Richard Byers - The Spectral Blaze

When every servant of a true god was free, she took her company west, toward the armies who, judging from the echoing racket, had begun to fight in earnest. She and her comrades had to handle a couple of skirmishes, but they swung around the bulk of Tchazzar’s forces and avoided a major confrontation. It seemed the wiser course. Rich in magic though she and the other priests were, a band of trained warriors would still stand a fair chance of slaughtering them until they united with the soldiers on Aoth and Shala’s side.

Her success at reaching Shala’s company safely left Cera feeling a little smug about her own emerging talents as a war leader, and she knew a fierce resolve to do whatever she could to aid the defense. But that feeling fell away when she saw the heart of the battle, and awe welled up to take its place.

Dragons were fighting one another, and their struggle had all but become the entire conflict, at least on the part of the discontinuous, irregular battleground that she could see. Warriors had fallen back to keep a stray blast of breath weapon or the stamp of a huge foot from killing them. That limited their ability to engage one another, not that they seemed much inclined to do so anyway. No doubt experiencing the same amazement and dread as Cera, for the most part, they, too, were simply watching the dragons assail one another.

Which was to say, they were watching, not helping. Either they doubted the ability of mere human beings and genasi to affect the outcome, or they were afraid of hitting the wrong dragon. Only mages such as Aoth and a few master archers such as Gaedynn sent flares of power blazing or shafts streaking into the swooping, wheeling, lunging blur of motion.

For a few heartbeats, Cera wondered if salvation was at hand, if the dragons who had inexplicably joined their cause would take down Alasklerbanbastos and Tchazzar. After all, they outnumbered the blue and the red and had forced them onto the ground. The gold and the earthbound sapphire with the broken wing had burned or ripped a horn, alar phalanges, ribs, and other pieces of the dracolich’s skeletal form away. The emerald and the other sapphire had torn bloody gashes in Tchazzar’s hide. Their howls had hammered his left foreleg so the knee cocked inward, and he could no longer use the limb to slash or to bear his weight.

Then a dark liquid sprayed the gold from above, and it jerked in pain. An instant later, yet another wyrm, a black, plunged down on it like a hawk snatching a pigeon on the wing. The chromatic’s momentum slammed them both through the wall of a house, and they started struggling inside. Cera could tell because their fury was smashing and shaking the building apart.

With the gold otherwise occupied, Alasklerbanbastos glared at the sapphire and snarled an incantation. The living wyrm turned to run but not quickly enough. Tentacles of shadow erupted from the earth, whipped around it, and dragged it down onto its belly.

The dracolich whirled and spit a booming thunderbolt at the emerald dragon. The gem wyrm convulsed and crashed to earth. Tchazzar sprang, lashed his wings, and seized hold of the remaining sapphire’s forefoot in his burning jaws. He whipped his neck, yanking his foe out of the air and biting down at the same time.

The foot ripped off as the sapphire slammed to the ground. Blood spurted from the stump, and the creature spasmed. Tchazzar gnashed the extremity, bones and all, and gulped it down.

Then he and Alasklerbanbastos turned their gazes on the humans and genasi before them and, not even bothering to take flight again, lunged forward. Some warriors screamed and scattered. Others tried to fight, and the wyrms smashed them aside or trampled them flat.

Cera couldn’t strike at both dragons at once. But she prayed she could do something to hinder Alasklerbanbastos. Why not? He was undead and she had all the best priests in the city at her back. Even without them, she’d hurt him before, and although she’d lost the shadow gem that had made it possible, perhaps some vestige of the link it had forged remained.

She reached out to the Keeper, and he filled her with his light. She swung her mace over her head, and dazzling radiance leaped from it, passed harmlessly through any of the living who happened to be in the way, and burned into Alasklerbanbastos’s skull face. The undead blue lurched to a halt, then backward, some irresistible pressure shoving him.

Other sunladies and lords started chanting. Their warm light poured into her and through her to add to the force she was exerting. Then the rest of the priests began to pray, and although their might derived from sources other than the nurturing and purifying sun, it, too, lent a measure of strength to the forbiddance.

We’ve got him! Cera thought. We’ll burn him away! Then, defying the pressure of the light, Alasklerbanbastos came straight at her, picking up speed with every stride.

Tchazzar coiled his hind legs and unfurled his wings for a spring. Jhesrhi could tell the leap would carry him over most of the warriors who still stood between him and Shala and bring him smashing down on top of the former sovereign and her personal guards.

Jhesrhi pointed her staff and splashed flame across the dragon’s eyes. It wouldn’t hurt him, but it was something she could do instantly and, she hoped, would distract him before he pounced. The staff crowed in idiot glee at being used to conjure fire at last, and despite the exigencies of the moment, she felt a corresponding thrill.

Startled, Tchazzar whirled in her direction.

“Isn’t it me you want most of all?” she shouted.

“I did,” the red dragon gritted. Blood pattered from his wounds down onto the ground. “I loved you. I wanted to give you everything.”

“I loved you too,” she said. “And I wanted to believe you could be the hero from the legends. But you can’t. You were trapped in the dark too long, and it broke you. Now there’s nothing to do but put you down.”

“Try,” Tchazzar said. He started toward her.

She hurled a screaming blast of ice and hail at him. The dragonborn wizard augmented the effect with a jab of her misty wand. Meralaine threw tatters of darkness.

Tchazzar kept coming, though not nearly as fast as he could have. He must want Jhesrhi to feel helpless before he killed her.

Shala and some of her soldiers charged him from behind. Without even glancing around, he held them back with potentially bone-shattering sweeps of his tail.

Gaedynn and other griffon riders swooped and wheeled around him, driving arrows into his scaly hide. Tchazzar swatted a sellsword who came too close with a flick of his wing, sending man and steed tumbling helplessly through the air, but otherwise ignored the harassment as he took another limping stride.

Jhesrhi melted the earth to quicksand beneath his feet, then drew strands of muck streaming up his body to bury and smother him more quickly. But, wings lashing and snapping, he heaved himself clear of the effect, and in the process nearly closed the distance.

At most, Jhesrhi had time for one more spell, but which, when they all seemed useless? For one ghastly instant, her mind was blank. Then a notion came to her.

Why was Tchazzar unstoppable? Because she’d given him strength and life in the Shadowfell and again on the battlefield where Alasklerbanbastos had nearly killed him. And maybe what she’d given she could take away.

She fused her will and perception with those of the staff, reached through the instrument, outward, and into the core of the colossal creature in front of her. She seized hold of the flame that suffused and sustained him and pulled.

Tchazzar threw back his head and screamed.

So far, so good. But it felt as if there were an ocean of flame to drain, the remnants of what she’d given him and the vast reserves he’d produced for himself in the days since his restoration. She wasn’t sure she could handle the torrent rushing into the staff and her. But she had to. If it slipped from her control, it could explode across the battlefield and kill everyone except Tchazzar.