Troy Denning - The Amber Enchantress

“What’s wrong with her?” demanded Wyan, hovering next to Sadira.

On the other side, Sacha asked, “Is someone torturing her?” His corpulent lips were twisted into a heinous grin.

“Have you two never heard the sound of a woman bearing a child?” Magnus asked, shaking his head at the scene below. “She couldn’t have chosen a worse time.”

Before Kled’s gate stood Borys, his slithering tail swishing languidly about, stirring up as much dust as a whirlwind. Despite the distance and the haze, Sadira could see that the Dragon was as tall as a full giant, with a body so gaunt that he would have made an elf seem stout. He had skin the color of iron, with a chitinous hide equal parts flesh and shell, and each of his willowy legs had two knees that bent in opposite directions. His arms were almost skeletal, ending in long-clawed fingers with swollen, knobby joints. Bory’s face was the most frightening aspect of his appearance, for it was no longer even remotely human. Located at the end of a serpentine neck, his head resembled that of a sharp-beaked bird, with a spiked crest of leathery skin and a pair of beady eyes so small they were hardly visible.

Before the Dragon, atop the village’s modest gatehouse, were the tiny forms of two men that Sadira believed to be Rikus and Lyanius. The rest of Kled’s warriors stood along the walls, arrayed in their glistening armor. From what the companions could see, they were armed with steel axes or swords, spiked bucklers, and crossbows.

On the sandstone slopes overlooking the approach to the gate, a hundred more figures stood near Borys’s flank. They were all dressed in the fashion of Tyr, with long dark robes easily discernible at a distance. The fact that none of them seemed to be carrying weapons suggested they were either mindbinders or sorcerers. By the silver streak that ran down the center of his long black hair, Sadira could identify Agis standing at the head of the company.

Borys hardly seemed to notice any of this. In a sizzling voice as loud as thunder, he said, “Bring me the one known as Er’Stali, with his Book of Kemalok Kings , and choose half your number to die.”

“It looks like we didn’t get here a minute too soon,” Sadira said. “Let’s go.”

“If you say so,” Magnus said, his voice still quivering from the exhaustion of the two-day run Sadira had just pushed them through. “But it would be better if we could take a few minutes to rest-”

“I doubt we have even a few seconds,” Sadira countered. As they started down the slope, she was surprised to notice Sacha and Wyan floating along behind Magnus. “I hadn’t thought you two would be so brave,” she commented.

“When the cause serves us, we can be courageous enough,” answered Sacha.

Down at the gate tower, Lyanius’s ancient voice said something defiant. Unfortunately, even with the aid of her magic, the sorceress could not quite make out the words of the trembling voice. In a motion so fast she barely saw it, Borys plucked the old man from the wall and held him aloft. Lyanius screamed in anger and struggled to free himself, his fists beating against the huge finger wrapped around his chest.

The dwarven sergeant raised his arm, but he did not dare signal his warriors to loose their bolts. Even if they killed the Dragon with their first volley, the long drop to the ground would kill the uhrnomus . Sadira stopped. She was still too far away to use any of her combat spells, but she might be able to utter an incantation that would cushion Lyanius’s fall.

“The book!” bellowed the Dragon.

Lyanius stopped struggling and stared down into Bory’s nearest eye, trembling in fright.

“Why doesn’t Borys just go in and take it? asked Magnus. “He must be powerful enough.”

“Easily,” answered Sadira. “But he’d have to use his magic, and he needs to save all his energy for another task more important to him.”

“What?” the windsinger asked.

“To keep something locked way,” she answered, pointing the tip of a red-glowing finger at Lyanius.

“You know about that?” gasped Wyan. “And you still want to deny Borys his levy?”

“Khidar and his people did not seem so terrible to me,” she answered.

Lyanius stopped struggling, then looked back down to the Dragon. “No!” he yelled.

Borys’s fist closed and the uhrnomus’s body disappeared into a spray of blood. On the village wall, the sergeant lowered his hand. The dwarven crossbows clattered, launching a hundred steel bolts at the Dragon’s chest. They struck with a hollow rattle, then fell away in an ineffectual rain of metal.

Sadira rushed down the hill, moving so fast that she left Magnus and the two heads far behind. As she ran, Borys raised one leg and stepped over the wall. Rikus lifted his sword and turned to face the Dragon, but did not move forward to attack. Instead, he suddenly lowered the blade and dropped to his stomach. Before his belly hit the roof, dozens of spells flashed from the hands of the sorcerers outside the gate. In the next instant, the air was filled with lightning bolts, streams of fire, sparkling projectiles, and more kinds of deadly magic than Sadira had ever before seen in one place.

Borys disappeared into a dazzling explosion of magical energy. Even so far from the fight, Sadira felt the ground trembling beneath her feet, and the wind was filled with the caustic stench of incendiary spells.

When the storm died away, Borys still straddled the wall. Wisps of smoke-black, gray, red, and many other colors-were rising off his mottled hide. Other than that, he showed no sign of having been injured.

Sadira continued to sprint forward, astonished by the speed with which fighting had broken out. Barely two seconds had passed since Borys had killed Lyanius, and already the defenders were fully engaged in combat. She considered the possibility of pausing long enough to cast a spell that would take her closer, but decided against doing so. At the rate things were going, by the time she stopped, uttered the incantation, and reoriented herself when she arrived, this battle might as well have taken a drastic turn in a different direction.

The Dragon turned his head toward the group of sorcerers that had just attacked him. He opened his great beaklike mouth, then Sadira heard the swish of a prolonged intake of air. Agis dived away, yelling, “Take cover!”

With a deafening roar, a cone of white-hot sand blasted from Borys’s mouth. He moved his head slowly from side to side, working his way down the entire hillside. As his gritty breath ignited purple spikeballs and scraped fans of goldentip from the hillside, horrid cries of agony and despair filled Sadira’s ears. Men and women disintegrated into columns of greasy smoke, or had the flesh scoured from their bones by the sandy torrent.

Just as Sadira was beginning to fear the stream would consume Agis, Rikus rushed to the edge of the gate tower. With a bellow of rage, he swung his sword at Borys’s stomach. The blade struck with a mighty clang, spraying blue sparks in all directions. As it sliced across the Dragon’s midriff, red smoke and yellow-glowing blood spilled from the wound.

Borys closed his mouth, cutting off the terrible stream of hot sand, and glared down at his attacker. Wherever the Dragon’s fiery blood fell, stones shattered and bricks dissolved into powder.

Within attacking range at last, Sadira stopped to collect the energy for a spell.

Rikus swung again, but Borys easily stepped away, then countered by slashing at the mul with four long claws. As the blow landed, there was an ear-piercing screech and a brilliant blue flash. When the light died away, Rikus was no longer standing atop the tower.

“No!” Sadira screamed.