Rann nodded. “A dragauth,” he whispered.
“Clever boy. And it looks to me for orders.” Althume grabbed the boy’s face in one hand, forcing Rann to meet his eyes. “You will stay right where you are and obey my every order. Run and my pet will hunt you down and eat you. Disobey me and I will give you to him. Do you understand?”
Rann’s white lips formed “Yes.”
Pol said, “Someone’s coming, my lord,” and set off down the slope.
Althume took a moment to listen the snap and rustle of a horse breaking through the underbrush. “Back to the woods,” he ordered the dragauth. “As for you,” he said, shoving Rann flat onto the altar, “stay there and not a word out of you. Remember the dragauth.” He flung a cloak over the boy’s trembling form and went to meet his guest.
The horse broke through the last of the trees. Auburn hair glinted in the torchlight as the rider dismounted. Pol led the horse away.
“My dear Lady Sherrine,” Althume said as she came up the hill. “You’ve no idea how happy I am to see you.”
Maylin clung to the horse’s back like a burr as it galloped across the grasslands. She wondered if this were a fool’s errand; after all, she didn’t know just where the altar was. Indeed, until this night, she’d been half inclined to consider it a legend.
Ah, well—if she was meant to find it, she would. The gods knew their business. Hers was to get to the woods opposite the standing stones as soon as possible.
“What is that?” Sherrine asked as they reached the flat crown of the hill, pointing to the cloak-covered form on the altar.
Althume said, “Nothing that concerns you.”
To his annoyance the girl stopped. “Why did you tell me to come here? What do you plan to do?”
He cursed under his breath. His voice tight with suppressed fury, he said, “Just do as you’re told.”
“No. Linden nearly died of that potion—the potion you had me give him. You didn’t tell me that might happen,” said Sherrine.
“That was a mistake; he would have had an antidote if I hadn’t been interrupted. Now go stand at the foot of the altar; after tonight you will have power as you’ve never dreamed of—and Linden Rathan will be yours for all time.”
That caught her as he knew it would. Still, there was a rebellious light in her eyes and her gaze kept returning to the form on the altar.
“You want Linden, don’t you? Some things must be bought with blood, Sherrine. This is one of them. Decide now.” He waited. He was certain he knew what the outcome would be; if he was wrong Pol was between her and her horse. Willing or not, Lady Sherrine would play her part this night.
Her lips trembled. Then she held her head up a fraction higher and walked past him to take her place at the altar.
At last, the final wards were set. Only one last thing to make ready and the ceremony could begin. Althume nodded to Pol. At once the servant brought out the small chest that contained the soultrap jewel from the saddlebags by the base of the altar. He started to open it.
“No, Pol!” the mage said sharply. “It’s too powerful now for you to handle; you’re not magically shielded. Touch it and you’ll destroy it and yourself. Give the chest to me.”
Pol gingerly passed the chest to him. Althume opened it, reverently pulled back the silk covering inside. Light welled out of the chest to drip like falling water to the ground. Sherrine gasped as he raised the soultrap jewel in his hand and offered it the stars. Then he set it at the head of the trembling boy still hidden under the cloak. “Such a good boy to listen so well,” he murmured, amused. Then, louder, “It is time.”
He began the chant of invocation. He called upon the dark powers to witness, aid him, protect him. He promised them blood, blood with the taste of magic in it. The ancient words, in a tongue so old it was half forgotten even in Ankarlyn’s time, rolled off his tongue with a rumble like an earthquake.
The power grew. Althume rejoiced deep inside; at long last he would see his dreams made real. The time of the Dragonlords was at an end.
Then a crashing in the woods made him pause; an exhausted horse collapsed into the clearing. Althume recognized Prince Peridaen as he leaped from the saddle.
“Rann! Rann!” Peridaen screamed as he ran up the slope. Rann sat up. Althume tried to shove him down again, but the boy squirmed and the cloak fell aside, revealing him.
Sherrine turned and ran like a deer. Althume snapped out, “Pol!” as he held Rann against him. He cursed. The wards were meant to keep out malevolent spirits and turn aside casual intruders. They would likely fall before a determined invader. Still, they might slow Peridaen down just long enough. Althume raised the knife.
The wards didn’t slow Peridaen down in the least. He charged through them with the fury of an enraged bull. And he was upon Althume before the mage could do anything. As they struggled for the knife, Peridaen yelled, “Get away, Rann!”
The younger prince jumped down and fled into the woods. Enraged, Althume slammed a fist into Peridaen’s stomach. The man fell back across the altar, gasping.
Althume sprang upon him. “You’ll do just as well, Peridaen!” He slashed the razor-sharp blade across Peridaen’s throat.
Blood fountained up. Peridaen made a last gurgling sound, then the light faded from eyes filled with terror. Althume seized the soultrap jewel, bathing it in the blood of the sacrifice as he began chanting once more.
Pol dragged Sherrine before him and threw her down. The jewel glowed now like a tiny sun; Althume held it up and directed its light upon the girl sprawled on the ground, blinking groggily up at him. She screamed in agony as the light touched her.
Sixty-seven
Linden heard a scream as he guided Shan through the woods. He urged the tired stallion onward. “This way!”
They plunged headlong through the woods, balls of coldfire lighting their way through the thick underbrush. As he rode Linden drew together his last reserves of strength and prayed he’d be in time.
They burst into the clearing. Shan took the hill at a heavy gallop. But even the Llysanyin would not approach the altar. Shan came to a bucking stop as his front hooves touched the barren soil at the crown of the hill. Linden jumped down. Shan whirled and retreated.
The Dragonlord stopped in horror at the scene before him. Peridaen lay dead upon the altar; Sherrine crouched in pain on the ground nearby, bathed in the cold light from something that a chanting Althume held in his upraised hand. There was no sign of Rann. Let that, Linden thought, be a good omen.
Then Linden understood what Althume held and what had happened to Tarlna, and why the whores of Casna had died. But for what end?
“You’re too late, Dragonlord,” Althume said, laughing. “She’s mine.” The jewel pulsed; Sherrine cried out. “You can do nothing to save your soultwin.”
For a moment Linden gaped in astonishment. In that instant a heavy weight fell on him from behind.
Danger!
Maurynna snapped out of her dream of singing stones with a scream. She scrambled upright, clinging to the pillar for support, and looked wildly around.
Nothing. There was no danger here. Just the night, the stars, the standing stones glowing in the light of the full moon.
Glowing? She rubbed her eyes. Even in this bright moonlight, the stones shouldn’t be glowing. Yet glow they did, soft silver and gold, pulsing like a heartbeat. Then she realized that she saw past the granite exterior to inside the stones, to the magic that was their heart. The feeling of peace was gone; the song the stone circle sang to her now throbbed in her bones, a war chant to raise an army from the depths of the earth itself. The golden voice in her head trumpeted a paean of wild victory.
I don’t care what Otter said—I am going mad!
Maurynna ran. She didn’t know where she ran to, nor did she care. She had to get away—from the stone circle that suddenly closed in on her, from its mysteries, from herself.
It was only after her panic-given strength had faded that Maury
nna realized that she was being called. She stopped, panting, feet planted wide to keep from collapsing, and looked back over her shoulder. She could still see the standing stones; their glow was fainter now but still visible. In the distance before her she could make out a darker line on the horizon: trees. It was the forest—or something within it—that called her. The summons was honey-sweet, seductive—and set her skin crawling. It wanted nothing less than her soul. She fought it.
And realized that she was losing when, unbidden, her feet stumbled of their own accord toward the dark woods. “No! Help me!” she begged the standing stones.
Their light flared brighter, but with it came another surge of power from the forest. The two powers fought over her, tugging her to and fro like a bit of sea wrack upon the waves. The forest was winning; Maurynna felt its dark fingers clawing into her soul. In desperation she turned to the voice within her, the voice that terrified her more than anything else. Come, she said to it. Come to me.
And instantly regretted it. She might have been able to fight whatever was in the woods. But now she was dissolving in pain, unable to scream, to fight back, to do anything, while the voice inside her roared in triumph.
Rann fled through the woods, running as fast as he could. Behind him the dragauth crashed through the underbrush. Rann found he had an advantage; he could slip between or under bushes and branches that the dragauth had to fight a way past. Frightened as he was, Rann remembered his mother telling him, Never give up.
He found a thicket of brambles and dropped to his stomach, squirming along the ground. He had no idea where he was going; he’d think about that later when he’d gotten away.
If he got away.
A little later he was out the other side. He risked stopping to listen. From the sound it appeared the dragauth was having trouble wading through the thorny tangle. Good; every moment helped. He dove into another patch of bushes.
He was clambering down a bank when something grabbed his belt. Rann yelped and bit the hand that instantly clamped over his mouth.
“Stop that!” a voice ordered as he was drawn into a hollow in the bank.
He struggled, then recognition filtered through his terror-fogged brain. “Maylin?” He clutched her. “There’s a dragauth hunting me,” he whispered. “We have to run!” He struggled to rise.
Maylin stopped him. “The woods end not far from here. We’d have no chance in the open.” She drew the sword at her waist.
They held hands as the slow trampling of bushes drew closer. Rann prayed as he’d never prayed before.
A shrill whistle pierced the night. Silence; then to Rann’s almost hysterical relief the crashing footsteps receded. When they had faded away, he tugged Maylin’s sleeve. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, “and tell Linden what’s happening. He’ll make it better.”
“He already knows. But let’s get you back to Casna, Your Highness. My horse is tied at the edge of the woods.”
When they found it a few minutes later, Rann protested at being lifted into the saddle. “But what about you? You can’t walk all that way.”
“I’ll do what I must, my lord.” She patted the horse’s neck.
They had barely left the shelter of the trees when something winged past overhead, blotting out the moon and the stars for an instant.
Rann stared after it. “That was a dragon, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Maylin said. “But which one?”
Linden rolled, striking out, but his illness had taken a heavy toll; he was too slow. His attacker jumped out of the way. Then a boot crashed into his head and Linden went sprawling.
Althume blew upon a whistle.
But Linden was ready the second time. When his attacker tried the same trick, he caught the man’s foot and heaved, sending the man flying. Linden staggered to his feet, blood running down his face. He drew Tsan Rhilin.
The man was up and charging. Harn? No, but kin. Linden brought the greatsword up, then hesitated. His attacker was unarmed. Cursing, Linden waited until the man was almost upon him, then sprang aside, reversing the greatsword. He brought the pommel down on the back of the man’s head. The man dropped like a downed ox.
Then Linden was free to deal with Althume. He approached the mage cautiously, Tsan Rhilin held out before him.
“Put your cold iron away, Dragonlord,” said the mage. “You know that its presence can send a working awry—and that would be a very dangerous thing. Do you truly want to destroy all of us?”
Linden clenched his jaw. Damn the mage; he was right. Linden stabbed Tsan Rhilin into the earth and stepped away from it.
“A pity you had to be here for this, Dragonlord. For I’ll have to kill you so that I can keep control of your soultwin once I’ve forced her into First Change.”
So that was the game. Linden said, “You’re wrong. Sherrine’s not my soultwin.”
The mage’s thin nostrils flared. “I don’t believe you.” He resumed his attack upon Sherrine.
Gods help him; he didn’t dare attack the mage outright. There was only one thing Linden could do to save Sherrine—and it might mean his death. He reached out with the magic within himself and drew away the magical energy that Althume poured into Sherrine from the soultrap jewel.
It burned through him. What he’d gone through before was nothing compared to this. Still he kept on. It was Sherrine’s only hope.
But the dark magic within the jewel frayed the joining of his souls. “Althume—stop! Sherrine is not the fledgling!”
“It won’t work, you know. You’ll just save me the trouble of killing you later.”
Linden believed him. The pain was incredible; it forced him to his knees. But he continued deflecting the searing energy away from Sherrine, taking it into himself.
“The sailor,” Sherrine rasped. “It’s the sailor, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Linden whispered. “Sherrine—run; I won’t last much longer.”
She got slowly to her feet. Her eyes met his. “Good-bye, Linden,” she said—and flung herself upon Althume.
Her clawing fingers closed upon the soultrap jewel. It flared; the mage threw himself away from it. For a moment Sherrine held the jewel before her. Then it exploded and Sherrine burned in a magical fire, screaming as it consumed her, melting flesh from bone. Moments later there was only a soft scattering of ash that fell gently to the earth.
“Oh gods, no,” Linden said, unable to believe what he had seen. Tears slid down his face. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t support him.
The mage had no such difficulty. “Damn you,” he said as he stood up, his eyes and voice filled with hate. He beckoned to something behind Linden. “Now you die.”
Linden smelled the stench of rotting meat. At once the centuries fell away as the old terror swallowed him. “Satha?” He slewed around as best he could on his knees.
It was not the undead Harper. He wished it was. Instead, nightmare incarnate stalked him. And he was too far away from Tsan Rhilin to reach it before the thing was upon him—even if he had had the strength to wield the greatsword.
He hoped Maurynna would survive his death.
Sixty-eight
The dragauth snarled It stretched itself to its full height, towering high over him. Somehow Linden got to his feet and backed away. Step by step the dragauth closed the distance between them.
“Kill him,” the mage said.
The dragauth roared and charged. Linden turned and tried to run; his legs gave out. He fell just short of the beginning of the slope.
A shriek of rage tore the sky above him. Linden rolled onto his side and looked up.
A dragon, almost as large as the one he himself Changed into, hovered over the clearing, its wings beating furiously to hold it in place. It screamed again, its fury-filled gaze locked on the dragauth. The mouth opened; long fangs gleamed in the moonlight. Linden heard the telltale rumbling and threw himself to tumble down the slope away from the one form of fire that could harm him.
Scarlet flames poured forth, spread across the earth. The dragauth burned with a sickening stench of cooked meat. The dragon landed on the scorched crown of the hill. One foot touched the altar; the dragon screamed again, this time in pain. It whirled and struck the altar a tremendous blow, sending the top stone flying. The stone shattered when it slammed into the earth dozens of feet away.
But the touch of the altar sent the unknown dragon into a frenzy. Linden crawled up the slope once more as the dragon spun again. He saw Althume, badly burned, attempt to flee. The dragon’s front foot slashed through the air and pinned the mage to the ground.
Scales glittered blue and green in the moonlight, iridescent as a dragonfly, something Linden had never heard of before. It was no dragon he’d ever seen.
Blue and—“Dear gods—it can’t be! Maurynna!” he cried. “No—don’t!”
The dragon’s head whipped around. *I am Kyrissaean,* she proclaimed. *This one is evil; he has killed many times. I feel it in him.*
“You are also Maurynna and my soultwin,” Linden said.
The dragon—I must think of her as Maurynna, Linden told himself—hesitated at his words. Her head tilted in a way that made him think of Maurynna. He thought she would let the mage go. But then Althume sealed his own fate.
Linden saw the mage’s hand go up; something glittered in his clenched fist. Before he could shout a warning, the hand came down and the sacrificial blade bit deep into the tender skin between Maurynna’s toes.
Maurynna disappeared beneath Kyrissaean’s wrath. The forefoot clenched; claws pierced the mage’s chest like a handful of swords. Kyrissaean flung the torn and bloodied corpse away and leaped into the sky, bellowing her rage and pain.
“Maurynna, come back—you don’t understand the danger!” Linden yelled after her but in vain. The dragon was winging out of sight. He tried to reach her mind, but she had shut it against him. He had only one hope if he couldn’t reach Maurynna in time. Kief!
The Last Dragonlord Page 45
