When Dragons Rage

34

With the thunder of the discharging quadnels echoing loudly, Erlestoke leaped through the smoke and fire. The sword had drained the world of color again, so that the crawl to his left had black ink splashing from two hideous quadnel wounds, not red blood. It heightened other perceptions. A vylaen fell back with half its skull blown off. The grey fluid spattering those behind soaked torpidly into their fur.

The first of the gibberers bearing the heavy crate his squad had come to steal looked up. Surprise registered starkly on its face; Erlestoke’s saber slashed through that dumbfounded expression. As that gibberer reeled away and his corner of the ironbound oak case dipped toward the ground, Erlestoke’s saber came up and around, then down, cleaving cleanly through the arm of another gibberer. It howled piteously and stumbled away, clutching the pulsing stump to its chest. The front of the case slammed into the ground, though two other gibberkin still held up the back end.

The Oriosan Prince leaped forward again, planting both feet on the case. The added weight bent the other two gibberers. The saber whistled down, opening the one on the right from mid-spine to crown. The other made to draw its longknife, but a quadnel shot blasted heavily into its chest, knocking it backward.

Erlestoke stepped lightly forward, as if he were at a ball. He could feel the saber’s pernicious influence in the way he moved and what he was thinking. He had a mission, which was to steal the item in that case, and that was far more important than his life—or any life. The mission was as foolhardy as it was desperate, but it was even more vital.

Through the smoke, one of the cloaked figures came toward him. Up close it looked much bigger than it had before and, to complicate matters, the saber’s magick appeared to be muted in its presence.

Doesn’t matter. I was a warrior long before I had an enchanted sword.

The creature came on swiftly, not running, but with long strides that ate up ground. Behind it came a cadre of crawls, gibberers, and even a few vylaens. The human prisoners who had worked on the dig held back. Chained together, they could have done nothing anyway—though Erlestoke decided their reluctance to join in was more than just a practical consideration.

The prince closed with the cloaked figure and realized almost too late that it had to be nearly ten feet tall. He slashed at it crossways, looking to open its belly, but its left hand came out and down, sweeping from beneath the cloak. Erlestoke caught a hint of some sort of scaled armor on the forearm and expected the blade to shear through it.

To his surprise, it did not.

The creature’s left arm came around and over, then its long-fingered hand closed over the saber’s forte. With a single tug, the cloaked figure ripped the blade from his hand—so swiftly that Erlestoke’s glove came with it. Then the creature’s right hand emerged from the cloak and slammed an open-palm blow square into Erlestoke’s chest.

A hideous crack rippled through him and the prince flew backward, landing heavily on Jullagh-tse as she dragged the case away. She went down hard and the case slewed around. She shoved Erlestoke from her, her clawed feet scrabbling for traction.

Erlestoke rolled forward and flopped on his back. His chest ached with each breath, and only keeping them shallow prevented the pain from spiking. He got his elbows under him and started to lever himself up, but his ribs cracked again, forcing him to gasp.

Behind him he heard the urZrethi. “Prize is clear.”

The cloaked creature loomed large and larger.

“Go, go, go!” Erlestoke tried to shout, but only the first word had any volume. Digging his heels in, he tried to drag himself backward, but he could not escape the thing coming for him.

Both of its arms came up, opening the cloak to reveal a leathery scale armor that reminded him, vaguely, of a Panqui’s armored flesh. Gold glinted in streaks and speckles on the green scale armor as it towered over him. Sharp horny knobs and spurs sprouted on the forearms and elbows. Clawed fingers rose to rake terrible hooked talons down through him.

Four quadnels spoke as one. Before the smoke hid the creature, Erlestoke saw one of the balls hit its broad chest and bounce away. Of the other shots he could not see what hit where, but the figure did stagger backward. The prince heard a mighty hiss and the thump of heavy footfalls.

Erlestoke rolled onto his stomach and heaved himself up, but his left foot lost traction and he crashed down again. His left shoulder hit the ground, jolting more pain through him. He cried out, then looked up at Ryswin, standing there, his silverwood bow drawn. “Go!”

The elf shook his head. “Hurry.”

Erlestoke clawed at the icy ground and lunged forward just as the elf released the arrow. Behind him came a gurgle, then an angry roar that faded into a hiss. As Ryswin grabbed his left shoulder and hauled him upright, the prince hazarded a glance backward.

One of the quadnel shots must have shattered the cloak’s clasp, for the creature had come through the thinning smoke naked. The armor Erlestoke had seen had not been clothing but flesh, and the hood had hidden a hideous head with spikes and horns. The face appeared almost human, though devoid of hair and covered in scales—save that a muzzle began to jut forward, and the lipless mouth displayed the lethal curve of ivory fangs.

The elf’s arrow protruded from the creature’s mouth. It coughed and grasped the arrow as crawls and vylaens came to its aid. Erlestoke saw nothing more as the elf bodily dragged him into the small passage they’d discovered, and down between rough-hewn walls to sanctuary.

Erlestoke gasped with pain. “Slow, I can’t run. My ribs.”

“We have to, Highness.” The elf glanced up along their back trail. “We haven’t stopped it, just made it angry.”

“You know what it was?”

“Not for certain, no, but you recall my telling you about the kryalniri?.”

“Nightmare creatures from long ago, yes.”

The elf nodded solemnly. “There are stories, seldom told, of things that used to prey on beasts like the kryalniri. They are ancient and fell. The only things older are dragons, and the further we are from it, the happier I’ll be.”

Goruel knelt on one knee in the snow and spat out the arrow. A little greenish black blood came with it, staining the snow. It had not hurt him as much as it had surprised him. Even the soft flesh of his mouth had not let it penetrate enough to lodge. As he swallowed he could feel a slow trickle of blood running down the back of his throat, but the wound would soon close and the injury would be of no consequence.

One of the kryalniri came and knelt before him. “How can this one aid you, Lord-master Goruel?”

Goruel almost snatched the arrow up and drove it through the white-furred beast’s lower jaw and into its brain, but the kryalniri needn’t suffer because of his similarity to the elf. He forced his hands open, then turned the right one over and, curling the fingers inward, inspected his talons. In a whisper he asked, “Why is there no pursuit?”

The creature’s eyes widened. “I thought to succor you, Lord-master.”

Goruel rose to his feet, towering over the kryalniri. It quaked there at his feet, sagging back on its heels. It cast its eyes downward, yet still flinched as the shadow of his upraised right hand passed over it. “Fools who think thus deserve to die.”

His right hand fell heavily in a crushing blow to the skull.

The kryalniri looked up, grey eyes wide as a vylaen collapsed next to it. “Lord-master?”

Goruel licked blood from his knuckles. “Prove to be more useful a fool than those vermin. Fetch me the sword.”

The kryalniri scrambled away to do his bidding. Goruel advanced, following the case’s track through the snow, right up to the blank stone wall where it ended. He sniffed, then flicked his forked, serpentine tongue against the stone. He closed his eyes and sniffed again.

There was something about Fortress Draconis that he had sensed from his arrival. It had strengthened, slowly, and had become especially concentrated and vexing. He could feel it where they sought the Truestones and in the aftermath of the araftü roost’s crushing collapse. He had never sensed its like before, which did not cause him fear, but merely whetted his curiosity.

His minion returned with the sword and offered it up on flat palms with head bowed. Goruel took the blade and sniffed it. Delicately his forked tongue came out and he trailed the twin edges over the curved length of enchanted steel. In some places his tongue lingered, in others it returned for another pass.

He could feel the sword’s magick and marveled at how insistent it was. It tried to mask his sight. It tried to paint those around him as fearful and, therefore, threats. It even offered advice as to how best it could be employed to destroy them.

He shoved this aside as one might toe away an inquisitive puppy and read more. He was able to taste its recent history. The blade related it to him in stark detail from the point at which it had been first drawn. Every bone cloven, every life taken, all of these came to him as subtly and fully as the nuances of spiced wine. He could feel the last wielder’s hand on the blade, and got a strong sense of him. Before him, a woman, and before her, a sullanciri.

Goruel slowly nodded. Malarkex. That sullanciri had been slain in Okrannel, so the blade had traveled far. That it had been created for one of Chytrine’s generals told him why the magick was strong enough for him to need to push it away.

Again he licked and found a slender thread of magick he had almost missed. The blade and its scabbard were linked.

Goruel gave the blade back to the kryalniri. “Use the seeking magick. The blade will lead to its scabbard, and that will lead to the fragment’s thieves. Do it now!”

An unholy light wreathed the kryalniri’s hands, then played like lightning over the blade. It skipped and jumped down the curved length, then leaped in a scintillating ball that circled once, then bounced against the wall Goruel had recently examined.

He moved up, back and away as the kryalniri’s cry brought gibberers with sledgehammers and pry bars. They pounded on the wall and quickly breached it. A group of them plunged into the darkness beyond it, then howled. Vylaens entered, then the kryalniri. The purple ball of light slipped into the hole, then Goruel stooped and passed through its tight confines.

Deep and down they went. Most of the passages forced Goruel to crouch. At various points they ran into blockages, but the hammers and spells made short work of them. The lower they went, the faster blockades fell.

After less than an hour they reached a large amphitheater. The tiers for spectators had been decorated with the stone effigies of a variety of warriors, though these concerned Goruel not at all. He passed swiftly down the stairs and up again to the central platform. At its heart lay a square opening, and another set of steps heading down into darkness. He saw well enough into it, but the stairs ended at a corridor running east, limiting his view.

He crouched at the platform’s edge and picked up the scabbard. It had been nestled safely in a little depression, right there on the platform, which suggested deliberation. And the only reason for that would be…

The magickal sense he’d had of Fortress Draconis focused and spiked. A vylaen hissed and a gibberer howled, but Goruel did not need to turn his face to know what was happening. In front of him, all along the terraces, stone figures began to move. Slowly at first, as people might move when rising from a long sleep. Steadily, inexorably, they started forward, climbing down toward him.

The stone legion caught the fleeing gibberers easily. The figures could not move quickly, but there were so many that running through a thorny thicket would have been easy by comparison. Some gibberers struggled mightily to pull free, but at the cost of shreds of pelt hanging from clawed fingers.

The kryalniri mewed loudly and reached out for him as stone enemies grabbed it. Its claws screeched over the steps, scoring little white lines in the grey stone, then the creature evaporated in a mist of blood and floating wisps of fur.

Goruel retreated, though not in any way hurried or frightful. Behind him, the stairs had melted back into solid stone, leaving the platform a smooth killing arena. He strode to the center of the stone circle, shifted his spiked shoulders, then shook his hands out and cast aside the scabbard.

He roared once, defiantly, at the stone figures that crawled up the steps. Goruel licked the air with anticipation, and caught another hint of the magick pervading the area.

He nodded. “Yes, of course. I know it now and should have seen before. Very well.” He waved the stone figures forward. “Do your utmost. Delay me you might, but defeat me, never!”

The heavy weight of the furred robes made Erlestoke’s chest ache, but they kept him warm. He followed behind Ryswin, with Jilandessa trailing. She’d offered to heal him, but he’d refused. The spell would have fatigued her, and he could still move well enough.

Jullagh-tse Seegg led the way through tunnels that wound through the earth. They had long since left behind the corridors of the fortress and headed east, but because of the twists and turns they had no way of measuring how far they had come.

The urZrethi came to a place where she shifted her hands into digging tools and clawed her way up toward the surface. She angled the tunnel to make ascent easy, and before long cold air poured down through a hole, and snow quickly followed. The wind’s howl could be heard, but not so loudly that they had to shout.

Erlestoke emerged from the hole with Ryswin’s help, and clutched the blue-green DragonCrown fragment to his belly. The others climbed out, and the group made a dash fifty yards east to the tree line. Crouched there, leaning against a venerable oak, the prince looked back at Fortress Draconis.

The once-proud fortress had been shattered, and not even the snow could hide the damage. Walls gaped and buildings sagged. Whereas once the fortress would have been ablaze, serving as a beacon to warn Chytrine’s troops away, now it lay dim and dark, like a phantom of fog drifting in from the Crescent Sea.

Verum, the weapons-master, knelt beside the prince. “I have my bearings. East for two miles or so, then southeast and we’ll reach a storehouse. We can resupply ourselves there. After that, well, that’s a decision for you.”

Erlestoke nodded. “We have to keep this fragment from Chytrine, so we’ll head south, right behind her troops.”

“Not to question your judgment, Highness, but wouldn’t we want to be going away from her troops?”

The prince gave the man a wink. “Oh, we know she’ll be tracking us, so it doesn’t matter where we run. Head south and we’re closer to friends. Somehow, we’ll have to hope they reach us before she does.”