Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

Before Erlestoke could answer, an arrow slanted down from above and tugged at the elf’s shoulder. Blood splashed on the snow, but Ryswin did not go down. The arrow had only grazed him. He twisted out of the way of another shot, then danced back as he nocked an arrow of his own.

He drew and shot as everyone else began to run for the bridge. Behind and above them came the hoots and howls of gibberers. Arrows flew. Most went long or wide, though one did hit the quadnel and get caught between barrels. Ahead someone went down with an arrow in the back of his thigh.

Erlestoke gave Jullagh-tse a shove. “Get Nygal.”

The prince turned, drew a bead on one of the leading gibberers, then squeezed the trigger on his quadnel.

Nothing happened.

The priming dust had blown out of the hole. He eared the hammer back, drew his powder horn, and calmly reprimed. The gibberers howled and shrieked as they rushed forward. Longknives gleamed in the air. From the right Jancis snapped off a shot that dropped one gibberer, but that effort would fall far short of what was needed to stem the tide of onrushing troops.

Even if my every shot counted for ten…

He squeezed the trigger again. The hammer snapped. Priming powder burned. A heartbeat later the quadnel thundered and bucked against his shoulder. It ejected smoke and fire.

A running gibberer fell.

And then another.

The thunder built, echoing from the canyon walls. There, either side of them, waiting in the rocks, were draconetteers. Meckanshü ! Erlestoke couldn’t believe it. How did they get here ?

A tiny winged shape buzzed in front of him. His four fast-moving wings dispersed the smoke as he hovered. “Quick, Highness, quick, come quick.” He grabbed Erlestoke’s left shoulder and pulled.

The prince turned and started running as fast as he could. Behind him, gibberers howled, but from frustration. Glancing back, he could see them retreating, leaving a dozen or more bodies in reddening snow.

A man reached him. Though the man was wearing a black mask, the prince recognized him from the scars on his cheek and his white hair. “Crow. How is it you are here?”

“The Spritha, Qwc. We knew a fragment of the DragonCrown was heading through Sarengul, and Qwc knew where he was supposed to be. We just followed.” Crow turned and pointed with a silverwood bow toward the bridge. “The rest of our men are on the other side, along with our horses. We deployed our meckanshü , and have the rest holding the way out.”

From around the edges of the valley the meckanshü began to pull back. At the northern end, the gibberers had drawn together into a group. They appeared to be reluctant to advance again.

Then the cloaked figure entered the valley. The gibberers drew away from him. He came forward, ignoring the draconette shots that spat snow near his feet. He stopped well shy of the corpses, raising his left hand and holding it out expectantly. “Very well, your lives for the Truestone. You have earned that much.”

Will came up beside the prince. “What is that?”

Erlestoke shook his head. “I don’t know, but it has followed me from Fortress Draconis. It’s been shot and worse, but nothing stops it.”

Crow patted the prince on the shoulder. “Let’s move.” He turned and signaled the others. “Let’s go!”

The cloaked figure spoke again. “A second time I offer you your lives. Harken unto me and you need not die.”

Erlestoke straightened and threw back his cloak to reveal the blue-green stone in the harness that had been fashioned for it. “Your life, not ours, for this stone.” He closed his cloak again and turned toward the bridge.

Already on it were a handful of meckanshü and a man he’d met in Crow’s company at Fortress Draconis. He pointed his people to it. “Let’s go.”

From behind the prince rose a keening wail filled with longing and fear, but also an incredible amount of power. It froze Erlestoke’s guts and cut at his knees. He slumped heavily on Crow, and felt the other man begin to go down, too. That sound conjured fears with the numbing power of childhood nightmares and left him quivering.

The pain of sinking to one knee shocked Erlestoke’s mind to clarity, and he wished it had not. When his head came up, he found himself looking at the bridge. Then a vast, cruciform shadow passed over him, the edges of it rippling against the canyon’s stone walls. From overhead a creature drifted into his vision. He had seen its like before, but never from that angle. And never had he felt so much like prey.

The dragon, its horned, serpentine head flashing a coppery red in the sunlight, soared lazily forward with the ease of a hawk. Erlestoke could feel the touch of its gaze like a lash across his back. If it wanted to take him, it could, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.

The dragon’s mouth opened, affording a momentary view of massive ivory fangs before a boiling gout of fire obscured everything. Thick and furious, the red-gold flames splashed over the center of the span. The stone sentinels at the nearest end melted like candles left too close to an inferno. For the blink of an eye Erlestoke could see Dranae and the others in silhouette at the peak of the span, then they and molten rock poured into the chasm.

The dragon’s passage pulled the fog of melted snow in its wake. It passed over the chasm, then folded its wings and perched on a cliff beyond the far side. Talons clutched stone, crushing sheets of ice that fell below. The creature settled itself, then swathed itself in its wings.

Its eyes blinked, then it spoke in sibilant tones. The words rekindled Erlestoke’s fear. They twisted maggotlike over his flesh and inside his skull. He did not know what they meant, and was certain they would always be beyond his comprehension. And he also knew that were he tortured for a year and a day, he would not sink to the depths of despair he felt at that moment.

From behind him, the cloaked figure spoke clearly. “Gagothmar says he would like the Truestone. It would greatly displease him if he needed to cleanse it of your ashes.”

Kerrigan’s eyes burned as though they’d been soaked in oil and lit afire. He’d not slept in more than a day. After slaying the sullanciri , he returned to Nawal and began to work on ways to defend the city from dragonel shots. Better magickers were given fragments of the ball he’d rescued and used them as foci to deflect incoming shots. Other pieces were made into attractors that drew the shot to certain targets, such as piles of rubble, where they could do little more than reduce stone to gravel.

As the magickers’ efforts to deflect and direct the shots took effect, the Aurolani had begun to direct spells at the city’s defenders. Kerrigan had to leave off working on the dragonel shots and diverted his energies into defending the other magickers. Fortunately, the Conservatory spellcasters worked individual spells, which spread them out enough that he could react to each in turn.

When he had been at Vilwan, the idea of defending so many people against spells from so many magickers would have daunted him. Wizards’ duels so often came down to casting the perfect counter. If your spell could not match the energy in the attack, you could get hurt. Since very few magickers were good enough to measure the energy of an incoming spell, all too often defensive efforts used too much energy. If one wizard had the initiative, strength, and kept attacking, the defender could exhaust himself.

Spell dimensions provided a different way to defend. He stopped offensive spells by casting counterspells that hunted particular dimensional aspects. When his counter located that aspect, it clung to the spell and told the other spell that it had hit its target. The spell then discharged its energy harmlessly. It had worked against Neskartu and his students alike.