The Rite

by Richard Lee Byers

  In desperation, he kicked off from the slope, trying to turn his barely controlled fall into a leap that would carry him where he needed to land. He slammed down atop the blue’s heaving back at the juncture of the wings. He grabbed hold of a scale to anchor himself, drew his hornblade, an enchanted, exquisitely balanced halfling sword, and plunged it into the dragon’s flesh.

  The blue jerked, nearly breaking his grip on it. The enormous, wedge-shaped head with its ragged ears and the long horn jutting up from the tip of the snout swiveled around. It jaws gaped, and it struck.

  Will flipped backward to avoid the attack, and would scarcely have been surprised if he’d kept on helplessly rolling right off the dragon’s bucking, rain-slick back. But he grabbed, managed to grip another scale, and stabbed with the hunting sword. Striking a shower of popping sparks, a tiny fraction of the lightning that was a part of the blue’s essence, the point glanced off the creature’s natural armor.

  The dragon stretched its neck back, reaching with its jaws. The angle was awkward for it, but it was renewing the attack so quickly that Will scarcely had time to find his balance, while the shuddering, inclined surface beneath him was treacherous in the extreme. Dodging would be even harder. Maybe too hard.

  But before the blue could strike, a glowing mace, red like the sun at dawn, appeared above its head. The hovering weapon swung despite the lack of a corporeal hand to wield it and bashed the wyrm’s mask. At the same time, a ball of flame splashed against the blue’s sinuous neck. Will knew Pavel had conjured the former attack, and assumed the ogre with the red eye was responsible for the latter.

  The assaults must have hurt. The blue snapped its head forward and charged, rushing the shaman, whose hand burned like a torch. The sudden jerk nearly broke Will’s grip on the wyrm’s hide, but not quite, and he stabbed once more, driving the point several inches into into flesh. For a moment, the sword seemed to vibrate in his grip, and the muscles in his arm jumped and clenched.

  A rank of ogres with leveled spears stood between the blue and their leader. It smashed through, trampling one defender to pulp, but at least they’d slowed it momentarily, and driven a couple lances into its chest. The shaman retreated and lobbed more fire. Other giant-kin splashed through the stream to engage their colossal foe. Pavel’s mace of light streaked through the air and bashed the reptile in one slit-pupiled eye. At the same time, the human discharged a bright ray of light from his out-thrust hand. The beam burned a hole in the dragon’s wing.

  Will kept on cutting and stabbing. He rather hoped the blue had forgotten him, but no. The end of its sinuous tail suddenly whipped up and around to flick him away like a troublesome fly. He wrenched himself aside to avoid the first swat and leaped over the second one. He knew he couldn’t keep dodging for long.

  Then, however, raising a prodigious splash, the blue fell on its belly. Apparently the ogres had wounded at least two of its legs to such a degree that they couldn’t support it anymore. The wyrm’s wings pounded as it tried to take flight, but it couldn’t quite manage without a running or jumping start.

  The blue laid about furiously. More ogres perished, seared and withered by a fresh blast of lightning from its maw, torn to pieces between its fangs, or shattered by hammering blows of its tail. It just wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t even falter.

  The shaman ran at it, rammed his spear into the base of its neck, and scrambled on to fling himself at its chest. The giant-kin’s body sported countless stiff spikes like a porcupine’s quills. No doubt he’d sprouted them via enchantment, and as he slammed himself repeatedly against the dragon, the spines stabbed it again and again.

  The blue lurched partway onto its side and lifted its foreleg to claw at the shaman. But before it could, Pavel’s flying mace smashed it in the center of its brow. Bone crunched. The creature convulsed, nearly flinging the halfling from his perch.

  The blue spat another thunderbolt, but into the air, not at any foe. Then the head at the end of the long neck toppled into the coursing stream like a collapsing tower. Rustling, an enormous wing flopped down, too, after which the drake lay motionless.

  The shaman clambered up over the blue’s carcass toward Will. The halfling had no choice but to fight. With the water still high, and giant-kin gathered all around, he had nowhere to run.

  “Stop!” Pavel shouted. The command carried a palpable charge of magic, and the shaman froze in place.

  Will considered cutting him down before mobility returned, but instinct stayed his hand.

  “If you have any sense,” Pavel called, “you can see that we want to be your friends. We’ve been trailing you for days, waiting for an opportunity to make contact.”

  “Without you dumping our arses in the stewpot,” muttered Will.

  The shaman glowered up at Pavel, then finally growled, “Climb down, little sun priest, and we’ll talk.”

  Wearing her dragon form, perched on a mountainside with her companions, Kara took a final look at the scene across the valley. She didn’t look hopeful. The situation hadn’t changed for the better since she’d first observed it.

  Sure enough, her keen sight confirmed the discouraging truth. The Monastery of the Yellow Rose, a huge fortress perched atop a different peak overlooking the shining white expanse of the Glacier of the White Worm, was still besieged. A score of dragons, a motley collection of reds, fangs, and other species, crawled or lay motionless about the landscape, while several others glided in circles overhead, watching the stronghold from on high. The only time the vista had materially changed had been when the wyrms mounted an assault, an attack so furious it was a miracle of valor that the monks had managed to repel it, their massive fortifications notwithstanding.

  “Are we sure we all want to do this?” Kara asked. “It will be dangerous, and if we do get in, it may well be impossible to get out again.”

  Dorn shrugged. “Pavel’s convinced Sammaster spent a long time in the monastery—in disguise, I guess—learning something important, and I think this proves it. Those wyrms don’t look like they’re in frenzy. They’re too patient. I think they’re still sane, and the lich sent them here to make sure nobody else gets a chance to read whatever he discovered.”

  “He likely found out somebody stole his folio,” said Raryn, leaning on his harpoon. “We expected it to happen eventually. Now he’s trying to cover his trail.”

  “Anyway,” said Dorn, “if this is a site that he particularly wants to keep people out of, then plainly, we need to find out what’s inside.”

  “But you and Raryn aren’t scholars,” Kara said. “You likely won’t be able to contribute much to the research.”

  “We can stand with you against whatever trouble rears its head,” Dorn replied. “It’s what we came to do.”

  Raryn nodded and said, “We’ll stick.”

  Kara sighed. “I just think—”

  “Enough!” Chatulio snapped. Having abandoned the appearance of a horse, he too stood revealed as the dragon he was. His bright blue eyes, shining orange scales, and the gap in his upper front teeth usually made him look merry—to other wyrms, anyway—but at the moment, they didn’t mask his irritability. “The small folk are set on coming, so let’s get on with it.”

  Plainly, the Rage was eating at him. At least Kara had her human guise to armor her much of the time, but Chatulio could only resist the madness by simple force of will. She was worried about him, but knew it would be useless to speak of it

  “All right,” she said, crouching low. “We’ll get ready.”

  Dorn swung himself onto her back, and Raryn clambered onto Chatulio. The copper chanted an incantation. Rainbows rippled through the air, a tingling danced across Kara’s scales, and at the end, Chatulio and Raryn faded away.

  They weren’t really gone. The master illusionist had simply veiled himself and the dwarf in invisibility. In fact, he’d done the same for Kara and Dorn, though the effect didn’t keep the song dragon and half-golem from seeing themselves.

  “I
’m going,” Chatulio said.

  A snap of wings revealed he’d taken flight. Kara flexed her legs, leaped, and followed him.

  Dorn sat on her back more easily than the first time she’d carried him. She wondered wistfully if he could ever come to love flying the way she did.

  She found an updraft and rode it high above the mountains, so high the air must have been brutally cold for a human, though Dorn didn’t complain. As per the plan, Chatulio rose with her. If she listened intently, she could hear the occasional rustle of his pinions.

  Once they’d ascended high enough, they winged their way toward the monastery, making their approach far above the gliding, wheeling chromatic wyrms. If they descended in a tight spiral, it might be possible to slip past them undetected—or so they hoped. A huge red peered upward. Plainly, the drake had sensed the presence of the newcomers even from far below.

  Kara was bitterly disappointed, but also recognized that in a sense, she and her comrades were lucky the chromatic wyrms had detected them before they even started their descent. The fact that they were still hundreds of yards above the foe might allow them to escape unharmed.

  Kara lifted one wing and dipped the other, turning, preparing to withdraw. Meanwhile, the red snarled words of power. At the spell’s conclusion, magic throbbed through the cold, thin mountain air, and Chatulio and Raryn popped into view.

  Kara gasped, and Dorn cursed, but not because they could see their friends. Visible or not, Chatulio and Raryn might still have been able to get away safely. Rather, it was because, talons poised for combat, the copper was diving to engage the chromatics, carrying the dwarf helplessly along.

  Malazan beat her wings, climbing, searching for an updraft. She coveted the satisfaction of killing the copper all by herself, before any of her comrades could fly high and close enough to get in on the sport.

  The red needed some diversion to make her forget her frustrations. She’d initially assumed that she and the other chromatics could take the monastery in a day or two. She’d likewise expected that, since she was the oldest dragon present and manifestly the greatest in might and cunning, all the others would grovel to her and give her their unquestioning obedience. Sadly, she’d known disappointment on all counts.

  Of course, time would change everything for the better. The stronghold must fall eventually, Sammaster’s human lackeys would transform her, and possessed of a dracolich’s power, she’d slaughter any wyrm who’d shown her less than absolute subservience. After that, her reputation secure, she could go home to her lair and the treasure horde she loved above all things.

  Soon, she promised herself. But in the meantime, killing one of her metallic cousins might brighten her mood.

  The enchantment she’d cast in the air around the monastery to keep anyone from escaping via spells of flight and concealment, didn’t allow her to see the copper’s companion, but it gave her a general sense of the creature’s location. Thus, she knew it when that wyrm dived, plummeting even faster than its comrade, and she laughed with delight. It wouldn’t matter even if the second wyrm was an ancient gold. Two metal drakes still wouldn’t be able to defeat the half dozen chromatics Malazan had in the air. Apparently the Rage had both newcomers too addled to care how gravely they were outnumbered, and so they were both going to die.

  She felt less pleased, though, when the wyrm who was still invisible started to chant in a high, sweet, vibrant voice that suggested she was probably a song dragon. Malazan recognized a spell of coercion when she heard it, and realized the reptile had dived not to hurl herself into a suicidal battle but to get close enough to constrain the copper’s will.

  The copper jerked as the charm sunk its claws into his mind. “Flee!” the song dragon cried. “Escape!”

  He obediently pounded his wings to arrest his plunging descent.

  Too late, Malazan thought. He’d already swooped too low, and so, for that matter, had the song drake. If they exerted themselves, the chromatics could catch both of them. The red roared to her subordinates, urging them to fly faster and climb higher. Then she snarled a spell to wipe away the song dragon’s concealment, bringing her slim blue-diamond body shimmering into view. The singer had a rider, too, a grotesque hulk who appeared to be half human meat and half iron.

  One of Malazan’s minions sent a mote of yellow light streaking upward at the copper. He veered, dodging, and when the spark exploded into a mass of flame, he was at the periphery of the blast. It still must have seared him, but even the odd-looking white-haired, ruddy-faced dwarf on his back survived.

  The crystal-blue dragon sang, holding a single throbbing note that became a prodigious thunderclap. The deafening peal drove a lance of pain through Malazan’s ears and made her flounder in the air. Some of her worthless minions swerved off course or dropped lower, losing distance they’d labored hard to gain. The red female bellowed in fury.

  The copper and song dragon fled toward the mountains to the north, zigzagging in an attempt to avoid their pursuers’ conjured flares of flame and lightning, showers of acid and hailstones, and bursts of blighting darkness. Occasionally, the fugitives sent their own attack spells sizzling back to singe one of their foes, or tangle its wings in a mammoth spiderweb. For the most part, though, they wove defensive enchantments. The copper conjured several illusory images of himself to befuddle his assailants. The song drake cloaked herself in a protective aura of light.

  The riders clinging precariously to the “benevolent” dragons’ backs evidently lacked the magical skills to cast any powerful spells of their own. Whenever the vertiginous chase afforded them a target, however, they loosed arrows that flew straight and pierced deep.

  It didn’t matter, though. Nothing they could do mattered. Malazan and her subordinates were going to catch them. Indeed, she was nearly close enough to stop casting spells and use her fiery breath when a thick, pearly fog swirled into existence around her.

  She could have dispelled the magical cloud, but she’d drawn so close that she chose to drive onward instead, trusting to hearing and scent to guide her to her prey. Then she plunged into the second sort of vapor concealed within the drifting coils of the first. Her belly twisted with nausea. Elsewhere in the mist, her lackeys retched.

  Beating her wings, defying her dizziness and the cramping in her guts, she climbed above the fog bank, whereupon her sickness ended as abruptly as it had begun. Better still, she could see the copper and song dragon once more. They were only a little way ahead, and had finally dropped to the same altitude as their pursuers.

  Malazan cried to her warriors, urging them forward but scarcely caring if they heeded or not. In her present savage humor, she was sure she could kill a copper and a song wyrm all by herself and enjoy the exercise.

  She sucked in a breath, spewed forth her fire, and caught the copper square in the blaze. One of his wings burned away like paper. Wreathed in flame, the screaming dwarf fell from his back. She flew on and drove her talons into the copper’s body.

  At that instant, his body exploded into dozens of small, darting copper-dragon masks, which laughed derisively before bursting. The song drake, her rider, and the plummeting dwarf vanished at the same time.

  Illusion. A trick to divert and delay. Malazan climbed once more, cast about, and spotted the real copper and song dragon beating their way into a pass. A moment later, another mass of fog flowed into existence to hide them from view.

  They’d increased their lead significantly, but perhaps not enough. If Malazan invoked the godlike anger she could summon at will, brought the blood-sweat seeping forth to glaze her scales, it would magnify her already prodigious strength and stamina. Then she could surely overtake them, and rip them to pieces when she did.

  The problem was that she didn’t no how long it would take, or what might happen in her absence. Accordingly, fiercely as her instincts goaded her to pursue, she wheeled and led her subordinates back to the monastery.

  A little weary from the chase, she landed on the high crag
that was her customary perch. Soon, much to her displeasure, Ishenalyr came gliding to light unbidden beside her.

  The ancient green with the long, high crest and rows of hornlets over the eyes was smaller than Malazan, but larger than any other wyrm participating in the siege. He stank of the poison smoke he could exhale at will, and bore arcane runes and sigils carved on his scales.

  Malazan had enhanced her natural abilities by learning to use the ferocity that was a fundamental part of a dragon’s nature. As she understood it, Ishenalyr had mastered certain petty tricks by walking a different path, a discipline that involved stifling one’s passions as well as self-mutilation. It sounded perverse and stupid to her, and was one reason she disliked him. The main cause, though, was the way he critiqued her strategies and second-guessed her orders, his clear though not quite openly declared conviction that Sammaster should have chosen him to command the company.

  The “hidecarved” green had been on the ground when the song and copper dragons made their approach, and thus hadn’t participated in the chase. Accordingly, he appeared fresh where she was battered and winded, and that ratcheted her antipathy up yet another notch.

  Still, he could prove a useful tool to crack the monastery open, and so she managed to hold back the fire warming her gullet.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right,” said Ishenalyr in his prissy, superior way.

  “Your ‘concern’ is an insult,” she spat. “What could puny creatures like that do to me?”

  “Apparently,” said Ishenalyr, “outwit and evade you.”

  “I would have caught them had I cared to chase them any farther, but it was sufficient to drive them off. In case you’ve forgotten, the reason we’re here is to destroy the monks and their archives.”