“Tiadaria? Wynn?” A deep bass rumble boomed out of the mists at the edge of the island. “Is anyone out there?”
Tia recognized that voice. Grabbing Wynn by the hand, she rushed to the edge of the precipice and looked across. Torus Winterborne, flanked on either side by quintessentialists in the cream-colored robes of the Order of the Ivory Flame, stood peering into the mist.
“Torus! Over here!” Tia waved both arms above her head, getting the attention of the massive soldier from Dragonfell. “We need you over here, quickly. We have a prisoner and he’s about to wake up.”
“Tia! Look out!” The panic in her old friend’s voice sent icy fingers of dread curling around her spine. She whirled just as the razor sharp claws of the Xarundi slashed across her shoulder and down the front of her armor. She felt the witchmetal rings part, watching in fascinated horror as they fell and bounced off the ice. Ribbons of agony spread from her shoulder to her ribs. Looking down, she saw the lacerations and blood spreading across the armor that the Captain had given her.
That armor had saved her life. The clawing was long, but shallow. Her armor hung in tatters. Her breast band showed under the torn fabric, offering her very little in the way of protection from a second attack. The linen was rapidly soaking through with blood. She stumbled back, her arms cartwheeling to maintain her balance. She felt a hand in the small of her back and she was suddenly shoved away from the edge of the crevasse and past the raging Xarundi.
The quintessentialists across the chamber were shouting for Wynn to move out of the way. They couldn’t cast at Zarfensis while Wynn was between them. The Xarundi was taking advantage of the opportunity to cast spells of his own. Wynn spun his staff in a circle, calling on the power of the sphere to deflect Zarfensis’s magic.
Growling in frustration, the Xarundi turned to his other weapons and tried to claw Wynn from head to foot. The apprentice was ready for him, catching the powerful claws on the end of his staff and forcing them away from his body. As the motion left him vulnerable the Xarundi dashed forward. Wynn spun, thrusting the staff out behind him like a spear. Unable to check his forward momentum, Zarfensis slammed into the staff. There was a muffled crack, like someone stepping on a twig under rain-soaked leaves and the Xarundi stumbled back, holding his chest
Wynn was certain something had broken. Leaping on the advantage, the young mage pressed his attack, calling the magic fire to dance along the length of the staff and sweeping it back and forth in front of the wounded Xarundi. Zarfensis backed away from the flaming weapon. As he backed away, he gave the other quints the opening they needed. Gleaming white projectiles streaked across the cavern, lighting up the mist. They slammed into the Xarundi, knocking him to the floor and spinning him across the ice. For a moment, Tia was afraid he was going to slide right off the opposite end of the island, but he came to rest in a crumpled heap just short of that terrible drop.
Suddenly Torus was beside her, wrapping her torso in a long strip of white cloth he had taken from his pack. Perhaps she was a little delirious, but Tiadaria found the size of his pack, a pack that met the full measure of the mammoth man, comical. She couldn’t help herself and she started laughing.
“She’s in shock,” Torus cried to the quints. They had just finished magically reinforcing the bridge they had crossed and rushed to his side. Tia waved them off.
“I’m alright. The only thing shocked is my sense of the absurd.” She took a deep breath, wincing as the action made her chest hurt. The pain sobered her quickly. “How did you know we were here?”
“I didn’t. Lacrymosa showed up at the infirmary in Blackbeach with Faxon mostly dead. She told Adamon where you were and what she thought you were after. So here we are.” Torus gave her a shrewd look. “Was there really a dragon here?”
While Tia was trying to process his question, the rest of his statement sunk in. “Adamon? Adamon! It’s good to see you again.”
The quintessentialist drew back his hood and nodded in her direction. At least some things didn’t change. She still got nervous around an Inquisitor and Adamon still treated her as if he knew something she wasn’t telling. The sooner this was over, the better.
“Yes, a white dragon, with violet eyes. We heard it in our heads. It was talking to the Xarundi, but didn’t stick around on their behalf.”
Torus shook his head. “This is bad. We need to get you back to Blackbeach and I need to get back to Dragonfell.”
“How are we getting back to civilization,” Wynn asked. He sounded so tired.
Torus glanced at the apprentice and for an instant, Tia thought he was appraising the young man’s suitableness for her, but the expression was so fleeting she dismissed it as a trick of her exhausted mind.
“We brought a runner-sled. Sort of a big wagon with rails and fast horses. We...um...borrowed them, from Overwatch. We’ll return them and gate-walk back.”
“First you’ll need to secure the prisoner, Torus.” Adamon motioned toward the motionless hulk of the injured Xarundi.
“Of course.” Torus took a steel collar and manacles from his pack. In short order, Zarfensis was secured for transport.
Not wanting to rely only on the inhibition of steel, Adamon and the other quintessentialists performed a ritual that would prevent the Xarundi from calling on the sphere. Only when the ritual was complete would Adamon allow them to leave the cavern. He flipped up his hood and stalked off ahead, preceding them from the chamber.
The ascension to the mouth of the tunnels was long and difficult, hampered by the fact that Torus was dragging the unconscious body of a several hundred pound Xarundi behind him the entire way. They were exhausted when they reached the sled. However, the horses were swift and made the journey back to Overwatch go by quickly.
No one said very much. They were too worried, too hurt, or too tired.
EPILOGUE
The large silver bell above the Great Tower of High Magic pealed loudly and nearly everyone in Blackbeach stopped to look toward the great obsidian monolith. From where Tiadaria sat by the entrance, the sound was nearly deafening. She could feel it through the low rock wall that surrounded the ornamental gardens. She felt it in her tailbone and all the way up into her spine. The wide doors that sealed the tower were pushed back and the conclave, all the masters in every order, began to make their way up the sloping path from the bowels of the tower.
She caught sight of Wynn and jumped down off the wall, running to intercept him. They veered away from the main group, slipping down the alley between the tower and the library.
“Well?” she demanded imperiously.
Wynn gave her a measured look, then broke into a wide grin.
“The conclave has confirmed me as a master, with all the rights and privileges of such. They said that I show more than enough aptitude to hold the rank, but recommended that I remain in Blackbeach for some remedial courses in applied theory.”
“Master Wynn. It suits you.” Tiadaria punched him affectionately in the shoulder and he winced. Master or not, he was still hers to abuse and she’d see to it that it remained that way. She took his hand, no longer conflicted about how she felt about the young mage and relishing in the thrill of excitement that the link-shock sent through her body. Tia pulled him out of the alley and turned down a wide lane.
“Where are we going?” Wynn asked, though he suspected he knew the answer already. She’d want Faxon to hear the news, as if the bell hadn’t told him enough already.
“The infirmary,” Tiadaria said, confirming his guess. “Faxon said you weren’t to return to Ethergate without seeing him first.”
Wynn stopped short, peering at Tia with undisguised curiosity. “I’m going back to Ethergate?”
“You’re not? I’d assumed that after you were confirmed you’d want to go back home.”
He caught her around the waist, drawing her body into his and pressing his lips to hers. When he released her, she sighed. No longer was he the timid mage afraid of taking chances. If nothing
else, their time together had taught him that every moment was fleeting and to be taken advantage of.
“Home is wherever you are, Tia.”
She laid her hand against his cheek, her fingers caressing the creases of the now-healed scars. “I have a cottage in King’s Reach,” she said laughing. “But I don’t get to spend much time there.”
“I can’t promise that will change much,” Wynn said thoughtfully. “But we need somewhere to get away…somewhere private.”
“Master Wynn! You’re scandalous.”
“Not yet,” he said with a grin. “But I’m sure you can teach me.”
Hand in hand, they walked to the infirmary. Today was a day for celebrating the recovery of old friends and the excitement of new beginnings.
* * *
Zarfensis lay curled on the cold stone floor of his prison cell. He had been given basic medical care, provided with meat and water, and then left alone. The High Priest wasn’t sure how long he had been in the cell. With no outside windows it was impossible to tell the time of day. The heavy iron and steel bars that surrounded his enclosure caused a stabbing pain deep in his skull that made concentrating enough to slip into the sphere an impossibility.
So he tried to sleep as much as possible, tossing and turning on the rock, more often than not waking in a blind panic from a dream that stayed with him after he awoke. A massive white dragon was aloft above the mountains, his great wings blocking out the sun and spreading darkness across the land.
No matter how Zarfensis tried to turn away from the beast, the dragon was never far from his thoughts. Was it only a dream, the Xarundi wondered, or had the dragon somehow left a part of its soul in his mind? It seemed that every time he closed his eye, he was staring into the violet orbs of the dragon.
Zarfensis rolled over and curled his good knee up to his chest. The other leg was a twisted ruin of blackened metal and melted rubber. He closed his eyes, meeting the familiar gaze of the dragon and hearing the litany that had become as much a part of his heartbeat. He mouthed the words silently as they came into his head.
Stryne the Despicable. Stryne the Hated. Stryne the Forsaken.
“Come to me,” the voice inside his head echoed. The voice of command. “Come to me and I will make you whole again and you will be my prophet.”
The High Priest tried to push the voice from his mind and failed. Let the vermin kill me and end this, he thought frantically. He threw his head against the wall, knocking himself into peaceful unconsciousness.
Just before he slipped away, Zarfensis heard laughter.
# # #
THE PEGASUS’S LAMENT
PROLOGUE
The lovely maiden of summer had matured, growing into matronly autumn. She would stand guard over Solendrea as long as possible before the ice queen of winter descended, stripping the trees bare and laying out their naked bones against the cold grey sky. The first hint of that frigid air hung on the wind, buffeted by the magnificent white dragon's wings. Forty feet across and nearly twice that long, Stryne would have been a terrifying sight to behold if anyone had been able to see him. His command of the Quintessential Sphere kept him hidden from prying eyes. Any stray mage or magical being wandering nearby would have to know where to start looking to find him. Even the beating of his impressive wings was too high above the ground to be felt or heard. He was alone, as he had been for hundreds of years.
Movement on the ground caught his attention, and he dropped his long neck to look more closely at the spot that held his interest. There was a minuscule speck of black moving across the landscape. A shadow moving across a deeper shadow, barely discernible, even with his magically augmented vision. It was the Warleader of the Xarundi. He had hovered in this same spot, day after day, week after week, for four years. He was careful, watching and learning. He would bide his time until it was perfect.
During the Age of Dragons, when Stryne had been free, and his brothers and sisters in command of the entire continent, the Xarundi had been a surface-dwelling race. In the interim, the wolf like warriors had fallen far and fast. No doubt due to the meddling influence of the humans. The dogs called them vermin, but humans were much worse than vermin. They were an infectious disease that, unchecked, would destroy anything it came into contact with.
The Xarundi had lost nearly as much to the humans as the dragons had. However, the dogs had been fortunate enough to retain their lives. Stryne was the last of his kind.
During his entombment in the ice, he had been forced to endure the loss of each of his kin. As the spark of each psychic link to the rest of his kind had died out, he had experienced what it was like to be truly alone. Turning his thoughts away from that painful memory, Stryne instead looked toward the slightly darker smudge in the foothills that was the entrance to the Xarundi's subterranean empire. The Warleader began each day standing in the entrance tunnel to the cavern complex, and then would set out on his daily duties. Duties that Stryne would often survey from high above.
As long-lived as dragons were, they were gifted with incredible amounts of patience. A dragon could plot and plan and scheme for decades before settling on a course of action. Stryne was unique in that patience had never been one of his strong points. He preferred action over inaction, which was what brought him to the Warrens in the first place. There were still creatures on Solendrea who remembered the reign of the dragons and possessed long enough lives to remember old alliances and affiliations. The gargoyle who had given him the information about the Xarundi had also been imprisoned by the humans. Though the manner of his imprisonment was different, the result was the same. A burning hatred for humankind and a desire to see them eradicated.
Reestablishing his alliance with Sleeper had given Stryne what he needed most--information. Gargoyles had an uncanny ability to know everything about anything. Stone was everywhere on Solendrea, and the gargoyles could commune with the stone as easily as men could speak to each other. Sleeper's assistance had been invaluable. Now, as he hovered over the foothills that hid the extensiveness of the Warrens, the dragon was ready to enact the first phase of his plan. The Xarundi wanted the humans destroyed as much as, if not more than, the dragon did. They would be well suited as allies.
Folding his wings against his back, the dragon dove, feeling the cold wind rushing against his sides and belly. The tip of his tail whipped back and forth in the air that screamed past. Dropping the spell that made him invisible, Stryne spread his wings. They snapped taut, catching the air and pulling him backward as they met sudden resistance. The powerful sweep of his wings ripped leaves from the trees at the edge of the clearing and bent the grass underfoot. The Warleader leapt backward at Stryne's sudden appearance. Four-inch claws slipped from their sheaths and glimmered in the light of the pale moon that was just beginning to rise.
Stryne neatly backwinged, dropping to the ground and folded his wings against his back. He wrapped his tail around his haunches and lowered his neck, looking at the Warleader with glowing violet eyes. To the Warleader's credit, he didn't flinch under that regard. Instead, he stared back with his own pools of luminescent blue fire. Though his claws were still extended, the Warleader hadn't made any aggressive movement. Instead, they stood in the clearing maybe twenty feet apart, staring at each other.
“Greetings, Warleader,” Stryne said in a passable, if unpracticed, approximation of the Xarundi tongue. “Though the manner of my appearance was sudden, I mean you no harm. I wish to parlay.”
The Warleader cocked his head to one side, his ears twitching as the dragon spoke. There was a long pause before he replied.
“Respectful greetings, Great One,” the Warleader was speaking hesitantly, as if feeling out the words as he said them. “You speak the tongue of the Xarundi as it was in ages past. I fear there may be misunderstanding betwixt us.”
“Then let us use the language of the lesser races,” Stryne replied in the low tongue. “I don't wish there to be any mistake about what I offer, or require. I am Stryne the F
orsaken, Dragonlord of the East and the last of my kind. I come with information for you and a proposal.”
The Warleader's claws slipped slowly back into their sheaths. “I am called Xenir, of the Xarundi Combine. What information do you bring?”
“I know who you are, and I know how you came to live in this place you call the Warrens. An interested third party, a gargoyle named Sleeper, directed me in finding you. You are familiar with him?”
The Warleader nodded, and Stryne continued.
“I was exiled under the ice, far to the north before your kin released me from my prison. One of them, your High Priest, was captured during the ensuing battle.”
Xenir nodded. “Few of the war party I sent north returned with life and limb.”
“You didn't know I was there. You sent them because you had a vision of a powerful relic buried in the ice.”
“Yes.” Xenir's tone was unapologetic. “Had I known you were the relic, I'd not have sent the war party.”
“No, I suspect not.”
“If you wanted my life as penance for the war party, I'd be dead by now. So why are you here?”
“I seek not penance, Warleader. We share a mutual interest in seeing the human plague eliminated. I offer a way for both of us to get what we want.”
Xenir hunkered down and rested his arms on his powerful legs. A gentle breeze stole through the clearing and Xenir watched the movement of the branches for a while before he replied.
“What is the offer?”
“I offer you a way to recover the High Priest in return for your alliance against the humans. The city they call Dragonfell is an abomination, an affront to the Draconic Empire. I wish to see the vermin exterminated and control of the land returned to its rightful owner.”
The Swordmage Trilogy Bundle, Volumes 1-3 Page 34
