Caelum dropped about halfway across. He hit the dust face-first, sinking only a short distance before his chest touched the solid shaft of the mast. The dwarf closed his arms around it and pulled himself up, coughing and choking as he came out of the silt. Not even waiting until he could breathe clearly again, he crawled up onto the opposite shoal and turned toward Rikus.
Caelum found himself behind both his friend and the Lord Warrior. Having landed a glancing kick on the back of the mul’s skull, the corpse was just leaping away as Rikus tried to twist around and slash at him with the Scourge.
The Lord Warrior slipped a step to the side, positioning himself for his next attack. The dwarf charged, timing his assault to arrive as the corpse stepped forward again. The spirit lord stopped directly behind Rikus. The Lord Warrior raised his leg, preparing to level a vicious thrust-kick at the base of Rikus’s skull.
Certain that the blow would be fatal if it landed, Caelum yelled a warning. At the same time, he hurled himself at the Lord Warrior, taking the corpse high in the shoulder blades. The dwarf hit with a bone-jarring impact, his face pressing into the cold, hard scales that covered the corpse’s back.
The Lord Warrior cried out in surprise, and the momentum of Caelum’s charge carried them both over the top of Rikus’s head. The corpse crashed down right in front of the mul, then the dwarf rolled away.
Rikus brought the Scourge down half a dozen times before the Lord Warrior had a chance to react. By the time Caelum had returned to his feet, all that remained of the spirit were slabs of putrid flesh.
“Many thanks,” Rikus said. “You just saved my life—four times over.”
The mul had suffered more during his struggle against the spirit lords than Caelum had realized. His body was covered with lumps, huge purple bruises, and a dozen gashes that were starting to soften the mud around him with blood.
“I haven’t saved your life yet,” Caelum said. He raised a hand toward the sun and walked over to the mul’s side. “The Lord Warrior’s beating could take you yet.”
Rikus’s eyes widened. He stared up at the dwarf’s glowing hand with a pained expression. “I’m too sore for that,” he growled. “You don’t have to heal me right now.”
“Of course he does,” snarled Tithian’s voice.
Caelum looked over and saw the king—or rather, a creature with the king’s head—crawling out of the silt channel. Tithian’s body no longer looked even remotely human. It was shaped like that of a lizard, with a knobby green hide and squat, powerful legs so broad they looked more like paddles. As the strange beast emerged the rest of the way onto the shoal, the dwarf saw that it had wrapped its long tail around the considerable bulk of the Dark Lens.
The creature crawled over to them and deposited the Lens at Rikus’s side.
“Now be quiet and let Caelum save your miserable hide—again,” Tithian said, looking toward the cutters. “I’ll go make arrangements for us to continue. Perhaps we can finish our journey in a style more befitting my station.”
FOURTEEN
THE GATE
OF DOOM
THE RAVINE WAS A SCAR UPON THE BLACKENED FACE of the plain, an ugly slash choked with jagged boulders and thick with brown vapor. Its sheer walls were capped with long mounds of loose stone, as if some immense plow had scratched a furrow from a field of solid basalt. The floor was littered with pulsing heaps of yellow stones, while tiny fissures in the cliff faces spat beads of steaming white sludge across the canyon. There was not a plant, living or dead, in the whole valley.
The ravine spilled into a vast, fiery abyss filled with molten rock. At this brink loomed a massive arch of black granite, engraved with squirming yellow runes and twice as tall as the cliffs flanking it. In the shadows beneath the arch stood the Dragon, eclipsed by the edifice and silhouetted against the orange glow rising from the chasm at his back. The claws of one hand were closed around a small, limp figure.
Though Sadira could not see it clearly from this distance, she assumed the figure to be Rkard. The sorceress had been watching for quite some time and still had not seen the boy move.
Sadira felt a hand grasp her shoulder. “It’s time,” Neeva whispered. “Caelum just received Tithian’s thought-message. They’re in position.”
Sadira looked at the ravine’s south wall. The cliff was only about half the height of the great arch itself, but easily tall enough so that Rikus and Tithian would be able to attack the Dragon from above. She saw no sign of the mul or the king, of course, for they would not show themselves until the battle began. Until then, they would remain hidden behind the mound of loose stones that capped the wall.
According to the plan, Neeva and Caelum would make the first move. Protected by Sadira’s magic, they would go straight down the ravine. They would try to hold the Dragon’s attention on themselves, so that the sorceress would have a better chance of using her powers to sneak up on him.
Sadira’s task was to deprive the Dragon of his most dangerous magic. Like the sorcerer-kings, Borys could draw the life force from men and animals. Also like the sorcerer-kings, he required the aid of obsidian globes to convert it into magical energy. But the Dragon’s mighty spells required more of the dark orbs than his hands could hold, so he swallowed his globes and carried them inside his body. If Sadira could get close enough, she could shatter the obsidian in Borys’s stomach, thus robbing him of his mightiest weapon.
The loss of the globes would probably also stun Borys, so Sadira would move quickly to rescue Rkard. Then, if necessary, she would return and lure the Dragon from beneath his arch by taunting him, pretending to suffer an injury, or—as a last resort—leaving herself vulnerable to a physical attack. When Borys stepped out of his cover, Rikus and Tithian would attack from above. Hopefully, the ambush would prove fatal. If it did not, the assault would lapse into an unpredictable melee, and their strategy would become, of necessity, a simple one: attack as fast and as hard as possible.
“Sadira?” asked Neeva. “Is something wrong?”
The sorceress shook her head, then followed her friend back behind the ridge they were using as a hiding place. She was sad to see that Neeva did not go to Caelum’s side. Sadira had hoped that her friend would make amends with her husband before the fighting started.
The sorceress went to Neeva’s side and took the warrior’s axe. “Don’t you think it’s time to forgive your husband?” she whispered. “This will be a hard-fought battle.”
“I didn’t see you kiss Rikus before sending him off,” countered the warrior, also whispering.
“That’s different. Caelum did all he could to protect your son,” Sadira said. “Rikus was glad to see Agis gone.”
“That’s not true,” Neeva replied.
“He thought he’d have me to himself. I saw it in his eyes,” Sadira insisted. “He’s always been jealous of Agis.”
“Rikus?” Neeva scoffed, shaking her head. She lowered her voice even further. “Neither of you are ones to be jealous. That’s why you have him and I don’t.”
“As I recall, you ended that romance—for Caelum.” Sadira glanced over her friend’s shoulder at the dwarf. He was deep in concentration, one hand pressed to his sun-mark. “And I think you’ll find you still love him, if you ask yourself how you would have stopped Borys.”
Neeva bit her lip and looked away. “Maybe, after this is over,” she said. “But all I can think of now is getting Rkard back. Fix my axe so we can get on with it.”
Sadira sighed. She rubbed her ebony fingers over the weapon’s steel head, speaking several incantations in a row. A dark stain spread outward from beneath her fingertips, coating the double-edged weapon with an ebony sheen as smooth and lustrous as a mirror. Tiny whirlpools of dusky light poured into one blade, while sable starbursts sparkled from the other. Even the handle turned as black as pitch.
“Remember, use the flat of the blade to deflect anything flying at you.” Sadira handed the weapon back to Neeva. “When Borys tries to use his magic,
point the handle at him. And above all, if you get close enough to hit him, leave the blade buried in his flesh as long as possible—”
“Unless you’ve changed any of the enchantments, there’s no need to go over it again,” interrupted Neeva. She cast a nervous glance skyward. “Night could come at any moment.”
Sadira looked up and nodded. Although it had been less than three days since they had entered the valley, they had learned to be wary of their sense of time. The boiling ash storm overhead cast the same red pall over this strange land all day long, rendering it impossible to judge the hour by looking at the sky. They could not even create a sundial. The thick clouds hid the sun and prevented even a faint shadow from showing on the ground.
To make matters worse, when night fell, it would do so with no period of twilight or hint of dusk. The sky would simply change from a bright crimson to a dim scarlet, and Sadira’s skin would fade from ebony to its normal hue of ivory. And, as Neeva had pointed out, that could happen soon. Morning, such as it was, had arrived much earlier that day, long before Caelum’s tracking spell had led them to the Dragon.
Unfortunately, holding their assault until morning was out of the question, for Borys knew their strengths and limitations too well. If they let night fall, he would certainly attack them.
Sadira stepped aside, letting Neeva and Caelum pass. “I’m fairly certain that arch is a mystic gate, though I’ve no idea where it leads,” she said. “So keep a watchful eye. If Borys activates it, our best chance of following him—and Rkard—will be to duplicate what he does exactly.”
“What should we watch for?” Neeva asked.
Sadira shook her head. “I wish I knew. A command, or touching a hidden panel, perhaps even something as simple as stepping out the other end,” she said. “I doubt that he’ll try to use it until he’s injured. But just in case, I’ll try for your son as quickly as I can.”
“Let us hope that Rkard still lives,” said Caelum. “And that the hour is not too close to dark.”
The dwarf led his wife into the ravine.
As the pair disappeared, Sadira slipped a nugget of dried nyssa resin into her mouth and chewed. She plucked a lash from her eyelid and, when the gum had grown soft, wrapped it inside. Pinching the resulting wad between her fingers, she whispered an incantation. Her body slowly faded from black to gray, then grew translucent and finally became completely invisible.
The clatter of shifting stones echoed up from the gorge, and Sadira knew Neeva and Caelum had begun their descent. She reached into her pocket to prepare her next spell.
“Did you hear that?” Rikus whispered. “It sounded like clattering stones.”
The mul lay facedown on the brink of a small cliff. To one side, the precipice dropped about thirty feet to a plain of broken basalt. To the other side, a mound of loose stones rose fifty paces to a rounded crest that overlooked the Dragon’s waiting place. Above the summit of the ridge, Rikus could see the top of the arch, with its snaking yellow runes, silhouetted against the crimson sky. Of course, he could not see over the hill to tell what was happening in the ravine.
“I assume Neeva and Caelum are descending.” said Sacha. He was floating beyond the cliff edge, well out of the mul’s reach. “Be ready.”
“I am,” Rikus growled. He drew his sword and peered over the cliff edge at Tithian.
Having transformed himself into something resembling a giant scorpion, the king was using the claws of his six legs to climb the cliff. The Dark Lens was pressed against his back, held securely in place by his curled tail. In place of the arachnid’s claws, he had created a pair of arms as long and powerful as those of a half-giant. Only the head remained Tithian’s, looking at once demented and pitiful, with his brown eyes glaring from deeply sunken sockets, his hawkish nose slimmed down to a crooked rib of cartilage, and wild shocks of gray hair sticking out at all angles.
“Remember, I’ll be watching you,” Rikus warned.
The king smirked up at the mul. “We’re on the same side in this fight,” he said. “It’s time you accepted that.”
Rikus looked back up the hill. “I’ve been stung by one scorpion already,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”
Neeva sprang from one teetering boulder to another, her eyes watering and her throat burning from the caustic fumes of the ravine. Most of the brown vapors in the immediate area were swirling around her axe’s head, sinking into the enchanted blade and disappearing from sight. The few wisps that escaped were enough to make her glad for Sadira’s protection.
They had already traveled most of the way down the gorge. The great arch stood less than fifty paces away, at least five times as tall as a giant. A Balican schooner could have sailed through the gap between its pillars. Even the yellow runes on its face, now writhing madly, were the size of faro trees.
The Dragon continued to stand in the shadows beneath the arch, his head cocked as he watched them approach. The closer they came, the harder it became to see him clearly. The glow rising from the abyss at his back grew brighter with each step, until the glare blurred the edges of his scaly body.
Neeva had expected Borys to attack by now, but it did not disturb her that he had not. The closer he let them approach, the longer Sadira would have to position herself.
The warrior glanced at her axe head. They were all keenly aware that the Dragon ahead could be a double, like the one they had faced in Samarah. One of the enchantments Sadira had cast on the weapon was to make the blade reveal the true appearance of anything reflected in its dark sheen. The image Neeva saw was that of Borys.
“Watch yourself!” Caelum cried. “He may be attacking!”
The dwarf pointed at the top of the great arch. One of the sigils was glowing white and whirling madly. An instant later, it vanished in a bright flash.
Neeva pressed herself close to her husband’s side, holding the axe between them and the arch. Before she could ask what he expected to occur, a sheet of steaming white sludge sizzled from a long fissure in the canyon wall. She thought they would be swamped, but the sheet split apart as it neared them. A huge glob struck Neeva’s axe and swirled into the blade in a great whirlpool. The rest of the muck fell around them, blanketing the rocks on the ground. A harsh hissing and popping sounded from beneath the white shroud, as it quickly dissolved into brown vapor and rose up around them in a caustic cloud.
Neeva swung her axe through the choking vapors, clearing them away with a single pass of the blade. Both she and Caelum looked back to the arch immediately. To their relief, no more of the runes disappeared.
They advanced farther down the gorge, until they were close enough to see that the yellow runes in the arch’s face consisted of flowing ribbons of molten stone. The bright glow behind the Dragon sent blazing daggers of pain shooting through Neeva’s eyes, and blasts of fiery wind gusted up from the depths of the abyss to sear her flesh. Determined not to show her weakness, Neeva continued to advance without shielding her eyes or looking away.
A loud, spiteful voice came from beneath the arch. “Stop there, and we will speak.”
The warrior and her husband obeyed, keeping a watchful eye on the yellow runes above. “What do we have to talk about?” Neeva asked.
Borys stepped to the front edge of the arch, his body now blocking most of the glare. He lowered his serpentine neck and fixed his scorching gaze on the two intruders. The spiked crest on his head stood completely upright, the barbed tips of its spines gleaming with orange light. A scorching light shone in his beady eyes, and wisps of yellow smoke fumed from his dark nostrils. The Dragon’s beaklike mouth gaped open. Neeva brought her axe around, fearing he intended to spray them with his fiery breath.
Borys did not attack. “If you give me Tithian and the Lens, I’ll return your child and let you live,” he offered. “I’ll even leave Tyr alone.”
Neeva looked up at his hand, far above. She could see Rkard’s feet and hands protruding from between the Dragon’s claws, but nothing else.
“How do I know my son’s still alive?” Neeva asked.
The warrior found herself croaking the words. She did not know whether the dryness in her throat was due to her fear or the parching wind blowing in her face. Borys poised a claw over the center of his palm, approximately where Rkard’s chest would be. “Would you like to hear him scream?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Neeva glared up at the Dragon for a moment, then faced her husband as if to speak with him. As badly as she wanted to agree to the terms, she did not trust Borys any more than she would have trusted Tithian. She had no intention of revealing the Lens’s location, but she was simply trying to buy Sadira a little more time to maneuver into position.
Caelum turned a palm upward, calling upon the sun for his spell. To Neeva’s horror, a spout of glowing red ash shot down from the sky to lick at her husband’s hand. The dwarf’s eyes went wide, and a sound like roaring wind howled from inside the arch.
Neeva spun around, holding the flat of her blade before her. Borys had drawn himself up to full height, his bony chest puffed out with air. His snout gaped so far open that she could see a yellow glow rising from deep in his gullet.
At least we’re holding his attention, Neeva thought.
The beast dropped his head and spewed a cone of white-hot sand at the warrior and her husband.
Rikus saw a strange spout of crimson ash whirl down from the sky, descending into the gorge just a short distance from the great arch. Then came a roaring sizzle he recognized from previous battles against the Dragon: the blast of scorching breath. Clouds of blazing hot sand billowed up around the ash. The spout quickly dissolved, drifting away in a fog of gray flakes. Borys’s breath continued to roar.
Rikus looked down at the king, who was less that ten feet away, hanging from the cliff face by all six claws. “The fight’s started!” the mul yelled. “Hurry up!”
The Cerulean Storm Page 22
