there was no way to avert disaster.

But he could see that Kara and Brimstone were still ripping at one another as if they hadn’t even noticed the advent of the Tarterians. If the six otherworldly wyrms descended on them while they were tangled together, they’d have no chance at all. Nor would Raryn, who’d struggled back to his feet, but was still only a few paces away from his draconic allies.

So Taegan decided to try to lead the Tarterians away from his friends, to give Raryn time to hide, and Kara and Brimstone a final chance to come to their senses. He flew higher, shouting and brandishing Rilitar’s sword, then wheeled and raced zigzagging away from Sammaster’s minions.

A blaze of breath narrowly missed him and obliterated two of his illusory twins. Beginning a charm to cloak himself in blur, he glanced back, then felt a surge of despair.

Three of the Tarterians were chasing him, but the others were spiraling down toward his allies, and despite the imminent threat, Kara and Brimstone continued battling one another. Raryn shouted to them to stop, to look, while loosing arrows at the creatures overhead. Shaft after shaft pierced the Tarterians’ dark, mottled hide, but the wounds were insufficient to deter them.

With all hope lost, Taegan considered translating himself through space so he could at least die fighting in proximity to his comrades. But then the Tarterians on his tail would follow him back to Kara and the others, and though he couldn’t see how it actually mattered either way, somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He flew onward instead, toward the dark, snow-dappled barrier mountains.

Instinct prompted him to veer, and a bubble of shadow burst into existence beside him, almost caging him, but not quite. Unfortunately, though, his evasive maneuver turned him straight at a Tarterian that had drawn up even with him

on his left flank. Until this moment, he hadn’t even realized it was there.

He looked around for a ghost dragon, or one of the areas of old, decaying magic his pursuers avoided. Neither was within reach. The wyrms had him boxed in, with nowhere left to flee. Green eyes shining, the Tarterian in front of him spread its black-fanged jaws.