Troy Denning - The Cerulean Storm

Rikus raised the Scourge as if to strike, then pretended to slip on the treacherous ground. He flailed his arms wildly, flinging the Scourge down the slope below. The instant the sword left the mul’s hand, Borys’s mouth gaped open, and his head darted for ward. Rikus hurled himself down the hill backward, watching the Dragon’s snapping jaws snake after him.

Tithian struck first, slipping from behind a boulder to make contact with one of Borys’s beady eyes. Rikus saw the psionic image of a winged serpent striking from the Dark Lens toward their foe. The Dragon swiveled his huge head around. The glowing figure of a lava golem shot from the beast’s eyes and intercepted the viper. The snake bit into the burning giant, then erupted into flames.

The serpent continued its attack, coiling its body around the figure and constricting. The two constructs began to wrestle, shifting forms into birds, lirrs, lions, and a dozen other ferocious creatures. The battle raged with such fervor that tongues of real flame came flying off the two images, scorching stones and searing Rikus’s flesh.

Leaving his construct to carry on the battle against Tithian by itself, Borys looked back to Rikus. The mul was still sliding down the hill, grasping madly at the Scourge. Wisps of smoke began to ooze from the Dragon’s nostrils, and his mouth opened to exhale.

Sadira leaped from her hiding place. She lunged at the beast’s eye with a dagger of hissing blue smoke. Borys closed his mouth and looked away. The sorceress’s blade missed its intended target but still slashed down across the Dragon’s snout. The attack drew only a trickle of blood, but it bought Rikus enough time to find the Scourge and spring to his feet.

Borys’s hand flashed from behind the crater rim and closed around Sadira. Now that she was no longer protected by the power of the sun, his claws sank deep into her abdomen. She screamed in pain. Blood began to seep from between the beast’s fingers.

Still holding the sorceress, Borys swung his head back toward Rikus. The mul charged up the hill and drove his sword down through the Dragon’s snout.

The blade sank through both jaws, drawing a spray of boiling yellow blood. Borys threw Sadira down and snapped his head high into the sky, trying to flip Rikus off. The mul hung on tightly, locking his legs around the Dragon’s snout and desperately trying to snap the blade.

He heard Sadira yell from the crater rim, “Keep fighting, damn you!”

Rikus looked down and saw that Tithian had ceased his mental attack. Instead of combating Borys with the Way, the king was slithering away with the Dark Lens in his tail.

One of the Dragon’s gnarled claws rose into sight, blocking the mul’s view of the scene below. Rikus cursed, knowing that if he allowed his enemy to strike at him, he would find himself standing near the arch-and away from the combat. Gripping the Scourge’s hilt with both hands, he flung himself away from the claw and braced his feet against the other side of the snout. He pulled with all his might. The blade flexed with a resilient chime but did not break.

Far below, Sadira called Tithian’s name. Rikus looked down and saw the sorceress throw something. The king ducked behind the Dark Lens, then a web of sticky white filaments formed in the air above him and began settling over his head.

Tithian laughed.

Borys whipped his head around in an angry attempt to shake Rikus loose. The Scourge snapped with a sour twang, and the mul fell away. As he dropped, he saw a fountain of black syrup spraying from the blade still half-buried in the Dragon’s snout.

Rikus slammed into the crater rim. His body exploded into pain, and the Scourge’s hilt slipped from his grasp. He tumbled down the slope, the Dragon’s roars filling his ears. Soon, he managed to bring himself to a stop. Everything hurt so badly that he could not tell whether he had broken all his bones or none of them.

The mul rolled over and, grasping a boulder, pulled himself to his feet. To Rikus’s relief, attacking him was sure to be the last thing on Borys’s mind. A huge fountain of black fluid was shooting from the Scourge’s broken blade and had already coated the Dragon’s head with a thick layer of ebony slime. With angry red plumes of smoke pouring from his nostrils, the beast was madly scratching at the steel shard lodged in his snout. He accomplished little, save to coat his claws with the same dark sludge that covered his face.

The Dragon bellowed in horrid pain. He sprayed a fiery red cloud high into the sky, and his hands dropped limply to his sides, his beady eyes glazing over in agony. A series of convulsions ran through his slender face. With each spasm, the snout grew shorter and thicker, until the thing looked more like a nose and drooping chin than a beast’s muzzle. The spiked crest on top of his head broadened into a sloping forehead. Borys gave one last roar, then fell silent and dropped behind the ridge.

Feeling fairly confident that the Dragon would not return to attack him, Rikus looked across the slope. He found the king bound tightly to the Dark Lens by a sturdy mesh of silver filaments. As the mul watched, a huge red spider emerged from the depths of the Lens. The creature lowered its head to the web and drew the glistening strands into its mouth. Once Tithian was free, the creature sprang at Sadira. It sailed across the intervening distance in a flash, then landed square on the sorceress’s face and began savaging her with its maw.

Rikus started forward to help her. As he stumbled across the slope, he watched helplessly as four lacy wings sprouted from Tithian’s back. Still holding the Dark Lens in his tail, the king rose into the air and flew toward the cliff on the far side of the plain. His size dwindled rapidly, and the mul knew that he would quickly pass out of sight.

Tithian flew away, and Sadira rolled down the slope and pinned the spider beneath her. She pulled her head away from its maw. Her face was covered with red welts that looked like burn marks, but there were no punctures to suggest that the thing had been injecting poison into her body. The sorceress grasped her attacker in both hands and picked it up high over her head. She brought it down on a sharp rock. The thing vanished in a fiery flash.

Sadira screamed in shock and covered her face.

Rikus reached her side. “Let me see,” he said.

“I’m not seriously hurt-which is more than Tithian will be able to say when I catch up to him,” Sadira said. She lowered her arms, revealing a face with singed eyelashes and reddened skin. Rikus was relieved to see that there were no critical burns.

“What about the Dragon?” Sadira asked.

The mul pointed toward the top of the rim. “I snapped the sword,” he said. “What’s left of Borys fell inside.”

“We’d better have a look,” Sadira said.

They climbed the slope and peered cautiously over the top. In the bottom of the crater, a huge skeleton of black-stained bones lay curled into a fetal ball. Its shoulder blades were fused into a single large hump, and its gangling arms were wrapped around its knees. The thing’s face was the remotely human visage that Rikus had seen replace Borys’s, with the Scourge’s shard still lodged in the nose and spewing dark slime into the air.

As they watched, sparks of blue energy began to dance in its empty eye sockets. From its fleshless mouth came a sibilant voice.

“Borys of Ebe, Butcher of Dwarves, Leader of the Revolt,” the voice hissed. “Your master has claimed his punishment.”

Inky fluid began to bubble up between the skeleton’s teeth. The ribs broke open and began to gush ebony syrup from the jagged ends. The arms and legs separated at the joints, then the pelvis split down the center, and finally the spine collapsed into a line of disconnected vertebrae. With each separation, more dark slime poured into the basin, until the skeleton itself disappeared beneath a pool of bubbling, frothing, black sludge.