R. Salvatore - Bastion of Darkness

In response, a grumbling Belexus crawled over Ardaz, none too gently, and started back down the passage. The wizard couldn’t make out many of the words the ranger was muttering, but he heard “Andovar” and “vengeance” quite clearly.

“I do daresay,” Ardaz mumbled, and with a helpless shrug, he crawled into line behind the ranger, even brought up his staff-torch a moment later-not that his courage had increased, just that he was feeling so ultimately stupid that he figured he might as well take this quest all the way. If they were indeed going back after the wyrm, then they might as well let the wyrm know it. “Might get it over with more quickly,” was all the explanation Ardaz offered to Belexus when the ranger turned back to stare incredulously at the light.

They came to the lip of the tunnel and paused there, listening to hear if the dragon was waiting quietly just around the bend. Then Belexus hesitated once more, taking a long while to try to muster the courage to peek out. It mattered little, the ranger told himself, for if the dragon was nearby, waiting to spring, the beast could just as easily go to the mouth of the hole and let loose its fires, for the ranger and Ardaz could never scramble far enough away in time.

Still, thinking about an action and performing it can be two very different things, and Belexus had to wait a moment longer before he found the strength to ease his head and the lit end of the wizard’s staff out into that wider tunnel.

All was clear, so the ranger crept out, then motioned Ardaz to follow-then reached back and pulled the trembling and unmoving wizard out. The ranger pointed right, back toward the treasure room, but Ardaz stubbornly pointed left, back toward the exit.

Belexus thrust his finger more forcefully to the right and nodded that way.

Ardaz started left.

Belexus caught him by the beard and turned him about, and then both jumped and yelped, surprised by the approach of the ghost of DelGiudice.

“What’re ye about?” the ranger started to complain, but the words were stuck in his throat the moment he noted the precious cargo Del carried.

“There are some advantages to this semiethereal state,” the ghost explained, handing the weapon over.

“Ah, but she’s beautiful,” the ranger said with an awestricken gasp, feeling the balance and the clean cut, and witnessing the trailing diamond light.

“Salazar knows I took it,” Del explained. “I think he knew the moment I picked it up, though he was out here, chasing you.”

“Dragons are like that,” Ardaz offered.

“Never have I seen such a blade,” the ranger went on, the gleam of the diamonds reflecting off his clear eyes, even in the dim light.

“Knows which way I went, too,” Del tried to explain.

The ground shook beneath their feet, then again and again at even intervals, the heavy footsteps of the approaching wyrm.

“Time to go,” Ardaz implored, and when Belexus continued staring at the blade, the wizard popped him on top of the head with the end of his staff. “Time to go!” Ardaz said again, pointing frantically back down the tunnel.

Belexus turned to see the long and empty passage but could hear, quite clearly, the thunderous approach. For an instant, the ranger thought of going back that way, of trying his luck against the wyrm now that he held such a powerful weapon as this.

He decided against that course, only because his duty was to Andovar; and his primary enemy, and the greatest threat to the goodly folk of the world, remained the wraith of Hollis Mitchell.

“Run on and I’ll keep the dragon busy for a bit,” Del offered.

Ardaz and Belexus exchanged skeptical glances, but it was obvious that Del had already accomplished quite a bit more than they ever could have hoped to, and so they started off, after Belexus tried to pat the ghost on the shoulder and inadvertently slid his hand right through Del’s chest.

Del watched them go, managing a supportive smile. In truth, though, the ghost was feeling a bit low, sad that he could not experience that touch, or any touch, from a warm, living creature. He thought of Brielle again, of their lovemaking, and his heart sank.

It was just for a moment, though, as the spirit purposefully recalled his time with the Colonnae-and how distant that memory seemed! It struck Del as more than a bit odd how the trappings of this world and this shape, such as they were, were imposing upon him some very different emotions than any he had experienced in all his time with Calae, as if the form itself were dictating some thought to the intelligence.

That was a question for another day, Del realized, as the dragon came rambling into sight at the end of the corridor. The ghost waited until he was certain the wyrm saw him; then he slipped into the same side tunnel Ardaz and Belexus had recently exited.

Salazar was there quickly, and with predictable, irrational fury, the dragon breathed its fire into the passage, balls of searing flame rolling over calm Del.

“Deeper, deeper!” Del yelled, turning his mouth so that his voice was aimed deeper into the tunnel, as if he were bidding his friends to run for all their lives.

Salazar clawed at the stone and roared repeatedly. “Nowhere to run!” the wyrm bellowed. “I can wait a hundred hundred years! How long can you stay in there?”

“Longer than that,” Del said, too quietly for Salazar to hear.

The dragon’s patience proved the first to go, or perhaps it was just that Salazar was more cunning than Del believed, and would not be so easily fooled. The wyrm began snuffling again, then turning circles in the corridor beyond the side tunnel, finally moving a bit beyond the opening and sniffing again.

Then came such a roar as DelGiudice had never heard, the roar of a dragon robbed, and even worse, the roar of a dragon fooled!

Outside the mountain, both Ardaz and Belexus heard it clearly. So did Calamus, the pegasus shifting nervously as the wizard tried to climb onto its back. So did Desdemona, darting so speedily into the nearest saddlebag that she nearly took the harness from the pegasus’ back.

“We should be hurrying,” Belexus said dryly.

“Time to run,” the ghost concurred, coming fast out of a crack in the mountain wall, not far to the side. “Or to fly,” he corrected, noting the winged horse.

“But the big dragon cannot get down that small passageway,” Ardaz reasoned.

“He’s not to stay in there, however he comes,” Belexus cried, and it seemed true enough, for the mountain itself began violently shaking from the wrath of the great wyrm. The ranger looked back into the tunnel determinedly, his hand clenched tightly about the hilt of the diamond sword, and both Del and Ardaz wondered if Belexus meant to run back in.

Truly it was difficult for the proud ranger to flee at that moment. He had no desire to face the likes of Salazar again, but the sudden notion that his action, his theft, might bring the wyrm out of its hole, and that the dragon, in its unrelenting outrage, might fly off and take vengeance on undeserving souls-perhaps on the elves of Lochsilinilume, perhaps even on Avalon-was heart-wrenching indeed.

“Get on!” Ardaz commanded, grabbing the ranger’s shoulder. “Climb on and guide us far, far away! You’ll not defeat the wyrm, Belexus Backavar, not if you and all your ranger friends together, and each with blades like that you now hold, caught it curled up in a deep sleep!”

With a frustrated growl that showed he could not disagree, the ranger mounted the pegasus in front of Ardaz and urged Calamus into a short run to the edge of the small ledge and then leaped the horse high into the empty air. The white wings beat furiously, wise Calamus understanding the need for speed. Up they went, and around the side of the mountain, and just a few seconds later, they heard the thunderous rumble of an avalanche, a tremendous explosion of rock and snow bursting out from the mountainside, and they knew that Salazar had come forth.