The Ruin

by Richard Lee Byers

  The luminous eye also still possessed its power to freeze a foe in his tracks. Dorn’s muscles locked, and he lurched off balance. No, he insisted, no, I won’t fall down at this foul thing’s feet, and the crippling power lost its hold on him.

  He gripped the hilt of his sword in both hands and cut at a hollow between Zethrindor’s ribs. The blade sheared through ivory scales, releasing a stomach-churning stink and a thick black ooze. The dracolich lashed his tail around, and Dorn flung himself to the ground, underneath the stroke. Zethrindor kept on declaiming his spell, the precise cadence and articulation unspoiled. Arrows and stones flew at his hide, some piercing, many glancing harmlessly away. Jivex bathed the dracolich’s dorsal surface in what appeared to be a bright jet of flame. None of that disrupted the incantation, either.

  Zethrindor’s tail whipped back around and straight down at the still-prone Dorn. Unable to roll out of the way in time, Dorn twisted and caught the blow on his iron arm and the rest of his golem side. The move saved his life, but the impact still bashed him flat against the earth, knocking the wind out of him.

  As he struggled to shake off the shock and scramble back to his feet, he saw Will dart under Zethrindor’s belly and stab twice before scurrying back into the clear. Still, the white snarled on, chanting his magic into being. The gray clouds overhead spun and churned like whirlpools.

  Then Pavel, wherever he was, shouted, “Lathander!”

  Warm, red-gold light pulsed through the air and gilded the trampled snow. Zethrindor jerked, and at last must have bungled his spellcasting, for the clouds stopped spinning, and the feeling of power massing abated.

  Zethrindor snarled and took a stride away from Dorn. Charging Pavel, evidently. Intent on distracting him from the priest, Dorn rushed after the dracolich, and sensed some or all of his other comrades racing after him.

  Zethrindor leaped, widening the distance between himself and his pursuers, then, to Dorn’s surprise, whirled to face them. Pavel wasn’t his current target after all. They were, and by tricking them into chasing him, the white had induced them to bunch up.

  He whipped his head back, and his neck expanded. A hint of pearly vapor steamed from his nostrils and mouth. Dorn realized that he and his companions had little hope of dodging the worst of the breath weapon this time. The distance was wrong.

  “Behind me!” he bellowed. Raising his arm to shield his face, he turned his iron half toward Zethrindor.

  The sheer force of the blast staggered him, as if he were attempting to stand before the sort of gale that flattened trees and houses. But the bad part was the terrible chill that pierced him to the core, that made his entire body clench as if he’d literally frozen solid.

  Thanks, no doubt, to the protection of his inhuman side, and the blessings and spells of warding that Pavel, Madislak, and their ilk had cast on him earlier that day, he survived the attack. Maybe the people behind him had, too. But what did it matter? Hurt as they were, they couldn’t endure what would happen next. Zethrindor sneered, crouched to spring, and it was all Dorn could do to come back on guard. He was shaking as through crippled with palsy, and couldn’t even feel the sword hilt clasped in his numbed human fingers.

  Then a shadow fell over him and Zethrindor, too. Startled, the white looked up, just as a shaft of brilliant light blazed down to cut his dorsal surface like a blade. The radiance, Dorn perceived, was the breath weapon of another dragon, a pale, glittering, almost translucent wyrm that looked as if it had been carved from diamond or crystal. It plummeted at Zethrindor and plunged its claws into him.

  Grappling, ripping and biting, twisting around one another, the two reptiles rolled around the ground. Dorn stumbled backward to avoid being crushed. In the process, he nearly fell over Will, who, like Stival and Natali, was trying to exert sufficient control over his shuddering, frostbitten body to distance himself from the duel. It was a mercy the three of them were still alive, but likewise obvious they were no more fit to resume fighting than Dorn himself.

  Jivex, who’d evidently avoided Zethrindor’s breath, was still unharmed, and still gamely attempting to influence the outcome of the battle. He swooped and wheeled above the other, vastly larger reptiles, trying to blind Zethrindor with illusions, close-fitting constructs of pure glare, gigantic, swarming ants, and thick, tangled briars meant to hood him like a falcon. Unfortunately, the masks all dissolved as soon as the faerie dragon created them.

  But maybe, thought Dorn, it wouldn’t matter. The crystal dragon was even bigger than Zethrindor. Maybe it could destroy the dracolich all by itself.

  Or so he hoped until he spied the raw, gaping rent between the gem wyrm’s wings. The ichor streaming from the wound was clear as water, not red anymore. A shapeshifting spell altered the caster’s blood along with the rest of his body. But even so, it was apparent that the crystal dragon was Madislak, and that, even transformed into such a mighty creature, he still bore his debilitating wound. Such being the case, it was impossible to imagine he could win.

  The dracolich wrenched his neck free of Madislak’s grasping talons, pointed his head at the druid’s, and vomited frost. The crystal wyrm convulsed at the touch of the freezing jet. Zethrindor took advantage of the other dragon’s momentary incapacity to rake away masses of glassy flesh.

  Dorn took a shuffling step toward the confrontation. He knew it was ridiculous. He couldn’t fight as he was. But he had to try.

  Then, his limp again apparent in his gait, Pavel came dashing up. “Wait,” panted the priest, “all of you, wait.” Rattling off prayers, conjuring ruddy light from his amulet, he infused his touch with warmth and restorative power.

  The magic replaced the numb, shuddering weakness in Dorn’s human half with a kind of burning ache, but that was all right. It wouldn’t stop him from fighting, and evidently Will, Natali, and Stival felt the same. They drew themselves up straighter and grasped their weapons firmly.

  “That’s it,” Pavel said. “I’m out of spells.”

  Will spat. “Useless as ever.”

  Dorn charged. The others followed.

  Zethrindor was too busy tearing at Madislak to pay attention to smaller foes, but they were in constant peril even so. At any moment, the two intertwined wyrms might tumble over on top of them, pulverize them with a random tail sweep or wing beat, or catch them in a flare of breath. Dorn leaped away from such threats, then, when the danger passed, lunged back into the fray and cut at whatever part of Zethrindor’s shriveled, rotting form was in reach.

  For all the good it did. The dracolich wasn’t slowing down, and soon began to growl another spell. Dorn and his comrades attacked even harder, recklessly and relentlessly, but without disrupting the conjuration.

  Seething shadow bloomed in the narrow, inconstant space between Zethrindor and the crystal dragon. For a moment, Dorn thought the undead white had simply conjured a form of armor. Then, with a pang of horror, he realized what the manifestation truly portended.

  It was too late to help Madislak, grappled as he was. Dorn needed to protect his other comrades. “Jivex!” he bellowed. “Get clear!”

  His butterfly wings beating quick as a hummingbird’s, the faerie dragon distanced himself from the heaving knot formed by his gigantic kin. A heartbeat later, the darkness struck. Back in the plaza in the Novularonds, it had swept across the cobbles like a breaker rushing at the shore. This time it exploded up at the sky like a thunderbolt, or a tree compressing a century of growth into a single instant.

  Engulfed in the column of shadow, Madislak crumbled into dust, some spilling downward, the finer particles hanging as a haze in the air. The parts of his body outside the effect—lengths of tail, feet, sections of wing—dropped and thudded on the ground.

  Its work accomplished, the shaft of darkness vanished. Zethrindor leaped to his feet. His carrion flesh hung in tatters, in many places sufficiently shredded to reveal the bone beneath. The left side of his head was all naked skull, eye and ear ripped away along with the hide and muscle. Madi
slak, Dorn, and their allies had inflicted harm no living creature could have endured. Yet Zethrindor moved with the same fearful speed and grace as before.

  Iron half leading, artificial hand poised to block, claw, and pummel, sword cocked back, Dorn planted himself in front of the dracolich’s head. With Madislak dead, and even Pavel’s store of spells depleted, it was obviously futile. But it was also the only thing to do, and still the only thing he wanted to do.

  His comrades scrambled to place themselves on Zethrindor’s flanks. The white struck at Dorn. He sprang to one side, prepared to cut at the creature’s head, but the attack stopped short, while Zethrindor was still out or range. The half-golem realized it had been a feint.

  One that had been intended to draw the dracolich’s other foes into the distance while he was seemingly focused on Dorn. Stival took the bait. Perceiving the danger, Natali, her hair a bristling shock of white feathers, screamed, “No!” Stival stopped rushing forward, and when Zethrindor pivoted and raked at him, he was able to dodge.

  Unfortunately, Stival’s peril had distracted Natali from watching for threats to herself. Zethrindor’s tail whipped around, smashed into her torso, and flung her through the air. She slammed down hard and lay motionless as a broken doll.

  No time for sorrow or outrage on her behalf, or for anything but total concentration on the task at hand. Dorn, Will, and Pavel fought with all the teamwork and tricks that had carried them through countless combats with dangerous beasts. Stival, himself an experienced hunter and wyrm slayer, employed similar tactics. Jivex assailed Zethrindor with one magical effect after another, and whenever he saw an opening, used tooth and claw as well.

  It kept them all alive for a few more heartbeats. It even allowed them to open a few more apparently inconsequential rents in the white’s body. Until Zethrindor, tiring of the game perhaps, snarled a word of power.

  A thunderclap boomed, the prodigious sound striking like a blow. Dorn staggered and fell. His allies did, too, all but Jivex, who tumbled crazily through the air.

  Zethrindor reached to seize Will in his jaws. The halfling made some feeble effort to get up onto his hands and knees, but didn’t appear to recognize the imminent threat. Nor were the others moving to protect him. The deafening bang had stunned them all.

  Dorn too felt dazed and battered, but he forced himself up. Gripped his sword with both hands and cut. Maybe Zethrindor had placed too much trust in the potency of his sorcery, maybe Dorn’s continued resistance caught him by surprise, for he made no effort to shift away from the blow. The blade crunched deep into his skull, on the side where Madislak had already stripped away the natural armor of scales and muscle.

  Zethrindor’s entire body jerked. Dorn thought he glimpsed a darkness seething up around the end of his sword and the breach in which it was embedded, as though some vile force was bleeding out. He yanked the weapon free, struck a second time, again succeeded in splintering bone.

  Zethrindor floundered backward. Dorn pursued with a sudden surge of hope, until the dracolich recovered his balance and settled back into a fighting stance. His throat swelled.

  Not good enough, thought Dorn. For an instant, I thought it was, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t.

  Then a voice an octave deeper even than his own shouted, “You see, the small folk told the truth! The lich is weak! Get him! Get him! Get him!”

  Startled, Zethrindor twisted his head around to glare at the young, relatively slender frost giant who’d raised the shout. Probably the dracolich meant to mete out a hideous punishment, but in that same instant, another giant threw an enormous axe and embedded it in his chest.

  A barrage of missiles followed, with giants, dwarves, and barbarians alike loosing arrows and flinging javelins. Then, with a bellow of hatred, they rushed in and swarmed on Zethrindor, until the dracolich nearly disappeared behind the mass of his assailants.

  Dorn realized the glacier folk didn’t care about the terms of his challenge to the white. They only wanted to be rid of Zethrindor, and once his opponents gave him enough trouble to convince them he was vulnerable, they’d risen up against him.

  Dorn supposed that in his place, another man would be elated, but he still couldn’t feel anything but hate. He tried to push his way through the press of warriors around Zethrindor, back into striking distance, but couldn’t manage it. Too little strength remained in his hurt and exhausted human half.

  Zethrindor started bellowing a spell, but quickly fell silent, as did the entire struggling horde of combatants. Some priest or shaman had cast a charm of quiet to keep the dracolich from using his magic.

  Still, the battle raged on until Dorn started to fear that even such a horde of foes couldn’t prevail against the dracolich. But then a giant wearing a breastplate carved from presumably enchanted, unmeltable ice stooped, straightened up, and raised Zethrindor’s severed head high above his own. The glacier folk, or at least all those outside the field of silence, raised a thunderous cheer.

  Jivex swooped down to hover beside Dorn. The faerie dragon surveyed the scene, then sniffed. “Why aren’t they cheering me?” he asked. “I did all the work.”

  Stival kneeled beside Natali’s motionless body. Despite the owl eyes and feathers, she seemed the fairest thing in the world.

  “I was a fool,” he said. “I should have invited you to share my bed when I had the chance. You might have said yes. By the unicorn, maybe I would have even married you, if that was what it took.”

  He reached to close her eyes, and froze in shock when they shifted toward his face.

  “I accept your proposal,” she croaked. “Now fetch a healer.”

  As he hurried away to find one, conflicting emotions tangled and ached in his chest. Joy to find her still alive, and anxiety that she might still succumb to her injuries if he didn’t bring help quickly. Delight that she fancied him, and dismay to discover himself betrothed to a woman whose purse was as empty as his own.

  But after a few strides, the dismay began to fade. Maybe her poverty didn’t matter all that much. They were two of the heroes who’d destroyed Zethrindor, weren’t they? That ought to earn them titles, a tract of land, and chests of gold. It was simply a matter of making sure the right people knew about it.

  Pavel peered up at the tableland. The glacier folk were clamoring in jubilation, but he wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet, because he wasn’t sure the battle was over. The surviving whites and ice drakes presumably had some way of discerning the outcome of the challenge, but wicked, faithless creatures that they were, might not honor Zethrindor’s bargain.

  He held his breath when the pallid reptiles soared up into the darkening sky. But instead of attacking, they flew west, and at last he too felt the urge to cheer.

  Trying to swagger but pretty much hobbling instead, Will came to stand beside him and watch the departing drakes, making certain, as poor, lost Raryn would have done, that the creatures didn’t double back. “Maybe,” the halfling said, “they only fought because Zethrindor bullied them into it, like he did the dwarves and such. After all, Sossal was going to be his kingdom, not theirs.”

  “Or perhaps,” Pavel replied, “they just don’t like their chances anymore. Or else they’re eager to reach a cult enclave and start their transformations. The important thing is, it’s over.”

  “No thanks to you. ‘Out of spells.’ Pathetic.” The halfling grinned, then pointed. “Look, the stars are coming out.”

  Taegan crept toward the cave where he and his companions had chosen to hide. From the outside, thanks to the subtle illusions Kara and Brimstone had woven, the pocket in the rock looked empty.

  Perhaps, at the moment, the appearance matched the reality. If the dragons had succeeded in unlocking the elven citadel, and Raryn had already joined them inside its walls, the cave might actually be unoccupied.

  But no. When Taegan skulked in far enough to penetrate the curtain of illusion, the bard, smoke drake, and dwarf all popped into view. He scarcely needed to behold their g
lum expressions to understand what had happened, or rather, what had not.

  Anger welled up inside him. By all the powers bright and dark, it wasn’t fair! He’d done what was supposedly required. Against all rational expectation, he’d succeeded in keeping the Tarterians occupied for a considerable time. Why hadn’t the drakes performed their task? How difficult could it be—

  He clamped down on his ire. He and his comrades had known at the onset that Kara and Brimstone, accomplished sorcerers through they were, would find it difficult to counter the enchantments of a legendary mage like Sammaster. Recriminations would be unjust, and certainly serve no purpose.

  Taegan took a breath, composing himself. “I surmise,” he said, “that we’ll need to try again.”

  Brimstone sneered. “Do you imagine you can fool the Tarterians a second time? They learned from what happened today. Next time, they’ll catch you before you can draw a dozen breaths.”

  “Not an enticing prospect,” Taegan conceded. “Ergo, we need a new plan.”

  “I invite you to devise a feasible one,” the vampire said. “Even if the Tarterians actually believe you somehow used a broken gate to leave the valley, we’ve stirred them up. They’ll patrol more diligently. It will be all we can do to stay hidden, if, in fact, we can even manage that. We certainly have no hope of conducting lengthy experiments outside the castle.”

  “Nor would it matter if we could,” Kara sighed. “Brimstone and I both agree, we’ll never break Sammaster’s ward.”

  Taegan arched an eyebrow. “We’ve journeyed a long way and overcome a fair number of obstacles just to abandon hope on the ancient elves’ very doorstep.”

  “I know,” she said, “and nobody wants to fail. But Brimstone’s thirsty, frenzy’s pounding at my mind, and neither of us can see any possibilities at all.”

  “Nor can I,” said Taegan, “not as yet. But you, milady, will cling to your love of your kindred, your music, and Dorn, and you, Sir Vampire, to your hatred of Sammaster, to fend off your less agreeable impulses. Raryn and I will tighten our belts. The four of us will watch for opportunities, and even if none presents itself, wait for our allies to locate us.”