The Spectral Blaze botg-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  Then the dragons hurtled into view.

  Being wyrms, they unquestionably perceived the foes gliding and wheeling in front of them. But if Oraxes’s enchantments were working as promised, the dragons didn’t see as many griffon riders as were actually there. They registered only a handful and were experiencing a subtle psychic pressure to disregard those and look elsewhere for a more significant threat.

  The illusion would hold for only a breath or two. But that was time enough for a first barrage of arrows and spells. Hurtling forward on Jet, his blue eyes glowing in the gloom, Aoth hurled a dazzling thunderbolt from his spear. Gaedynn nocked and loosed shafts fast as the eye could follow. Jhesrhi brandished her staff, and fire leaped from the top to lash a sapphire dragon across the eye. The creature screamed and she and her weapon laughed together.

  Even though fire magic was likely to prove useless against him, she’d wanted to engage Tchazzar. She felt he was her responsibility. But it had been impossible to predict exactly where he’d appear, and chance had put them on opposite sides of the fight for the moment.

  Her eagle plunged past the sapphire wyrm’s head and along its neck, and she seared it with another burst of flame. It swatted at her with an enormous wing, but her mount swooped safely under the stroke and, with a sweep of its own pinions, bobbed up again.

  Elsewhere, her comrades were likewise streaking by dragons before the creatures could turn and retaliate. The defense worked because the colossal reptiles weren’t as nimble in flight as a griffon or a spirit of the wind.

  From then on, the fight would be tougher. But as the eagle wheeled, Jhesrhi insisted to herself that it wouldn’t be any worse than the worst of Thay. Then her steed vanished beneath her, and she plummeted toward the rooftops below.

  She tried to speak a word to slow her fall, and darts of amber light stabbed into her body. The jolt of pain made her botch the spell.

  But fortunately the entity that had been the eagle shook off its own distress. Although it didn’t resume the form she’d given it, it managed a screaming invisible updraft that arrested her fall just short of someone’s chimney.

  Bobbing like a cork in a brook, she looked around for her attacker or, as it turned out, attackers. A skinny, wrinkled, bent old woman and a bearded young man with a wart at the corner of his eye were perched on a rooftop a stone’s throw away. Jhesrhi winced because she recognized them both. She’d met them the night Aoth had convened a meeting of Luthcheq’s mages and on several occasions since.

  “You’re fighting on the wrong side!” Jhesrhi called, voice grating with the lingering ache in her chest.

  “No,” the elderly sorceress quavered. “Tchazzar set us free, and you’re betraying him.”

  “It isn’t like that,” Jhesrhi said. “But if you won’t fight on the right side, just go away. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  Instead of answering, the old woman gripped her staff with both hands and raised it over her head. Tears of blood slid from her eyes, and suddenly it made Jhesrhi feel dizzy and sick to her stomach to look at her. Meanwhile, the male wizard held a doll of jointed wood up to his face and whispered in its painted ear. Ghostly imps like deformed fetuses flitted and flickered around him, half-visible one instant, gone the next.

  Jhesrhi could tell both her foes were casting lethal magic. And they’d started first. But neither of them was a battle wizard. Pointing her staff, she rattled off words of power, twice as fast as their author had intended but still with the proper rhythm and intonation, and she was the one who finished first. The resulting blast of fire tore her foes apart, along with much of the roof beneath them.

  She sighed and, tainting her own true emotions, the staff’s excitement only made her sorrow worse. But she thrust regret aside and, whispering rhymes in one of the languages of Sky Home, set about helping her mount return to avian form.

  *****

  Pain ripped through Gaedynn’s head, and parts of his visual field shattered into a distorted patchwork like stones in a mosaic. He cried out, then, focusing his will despite the pounding anguish, he pushed the psychic intrusion out of his skull as Aoth and Jhesrhi had taught him. The headache subsided, and his sight returned to normal.

  “My turn,” he gritted to the sapphire dragon sweeping along beneath him and Eider. He had little doubt that it was the foe who’d attacked him. Together with a number of other griffon riders, he’d been doing his best to bring it down, and by all accounts, gem wyrms possessed exotic psychic abilities.

  He loosed an arrow, and it plunged deep into the muscle at the base of the dragon’s right wing. The creature convulsed and, with its wings no longer outstretched to catch the air, plummeted.

  Gaedynn grinned as it smashed down on top of a house and plunged on through the roof. But satisfaction turned to disgust when it emerged from the newly ruined structure by shoving through a wall.

  The fall had plainly hurt it. Its left wing was torn and crumpled, and one bull-like, forward-curving horn had broken off short. But it still looked able and willing to fight.

  Indeed, it had even found itself some allies. Gaedynn had been too busy shooting and dodging dragons to register much of what was happening on the ground. But he saw that by wretched luck, the creature had fallen right in front of a company of Tchazzar’s soldiers circling to threaten the Brotherhood and its allies on their right flank. Like sensible folk, the common warriors balked at the violent and unexpected advent of such a huge, fearsome creature. But they had a couple of wyrmkeepers with them, and the priests hurried forward to palaver with the dragon. No doubt, since it could no longer fly, they were urging it to join the fight on the ground.

  If it did, the results could be devastating. Seeking a way for his earthbound comrades to withstand such an attack, Gaedynn looked around and found the genasi, fairly close at hand but standing idle. Despite Tchazzar’s threats, no one had attacked them yet, so they hadn’t abandoned hope of avoiding battle.

  Guiding Eider with his knees, Gaedynn sent her streaking over his embattled allies, then plunged her down behind some of Brotherhood’s own archers. Startled, the nearest bowmen recoiled. Then three sellswords started jabbering at him at once.

  Ignoring them, he cast around and found Son-liin. “Come here!” he called, shouting to make himself heard above the roaring, pounding clamor of battle. “Mount up behind me!” She scurried to obey. “Where are the mages?”

  The stormsoul pointed. “That way.”

  Gaedynn sent Eider bounding in that direction, and mercenaries scrambled out of the way. The young wizards gaped at him.

  “Before,” Gaedynn said, “you made the riders in the air seem fewer than we were. Now Son-liin and I have to seem like more than we are.”

  Oraxes frowned. “Well, if I-”

  “Don’t explain it!” Gaedynn snapped. “Do it! Now!” Sweeping his left hand in a serpentine fashion, Oraxes murmured too softly for Gaedynn to make out the words. But perhaps Meralaine could, somehow, because she joined in at the end.

  As soon as they finished, Gaedynn sent Eider leaping back into the air. “Now,” he said to the girl mounted behind him, “I need you to be the genasi-est genasi anybody ever saw, with sparks flying everywhere. The foe has to see what you are despite the dark.”

  “All right,” she said. “But what are we doing?”

  “Killing a dragon,” he said. “Well, just hurting it, probably. But do your best.”

  He wheeled Eider over the Akanulan formation. A few of the genasi sensed them passing and looked up.

  Then Eider was streaking across the stretch of ground that separated the genasi from the sapphire dragon and Tchazzar’s men. Trusting his safety straps to keep him in the saddle, Gaedynn leaned far to the left. It made archery more difficult, but it was necessary to give the enemy a good look at Son-liin and open up a line for her to shoot.

  The foes ahead looked as if they were just about ready to resume their advance with the sapphire wyrm in the forefront. In a just world, that would mean th
ey’d miss Eider hurtling out of the dark on their own flank.

  But they didn’t, or at least not all of them did. The dragon’s head whipped around, then cocked back.

  Gaedynn nudged Eider with his elbow, then realized he hadn’t needed to. Over the course of the past several tendays, the griffon had learned what a dragon looked like when it was about to spew its breath weapon, and she was already dodging. Dangling sideways as he was, the sudden motion whipped Gaedynn’s body, but the punishment was preferable to getting hit. And although he heard a shrill whine, nothing touched him.

  He loosed arrows. One glanced off but the rest pierced the dragon’s neck and chest. Behind him, the discharge from Son-liin’s body popped and crackled. Eider’s muscles twitched when it stung her. The shafts the former firestormer shot flickered with lightning.

  The sapphire dragon opened its jaws to spew another attack, and one such arrow streaked all the way to the back of its throat. The resulting flash made the creature flail its head and pound its tail on the ground in pain. The jolts sent its human allies staggering.

  Gaedynn judged that that attack had likely accomplished their purpose if anything could. Besides, some of Tchazzar’s soldiers were raising their crossbows. He turned Eider and the griffon carried him and Son-liin back the way they’d come.

  He glanced around and grinned to see the enraged dragon bound after them because that meant it was also charging the ranks of genasi. After a moment’s hesitation, its allies did the same.

  Ripples of motion ran through the Akanulans’ formation as they hastily prepared to defend. Flame and lightning flickered. Windsouls rose into the air.

  “Welcome to the party,” Gaedynn said.

  *****

  Medrash stared in amazement. Maybe that was ironic, considering that it was his premonition that had persuaded him and his companions to make the final leg of their journey as fast as sorcery would allow. But his worries and imaginings had fallen short of the reality.

  Though distance and darkness obscured some of the details, he could tell humans, genasi, and wyrms were fighting in and above the western portion of the city up ahead, in a battle at least as big and chaotic as any the dragonborn had fought against the giants. Shouts, screams, roars, and crashes blended into one huge, throbbing drone. Buildings burned and columns of gray smoke striped the sky. Wyrms wheeled over the rooftops, the glow of their breath weapons and the blasts of magic that came in response momentarily revealing the griffon riders who whirled around them like gnats.

  “What is it?” asked Biri, perched behind him.

  The question nudged him out of his astonishment, and he tried to order his thoughts. “War,” he said. “Though who exactly is fighting whom, I can’t yet tell.”

  “So what do we do?” Praxasalandos asked.

  “I came to free Tchazzar from the madness of the Great Game,” Medrash said. “That’s still worth doing, no matter what else is going on.”

  “Then I’ll find him for you,” the quicksilver dragon said. Wings beating, he hurtled forward, and Khouryn and Balasar’s bats kept pace. Balasar shot his clan brother and the white-scaled wizard a grin.

  As they reached the outskirts of the city and the fringe of the struggle, a dragon hurtled from the right. Medrash thought it was a black, although in the darkness he wasn’t sure. He shifted his lance and shield and prepared to channel Torm’s power. Biri took a deep breath and let it out again, centering herself to wield her own kind of magic.

  But the dragon swooped right past Praxasalandos and Khouryn and Balasar as well. Either it had mistaken the quicksilver wyrm for one of its allies or, in the midst of the darting, wheeling struggle in the sky, hadn’t noticed him at all. The griffon riders it was actually diving at scattered before it.

  “If we hit it while its back is turned-” said Prax.

  “No,” Medrash answered. “Stick to the plan.”

  They did and somehow avoided the hostile attentions of any other dragons or any of the archers and spellcasters on the ground. Then Khouryn made Iron dive. Medrash could only assume that, with his superior night vision, the dwarf had spotted something he thought needed his immediate attention.

  Then fire exploded across the sky.

  It was Tchazzar’s breath, and Aoth Fezim and his black griffon swooped beneath the flare. But instead of dying away for want of fuel, the streak of flame floated in the air, drew in on itself, and took on the shape of a dragon. The bright horror turned and, wings lashing, shot after the Thayan captain.

  That would likely keep him from threatening Tchazzar for a little while at least, and ignoring the flyers who were simply loosing arrows at him, the Red Dragon glared at the action of the ground. There, to all appearances, two masses of Chessentan soldiers were fighting one another. One company was pushing the other back, and despite the height at which he was flying and the general cacophony, Medrash could make out what the humans who had the upper hand were chanting:

  “Shala! Shala! Shala!”

  Medrash still didn’t entirely understand what was happening in Luthcheq. But it seemed that, like Aoth, Shala Karanok was fighting Tchazzar. And that meant someone should intervene before the wyrm dived and attacked her and the warriors under her command.

  “Get me close!” Medrash said. In response, Praxasalandos’s wings beat even faster.

  Medrash raised his lance high and opened himself to the Loyal Fury’s boundless, righteous power. As he did, he dimly sensed Bahamut, in some nonphysical sense, standing with the other deity and ready to lend his strength as well. Though it was possible that no one else could see it, cold, white fire poured down the lance, into his steel-gauntleted hand, and on into his core.

  Then he felt vibrant with strength, so full that he almost doubted his ability to contain it. Still, the sensation wasn’t frightening but ecstatic. If his body burned away, then surely the soul that remained would burn in glory forever, like a star.

  He strained to put such fancies aside and focus. Joyous as it might be simply to revel in his communion with the divine, it was his duty to use the gift and quickly. Tchazzar was already furling his wings to dive at the humans below.

  Medrash pointed the lance, and silvery flame streamed out. He was certain everyone could see it, and Tchazzar jerked as the flare washed over his body.

  “Tchazzar!” Medrash called. “Let Torm help you! Let him purge you of Tiamat’s stain and xorvintaal too!”

  Tchazzar beat his wings and leveled out of his dive. He simply seemed to be gliding, as though dazed or oblivious to the furious struggle raging on all sides. Prax turned and pursued him.

  Medrash kept the Loyal Fury’s power playing over Tchazzar’s form until he’d expended every bit of it. When the flare died, he slumped in fatigue.

  “Did it work?” Biri asked.

  Meanwhile, Prax’s swooping trajectory carried them both lower and closer to the wyrm ahead of them.

  “I think so,” Medrash answered.

  Then, yellow eyes burning, Tchazzar whipped his head around. Biri gasped. Medrash thought, we’re too close. Then flame erupted from the Red Dragon’s jaws.

  *****

  Khouryn knew a warrior in an aerial battle, where danger could come from above, below, or any side, had to stay vigilant. He was also doing his best to look for Tchazzar, although he imagined that an ancient red dragon spitting flame would be hard to miss once he and his companions got reasonably close.

  Still, whenever he deemed it relatively safe, he stole a moment to scrutinize the action on the ground. Since the Brotherhood’s griffon riders were in the air, his spearmen were surely down there somewhere, and he needed to see how they were faring.

  There! There they were, anchoring the center of an allied battle formation-if one cared to dignify the jumbled masses of men below with that name-with a war band mustered around a Threskelan crown-and-wand standard on their left and a company flying red Chessentan banners on their right.

  An entirely different horde of Chessentans was
attacking all along the front of the formation, and as was inevitable, what had surely started out as straight, unbroken ranks were bent and ragged. But they were holding.

  The problem was at the back of the formation. Some of the enemy had made their way all around the allies to attack there as well, and they looked to be on the brink of breaking through the rearguard, who were probably screaming for reinforcements, but no one was answering. Amid all the noise and confusion, it was possible that no one even realized.

  But as Khouryn sent Iron plunging downward, he thought that somebody should know. He understood why, if there were dragons in the air, Aoth, Jhesrhi, and maybe even Gaedynn needed to be there too. But still, someone needed to oversee what was happening on the ground.

  As he unbuckled his safety harness, he realized he was actually reproaching himself for being absent as long as he had.

  Then Iron plunged down on top of one of the enemy soldiers, who collapsed under the impact and the bat’s ripping claws. Khouryn thrust his lance into another foe, grabbed his battle-axe, and flung himself out of the saddle.

  Iron lurched beneath him and robbed the dismount of any grace it might otherwise have had. Khouryn tumbled off the bat’s body and slammed down on the ground. He grunted at the jolt, then jumped up and started swinging.

  Startled, the enemy was slow to react. He chopped down two men before the others started defending themselves, and even then they were more worried about Iron. To Khouryn’s surprise, the bat stayed on the ground with him, and even though the animal was clumsy, flailing and flopping about, his hammering wings and ripping fangs were murderous. Heartened by the havoc he and his master were wreaking, the rearguard rallied and surged at the enemy.

  Still, for a while, Khouryn thought the struggle could go either way. Then, just as he was killing his current opponent with a cut to the guts, men started screaming. He glanced around to find out why and took advantage of the moment to catch his breath. Iron looked fearsome, even to him, when he was suddenly invested with a demonic aura of menace that even his size and bloodstained teeth and talons couldn’t explain.