James Wyatt - Storm dragon

She pointed to the mouth of the small valley at the north end of the plain, the opening between the rocky wall of the Starpeaks and the Silver Woods where they had emerged into the Starcrag Plain. “There,” she said over her shoulder. “That’s the way we came, and I expect that’s where we’ll find Haldren.”

Darraun adjusted his course slightly, and they soared past the Aundairians’ last stand.

Rienne’s first indication that they had indeed found Haldren was a blast of fire exploding around the airship’s prow. Rienne tumbled away from the edge of the flames, unhurt, but she heard Darraun let loose a string of vehement and evocative curses. Flames danced along the arcane tracery in the hull, fire answering fire, and she knew that the ship’s bound elemental would rebel against Darraun’s control as it had when they fought the young red dragon.

“Bring us down!” she shouted, but there was no need. Darraun was already urging the airship downward, though Rienne couldn’t tell whether he exerted such enormous effort to force the airship down or to keep her from falling too fast. Beads of sweat trickled down his face, and he squeezed one eye shut to clear sweat or smoke from it-he didn’t dare release even one hand from the wheel.

Rienne leaned over a railing on the port side and looked below them to help guide Darraun to a relatively safe landing spot. She was so intent on getting the airship safely down that she almost forgot about Haldren’s imminent threat, until another burst of fire engulfed her. She cried out in pain and fell back away from the bulwarks. Darraun must have lost concentration, either because he was injured as well or out of concern for her, because the airship suddenly jerked to starboard and then plunged downward. Rienne scrambled for a grip on something, and finally managed to clutch at a web of rope netting that secured a few small crates to the deck. As soon as she was sure of her hold, she looked at Darraun.

His eyes were squeezed shut, and his knuckles were white on the wheel. The muscles in his neck stood out like cords pulled tight beneath his skin, and sweat glued short tendrils of blond hair to his forehead. She didn’t see any sign of serious injury, but if he didn’t regain control of the airship quickly they would both be dead. She felt powerless, and she didn’t like that feeling.

Keeping a hand on the ropes, she half climbed, half crawled to the helm. She had tried to help Darraun fly the Eye of the Storm when they first left Stormhome in search of Gaven, but he had said that if two minds tried to control the elemental at once it was less likely to respond, not more. Darraun had been the obvious one of them to try steering the vessel, both because of his expertise with magic and because his changeling nature might allow him to trick the elemental into believing that he was an heir of House Lyrandar. But at that moment, Darraun was failing, and it was about to cost them both their lives.

She seized the wheel, grabbing two spokes between the two that Darraun gripped. She felt the elemental’s presence immediately. It pulled away from the touch of her mind like an unbroken horse shying or bucking from a trainer’s hand. She pulled her hands away from the wheel as she imagined a bucking stallion’s hooves lashing out at her-the elemental’s resistance was so violent it felt physical. The ground was dangerously close, though, so she tried again.

This time she did not pull away when the elemental reacted. She felt Darraun’s mental presence there as well, and she understood what he had meant in Stormhome. It would have been easy for the two of them to pull in two different directions, to give the elemental two competing voices to listen to. Too many warriors did exactly that-they let their minds give one command to their swords and their bodies another. Rienne’s training had taught her the alternative. Rather than throwing another rope around the wild elemental’s neck, she focused her attention on strengthening Darraun’s grip, just as the mind could heighten and enhance the body’s reflexes. One hand at a time, she shifted her grip on the wheel so that she held the same spokes Darraun did, and their hands touched even as they both grasped smooth wood.

The airship pulled out of her fall so suddenly that the lurch almost threw them overboard, but they held the wheel and managed to keep their feet. Rienne opened her eyes and saw Darraun smiling at her across the wheel, still tense but seeming far less panicked. She returned his smile just as another of Haldren’s fireballs burst between them.

It stung her eyes with heat and brilliant light, scorched her face, and even seared her lungs as she gasped in surprise. Pain overwhelmed her, and she slumped to the deck.

Gaven fell.

The cold radiance of the Crystal Spire failed to light the sides of the chasm, so he fell blind, just as he had fallen when he found the nightshard. Time vanished, and his sense of motion failed as well, so he felt as though he hung suspended in the column of light. He might have fallen for a matter of seconds, but it seemed like hours.

Strangely calm, he kept his feet below him and stretched his arms to the side, one hand clenching the spear he had made from the Eye of Siberys. The Heart of Khyber continued its orbit around his body, but the lightning trailing behind it had vanished in the overwhelming light that bathed him. Air rushing past his ears was the only sound, and it faded into a dull roar.

Slowly a shape took form below him-the only feature he could make out in the light. A mouth gaped wide to receive him, like the jaws of Khyber waiting to engulf him when he reached the end of his fall. The Crystal Spire seemed to pour out of that mouth like lightning from Vaskar’s maw. The shape grew larger, though he couldn’t tell whether he fell toward it or it surged up to meet him.

Then it was upon him: the face of a great dragon carved into ancient stone. Though the storm raged far above him now, he called a gust of wind to stop his fall and planted his feet gently to one side of the dragon’s mouth. He barely remembered in time to make sure that Cart landed safely on the other side. To his credit, the warforged made no sound that indicated he’d been worried about the fall. His face, of course, was unreadable.

The First of Sixteen descended to this gate. The Soul Reaver spoke to his mind, bypassing both ears and language, but carrying the same grumbling roar he had sensed when he first saw the Soul Reaver high above the battlefield. Any who would follow in his paths must be prepared for what lies beyond.

Gaven peered into the darkness for a sign of the Soul Reaver, cursing the brilliance of the Crystal Spire that blinded his eyes without illuminating the shadows around it. Only the Heart of Khyber in its steady rotation cast a faint strobe of light around the chamber. Gaven had a vague sense of a dome arching overhead and smooth, round tunnels leading off into darkness. “And what if I don’t want to follow his paths?” he called into the nothingness.

Cart looked at him strangely-the Soul Reaver evidently hadn’t spoken in his mind.

Then I will kill you.

A wail filled Gaven’s mind, different from the torrent of thoughts with which the Soul Reaver had assaulted him in the air. That attack had called his own mind up against him, but this was an intrusion, a blast of psychic force so great that his vision began to cloud over. He clamped his hands to his ears but couldn’t block the sound, and squeezed his eyes shut to no avail. He dropped to one knee, searching for the still point he had found in his mind before, the focus that would enable him to shrug off the psychic attack again.

“The Bronze Dragon… no, the Bronze Serpent…”

His mind reeled, and though he rose once more to his feet and opened his eyes to search for the source of the assault, he could do nothing more than stumble half blind along the nearest tunnel, careening off the smooth stone walls.