He looked up at Aikira and she saw a flash of confusion in his eyes. Then she heard the sudden thrumming of Sarax swarming in from behind her. It was all Golden could do to leap clear of the toothy alien creatures. Then the hot static blast of Rolph’s Druid magic nearly scorched them as they went.
The last thing Aikira saw before her dragon carried her clear of that part of the city was a glassine green dome snap into place over the very spot she had just left. Outside of the field, the Sarax began decimating anything they could get hold of. Soon the whole city was thick with goblins, orcs, and trolls. For every knot of vermin, there was an ivory-antlered alien imago commanding them.
There were Sarax, too. So many that Golden and her rider were soon caught in a swarm. One of the Sarax had a pike-like weapon and jabbed it at her. When it touched Golden, a familiar shock flashed through her body. The burst bit straight through flesh and scale, but Aikira cast forth a pulse of energy that sent the foul creature flailing away. It didn’t matter. There were a hundred more there to take its place.
When Marcherion and blaze came streaking down out of the sky over Delton, March saw the strange green dome flash into existence. A Sarax that had been half in, half out of the limits of the field was cut in two. The upper portion of torso and one of its wings slid down the edge of the dome, leaving a dark, shimmering streak. He remembered the other Dragoneers telling him how Mysterian cast forth such a thing to save ships full of soldiers landing to defend Mainsted when Gravelbone was attacking. He wondered why the dome was so much smaller than Rikky and Jenka had described. Then he saw a flash of gold deep inside a swarm of Sarax. Blaze didn’t need direction. The fire drake surged toward Golden with powerful thrusts of his wings. Marcherion’s rage fueled the magic contained in his white gold medallion. As his dragon spewed forth gouts of searing flame, twin rays of cherry shot from his eyes. They sliced through everything they contacted.
March could see that Golden was bitten in at least two places. One of the bites looked severe, but it was near the dragon’s rump, away from her wings. The amount of damage being done by Aikira’s wizard magic was fading. March didn’t cast spells, so he had never experienced spell weariness firsthand, but he’d heard Jenka complain of it. He’d seen how his fellow Dragoneer was drained to a husk when he’d sealed up the star ship what seemed like an age ago.
Marcherion’s rage caused him to nearly sear off one of Golden’s wings. At least a third of the swarm was littering the city below. Most of the remainder of the alien creatures were dispersing. Only a few were still trying to harry the dragon and its rider. One of these was drenched in dragon blood and seemed intent on finishing the meal it had started.
Blaze carried them right over Aikira, and as soon as they were clear, the fire drake roasted one of the creature’s wings to cinders. Marcherion felt an urge and shouted out a word from deep within. Up from his gut and out of his mouth a lightning-sharp streak of raw power pulsed forth and evaporated another Sarax into a misty wet cloud of black goo.
March looked up, coughing, to see another Sarax dropping at him from above. It never had a chance to get there, for Aikira and Golden went banking around so sharply that they were upside down. The gold dragon’s thinned spew did little to the creature, but its hind claws latched a hold and hurled it away fast enough that neither dragon nor Dragoneer were affected by the thing’s bright, flashing defensive pulse.
“I’m sure glad to see you,” Aikira yelled as her dragon came back around to glide just above Blaze.
“And you. Where is Zahrellion? Have you seen Rikky?” Marcherion asked, his anger slowly turning into concern.
“Zah is escorting hundreds of refugees west. I’ve not seen Rikky, or Jenka.” Aikira looked defeated as she spoke over the rush of the wind. “The king and queen, the Outland councils, and a handful of witches are huddled under that.” She was pointing at the strange emerald dome amid the chaos.
“I’d sure hate to be them,” said March. “We’re going after Zahrellion. We can’t leave her alone.”
“But those people—”
“There is something far worse coming this way, Aikira,” March said. “They’ll either survive or they won’t. We have to find the others. It will take all of the Dragoneers and more to stop what’s coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
It seemed as if the long strung-out group of mostly unarmed refugees Zahrellion was watching over was safe until the sun went down. Luckily, no one tried to stop and set up camp. With Crystal’s help, Zahrellion could make out the creatures, but the evacuees were being plucked one at a time. It was hard defending the people because by the time Zah saw one of the Sarax coming, she couldn’t attack it without harming those over which she was watching. One of the creatures latched a hold of a heavy man. As it struggled to carry him off, Crystal blasted the Sarax with her glacial breath. The weight of the frozen alien, when it landed on top of the man, killed him instantly. Zahrellion didn’t have time to feel guilty, though: already more Sarax were coming to feed.
As best as she could tell, there were only half a dozen of them, but in the darkness it was impossible to say for certain. Zah mistakenly assumed that the Sarax weren’t interested in attacking her. Then she was jabbed in the back by a long rod just before an explosion of power shot through her. Crystal roared out in agony as the flow of pain carried through the rider into the wyrm.
As if in slow motion, Zahrellion slipped from her saddle and fell. She impacted the muddy earth a good way from the road and bounced. In a rage, Crystal made an impossibly sharp turn and froze three of the attacking Sarax as she searched for her fallen rider.
Twice Sarax came streaking in formation and shocked Crystal with their pulsing weapons. She was large enough to absorb most of the power, but it was painful. For the rest of the night she led the Sarax away from the area and then returned after she’d lost them in the darkness.
When the big frost dragon finally found Zahrellion, the sun was starting to lighten the sky. Crystal could smell trellkin in the air and knew that the beasts following the bloody road from Delton would soon be on them. Zahrellion was unconscious and Crystal didn’t think she could get her into her saddle, so she gently clutched the white-haired girl in her claw and lifted into the sky. Immediately, fear shot through her when she saw two winged forms closing in from above. Relieved beyond measure to see that it was Golden and Blaze, and their riders, Crystal let out a roar that told the other wyrms she needed them.
A few moments later, Aikira was tending to Zahrellion’s unconscious form.
“If only Rikky were here,” Marcherion mumbled from his strapped-in seat atop Blaze’s saddle. “He knows all the healing spells.”
“I know some healing spells, too.” Aikira was resolved to keep her emotions contained. Over the winter she had grown close to Zah, but she was jealous as well. Zahrellion had Jenka, while she’d felt there was no other choice but to leave Weldon behind in Indale. She could have found him and asked him to help the ogres mind Clover’s Castle. If she had, he might still be alive.
Now he was dead.
She fought to keep control of her mind as she murmured the words of a spell that would help revitalize Zahrellion from the inside. She cast it, but her lack of strength kept the magic from being very effective. Zahrellion only barely came around.
Crystal moved her big white icicle-horned head over them and cast the exact same spell by repeating Aikira’s words. This time Zahrellion was filled with a powerful jolt of her dragon’s familiar Dou.
She sat up and looked around. Her eyes went wide and she found herself confused. She wasn’t sure what was happening. Her heart was racing, and the dark face before her was not the face she wanted to see. As she lay back down in the mud, a single word slipped from her mouth before she fell into a heavy slumber.
“Jenka.”
“We have to find Rikky,” Zahrellion said half a day later as she sat and tested her limbs for movement. Her voice was weak but firm, her body sore but fun
ctional. Crystal’s Dou was potent. “Jenka can take care of himself.”
“Rikky can, too,” Marcherion said. “If he isn’t...”
“Don’t you say it, Marcherion Weston,” Aikira said in a half-snarling, half-pleading tone. “Don’t you dare say that about Rikky!” She broke then, and it was another turn of the hourglass before they were all mounted and flying. They went west first, and as soon as they saw that the survivors of the previous night’s Sarax attacks were still underway and unharried, they turned due east toward Delton.
The central Outland city resembled the aftermath of the battle at the Temple of Dou, save for the melting slushy snow, and the fact that the carnage was easily a hundred times as bad.
There were fewer fires than Marcherion had seen in Indale. From above, the whole carrion-infested, trampled city looked like a scab on the unblemished snow-silvered terrain that surrounded it. The road, at least the first few miles extending out of Delton, was littered with bodies, too. March had told them about the creature he saw as they flew, but Zahrellion and Aikira got a firsthand look at it when they passed over the heart of Delton. The humongous, milk-colored creature had morphed from the loping feline state that Marcherion had last seen into something bulkier, bearish with a dozen long freakish limbs. Like a grizzly that had lost its fear of man, the creature rooted around the demolished buildings and lanes, picking the choice morsels of flesh from the rubble. It studied them with wagon wheel-sized eyes as wild as a flaming sunset.
It was four times as big as the biggest dragon she'd ever seen, and that wyrm had been half again Crystal’s size. “What is it?" Zah asked in awe. “Where did it come from?” But she knew the answer. This is what had gotten into her mind and compelled her to destroy the encasement. This was the hive master from the star ship.
“I don't know what it is, but it changes shape like the witches do,” Marcherion said.
Zah noticed a scorched, oozing mark as long as a tree trunk along the creature’s lower rear. She hoped Lemmy or Rikky had made the wound. It was a relief to know that the creature bled, even though the stuff that was leaking from the injury was more orange then red.
"Look." Aikira pointed at the luminous green dome amid the wreckage.
"That’s Mysterian’s witchy magic," said Zahrellion. "We have to do something. That thing looks to be ranging toward them."
“That dome has moved from where I last saw it," Aikira told them. “I think it’s over the—”
“We need to find Rikky,” March interrupted.
“When Jenka and I were in King Blanchard’s dungeon, after my Order leveraged my freedom, it was Mysterian alone who helped Jenka escape. Not only that, she is my friend." Zahrellion didn't know what to do. She wanted Jenka and Ricky there, but they weren't. She decided to try a druidic spell she knew. If she could find out what the old Hazeltine was about, then she would know better what to do.
Mysterian, Mysterian can you hear me? Zahrellion called across a plane of existence similar to the ethereal. The fact that an answer came was a relief, but when she realized who the mental voice belonged to, she had to hold back the curses from her tongue.
Zah, it’s Linux, he said in a calm, yet commanding tone. The royal family and I, as well as several hundred Outland citizens, are down in a tunnel. Only Mysterian remains above, holding her shielding over the opening.
Can she sustain the field? Zah asked, while keeping her opinion of her former mentor to herself. We can see it.
She can, was Linux's reply. Hundreds of lives depend on it.
There is a gargantuan creature roaming the city above you, but it seems wary of Mysterian’s magic.
Zah wanted more than anything to go find Rikky, but she couldn’t abandon Mysterian and the king. If it was just Linux, she would tell him to fend for himself, but it wasn’t only him.
“I have to stay and help them,” Zahrellion said loudly to the other Dragoneers. “There are Outlanders in a tunnel under that shield.”
“Argggh!” Marcherion growled out. “We need to find Rikky and Lem. They may need us.”
“I... I...” Aikira sobbed at her indecision. “My people.... I... I... have to stay.”
During the conversation, the dragons were circling their riders around Mysterian’s shield. They were so caught up in their conversation that none of them noticed the master alien when it stretched long and high, like some striking serpent, up toward them, and then shot its tongue out.
Had Marcherion not been strapped in, he would have been drawn back into the alien’s maw. As it was, the retracting tongue took part of his riding cloak, and some of the skin from his exposed forearm, with it.
Blaze made Marcherion’s mind up for him when the big fire drake dove down at the alien creature’s lower body and let loose long searing gouts of fiery breath. There was no decision left to be made, Zahrellion saw, and she too made to attack the huge thing. Aikira and Golden were right behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The extended head and torso of the alien drew back into the main body and then the creature was morphing again. It formed into something part avian, part reptilian, and leapt into flight. It had a hard time staying airborne. It didn’t get far before it was on the ground and morphing again. This time it slowed and changed into a blunt stump with a club-like limb that came around and batted Blaze across the sky as if he were a booted chicken.
Blaze let loose with his dragon breath as he was bashed through the air. Veined albinic skin smoldered and blistered under the intense heat. Then Zahrellion’s warbling yellow flow impacted the alien full in its torso and it went rolling into a spherical form that crushed a wide swath through Delton as it rolled.
At least it’s moving away from Mysterian, Zahrellion thought as Aikira took up the attack.
The ebon Dragoneer cast a spell, but the result was feeble due to fatigue. Golden’s molten spew was far more effective, and seemed to actually scald the alien as it moved away.
Suddenly, the alien unrolled back into the long snaking form. It went slithering crazily away from the city sideways, only to lump back into a more canine shape. It shot its tongue at Marcherion and Blaze, but this time the fire drake was ready.
The alien tasted dragon fire instead of flesh and roared out a vibrating hum that sent tremors racing up Zahrellion’s spine. Crystal was coming around in an attempt to spew her glacial breath on the creature’s strange fiery eyes. Zah hoped to blind it. It was then that a familiar, but unwelcome, sensation grabbed hold of Zah. Her forehead went hot and her vision blurred.
When Zahrellion turned and let loose her Dou magic at Aikira, the ebon-skinned Dragoneer’s eyes went as big as duck eggs. Marcherion wasn’t sure why it was happening. Then she was blasting at him. His dragon carried him out of harm’s way, but the alien, now unhindered by Dragoneers, scattered the numbers of trellkin roaming the city beneath it as it trotted back over to Mysterian’s dome.
Marcherion reached down deep and ignited the power of the white gold medallion. Cherry rays shot from his eyes and cut twin lines of smoldering char across the creature’s back. It emitted another pulse of terrible spine-racking sound, and Marcherion knew that Zahrellion was about to attack him again. As Blaze banked sharply away from the frost dragon, March saw the alien creature dig into Mysterian’s shield as if it wasn’t even there. March searched the ground for Aikira, but there was no dragon sprawled where they should have impacted after taking Zah’s magical blow.
He heard Mysterian scream and jerked his head around in time to see the alien make to snatch up the old Hazeltine witch standing defiantly before the cave opening. She unleashed a spell, but March saw little effect. The thing darted its head in and crunched her. With a grunt it chugged her down its gullet and roared. As if it could smell the other people trapped in the tunnel, the alien began digging into the earth like a badger trying to get at maggots in a log.
When Zahrellion tried to let loose another blast at March, the great frost wyrm dove sharply, making the warbl
ing flow of energy splatter across a band of trolls and orcs below.
March had no idea what to do. By the way the alien creature was digging, those people down there, the king and queen, and the other witches, were in trouble. A mental image of the alien morphing into some worm and slithering into the opening flashed across his mind. He knew he had to do something. Crystal was trying to fly away from the other Dragoneers now, and by the way Golden was struggling to stay in the sky, March knew he had to stop the alien alone.
He concentrated on the medallion and began hawking in his throat as if trying to clear it of phlegm. A surge of power vomited up from his insides and flashed across the distance between him and the back half of the monster. When the raw magical force hit the creature, it sank deeply into its core and sparkled as if breaking apart inside it. Though he was struggling to get air into his raw, dry throat, he saw the thing lose all form for an instant, then it was backing up and expanding, busting apart the earth and slinging debris over the trolls and goblins in the area. The sound that erupted from the creature then was so loud, so overpowering and intense, Marcherion thought he would die from it.
Blaze carried his rider around in a wide circle, and the enraged alien swelled to three times its previous size. It morphed into a lanky mannish shape. A hand the size of a cottage came reaching out at Marcherion and Blaze. Then, out of a black gaping maw set beneath flaming eyes and sharp narrowed brows, came the alien’s tongue.
There was nothing Marcherion or his dragon could do. The last thing he saw before he clinched his eyes shut was a handful of people spilling out of the cavern.
A melodic shriek, like no other he had ever heard, erupted from nearby. It was Aikira, and he thought she might have taken a wound in her throat to let out such a terrible howl. He was surprised that the alien’s tongue hadn’t gotten hold of him, and when he opened his eyes he saw why.
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