The Ruin, page 31
He took an onion from his pocket, recited an incantation, and tore at the vegetable's layered surface. A silver screeched and flailed as strips of flesh peeled away from its body. He seared another wyrm with a downpour of acid, then sent a shadow-sword flying at a third. The blade was actually a mobile gap into the cancerous nothingness between the worlds, and when it slashed the reptile, it engulfed and obliterated it.
Meanwhile, the silvers struggled to reach him with their own spells, and failed utterly. He laughed in exultation.
Lying in the middle of the ancient dragon's skeleton, Dorn watched Sammaster's wyrms hammer his allies. It was plain that Kara and the others were losing, and he despised himself as bitterly as ever in his life for his inability to help them.
In time, however, and quite unexpectedly, a new thought came to him: He had reason to hold himself in contempt, but not for being ugly or freakish, and not because the rust dragon had crippled him anew. For surrendering to despair. After reaching the valley and finding Kara still alive, he'd vowed he'd never do it again. Yet here he slumped, wallowing in his own personal misery and self-hatred while the woman he loved, his friends, and all Faerыn were in jeopardy.
It didn't matter that he'd lost an arm. The human one could still swing a sword. Or that his metal leg was numb and withered. Other men managed to walk on peglegs, and he was at least a little better equipped than that. Or that he no longer had impervious iron sheathing half his body. Raryn, Will, and Pavel had never enjoyed such an advantage, and it didn't stop them from killing wyrms.
Dorn crawled out from under the arch of ribs, then tried to stand. The spindly, twisted remnants of the iron leg didn't immediately snap or buckle beneath his weight, so that was something, anyway. He just wished the limb had more sensation in it. He hobbled a few steps, trying to get used to it and to figure out how to keep his balance with the heavy mass of his artificial arm shorn away.
All things considered, he was in a sad state, and doubted he'd last any time at all. But all he asked of the Beastlord-no, Lathander, damn it, Pavel's god of hope-was to strike a single telling blow before some drake or other ripped him apart.
Most of the battle was still in the sky, and he couldn't shoot arrows anymore. But periodically, one or another of Sammaster's wyrms dived to the ground, and he watched for one to touch down.
"Hold up!" said Will, and the folk skulking along behind him came to a halt.
He stooped and verified that what he'd thought he'd seen on the floor was real. A glyph lay there, no doubt to discharge some form of unpleasantness when somebody stepped over it. The symbol itself was essentially invisible, but Sammaster's fingertip had smeared the dust and grime of ages when he'd written it on the sea-green marble, and the glow Pavel had conjured onto the head of his mace to light their way just barely sufficed to reveal the shape.
"Shall I dispel it?" Firefingers asked.
"No, I've got it." Will wet his finger with spit, then rubbed at the edge of the glyph, blurring it. The magic leaked out of it all at once, jabbing his digit like a bee sting and filling the corridor with a rippling burst of visual distortion.
Celedon smiled. "Nicely done."
Will shrugged. "It wasn't that hard. Neither were the other traps. I guess we've finally reached the point where Sammaster ran out of inspiration."
"Our Lady of Silver," said Sureene, "grant that you're right."
They trekked on through echoing courtyards, chambers, and hallways still resplendent with the consummate artistry and craftsmanship of the elves, but cold, dusty, and draped in thick shrouds of spider silk. Will wondered if the builders had unwittingly imported the arachnids and the bugs to feed them when they'd come to this remote and desolate place.
As Pavel had conjectured, the foes of the dragon kings seemed to have laid out the stronghold to make it difficult for wyrms to move around. Mostly, it was spacious and airy, but at certain key points, the way forward led through choke points: cramped doorways, narrow corridors, and multiple hairpin turns.
Alas, the precaution hadn't kept the dragon lords out, for here, as on the floor of the valley outside, bones lay strewn around, crunching beneath the seekers' feet if they stepped carelessly. Will could only assume the besieging force had fought its way almost to the very heart of the Rage before the last surviving elves finally stopped them.
The complex was so big, he wondered how the invaders had known which way to head. Probably they'd had magicians of Scattercloak's caliber to guide them. The faceless warlock in his shadowy cowl and layers of robe had cast a spell which, he claimed, enabled him to discern a source of extraordinary power toward the center the citadel.
So they headed where his gloved hand pointed them, with Will in the lead to look for snares, until two enormous shapes loomed out of the gloom, at which point he caught his breath and stopped short.
Ahead lay a sizable room with a high, arched ceiling. A pair of wyrms, or wyrm-like things, crouched there motionless. They were small compared to true dragons, but still huge compared to men, or, Brandobaris knew, a halfling, and they were more or less barring the way to the doorway in the far wall. Somewhere beyond that opening, light seethed and flickered, first red, then green, then violet, changing color from one heartbeat to the next.
"They aren't moving," said Jivex, hovering near Taegan, "and I don't smell them, or hear them breathing. Maybe they're dead."
"l suspect not," the avariel said. "My guess is that if the guardians are living creatures, the elves-or, conceivably, Sammaster-made them proof against the depredations of time by placing them in a state of hibernation. If they're automatons of some sort, they've no need to move around at times when nothing threatens their charge. But either way, they're likely to rouse as soon as we approach too near. Do you concur, Master Firefingers?"
"Yes," the old man said. "So let's not 'approach.' Instead, I’ll teleport the lot of us right past them."
"Onto that narrow strip of floor between them and the lights?" asked Darvin, frowning.
"Since we don't know what lies beyond it, and thus have nothing better to aim for, yes."
"What if-"
"The only way to make sure we don't misstep," said Scattercloak, "is never to move at all. Wouldn't you agree?" Darvin sighed. "I suppose."
"Then everyone gather close," said Firefingers.
He recited an incantation, and the vista in front of Will, dragon shapes included, seemed to leap at him. Then it all disintegrated into dots and blobs of light, streaking past and harmlessly through him. Then, as abruptly as it had lurched and fallen to pieces, the world remade itself, and the mysterious doorway-filled with blue radiance-yawned before him.
That close, he could feel that the flickering, inconstant light embodied a fundamental wrongness, like the unholiness infusing a pyroclastic's breath or Brimstone's very essence. It made his eyes smart, and his guts cramp. Yet he still stepped closer.
Pavel grabbed him by the shoulder. "Don't go in there, cretin. Or rather, come to think of it, do."
"Get your filthy paw off me," said Will, pushing his comrade's hand away. "I can feel it's dangerous, but after hunting for it all these months, I'm at least going to take a look at it before the counterspell blasts it to bits, or whatever it's going to do."
Apparently, everyone felt the same, for all ten of them moved forward, crowding together, leaning sideways, and craning to peer through the opening. Jivex clung upside down to the lintel to look over the heads of his larger companions.
The vault beyond the threshold was as spacious as its antechamber. The builders had inlaid an intricate pentacle in gold on the black marble floor, and used true silver and gems to create an image of the night sky on the walls and ceiling. An enormous ruby with a streaming carnelian tail represented the King-Killer, the comet that, in times past, had served as the harbinger of the Rage.
But jewels and a mithral moon weren't the only things on the walls. Bright, fist-sized holes that Will had learned to recognize as portals pocked the ebon surfaces at irregular intervals. From the miniature gates blazed flares of power, the source of the noisome, ever-changing light shining through the door. The ragged, luminous tendrils arced and whipped back and forth, burning through one section of the room, then another, but always terminating at the same point: a black amulet floating above the very center of the pentagram with a loop of chain dangling below.
"Glories of the dawn," Pavel breathed, "now I know how Sammaster did it."
"Whereas l," Taegan said, "am primarily interested in seeing you wise folk undo it. So, if you wouldn't mind-"
Something scraped on stone. The seekers spun around, to see that the wyrm-things in the antechamber were turning, too.
Dorn watched as Tamarand blasted a chaos dragon with his fiery breath. The flame withered the hell wyrm's wings, and it plummeted. Tamarand turned as if he meant to dive after it. But then a howling dragon hurtled down at him, and he lashed his wings and twisted himself around to meet that threat instead.
The chaos dragon dropped halfway down the sky, then managed to spread its blackened, shriveled wings. Maybe, despite all the holes Tamarand had burned through them, they served to slow its fall. The wyrm still smashed down, hard, but then rolled to its feet and rushed foes on the ground: Raryn, Baerimel, and Jannatha.
Fast as he was able-and it didn't feel fast at all-Dorn ran to help them.
Baerimel and Jannatha shot chunks of ice and darts of light from their wands into the dragon's squirming, everchanging countenance. Raryn threw his harpoon into the reptile's shoulder.
The chaos dragon's scales turned green where Tamarand hadn't charred them a permanent suppurating black, and hornlets sprouted over the eyes. It cocked back its head and spat poisonous vapor.
Raryn and the temple mages tried to scramble out of the way. Most likely, they all had defensive wards in place. Yet they still doubled over coughing, and the chaos dragon pounced and landed right in front of them.
For the moment, the sisters were helpless, and Dorn was still too far away. His ruddy face blistered, blue eyes bloodshot and streaming tears, Raryn straightened up, gripped his ice-axe, and attacked the chaos wyrm so savagely that it had little choice but to focus its attention on him while Jannatha and Baerimel stumbled away from it.
Raryn chopped into its forefoot. It raised the wounded leg, the scales rippling back and forth between red and blue, and stamped_ The dwarf sidestepped out from underneath and hacked at the limb again. The drake lurched off balance, and he struck it a third time, like a woodsman striving to fell a tree.
But the leg wouldn't give way. The wyrm pivoted, bit, clawed, and Raryn jumped away. The chaos dragon lunged after him and drove him back.
Bellowing a war cry, Dorn raced into the distance and struck at the creature's flank. His sword plunged deep into a raw spot where Tamarand had burned away the scaly hide. The chaos dragon faltered, then whirled in his direction.
He jumped back. Sidestepped when the wyrm clawed at him. Cut, and dodged once more, fighting his own trained habits every step of the way.
He couldn't lead with the iron arm. It wasn't there anymore. He had to keep the sword in front, to threaten the drake and to parry.
Nor could he plant himself in front of the creature, trusting his armor to protect him. That wasn't there anymore, either. He had to fight like Raryn and the others: Hit the wyrm when it was striking at somebody else, and do everything possible to protect himself whenever it paid attention to him.
Maybe it was because Raryn fought superbly. Or because the chaos dragon was already hurt. But somehow, working together, the hunters both stayed alive and cut the reptile up a little more. Until one of the sisters-with his eyes on the wyrm, Dorn didn't see who-conjured a deafening shriek that tore most of the flesh from creature's skull and the top half of its neck. It flopped over onto its side to kick and flail in its death throes.
Raryn trotted around the corpse to Dorn. "Are you planning to go on fighting?" asked the dwarf.
"Yes."
"Then I've got something for you." Raryn took hold of Dorn's wrist and rattled off an incantation. For a moment, a scent of earth and greenery filled the air, and power tingled up the human's arm. Afterwards, he felt more agile, and more certain of his balance.
"Now let's kill dragons," Raryn said.
Havarlan watched in fury and grief as, one by one, Sammaster ripped and smashed her silvers out of the air. It was quite possibly the end of the Talons of Justice. She hadn't led all her followers into this terrible place, but she'd brought the best of them, the heart of the fellowship, and already the majority lay crumpled and dead on the ground.
She called out to Brimstone, who was gliding nearby. "You know the lich," she said. "How do we counter this magic? How do we reach him?"
"l don't know," the vampire said. "Perhaps if we fetch Nexus-"
"We can't! We've pulled too many warriors out of the fight with the hell drakes already. Look at the sky! What do you think would happen if either he or Tamarand withdrew?"
Sammaster conjured a dozen shadow-shapes like disembodied jaws. They shot at Azhaq, swarmed on him like angry bees, and sank their needle fangs into his scales. He roared in pain, and the lich laughed.
No more, thought Havarlan, no more of this, and she knew what she was going to attempt. She lashed her wings and flew straight at Sammaster.
She'd already discerned that concentric spheres of protection surrounded his perch. As she hurtled through the first one, pain stabbed down the length of her body from her nose to the tip of her tail.
Refusing to let it balk her, not bothering to look and see how deeply the ward had slashed her, she streaked onward. Into the second barrier.
This time, the agony pierced all the way into the core of her. Blood surged up in her throat, and her left eye went blind. Her heart juddered, and worst of all, something broke or sheared apart inside the linkage of bone and muscle controlling her pinions. They locked up, and she fell. She roared, spitting gore and bits of broken tooth, strained to shift them, and finally they flapped and bore her onward.
At the third barrier. Which she dreaded as she'd never dreaded anything before. But she was the Barb of the Talons of Justice, and duty demanded she plunge on through.
It was like being on fire, outside and in. Like becoming a being that didn't merely suffer anguish, but purely and simply was anguish. If she was still beating her pinions, she couldn't tell it. The sensation was lost in all-consuming pain. But maybe she was, for something-sheer momentum, conceivably-flung her at the skull-faced lich in his window.
He goggled in sudden realization of what was about to happen. Opened his mouth full of chipped and rotting teeth, no doubt to jabber a spell. But before he could, she crashed into the top of the tower like a boulder flung from a catapult.
The impact shattered Sammaster's perch and knocked him backward. He and Havarlan fell to the ground outside the castle wall amid a rain of broken stone, splintered timber, and roofing tiles.
The world faded, then jumped back into clarity. Evidently Havarlan had only lost consciousness for a moment, because everything was still the same. Sammaster was just drawing himself to his feet.
He planted himself in front of her and glared up into her face. "Die!" he snarled.
Fresh pain stabbed through her chest. She tried to claw at the lich, but her leg wouldn't move.
She took what solace she could from knowing that she'd dislodged Sammaster from his web of defenses. Perhaps her comrades could handle him from here. They'd have to, for her spasming heart gave a final lurch, then stopped.
Taegan realized he and his companions were trapped between the onrushing guardians on one side and the vault containing the heart of the Rage-where, he gathered, it was death to enter-on the other. He wondered if Darvin would take a moment to observe that he'd tried to warn them all that something like this could happen.
But the man in white didn't. Instead, like the other priests and wizards, he jabbered an incantation. Flares of booming flame, crackling lightning, and other manifestations of mystic power leaped forth to hammer the guardians.
Or rather, simply to illuminate forms made of sculpted stone and cast iron. As Taegan had suspected, they were automatons like the construct of bone he'd encountered previously, and as far as he could tell, the magic of several of the Moonsea's greatest warlocks had damaged them not a jot.
"Warriors, forward!" he shouted, and lunged at the iron golem, which radiated heat like an oven. The point of Rilitar's sword pierced its snout, and, smoke fuming from its molded nostrils, the animated statue struck at him like a serpent. He dodged and cut at its throat, but his blade bounced off.
Jivex swooped over the iron guardian and raked with his claws, striking sparks. Will darted under its belly and stabbed with his hornblade. Pavel scrambled onto its flank and pounded it with the glowing head of its mace. Meanwhile, Sureene, Celedon, and Drigor assaulted the other construct. All the weapons clanging on stone and metal raised a hideous din.
"We'll hold the things!" Taegan bellowed. "You wizards, stop the Rage!"
Scattercloak started chanting, and a moment later, Darvin did the same. Since they weren't reciting in unison, the words jumbled together in a confusing, echoing way.
Taegan hoped the counterspell was brief. He and his comrades were fighting hard, desperately, but to little apparent effect. Even enchanted weapons glanced off creatures of iron and stone as often as not, and generally just scratched or chipped them the rest of the time. While the living statues riposted with all the speed and strength of actual dragons.
Taegan dodged raking claws, slashed at his opponent's extended leg, and glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision. The golem's head was whipping around at the end of its long neck to strike at him. He jumped back, avoiding the attack, and his opponent lunged after him. He retreated, resisting the impulse to use his wings and leave the constructs a clear path to Darvin and Scattercloak. The golem attacked faster, then faster still. It spread its wings so that he couldn't dodge past it even if he wanted to. Jivex landed on its head, bit and raked, but failed to distract it. Taegan felt a grim certainty that it was about to punch through his defense-
