Paul Kemp - Shadowstorm

It grabbed him in a claw, crushed him enough to steal his breath and crack bones. Rivalen's shadow-infused flesh tried to regenerate while the dragon spiraled downward at alarming speed.

He understood its intent. It would crush him on impact, or would finish him on the ground with its fangs.

He had no wards to preserve him. No charms to protect him. The creature must have surrounded itself in a field of anti-magic, suppressing even Rivalen's ability to transport himself through the shadows. He tried to squirm free, failed. He swung his blade against the dragon's scales-futile. He twisted his head to look down, saw Selgaunt burning, its walls breached, saw the ground rushing up to crush him.

Only one solution leaped to mind. He could try to disjoin the anti-magic field. Only a disjunction could work against such a field.

Enduring the pain and focusing his mind, he intoned the elaborate couplets of the abjuration while the earth sped toward him.

The dragon held him close beneath it. If his spell failed, he would be pulped when the creature slammed into the earth.

The dragon's scales rippled as the creature tensed for impact. Rivalen focused his mind on his spell, only his spell, and pronounced the final couplet.

Power went forth from him. Motes of green energy sparkled all around the dragon as the magic of the disjunction tried to unravel the threads of magic that created the anti-magic field.

The earth filled his field of vision. Rivalen shouted, anticipating impact.

His spell disjoined the anti-magic field and all his suppressed spells, wards, and charms began to function again. He turned incorporeal as the dragon hit the earth so hard it sank four paces deep into the dry plain. Rivalen's incorporeal form sank harmlessly into the ground.

He felt a tingle in his mind as Brennus contacted him through his magical ring.

Rivalen?

Where is Yder?

I was unable to contact you for a time. I thought-

Where is Yder?

Look up, Brennus answered.

Rivalen floated through the dragon-his ability to see even in pitch darkness allowed him to view the dragon's huge lungs, its heart, bones-while the reptile, unaware that Rivalen had survived, stood and looked under its body for his corpse.

Above him, Sakkors descended out of the sun. The inverted mountaintop upon which the city floated blotted out the light and cast the plain in darkness. Clusters of barnacles discolored the rough underside of the floating chunk of rock. Darkness clung to the city, trailed from it like a fog. Newly constructed spires, towers, and buildings pointed accusingly at the sun. Rivalen saw the dome of a new temple to Shar and grinned.

A cloud of veserabs flew below and around the city. Their tubelike bodies undulated with each beat of their membranous wings. A shade armed with a long spear rode atop each, buckled to a specially made saddle.

The dragon looked up, saw the city, the veserabs, and roared. It noticed Rivalen and whirled on him, throwing up clods of dirt, and spat a cloud of corrosive gas.

Rivalen, incorporeal, stood unharmed in the midst of the churning acidic vapors. Few things could harm him in his ghostly form, but he could do little to harm the dragon. With the field of anti-magic disjoined, the creature's spell-turning ward would be functional. He would have to use his sword.

Yder is to hold the troops until I give the order, he said to Brennus. And the bonded krinth are to order the Source to place all of its power in my sword. Now.

Brennus did not bother to respond. Rivalen assumed his brother was communicating the orders to Yder.

The green vapors dissipated, leaving the plains pockmarked and dotted with curled grass and withered trees. The dragon, seeing Rivalen unharmed, snapped its jaws at him. Teeth half as long as Rivalen was tall closed on him, passed through him, and did no harm. The dragon roared its frustration.

Rivalen backed off, holding his blade at the ready. The dragon prowled after, as graceful as a cat.

A charge went through Rivalen's sword. Power gathered in it. It vibrated in his grasp. Shadows bled from it as more and more of the Source's power filled it. Rivalen shaped the growing power with his will, took the weapon in two hands.

The dragon, wary, backed away a step and pronounced an arcane word. Five glowing green bolts of energy streaked from the creature's mouth and slammed into Rivalen. His ghostly form did not protect him from the magical bolts and the impact burned his chest and drove him back a step.

He recovered and bounded forward. The sword hummed in his hands, charged by the Source with magic that would reach through planes, with magic baneful to dragons, with the power of an entire mythallar contained within it.

The dragon slashed at him with claws, bit at him with jaws. Rivalen did not attempt to dodge the blows and they passed through him. The dragon, perhaps sensing its danger, tensed and leaped into the air. Rivalen clutched the blade in both hands, leaped forward, and drove the blade hilt-deep into the dragon's chest as the creature took off.

The blade tore through scales as if they were leather and cut a furrow in the dragon's flesh that started in its chest and continued the entire length of its abdomen. When his sword stuck and could slice no farther, Rivalen pulled it free.

Steaming blood poured from the ghastly opening and soaked the grass, sizzling and smoking. The dragon gave a high-pitched roar of agony. Blood rained down as it frantically beat its wings and struggled to stay aloft. Rivalen flew upward with it, slashed crosswise, and opened another bloody tear in the dragon's underbelly.

The dragon roared, wings beating. It snapped at him in rage, but its bite passed through him without effect. Rivalen pressed the attack, chopping through scales and flesh in great sweeping arcs. The dragon screamed in frustration, pain, and finally, fear. Its blood soaked the plains. Its screams saturated the air. Rivalen closed, intent to finish the creature, but it glared at him, spat a magic word, and vanished.

Rivalen hurriedly recited the words to a spell that allowed him to see magically concealed creatures and to pierce illusions, and scanned the plain around him. Nothing. The dragon had fled.

Rivalen did not have time to revel in the victory. Selgaunt was falling.

Banish any remaining fire elementals, he sent to Brennus. Have the Source retrieve its power from my blade and distribute it among Leevoth's men. Then meet me in the air over the walls.

Elyril smiled. The Nightseer had looked directly at her with spell-augmented vision and seen nothing. She was shadow, spirit, invisible. She was Shar's weapon.

Thank you, Lady of Loss.

She laughed and the sound was like a breeze. She moved behind the Nightseer and stepped into his shadow. There she would lurk until he revealed to her the location of the rest of the book to be made whole.

Under Onthul's command, several hundred Selgauntan soldiers formed a line fifty or sixty men wide and twenty deep that spanned the breach in the wall. Rorsin raced around behind the line, gathering every crossbowman he could and putting them into a group behind the line to mass their fire.

Saerloonian trumpets bellowed.

The sky darkened and Tamlin looked up.

An inverted mountain floated above the plains and cast its shadow over the city. Thin spires and towers dotted its top. Creatures as large as ponies, with black, tube-shaped bodies and membranous wings, flew around the city's edges. Shade troops rode them. Shadows cloaked the entire city. Tamlin raised his fist and grinned at Variance.

"Stay close to me, Hulorn," she said.

Tamlin nodded.

Men pointed at the sky, cheered.

The Saerloonian trumpets blew anew and Onthul moved along the front of his men.