Nancy Berberick - Stormblade

Lavim had once claimed that Piper could read his thoughts. Tyorl clutched the flute.

Piper, he thought, tell him to help me. I can kill that dragon if he’ll only help, Piper …

Do as he asks, Lavim. Do as he asks.

As he heard Lavim’s frantic objections, Tyorl’s fingers tightened, white-knuckled, on the kender’s shoulder. “Please.”

Even as he pressed the crossbow into Tyorl’s hand, Lavim protested again. “Tyorl, you have to stay here. You have to wait for Kem. He’s with Kelida now—”

“Kelida!” Tyorl whispered. “Lavim, she’s all right?”

Lavim nodded vigorously. “She’ll be fine. Kem says so. Please, Tyorl, please let me help you sit until he can get here.”

Tyorl shifted his grip on Lavim’s shoulder.

“Help me onto the ledge.”

“No, Tyorl!”

The pain he should have been feeling snarled within him, not felt yet, but stalking him like a relentless wolf.

Piper, tell him.

Tyorl watched the kender, head cocked and listening while Piper spoke soundless words.

Lavim. It’s like when you had to help Kelida set Stanach’s fingers. I know you don’t want to, but you have to. There’s no time to argue. Do as he asks.

“But what are we going to do? He has to stay here! He has to wait for Kem! Piper—!”

The kender’s voice faded and became the howling of the wind. The stone Tyorl now braced his back against was the mountain wall, and he didn’t know how he’d come to be outside the gate. Gnarled hands gentle and trembling, Lavim still held him up. The cold on the ledge seemed almost warm when compared with the emptiness filling him. Close, and yet seeming so far away, steel whined on steel. Blackness shrouded the ledge. Distantly, like an old, old memory, fear of heights whispered in Tyorl’s heart. But it only whispered. As he did not feel the dragonfear, he did not feel the clutch and drag of the fear of heights.

“Lavim, nock the quarrel.”

He heard Lavim ground the crossbow and grunt with the effort of drawing back the string. Shrieking higher than the wind, the black dragon flew high and wheeled for another pass at the ledge.

Hauk’s voice, harsh and thick with fear, cried: “Stanach! He’s fighting blind!”

Steel sang, boots scraped on stone.

Tyorl opened his eyes when he felt the bow pressed into his hand again. I can’t see in this darkness!

“Piper can.” Lavim whispered. “It’s all right.”

Guide me!

“He will-”

“Have you loaded the bow right?”

“Of course I have, Tyorl!”

Tyorl drew a thin breath and stiffened as pain finally found him. A blast of wind, like thunder, filled the darkness. The dragon dove, screaming with savage and terrible joy. The ranger’s arms had been so heavy before. They were light now. Hardly knowing that he’d lifted the crossbow, Tyorl gave himself over to Piper’s direction, ready to shoot at a dragon he could not see.

Darknight’s fear spell lay like a deadly weight on Stanach’s heart. Hornfel was blind in magic’s darkness and somehow finding the courage to battle both the dragonfear and a relentless enemy. Blind against Stormblade and the murderer who wielded it. Blind at the edge of a thousand-foot cliff!

Before he could think, before he could remember that he was not supposed to be able to move under the paralyzing constraints of dragonfear, Stanach broke Hauk’s grip.

Dizzy and disoriented, his head aching with his eyes’ efforts to see where no sight could function, Stanach forced himself to stop. He, who could see in places where no light ever came, was blind.

Dragging bitterly cold air into his lungs, Stanach managed to ease the reeling dizziness. He strained to hear and found at once that he could place the fighters by their hoarse breathing, the clash of steel on steel. Somewhere in the icy sky, the dragon still flew. Waves of dread, like the restless motion of a horrible sea, churned the air around the ledge.

Concentrating only on the sounds of the fight, Stanach inched forward, praying for some clue to tell him which of the combatants was Hornfel, which was Realgar.

The high whine of one blade sliding along another sounded in the darkness. Loose stone slithered, and Stanach heard a boot scrape on stone, a tightly drawn breath.

Then, Stanach heard the deep, vibrating hum of a crossbow bolt in flight.

They were nothing, the elf and the kender on the ledge. Hardly anything to whet an appetite. Certainly they wouldn’t satisfy Darknight’s hunger for anything but cruelty. That cruelty became simple rage when the dragon saw the crossbow in the elf’s hands.

Did the puny creature really think to do it harm with that toy?

Darknight cut its wings back and reared high, forelegs reaching for the elf on the ledge, screaming laughter as it dove.

It heard the hum of the crossbow’s string as nothing more than a stirring of the air. The steel-tipped bolt tore like silver lightning through its left eye, and the black dragon’s scream of joy became agonized shrieking. There was room for nothing in its mind but surprise, and then panic, as its wings fouled in an updraft and fire ran along its spine. No sooner had the dragon recognized the pain, when all sense and feeling vanished from its huge body.

There was nothing left to it but one small part of its mind, and that part was filled, for the moment it had left of life, with astonishment. Darknight dropped with the echoes of its death scream into the burning valley.

Like fire in the darkness, the dragon’s scream tore through Stanach’s blindness, reverberating in endlessly wailing echoes from the mountainside.

Slowly, like ice melting under the sun, the terror of dragonfear fell away, and the darkness of the dragon’s spell dissolved like smoke before the wind. Darknight was dead!

Gasping for breath, Stanach looked wildly about him for Hornfel. Hauk bellowed warning. Steel clattered on stone, and Stanach spun to see Hornfel, unweaponed and his back to the burning valley. Dark cloak whipping behind him, mad derro eyes aflame, Realgar held Stormblade in an easy grip.

“The fire,” he whispered, “or the sword? The fall or the steel?”

Hornfel’s expression, deadly cool and steady, warned Stanach off.

“Give me the steel,” he said to Realgar and crooked a finger in a mocking “come ahead” gesture. “Let me see if you can.”

Realgar firmed his grip on the red-hearted Kingsword and leveled Stormblade. Under the guise of shifting his stance, he lunged for Hornfel’s throat.

Stanach dove for Realgar the moment Hornfel dropped low and shouldered in under his guard. The two hit the Theiwar at the same time, Stanach high and grabbing for his wrist with his left hand; Hornfel low and toppling him hard to the ledge.

Stanach caught an elbow hard under the jaw and fell away. He tried to scramble to his feet, but didn’t make it. The Theiwar, Stormblade still in his fist, struggled to free himself from Hornfel’s hold and kicked back hard. Stanach felt the boot heel like lightning on the side of his head and heard the blow as resounding thunder. Almost at once, two hands, large and strong, hauled Stanach to his feet. Knees weak as water, Stanach still tried to break Hauk’s hold.

“No room,” Hauk said, pinning Stanach’s arms behind him. “No time.”

Realgar had broken free of Hornfel. Stormblade high, he launched himself at the Hylar thane, swinging the Kingsword as though it were an axe. Hornfel rolled back against the mountain and threw himself to the left. Steel screamed on rock, a high, chilling shriek. Realgar, staggered by the blow, struck and missed, reeling toward the edge of the cliff. Hornfel growled low in his throat and then roared a furious curse. He was on his feet before the curse had begun to echo.