Side by side they did a few simple forms. Brigid tried to concentrate on her moves but couldn’t stop thinking about who was beside her. After her third peek at Helena she nearly cracked herself on the shin.
Yaz’s mother stopped and faced her. “I don’t bite.”
Brigid’s laugh sounded brittle in her ears. “I suppose not. Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“Yaz is strong and smart. I don’t know what bathing in the dark substance has done to his body, but he appears to have full control of his mind once more.” Helena shook her head and let out a long sigh. “I think he’ll be okay, in large part because he wants to be with you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you and you at him. I’m glad my son found someone like you.”
“I don’t think it’s just me he wants to get back to. When we were trying to find everyone, but especially you and his father, I’ve never seen anyone so determined. He did some things during the journey, hard things that hurt him deep inside, but he never complained.”
“That he got from his father. Yazguard would have done anything to protect the village. Yaz might not have been his blood son, but in every other way he was Yazguard’s boy.”
A cheer went up from behind them.
“What is it?” Helena shouted.
Silas pointed to the southwest. The line of power from the second tower had vanished.
“Looks like he’s making good progress,” Brigid said.
“Yes he is. Best get focused. We’ll be heading into the city soon.”
Brigid fought not to tremble. Part of her, a large part, wanted to stay where it was safe, but she knew that if they failed, nowhere was safe.
Chapter 20
Leonidas felt his second glimmer of concern when the desert tower stopped transmitting power. Despite the dragon guardian, his enemy had succeeded in shutting it down. And only hours after deactivating the first. He looked down at Ariel but could think of no new orders to give her. For now, it was up to him and his cadre to deal with whatever came their way.
He left the throne room and descended to the lower level. Everyone was waiting and they rose when he entered the room. Polymus hung from manacles fastened to the wall. The effects of the paralyzing potion had worn off, but he was going nowhere. After a quick look, Leonidas dismissed the traitor from his thoughts.
“Boss?” Shade asked.
“A second tower has gone dark. I have little hope that the precautions I took will be enough to keep the remaining two safe. Without those towers feeding us energy, I can’t maintain the shield that protects the central tower. At the rate matters are accelerating, I believe our enemies will strike before nightfall. This is, without a doubt, the greatest threat to my plans we have yet faced. If we succeed in defeating the dark wizard and his allies, reactivating the towers will be a simple task. If we fail, nothing else matters. Make whatever preparations you need. Jax, can you summon shadow demons?”
“I can, but not until sunset,” Jax said. “They can’t function in daylight.”
“What about sending them to the dark interiors of the ruined buildings?” Rondo asked.
Jax shook his head. “The sun’s presence disrupts their magic. I could try and summon them in a cave a mile underground and they still wouldn’t appear until the sun had set above their position.”
“Maybe I’ll go hunting,” Shade said. “They’re bound to come sneaking through the ruins. I might be able to pick off a couple on their way in.”
“I have a vial of particularly nasty poison I’ve been saving,” Domina said. “Want to try it?”
To Leonidas’s surprise Shade said, “Yeah, thanks.”
That might be the first time he’d heard the assassin thank her for anything. Not that Domina had ever done much to earn thanks from Shade.
“What about me?” Rondo asked.
“You just stay out of everyone’s way,” Domina said.
Leonidas fought a smile. That was more like it.
Out of nowhere Polymus burst out laughing. “It’s all falling down around your ears. You’re pathetic, Leonidas. You call yourself an emperor, but you wouldn’t even be a jester in my father’s court. You’re going to fail before taking control of a single territory. History will mark you as the most pitiful ty—”
Leonidas wrapped his tongue in crimson energy and pulled. With an audible tear and burst of blood, Polymus’s tongue came flying out of his head. Leonidas incinerated it with a thought.
“That’s much better,” he said. “If anyone else has any suggestions, now’s the time to speak.”
No one did.
“Very well. Shade, I wish you good hunting. Don’t take any unnecessary chances as I’ll need you in the final defense of the tower. I will return to the throne room to make my final stand. Whatever happens know that you have been a fine cadre.”
With those final words of encouragement, Leonidas flew back upstairs to await his destiny.
Yaz hung in the air above the swamp tower. The village appeared quiet and empty which worried him. There was no way a dragon was placed on guard duty in the desert but not here. He’d expected some color of dragon to have attacked him by now. What was he missing?
Rushing in blind wasn’t good, but he couldn’t take too long either. Noon had come and gone while he was flying to the swamp. If they were going to attack the central tower during daylight, he only had five more hours to finish up and join the others. Of course, if he got eaten by a dragon, he wasn’t going to be much help to anyone.
Send a few blasts down there. If anything’s hiding, that will flush it out.
A rare bit of good advice from the presence in his head, but Yaz had a better idea. He conjured a copy of himself out of dark energy. The size and silhouette looked right. Time to see how smart this dragon was.
With a thought he sent his construct flying down toward the tower, not too fast and not too slow. It was kind of like fishing. He had to move the lure just right to get a bite.
And what a bite he got. When the construct was ten feet from the ground, the earth erupted and a mottled brown-and-green dragon exploded upward.
She snapped the construct out of the air. The whole thing fit in her mouth with room to spare.
Yaz sent the dragon a silent apology and snapped his fingers.
All the energy stored in the construct exploded in the dragon’s face. She went flying away from the tower, smashing already ruined buildings and slamming into the side of the pit.
Yaz wasted no time flying down and entering the tower. No way would the dragon stay down for long.
He hurried to the sigil, deactivated it, and ran back to the door. A minute and a half had passed. He opened the door a foot and peeked out. No tooth-filled mouth waited to devour him. Thank the gods for that.
With the door slammed tight behind him, Yaz powered into the air. He glanced back to find the dragon rolling to her feet and shaking her head. He smiled and shot north. It looked like she’d be fine.
Just over two hours later he reached the outer edge of Dragonspire Valley. This was the last one and would probably be the hardest. At least judging from the six, winged shapes flying around the tower. Ariel must have woken Soto and the other reds. Familiarity wouldn’t save him today.
Those young dragons are no match for you. Just kill them and let’s get this over with.
No way was Yaz going to kill Soto and the other dragons. He practically grew up with them. It would be like trying to kill a favorite pet. He just couldn’t.
That said, he did need to find some way around them. He didn’t need them gone for long. Maybe he could just grab them and throw them some distance like he did with the giant snake back in the old imperial ruin. Couldn’t hurt to try anyway.
Yaz flew closer, conjuring giant black hands as he went. The dragons noticed him about a hundred yards out. They snapped their wings and rushed at him.
The smaller dragons were nimbler than their larger cousins. Yaz sent the hands flying in. One after the other he snatched th
em out of the air until he held all but one. The sixth dragon avoided the hand trying to grab her and landed in front of the tower door.
He should be able to bind one long enough to sneak by and do what he had to do. But first to get rid of the other five. He could already feel the magic of his constructs breaking as they struggled. Yaz reinforced the magic then sent them flying away in every direction.
The clock started ticking. He landed twenty yards from the tower entrance, a suit of dark magic armor protecting him. Now that he was closer, he could see it was Soto facing him. She bared her fangs and hissed.
“Easy, girl. You remember me, right?”
Soto roared and opened her mouth. Fire gathered at the back of her throat.
Yaz gestured and a band of dark magic formed around her mouth, snapping it shut before she could breath fire at him.
“Sorry, girl, but if you’re going to be unreasonable, I don’t have any choice.” A second band around her neck forced Soto to the ground.
She struggled and he added a third and fourth band, one around her wings and the last stilling her tail.
The first of his conjured hands crumbled, freeing the dragon inside it.
Time was rapidly running out. He slipped around Soto and entered the tower.
Yaz drew a deep breath that smelled of parchment and dust. Gods it was nice to be home even if only for a minute. He hurried to the center of the tower and deactivated the sigil. By the time he finished, all the dragons had freed themselves. He needed to get out of here before they got back to the village.
With a regretful sigh he retreated to the door and stepped out. Soto was still struggling to free herself. She looked so pathetic it broke his heart, but at least she wasn’t hurt.
“Sorry about this, girl.” Yaz leapt into the air and flew straight up as high as he could. One thing Dad always pounded into the riders was that the dragons couldn’t fly too high. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but none of them followed him as he turned away from the village and powered west, back to the ruined city.
It was time to end this once and for all.
Chapter 21
Moz led his team through the ruined city. He would have liked to have the elemental dragon of fire along, but the man still hadn’t regained the use of his magic and without it he was just a middle-aged guy with no combat skills. Better for everyone if he stayed somewhere safe and out of the way.
They were about a third of the way to the tower and had yet to see any sign of giant snakes. This was one time he wouldn’t have minded if one showed up. If Lucy could take control of it, the beast would make a powerful weapon. Of course, that was a big if. So far, she had only been able to send them away, not seize full control. Probably in the middle of the most important mission of their lives wasn’t the best place to experiment.
A gust of chill wind sent a pile of rubble tumbling down somewhere to his left. That was the problem with this place. Everything was falling apart and constantly crumbling. He had a hard time telling what was a threat and what was decay.
He glanced back. So far, Albert had been able to warn them if trouble was approaching, hopefully that would continue.
“Moz,” Albert said.
Speaking of the earth master… “What is it?”
“I think someone’s co—” Albert grabbed his neck and fell to his knees.
“Defensive positions!” Moz drew his swords and joined the other rangers in a protective circle around the bards. “Callie?”
“He’s already dead,” Callie said.
“How?”
“Poison. Someone darted him. Looks like from a blowgun.”
“Tonia! Wind wall,” Moz ordered.
The wind swirled then gusted to the speed of a weak tornado around them. No way could anyone get an arrow, much less a dart, through that.
Moz turned and winced when he saw the black ruin that was Albert’s face. The skin had already sloughed off and the muscle appeared to be melting as they watched.
“I’ve never heard of a poison that works that fast or melts someone’s flesh.”
Callie just shook her head, a hard grimace twisting her face. “I never had a chance. He was dead in seconds.”
“This is Domina’s work, you may depend on it,” Helena said.
Moz turned to look at Yaz’s mother. “How can you be so sure?”
“The sadistic bitch gets off on creating things like this. She has to be one of the most talented alchemists I’ve ever met, yet this is what she spends her time researching.” Helena shook her head.
“Is there any cure or way to protect ourselves?” Callie asked.
“The only way to protect yourself is not to get hit by a dart. The substance isn’t poison in the traditional sense. It appears to be more of a fast-acting acid.”
“Great.” Moz scrubbed a hand over his face. And with their only earth master dead, finding the assassin would be all the harder. “Tonia, can you tell where that dart came from?”
“No, the wind spirits aren’t really good at that sort of thing. I can maintain the wind wall for as long as you need though.”
Moz nodded and thought for a moment. With the wind protecting them, they didn’t have to worry about darts, but the dust blowing around made it impossible to see where they were going. They could wander the ruins for hours and never get any closer. Yaz expected them to meet him outside the tower when he got back. There was only one real option.
“I’ll have to track him down,” Moz said. “If a dart hits me in the arm or leg, how long do I have?”
Helena pursed her lips. “Once the acid gets in your blood, in a peripheral area like a limb, two seconds, then it melts your heart.”
“You’re a font of good news,” Moz said. “I’ll have to cover everything but my eyes. A blowgun dart has little penetrating power, so even loose cloth might be enough to stop one.”
“I’ll be going too,” Callie said. “Those two seconds might be enough to let me save you.”
Moz opened his mouth then closed it. Arguing with her wouldn’t do any good.
“Fine, let’s see what we can put together for extra protection. You all stay here where it’s safe until we return.”
Moz and Callie wrapped themselves in strips cut from a spare cloak, shared a look, and ran out through the wind. It was a race to see who found who first. Winner lives, loser dies.
Moz stood with his back against the wall of a half-fallen building. He studied the gaps between piles of rubble in the hopes of spotting a silhouette or movement, anything that might provide a clue as to where the assassin waited. Callie panted on one knee beside him. They’d been sprinting from hiding place to hiding place and the running had taken a toll on her. Neither one of them was as young as they used to be. At least no darts had come zipping in.
“What the hell’s he waiting for?” Callie asked between gasps. “We’ve been running around for twenty minutes out here.”
Waiting! That was it. The assassin was playing hide and seek with them in hopes of delaying their advance. While they were running around, he was probably perched somewhere overlooking the others, twiddling his thumbs, and laughing. But why?
“Why would he be trying to delay us? I doubt there’s another army coming and they could summon a dragon anytime if that’s what they intended.”
“What are you thinking?” Callie asked.
“I think we need to find the highest point with a view of the others. Ten gold scales says that’s where we’ll find our assassin.”
“No bet. You’re too good at this to risk gold I don’t have. Which way?”
Moz looked around and did a little dead reckoning. The rest of the group should be on his right. If he wanted to come up on the assassin from behind, he’d need to go left then make a wide sweep. It would be a lot easier to plan this if he had a certain destination. He’d just have to wing it and hope for the best.
He set out on a northwesterly track, avoiding the open street and instead keeping to the broken buildi
ngs. Anything that kept the maximum number of obstacles between him and any incoming darts. Despite his confidence in his calculations, Moz had never been one to take unnecessary chances, especially when there was so much on the line.
When they were roughly due north of where the group was waiting, he stopped and studied the buildings. None of them were especially tall and the ones that were he doubted would support a grown man’s weight. Had he been wrong about the assassin’s hiding place? Just because that’s where Moz would have gone, didn’t mean his target would do the same thing. He chewed his lip and thought. Where could he be?
Moz was so deep in thought he almost didn’t notice when Callie tugged on his sleeve. “What is it?”
“How about there?” Callie pointed at a mostly intact tower, probably one used by the city guards back when. There was a single arrow slit that would give a perfect view. It was maybe a story shorter than the tallest points, but still plenty high enough. The tower was out of range for a blowgun, but it would still make a good lookout position.
“Good eye. Let’s check it out.”
Moz set out once more, this time looping around the tower in the hopes that the assassin would fail to notice their approach. Every instinct in his body screamed that this was the place. It had to be. There was nowhere else that kept him out of sight yet provided a clear view.
Five minutes later they were creeping up on the tower. The entrance door had long since disintegrated, but the stone archway looked solid. Moz knelt and studied the dirt. There were fresh prints, but they were so scuffed he couldn’t tell if they were going in or in and out.
“Callie, I’ll—”
Something hit the scarf around his neck.
Callie shoved him into the tower, yanked the scarf off, and tossed it away. She studied him for a moment then sighed. “The dart didn’t penetrate. That was too close.”
The Dragonspire Chronicles Omnibus 2 Page 49
