R. Salvatore - Bastion of Darkness

“Do keep us out of sight,” Ardaz cried in Belexus’ ear. The wizard turned to look back, but stopped halfway, gawking, seeing DelGiudice floating along easily beside them, hardly working, yet pacing the swift flight of Calamus with ease. Del offered a wink to the wizard and then was gone, reversing his direction so quickly that Ardaz blinked many times before he figured out where the ghost had flown off to.

Around the mountain, Del met up with the dragon. Salazar in flight-wings extended, hardly beating, yet traveling at a speed that mocked the furious rush of the pegasus-seemed even more fearsome than had the dragon in its mountain hole, where the tight stone of ceiling and walls forced it into a tight posture. The dragon spotted Del, who was making no effort to conceal himself at all. Salazar never slowed, never swerved, just came on at tremendous speed, swooshing right through the startled spirit and flying on in pursuit of the real quarry and the stolen treasure.

It took Del more than a few moments to recover from that tremendous shock. He turned and started after the wyrm, but changed his mind and his direction, flying fast instead the other way around the conical mountain.

“He’s gaining! Oh, he’s gaining!” Ardaz cried, glancing back often and spotting the dragon making its way around the mountain’s stone arms.

Belexus did well to guide the pegasus in tight to the mountainside, weaving about the rocks and keeping every jag right behind them to block the dragon’s line of sight. This might buy them time, but not much, the ranger knew, for the dragon was obviously the swifter, and was amazingly agile in the air, despite its great bulk. Searching the landscape, Belexus came around the next outcropping, then put Calamus into such a steep dive that Ardaz nearly rolled right over the ranger’s shoulder. A shrieking Desdemona did go over, one swiping claw raking the ranger across the cheek, and then the cat was spinning and falling, spreading wings as she went, becoming a raven and quickly swerving out of harm’s way. The wizard, fumbling vainly to right himself, screamed and held on for all his life, but the ranger bent low, and Calamus put his head down, diving straight out. As they dropped behind the rolling wall of a short ravine, the pegasus spread his wings and turned out of the dive, muscles straining to hold straight and steady. Belexus tugged with all his strength in an effort to help lift the steed’s head, to help Calamus turn horizontal to the ground.

Somehow they broke out of the dive, and Ardaz stopped screaming long enough to note the shadow of the great dragon as it sped past high overhead. The wizard tried to say as much to the ranger, but found that his lips and all his face were perfectly frozen from the cold, rushing air. To that effect, Ardaz lifted his palm and summoned a small ball of flame, holding it close.

Belexus needed no guidance. He continued to descend among the lower peaks, turning Calamus away from the mountain as soon as he found enough cover, weaving tight turns about the stones. He cared nothing for specific direction, was only determined to get them all as far as possible-and as quickly-from the mountain and the dragon. Still the guilt nagged at the ranger-where would the wyrm go to loose its vengeance? But even that guilt, that longing to finish this properly, did not prepare Belexus for the shock when he came smoothly around one rounded, snow-covered bluff to find Salazar rising up before him.

Fortunately, the dragon was as surprised as the riders and the pegasus, and so they came together too quickly for Salazar to loose its deadly fires. Belexus snapped off a series of sharp blows as they passed right underneath the serpentine neck, the ranger fighting to keep the beast from turning down its terrible maw and biting them all in half. His aim was perfect, it had to be, stinging the wyrm about the chin, and out they came, lifting just over a beating dragon wing, Belexus pulling hard the reins to spin completely over and down, narrowly avoiding a swipe of the tremendous tail.

The ranger thought that the successful maneuver would buy him a few moments, thought that the sheer bulk of the dragon would force it into a long and slow turn, but the wyrm surprised him as it straightened perpendicularly to the ground, thrusting its tail down and forward, outspread wings catching the air and fast stopping the momentum. Then Salazar merely dropped, turning and angling as it went, wings catching the air and propelling it after the thieves.

Down went the pegasus, through another ravine, over one bluff and around another, then climbing rapidly behind a long rocky arm of the higher mountain, the guiding ranger reasoning that height would afford them speed and a wider view.

Again, though, the wyrm proved much smarter and quicker than Belexus believed, and as they continued their steep ascent, Ardaz poked Belexus on the shoulder and pointed in the opposite direction of the shielding outcropping, up above them.

Belexus pulled Calamus over and about, a rolling, dropping evasion, nearly dislodging the poor wizard yet again. The pegasus willingly responded, though the maneuver put them into a straight drop. Again, the strength of the ranger and of the flying horse somehow pulled them out of it before too much momentum could be gained, and Calamus tightened his wings and whipped them about the mountain arm, putting the stone between them and the dragon.

Salazar swooped past, talons clipping and gouging the rock. The roaring wyrm pivoted its head as it flew past and loosed its breath, and only dumb luck saved the trio, the fires hitting the stone below them and melting it away to slide, glowing, down the mountainside.

The evasion had cost the friends all their momentum, however, and Belexus desperately tried again to flip the horse right over into yet another swoop. He had to abort that maneuver, though, for the dragon had angled down in its pass and was now below them-and not so far below them!-and in complete control. Up came the huge horned head as the ranger pulled on the reins; the great maw opened wide, barely forty feet away.

Again Ardaz screamed, and Belexus did as well, but the ranger kept his wits about him enough to draw out the diamond sword, readying it for a last desperate strike.

They knew that they were dead, knew that they could not possibly turn fast enough to avoid the snapping bite. At the last possible instant, Ardaz loosed a lightning bolt, albeit a weak one, and Belexus swung wildly.

He hit nothing but air, for as the dragon started to snap its head forward, a black speck zipped across its face, clawed feet raking hard at its eye.

Salazar roared in protest, spun over in the air, and swooped after the newest foe.

“Desdemona!” Ardaz cried, and the wizard’s heart caught in his throat when the dragon, so swift and terrible in pursuit, shot a line of flame the raven’s way.

The frantic Belexus had no time to worry about Desdemona, turning Calamus again and dropping into a long dive the other way, plummeting, only half in control, past the stones and snow-covered bluffs, then leveling off and gaining speed. Around a corner loomed not the dragon, but the hovering ghost of DelGiudice, and before either the pegasus or the spirit could react, riders and mount sped right through DelGiudice, a most unsettling event for all involved.

Del caught up with the trio soon after. “Give me the sword,” he offered determinedly, extending his hand. “And I will go battle the dragon.”

Both ranger and wizard stared at him incredulously.

“Salazar cannot hurt me,” the ghost said confidently, thinking that he’d found the solution. Indeed, Belexus almost handed the blade over, but then retracted it, clutching it close.

“Ye canno’ be hurt by the wyrm,” the ranger reasoned. “But suren the wyrm’d tear the sword from yer hands, and then we’d be without the only weapon that might sting the beast.”