59.
“You really stuck your head in the dragon’s mouth this time, meathead!” Erith’s voice screeched in Cyrus’s ears as he wakened, soaked, the ash washed from his face and down into his eyes, burning them. He coughed and the ash came out in great clump in his spittle, along with more liquid, causing him to retch further.
“I don’t feel so well,” Cyrus said, pushing against the hard stone he was lodged against as a cacophony reached his ears. Water pooled in one of them and drained out of the other, running down his cheek to drip off his chinstrap.
“You just got hurled across a room,” Erith said, thrusting a blue hand in his face and giving his eyes something to focus on. “Did you expect it would feel like a gentle roll in the hay with a she-elf?”
“Clearly you’ve never been with a she-elf,” Cyrus said, taking her hand and nearly pulling her down as he got up. The world swam around him, color and lines blurring. His eyes focused, and he realized that the world wasn’t really blurring …
… the room was flooding.
“Shit,” Cyrus breathed as he watched Wellsheverr spray a mighty geyser of water out of his mouth, sending a half dozen Sanctuary warriors flying with the force of his attack. Odellan stepped out in front and shouted loudly enough that the dragon paused to focus on the elf, and then sprayed his mighty blast right in Odellan’s face.
The elven warrior ducked as the blast hit, knocking him back a few steps, but ultimately, leaving him on his feet, albeit hunched over. “Nicely done,” Cyrus breathed.
“Yeah, well, you might be able to do better yourself if you weren’t standing over here gawking like a dark elf on his first time in Reikonos,” Erith said and slapped him on the pauldrons, knocking him forward a step. “Get back in there; you’re healed. What are you waiting for? An invitation?”
Cyrus took a breath, hesitating a moment more, and then he charged forward into the rush of knee-high water that was already flooding the room, rushing for the exit. He slipped a few times as he fought his way through, but never enough to fall.
Wellsheverr was blasting water against Odellan again, though this time the elf was circling away, running on air as the dragon chased him with the spray. The elven warrior was a step quicker, though his breastplate and greaves were now absent the layer of grime and ash that had settled on them over the last few days, dulling them. Now, the elf looked like himself once more.
“A eritan yaghrah iune glaymorre!” Odellan shouted as he darted toward the dragon’s head. “Unataara, glaymorre!”
Cyrus’s mind struggled to put that one together as he watched the elf plunge his blade into the dragon’s left eye, dodging the spray to do so. “‘I take from you now your … cheese? Give me your cheese’?”
“You really are awful at elvish,” Vaste said, causing Cyrus to look to the side to see the troll cradling his massive head in his hands. “I’d hate to see how you’d mangle trollish.”
“I speak it very well,” Cyrus said, dodging past as Odellan recoiled from the dragon, retreating into the air, “it’s not hard to understand grunting and pointing.”
“Oh, ha ha.”
Wellsheverr had stopped spraying water, and the rush was subsiding, finding its level as it ran toward the exit. Now the dragon stood on its hind legs in the enormous chamber, trying to thread its long, thin neck to strike at Odellan, who clearly bore the brunt of its displeasure. Odellan, for his part, dodged another snap of teeth bigger than Cyrus’s hand and circled around to bury his blade in its remaining eye. With a scream, Wellsheverr dropped back to the ground, a flurry of spells bouncing ineffectually off his scales.
“I wonder what pioneering genius of battle Odellan learned that strategy from?” Vaste asked with a healthy dose of irony, and loud enough that Cyrus could hear him even as he ran toward the cascading battle. Warriors and rangers were milling about, struggling to position themselves where they could hack at Wellsheverr’s legs. “Or what idiot, perhaps?”
Wellsheverr opened its mouth, and another blast of water began to spray out, blindly this time, but someone was ready for it. A crackling burst of lightning hit the spray so quickly that Cyrus could only tell what was happening thanks to Praelior’s enhancement of his speed. The lightning surged into the dragon’s mouth and down into the water pooling around them as well.
The pain was immediate, causing Cyrus’s muscles to spasm hard, giving him a headache that was sudden and persistent, just behind the eyes. He saw a similar effect fall over the rest of Sanctuary’s army, a sudden doubling over of everyone in the room that had their legs in the water, a full-brain pain of the sort Cyrus recalled having once when he had eaten snow from the ground in a northern pass too quickly while trying to sate his thirst.
A thud shook the room as Cyrus pried his eyes open again. Wellsheverr had fallen over, now resting on his side, tongue hanging out of his mouth, scales cleanly torn from his legs.
“Oh, well done,” Vara said acidly from a little in front of Cyrus. He saw her clutching at her own head, and then she waved her hand, which glowed with healing magic. “That bloody well hurt.”
“But it hurt him more,” Odellan said, comfortably above them all, and, Cyrus reflected, probably not suffering from a headache brought on by the lightning strike. “Being responsible for his death and all.”
“We were killing him just fine without needing to resort to striking the entire raiding party with lightning whilst we’re all knee-deep in water,” Vara snapped. The water was actually receding now, either draining into the pool where Wellsheverr had nested or running out the door.
Cyrus turned to look and found the door slightly open, a few bodies caught in the crack at the bottom. He frowned. “When did that happen?”
“Probably while you were tumbling through the air,” Vaste said, easing closer to him. “Wellsheverr’s water blast looked like it hurt.”
“It didn’t feel good,” Cyrus said, turning his neck experimentally. “Go resurrect those people, will you?”
Vaste looked flatly at him. “I’m going to need a druid, too.”
Cyrus blinked. “Why?”
Vaste sighed. “Because there are more. Ones that didn’t get trapped in the door, that got washed out it instead, and if they followed the level of the floor—”
“They’re in the ash below,” Cyrus said, coming to the reluctant conclusion. “All the way down.”
“That’s right,” Vaste said with a nod. “I’ll also probably need Andren and Erith. An hour isn’t much time when you have to climb down and sift through wet and muddied ash—”
“Do what you have to,” Cyrus said, waving him off toward the door. “We’ll recuperate here for a bit.”
“Yay, we killed a dragon,” Vaste said lightly as he walked away. “Five more to go.”
Cyrus looked at the corpse of Wellsheverr as the water ran by him, now only up to his ankle. The raiding party was quiet, subdued, with the sound of muted conversation, hushed whispers, all around him. They were looking at the dragon, who, in spite of commanding one of the milder elements, had put up a considerable fight.
Cyrus found a stone that protruded slightly out of the water, and sat upon it, watching the rush and the chaos, and the recovery from battle, and wondered exactly how much of a toll the next fight would exact.
60.
“You look like a man with doubts,” Curatio said, his robes a mess, bags firmly entrenched under his eyes and made darker by the ash. He gathered the hem of his robes about him, still dripping water and smeared with ash, as he sat down next to Cyrus.
“You knew it’d be like this,” Cyrus said.
“Of course,” Curatio said, matter-of-factly. “This is hardly my first run-in with dragons, nor indeed, even with these dragons.”
“You know these specific dragons?” Cyrus asked, staring at the rest of the Sanctuary army, milling about next to the corpse, carving scales as souvenirs, cutting pieces off the tongue. He shook his head at the ghastly business being done there, but
knew there was nothing for it. Dragon parts fetched a pretty penny in the markets of Reikonos. And we’re always seeking gold, aren’t we?
“I did,” Curatio said. “These are the very dragons that killed my friend who worked on this shrine.” He folded his arms in front of him.
Cyrus pulled his head around in surprise. “Killed him? Didn’t he build this place for them? At their request?”
“Indeed,” Curatio said, expression utterly flat. “But there is no gratitude like dragon gratitude, I suppose.” He turned his head. “They view us all as lesser creatures, beneath their notice nearly, except when we are useful. Ashan’agar was not unusual in these beliefs. Ehrgraz may act civilized, but he is no friend to our kind, either. We are a convenience to him, and one which he will not hesitate to discard in the future when we cease to be of use.”
“So you think he’s betraying us, then?” Cyrus asked.
“I don’t know,” Curatio said, now looking tired. “But I doubt it. We’re still of use, after all.”
“Another grim reality I don’t want to deal with,” Cyrus said, lowering his head and his voice. “I was almost starting to feel guilty about coming here to—well, to do what we’ve come to do.”
“Commit murder?” Curatio asked. “I wouldn’t feel too terrible about it. Indeed, I don’t. That’s why I am here, though I disagree on this course of action most strongly.”
“Indeed you do.”
“This is not going to be an easy fight,” Curatio said. “For any of us.” Cyrus caught his gaze, and the healer’s weariness faded for just a moment. “You should prepare yourself now by asking yourself how far you’re going to be willing to go to see it through.”
“Curatio,” Cyrus said with a subdued smile, “I’ve dragged an army across the Ashen Wastelands for a week with the intent of killing dragons and desecrating a holy site. I think I’m in this all the way up to the hilt.”
“Very well, then,” Curatio said and gathered his robes as he stood. He started to walk away, then turned back. “When you were in the Society of Arms, and they taught you to kill … what would they have said if you plunged a blade into someone up to the hilt and they still lived?”
Cyrus looked at him evenly. “You either bury your arm in them up to the shoulder or pull it out and do it again to finish the damned job.”
Curatio smiled, but his face was tight and absent any joy. “I had a feeling you would say that.” With a bow of the head, he went to see to the recovery of the wounded, leaving Cyrus to prepare for the next in a long string of battles.
61.
Cyrus could feel the cold seeping out of the next dragon’s quarters several hundred feet before they reached the door. There was a ghastly chill in the air that called to mind the frozen Realm of Life, where every spot of green had been covered over with snow and ice.
The chill seeped through Cyrus’s armor, finding the cracks and drawing to mind comparisons with the frozen room in the back of the Sanctuary kitchen. He stopped to shiver and beckoned Nyad forth. As they grew close to him, he whispered, “We’ll need fire spells. Continuously. Let your people know.”
“I will,” Nyad said, nodding firmly and then slipping back toward the ranks of the spellcasters. The grey sky hung out beyond the columns of the shrine’s outer exterior, still heavy and forbidding.
With a grunt of reluctance, Cyrus turned his eyes to the door and motioned forward a few of Sanctuary’s warriors. They pushed it open enough to pass through, and once more Cyrus led the way. Once more, he found a sleeping dragon in a corner, though this time the nest was of ice rather than water.
It had piled snow in a circle ten feet high around its abdomen. Cyrus wondered idly if the snow was fresh or if it had been in here for a period of years. It had little smell to it other than a cold winter’s day, infusing its way into his sinuses and making him crinkle his nose.
“What’s this one named?” Vara asked, suddenly at his elbow.
“Gren’averr,” Cyrus said, so softly he could scarcely hear any sign of his own voice.
He crept forward on crunching snow, a thousand others making their way in behind him. The bitter chill was heavy, like a gremlin of cold climbing its way into the cracks of his armor. It felt like it was stabbing gently at him, icy claws trying pry him out of his skin with burning intensity. He exhaled and the air in front of him clouded into mist with his breath.
Cyrus was almost to the dragon when it awoke, prompting him to dash forward. The Falcon’s Essence spell landed on him as he sprinted forward, and he took to the air as the long neck flew up and the eyes sprung open with alarm and rage.
Gren’averr was a shorter beast than its brother, with scales as white as the snow it inhabited. When it took a simple breath, Cyrus felt the winter wind whip around him as surely as if he’d been teleported to the Northlands without warning on the coldest day of the year.
Gren’averr did not waste time with any taunts, if he even knew the human language. He merely opened his mouth and breathed ice, turning the air around him into daggers of cold.
Cyrus moved fast enough to avoid the winter breath, but ice crusted up his back as he charged sideways to avoid the attack. Gren’averr did not follow him, instead directing his attack at the army still coming at him from behind Cyrus.
Cyrus whipped around, turning in the air when he realized the dragon’s stratagem. Thought he’d chase me, but apparently I haven’t pissed him off enough to take his eyes off the army charging him down …
The wintery attack hit the first rank of the Sanctuary army and spread over them like ice rolling slowly up spilled water on a frigid morning. Cyrus watched fifteen of his finest dusted with cold, frozen in place, their armor their only defense against the instant freezing—
And then he saw someone hit with the breath of ice that was not wearing armor at all.
Nyad had a fire spell glowing in her fingers, ready to fling it, as Gren’averr’s exhalation hit her. She did not even have time to flinch before it rolled through her hair, blowing it back as it turned her pale skin a deathly white. It covered her over completely in mere seconds. Cyrus watched it all with the benefit of Praelior in his hand, the entire spectacle slowed down to a horrible, lethargic pace, until Nyad, the heiress of the entire Elven Kingdom, was nothing but an ice statue.
A warrior, his armor frozen over from Gren’averr’s attack, staggered sideways at exactly that moment. He collided with Nyad, his footing lost on the ice slicking the floor below, his upper body hopelessly entangled in her outstretched arms, and the pair fell to the ground, the warrior coming down hard upon the ice princess.
She shattered like glass dropped out of a window’s frame, into fragments no bigger than a simple icicle, and Cyrus almost felt he could hear her scream in the sound, but it was nothing more than the howling breath of a winter dragon, screaming in triumph at the death of the elven wizard.
62.
Shock ran through Cyrus’s limbs like cold tingles twitching at him, compelling him into action. He ran at the dragon’s face in a pure sort of rage, and Gren’averr dodged away, twisting his long neck to protect his face from Cyrus’s attack.
Cyrus found he did not care, that an eye was too easy a target in any case, for this particular bastard of a dragon, and he plunged Praelior hard from the hip into the dragon’s scaled neck, twisting it as he drove it in.
He was rewarded with a cold wash of blood, a shade of orange that he couldn’t have guessed at if he’d been forced to. Gren’averr bucked and recoiled at his attack, twisting his head back down to snap at Cyrus, but Cyrus was already rolling to the side. Gren’averr’s head presented itself perfectly to him as he brought it down, and Cyrus jabbed the blade into the joint behind the dragon’s jaw, neatly skirting the scales and knocking two of them loose with the force of his attack.
This drew a shrieking from the winter dragon, not unlike the one he’d emitted when he’d caused Nyad’s death, but more pained this time. Cyrus pulled his sword back and noted a cr
ust of icy ichor on the surface, then plunged it in again and pushed upward this time. Orange blood dripped down the dragon’s neck, staining his pristine white scales as he tried to twist to look at Cyrus, but reaching his full extension and failing.
Cyrus dragged his blade around, cutting a jagged path between scales as he ripped his way through dragonskin. Gren’averr ran his head around slowly, twisting and drawing still more orange liquid out of the gaping wound as he tried to attack what ailed him. With every foot further he cut, Cyrus watched the strength fade from the dragon’s motion as it fought helplessly to try and strike at him until it started to sag, and finally, when he had almost reached the back of its neck, went limp and dropped to the icy ground beneath him, a great cloud of snow arising on either side as he landed.
“Sonofabitch,” Cyrus said, staring down at the dead dragon. Gren’averr’s tongue did not hang out of his mouth like his brother’s had, and for a moment Cyrus considered running down and ripping it with his own hands in hopes that some small, ebbing part of the dragon’s life still existed enough to feel it before it perished forever.
“Well done,” Vaste called up to him. Cyrus stared down at the troll, who wore a wide smile. There was a thick crust of ice on the armor of the warriors at the fore, but Cyrus could not see any other bodies, and already it looked like the victims of Gren’averr’s assault were being pried from their frosty entrapment.
Cyrus drifted down slowly. Vara was lingering not far from where Nyad had perished, looking at the ground carefully, Curatio at her side. Simply in the way they were moving, the stiff way they carried themselves, he was certain that they knew.
“What are you so damned grim about?” Vaste asked as Cyrus reached the floor. “We’ll have the frostbite cleared up with some healing spells in a few minutes, no problem.”
“Come with me,” Cyrus said, beckoning him forth as he headed for Curatio and Vara. He motioned toward Andren, whose fingers were glowing with the light of a healing spell. “Get the other officers,” Cyrus called, and with a nod, Andren moved off to fetch them.
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