The Companions of Tartiël (25 page)

The party stood there, heaving and staring at the shadows as if expecting more enemies to emerge from the darkness. When, after several long moments, none did, Kaiyr released his hold on his soulblade, which disappeared as suddenly as it had jumped into his hands only a minute earlier. “Let us begone from this place before any more of our adversaries come to their aid,” he said, leaning down and gathering the shield and bracers into his arms.

“Loot and scoot!” Wild agreed enthusiastically, already crouched beside the bodies as his fingers, unsupervised by the eyes of their owner, quickly rifled through first one dead foe’s belongings, then the other’s. By the time he was finished, the bodies had already reverted to fully elven forms.

They all quickly ascended the ladder and were partway to the door when Caineye paused. Stopping, Kaiyr threw him a concerned glance. “What is the matter, Master Caineye?”

The druid looked back at the back wall. “The werewolves,” he said, “let’s take care of them.”

Nodding his agreement, Kaiyr strode to the hidden door in the back of the room, now hanging open. Wild and Caineye followed and helped him open the iron trapdoor just wide enough to let him slip the glass orb through the crack.

*

“Holy Hand Grenade, ho!” Matt exclaimed with a gleeful grin.

“One, two… five!” I agreed, miming the act of pulling a pin and throwing a grenade in Dingo’s direction, who, along with the rest of us, laughed. Then we got back in character.

*

“Look out below,” Wild said cheerfully as they slammed the trapdoor closed. As soon as the orb reached the ground, it exploded with a cacophony of light and sound; the cracks around the trapdoor and between the floorboards shone with a solar radiance, and Kaiyr, standing on the door to hold it closed while Wild locked it, stumbled off when the heavy door blew back open. They peered inside only long enough to determine that the two-dozen-odd creatures below had been turned into little more than black stains on the walls and floor.

The group was out the door without another wasted word. Wild broke away from the party, heading toward the temple of Alduros Hol as Kaiyr and Caineye darted through the trees, seeking any innocent visitors to Andorra who might be caught up in the turmoil.

Around them, Andorra was in complete chaos. The Terth’Kaftineya must have truly surprised the ensorcelled elves, for the sounds of battle resonated from less than a hundred yards away.

The trio regrouped ten minutes later, Kaiyr and Caineye having determined that any stragglers in the area had fled or been killed. Wild, however, came with the young acolyte from the temple in tow. The man looked much the worse for wear, with long gashes in his robes through which blood had soaked and dried.

“Go,” the blademaster told Wild, “take this man and Ministriel’s Regalia back to the Terth’Kaftineya. Should we fall in battle, our enemies must not discover these with us. Master Caineye and I will continue our search here.”

“Got it,” Wild said, giving a mock salute, though the gesture was not derisive. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s get out of here. I’ll be back in, oh, twenty minutes. Don’t die until then.”

“Vinto,” Caineye said to the wolf. “Go with them. Stay with Wild and protect him. Understand?”

Vinto bayed once in response and loped after the halfling and wounded human. Caineye and Kaiyr gave each other a nod and went back to their fruitless, grim search.

“Come!” Kaiyr shouted to the others after Wild rejoined them a short while later. Their enemies had boxed them in, even with Kaiyr and Caineye continually cutting down those who hindered their task. “The only path from here leads to the main gate!” He darted off, and the others followed, trusting in the able blademaster to lead the way. The enemy soon noted their escape. Arrows thudded into trees around the companions, and they sprinted just ahead of a growing mass of pursuing soldiers.

A minute later, the trio plus Vinto exploded from the ruined town gates, the structure having been damaged during the Terth’Kaftineya raid. Archers on the walls loosed arrows down at the companions, who zigzagged to avoid being hit.

They finally skidded to a halt about a hundred yards out, around a bend in the main path through the forest that led away from Andorra. The archers’ arrows could not reach them here, and for some reason, their pursuers did not follow them away from the gates.

“What the hell’s with this?” Wild muttered incredulously.

Kaiyr, crouching in the bushes with Caineye, Vinto, and the halfling, shook his head, glancing back up the path. “Perhaps they turned their attention back to the talking wolves—”

*

“Terth’Kaftineya!” Dingo corrected me, fed up with our butchering of his too-long verbalizations. Dragon names like Khajgaheinraygeiran and Solusamûné I can do, but asking me to remember “Terth’Kaftineya” is just too much.

*

“—Terth’Kaftineya when we left, discerning them to be the larger threat,” Kaiyr finished after a strange interruption in his train of thought.

Wild nodded thoughtfully. “Or…”

He didn’t get to finish speaking, because at that very moment, an earth-shaking, spine-chilling roar emanated from within the town. Combined into the sound were both ear-splitting shrieks and bass rumbles that caused the ground to tremble and shook the trees’ leaves.

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Caineye groaned, but he and the others all stopped speaking and stared slack-jawed when from out Andorra’s sundered gates burst the creature the trio had previously sought: the tenebrous dragon. Just as suddenly, they all reconsidered the wisdom in actively trying to find such a beast.

Wild was the first of them to recover from the sight, and he pointed at it, though his arm trembled—not from fear, but excitement. “Where were they hiding
that
thing?” he asked.

Kaiyr exhaled in determination, calming his nerves. “The central building,” he said with certainty as the wingless dragon’s head whipped first right, then left, staring directly at the trio’s hiding place. In the torchlight of the gate, they could see it more clearly. Its iridescent black scales shone in the flickering flames, and a subtle shroud of shadow hung about the creature, swirling like an angry cloud.

Inhaling deeply, the shadowy dragon stepped forward on all fours and with another resonating roar challenged to battle the little creatures hiding in the bushes. Bits of shadow stuff leaped from its open maw like flames culled from the deepest pits of hell.

“What are you doing?” Caineye demanded as Kaiyr stood and strode from their useless hiding place.

“It knows where we are, and it wants to fight us,” the blademaster said, moving and standing in the middle of the road. He held out his right hand, and with but an instant’s thought, his soulblade appeared there. He twirled his spirit’s fighting form, slashing the air in a counterchallenge to the dragon’s roar. “So, a fight we shall give it.”

At the elf’s unspoken agreement to the fight, the shadowy dragon rushed forward, thundering toward them on all fours. Caineye and Wild jogged onto the road behind Kaiyr, who stood holding his soulblade horizontally before him. Then, just as the dragon neared, the blademaster’s brow furrowed in a mixture of ferocity and concentration, and he leaped toward the dragon with his weapon leading, a sharp, “Hiya!” on his tongue.

Kaiyr’s first hit connected, and the huge dragon recoiled in shock at the puny elf’s unexpected offense. Caineye used the distraction to launch his one remaining
splinterbolt
spell at the dragon, sending a seven-foot long spar of wood crashing deep into the creature’s shoulder. Wild whipped a dagger at the dragon, but the weapon bounced away without leaving so much as a scratch on the dragon’s scales.

“Tch,” the halfling muttered as Kaiyr ducked under the swing of one of the dragon’s talons, “useless.” He ducked into the shadows of the forest and disappeared.

Kaiyr spun around, moving with the dragon’s attacks, one claw whistling by, barely an inch away from the blademaster’s. But Kaiyr’s frown was not one of consternation; rather, it was of concentration, and he had realized that the dragon would attack him in that way before the creature had even raised its arm to swipe at him. Suddenly, the dragon backed off half a step and inhaled. “Dragon breath!” the blademaster cried in warning to his friends. The dragon’s chest puffed out until it looked about to burst, and then it released its deadly breath in a life-consuming spray of black mist. Although Kaiyr could feel the mist reaching for him, he ducked and rolled out of the dark cloud’s wide arc. He couldn’t see Wild and didn’t know how the halfling fared, but Caineye had heeded his warning, backing out of range of the deadly attack.

“Whew. Don’t get hit by that,” the druid said, tracing several circles around one hand with the other and calling into being a handful of fire. “Great. Last one of these.” Drawing his arm back, he launched first one, then a second flame from his hand. Then, finding the fire still clinging to his fingers, albeit weaker than a moment ago, he shrugged and tossed a third one. All three of them hit in rapid succession, soaring around Kaiyr to burst against the shadowy enemy’s scales. “Vinto, stay back!”

Kaiyr used the distraction of Caineye’s flames to launch an attack of his own and swept his soulblade up in a ground-to-sky cut that drew a thin line of blood from the underside of the dragon’s chin. At that moment, Wild materialized from the shadows behind the dragon and leaped atop its back. He winked at Kaiyr and mouthed, “Thanks!” as he drove one of his daggers deep into the muscle of the creature’s neck.

Howling in agony, the beast bucked. Wild let himself be thrown free, landing on his feet and skidding a couple yards on the ground, away from the threat.

As the dragon turned its attention to the pesky fly that had just left a dagger in its neck, Kaiyr stepped in close to the creature’s side and scored a pair of telling blows, leaving two deep gashes in its side that cut free a shower of scintillating scales. However, the blademaster had foregone defense in favor of mounting the attack, and he was not able to dodge out of the way as the dragon snapped its tail about, slamming into Kaiyr’s side and sending him sprawling. He lost his grip on his soulblade, and it winked out of existence as he hit the ground and rolled to a stop.

“Master Kaiyr!” Caineye cried in surprise at seeing the indomitable blademaster so easily tossed aside. He rushed to his companion’s aid, leaning down with his hand glowing blue from a swiftly-uttered prayer.

“Careless,” Kaiyr grunted, picking himself up as Caineye’s magic filled him with healing energy. His ribs had probably been cracked, but the pain stopped at the druid’s enspelled touch. “Thank you, Master Caineye,” he shouted over his shoulder as he rushed back into the fray in an attempt to steal the dragon’s attention away from Wild. After connecting with another pair of solid blows, he succeeded and was rewarded with another blast of shadowy mist, which he narrowly evaded. He was concerned for Caineye and glanced back at the druid, but upon seeing him turn into a wolf and scamper safely out of range of any of the dragon’s attacks, the blademaster again gave the dragon his full attention.

The dragon, now infuriated at the sight of the blue-haired blademaster, redoubled its efforts to bring down the puny foe who, despite his size, seemed to be able to inflict terrible wounds with his glassy weapon. Kaiyr, in response, shifted into a more defensive style of fighting, dancing back and forth and focusing on attacking only when he was absolutely certain he could do so without exposing himself to a counterattack. Again and again, his soulblade threw out sparks as it glanced off the dragon’s teeth and claws. The blademaster worked his weapon furiously to keep the dragon occupied but away from his flesh. Once again he suffered the burn of the dragon’s attacks, this time from one of its foot-and-a-half wide paws, but he had to fight on, since Caineye had reached his limit with his magic.

Kaiyr stepped up the dance again, shifting for just a moment from his defensive posture. The battle was drawing to a close, and Kaiyr knew that if something didn’t alter the flow of the fight soon, it would come down to whoever struck the killing blow first.

Then, as if in response to the blademaster’s concern, a crossbow bolt whistled from the trees and buried itself deep in the dragon’s eye. Suddenly, both parties stopped, and a dead silence blanketed the forest as the dragon’s body and mind worked out that it was dying, and Kaiyr watched to see if any more action on his part was necessary.

With a disgruntled groan, the shadowy dragon toppled to the ground, its eyes rolling upward with the quarrel shaft following suit. The earth rumbled as the dragon, several tons of powerful muscle, hit and, to everyone else’s surprise, burst into green and purple flames that rapidly consumed the body until nothing but a fine trace of dust remained. Wild’s dagger and quarrel clattered unceremoniously to the ground, as if thrown there in contempt.

Vinto padded back from where he had remained away from the deadly combat. Caineye rejoined Kaiyr, who heaved for breath, and they both stared at the ground where the dragon had lain not moments ago. Wild strode from the trees, whistling a little tune and bouncing his crossbow on his shoulder as he nonchalantly passed by his companions and picked up his dagger, inspected it, and sheathed it.

XVIII.

Finally catching his breath, the blademaster released his hold on his soulblade and surveyed the nighttime surroundings. “No more pursuit,” he noted quietly.

Caineye nodded, frowning as he cocked his ear to the wind. “Listen to that! Andorra’s fallen quiet, too.”

Kaiyr blew out one last puff of fatigue and pursed his lips. “Let us investigate. Perhaps that dragon and Andorra’s curse are related.”

Wild shrugged and brought his crossbow down from his shoulder, winching it back and locking it before replacing it in its thong on the side of his backpack. “I’ll take a look. I’m a lot harder to notice than either of you. It’ll only be a minute.”