Philip Athans - Scream of Stone

The naga screamed when it finally reached the wall, fetched up with its back to one of the triangular windows, and took a bloody slice from Varnol’s longaxe.

At precisely the same moment, Dlavin shuddered once and died; the ghoul spat out the killing bite and fell back with acid dissolving its pale, vein-streaked chest.

The naga smashed out the window behind it. Pristoleph could only watch as the naga grabbed the windowsill and fell backward out into the open air. Varnol tried to cut off its fingers with his axe, but the naga was too fast. It climbed up the stonework exterior of the tower, and Pristoleph, unable to tip his head up, could only see it pass over one of the skylights.

The firedrake that had burned the ghoul leaped up out of the stairwell, making way for another of its kind. Both held longaxes.

“This way!” Varnol shouted. “It’s on the roof!”

The two firedrakes glanced at Pristoleph as if awaiting further instructions, but then surged ahead to the broken window.

“Zevok,” Varnol said to one of the firedrakes, “the ransar has been paralyzed. Stay with him.”

Zevok, one of the black firedrakes Pristoleph didn’t remember ever meeting-he hadn’t personally introduced himself to all of them-crossed the room to stand next to his ransar, his longaxe held ready in front of his chest. He scanned the carnage in the room with concern but no fear.

Varnol and the other firedrake shifted into their true forms-it was a process Pristoleph never quite got used to-and leaped out of the window in pursuit of the naga.

All at once Pristoleph’s neck moved. His head tipped up. Then he could bend his elbow, but just a little. He tried to take a deep breath. Though what he managed couldn’t have been described as “deep,” he did draw in more than the slightest bit of air.

He looked up at the fight on the roof and saw the firedrakes harrying the naga, which clung to the flagpole. The pole began to bend under the creature’s considerable weight, and it took a few painful rakes of the firedrake’s claws. The orange pennant-sixteen feet long, Pristoleph remembered-made getting closer to the naga difficult for the two firedrakes, but they pressed on, trying to bleed dry their foe while at the same time not allowing themselves to become tangled in the flag.

Pristoleph took a step forward and opened his mouth just a little. He managed a small sound, not quite a word, and Zevok leaned in closer to hear.

Still looking up, Pristoleph watched as a shimmering glow appeared in the air next to the naga, and a portion of the blue sky for all appearances in the shape of a door, opened onto what looked like a roiling thunderstorm. Pristoleph got only the vaguest glimpse of fast-moving gray-black clouds and a flash of lightning that briefly lit the naga a shocking yellow. Then the serpent creature fell sideways into the space.

The two firedrakes flexed their wings to follow, but the door in the sky slammed shut and they flew instead through empty air and followed each other in a long, swooping circle around the tower.

26 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR)

THE CANAL SITE

Surero’s hands shook and his hair stood on end. The black firedrake’s grip on his arm was more than firm, but it wasn’t painful-not yet. He stood still, holding his hands away from his body as he was instructed. He tried to ignore the smell of acid that drifted from the dark-skinned guard. Surero knew that smell, and the fact that it was coming from the man’s breath was, for the alchemist, more frightening than the gleam of his razor-sharp axe.

He looked at Ivar Devorast, who stood at the edge of the trench, so far north they were only a few miles from the banks of the Nagaflow. Devorast was flanked by two of the black-clad guards. He looked back at Surero and the way he tipped his head and widened his eyes said, Just be quiet and don’t resist … until we know we have to.

It had taken a very, very long time before he was able to read Devorast that well.

Three more of the black firedrakes stood a few yards away, their vicious longaxes held at the ready, scanning the growing crowd of workers that had come to see what all the fuss was about. The men kept a respectful distance, but Surero could feel a rising tension in the air. The men liked Devorast, and everyone was suspicious of the black firedrakes.

One of the firedrakes looked up into the overcast sky and blinked a few times. Surero couldn’t tell if he was listening to something or smelling the air. After a brief moment he looked at Devorast and said, “Kneel to receive the ransar.”

Devorast didn’t have a chance to bend his knee before the two black firedrakes pushed him to the muddy ground. Surero was likewise forced down.

There was a blur of violet-blue light and a prickling in the air. Surero squinted, ready to close his eyes tightly should something explode or … he didn’t know what else.

Pristoleph stepped out of the light, emerging from the air itself, and the uncomfortable feeling was gone.

The black firedrakes stiffened to attention while the ransar walked past them in a straight line to Devorast. The moment he was within reach, Pristoleph slapped Devorast so hard across the face, he was knocked out of the grip of one of the firedrakes. There was a moment of confusion while the guards struggled to get Devorast back to his knees. Pristoleph stepped back, shaking his hand and rubbing his wrist. Blood oozed from the side of Devorast’s lip.

“Did you send it to kill me?” Pristoleph said, his voice grinding with anger. “Or did it decide on its own?”

Devorast jerked his arm away from one of the firedrakes to wipe the blood from his face. The guard was about to hit him, but Pristoleph waved him off.

“Let him up,” the ransar said.

Devorast stood and the black firedrakes didn’t hold him, but stayed close enough to kill him in the blink of an eye should the ransar order it.

“Speak,” Pristoleph demanded.

“I didn’t send anyone to kill anyone,” Devorast said.

“You said they were under control,” Pristoleph seethed.

Devorast just looked at him with a question in his eyes.

“The nagas,” Pristoleph said.

“We are the embodiments of the ideal, genasi,” a voice at once resonant and sibilant said from behind Surero.

The black firedrake that held Surero released him to hold his axe in both hands. The guards surrounded the ransar, whose strange orange hair seemed to blaze on his head like fire.

Genasi, Surero thought. That explained a lot.

“We are under no monkey’s ‘control,’” Svayyah said as she slithered just close enough to make the black firedrakes nervous, but not feel as though they had to attack. “What is the meaning of this?”

Pristoleph’s eyes widened and Surero got the unmistakable feeling that the ransar recognized the naga. “There you are.”

“Here we are,” the naga returned, raising the ridge over one eye where, if she had any hair at all, an eyebrow would have been.

“This naga,” Pristoleph said, glancing from Svayyah to Devorast, “attacked me in my home. It killed a number of my guards and nearly killed me, too.”

“This naga,” Svayyah spit back, “did no such thing.” “I have found that Svayyah is as honest as she is direct,” Devorast said.

“It was injured …” Pristoleph said, examining the water naga with narrowed eyes. “We took its right ear.”

With a wicked little smile, Svayyah turned her head so that Pristoleph could see she was uninjured.

“It wasn’t Svayyah,” Devorast said. “Our agreement with the water nagas still stands.”

Svayyah drew herself up to her full height, her chin held even higher in the air.