Кейт Новак - Azure Bonds

Dragonbait shuddered. He felt as if he had just rolled a massive stone up to and over the crest of a hill. Every muscle in his body spasmed. Now that the stone had been given one last push, however, it rolled of its own accord. Alias’s flame grew hotter and brighter with each passing second. The well of darkness began to harden and then crumble like drying mud. New surges of the surrounding mass of evil rose, but they were repelled by the increasing blue fire.

Alias hovered over Dragonbait, her muscles locked, her face almost serene. Phalse and the Fire Knives impersonating Moander worshipers held their breath, as would have Prakis, had he any breath to hold.

Cassana screwed her comely face into a twisted mask of rage—rage mixed with a hint of fear that the made-creature should reveal a newfound strength. Clenching her wand in her fist, she brought her hand up in a sweeping gesture, yanking hard on the strings of her rebellious puppet in an attempt to force her will on Alias.

Like an old leather thong stretched to breaking, something within Alias snapped. She drove the blade down hard, but she leaped forward as she did so, plunging Hill Cleaver not into Dragonbait, but straight through Cassana. The diamond-headed tip protruded out of the witch’s back, but there was no blood on it.

The sorceress staggered backward, a look of shock on her face. Both Phalse and Prakis stepped toward her, but she waved them off. Still clutching her wand in one hand, she reached up to draw the blade from her body. Blue sparks danced from Hill Cleaver where she grasped it. Sorcery kept her alive despite her fatal wound, yet nothing could negate the power of the saurial’s sword to defend itself from the touch of evil. Cassana screamed and ripped the blade from her. Very slowly, blood began to well up from the gash in her chest.

Her face contorted with pain, Cassana whirled the blade at Alias’s throat. The swordswoman fell backward, dodging the weapon, as Prakis and Phalse lunged at her. She rolled from the lich’s chilling touch. Phalse came at her with a dagger as she rose to her feet. The pseudo-halfling caught one of Alias’s boots in the face and the Fire Knives at the edges of the circle began to converge, prepared to bring Alias down by force of numbers.

There was a shattering explosion to Dragonbait’s right, behind the kneeling form of Cassana. A pillar of fire shot up from the base of one of the sharp-toothed plinths, catching two Fire Knives. The great tower of stone rocked, then toppled sideways.

A second and a third explosion followed, as screaming fanfares of fireworks and smoke struck two more of the stone fangs, blinding anyone looking at them. Dragonbait at once recognized the handiwork of Akabar Bel Akash, as the southerner proved he was indeed a mage of no small water.

Then the saurial felt small hands creep across his body. He turned his head, intent on biting them if he could. He caught himself when he spotted Olive Ruskettle moving alongside him. The halfling carried a glass vial, from which she poured a thick, greenish mixture on his metal tethers. The wires smoked and gave off a deadly, acrid stench, but weakened immediately, as if suddenly rusted through.

Dragonbait yanked at his bonds, snapping them in half as the halfling moved to free his legs. Still caught up in the mild trance of his shen sight, the saurial could not help but notice that the halfling was purged of much of her bitterness and her vacillating spirit burned with a strength of purpose.

A Fire Knife charged at Olive with a blade tipped with the yellow ichor that had felled Dragonbait in Westgate. The halfling dodged, and Dragonbait swung his free foot with claws extended. His sharp, natural weapons sank deep into the assassin’s belly, and she fell backward, spurting a fountain of blood.

Dragonbait searched the circle for Alias. She was surrounded by Fire Knives, but she had acquired one of their swords and two of the assassins already lay at her feet. He looked in the other direction for Cassana, but she had disappeared. The saurial slid off the sacrificial stone and moved to regain Hill Cleaver.

Cold, bony fingers closed around Dragonbait’s throat from behind, and an icy chill flowed into his veins and crept through his body. Prakis laughed hoarsely as his paralyzing touch began draining the saurial paladin’s strength. On a human, the lich’s grip might have been impossible to break, but taking a saurial from behind was not so easy. Dragonbait threaded his tail between himself and the lich and used it as a lever to pry Prakis away from him. The lich staggered back a few paces, then lowered his staff’s tip at the saurial and muttered something.

Prakis burst into a pillar of fire.

That was hardly the reaction Dragonbait had expected. He whirled around to see who might have aided him. Standing atop the stone was a graying, clean-shaven man in ragged garb. He pulled a small vial from his cloak and flung it at Phalse, who was trying to take Alias from behind. Phalse saw the missile and dodged. A Fire Knife behind him was not so lucky and became a human pyre.

Dragonbait recognized the man. He had been the one who had demanded the saurial protect Alias in exchange for his freedom. Dragonbait had seen him only once since then, in Alias’s dream in Shadow Gap—Nameless. Now he fought openly on their side. The saurial took the briefest moment to study Nameless with his shen sight, but all he detected was a gray mountain against a gray sky. Neither evil, nor good, but very, very proud.

Prakis laughed with the horrible mechanical vocal sounds of the undead and walked out of the pyre that Nameless’s potion had lighted around him. The lich’s clothes were ash, and his remaining skin a blackened ruin, crumbling from the bones. Yet the pinpricks of light still danced in his eyes, and he still carried his staff.

Alias had felled two more assassins, but they had tightened their ring around her. She was closed in on all sides. One blade was deflected by the tightly knit chain shirt, but another came perilously close to her head, clipping some of her hair.

A bolt of lightning struck at Alias’s feet, knocking her to the ground. Action froze on the battlefield. Blackened Prakis grinned through fire-stained teeth, swaying his staff of power back and forth, aiming it at Dragonbait, then Ruskettle, then Nameless, making it quite clear that any sudden moves would result in instant destruction. The remaining assassins stood guard around the fallen swordswoman.

A red light shot up from one of the remaining stone plinths. Cassana stood atop the pillar, one hand clutching her wand, the other gripping shut the skin of her chest, as a modest woman would hold closed the front of a torn gown. Dragonbait twitched, debating whether he could lunge for Hill Cleaver and put an end to the mages’ threats before they fried him to a cinder

“Let this be ended,” the sorceress shouted from her perch. “Nameless, your little play is over. Phalse, take a sword and slay the saurial and Nameless. I will keep Puppet occupied.” She raised the wand over her head. Dragonbait could feel a sympathetic ache as Cassana used the blue wand to rack Alias’s body with pain.

A shadow rose behind Cassana, snatching the wand and kicking the sorceress off the stone. Cassana screamed a curse as she fell and landed hard on her side. Zrie Prakis whirled with his staff, trying to set his sights on his mistress’s attacker. Akabar’s flying form appeared for a moment above the stone pillar, the wand grasped tightly in his hand, then he dodged back and forth in an erratic pattern. Long lances of energy spat from the tip of Prakis’s staff, exploding just behind the mage in huge fireballs, but Akabar stayed just ahead of their swelling blossoms of flame.

Dragonbait finally managed to grab his sword, but with Akabar in flight he couldn’t risk using Hill Cleaver to dispel magic in the area. Instead, he used the sword to bite deeply into the lich, pulling ribs from the burned chest. Prakis’s fighting ability was still unaffected, though. He backhanded Dragonbait with a swipe of his wickedly sharpened finger bones.