Aoth made the rainbow spear stab for the throat as well. Vairshekellabex snarled a monosyllabic word of command in one of the Abyssal or Infernal tongues that filled a man with instinctive loathing even if he didn’t understand them. The spear blinked out of existence.
Then the dragon’s head jerked to the right. He opened his jaws and spewed his breath weapon. But the acidic slime arced high over the heads of any of the genasi on that flank and spattered the ground well behind him.
Aoth felt a vicarious surge of Jet’s derision: You missed us, wyrm! Then the griffon focused his thoughts on his master. We’re back. Do you want us to keep ferrying genasi across or start fighting the dragon?
Get the firestormers off your backs and get Gaedynn and me on, Aoth replied. There was no point in sending the griffons for any more reinforcements. One way or another, the fight would be over before they could arrive.
The flying steeds swooped to land beside the same mass of granite that was protecting Son-liin. As Aoth created a shower of fist-sized hailstones to batter Vairshekellabex, Gaedynn turned and sprinted toward the outcropping. Aoth thought the archer was breaking away too soon, then noticed his quiver was empty. He couldn’t have attacked again even if he’d stayed put.
Fortunately it was then that the windsouls came flying in from the east, and if any of them hesitated before actually joining the fight, it was only for a moment. In a sense, their advent made up for Gaedynn’s departure. They filled the gap in the rudimentary three-sided formation that was penning the dragon in.
But Aoth was still going to need someone on the same patch of ground that he was currently occupying, someone to brave the very worst Vairshekellabex could do and very possibly die as a result. And it was Mardiz-sul’s bad luck to be the best hand-to-hand combatant among the firestormers.
“Bright Sword!” Aoth bellowed. “Come here!”
Mardiz-sul sprinted toward him immediately, circling wide enough that Vairshekellabex was unlikely to kill him before he arrived. The same earthsoul who’d turned him from stone back into flesh and blood followed along a stride behind him. Eyes wide and body trembling, the watersoul in the vomit-spattered brigandine edged forward to join Aoth as well.
Maybe several warriors, standing together with Cera’s magic supporting them, had a chance of surviving. Aoth could only hope so because he needed them there whatever it cost them.
“Hold this ground!” he said, and Vairshekellabex’s head hurtled down at them. Everyone tried to leap out of the way, but the earthsoul was too slow. The gray’s crooked fangs snapped shut on him, and when the gigantic jaws lifted away, nothing remained but hands, feet, and blood.
Jet bounded into the open. The genasi that he and Eider had just carried to the earthmote followed him.
Aoth swung himself into the griffon’s saddle. Responding to his will, his safety straps started buckling themselves to secure him in place. But Jet didn’t wait on that. He lashed his wings and took to the air instantly.
On their way up, Aoth spotted Gaedynn and Eider above them. The skirmisher’s mount carried additional arrows, and he was shooting them at the dragon’s neck as rapidly as he could, making it look like a pincushion. But he wasn’t keeping his distance while he did it. Eider was diving and tearing at Vairshekellabex, flying on by, wheeling, and diving again.
That, Aoth decided, was the way to do it. He and Gaedynn needed to employ both their own best weapons and those of their steeds if they hoped to kill the seemingly unstoppable horror below them.
I like that plan, said Jet, sensing his intent. The familiar screeched, plunged at one of the gray’s sweeping, leathery wings, and ripped gashes in it as he hurtled past.
As he wheeled, Aoth had time to cast darts of azure light. Then Jet furled his wings and swooped. Aoth charged his spear with chaotic force and struck when his mount did. A century of practice allowed him to thrust safely past Jet’s body and pierce the dragon’s back instead. Power flared and blasted the wound bigger.
Then Jet wrenched himself sideways. Vairshekellabex’s gigantic teeth clashed shut just a finger’s length beyond the tip of his left wing.
Aoth immediately sensed another threat, although he didn’t know exactly what or where. Watch out! he said.
Prompted by either his rider’s intuition or his own, Jet plunged lower. Vairshekellabex’s tail whipped over their heads.
Wings beating, the griffon climbed, seeking to regain the high air. He turned for another pass.
Vairshekellabex snarled words in the same grating, repulsive demonic language he’d used before. The griffon’s black feathers and fur turned gray, and his body froze into immobility.
Jet spun end over end as he fell. Aoth closed his eyes to keep the whirling from impairing his concentration, rested his hand on the hard, ridged stone of his familiar’s neck, and rattled off the words of a counterspell.
Countermagic wasn’t a part of the comprehensive system of battle wizardry he’d studied in his younger years in Thay. It was just an extra trick he’d picked up along the way, and at that moment, he was grimly aware that he wasn’t nearly as good at it. But apparently he was good enough because Jet abruptly exploded into motion once again. Beating his wings, straining with every bit of his strength, the familiar pulled out of his fall.
Afterward his muscles shuddered and twitched. The residual pain of the two transformations and the extreme effort that followed bled across the psychic link and jabbed up and down Aoth’s body. For a moment he felt as though he had wings growing out of his own back, cramping, throbbing wings.
We can retreat for a moment, he said. Catch our breaths.
A man might have answered with an obscenity, but even griffons endowed with an equivalent level of intelligence didn’t grasp the concept. Still, Jet responded with a surge of disgust that conveyed the same message.
If we hold back, he said, it just gives the wyrm a chance to try the same trick again.
There is that, said Aoth. Let’s try this, then. He visualized the sequence of moves, making sure the griffon understood it completely. Then Jet lashed his wings and hurled them forward, straight at Vairshekellabex’s head.
When they were halfway to their target, Aoth hurled darts of crimson light. The dragon avoided them with a sideways curl of his neck. Then, jaws gaping, his head shot at his attackers. It was a move that would have surprised many an opponent. It seemed impossible that the creature could strike in such a blur of speed when he had to whip his head around in a horizontal arc.
But Aoth was ready. He pointed the spear, spoke a word of power, and a floating curtain of rippling rainbows burst into being. Vairshekellabex’s head stabbed through it, and he roared and convulsed as the various magical effects—heat, cold, poison, madness—ripped at his body and mind.
As he jerked his head back out of the sheet of light, Jet beat his wings and flew over it. The familiar then extended his talons and plunged them into the side of Vairshekellabex’s head just where it joined the neck. The sudden stop wrenched Aoth’s body, nearly breaking his own neck, or at least it felt that way. He set the point of his spear ablaze with power and drove it into the gray’s flesh. Jet clawed and bit.
Vairshekellabex raised a forefoot to swipe them to pieces as a man might brush away a mosquito. But he never completed the motion. Instead, he toppled forward, and Mardiz-sul and the other genasi in front of him scurried to get out from underneath. Jet sprang clear.
The dragon’s collapse shook the ground, and he rolled and flailed for a while. The tail was especially energetic, at first whipping even more furiously than before.
But gradually all the spasmodic motion subsided. Wheeling over the gray, studying him, Aoth decided the creature truly was dead. As he let out a long breath, he wondered who had finally delivered the deathblow.
Me, of course, said Jet, furling his wings and swooping toward the ground.
Below them, the genasi started cheering. They, too, had concluded that Vairshekellabex was really finished, and fo
r the moment, the exultation and sheer relief of victory possessed them. There’d be time later to grieve for the several comrades who sprawled just as dead and mangled on the ground.
As Jet set down, Cera stood up from behind her rock. Aoth smiled to see her unharmed. Then Gaedynn and Eider landed.
“Why did you keep shooting for the neck?” asked Aoth.
“It was an experiment,” Gaedynn replied.
Aoth shook his head. “An experiment?”
Gaedynn grinned. “A dragon’s a big target, unworthy of my skills. I had to do something to keep from getting bored.”
* * * * *
As he prowled back and forth and up and down, peering, always peering, Alasklerbanbastos reassured himself repeatedly that he couldn’t possibly lose the phylactery, not in any ultimate sense. He was connected to it. He could feel it calling to him.
Still, it seemed to take forever to find it, and when he finally did, he saw why. Tumbling and bouncing down the steep wall of the gorge, the stone had landed in a drift of last year’s fallen leaves, mostly burying itself in the process.
His forefoot shaking, he picked it up. Its folds billowing as the breeze caught it, the servant he’d fashioned out of his own hide and his own pain looked silently on like a priest assisting with some esoteric rite.
And if it wasn’t quite that, it was at least a moment of utter profundity. Aoth Fezim was a despicable maggot, but he’d also been right. The gem was Alasklerbanbastos’s spirit. The key to existence and freedom for the most magnificent creature the world had ever seen. And finally that creature had it back.
High overhead, hoarse voices started cheering.
Nudged from his trance of near ecstasy, Alasklerbanbastos grunted. Vairshekellabex hadn’t been as powerful as Tchazzar, Gestanius, Skuthosin, or himself, but he’d been old and crafty. It was almost inconceivable that Fezim, the sunlady, and the firestormers had killed him without the help of their “tame” dracolich. Yet the cries of jubilation could signify nothing else.
Alasklerbanbastos decided it would be a short-lived celebration. While they were weary and their magic was depleted was the perfect time to strike at his enemies. He spread his wings, and they rustled instead of making the rattle of naked bone.
He’d had ample time to get used to that particular change since Fezim and his lieutenants had revived him in Calabastasingavor’s body, but even so it made him pause and think.
He’d just regained so much that it would be easy to overlook the fact that he had yet to recover everything. He still possessed only a fraction of the strength that was rightfully his.
In addition to which, the phylactery was vulnerable and would remain so whether he carried it with him or made some hasty attempt to conceal it. The only way to be truly safe was to hide it so well that no one would ever find it again.
So, he decided, retribution could wait for a little while. He’d seek out Fezim, Cera Eurthos, and their cronies soon enough.
He trotted a few steps, beat his wings, leaped into the air, and flew east. The skin wyrm tried to follow but couldn’t keep up.
That was all right. The thing had served its purpose. As he left it behind, he laughed to imagine it mindlessly wandering the mountains and killing whomever it encountered, continuing, if only in a minor, random way, Vairshekellabex’s campaign of terror against all who’d dared to encroach on his territory.
* * * * *
Gaedynn had heard of dragon caves that were vast mazes of tunnels twisting and forking through the ground for mile after mile. But Vairshekellabex’s lair wasn’t one of them. It couldn’t be. The whole earthmote wasn’t big enough to contain such a labyrinth, and in fact the hollow within the central outcrop sloped down for only a little way before coming to a dead end.
The dragon’s hoard, however, though it didn’t take up as broad a section of the floor as greed might have led one to imagine, was still pretty much what all the tales, poems, and ballads said it ought to be. The explorers faltered and caught their breath when the light of their torches gleamed on silver, gold, and gems.
By sheer good fortune, Gaedynn happened to be standing next to the gawking windsoul who’d disdained him for searching the dead sentry’s belongings. “It’s actually sort of a shame,” he said, “that you aren’t in it for the plunder.”
For a heartbeat the genasi looked back at him as if he didn’t understand the jape. Then he laughed a short, wild little laugh, scurried to an open chest, scooped up a double handful of coins, and let them fall back, clinking, through his fingers.
Across the chamber, other firestormers scrambled to get their hands on some of the treasure. Somewhat hesitantly, Son-liin moved to follow suit.
Gaedynn grinned. “I have a hunch you’ve never looted anything really valuable before.”
The stormsoul smiled. “Not really.”
“Stick with me, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Peering this way and that, he led her around the other genasi to the back of the collection. He picked up a small, intricately carved ivory box, opened it, took out the ruby ring inside, and held it up to the light.
“Now this,” he said, “is the kind of thing you want. Easy to carry and valuable enough to support you for the rest of your life if you live sensibly. Not that I’m advocating that. I recommend you sell it, squander the proceeds living like a princess, and then pillage something else.” He put it back in the box and tossed it to her.
She nearly fumbled the catch. “You’re giving it to me?”
He snorted. “Certainly not. Why in the name of the Black Bow would I give away anything as valuable as that? You’re claiming it as part of your rightful share. Don’t let the box get banged up. That’s valuable too.”
She shook her head. “All right.”
A cloak pin set with a big, black pearl and made of some strange, green metal—likely either a substance native to some other plane or the product of an alchemist’s researches—caught Gaedynn’s eye. He bent over to pick it up. “This one is mine, and I’ll knife the son of a sow who tries to tell me different.”
When he straightened back up, Aoth was standing before him, his blue eyes glowing in the gloom. He’d set aside his shield and carried a wineskin in his off hand. Most likely he’d found it among the wyrmkeepers’ belongings. He proffered it and Gaedynn took a swig of something red, lukewarm, and acidic. Awful, really, but at a moment like this, it would do.
“Thanks,” he said, passing the wine to Son-liin. “It’s about time you got in here. You’ll miss out on all the best swag.”
“It looks like there’s enough to go around,” Aoth replied. “Anyway, Cera and I found what we really need among the wyrmkeepers’ sacred things: notes on how to disguise abishais as dragonborn. They should help us convince Arathane that Tymanther hasn’t been raiding into Akanûl.”
Gaedynn chuckled. “Ah, yes. In theory, that was the point, wasn’t it? In the midst of all this gold, I have trouble remembering.”
“Well, maybe it will come back to you on the flight back to Airspur,” Aoth replied. “We leave at first light, so get some rest.”
“ ‘The flight,’ ” Gaedynn repeated. “You make it sound like we’re parting company with the firestormers.”
“We are. We’re in a hurry, and I imagine they can make their way home without us.”
“I agree,” said Gaedynn, glancing around at the genasi. “They turned out to be tougher than I gave them credit for. Or maybe this little excursion toughened them up. But don’t you think Mardiz-sul’s testimony might help us persuade the queen? He is a noble, after all.”
“We’ll sit him down and have him write it out.”
“All right, then. If I need to make myself sleep, then give me some more of the swill.” He turned to recover the wine from Son-liin, then hesitated.
He wasn’t quite as perceptive at reading genasi expressions as human or elf ones. The patterns of glinting lines distracted him a little. But the stormsoul seemed to be working up
the nerve to say something.
She swallowed. “You warned me that if I flew on a griffon, I’d want to do it again. Well, I do. I mean, I want to go with you and be a sellsword too.”
“It means leaving everybody and everything you know,” Gaedynn said. “That’s part of the reason to do it.”
Gaedynn smiled. “It is, isn’t it? I remember.” He turned to Aoth. “We need new blood, and she showed she can handle herself tonight.”
To his surprise, Aoth looked back at him with a certain sardonic cast to his expression. Since Gaedynn regarded himself as cleverer than most people, his captain included, it irked him a little that he didn’t understand why.
And Aoth’s next words didn’t enlighten him. The Thayan simply turned to Son-liin and extended his hand. “Welcome to the Brotherhood of the Griffon, archer. But don’t expect a griffon of your own right away. That could be years in the future, if you ever get one at all.”
T
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28 ELEASIS, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE
Jhesrhi surveyed the companies of warriors drawn up for review with a veteran’s knowledgeable eye. Some men-at-arms stood at attention in straight lines with identical gear in their hands and on their backs. Others, including many of the sellswords, slouched, scratched their noses or their rumps, and were far more diverse with regard to their weapons and armor. Peasant levies fresh from the fields carried axes made for chopping wood, or even sickles or hoes as often as not, and gawked at all that was happening with wonder and trepidation.
The disparities in equipment and deportment notwithstanding, in the aggregate, the various units of humans, genasi, and a sprinkling of other folk added up to a formidable army. And despite Jhesrhi’s delaying tactics and the loss of Shala’s organizational abilities, it was an army that looked ready to march. Jhesrhi assumed that Tchazzar was about to give the order until she noticed how his demeanor was changing.
At first, riding back and forth on a white horse with red and gold trappings, the sunlight gleaming on his gilded armor, the war hero had been the expansive, enthusiastic monarch who’d initially charmed the realm. He’d chattered about dozens of topics, some relevant, some not, and joked with both officers and men-at-arms. Gradually, though, his mood darkened, for no particular reason that Jhesrhi could discern. He glowered at one or another of the units arrayed before him, then abruptly jerked the reins to turn his steed and rode on to the next without a word. Exchanging surreptitious looks of concern, his deputies and Queen Arathane’s representatives rode along behind him.
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