Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

Dranae shouldered his draconette and pulled the trigger. A small flash preceded a larger one, which was accompanied by a loud blast. The ball slammed into a gibberer’s belly, dropping it to its knees before it flopped over and thrashed its life out. The man dropped back a step to reload. Alexia, Crow, Sayce, and Resolute tightened into a line, swords drawn.

Off from the right came an urZrethi with slate-grey flesh. The left hand had been replaced by a hook and the right by a knobby mace. Spikes had been sprouted at knee, elbow, and shoulder, but the armor remained thin. The grey moved with great agility, but hesitated as Silide-tse intercepted her.

The Boka urZrethi had shifted herself as if to form a smaller model of the Panqui. Thick, armored plates covered her broad back and formed bracers and rerebracers to protect her arms. The right hand had become a lance a good four feet long, whereas the left was shaped into a pair of thick spikes. Silide-tse’s legs had become much shorter and splayed out broadly for balance.

The grey snarled and leaped forward, driving at Silide-tse. The hook raked left to right, trying to catch an ankle, but the Boka just rolled onto her back in a somersault, came to her feet, then thrust out low as the grey came in. The lance punctured the grey’s left thigh, wrenching a screech from her throat. The right-hand mace came around and pounded on Silide-tse’s left shoulder, but skipped off ineffectively.

Suddenly the Boka was well inside the grey’s guard. The lance ground in the wound, then appeared to soften and waver. It thickened, then became a tentacle that grew longer. It slapped against the grey’s back, then lashed across her throat, tightening. The hook came up to tug at it, but Silide-tse’s left arm came forward, driving the paired spikes up beneath the grey’s breastbone.

The grey screamed hoarsely, then stiffed once before a violent spasm shook her body. Silide-tse ripped the spikes free, then flicked the tentacle. The grey’s body spun off and smashed against the hall’s far wall while the tentacle smeared dark blood over the ground to the accompaniment of drag-onel thunder.

Silide-tse turned back and smiled victoriously.

The crushing power of a dragonel ball erased that smile. Teeth scattered and clattered as her decapitated body crashed back onto its carapace. She somersaulted twice, the tentacle writhing like a wounded snake, then lay still. A widening pool of blood marked where her head had been.

Other balls had flown at the same time. Some skipped off the high gallery balustrades, peppering fleeing urZrethi with stone fragments. Some, knocked from the galleries, literally flew down. Their arms flapped furiously as they half transformed into wings, but did not slow their falls. Their bodies shattered against the hard stone. Some projectiles, with flatter arcs, caromed off pillars and bounced through the urZrethi. One ball, streaked with gore, spun madly in the center of the Long Hall, describing a little series of bloody curlicues.

And throughout the shots, the gibberers continued to advance. Kerrigan saw vylaens in their ranks, and a taller creature here and there. They looked more elven than anything, save for their snowy fur. He had no idea what they were, but he knew he’d not seen their like before.

Resolute and the others engaged the gibberers. Steel rang on steel, and blades swept round in skirling arcs that rent pelts and crushed limbs. To one such as Kerrigan, who had not been trained to combat, the ability to catalog blow after blow was denied. Combat became chaos punctuated by screams and roars, challenges and warnings, the heavy thump of a body hitting the ground, or the lighter thump of some lesser part doing the same.

A draconette barked. Princess Sayce spun, her mask half-off, her sword flying. She hit the ground hard, and her limbs flopped loosely against it. A great cry went up from within the gibberer ranks, but before they could press that advantage, Will Norrington leaped into the gap. He shook his head, flinging off blood from a stone-shard cut over his left eye. His face was half-masked by blood, and he brandished two bladestars, grasped at the nexus. He faced the horde with mere fistfuls of steel.

“No!” His growl sliced sharply through the din. “By my blood, you will not pass!”

Kerrigan had expected the fury in Will’s statement, but not what accompanied the words. A wave of magick pulsed off Will with a force that staggered Kerrigan. The nearest vylaen screamed and vomited blood, while others reeled away in agony. The closest snow-furred figure slumped in a dead faint and—just for a moment—the battle ceased.

Then the push of the rear ranks knocked several gibberers forward, and the slaughter began again.

Peri stooped and picked up the once-spinning dragonel ball, then spread her wings and launched herself into the air. Kerrigan watched her for a moment, then pointed at Princess Sayce. “Bok, bring her. Now.” The urZrethi darted forward and caught her up by the shoulders, then dragged her back.

Qwc circled him. “This way, this way!”

Resolute shouted. “Pull back!”

Farther down the hall, behind the surge of gibberers, a dragonel went off, but clearly something had gone wrong. Instead of a flash of fire, Kerrigan saw a jet of flame cutting across the enemy formation. Bodies flew in the air toward the right, then to the left, as the ball slammed off a wall and scythed back through.

More shrieking came from the Aurolani ranks, this time on the left. Kerrigan couldn’t see what was happening until one of the snowy elves screamed and rose into the air as if flying. His back bowed, then cracked. Massive paws, one on his neck and the other on his tail, bent his shoulders to his hips, then cast the body aside.

With his tail smashing and his claws rending, a blood-streaked Lombo shouldered his way through the horde. One unfortunate gibberer turned to see who had bumped it. Lombo’s head surged forward, and he bit the gibberer’s face off and spat it at another.

Crow darted forward, cutting down a gibberer raising a barbed iron spike to impale the Panqui. One of Will’s bladestars thwocked into a gibberer’s forehead and Dranae’s draconette spoke again, this shot blowing the throat from one of the snows.

Crow pulled Lombo back behind their lines, then the company began to fall back. The Aurolani troops pressed forward and were sure to overwhelm them save that something impeded their progress. It was as if there were iron bars running from floor to unseen ceiling. One gibberer pressed flat up against it, and another twisted, shouldering between the barriers.

Kerrigan frowned and cast a quick spell that let him trace magick. A crescent of little luminous dots glowed a ghostly green that matched the blood on Will’s face. By my blood, you will not pass .

In some manner, Will’s blood and his oath had combined to work a potent magick.

“Will, your blood!” Kerrigan drew a hand across his own forehead and flicked it off, as if ridding himself of sweat. Will looked at him oddly, but the mage just pointed. “Do it! Splash your blood on the floor. Past your blood they shall not go!”

The thief’s eyes widened, then a cruel smile split his bloody mask. He swiped his hand over his cheek and dappled the floor with a flick of his fingers. Advancing gibberers ran into a tangle of impenetrable rods. Will danced farther right, wiping and flicking in a diagonal line that choked off the Aurolani advance. As they snarled, he laughed, then rained droplets on them as they clawed at him.

Those baptized with his blood howled piteously. It burned them as if it were molten rock. Their flesh sizzled, sometimes breaking into open flames and at other times just smoking as their bodies melted. Will laughed aloud, then licked his lips and spat at them, burning a hole through one’s chest.