The Road to Death

54

Kandler leaned back and shaded his eyes against the rain of dust and gravel as the dragon burst into the sky not a hundred feet off the bow. He struggled to peer through the sun-flecked haze as the dragon spiraled high above him, climbing toward the clouds.

He still searched the sky when Xalt tapped him on the shoulder with the end of an already strung bow. The justicar took the weapon from the warforged, along with a quiver full of arrows, which he slung over his back. He nocked an arrow fletched with white feathers and pulled back on the bowstring, sighting along the shaft as he scanned the sky again.

Nithkorrh roared again. Finding the dragon wouldn’t be the problem, Kandler knew. Getting a clear angle at some part of him that an arrow could pierce, that would be the trick. He knew that he had little chance of hurting such a beast with a thin piece of wood, no matter how sharp it was or how far back he drew the bow. Even if it punctured the dragon’s ebony scales, it would be little more than a bee’s sting to it.

But then he wasn’t here to kill the dragon. He just wanted his daughter back.

He heard Esprë scream as the echoes of the dragon’s roar finally faded away. He spotted her then, hanging in the dragon’s clutches as its wings beat a path to the open sky.

No, he corrected himself. The dragon held Ibrido in its claws, and the dragon-elf had Esprë slumped over in his arms. Kandler couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, but she seemed to be in one piece at least.

Keeper’s Claw raced toward the dragon, its ring of fire crackling loudly as the changeling pushed its elemental to its limits. Nithkorrh spotted the ship coming and rumbled out a horrid, phlegm-caked laugh. It hovered in the air for a moment, then dove away to the east, over the mountains and toward the darkening sky.

Sallah brought Phoenix to bear on the dragon, which ended up following in the creature’s turbulent draft. Nithkorrh might be more nimble in the open than an airship, but he was no faster. Kandler suspected that all those years spent trapped within the mountain had atrophied the creature’s wings. Soon Phoenix was gaining on it.

“Ready?” Kandler said to Xalt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the warforged nod.

“Fire!”

The two released their bowstrings as one, and the shafts raced toward the beast before them. Kandler’s struck the dragon in the back, while Xalt’s hit its leg. Both arrows pierced the dragon’s scales but did not bite deep. With the next flap of Nithkorrh’s wings, they both fell away in the breeze.

As the dragon glanced back over its wings, Kandler smiled. The arrows had done their job: getting the dragon’s attention.

Xalt cursed as he nocked another arrow to his bow. When Kandler looked over at him, the artificer laughed. “What? I am a warforged, not a priest. Swearing is part of our training.”

Kandler would have replied to that, but the dragon in front of them decided to roll up and over until it hovered above them, cackling and preparing to spit.

This was the first good look Kandler had gotten at the beast. He’d seen a great many things in his life. A career as an agent for the Citadel in Sharn took him to a number of strange and distant lands. Even so, he’d never been this close to a dragon before.

If Nithkorrh had been frightening in its lair, out here in the sunlight its presence numbed the mind. Its wings spanned nearly as long as the whole of Phoenix, and its mouth burst with dozens of serrated teeth, some as long as a sword. It bore a pair of horns atop its head, the points of which swung out over its leathery batlike ears and toward its toothy jaws. Its ebony scales each looked as solid as a pikeman’s shield. Its hands and feet terminated in long, sharp talons that Kandler guessed could pry apart a suit of armor in seconds.

A flaw leaped out of the dragon’s menacing majesty though. Where its right eye should have been, a blackened hole peered out instead. Burch’s shockbolt had half blinded the beast. If it could be hurt, it could be killed, Kandler thought, although faced with the entire dragon, he had no idea how.

Sallah hauled back Phoenix as hard as she could, shoving Kandler and Xalt against the bow. Nithkorrh’s burning green spittle tumbled past the front of the ship, right where the craft would have been if the lady knight had maintained her speed. Instead of landing on the deck, though, it fell through the air to the rocks far below.

Duro let loose a bolt from his crossbow, but it sailed through the gap between the dragon and its wings. The dwarf cursed as he reloaded his weapon.

The dragon snorted in glee. “Well played,” it growled down at Phoenix. “I appreciate foes who make the fight interesting.”

The ship leaped forward again, leaving the dragon hovering as Phoenix zipped away. Kandler and Xalt managed to hold on to the bow rather than tumble back down the length of the ship.

“Where is it?” Kandler shouted as he scanned the sky behind the ship. The dragon was gone.

Xalt tapped the justicar on the shoulder and pointed up. Kandler craned his neck back and saw the dragon climbing higher and higher into the air on its leathery wings.

“What is it doing?” Xalt asked. “Trying to escape into the sky?”

The ship slowed down, and Kandler spotted Sallah gazing up at the dragon high above and behind them. Just as the dragon reached the top of its climb and started its downward dive, he understood its plan.

“Full speed!” he shouted back at Sallah. “Full speed!”

The lady knight grabbed the wheel with both hands, and Phoenix leaped forward, but it was too late. The dragon’s power dive gave it far too much speed for them to outrun it.

Kandler and Xalt stood shoulder to shoulder and nocked their arrows. “Fire low,” Kandler said. “We don’t want to hit Esprë, just shove the dragon off his mark.”

They fired their shafts as one, speeding toward Nithkorrh’s legs. The creature ignored them, letting them stab into one clawed foot and the bottom of its snaking tail.

“Duck!” Monja yelled from her spot next to Sallah on the bridge. It took a moment before Kandler realized the halfling’s warning was meant for Xalt and him.

Xalt pushed Kandler aside at the last moment, just as the dragon charged in for its attack. It lashed out with its tail, which smashed into the ship’s deck, right where Kandler had been. The tip of it caught Xalt in the shoulder and spun the warforged about, sending him hurtling toward the bow.

Kandler reached out and grabbed Xalt by the wrist as he went by, but the justicar hadn’t managed to anchor himself. The warforged’s momentum pulled them both toward the gunwale and the empty space beyond.

As he slammed into the railing across the bow, Kandler scrabbled for a good, strong hold and found one, just as Xalt tumbled over the edge. The sudden shift in the warforged’s momentum from outward to downward felt like it might shatter Kandler’s elbow, but he managed to keep hold of both the ship and Xalt too.

The airship slowed down and Kandler fought against gravity to haul the warforged back on to the ship. As he hung over the railing, his arm stretched almost to the breaking point, he looked past Xalt’s dangling feet to the ground far below. From this high up, it didn’t seem real, more like a painting than anything else. The amber glow of the dying sunlight gave the landscape a surreal cast that Kandler wished he had more time to appreciate. If he didn’t let go of the heavy warforged soon, he thought it might be the last thing he ever got to see.

“Release me!” Xalt shouted.

“Pull yourself up!”

“I’m too heavy. I’ll bring us both down,” the warforged said. “Release me now!”

Kandler didn’t bother to respond. He gritted his teeth and locked his knees under the railing along the gunwale. Then he swung his other arm out to grab the warforged too.

It was a calculated risk, and Kandler instantly regretted it. He felt the wood digging into his knees and then starting to slip. Sweat broke out on his brow as he strove to hold on to both Xalt and the ship, and he felt both getting away.

Then a set of hands grabbed him by his sword belt and pulled him back and up hard. He shoved his legs under the railing and pushed with all his might, hauling up with his arms at the same time. He thought the strain might tear the muscles in his back, but as he straightened his legs with the help from behind, he saw Xalt’s head and arms clear the railing and clamp on.

Kandler grabbed the warforged’s shoulders and hauled him bodily on to the airship’s deck. As he did, he fell back against Sallah, who held him in her arms.

“Thank the Flame,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Kandler.

“Wait,” Xalt said, “if you are here, who is flying the ship?”

Kandler scrambled off Sallah to spy Monja standing at the wheel, waving at them. The halfling stood on the spokes in the middle of the wheel, just so she could see over it, but she seemed to be handling the ship well enough. Duro stood behind her, waving his crossbow about as he tried to cover the sky.

“As long as we don’t need any fancy maneuvers, she should be fine,” Sallah said.

The dragon didn’t roar as it approached this time. The first Kandler saw of it, its claws had already touched down on the deck between him and the bridge, its reptilian, orange eye glaring out at him. As the justicar bounded to his feet, the creature set Ibrido and Esprë down on the deck in front of it and started to laugh.