The giant sprung at the dragon.
His sword cut through the air, and the dragon breathed flames at the giant, but that did little to a fire giant, and the dragon’s eyes enlarged with its mistake. The sword came down with savage strength, and a claw and a bit of a paw came off. The rage of the dragon was immense, the pain horrible, and it shrieked. It turned with Thak, who was dancing around it, striking at its armored back. The dragon jumped at the giant. Thak grew into his full height as the two crashed together and fell in a heap of a fiery snake, a dragon, and a jotun, all struggling terribly. I was trying to get up, spitting blood, coughing, trying to see. I saw the sword of Thak hacking, as the skillful giant rolled on top of the dragon. And then his sword came for the neck.
The dragon spoke a word, and changed.
It took its man-sized form, and Thak’s sword went past it, and the giant fell with the power of its own strike. My fiery worm was confused, but I focused and it attacked the man-shaped dragon. The Masked One was consumed in a storm of fire. The Masked One turned to me, whimpered with horrible pain, cursed out a spell, and a terrible force of air struck my face.
The mask fell away.
I fell against the wall, seeing red dots.
I saw the dragon turn for Thak. He held a sword of cold flame, a spell-sword of ice. Thak turned to meet it, but the Masked One blurred, and appeared behind Thak. The sword flashed, Thak screamed and fell forward heavily, the tower trembling with his weight. He went to his knee, bleeding terribly and swung the blade behind him. The Masked One parried. He blurred away, Thak cursed and swung the huge blade chaotically around him, and got lucky. The dragon appeared before him, and the blade cut to his chest. The masked one yelled with rage, and swung at the giant with his blade, determined to be rid of the beast.
I looked around desperately for the mask, spotted it, and crawled for it.
Thak parried, but barely, the terrible magical sword burrowing an inch into Thak’s skull. The dragon pushed down.
Kiera jumped on his back. She had left the Scepter in the gateway.
The Heartbreaker went down and pierced the beast, but not through his skull as she had probably wanted. It went through his throat. The dragon gurgled. They both fell at Thak’s feet, and the giant, bleeding terribly tried to grasp the dragon, but it changed into a worm again, throwing Kiera off his back and pushing Thak back with its wing. The serpentine neck dodged a savage strike by Thak, and then, with no heed for the sword, it tore into Thak with rage. The blackened jaws of the dragon clamped its claws into the giant’s chest. Thak’s sword slashed its side, removing scales and opening a huge wound, but the dragon’s jaws ground together savagely, throwing the giant around. Thak let go of the sword, pulled the beast back and they rolled on the floor, rolled and rolled in a fight to death, flesh and blood leaving a trail of death.
They stopped moving.
Thak was on his back, his eyes open. His chest was open, his throat hung from the dragon’s maw.
I screamed. I screamed and howled and hated the thing. Thak was gone. Another one was dead.
Kiera stepped forward. I reached for the mask.
The dragon got up, breathing with an odd, wheezing sound. It was on its feet, only barely. It turned to look at us balefully. “I’ll heal, you filth. But you won’t, scum. Killing a dragon, eh? Here. I’m more than fire.”
It braided together a spell of deep cold. The floor turned into ice, the walls as well, and while the spell took everything the dragon had, it finished the spell by weaving strands of ice and cold around our feet. I was shivering uncontrollably. I tried to get up. Ice broke, but the dragon, wheezing, braided more snow and ice and it built around us, our chests, chins, and then, our mouths.
I heard the wyrm laughing, chanting, and then, things changed again.
A roaring storm of fire blasted though the chamber, one only Dana could cast. Heat filled the tower. The ice and snow melted. A roaring wave of fire threw Kiera and I aside to a pool of melted ice. Kiera shrieked with pain, but the dragon, he shrieked the most.
I opened my eyes to see a burning dragon. It was dancing back and forth, back and forth, shedding scales like they were fireflies. It rumbled across the room and broke the walls. It turned to look at Dana, who was braiding her mightiest spell together once again.
The dragon’s flesh was on fire. The spell had been too much.
The Masked One fled, slithered through the doorway for the Vastness.
“The Scepter!” Kiera cursed. “I left it there.” Indeed, we could see the dragon was dragging it. We rushed after it, unsteadily. I panted and grasped the mask, and rushed on, tottering. We barreled through the doorways to the ledge before the Unlit Door. The dragon was running unsteadily, trying to take flight, and fell on its side, dropping blood. The Scepter fell and the beast saw us coming. It cursed, took flight and glided to the sky, weakly flapping its ragged wings.
“It fled,” Dana said softly, fatigued. She noticed the Scepter and walked to get it.
“It has the Horn still,” I said. “We
have
to follow it.”
“How?” Kiera asked.
I held my face in terrible sorrow and shook my head.
Thak was dead.
Kiera nodded, looking back the way he had died. She took a terrified step back.
A shadow filled the doorway. A dragon’s white snout filled the way we had come from, and it grinned. The voice that came out of the maw, was a female one. “I’ll help you. Will be my pleasure. My name is Morginthax.”
D
ana held on to the Scepter.
We took steps back. Then more. Morginthax frowned. “What’s the matter, you worms? I said I’d help. That there is the Masked One.”
“We know,” I said. “And why would you help us?”
She slithered around us, looking after the beast that was flying away, shedding flesh, skin, on fire. “I made an oath.”
“We all make oaths,” I said, looking at the thing smoothly walking around us. “And I, the day that egg-breaking, turd-loving bastard locked us in, swore I’d fight him and every creature that worships Hel.” She hissed, her eyes bright red. “He killed my mate, while I watched. And now I shall get my revenge.”
Her eyes fixed on Kiera.
“There’s one I’ll devour,” she hissed. “Hel’s spawn.”
I stepped forward and before Kiera. “We will need to recover the Horn. Gjallarhorn. And no, I have no time to explain why.”
She stood still, her eyes never leaving Kiera. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll help you. But not
her
.” She walked past us and stared up to the sky. “I will carry us there.”
Kiera looked at it, with loathing and anger. She looked at me with an unreadable expression. Then at Dana. “Is it time to solve our problems now?” she asked.
I gave her a begging look. “We will take the Horn and the Scepter. Just don’t stop us and we won’t touch Shannon.”
She stiffened and looked down, fighting the undead loyalty she had for Shannon. She had not been able to, in the past. Her eyes flicked to the Scepter and then to me. “Ulrich—” she started, and shook her head heavily. “She
is
my mistress.”
“And I was your lover,” I said miserably.
“How exotic,” the dragon grumbled. “Like mating with a frog.”
Kiera looked like she was breathing, though she wasn’t. She had no breath to spare, but her misery was clear in her face. “What shall we do?”
“We will go down there, and see what can be salvaged,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief.
We walked to the dragon, and looked down.
What was taking place by the ridge, was pandemonium.
Shannon had nearly defeated Ban.
Glittering regiments of Scardark’s troops had assaulted Ban’s positions. Tens of thousands had pushed to the ridge, leaving heaps of bodies behind. Thirty thousand of Ban’s troops were slowly retreating away from the ridge for the city. Many siege machines were on fire. Screams were echoing across the land, booms of war machines shooting their ammunition, and war magic was ripping flesh and armor into pieces. The battle was terrible, bloody and merciless. “By all the gods,” the dragon breathed, “I’ve not seen the like before in the Vastness.”
Fifty thousand of Shannon’s warriors were marching after the enemy. Ban himself was in the midst of his own contingent of guard, the fierce females and their spears bristling just behind the front lines. He and his nobles were calling war magic against the approaching armies, and arrows fell thickly on both troops. Shannon was holding back, just below the ridge, and I could see her guard, and perhaps her in the middle of the reserves, tens of thousands strong still.
“Why isn’t she pushing
all
her troops up?” Dana whispered, as if it was a crime to break the silence.
“That is the reason,” Kiera said with loathing. “Aldheim is here.”
At the end of the Way of Echoes, an army was heaving to sight. They were the draugr, tens of thousands of them, and they turned to block the gate to the road.
Behind them, the star standards of the regent billowed. Spells of light illuminated the land there, as elven troops sought to end Shannon for good. A savage attack against the draugr took place. Countless numbers of elves pushed the draugr back, then back again. Shannon was looking that way, and hesitating. It would take the enemy time to get through the draugr and on to the bridge. How long?
Had she even noticed the huge beasts circling far, far above her? I saw the Masked One, burning up there with the others, waiting, probably nearly dead.
Shannon didn’t react to the dragons. Horns were blowing desperately, the armies on top of the ridge screamed defiance. They attacked Ban’s army with vigor, and thousands of shields struck shields, spells cut death across both armies. A troop of hundreds of jotuns were aiming for Ban himself, who turned to grasp a horn, which he blew.
From the side, the lizard-riding army appeared. The thousands surged across the land, flanked the embattled regiments and turned to swamp them. Shannon’s generals screamed orders, one fell dead under the assault. Orcs rushed behind the enemy cavalry. Shannon’s own cavalry took off, also ten thousand strong on the hugely powerful lizards, but not before the right flank of her hard-fighting army was embroiled in a flank attack. I could see regiments forming porcupines, spears bristling as both Ban infantry and cavalry enveloped them. Some held, spilling hundreds of riders from their saddles, but one, a regiment of silver-clad svartalfs was slow, and broke. Thousands of enemy surged inside the formation, hacking and killing. A spell of ice split the land to block the riders, then the maa’dark fell, pierced, and a horde of orcs surged past Ban cavalry, his last reserves, hoping to break the now surrounded armies.
Shannon’s army took steps back, then back again to the edge of the ridge, slaying as it went, but Ban’s army didn’t give an inch. They killed as they marched, thousands of arrows falling on Shannon’s army. A troop of jotuns, staunch and unyielding, were isolated inside Ban’s army.
Shannon ordered her reserve army forward, finally. The rest of her troops, fifty thousand strong surged up the ridge.
“Terrible battle,” Dana whispered.
“It is,” the dragon agreed. “And it’s going to get worse.”
The draugr were fighting well, had lost thousands, and were on the Markudin now. They retreated to the tower that guarded the far end and there Almheir Bardagoon was fighting. All the remaining Bardagoon and Safiroon armies were avenging themselves, finally, and savagely, mercilessly, they pushed to the tower, then the bridge, which turned into a charnel house of punching spears, swords, and spells.
“How will we get the Horn?” Dana wondered. “They are just gliding there.”
“Yes,” Morginthax said, and pointed a claw to the great heights. “There they are. Conimar, The Lidless Snake, Tillianc, all of them. But I think they must join the battle soon.”
Indeed, far above the battle the dragons were fluttering. There, the Masked One, still on fire was gliding around, probably cursing the elves who were coming to rob them of their victory.
He was right to think so. The elves were winning.
The draugr broke, their loyalty spent.
Twenty thousand fled across the bridge, and Shannon was pulling at ten thousand of Scardark’s troops to stop their flight and to rush to the bridge.
“We have to get Nött
now
,” I cursed. “I might not be allied to Shannon anymore, but I don’t want her to die. Nött might help her, spare her.” I nodded. “She might bring back the gods.”
“Should have thought of that earlier,” Kiera said bitterly.
“The Scepter has the power to open her prison?” Dana asked the dragon, looking at it.
“It has that power,” Morginthax said uncertainly. “It does. But I’m not sure Nött will help you.”
“Nött,” I breathed. “She is our only chance. We need her. The butchery must end.”
Dana nodded and walked past me for the dragon.
And then, Kiera attacked.
She slapped me down so hard I rolled downhill. Her blade thrust, and she punched it at a shocked Dana. She was fast too, and the sphere blinked to life around her. The spell absorbed the strike, but it didn’t absorb Kiera, who pummeled into her. They fell at the feet of the dragon, that was as shocked as I was. Kiera pressed a hand on Dana’s mouth. She yanked at the Scepter, but Dana held it with panic. “Let go!” Kiera cursed.
“No, it’s—”
Kiera nodded. “Let’s see, then. I held it when a
First Born
was trying to take it. But you are much more fragile,” she said and braided together a spell of darkness which she pushed to Dana’s mouth. She left Dana breathless, panic in her eyes.
She let go of the Scepter.
Morginthax whirled, and struck down at Kiera with a sharp claw. She dodged, rolled away, holding the Scepter aloft. She charged to the shadows to avoid the dragon, which surged after her.
I rushed forward, but Kiera disappeared, the dragon missing her.
She appeared before me, pulled me to her, butted her head into my face. I saw dark and fell on my back. She was on me in a moment. “There, love. We’ll be together soon.” She grinned, pulled at my belt, and flashed the mirror of Raven’s Flight, and tapped it four times.
A doorway opened up, she surged inside, and the gate closed.
I turned to look at Ban’s city. She was gone.
I crawled to Dana.
I cradled her and shuddered at Dana’s horrified eyes. She was gagging, darkness billowing from her mouth. I grabbed her, tried to make her stay still, but she was convulsing, her eyes huge with fear.
The dragon loomed over us. She changed, and a woman with green eyes, long white hair and red skin, kneeled next to us. She was murmuring spells and holding Dana’s face, and whatever she cast, it helped, as the choking spell dissipated. I breathed a sigh of relief as Dana hugged me, still terrified.
Morginthax sighed as well and nodded towards the battle. “I guess we will have to go after her.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Up above, the Masked One attacked.