James Wyatt - Storm dragon

I‘ve got to get her back on the ground.” Darraun’s face was deathly pale, and his hands gripped the spokes of the wheel. Speaking seemed like an enormous effort.

“Keep going south,” Rienne said. “Behind the Thrane forces. We’ll be off the plain in no time.” She tried to sound more optimistic than she felt. But she had just watched Gaven fall down into the depths of Khyber, and dread had a chill grip on her heart.

Darraun fixed his eyes just to the port side of the prow as he steered the airship in that direction. His every movement was stiff and clipped, as if moving too fast would break his mind’s hold on the elemental bound in the ship. His apparently fragile state did nothing to ease Rienne’s apprehension. She leaned on the port bulwark, watching as the chasm grew smaller in the distance behind them, until it was swallowed up in the rain and hail, and she could barely even make out the Crystal Spire.

“See anything?” Darraun grunted.

Rienne shifted her gaze to examine the plain below them. The Soul Reaver’s hosts rampaged across the battlefield. She saw Thrane banners cast down in the mud and trampled, though clusters of knights still held their ground against the tide of horrors. I see the world sinking into chaos, she thought.

“The Thranes are still fighting the creatures from the chasm,” she said. “Do you suppose Thrane will blame Aundair for that?”

Darraun nodded, and Rienne had to agree in her heart. The situation was grim in any event: If the Thrane army were completely destroyed, the Cardinals would assume that Aundair’s attack had been successful. If there were survivors-there had to be survivors! — they would describe how Aundair’s forces opened a crack in the earth and brought the monsters forth, and trafficking with the Dragon Below would be added to Aundair’s list of real and imagined crimes. It seemed the storm of war had broken again and nothing could stop it.

She leaned against the railing and stared down at the carnage below. Something had to stop it-something or someone. Gaven’s talk of being a hero, of choosing his own destiny and writing his own part in the play, stirred in her memory. “Darraun,” she said, whirling to face the changeling at the helm, “turn us around, take us north!”

His eyes were wide. “Back into the storm?” Yes, but not that storm, she thought. “Circle it. We need to get to Haldren.”

Darraun nodded and turned the wheel.

“Why should I be content to be a minor player in this drama?” Rienne mused aloud.

A smile quirked at the corner of Darraun’s mouth.

Haldren stared through the spyglass at the dragon’s crumpled body. Vaskar did not stir. He had watched Vaskar’s defeat with satisfaction diluted by growing rage. Vaskar had brought his plans to ruin, so it pleased him to see the dragon’s ambitions quashed as well. At the same time, Vaskar’s defeat left room for Gaven to seize what Vaskar had sought. Gaven-the pathetic madman that had started all this, without having the slightest idea what he was doing. Gaven was supposed to be a tool, a pawn Haldren could use to manipulate Vaskar and to facilitate his own rise to power. Instead, the bastard had stolen Senya, thwarted Vaskar, and appeared out of nowhere to take part in the ruin of Haldren’s plans.

“If I achieve nothing else in this lifetime,” he whispered, “I will destroy him.”

“You aim to destroy a god?” Senya said.

“He’s not a god.”

“Not yet. But his power is already greater than yours.”

“What did he do to you, Senya? How did he bend you so completely to him?”

“He didn’t bend me to his will. That’s how you work with your magic and your oratory. You taught me to work that way as well, using my body. And oh, you taught me well-well enough that the disciple became the master. I had you wrapped around my finger. But Gaven-he didn’t bend me. He straightened me out.”

Senya’s words stabbed Haldren’s heart and poured ice into his gut. “You… used me?” he whispered, quivering with rage.

“Of course.” Her voice was not cruel or bitter, just… dismissive. Utterly calm and cold. How could he have been such a fool?

He turned away from her and urged his horse forward a few steps. “Do you see the warforged?” he asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as hers.

“I saw him last on the east side of the field, riding hard.”

“Has he gone mad? What is he doing?”

“Cart was never good at standing by and watching a battle unfold. He was made for war, as he said, built by Cannith to be a soldier.”

“No,” Haldren breathed. He had put the spyglass back to his eye, and finally found Cart near the middle of the field. “He was evidently made for treachery. He’s talking to Gaven.”

“Don’t be absurd, Haldren. No one is more loyal to you than Cart.”

“If he treats with my enemy, he is my enemy.”

“I wonder if you have any friends left.”

Haldren surveyed the battlefield again. Ir’Fann’s infantry was gone, wiped from the field, leaving a strange calm on the eastern side. No wonder Cart had ridden that way. Kadra’s knights had fallen as well, which meant that if she hadn’t been dead when he saw her before, she certainly was now. The knight phantoms he’d seen earlier had actually rallied ir’Cashan’s troops on the west side, but there was no sign of ir’Cashan herself. Her death had probably caused her soldiers’ initial rout. He hadn’t seen Rennic Arak or his troops since the crevice opened-they had been at the vanguard, and were probably the first to fall. General Yeven, at least, was still alive: he had taken his command staff and retreated back up Bramblescar Gorge at about the same time as Cart had ridden off.

Haldren returned his gaze to Senya. “No,” he said, “none are left.”

As he spoke, something in the air caught his eye. A bright flash-lightning, perhaps? He almost dismissed it as yet another effect of the storm, but then he saw it again. An airship, a small one, and she was soaring closer to them through the storm.

“That’s Gaven’s ship,” Senya said.

“He’s not aboard, though.”

“You just saw him talking to Cart.”

“Well, if I can’t destroy him, perhaps I can at least destroy someone he loves.”

Rienne kept her eyes on the battlefield as Darraun piloted them around the storm. The skirmishes thinned on the south side, the Thrane side, and gave way to random clumps of monsters spreading over the plain to the east and shambling toward the Silver Woods. As the airship rounded the Crystal Spire and the raging storm, she saw more signs of battle-Haldren’s remaining troops struggling to hold the monsters off.

“I give better odds to the Thranes,” she said.

Darraun nodded. “Without the dragons, Haldren wouldn’t have had a chance.”

“So he had lost the battle even before the Crystal Spire appeared. His fate was sealed when the other dragons appeared to fight for Thrane.”

“Exactly.”

“What will he do?”

“Lick his wounds,” Darraun said. “He doesn’t take well to defeat.”

“Do you think he’ll try again someday?”

“If he gets out of this alive and manages to stay out of Dread-hold, yes.”

“Then I need to make sure he doesn’t.”

“Yes, we do,” Darraun said with a smile. The airship lurched, and his smile disappeared. Shaking his head, he renewed his concentration.

“I’m sorry. I’m distracting you.” Rienne turned back to the railing.

The Aundairian side of the field had boiled down to a single pitched battle on the western side. Haldren’s troops fought bravely, but they were completely encircled by the gibbering hordes. She watched sadly as the nightmarish host whittled away at the Aundairian formation, every fallen monster quickly replaced by another drawn to the battle from elsewhere on the field.