by Phil Tucker
Flamska appeared behind the ur-destraas, flying so fast that it must have teleported at the very end of a precipitous dive. Tiron heard Maur’s battle cry for a split second, and then Flamska’s foreclaws slammed into the demon’s back, bending it over her shoulder as if it were a bow.
They flew forward, the demon pinned in place by the dragon’s momentum. Tiron watched, not yet daring to hope, as Flamska snapped out its wings, arresting its charge so that the demon flew forward alone.
“Strike, Draumronin!” Tiron cried, but then he saw that the attack was not yet over.
With exquisite timing, Skandengraur appeared right over the demon. His vast bulk smashed down on the demon, driving it with shattering force into the ground in front of the palace.
Massive flagstones flew up into the air, and Tiron saw a shockwave ripple through the refugee camp, knocking most of it down. Skandengraur’s impact had created a deep crater easily thirty yards wide, and its head reared back, its maw opening as the glimmerings of a white-hot inferno coalesced in its throat.
Draumronin slipped through space and appeared alongside Skandengraur, his own maw opening wide to join in the attack. But a deluge of incandescent flame erupted from the mass of rubble beneath which the ur-destraas was pinned, and it slammed into Skandengraur’s head before the dragon could unleash its fiery breath.
For the briefest of moments, the dragon’s scales glowed with a terrifying refulgence, and then Skandengraur was gone.
Draumronin slipped away, and an instant later they were high above the plaza. Tiron rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear the dancing motes, then looked down. Only Flamska still held the field of battle.
“Did he die?” Tiron’s mind was reeling. “Skandengraur? Ramswold? Are they dead?”
NO, said Draumronin. BUT GRAVELY WOUNDED. LET US AVENGE THEM!
The ur-destraas leveraged itself out of the ruined ground and was nearly up on its feet when Flamska barreled into it again. This time the demon was facing the dragon, and as they flew across the plaza it raked its claws along the dragon’s neck, digging crimson furrows through its scales.
Tiron saw Maur rise to her feet on Flamska’s back, massive bow drawn back to her ear, and point-blank she loosed a great clothyard arrow into the demon’s eye.
Again, Tiron felt a spike of victorious fury, only to see the arrow flame into ash inches from the eye socket, destroyed by the demon’s internal heat.
They slipped, the world shifted, and they were on Flamska’s far side, winging in to attack the ur-destraas’ back. It twisted around, then both it and the dragon were gone. Draumronin plowed through the empty air with a roar of rage only for the locked pair to return a dozen yards before them. Draumronin redoubled its efforts. Tiron couched his lance, lined it up, and they collided with Flamska at full speed.
Everything seemed to slow. Tiron saw the tip of his lance begin to burn away just as Maur’s arrow had done, revealing a core of steel that had been inserted down its center. The steel slid home, but it was like jousting with the face of a cliff; the lance shot free of his hand, nearly breaking his wrist, then Draumronin’s extended claws sank into the demon’s fiery back and its body slammed in right after, stopping Flamska’s charge cold as they crushed the demon between them.
Tiron shot free of his saddle. He flew forward, arms and legs flailing just like those of the falling men he’d rescued moments ago, right over the demon’s shoulder, nearly clipping Flamska’s wing.
Maur saw him coming and leaned out, reaching for him. Tiron contorted his body, threw his hand her way, and her fingers closed around his wrist. But such was his momentum that he swung around and then tore her from the saddle as well. They both tumbled free, fell, hit the ground and rolled.
The sound of the dragons colliding was cataclysmic. Tiron’s head rang as he rolled over and over like a log being sent down a hill till he fetched up against a wall of some sort and came to a stop.
Everything was spinning. His shoulder was wrenched from the force of Maur’s grip. He tried to stand up and fell over. Vomit soured the back of his throat. Dark fury filled him.
Nothing kept him down.
Nothing.
Not caring for his body, for its pain, for how the world sought to slide out from under him, he gritted his teeth and tried to climb to his damned feet. His legs didn’t want to obey him, but then a large hand grasped his wrist and hauled him up.
Tiron stood there swaying and blinking, trying to focus on the heaving forms that were fighting right in front of him. Tharok was standing at his side, white flames licking across his frame, his face set in a scowl as he studied the dragons as well.
The ur-destraas wasn’t dead. Far from it. Tiron saw it seize Flamska by the neck, punch its other hand into the dragon’s chest, and then with a roar raise the dragon right off the ground, a feat of impossible strength, only to slam it down into the crater his fall had created.
Draumronin was larger than the demon, his vast bulk blotting out the sky, but his attack came too late; the ground beneath Tiron’s feet heaved, shook and rumbled, then a horrendous crack sounded as it gave way.
The demon and Flamska fell from view. Draumronin disappeared, and then vast fissures surged past Tiron and Tharok.
“Get out of here!” Tiron shouted as he lost his footing when the ground dropped beneath him.
Tharok lifted Maur into his arms. For a second, it looked like he might reach out and grab Tiron by the arm, but then the kragh leaped away as a huge wedge of rock collapsed under them and dropped into the void below. The plaza splintered into fragments with a rending groan that filled Tiron with mortal terror just before they gave way completely and fell.
There was nothing below Tiron but the great shaft that descended all the way to Aletheia’s core. It was into that vastness that he fell, scrabbling at the boulder-sized chunks of ground tumbling around him. The interior of Aletheia was well-lit, but Tiron saw only a smear of gold as he plummeted.
His heart shot into his throat. Flamska screamed, a sound so soul-wrenching that it was as if the world itself was wounded. Vast, sinuous rivers of flame splashed out, scoring the sides of the shaft and detonating the interior avenue and walls. Tiron flinched but could do nothing more as one such snake slid past him just overhead. He was screaming, he realized, an inchoate sound of sheer panic. He was falling in the midst of a storm of titanic rubble into a death match between Flamska and the ur-destraas.
Then Draumronin was beneath him, its bulk knocking huge chunks of masonry aside, trying to spread its wings within the shaft. It could barely open them wide enough to arrest its descent. Tiron almost sobbed in relief as he seemed to fall slowly onto the dragon’s back, landing near the creature’s haunches and desperately grabbing a massive horn.
That done, Draumronin rolled and fell faster, and slammed into the ur-destraas from above, plunging both foreclaws into its shoulders. The demon threw its head back and shrieked.
I’M TAKING IT OUTSIDE, said Draumronin, and for a moment the dragon accomplished its goal; they appeared far above Aletheia, in the last dying rays of sunlight amidst the clouds.
But the ur-destraas was not so easily defeated. It wrenched them back into the shaft, falling as before, and what ensued was a surreal tug-of-war as Flamska and Draumronin fought to keep the demon outside the stonecloud even as it kept thrusting them all back within it.
The golden sky and the dark shaft flickered in Tiron’s vision in an ever-faster transition between the two realms, and with a groan Tiron was forced to close his eyes lest motion sickness cause him to lose his hold on the dragon. High wind then confined air swapped back and forth faster than he could process. Still they fell, ever faster, until with a tremendous crash they impacted with the bottom of the shaft.
Dust billowed up everywhere, blinding Tiron as he bounced violently off Draumronin’s iron scales, barely hanging on. Again, Flamska keened, and in that sound Tiron heard her death; the thick cloud that choked them and obscured everything was suddenly
lit from within by lurid shafts of fire, and Flamska’s keen was cut short.
Draumronin roared anew, but in this roar Tiron heard desperation and loss. He felt the titanic struggle taking place beneath him and fought to hold on, but he was too exhausted. His grip slipped, and he rolled off the saddle to crash to the ground.
IF I STAY, I DIE, Draumronin gasped in his mind, and then the dragon was gone.
Tiron pushed himself up to his knees, arms outstretched before him, but he couldn’t sense the dragon anywhere. Not within the shaft, not outside the stonecloud, nowhere at all.
Draumronin was gone.
Tiron fought not to cough, desperate to not give himself away. He could sense something vast rising to its feet not too far from him, a dark shape in whose chest raged a glowing mass of flame, rendered diffuse by the dust.
The ur-destraas still lived. The combined might of Skandengraur, Flamska, and Draumronin had been insufficient to arrest its descent into the heart of Aletheia.
The dust was thinning out. Tiron pressed his hand to his hip but found only an empty scabbard. He almost drew his dagger, but the thought made him want to laugh. Instead, he struggled to his feet. A passageway was supposed to lead from the bottom toward the great chamber where the demons were supposedly held. Where was its entrance?
He cast around, breath burning in his raw throat, a thousand aches clamoring for his attention. His mind kept repeating images as if it were attempting to break him: Skandengraur’s head charring to a cinder. Maur falling amidst the blocks, lost from his sight as the ground collapsed. Asho a supine corpse. The dragons’ deaths.
Shrieks of laughter echoed from above, and Tiron saw demons beyond number descending through the ruptured ceiling, gliding down like malefic vultures to the slaughter.
Tiron’s mind reeled. Had they lost? Was this the end?
He wanted to fall to his knees, to give up. To surrender at last to the pain and despair.
But a new image came to his mind: Ramswold charging the kragh at the Dragon’s Tear, refusing to despair despite the odds. That shocking bravery had inspired Tiron to swear an oath to Ramswold’s Order of the Star.
“Damn you,” Tiron rasped as he drew his dagger after all. He stared up at where the ur-destraas was rearing, but it paid him no heed. “Damn you,” Tiron said again, reversing his grip on the blade so it was pointed down. If he was going to die, he’d die fighting, no matter how ridiculous and impossible the charge.
It was then that a new light incandesced. It flared a brilliant white through the thinning dust, a brand of glimmering fire that slowly resolved itself into a burning blade.
Tiron wiped the grime from his eyes, peered into the murk, and was able at last to make out a vast set of doors, large enough for the demon to pass through – but the wielder of the blade was standing squarely in its path.
More weapons incandesced behind the swordsman, a dozen in rapid succession, then a dozen more. An entire thicket of burning blades, defiant in the face of that impossible nemesis, looking small and helpless in the face of the ur-destraas’ might.
“No,” Tiron whispered, moving forward, choking down a cough. “Get away!”
He stumbled through the ankle-deep trash, waving at the dust with his free hand, and as the ur-destraas finally took its first step forward, he saw who had chosen to make their stand here in the bowels of Aletheia.
It was Kethe, her expression at once terrified and resolute, and arrayed beside and behind her were the Virtues and Consecrated of the Empire.
The flames within the ur-destraas’ chest suddenly raged, streaming out in every direction as if it were caught in the heart of a storm, and it crouched, arms opening wide.
“Run, Kethe!” Tiron broke into a sprint, waving at her with his dagger. “Get out of its way — run!”
CHAPTER 26
Kethe
“We should be outside, helping!”
Frustration boiled within Kethe as she stared at Akinetos’ broad back. He was standing on the far side of the great avenue that spiraled around Aletheia’s central shaft, hands on the railing, gazing down into the darkness below.
“They need us!” she insisted.
“You mean Asho needs you,” Synesis said with a sneer.
Kethe leveled her blade at the young Zoeian’s face. “Watch your tongue lest I cut it out.”
“We’re not outside,” said Akinetos, “because that’s not where the true battle will take place. We may be able to hold a section of Aletheia, but we cannot cover the entirety of it.” He thumped the base of his fist on the broad railing. “The demons would flow around us. No, we need to find the choke point and hold it.”
Kethe wanted to argue. The sounds of violence were greatly muffled here at the center of Aletheia, but she could pick up the faint dragon roars, the shrill screams. “The chokepoint,” she said.
“Yes.”
Akinetos climbed up onto the railing. No normal human, no matter how strong, would have been able to haul themselves up there in that much plate armor. The iron was at least an inch thick all over his body. Then, that impressive feat accomplished, he stood, perfectly balanced, some two hundred yards above the floor below. “The kragh reported that there’s a single door down there leading to the demons’ hall. We’re going to hold it.”
A horrendous crack sounded right above them. Kethe ran to the railing and saw curtains of dust falling from a vast spider web of fissures in the distant ceiling.
“What is that?” Mixis asked, his voice low with awe.
“Time’s up,” said Akinetos. He unshouldered his ponderous warhammer, held it with both hands and stared down. “Ready?”
“Wait,” said Mixis. “What?”
Another huge rumble sounded from above, and this time entire segments of the roof broke off and fell, turning slowly as they plunged into the void.
“No time to run all the way down,” said Akinetos. “And, to be honest, I’ve always wanted to do this.” He took a deep breath and leaped.
Kethe watched incredulously as the massive Virtue fell into the gloom below, leaving a faint trail of white light in his wake.
“You’re kidding me,” Gray Wind said as he stepped up beside her. “I can’t — I mean, we —”
Kethe placed one hand on the railing, ready to vault over, then looked back at her Consecrated. Even Wolfker looked pale, with beads of sweat on his brow. “Listen – Akinetos is right. Have faith in the White Gate. When I give the word, leap over the damned railing. We fall together.” Certainty flooded her, certainty borne of mad, desperate need. “I will see you through.”
“I — ah —” said Dalitha.
“Do you trust me?” asked Kethe.
“Yes,” Gray Wind said in a whisper.
Another cataclysmic crack sounded from above.
“Do you trust me?” yelled Kethe.
“Yes, Makaria!” yelled Dalitha and Gray Wind, terror filling their voices. Wolfker nodded. Braex placed a hand on the railing.
“Then, jump!”
She sprang over and out into the void. Her stomach clamped tight, her whole body tensed, and she plummeted down, the wind roaring around her. A sick, oily, panicky feeling suffused her, but it was drowned out a second later by the roaring chorus of the White Song.
Kethe looked up and saw her Consecrated falling just above, the other Virtues and their charges following suit. Her eyes widened as she saw the roof explode downward, the entirety of it collapsing under the thrashing forms of what had to be a dragon and some horrific demon wreathed in flame.
Could she fall faster? Heart slamming, fit to burst, she looked down at the gloom below and forced herself to press her arms to her sides, to press her legs together. She knifed down through the air, level after level of Aletheia whipping past her. The darkness grew thick, and she saw a small explosion of white light below.
Akinetos. He’d impacted.
Despite the White Song, despite her need, the ground was coming up too fast. She wanted to close he
r eyes, to curl into a ball, but instead she screamed, giving voice to her terror, and in that moment, she sensed her Consecrated falling above her. White flame exploded from her body, trailing in a long tail above her, and then she slammed into the ground with the force of a thousand hammers and she was crushed down into a crouch.
The ground shattered, giving way as she sank several feet into the stone. A second later, her Consecrated impacted in a ring around her, their screams and hoarse yells silenced by the violence of the impact.
Dust and dirt flew up around them, and sheer reflex caused her to bounce back up to her feet. The pain sluiced away as the white flames bathed her. Remembrance hit her like a blow to the head, and she stared up.
The sight was mesmerizing. Demon and dragons were flickering in and out of existence almost faster than she could track. But falling, always falling, amidst the collapsing boulders.
“Run!” she screamed
She hauled Braex to his feet, then grabbed Wolfker by his upper arm and threw him into the yawning Portal in the circular wall. Others were landing, smashing into craters of their own, yelling their imperatives, hauling each other out of the way.
“Dalitha!”
Kethe’s voice was lost in the growing roar. Seconds, less than seconds — she darted to where the lithe girl was rising slowly to her feet, looped her arm around her, then sprang for the doorway.
The world behind her detonated into a thick, swelling cloud of dust and storm winds that threw her forward so that she and Dalitha hit the ground beyond the Portal in a roll.
Dozens of Consecrated and Virtues were picking themselves up around her, coughing and hacking, crying out in pain from broken bones or worse.
Dragons were bellowing and keening a short distance away, outside the huge doors. Tails as thick as mighty oaks lashed the walls, claws furrowed the stony ground, and flames rioted through the maelstrom.
Kethe slitted her eyes against the dust and moved as far forward as she dared. Two dragons. They could defeat any demon, could they not?
As if in answer, one of the dragons shrieked and then went still, its death cry cut off. The second roared – it was Tiron’s mighty black – and then disappeared altogether.