Erin Evans - The God Catcher

For a moment, as Dareun's form began to shimmer, Nestrix hoped and feared in equal measure that the gorget would strangle him as it had the thief so many years before. Those alien memories replayed for her of the feeling of the torque crushing her throat and filled her with anxiety and a twisted hope.

But the gorget had been meant for a shape-changing dragon, and it grew with him, spreading to accommodate a sinuous neck as thick as a barrel. His scales shone a hundred shades of green, bright without the years' patina.

Beside her Veron let out a soft, heartfelt string of curses.

Young though he was, Andareunarthex was as big as a cart and horse together. He spread wings the size of sails and threw back his head, letting another fierce and frustrated scream echo into the night.

He is not so big, Nestrix thought, even if her head was full of dokaal thoughts, even if it had been so long since she'd stood before one of her kin that she was surprised at how tall he stretched. Had she been so large?

The guards shot arrows that buried themselves in the muscles of Dareun's shoulder and neck. He roared again and, with a quickness his size belied, darted forward and snapped a young guardswoman's arm off. Her screams didn't last long.

With her blood dripping from his jaws, Dareun snorted in amusement and snapped again, despite the flights of arrows, at Nestrix.

She dodged. His teeth sank into Veron's leg.

Nestrix snatched Veron's sword out of its scabbard and brought the blade down on the crest over Dareun's eye. He screeched at her in Draconic, but he let go of Veron. The bounty hunter tried to stand and crumpled.

More volleys of arrows. Nestrix looked down at Veron-he had turned a shade of gray that she was sure he hadn't been before. Dareun's bite had been full of poison.

Let him die, she thought. He's a problem waiting to happen. The wyrmling has done you a favor. She smiled down at the half-orc, whose forehead was covered in pinpricks of sweat. The bastard would regret how he'd…

He saved me, she thought. And Tennora. Much as she'd like to think they hadn't needed him, he'd turned the tide of their fight.

Dareun aimed for her again with the sharply scaled edge of his tail. A guardsman managed to get in the way and catch it for her, and by the time his body and Dareun's tail reached her, it was slow enough for her to slash the dragon with the sword again.

She grabbed Veron by the arms and dragged him behind a dense bush. "Where are your potions?" she said.

He blinked up at her, shivering. "Don't have them. Tennora needed the last."

Nestrix cursed. "Stay here," she said. "Don't die." She waded out of the bush, the sword still awkward in her hands, the itch of the lightning dancing on her tongue. The guardsman lay splayed on the garden path, a pool of blood spreading from somewhere beneath him.

Two metal vials, the same sort Veron had been carrying, hung from his belt. He wouldn't need both of them, surely, and Nestrix snatched one free, and bounded over the shrubbery, back to Veron.

"Here," she said, but the poison had seeped into him and he couldn't lift his arms. She scowled. "I am not your nursemaid, dokaal."

At that moment, Dareun gave a great roar. A set of claws came down on the protective wall of the bush, crushed it and wrenched it away in a shower of dirt.

"Come and face me," he said in Draconic, "Clytemorrenestrix of the Calim. Reveal yourself and we shall decide the game."

With an explosion of blue light, Nestrix and Dareun vanished. In that moment, Tennora felt the edge of panic, the same panic that had wrapped around her chest the first time he had taken Nestrix. Dareun's shouts from the garden reassured that panic, but stirred up a whole new one.

She looked down at Antoum, who was staring as his mother came unsteadily to her feet, shouting for a sword. Tennora pulled her staff free of its harness. "Shava."

The poor elf girl looked at her with utter terror. "I can't do this," she whispered. "They said he's a dragon."

"A dragon that will rip this city apart if we don't stop him." Shava shook her head. "I can't."

"Then here-Antoum, go with her. Find a safe place to hide, and don't come out until you hear us calling for you."

"I don't want to," the little boy said, shaking nearly as hard as Shava.

"You must," Tennora said. "How else will we defeat the dragon-man? If he tries to grab you again, we'll have to stop him so he doesn't hurt you." She met the elfs wide, frightened gaze. "Shava, if anyone comes near you that you don't know, hit them with every spell you have."

Shava shook fearfully, holding her wand tightly in one fist. Tennora looked out toward the garden exit, where the air vibrated with Andareunarthex's roaring.

"I can't… I only remember… Corellon, Tennora, I'm no good for this," Shava said, holding her wand out as if she could give it to Tennora-and all her fear along with it.

Tennora grabbed the other young woman by the shoulders. "Shava, you can and you have to. Get Antoum away until it's safe. Do it for him, do it for me, do it for the whole godsdamned city-but you must do it!"

Shava nodded, her eyes still wide and terrified. A terrible roar shook the walls, rattling the frames of paintings against the plaster walls. "Go!" Tennora shouted.

Grabbing Antoum by the hand, Shava fled upstairs.

Tennora had expected to see a dragon when she ran out into the garden, but the actual sight of Andareunarthex in his green-scaled glory stopped her as solidly as a hand across her chest. The illustrations in her books were nothing next to the actual creature.

He bellowed something in a guttural language, and only when her dark-haired figure shot to attention did Tennora notice Nestrix, carrying a sword and standing over a sickly-looking Veron.

"Nestrix-" Tennora shouted. The blue dragon's attention broke from Dareun and she turned to Tennora.

"Take him," Nestrix ordered, and pressed a vial into her hands. "Give him that."

Tennora shoved the vial in a pocket, hooked her hands under Veron's arms, and dragged him away from the dragon, as Nestrix stepped forward.

Nestrix threw back her head and answered his challenge with a blood-curdling scream and a tidal wave of dragonfear.

Tennora settled Veron against the garden wall. His head lolled to one side, and his breath came in shallow drafts. The vial shook in her hand as she worked the stopper free. "Stay with us," she muttered, pouring it into his mouth. When his breath came a little easier and his eyes focused, she squeezed his hand. "Stay here. I'll be back."

Nazra Mrays shouted an order up at the wall. From the window an unexpected figure leaped, and Aundra Blacklock circled the garden. A great globe of magic, swirling with strange colors and seemingly larger than the raptoran could hold between her hands, built as she passed. It screamed down from the heavens and shattered against Dareun's wings.

A volley of arrows soared across the gap and struck Dareun. He reached into the ranks, with two great swipes of his claws, like a child grabbing at toy soldiers.

Tennora grabbed Nestrix's arm as she strode toward Dareun. "You have to use the lightning!"

Nestrix shook her head. "I only have one chance. The breath is too much for me to handle this way. Once, and I'll fall. He must fall too."

Tennora grabbed her by the arm. "Hit him and give us a chance. I'll pull you out of his reach if it doesn't work."

Dareun roared, his jaws sharp and serrated with teeth as long as Tennora's hand. In the back of his throat a swirling cloud of thick green gas was building. His head swayed on his neck.

"Move!" Nestrix shouted, and she pushed Tennora off into the bushes just before Dareun blew a stream of bitter, searing gas that rolled across the garden like a wall. Traces of the poison snaked into Tennora's lungs, and she crouched, coughing so hard she thought she would vomit, until she was free of it.