Part 11 (1/2)
Though the battle raged everywhere, it was at its most furious in the center of the plaza. Her gown burned away, her snowflake-and-diamond-painted skin raw and blistered, Iyraclea floated in the air at one end, while Zethrindor, his dead flesh ripped and hacked, crouched at the other. The two hurled blasts of blue and silver radiance, bolts of shadow, screaming winds, and pounding barrages of hail back and forth. The discharge of so much magic was nauseating to behold. An observer had a visceral sense the spells were beating at the substance of the world itself, and might conceivably break through.
Between and around the commanders, their minions battled like warring ants grappling under the feet of a pair of duelists. Some of Dorn's companions had gotten caught amid the fracas. Brimstone, Taegan, and Raryn were fighting three giants and an Icy Claw.
What appalled Dorn, however, was Kara's situation. She'd managed the s.h.i.+ft to dragon form, but even so, a huge white held her pinned and was ripping gashes in her crystal-blue hide.
Dorn ran toward her, and several of Iyraclea's human warriors scrambled to intercept him.
He had no choice but to kill his way through them. The first to fall bore a kind of primitive sword, a length of bone studded with chips of flint. Once he s.n.a.t.c.hed that up to wield in his hand of flesh, he could slaughter them a little faster, but still not fast enough.
As he clawed and hacked, parried and sidestepped, he caught glimpses of Kara. Flailing with her wings, she broke free of the white's coils and scrambled away. The chromatic, however, simply pounced after her and bore her down once more.
Curse Taegan, Brimstone, and even Raryn! Couldn't they see what was happening? Why didn't one of them break away from their own little skirmish and help her?
Dorn drove his knuckle-spikes into the last barbarian's heart. Ahead of him, the white roared and reared up from Kara's shredded, motionless body.
Dorn sprinted toward the two dragons. Kara couldn't be dead. She couldn't.
Iyraclea shouted, ”Auril!” ”Auril!”
The cry was deafening, like a shrill thunderclap. She thrust out her arm at Zethrindor and curled her fingers in a clutching motion. White vapor steamed from the dracolich's decaying flesh, and he bellowed. Dorn realized the Ice Queen was leeching forth the cold that was, as she'd warned him, a vital part of his nature.
But Zethrindor wasn't finished yet. He snarled words of power that cracked and crumbled the facades of buildings at the edges of the plaza. Dorn felt a pressure, a seething malignancy acc.u.mulating in the air.
All the countless characters graven on the cobbles s.h.i.+ned like cats' eyes reflecting light. Brimstone, Taegan, and Raryn faded, their forms becoming vague and ghostly. Before they quite finished disappearing, though, Zethrindor screamed the final syllables of his incantation.
A towering ma.s.s of shadow appeared in front of the dracolich, then swept forward like a wave racing toward the sh.o.r.e. Giants and wyrms scrambled to get out of the way. Those who failed broke part into small fragments, which then crumbled to powder. The darkness likewise obliterated the paving stones in its path, and as soon as the first of them shattered, the symbols on all the others stopped gleaming.
The wave raced on amid swirling dust. It surged over Kara's body, and Raryn, Taegan, and Brimstone's misty forms, and they too disappeared. At the opposite end of the square, it engulfed its actual target and halted with a suddenness no mundane matter could have matched. It clasped Iyraclea's slender form like amber encasing an insect.
Fissures ran through her skin as if she were a clay figure on the verge of breaking. Yet she didn't perish immediately, as lesser beings had. She chanted the Frostmaiden's name, and her body glowed like ice refracting sunlight, the blaze piercing the surrounding murk. She grew taller, as though the Cold G.o.ddess was lending her more strength than a human-sized frame could contain.
Then, however, Zethrindor roared another word, and the Ice Queen thrashed in agony. She was woman-sized again, her inner glow guttering out.
”Aur-” she croaked, and a jagged crack split her luscious mouth and perfect face in two. Her left foot dropped away from its ankle. Then the shadow devoured her completely.
Afterward, the magic dwindled and disappeared like water draining into the ground. Evidently exhausted, Zethrindor slumped down. Dorn looked around and saw nothing but drifts of dust and the broad new scar across the plaza. He hefted the gory bone-and-flint sword and marched toward the dracolich.
Will smiled at the fur-clad spearmen spreading out to flank him. ”Wouldn't it make more sense to fight the dragons?” he asked. ”They're the ones trying to kill your queen.”
The barbarians kept coming.
”Have it your way, then.” The halfling faked a lunge at one, then whirled and charged the other.
Startled, the second human nonetheless managed a spear thrust, but his aim was off, and Will didn't even have to dodge. He simply rushed on in, drove his pilfered skewer into his opponent's groin, and dodged around the stricken man as his knees started to give way. He was sure the other tribesman had run after him hoping to take him from behind, and he intended his maneuver to interpose the wounded barbarian between them.
Sure enough, when Will spun back around, his remaining opponent was right where he'd expected him to be, hovering as if he couldn't make up his mind whether to circle right or left. He was still thinking about it when a flying, glowing, red-gold mace bashed him in the back of the head. The tribesman pitched forward.
Will turned and felt relief at the sight of Pavel standing unwounded, a pilfered spear clutched in his hands. The halfling tried to think of a fitting insult to greet his friend, then glimpsed what was happening at the center of the plaza. Shocked into silence, he pointed. Pavel pivoted in time to watch the heaving, rus.h.i.+ng darkness consuming all in its path. Even Iyraclea failed to resist its power.
As the ravenous power ebbed away, Will spotted Dorn starting toward Zethrindor. Even in the dark, the big man's asymmetrical frame was as unmistakable as his intentions.
”Come on!” Will said. He ran toward Dorn, Pavel sprinted after him, and the flying mace brought up the rear.
It occurred to Will that this headlong dash was no way to skirt trouble. But maybe it would be all right. Some of the combatants on the battlefield were still busy fighting one another. Others, wounded or weary, needed time to regroup, and perhaps in the present circ.u.mstances, many of the towering gelugons, giants, and wyrms simply regarded a scurrying human and halfling as inconsequential.
One giant, an axe in either fist, his beard braided, did come stamping to intercept them. But Jivex swooped down out of the dark and puffed sparkling vapor in the behemoth's face. The giant tottered backward giggling like a happy drunk. The seekers raced on by.
Up ahead, Dorn halted and came on guard, iron arm extended, sword c.o.c.ked back. Will felt a jolt of fear. The idiot was going to shout out a challenge, like a paladin in one of poor Kara's stories, and he was still just a little too far away to do anything about it.
Pavel snapped, ”Silence!”
Though Will wasn't even the target, the magic imbuing the word made him feel something akin to a slap in the face. Dorn froze.
That gave Jivex time to catch up to him, and the small dragon wheeled around the half-golem's head. ”Don't be stupid!” he snarled.
”No,” Pavel panted as he and Pavel stumbled to a halt, ”don't. With Iyraclea dead, the drakes have won. They'll need some time to deal with the rest of her troops, and to collect themselves, but then they'll remember us. This is our last chance to slip away.”
Painted and stinking with blood, Dorn spat. ”I don't want to get away. I promised to keep Kara safe. I failed. But at least I'm going to avenge her.”
”You can't beat Zethrindor,” said Pavel, ”certainly not with all these other wyrms ready to back him up.”
”You go if you're going.”
”Lathander teaches that suicide's a sin.”
”Then b.u.g.g.e.r Lathander and you, too.”
”We're all sad about Kara,” said Will, ”but she'd want us to go on, and wreck Sammaster's plans. The way I see it, he's the one who really killed her, and p.i.s.sing in his tea kettle will be our true revenge.”
”How are we supposed to do that?” Dorn retorted. ”The search failed. We discovered nothing here. We just lost Kara-and Raryn, and the others.”
”We did find something,” Pavel said. ”Unfortunately, Zethrindor destroyed it, but perhaps just hearing about it will help our friends in Thentia solve the puzzle. We need to return and tell them.”
”You go,” said Dorn. ”You're the scholar, fit to help with mysteries and such. As I just proved, I'm useless.”
”d.a.m.n it!” said Will. ”With Raryn gone, you're the best hunter, forager, and pathfinder. Pavel and I don't have a rat's chance in a dog pit of getting off the glacier unless you help us. I know you loved Kara, but was she really the only one you ever cared about? Don't the rest of us mean anything?”
Dorn closed his eyes as if at a pang of headache. ”We'll get off the ice if we can.”
”Then what's our next move?” Pavel asked.
”We climb down the other side of the mountain. When the wyrms think to hunt us, they'll do it along the trail.”
Pavel frowned. ”Are you sure the climb is possible?”
”How could I be? We've never seen the ground. Now get rid of the s.h.i.+ning mace. We can't have it floating along behind us like a firefly attracting attention.”