The noxious stench of Danavod’s breath washed over Nesha-tari Hrilamae, flapping her cloak and the tattered legs of her trousers. Dust blew over her bare feet but the servant of Blue Akroya leaned into the maelstrom. At least it was not the Dragon’s full breath weapon, for just as Akroya could cast lightning from his maw Danavod could spit acid. Probably enough to turn the party and the ground around them to a soupy puddle.
The party would have been unable to avoid it, for apart from Nesha-tari and Uriako Shikashe everyone had flattened to the ground. Even the samurai had stumbled to one knee. Nesha-tari kept her feet only because this was not her first time in the presence of Greatness.
“Danavod!” she cried when the wind subsided. The Black Dragon was a mountain before her, an even darker black than the stone city all around. “I am Nesha-tari Hrilamae, the favored servant of your Brother, the Azure One! Desist!”
Danavod growled from deep in her stomach, the rumble oozing out of her maw along with tendrils of smoke. Her voice came from no particular location.
“Your affiliation avails you not, if you have come against me on Akroya’s orders.”
Nesha-tari’s blue eyes blinked. “I have not. Nor am I against you at all! I came only for these people.” Nesha-tari threw out a hand toward where the Circle Wizard and the Duchess huddled on the ground in the midst of the party, the lot of them cringing like mice. “It was your own Shugak who sent me to stop this Wizard, while Akroya sent me to slay an Ayonite who sought the capture of this woman.”
“You did not stop the Wizard,” Danavod’s disembodied voice boomed. “He has been unto the Node, and it is disturbed.”
There was a grunt from Uriako Shikashe. The samurai was back on his feet, though still hunched over in the Dragon’s shadow. His two swords were in his two hands.
“Shikashe, sit!” Nesha-tari shouted at him, but he either did not understand or just chose to remain swaying on his feet. Fortunately Danavod was not paying him any heed. The Dragon lowered her great head to fill the space in front of Nesha-tari.
“Do you deny helping this Wizard come unto the Node?” Danavod growled, both in her words and from the wall of swords that were her poniard teeth. Nesha-tari shuddered but stood her ground.
“I do,” she said through her own clenched teeth. “I dragged him away from the place before he had cast any spell, or worked any sort of magic.”
Danavod’s lifeless black eyes were like huge pearls, yet there was a knowingness within them.
“Then I shall not slay thee myself, Nesha-tari Hrilamae. Though I shall not make the same promise for others.”
The Dragon rose on her hind legs, spread her wings, and released another shattering roar. Uriako went flat on his back and Nesha-tari sat down hard. The massive Dragon threw herself high into the air and the sun was blocked out by a gray hurricane of dust raised by her beating wings. Nesha-tari still heard the Dragon’s voice though she could no longer see her.
“Leave this place if you can Nesha-tari, and return to your Master. Your fate is in your own hands, and your blood is not on mine.”
The Dragon rose high over the palace and rent a hole in the mist high above as she left Vod’Adia. Nesha-tari saw a patch of blue sky for only a moment, before the vaporous seal closed around it.
The ground was ringing under hobnailed boots, and hobgoblins sounded horns. Nesha-tari peered through the settling dust and saw two groups of them, one coming through the tower from the palace, and another charging across the open ground from the west. There were dozens of the hulking Magdetchoi in either band.
Nesha-tari got back to her feet and she was the only one to do so yet, for the others were only starting to shake themselves from under blankets of thick gray dust, hacking and spitting. Nesha-tari could have left them, and made her own way for the gate. Not long ago, that is exactly what she would have done. But she looked at Heggenauer, the human priest that had stood for her against a grinning devil. She hated the man thoroughly at the moment, cursed him under her breath, then summoned her magic to her hands and unleashed crackling blue lightning from them both, one bolt arcing toward either group of onrushing hobgoblins.
The Sable City Page 97