As it did, Gestanius wheeled to glare at Jemleh and his fellow mages. Without Prax—or someone—to keep her busy with close combat, she was likely to destroy the spellcasters in a couple of heartbeats.
Khouryn yelled as loudly as he could, raised his axe, and charged. He was keenly aware that if he was the only one who rushed in, he might well be living out the last few moments of his life.
For a heartbeat, as Gestanius spun in his direction, all the crossbowmen, archers, and slingers stayed right where they were. Then Vishva yelled, “Bahamut!” She dropped her arbalest, snatched her warhammer off the floor, and charged. Other members of the Cadre followed her example, and Imaskari soldiers did it too.
That didn’t distract Gestanius from striking at the one mad dwarf on the field. Her huge jaws plunged down at him, and his own momentum nearly consigned him to the same ignominious disaster that had overtaken Balasar. But somehow he managed to fling himself aside and even chop at the side of the dragon’s head, although he only nicked it a little. Still charging, he dodged a raking forefoot.
He plunged into the shadow under the dragon’s belly and started chopping at a foreleg. The ceiling was too low for Gestanius to fly. If he could cut a couple of legs out from under her, it would immobilize her.
He created a couple of nice, deep gashes, deep enough to recapture her attention, apparently, for then she started stamping. She likely hoped to catch him squarely under her foot and squash him flat, but that might not be necessary. If she simply snagged him with a claw, she stood a fair chance of ripping him apart.
He dodged frantically and scrambled whenever Gestanius’s lunging and turning threatened to separate them. He swung the axe when he could manage it and, though intent on his own small part of the struggle, occasionally caught glimpses of the rest:
A swat from a leathery wing smashed an Imaskari spearman.
An umber-scaled dragonborn axeman ran to join Khouryn underneath Gestanius until the green’s jaws hurtled down and nipped away everything from the waist up. Gestanius spit out what she’d taken as she lifted her head again. The warrior’s eyes blinked once, seemingly at the sight of his severed legs toppling in front of him.
Cloudy with bits of dissolving flesh, steaming fluid poured down off Gestanius’s flanks. Jemleh or one of his colleagues was attacking her with acid.
Khouryn bellowed “East Rift!” and swung, burying most of the axe’s head in Gestanius’s flesh. When he wrenched it free, blood spurted, spattering his chest, beard, and flesh and blinding him till he sidestepped and swiped the gore in his eyes away.
Gestanius howled and snatched her foot off the floor, and Khouryn was ecstatic when it didn’t come stamping down again. She folded up her foreleg against her chest where he couldn’t reach it.
Khouryn barked a laugh and ran toward the rear of her body. If he could cripple a hind leg too, that would accomplish his purpose.
But before he could reach the limb, Gestanius roared a word that seemed to stab him through like a rapier. He fell on his face, and the sound hung in the air like the shivering note of a gong. It twisted and tore at him, and just as horribly, he somehow felt it twisting and tearing at the very structure of the world. It was magic so powerful and malign that it tortured reality itself.
Finally the sound faded. But Khouryn ached in every nerve and couldn’t focus his thoughts. When Gestanius sprang away from him, he almost didn’t realize that was a problem.
Almost but not quite. Gritting his teeth against a pang of sharper pain, he forced himself to lift his head.
Nearly as fast as ever despite her laming, Gestanius whirled to face him. He supposed it was an accolade of sorts that out of all the foes who’d been assailing her, he was the one she particularly wanted to dispose of.
And she very likely would, because when he glanced around, there didn’t seem to be anyone capable of distracting her from her purpose. The word of power had stunned everyone, warrior and wizard alike. Some folk lay entirely unconscious. A couple shuddered and rolled their eyes in ungovernable terror if not outright insanity.
Khouryn heaved himself to his feet and hefted his axe. “Try,” he croaked.
Gestanius opened her jaws, and a pale cloud gathered at the back of her mouth. The smell of acid suffused the air. Khouryn’s eyes watered as the air filled with noxious fumes.
Then a silvery waterfall poured down from the ceiling.
Or rather, it poured halfway. It gathered itself into a coherent shape in mid drop, and by the time it slammed down on top of Gestanius, it was Prax.
His weight drove the green down on her belly. He seized her neck in his jaws midway down and drove his foreclaws into her. She twisted her head and spit the acid she’d originally intended for Khouryn, but the angle was bad. Prax crouched low and the acid sizzled over his head. The talons on his hind feet raked deep, bloody furrows in Gestanius’s back.
But then the green whipped her neck and broke Praxasalandos’s grip on it, although his jaws came away full of flesh. She flipped over, crashed down on top of the quicksilver wyrm, and rolled. His claws ripped out of her back, and they tangled together, biting, tearing, each trying to coil around and immobilize the other.
And they continued to fight the same way when they fetched up against the cavern wall, like wrestlers, not pugilists or axemen. And that, Khouryn realized, meant that other, smaller combatants could get close to them without quite as much danger of getting squashed.
Still weak and shaky from the effects of the word of smiting, he scarcely felt capable of running across the cavern another time. But he staggered one step, then another, and the debility fell away. Dragonborn and Imaskari followed him, stumbling and lurching at first, then picking up speed.
When they reached the wyrms, they had to seize their opportunities, rush in, strike, and be ready to retreat in an instant, because while the dragons weren’t whirling and lunging around as they had before, they weren’t motionless either. They rolled and heaved, and any such shift could crush the smaller creatures stabbing and cutting in their shadow.
Khouryn struck, then ducked a stray swipe of Prax’s foot that might otherwise have smashed his skull. Off to the right, a couple of warriors shouted in excitement, but he had no idea why until the next time he had to retreat. Then he saw how Prax had looped his bloody, truncated tail around Gestanius’s neck like a garrote.
Frantic to break the chokehold, she tore at him, thrashing so madly that Khouryn didn’t see how he or any of his warriors could advance back into striking distance. But Medrash ran in as if he imagined the behemoths’ raking, flailing limbs couldn’t possibly touch him.
He shouted, “Torm!” and Praxasalandos snarled, “Bahamut!” Medrash thrust his sword deep into Gestanius’s chest, and the quicksilver dragon pulled the noose that was his tail tighter still.
Gestanius went rigid. Then her struggles started to subside, although everyone kept strangling, cutting, or hammering her for a while longer, just to make sure she really was dead.
E
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29–30 ELEASIS, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE
Aoth judged that the view from Arathane’s throne room was as spectacular as on his previous visit, but in a more forbidding way. There were gray-black thunderheads to the north, out over the sea. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.
He’d given a condensed account of the expedition to kill Vairshekellabex, and the royal audience had ground to a halt while various genasi priests and clerks had examined the wyrmkeepers’ papers and even authenticated the handwriting and wax seal on Mardiz-sul’s testament. Though Cera was doing her best to keep her composure, Aoth could see impatience gnawing at her. Gaedynn somehow managed to lounge standing up with his customary air of insouciance. Son-liin, who’d never before visited such a regal setting, was taking advantage of the recess to gawk at the chamber’s lavish appointments and the courtiers’ bejeweled attire.
Eac
h expert whispered his opinion to Tradrem Kethrod. When he’d heard from them all, the square-built Steward of the Earth turned toward the raised, silver throne and the slender young stormsoul sitting on it.
“Well, milord?” Arathane asked. Today she was wearing gold rings set with amethysts on her hair spikes.
“There are no clear, incontrovertible signs of forgery,” Tradrem said. “However—”
“However,” Gaedynn said, “you might fall down foaming in a fit if you said straight out that we were right and you were wrong. Is that more or less the way of it?”
The earthsoul shot him a glare but continued to address the queen. “As I was saying: However, even if we assume that every word we’ve heard spoken or read from a piece of parchment today is true, it doesn’t prove that the dragonborn haven’t been raiding our villages. It simply provides some reason to suspect that this Vairshekellabex and his servants were doing it too.”
“With all respect, milord,” said Aoth, “that’s a tortured interpretation of the facts. What are the odds that Tymanther would conduct clandestine raids, and in the same year, Vairshekellabex’s wyrmkeepers would disguise fiends out of Banehold as dragonborn and dispatch them to commit exactly the same kind of atrocities?”
“Not so bad,” Tradrem said, “if Vairshekellabex noticed what the dragonborn were up to and decided to use their incursions as a smokescreen to hide his own outrages.”
“Your Majesty,” Cera said, “I will swear the most sacred oaths of my faith and my order that my companions and I are telling the truth. Vairshekellabex and his servants were solely responsible for the massacres. The gray wanted to see Akanûl’s troops drawn beyond its borders to fight a pointless war. Surely you can see how that would make him more secure and able to slaughter and steal with impunity.”
“Not that your army showed any actual signs of getting ready to go hunt him down and kill him,” Gaedynn said, “but I suppose a person can’t have too much impunity.”
Arathane’s lips tightened. Lightning flickered inside the clouds to the north, and some of the silvery lines in her purple skin gleamed in time with it. “Milord,” she said to Tradrem, “it does seem to me that at the very least, Captain Fezim, his friends, and the Firestorm Cabal have done Akanûl a service. Enough of one, surely, to merit a courteous, serious hearing.”
“Your Majesty,” Tradrem said, “if I’ve been anything less than courteous, it was because I have reservations about notorious mercenaries and feckless thrill seekers undertaking desperate escapades inside our borders without authorization from the Crown. Still, I apologize. All honor to those who risked their own lives to rid the realm of a dangerous beast.”
Aoth took a calming breath. “But?”
“But,” said Tradrem, “does it really matter in relation to the coming war? The dragonborn are the genasi’s ancient enemies. We need to move against them sooner or later.”
“Then let it be later,” said Aoth, “when the aboleths don’t pose such a threat to Akanûl and Tymanther at least gives you a pretext that won’t make you look like dupes or reavers when the truth comes out.”
Cera made a wry face. “Your Majesty, I wouldn’t have put things in quite such … pragmatic terms. But in his way, Captain Fezim is getting at a fundamental truth. You shouldn’t fight a war over an accusation you know to be a lie.”
Tradrem gave her a sour look. “Sunlady, with all respect, didn’t I just explain that the matter is more complicated than that? The dragonborn have provoked us. For generations. We must also consider the promises made to our ally Chessenta and the effort and expense required to send the army south. What if we pull back now and then decide we need to fight Tymanther next year, with a depleted treasury, no friends to stand with us, and not even a clear, uncontested road to reach the enemy?”
Son-liin cleared her throat. Aoth looked at her in surprise. Others did the same.
The scrutiny of so many lordly folk all but made her squirm. It did make her stammer. “I … I …”
“Take a breath,” Gaedynn whispered.
She did. “Majesty, my father taught me that the first thing to know about a bow is that once you loose an arrow, you can’t call it back. I found out what he meant on the hunt for the gray dragon. I was under a spell, and I made a shot that could have gotten Captain Fezim killed.”
“Forgive me,” Tradrem asked, “but is this relevant?”
The young firestormer scowled. “Yes, my lord, with respect, I think it is. I’m trying to tell the queen that she has the advantage over an archer. She can call her soldiers back short of doing some terrible wrong or harm. It may be awkward or embarrassing. It may cost a lot of coin. But she can do it!”
“We’ll even deliver the dispatches containing the new orders,” Gaedynn said. “As it happens, we’re going to Chessenta anyway.”
As she had during the previous audience, Arathane turned to the other two Stewards in attendance. “My lady? Milord?”
Lehaya lowered her head and gazed at her folded hands as if wisdom could be found in her silvery, interlaced fingers. Finally she said, “If I were a judge trying the dragonborn for the particular offense of which they stood accused, I would have to acquit. And if I acquitted, I obviously couldn’t punish.”
“But it’s not a trial!” Tradrem snapped. “It’s statecraft!”
“That may be,” Lehaya said, “but I ask you not to blame me for viewing the matter through the eyes of the law. It’s why I hold the office that I do.”
Aoth smiled. “As I suppose it’s safe to say that Lord Myxofin holds his office because he knows his way around an abacus and a counting house. He’s the kind of fellow who’ll wake up at night screaming if it turns out that Akanûl squandered a great sum to march its army south and then simply marched it home again.”
The Steward of the Sea smiled a thin little smile, as though he were half amused and half offended by Aoth’s characterization of him. “I admit, Captain, that I would find such waste regrettable on its own terms.”
“Well, maybe you’ll feel better if you know that Akanûl will at least come out even on the deal.” Aoth turned to Gaedynn. “Bring out that cloak pin.”
For once, the archer looked surprised. But he removed the green metal ornament from the pouch on his belt and held it out for everyone to see. The genasi goggled at it, Myxofin most of all.
“I thought,” said Aoth, “that I recognized the pin from stories I’d heard, and I see from everyone’s reaction that I was right. It’s the Brooch of the Tide Masters, isn’t it, lost amid the upheavals of the Spellplague. One of the great treasures of Akanûl in general and of Lord Myxofin’s family and office in particular, and just the kind of treasure a man hopes to find in a dragon hoard. Please, Sir Gaedynn, restore it to its rightful owner.”
“With the greatest of pleasure,” the archer said, and only someone who knew him as well as Aoth did would have caught the sarcasm. “This is out-and-out bribery!” Tradrem said.
It took Myxofin a moment to tear his gaze away from the ornament of green metal and black pearl in his palm and answer. “I’m not susceptible to bribery, milord. But I do think Captain Fezim has a point. In a sense, this does go a considerable way toward balancing the books.”
“For you personally!”
The clerkish Lord of Coin drew himself up straight and tall. And despite his more massive frame and truculent demeanor, Tradrem’s eyes widened, and his upper body shifted slightly backward.
“My family has always regarded ownership of the Brooch of the Tide Masters as a sacred trust,” Myxofin said, “and my forefathers always used it for the benefit of all our people. If you claim otherwise, say so plainly, and you and I will proceed from there.”
Tradrem’s mouth tightened. “My lord, you know I meant no such thing. But I do say that the restoration of this treasure is like the destruction of the gray dragon. It’s a good thing in and of itself, but it has no bearing on whether or not we ought to invade Tymanther.”
�
��I’m not so sure of that,” Arathane said. “The Lord of Water himself gave the Brooch of the Tide Masters to our people, or so the legend goes. Perhaps the fact that it came here on this day, borne by those who counsel peace, is significant.”
“And perhaps it isn’t,” Tradrem replied. “Whereas there’s no ambiguity whatsoever about our history with Tymanther.”
“That’s true,” said the queen, “and the day may indeed come when we march on the dragonborn. But not this season. Not while the aboleths pose such a threat, and not because a vicious dragon tried to trick us into it. We’ll recall Lord Magnol and the troops.”
Aoth let out a long breath and took malicious satisfaction in Tradrem’s glower.
As he’d expected, the Steward of the Earth wasn’t the only one who was disgruntled, or at least professing to be. Gaedynn confronted him as soon as they exited the throne room.
“Am I correct in assuming,” the redheaded bowman asked, “that you knew what the cloak pin was the moment you saw it back in Vairshekellabex’s cave?”
“Pretty much,” said Aoth. “It’s crawling with magic, and as you know, I can see things like that.”
“And yet you didn’t warn me that I was claiming something as the greater part of my share that you fully intended to give away.”
“For what it’s worth, I was actually hoping we wouldn’t have to.”
Humor tugged at the corners of Gaedynn’s mouth. “Well, we shouldn’t have, no matter what the need. Who gives away loot? Let’s hope we get back to acting like proper sellswords before we forget how.”
* * * * *
Balasar dozed for a while then woke to throbbing pain from head to foot. He considered trying to fall back asleep. It would surely be beneficial if he could manage it, but he doubted that he could.
And he didn’t feel like simply lying awake on the hard, stone floor, staring up at the cavern ceiling, and aching. If he got up, there might at least be something to distract him from his discomfort. So he pushed away his blankets and dragged himself to his feet, even though that made everything hurt worse.
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